Task Force 92 had eighteen minutes to live.
It was the responsibility of a picket commander to be in a constant state of at least moderate alert. After all, their job was to be on the lookout for enemy activity. So far, Manassas Station had identified at least three potential factions rumored to be interested in the Prairie Grove star system. Task Force 92 had been hurriedly organized and deployed at PG Four to give Skywatch some warning in the event the system became a first battleground in a second Praetorian war.
TF 92 was a light, quick formation consisting of one Minneapolis-class missile destroyer, one Nova-variant electronic warfare frigate, one Copernicus engineering corvette and a Kinsbergen-class fast attack pinnace. The latter ship’s mission was to gather all the intelligence possible and then run for home. DSS Evertsen was essentially an 800-ton log buoy with the crucial ability to form a drive field and make intelligent use of jump gates.
Captain Enrique Santiago was known far and wide among his fellow officers for his ability to read situations in forward deployments. He had earned a coveted commendation early in his career as an electronic warfare officer aboard one of the fleet’s minesweepers. After a tour with what most agreed was a mediocre crew, Santiago earned a rapid promotion and steered himself towards his own command by getting in line to take charge of subspace warfare aboard a destroyer that doubled as a training ship. He was a natural instructor and put his pupils at ease by explaining highly technical concepts in terms his students could understand. After graduating three classes with above average marks, he was offered the executive post aboard DSS Wichita. Six months later, he was promoted to lieutenant and offered the Arklow.
Santiago knew full well his duty and the function of his tiny formation. All his ships combined didn’t displace 25,000 tons. His main battery was a set of twin rotary missile launchers loaded with bog-standard SMS birds. His energy batteries were all designed for point-defense, not assault. In a close-quarters fight, none of his ships would last longer than a couple of rounds. TF 92‘s job wasn’t to get in close, however, nor was it to start or finish fights. Santiago’s orders were to keep an eye on Prairie Grove. If anything looked out of place, they were to observe, gather as much information as possible and then run for Manassas. They were a textbook picket formation. Arklow was there to pop the enemy in the mouth. Forte’s job was to scramble enemy targeting and LRS frequencies. Copernicus 12 handled exotic explosives and Evertsen delivered the mail on a swift steed.
Prairie Grove was unique among potential targets. It was the only system on Alliance star maps that was surrounded by an asteroid field. Like the Gitairn region near Dante’s Twins, Prairie Grove was defensible after a fashion, at least for attackers that made polite use of the jump gate. The popular theory among Skywatch tacticians was that a well provisioned formation with enough firepower could monitor the inner edge of the asteroids and pick off any vessels that made it through. Most of the electronics experts agreed the field would play hell with datalink and interlocking scanner and sensor control and simultaneously make it nearly impossible to coordinate point defense. Missile cruisers and destroyers would therefore have an easier time of saturating attackers with waves of birds and scoring above average damage over time.
The system was also home to a heavy manufacturing facility that had played a prominent role in First Praetorian. It was discovered on one of the inner planets during one of the bloodiest and most protracted fleet actions in the entire campaign. The vessels that had the most complete information were destroyed before they could get out of the enemy’s interference range, but eventually the ruins of the emplacement were found by none other than Commander Jayce Hunter aboard the cruiser Fury. All the relevant information regarding the location was transmitted back to Skywatch Command where it was thoroughly analyzed. No conclusions were reached, but the rapid buildup of such facilities gave the high command pause. With enough capacity, the Sarn Star Empire would gradually be able to gain an advantage, if not in the current conflict, then quite possibly in future conflicts as well.
Santiago was one of the skeptics when it came to the “PG Strategy,” as it were. As skipper of a missile destroyer, he rightly pointed out any asteroids that blunted the effectiveness of enemy scanners would do a fine job of screwing up his targeting systems as well. Any hoped-for advantage would therefore only materialize once his targets had cleared the field, and since the corresponding enemy disadvantage depended entirely on the same asteroids, ultimately it was a wash.
The debate had been raging for 200 years prior to TF 92s current sensor sweep of system’s edge.
“Tactical, report all contacts.”
“I have no contacts in-system, captain,” came the snappy reply. “Sweep one nine zero complete. Telemetry logged.”
“We are now entering section seventeen. Five degrees off PG Four’s orbit,” the navigator added. “Probe six is drifting out of range. Standing by for LOS acquisition of probe seven.”
Upon their arrival, TF 92 spent a week establishing an elaborate network of long-range probes just outside the orbit of PG Seven, which was the system’s largest planet. The probes were all D-type mechanisms with rudimentary guidance and autonomous navigation systems. They could keep themselves within a relatively relaxed area of operation and could maneuver to re-acquire the Forte as the task force came within range. Naturally, they were all keyed to work on LOS signals and only within a certain range. Picket captains were not in the habit of ordering omnidirectional broadcasts for obvious reasons, nor were they likely to beam high-powered acquisition signals for billions of miles in the hopes their own probes would pick up the transmission before an enemy did. The solution was a ring of probes, none further than a designated range from the task force’s patrol pattern.
What they didn’t know was that probe six had been quietly murdered the moment they broke contact with it.
Under normal circumstances, Arklow could query the nearest probe, download all its recent telemetry and at least get a recent picture of what was happening in the arc of space between the primary and ten million or so miles of circumference around its edge. This was important because it gave the small formation a second source of passive sensor data to match with its own. Neither Arklow nor Forte could go active for the same reason they couldn’t rely on omnidirectional broadcasts. They had to rely on the emissions and gravimetrics of their opponents to tip them off regarding course, speed and estimates regarding ship classes and weapon types. It was all very conventional stuff.
It’s fatal flaw on this particular day was that TF 92‘s enemy was both prepared and on a mission to silence the Prairie Grove system as rapidly as possible. Forte was still trying to establish contact with probe seven when its long range threat board sounded a proximity alarm aboard all four ships. The signal source was picked up by Arklow at once. The destroyer’s automatic defenses snapped on and her weapons systems flashed active.
Out of the inky blackness of space came the electronic equivalent of thundering hoofbeats.
Captain Santiago leaped from the conn chair and stood at Arklow’s helm. The general alarm screamed on all decks. The destroyer was still looking for targets when the first short-range energy bursts exploded from the guns of the approaching Sarn fighters. Santiago’s tactical officer deployed the tiny ship’s point defense heroically, but it became brutally clear this was nothing even resembling a fair fight. Three full squadrons of black-winged strike fighters bored in, strafing the hapless task force with overwhelming firepower.
Arklow spun away. Forte barely maintained formation with her flagship. The engineering corvette was slow to respond and rapidly found itself outside the meager protective sphere of Arklow’s point defense. By the time it responded to the threat, it was too late. A blinding hurricane of white-hot plasma fire pulverized her navigational screens and ripped through her hull. A trail of radiation and burning composite followed the debris into open space.
Evertsen reacted quickly enough to escape the killbox formed by the Sarn attack wing. She kicked into an engines-hot run towards the last known position of probe six. Her objective was to try and use the probe’s emergency response programming to mask her position as she made a run for the safety of the jump gate. The pinnace managed to establish heavily reinforced battle screens even though almost all her reactor output was being channeled into continuous engine acceleration. It was a precarious balancing act, as her screens were not designed to work optimally without a drive field. Any attempt to maneuver could cause a catastrophic feedback reaction. Evertsen had to maintain a straight course. Frantic acquisition signals shot through empty space where probe six had once been. All the pinnace heard was ominous silence.
Santiago’s ship managed to score hits on three of the bogeys using point defense batteries that were severely overtaxed. All Arklow’s targeting systems were being literally cooked in the cyclone of electronic noise coming from the attackers. It was a running firefight, and for a few moments it looked as if Task Force 92 might hold its own. But Santiago’s enemies had planned ahead. Their attack was a classic hounds to hunters maneuver. A wedge of seven torpedo-armed heavy fighters sliced in on an impossible attack tangent. Arklow scarcely had time to know she was dead. Sprint-engine torpedoes detached from alien assemblies as the big fighters rolled away one by one. The first speared Forte’s starboard quarter and tore her entire engine structure out of her hull. A secondary detonated just beneath her bridge, sending what remained of her hull tumbling towards the Prairie Grove primary.
Arklow’s battle screens absorbed the first impact before collapsing. The fusion explosion bathed the ship’s hull with lethal X-rays. The destroyer managed to launch only four of her birds before the next two torpedoes plunged into her hull and detonated, shattering the vessel’s structure and leaving behind ghostly ash outlines of her crew burned into bulkheads and deckplates. Wreckage and radiation streamed through space.
The last thing Evertsen’s bridge crew saw was the scanner contact for the Sarn carrier that had launched the fighter attack. The pinnace had just accelerated beyond 6000 miles a second when the capital weapons of the carrier’s cruiser escorts achieved six by six locks on Evertsen’s engines. Twelve weapons converged on the ship’s course.
It would be two days before anyone at Manassas Station realized Task Force 92 was gone. It would be three before they realized two Sarn battlegroups had, for all intents and purposes, taken Prairie Grove for the empire.