Vince
Vice Admiral
Posts: 1574
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:43 pm
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Dauntless wrote:she killed two peak bears (just as nasty as a hexapuma but bigger and slightly less intelligent) with only a pistol (heavy rifle recommend weapon for peak bears.) when a teen.
saved the CA she was serving on from destruction when on her middy cruise.
captured a slave depot and freed hundreds of slaves even though it was considered A BAD IDEA, politicly.
lead the team that rescued survivors of Gryphons worst natural disaster for deacades, one of which later joined the Royal Marines, and is a General.
was flag captain of the forces that forced 2 sqaudrons of DNs to surrender to half a dozen BC at first Hancock.
killed a pirate face to face and liberated an entire star system that had been enslaved by said pirate.
killed one of manticore's top 3 duellists and made it look easy.
buzzed the Sagnami Isle CO's regatta, when an upperclassman.
Be careful not to fall into the trap that Honor is super-human and uses a light cruiser to pick her teeth. Some corrections: Honor was smart enough to use a rifle to kill the peak bears--she wasn't carrying a pistol: Beginnings, The Best Laid Plans wrote:And just in case something went wrong with Plan A, there was always Plan B, which was why she had claimed her Simpson & Wong from the gun safe. She didn’t really expect to need it, but when the inevitable parental wrath descended upon her head, she would be in a position to point out that anything which had wanted to eat her would have had to comb the S&W’s old-fashioned ten-millimeter slugs out of its teeth first. Her mother probably wouldn’t be especially moved, but she expected her father would cut her a little slack if she could demonstrate she’d been suitably armed to deal with trouble. He’d probably prefer one of his pulse rifles to the S&W’s old-fashioned nitro-powder, but he was also the one who’d taught her to shoot, and he knew what she could do with a rifle or a pistol. She’d just shot High Expert in the Twin Forks Youth League for the SFC and walked away with the Shelton Cup for the second year in a row, with a score of 600 out of a possible 600, and at a hundred meters, the S&W’s 19.5-gram bullet, traveling at 840 meters per second, would deliver almost 7,000 joules of energy to any unfriendly critter she encountered. In fact, it would deliver over 3,000 joules all the way out to five hundred meters, although she didn’t have any business shooting anything at that range “in self-defense.” Besides, the S&W was her favorite shoulder gun, and not just because it had been her birthday gift from Uncle Jacques two years ago. ***Snip*** Honor suddenly discovered her rifle was in her hands. She couldn’t remember how it had gotten there. Didn’t remember snapping off the safety. Didn’t remember bringing it to her shoulder. But somehow, there it was, and in that instant she discovered something about herself. Something she had never suspected. She was calm. A sense of panic, of horror, hovered about her, frantic with concern for the treecats, but it couldn’t touch her. It was a part of her, but it was apart from her, as well. Her hands were steady, her breathing almost normal, and her flashing thoughts were clear, clean, and icy cold. She didn’t see the treecat break clear before the peak bear landed, but somehow she knew—knew with that same certainty, that same absolute assurance—that he’d done it. And the icy precision of her brain moved her aim point from the peak bear he’d attacked. Her rifle tracked with machine-like precision, finding the other peak bear, the one who’d seen where the treecat landed and lunged towards him.
Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis. Only one understrength squadron of dreadnoughts to begin with: The Short Victorious War, Chapter 28 wrote:"We're getting fairly decent information now, Sir," the tac officer reported. "At the moment, we're calling it thirty-five capital ships. The count's less positive on their screening elements, but CIC's current projection makes it—" Chandler glanced to the side to doublecheck her display "—roughly seventy destroyers and cruisers. Our best call on the capital ships is twenty-two superdreadnoughts, seven dreadnoughts, and six battlecruisers." Chandler met Sarnow's eyes with a grim expression, and Lieutenant Southman pursed his lips in a silent whistle.
Boldface is my emphasis. Note that at this time, both Haven and Manticore were using 8 ship squadrons.Of the initial 7 DNs, one was destroyed by the initial missile salvo (using missile pods) and another was initially crippled in that same salvo, then reduced to a dying hulk (when it encounter the minefield), with yet another having almost all of its armament gutted (when it encounter the minefield), and with the remaining DNs all damaged to a lesser degree after clearing the minefield: The Short Victorious War, Chapter 30 wrote:Admiral Mark Sarnow's task group had completed its turn, presenting its broadsides to the oncoming enemy, and the missile pods streamed astern like lumpy, ungainly tails. "Stand by," Honor murmured. No active sensors were live, but they'd had literally hours to refine the data from their passive systems, and she felt her lips trying to draw back from her teeth. The tactical net's hair-thin lasers linked the task group into a single, vast entity, and data codes flashed as each division of battlecruisers and cruisers confirmed acquisition of its assigned target. She waited two more heartbeats, then— "Engage!" she snapped, and Task Group Hancock 001 belched fire. Nike and Agamemnon alone spat a hundred and seventy-eight missiles at the Peeps, almost five times the broadside of a Sphinx-class superdreadnought. The other divisions of her squadron had fewer birds, but even Van Slyke's cruiser divisions had twice a Bellerophon-class dreadnought's broadside. Nine hundred missiles erupted into Admiral Chin's teeth, and every ship's drive came on line in the same instant. They swerved back onto their original heading, redlining their acceleration, and deployed decoys and jammers to cover themselves as they raced ahead down the Havenites' base course at 4.93 KPS2. ***Snip*** Nouveau Paris, Chin's lead dreadnought, was slow getting around, and over a dozen missiles detonated almost dead ahead of her. Lethal clusters of lasers ripped straight down the wide-open throat of her wedge, and Chin stared at the visual display in sick horror as she blew apart. One instant she was six megatons of capital ship; the next she was an expanding ball of fire. The battlecruisers Walid and Sulieman died with her, and other ships took hit after hit. The dreadnought Waldensville staggered as her forward impeller ring was blown apart, and the battlecruiser Malik careened out of formation as her wedge went down completely. A heavy cruiser division tried to cover her against Manticoran sensors with their own wedges, but with neither wedge nor sidewalls, Malik was doomed. Even as Chin watched, her crew took to their escape pods, fleeing their helpless ship before the Manties localized her despite her screen and blew her apart. Waldensville's impeller damage had cut her maximum acceleration in half, the dreadnought Kaplan had lost a quarter of her port broadside, her sister ship Havensport was almost as badly damaged, and the battlecruiser Alp Arslan trailed atmosphere and debris. ***Snip*** Commander DeSoto stiffened as a faint radar return flickered in his display. Adrenaline flared as he remembered the last time his radar had picked something up, and he stabbed a key, interrogating his data base threat files. The computers considered dispassionately, then blinked an obedient reply. "Minefield dead ahead!" he shouted. "Roll starboard!" Admiral Chin barked instantly, and her task group swerved once more in the face of a fresh threat. ***Snip*** New Boston shuddered as fresh wounds cratered her massive armor and wiped away weapons and their crews. Three beta nodes and an alpha node went with them, and her flag bridge displays flickered as Fusion Four went into emergency shutdown, but her other power plants took the load and damage control and medical parties charged into her wrecked compartments. New Boston was hurt, but she was still a fighting force as she cleared the attack zone. Other ships weren't. Alp Arslan broke in half and vomited flame as her number two fusion plant's containment bottle failed, and the heavy cruisers Scimitar, Drusus, and Khopesh vanished in matching fireballs, their weaker sidewalls and radiation shielding no match for the fury that could rip straight through a dreadnought's defenses. Half a dozen destroyers joined them, and Waldensville, already lamed and crippled, reeled out of the holocaust as a dying hulk. Genevieve Chin listened to the torrent of loss and damage reports, and her face was hard, hating stone. Again. They'd suckered her again! But how, damn it?! There was no way a minefield should be sitting way the hell out here, and she was the one who'd picked her approach vector! The Manties had matched her course, not lured her onto one of their choosing, so how in hell could they have known exactly where to put their field? The last of her battered ships—the ones that survived—streamed out of the attack and rolled back down to engage the enemy once more, and her mouth was a knife-thin line as she absorbed her losses. She was down to only two battlecruisers, both old Tiger-class ships and both damaged, and five dreadnoughts, all damaged to greater or lesser degree. Kaplan's armament had been almost completely gutted, and Merston had lost half her energy weapons and a third of her starboard sidewall. New Boston, Havensport, and Macrea's Tor were hurt less badly, but the lighter ships of her screen had been devastated. Barely half of them remained combat effective, and God only knew what else the goddamned Manties had waiting for her!
Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis. No text evidence that the BCs accepted Chin's surrender: The Short Victorious War, Chapter 31 wrote:Admiral Chin's frown deepened as the Manty task group unraveled. There was no mistake about it this time; each ship spun away from its fellows, scattering far and wide in what was clearly a carefully planned maneuver. All but two of them. One pair of battlecruisers clung together, so tight her sensors could hardly distinguish one from the other, and she nodded. The closer one was the Reliant-class ship, and she was obviously covering a damaged consort, which made the two of them her logical target. But even as she thought that she continued to stare at the decelerating impeller sources of Rollins' superdreadnoughts. Now why would they be doing that, unless— * * * The battered Havenite dreadnoughts slowed abruptly, and Honor bared her teeth. They'd figured it out at last. She didn't know how, but they knew . . . only they didn't know it was already too late. The dreadnoughts completed their turn, decelerating as hard as they could, and she pictured the scene on their flagship's bridge. Their CO couldn't know what bearing the threat was coming from. Until her own sensors picked up Danislav's ships she could only decelerate back the way she'd come, and every second of deceleration increased Nike's relative velocity by nine KPS. Which made it time to make the Peeps' targeting problems a little worse. "Execute Shell Game," she said. Eve Chandler punched commands into her panel, and eight EW drones erupted away from the two battlecruisers. They scattered in four different directions, each pair tucked in tight, mimicking the signatures of their mother ships, and Nike and Cassandra altered course sharply to charge off on yet a fifth vector. The sudden multiplication of targets did exactly what Honor had intended. Unable to be certain which were the real ships, the Peep commander chose not to waste her ammunition on might-have-beens . . . especially when she must have figured out she was going to need every missile she had very shortly. All fire ceased, and the brutally wounded flagship of TG-H001 and her crippled consort raced for safety.
Italics are the author's, boldface is my emphasis. The Short Victorious War, Chapter 32 wrote:They'd been mouse-trapped. Harris made himself admit that. They'd set their plans in motion, confident the game was theirs to direct as it always had been, only to discover that, after fifty years of conquest, they had finally met a foe even more cunning than they were. He'd read the dispatches. Given what Admiral Rollins had known, Harris had to agree he'd had no choice but to move against the Hancock System, yet hindsight proved only too clearly that the Manties had known all about the "secret" Argus net. They'd used it to offer Rollins an irresistible bait by "withdrawing" their ships, and the result had been devastating. The arrival of the dreadnoughts which had compelled Admiral Chin to surrender would have been bad enough, but it hadn't been the end. Oh, no. Not the end.
Boldface is my emphasis.
------------------------------------------------------------- History does not repeat itself so much as it echoes.
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