The Battlemoon of Varn had once been a secret test site for the Empire's most powerful weapons. Now, it had been secured by the Cooperative Council of Defense to serve as the proving grounds for the Cooperative's more public military development programs.
On the bridge of the Venator-class Star Destroyer Redemption, Admiral Jonathan Blakeley stood at the ready, chomping furiously on a piece of chewing gum. The task force arrayed around his flag was a combination of Cooperative Defense Force, Varn planetary defense, and Cooperative Navy vessels. The Reaver Crisis had left the Cooperative strapped for warships, but a year of training under the finest Drackmarian military leaders had given it a surplus of ready and able soldiers and sailors.
Now they all stood at the ready, to test this newest tool of salvation.
“Admiral, all observation posts reporting in: they are ready.”
Blakeley nodded, blinking away frightful images from the escape from the Paradiso System. This better work. “Very well. All ships, all gunners: open fire.”
As one the Cooperative task force unleashed its combined firepower upon the galaxy's newest planetary defense system, and immediately that system began to adapt. Shield emitters widened their projection radius to cover the enemy target area, and the entire shield network began the slow process of reinforcing the target area by altering each node's orbital pattern.
As the minutes ticked by, it became apparent that the shield grid was more than capable of holding Blakeley's force at bay. Perhaps if the assault force was larger, perhaps if . . .
“Fire torpedo barrage one.”
The wall of high yield warheads slammed into the orbital shield, detonating in a tremendous cascade of fire. While not designed to prevent matter from penetrating the shield perimeter, the sheer power of the shield was more than enough to overload the warheads' circuitry and detonate them. Some fraction of the explosive energy was carried beyond the shield barrier, more bled harmlessly into the darkness of space, but most was absorbed by the shield.
Still, it held. Firmly.
“Incoming fire!”
For the briefest instant, a hole opened in the shield as a quintet of shield nodes flickered off and then back on, and in that instant a burst of data was transmitted, and one of the task force's capital ships fell silent as the simulated ion blast silenced it.
Another hole flickered open elsewhere, and another ship fell silent. And Blakeley was forced to make the tough decision: continue bombardment at the preset coordinates and hope he could break through before too many of his ships had been disabled, or force the ground based weapons silent by targeting their locations, thus forcing the accompanying shield sections to remain up at all times.
The enemy was making him choose between losing firepower to their ion weaponry, or increasing the duration of this engagement exponentially by forcing him to spread his offensive capacity over a much greater area.
And still the shields continued to rotate, changing positions relative to both the ground and one another, spreading out depleted shield emitters and reinforcing targeted areas. Sufficient firepower could outpace the slow moving shield nodes, but Blakeley didn't have that on hand. And this is just an exercise, after all.
Blakeley tapped the activator on his console, and a tiny, one-sixteenth scale hologram appeared in front of him. “Good enough?”
The tiny head bobbed once. “All shield systems are holding steady; ground and low-orbit markers remain undamaged. Adaptive matrix is preforming within acceptable parameters. Congratulations, Admiral: the Testudo is approved for combat use.”
On the bridge of the Venator-class Star Destroyer Redemption, Admiral Jonathan Blakeley stood at the ready, chomping furiously on a piece of chewing gum. The task force arrayed around his flag was a combination of Cooperative Defense Force, Varn planetary defense, and Cooperative Navy vessels. The Reaver Crisis had left the Cooperative strapped for warships, but a year of training under the finest Drackmarian military leaders had given it a surplus of ready and able soldiers and sailors.
Now they all stood at the ready, to test this newest tool of salvation.
“Admiral, all observation posts reporting in: they are ready.”
Blakeley nodded, blinking away frightful images from the escape from the Paradiso System. This better work. “Very well. All ships, all gunners: open fire.”
As one the Cooperative task force unleashed its combined firepower upon the galaxy's newest planetary defense system, and immediately that system began to adapt. Shield emitters widened their projection radius to cover the enemy target area, and the entire shield network began the slow process of reinforcing the target area by altering each node's orbital pattern.
As the minutes ticked by, it became apparent that the shield grid was more than capable of holding Blakeley's force at bay. Perhaps if the assault force was larger, perhaps if . . .
“Fire torpedo barrage one.”
The wall of high yield warheads slammed into the orbital shield, detonating in a tremendous cascade of fire. While not designed to prevent matter from penetrating the shield perimeter, the sheer power of the shield was more than enough to overload the warheads' circuitry and detonate them. Some fraction of the explosive energy was carried beyond the shield barrier, more bled harmlessly into the darkness of space, but most was absorbed by the shield.
Still, it held. Firmly.
“Incoming fire!”
For the briefest instant, a hole opened in the shield as a quintet of shield nodes flickered off and then back on, and in that instant a burst of data was transmitted, and one of the task force's capital ships fell silent as the simulated ion blast silenced it.
Another hole flickered open elsewhere, and another ship fell silent. And Blakeley was forced to make the tough decision: continue bombardment at the preset coordinates and hope he could break through before too many of his ships had been disabled, or force the ground based weapons silent by targeting their locations, thus forcing the accompanying shield sections to remain up at all times.
The enemy was making him choose between losing firepower to their ion weaponry, or increasing the duration of this engagement exponentially by forcing him to spread his offensive capacity over a much greater area.
And still the shields continued to rotate, changing positions relative to both the ground and one another, spreading out depleted shield emitters and reinforcing targeted areas. Sufficient firepower could outpace the slow moving shield nodes, but Blakeley didn't have that on hand. And this is just an exercise, after all.
Blakeley tapped the activator on his console, and a tiny, one-sixteenth scale hologram appeared in front of him. “Good enough?”
The tiny head bobbed once. “All shield systems are holding steady; ground and low-orbit markers remain undamaged. Adaptive matrix is preforming within acceptable parameters. Congratulations, Admiral: the Testudo is approved for combat use.”