Omake: Strategic Update
Situation Room - Royal Palace
The "master display" board that dominated one of the walls of the Situation Room had been updated to show the current count and status of Combine assets in-system:
Griffin IV:
Mule #2 (Landed)
Aqueduct #1 (Landed)
Leopard (CV?) #1 (Landed)
Leopard (CV?) #2 (Landed)
Leopard (CV?) #3 (Landed)
Leopard (CV?) #4 (Landed)
Leopard (CV?) #5 (Landed)
ASFs: 58-78
BattleMechs: 0-20
System Space
Three-Collar Jumpship #1 (Nadir, Recharging)
Three-Collar Jumpship #2 (Nadir, Recharging)
Behemoth (Nadir -> Griffin IV)
Condor (Nadir -> Griffin IV)
Union-CV #1 (Nadir -> Griffin IV)
Leopard (CV?) #6 (Nadir -> Griffin IV)
Leopard (CV?) #7 (Nadir -> Griffin IV)
ASFs: 4-12
BattleMechs: 0-8
"That is one
ugly DropShip." commented the Queen with false cheer as the senior staff filed in for the emergency briefing. "Please tell me it's not another kamikaze."
"It's
definitely not another kamikaze, at least not in any sense other than being sent on what is clearly a one-way deployment. We were guessing Overlords and Excaliburs for their heavy-lift DropShip reserves, and that analysis is still valid overall; a
Behemoth like that is only useful for bulk cargo, because it can't land. As in, it can't land even when it's in perfect condition. It's purely a JumpShip-to-orbit hauler, and incredibly fragile even by civilian standards. Our best guess is that it's hauling a very, very large amount of improvised orbit-denial weaponry targeted on our orbital stations and defense satellites. There's really no other plausible role for it.
"As for the rest of their force, the other new unit is a
Condor class DropShip, which is a battalion infantry carrier. Even if the maximum possible number of BattleMechs reinforce that battalion, they are
grossly underestimating our ground forces and we are confident we can handle this threat with minimal risk even if they get past the ASFs. The Army's primary concern will be identifying their drop zone as quickly as possible and intercepting them before they can cause collateral damage.
"The core of the battle is going to be the ASF strike. It's a fairly good sign that we haven't seen a second
Union CV, because our analysts are pretty confident that the arrival of the troop transports means they will *not* be waiting another cycle before attacking. Without carriers of our own we simply don't have any fancy deployment options, and they know it; we expect a straight head-to-head engagement where their expectation is to swarm us under with vastly superior numbers, and our expectation is that they will be unpleasantly surprised at both our actual numbers and our superior individual performance."