Task Force Nineteen Briefing

Mission: Do not go gentle Day: 1 Stardate: 2407.07.03

(USS Champlain, Observation Lounge, CO, Captain Susan Rivers and Task Force Commander, Admiral Calladryl Sevant, 0800)

Susan looked around the table at her senior officers. Over the last two months or so they had begun to meld into a team, helped by the rigourous simulations and exercises she had put the ship through.

Many here were untried in a large battlefield situation; oh, they'd fought ship-to-ship alright and by all accounts had acquitted themselves well but this would be for many of them their first taste of fleet-to-fleet. She'd done her best to prepare them but she knew that this was going to be a baptism of fire.

Her eyes rested for a moment on the MCO. Together with herself and Sevant, they were the only three in the whole room to have experience of the kind of thing the ship would be facing soon. Even her FO, Lt Commander Salid, had no experience of what was to come.

"You all know by now why we're here," she began. "This fleet convergence signals the beginning of the end for Doenitz and his cabal. What is coming will not be easy nor pleasant. In the words of a famous Terran leader from history, I can offer you nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat in your immediate future. It may be that generations yet to come will look back on this moment in history and say of those of us here today, 'this was their finest hour'. But you and I know, all of us, that the coming battle will not be fine, or noble, or grand. It will be hard, vicious and deadly. And if any of you are sitting here not feeling scared or apprehensive, then you don't understand the situation we're facing. The one thing I am sure of is that each and every one of you will acquit him or herself to the best of your ability. That is all I could ask, and I know that you won't let the ship down."

"Before I hand over to Admiral Sevant, I will introduce you all briefly. Please stand as I mention your name, so the Admiral will know who you are."

She introduced everyone briefly and then said, "And now I will hand over to Admiral Sevant, who will tell you what we are facing."

The Admiral stood and walked to the head of the table, where Captain Rivers was just sitting down. It felt distinctly odd, talking so intimately in a conference room that was not his own, with a command crew that was likewise not his own. He stayed silent as he surveyed them for a moment, looking at their faces. Some were so young; a couple hadn't even been out of the Academy before this war had begun. Certainly, he'd met almost none of them, and this ship was officially assigned to the old Squadron that had begun this little ruckus.. a squadron whose every officer Sevant had once met or at least knew by face.

No longer. It was sad, really.

He tapped a button and a small war map appeared behind him, showing the Terran solar system, the Mars Defense Perimeter, the known disposition of those ships still loyal to Doenitz and the incoming forces. A large blob of ships, sitting just outside of Alpha Centari space, was marked with the Starfleet symbol and Sevant's task force identifier. There were at least six other Task Forces in the immediate area, and a couple other fleets making sure they weren't flanked or that the former occupied words of Bajor, Vulcan, Tellar, Alpha Centari, Caita and Andor remained free. Mixed in with the Starfleet groups were no less then three pure Klingon Assault groups, though most of the Klingon ships were mixed in with the Starfleet ships to minimize the appearance of a foreign government invading the Federation.

It was a large and impressive battle plan. Sevant figured it would survive for maybe five minutes.

He tucked his arms behind him once he was done inspecting the crew and nodded once. "Greetings. In four days's time, we will begin the first in a series of manoeuvres that will take us back into Sol. As you can see, the culmination of a years planning, of so much blood spilled, will be launched from various points around the Terran system. And we, ladies and gentlemen, will be spear-heading the invasion, the 19th taskforce is the lance which will breech the Mars Defense Perimeter."

A couple people took deep breaths at this pronouncement. The one other officer he knew here, Colonel Drizzt, was about as grim looking as Sevant had ever seen him. Although every Starfleet Officer would know what the MDP was, only those intimately tied into Security or Defense would really know what it was capable of. Designed to defeat a Borg attack, first conceived after the debacle of Wolf 359, it had been designed to stop Invasions. And it had only grown stronger over the years.

"You heard me correctly." he said, with just a touch of dark amusement. "We will be the first to break a hole in the lines of the Mars Defense Perimeter, thereby giving the rest of the combined fleets and Task Forces to destroy what loyal fleets are left over Earth." He touched a button and let the large monitor zoom in on Mars.

"The Mars defense perimeter is a series of interlocked Battle platforms, phaser emplacements, torpedo satellites. They're mostly static, but heavily shielded and very dangerous in and of themselves. All are unmanned, but they'll be expensive to destroy. There are also five major fighter-bases." he turned for the group and to the larger map, and touched each place as he mentioned them.

"On Io, on Jupiter, on Titan. And finally, one on Mars and one stationed here on Starbase Valhalla... which is the command center not only of the Mars Defense Perimeter, but of the Utopia Planitia fleet yards." He turned back, "Each base carries two Wings of Starfleet Fighters, four squadrons of twenty-five craft per wing. That's a total of a thousand fighters on hand, with no less then a quarter of them active at any one time, no matter what kind of tactical surprise we manage to achieve. Fighters, though small, pack quite a punch in numbers." He waved a hand, "And, of course, the 1st Standing Fleet. Two hundred ships minimum, plus whatever else Doenitz feels secure in sending away from Earth to bolster the line.

"And to knock a hole in all that, the Fleet Admiral has given us four hundred and twelve ships, three carriers with full fighter wings and elements of seven other fighter wings. Not much, perhaps, but enough." he turned back. "But the price will be high, especially on the front-line. On the Line, life will be cheap and blood plentiful. The Boudicca will spearhead the attack; we'll be the first in. It is our job to make a dash for Starbase Valhalla and cut the nerve-center out of the Mars Defense Perimeter. It will be demanding, we'll need cover."

He paused and re-crossed his arms behind him as he turned back to face the assembled officers. "Captain Rivers has already volunteered the Champlain to help cover Boudicca, we and several other ships will form the Vanguard."

---

(USS Champlain - Observation Lounge -- FO - Lt. Cmdr. Ahmed Ibn Salid-- 0825)

Ahmed had listened with a sense of incredulity. The Martian Defense Perimeter was the most powerful, static line of defense ever devised. It's power output was almost as great as the entire planet of earth. It was the quintessential hinge upon which any chance of victory hung.

~And we are going to attack it!~

The admiral had described in some detail what would be faced, but Ahmed realized exactly how bare-bones that description was. The Torpedo and phaser platforms were only a small although formidable aspect of what they would face.

The stations in the systems were armed as well, making them critical strong points. They had enough firepower to hold off a half-dozen ships each, with UP, being so heavily armed that she could cause a serious contention to the Task Force.

"McKinley Station, Jupiter Station, Valhalla, even the LaGrange Science station had been armed by Doenitz"

"The fighter wings were a formidable force as well. If they managed to get all 1,000 fighters in the sector active, there would be hell to pay. The defense platforms were equipped with Turbo phaser emplacements and self regeneration modulating shields. And interspersed between them would be the torpedo platforms. They were equipped with the same type of shields, but their weapon compliment would be a few hundred quantum or photon torpedoes capable of firing spreads of 10 torpedoes at a volley, not one but four simultaneous volleys."

Tachyon grid nets prevented cloaked ships from simply by passing the defense perimeter. It was the worst possible scenario, and then you added the 200+ starships captained by the most loyal of Doenitz's supporters. If the war was lost, they all knew what would happen to them, Most of them would fight tooth-and-nail to their final breath rather than lose this war.

Assuming you got past all the ships and the MDF, there were the ground emplacements. The planetary defense grid on earth and Luna would be firing up at any vessel foolish enough to get too close.

They would have to be destroyed.

"Questions, Concerns, so far?" he asked.

"Are we trying to capture ships, or are we simply clearing the path for the fleet, no questions asked?" Drizzt asked.

Sevant quirked his head slightly. "If we could capture ships, I'd not complain. I doubt we will have the time however. The MDP itself won't require troops to tackle, not the space borne parts at least, but taking Starbase Valhalla will be incredibly expensive in terms of manpower-"

~How blasé you say it. Expensive, as if men were credits.~

He paused, "The Marine Expeditionary Force will be providing most of the footwork, they're fresh out of battle on Andoria and their combat effectiveness is reduced for planetary conquest. Instead, they- and a good portion of Marines in TF-19, will concentrate on Valhalla, and on the ground-based defensive installations on Mars. What Captain Rivers decides to do with her Tactical forces, what she feels she can do with them, is up to her." He paused briefly and looked at Captain Rivers, "The Champlain doesn’t boast enough Marines to add to the Expeditionary Force, the Boudicca contingent will remain with you for ship-board defense, or whatever else you see fit to use them as.

"But let me remind you all, the forces that have stayed at Doenitz's side to this point are almost all fanatical in their devotion. They will not surrender, every report I've seen says they will fight to the death."

The Vulcan eyed the Andorian for another moment. "I doubt there will be time to engage in boarding activities."

The Andorian nodded once, sharply.

"If I may sir, tactically speaking is there a particular sector of the MDF that we will be striking specifically, or will the task force be spread out across the perimeter? And more to the point, at which portion of the MDF will the Boudicca and the Champlain be breaching the perimeter?"

"Commander Salid, is it?" Sevant asked, almost unnecessarily. His memory was near idyllic. He tapped a couple of commands into the panel on the table before him and a red corridor vector appeared on the map. "We'll waste no resources on those sectors that don't give us a direct line of attack to Mars, and Earth. LoDona's whole fleet could take down the MDP entire, but 400 ships will only be enough of a wedge to pop a hole in one place. We'll drive directly for Mars, and from there split into two prongs- one group to take and hold Valhalla, the other to neutralize Mars."

"Once we've neutralized the nerve-center of the Defense Perimeter, LoDona and the rest of the Fleets will drive to Earth. There they will deal with the 1st fleet and every emplacement on Luna and Earth herself."

He tapped a button again and the map disengaged. "Any ship in TF-19 that survives, and that I can spare, will be directed to join them."