>>6039001A couple of days later, as you had hoped, you once more find yourself in the comm centre listening to the reports of the two patrol boat captains.
“The computer struggled to identify two of the three vessels, we had to work on it ourselves in order to find a close approximation.” One of the captains continues his explanation, the minute delay of his facial expression being slightly unsettling as it is not synching with his voice.
“The first thing we identified appears to be Journeyman-class freighter. About half the size of the Argonaut and probably thirty years out of date compared to it. Nothing special about it really, just some detachable cargo pods and fuel pods. Probably carrying supplies for the long journey for the other two ships.” Another captain begins to explain the situation.
“Now the other two were a headache.” The first one continues where his colleague left off. “The two other ships seem to be a derivative of the Adamant-class armed freighter. About seventy of so years old, though these ones appear to be much larger. About 300 metres each. Scans indicate that there are two railgun turrets, one mounted atop and one at the bottom.”
“Bad or good ?” You quickly ask, you know little about warships other than their captains tend to be pompous assholes.
“Bad, if we’re talking about proper naval scale. It should have at least a few more of those, and mostly the ones they have are outdated, chances are that the weapons on our own patrol boats are superior and newer. As for other matters, one appears to have three missile launchers, armed with what and how well, we don’t know till they fire, unfortunately. The other seems to possess a hangar and a trio of escort fighters, we noticed that those are flying ahead of the main formation, so at least the enemy has a vague idea of proper naval tactics by employing some scouts.”
“How troublesome those would be ?”
“We don’t have anything to counter either the fighters or the missiles. If fact, those concern far more than their railguns.”
“So, they are stronger than us in terms of firepower, what about toughness ?”
“Hard to tell. Most likely the things were up-armoured, how well and how extensively, we don’t know. Even if the alloys they are using are outdated, if they bothered to slap enough of it on the ships, it could prove a tough nut to crack.”
Sighing, you ask the most important question. “Can we win ?”
Silence follows for nearly a minute as both captains end up looking concerned and they begin thinking, brows furrowed.
“No guarantees.” The still frowning man begins to speak, again, the delay making the entire exchange odd. “We’ve got proper training and up to date equipment. While the enemy has more weapons and heavier weight. So, it is possible, how likely, I make no promises other than we will give it our all.” The other captain nods in grim agreement.
