Hoth: Blood and Ice

Hacha fumbles with his data pads, steeling himself. "Ok, Dura can do most of the talking. I am just techie guy slash analyst who has a defense plan to present."

Several top level members are present including the Senator and General.

Hacha looks around the room and clear his throat.

"Ok, I am going to trust former Senator Mixo to put the polish on the edge I know this is going to have but here goes: Welcome Republic, Sith, and all those in between stuck on this rock. We've done a pretty good job of holding things together since we got smacked around in orbit but sooner or later we are going to have to deal with the bantha in the room. One way or another, we are going to need to punch through that pirate blockade, and our numbers aren't getting much higher."

Hacha pauses. "Maybe there's a chance of a third party coming to help, but all signs are that there's something bigger happening out there, and reinforcement is sketchy at best."

Hacha taps his datapad, bringing up a map of the base. "The good news is that the majority of the base here has been cleared. From the reports I've gotten, Engineering should be up and running soon to help deal with our power consumption problems. We can grow in strength, sure. But at the end of the day the core problem is that the enemy currently has space superiority over us, and the more we prick them, the more likely they are to come in force."

Hacha looks around the room. "Now, as much as I would love to hurl the pirates off the planet as far as I know none of our primary objectives were to colonize Hoth. Unless there are some sneaky super secret directives that no one has bothered to mention up until now. Does this seem like a fair summation of the problem and our primary goals so far?"

Senator Saresh said, "Do you have suggestions on how to overcome their space superiority?

"What my colleague is trying to get at," Durasay spoke up, addressing the command room. "Is the best way to handle that. Obviously we have two cruisers, a handful of freighters and patrol boats, and maybe what... a wing of starfighters between the Empire and the Republic?" He raised an eyebrow as he asked, taking the floor.

He was dressed in that noble regalia, rather than the armor. Even with the chill in the air, he looked perfectly comfortable.

"Hacha here is a technical wizard. The weapon system he had designed for the Turtle wad a work of art and science. What he had spoken to me about was applying the principles of his designs here, and cresting anti air and anti orbital weapon systems." He looked to the Senator.

"Nothing to hold them off for a prolonged siege. But something to create a window that could allow us to punch through and get off this snowcone."

The General was interested, "And you can build zhis wizh zhe resources we have?"

"Dura has the gist of it." Hacha taps his dataslate a few times.

"While the weapon that was ripped off in battle is too damaged for me to repair, this is not the first time I've needed to do work on it. The prototype took heavy stress during the operations on Bankor, and needed to be pared down in order to be maintained."

Hacha brings up a blueprint of a design.

"The original weapon was a repurposed mass driver, using electromagnetism to propel a sabot of scrap durasteel. The principle is the same as the Golan Arms Flechette launcher, just scaled up. As there is no need to energize tibanna gas for a laser weapon, you can propel magnetic material for greater effect for similar power consumption, at the cost of having a limited supply of ammunition. It was an excellent weapon for an armored freighter like the Turtle."

"What I propose is this:"

The image on the screen becomes sectioned and separates.

"While I am unable to rebuild the weapon to its previous spec, I should be able to use the parts to make something that uses the same concept. In this case, something closer to the anti-personnel rounds of the Golan Arms launcher. These would act as ship grade scatterguns, ideally swivel mounted and fired from a fixed position. They would have a limited ammunition count, but their purpose would be to act as air defense for a blockade clearing weapon with minimal power draw."

"As for an escape vector"

Hacha picks up another data pad. "We saw the effects of the enemy fighters on our ships when they attacked as he translated our of hyperspace. To my knowledge so far, the pirates have made use of exclusively fighters, it would be foolish to assume that is all they have. We'd need a way to open a hole so that we can get our slower ships out and not rely on blockade runners. Fortunately, I believe that the enemy has provided us with an answer."

The previous images are replaced with a rough mock up of the pirates fighters. "Each enemy fighter was mounted with ion cannons. I do not believe they are part of most standing army's arsenal because despite packing a potent punch, they do not have tight beam focus and therefore can hit other nearby friendly targets if you are not careful, and will leave a ship intact and potentially repairable rather than destroying it. This makes them perfect for pirates attempting to take cargo ships as a prize, which is why I suspect our enemies use them. However, in this case their negatives on trade off don't really apply: while it would be nice to permanently remove a pirate, our goal is to break through. We have no permanent structures in orbit, and no standing fleets, so laying down cover fire carries minimal risk of friendly fire. And, after the recent planetside air battle" Hacha grins. "I have several of these ship based ion canons. Enough that I believe that I can collect all the turbines into one, larger, ship grade weapon...or so is the plan, anyway."

"Finally" Hacha pauses, looking over at Durasay. This hasn't been something he had vetted.

"Don't settle for cut rate. Hire the best. That's us. Since we're the ones offering defense, it makes sense for us to be the last ones out. All of these weapons have potential but don't do much if they can't hit anything. I volunteer to hard line the Turtle's Advanced Targeting Array to assist with base targeting. That makes us the last ones out"

"If you can build better defenses, you have my approval," the General said.

"General, right now we don't have any base defenses right now. But don't worry, you'll get my best work"

The leadership agree to the plan.