Commerce Raiding

The Great War is fought on many battlefields, from the cratered walls of Frankfurt, to the trenches of Henan, and many unforgiving places in between; but no battlefield is quite as vast and lonely as the sky. Modern warfare has proven that battles are fought and won less through valor and courage, though those are certainly important, and more through the weight of supply. And so, across the worlds at war, isolated convoys of aetherborne ships struggle their way through these empty wastes, carrying supplies to where they’re most needed. These laden ships are hunted by wolves of the sky: Commerce Raiders.

Dispatched by all Great Powers in varying degrees, commerce raiders have the sole aim of disrupting supply and trade between their enemies. Equipped with fast-moving ships and camouflage, they secret themselves in cloud banks or asteroid fields, or, for the more devious of captains, disguise themselves as damaged merchantmen to lure their victims in.

Despite this deception, in the early war at least, commerce raiding was often not overly bloody. Once the trap is sprung, the raiders run up the flag of their Empire, hail their prey, and order them to surrender or be fired upon. For unarmed ships, the path of surrender is the only feasible option, and so they do. The raiders take the crews on board as prisoners, then rig the ship to blow. Purpose-built Balfour mines rapidly launch the vessel and its cargo, at increasing speed, up out of atmosphere or far away from any hope of recovery, then detonate, tearing the vessel into pieces of debris.

However, these tactics are known, and so the job has become increasingly difficult. Ships now travel in convoys with armed escorts, or are armed themselves. And so more and more often, the raiders cannot reveal themselves, instead, opening fire without warning. Operating in hunting packs, entire convoys can be destroyed at once, but at a high risk of collateral damage. A single ship falling on a populated area can result in hundreds of deaths. Taking this into account, shipping routes were adjusted to fly over mostly empty ground or out of the atmosphere entirely, where the banks of clouds cannot conceal danger.

The threat of raiders is not entirely focused on ships, however. As was discovered early in the Great War, there are no borders in the sky, and an unwary enemy can miss many things. With proper planning, slipping a ship across an unprotected border is possible. After crossing, it can wreak havoc on the countryside. Ground teams can rip up rail lines, cut communication wires, destroy supply depots, and ammunition dumps. And so the zeppelin forces and aether navies of the world must stay vigilant, retaining the majority of their crafts for border patrols and rapid responses.