August 15th, 004 SDE:
The commander sighed as she turned off the monitor. Her mind was on the recent news she’d received, it had been over a month since they entered the cluster. The weather wasn’t that great around here and the fleet had gotten somewhat beaten up by plasma storms. This was especially true of the smaller ships with many of them having taken system damage and hull breaches. That was part of the problem with the Velosa cluster, it wasn’t a pleasant place to be, commonly wracked by plasma storms and other dangerous phenomena. The plasma storms however were by far the most prevalent.
They’d had little luck finding the Spectre Queen after she gave one of their Ranger frigates the slip, they’d scouted several systems in the surrounding area looking for her base, but so far nothing. Worse, she’d recently been informed that one of their Ranger frigates had missed her check-in. The ship in question hadn’t been heard from in nearly a week. It wasn’t weird for a ship to go out of contact for a couple of days, but a week was certainly pushing it.
Typically it was nothing more than interference caused by the nature of the region. Between all the dust and noise in the Cluster, not only were sensor ranges reduced, but communications were less reliable. The typical cause of a ship falling out of contact were multi-spatial storms, in other words a storm in hyperspace. Subspace comms took advantage of hyperspace to work and not only was normal space subject to storms in the Velosa cluster, but so was the local hyperspace, and those same hyperspace storms were known to disrupt faster than light comms. Sublight comms which didn’t use hyperspace were naturally unaffected, nor were the storms much of a factor at closer ranges.
All of that news was merely okay and par for the course. They still didn’t have any sign of the menace battlecarrier, by this point she was starting to wonder if it was worth maintaining the search. Given all the damage her own ships were taking, she was starting to suspect they had been destroyed, but the lack of wreckage gave that theory little weight. Sure the alien warship didn’t have shields and her armor was compromised, but she still recalled watching the ship sprint at warp five point two for eighteen hours straight without a deflector or shield. The commander still had trouble wrapping her head around that one, she’d never known the menace didn’t use deflectors, but that became quite apparent when she’d chased them. How a ship made largely of titanium could withstand those translight particle impacts without a shield or deflector boggled the mind, but she suspected that it had something to do with their armor. Armor that apparently still worked well enough with multiple hull breaches.
Strange facts aside, it was the most recent news she was focusing on. She’d received an update from fleet command, the second and fourth fleets had been destroyed. The admiral hadn’t given her all the details, but regardless that was a major loss of assets and ships, with those vessels gone the core was vulnerable. As such, she’d been ordered to return, an order she didn’t plan to follow just yet. She had a few remaining systems she wanted to check off and she wanted to go looking into the missing frigate. Her gut told her something was up there.
Stepping out of her office, she headed out into her CIC, which was busy as usual. An ensign walked up to her, "Not much to report sir, still no sign of the menace or the pirate."
She sighed, "Sadly that tracks. I have a list of the systems to check and which planets to look at for a pirate base."
The commander handed her a pad, and the ensign looked it over before running to the comms station to relay the orders.
Richards looked over the specs she’d just been given, the council meeting was due to start soon, but right now only a handful of people were here, including Ruri, Countryman, Greyman and Drakes. More officers would likely show up over the next few minutes, but this gave them a little time to discuss things. Looking up from the pad she noted Vera taking her seat.
"I’d say you two did a good job, these are pretty solid figures, and you said that you were about done with the design?"
Vera gave Ruri a look, "I thought we were presenting the final version to the council."
"The final version of this implementation, yes. I still want to look further at using lasers to focus the beam. I had to abandon that in the past, but with the recent advances in both laser and particle weapons, it’s looking more feasible."
"Right, you said something about that before."
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Richard sighed, "The design please?"
Vera pulled a pad out, and handed it over, giving Richards a chance to look at the latest iteration for the Mark III prototype. They’d made a few changes from the first version, but nothing too complicated. She looked over the various guns, as the two scientists had worked on redesigning every particle gun they had from the small fighter cannons to the larger ship-to-ship guns. "Looks quite feasible, I can cut costs by converting older Mark II guns to the new format. I see you also took into account existing turret layouts, we should have no issue mounting them to the existing mounts."
Countryman interjected, "That sounds pretty good. Now, how long would it take to implement the changes?"
"I’d say we could have all the guns we need produced in about ten days, which should line up with the current repair schedule. I’ve just finished rebuilding the damaged sections of the ship, turret replacements and armoring are scheduled for the next ten days. If everything goes to plan we should be ready for launch in twelve days."
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"Welcome news, I can’t say I feel very comfortable staying here too long after that incident."
By now people were filing in, and one of the new ones replied, "OH? Do we have good news regarding leaving? I can’t say I’d miss this world."
"Hey, at least it was pretty peaceful, aside from the weather."
"Right, we had a blizzard just yesterday, a fucking blizzard, and we’re in the equatorial band of this world. This is the garden band..."
"I know right, can you imagine that back on Earth?"
"Not really, and after what happened, I’d say we could expect a scorching summer this year."
"If my projections are accurate, the surface would be on average seventeen degrees warmer, not too bad in some parts of the world. The real killer would be the radiation, based on our sensor reading we are..."
"Yes, yes we all read that. Let’s not talk about that, it’s not that important."
"Sorry."
Countryman was looking around, "Looks like it’s time to start the meeting. We have a few things on the board, but first, for those just joining us. We have some good news. Ruri has finalized her Mark III particle cannon designs, and Richards has announced we are on track to finish the repairs in twelve days."
That seemed to lift the general spirits of the officers gathered around the conference table before they launched into the meeting. They’d been having this a little more often than they used to, but considering they were on the ground it gave people something to do, and helped further coordinate their response to various issues. Today’s agenda had a list of discussions involving the camps, the repair schedule, and authorizing refit upgrades.
Tika turned her monitor off, as she digested the recent reports. By all accounts the war was in full swing, the Valorian Fourteenth and Nineteenth fleets had invaded Voskar space with so many ships entering their stars, the Voskar had proven hard pressed to fight them. As such the Voskar have requested Toral aid, while sending fleets of warships to harass Valorian shipping and trade. The result is both fleets have become bogged down just a few lightyears into Voskar territory.
Elsewhere the Valorians fought off a major Toral push into the Yisk sector, an area of vital strategic importance, as most forces trying to enter the Valorian Core from Toral space would have to pass through this corridor, or risk crossing the Velosa Cluster. There was a second route involving the other Valorian-Toral border, but that was not a short path.
Intel reports that the Valorian Third Fleet was still in the Velosa cluster, but contact was limited. From what they could gather the fleet was still hunting for the Enterprise, but they’d found little sign of the massive vessel. It seemed her friend had managed to give the entire third fleet the slip and in the Velosa cluster it would be quite difficult for them to find him again, even with the wide net they seemed to be casting in their search. She wished him luck with that problem.
The most interesting report regarded a major Valorian offensive into Malora space. They’d banded together the Second, Fourth, and Fifth fleets, after repulsing a Malora push into the Vosk sector, an area of Valorian-held space on the far side of the Velosa cluster from the Valorian core. There were dozens of important Valorian colonies there, and several key shipyards. The Malora used to own parts of it, before ceding it to the Valorians in a previous war. Now they wanted it back, and it seemed likely they might get it. From what she had read, the Valorian counteroffensive had gone badly for them. Virtually every account they had indicated the near annihilation of the second and fourth fleets with the fifth fleet now bogged down with a fighting retreat.
The Malora weren’t without losses of their own, reports indicated they’d lost a ship for every three they’d sunk, but that put them in a much better position strategically when compared to the Valorian Navy. Worse for the Valorians, they were already on a full war footing, intel indicated the Malora would virtually replace every lost vessel within the next two months. That was not the case for the Valorian Navy, they were still in the process of militarizing and all indications were they’d need another four months to replace the lost fleets. There was only one wildcard in all of this, intel indicated that the Valorians had a new Dreadnought, but so far the ship class hadn’t been deployed to the frontlines. Most of the fighting vessels currently on the frontlines were older and dated vessels. The exact capabilities of this new ship type weren’t entirely known, but all indications were that they would be powerful combatants.
A knock on her door drew her attention, as an officer came in, "Ship-Leader, all departments report ready, and systems read nominal across the board. We are ready to depart on your order."
"Thank you, inform the helm to take us out, one-quarter sublight."
’Aye, ma’am!"
As the young officer ran off to carry out her order, she stepped out from behind her desk and headed for the bridge herself. In light of recent events, she’d been given new orders, the Imperium wasn’t joining the war just yet, but they would be soon enough. Mobilization efforts were already well underway, statements were being prepared. Officially their entry into the war was to be an intervention, the Valorian government was corrupt, and rampant piracy was causing issues for their many border worlds and the neighboring territories. Not to mention the invasions from their neighbors, while in some respects justified, were costing many lives.
In the meantime, she’d been ordered to take the IKS Teketh to the Rekanth sector for patrol duty. Rekanth was a large region of space on the Imperium border and near the Velosa cluster. Given the presence of the cluster, the Imperium maintained a number of monitoring stations along the border, and small patrol vessels were common. It was unusual to assign a heavy cruiser to the patrol of this region, however. Perhaps a sign of something larger going on, regardless she planned to tackle this mission to the best of her abilities. Of course, she’d also seen the reports, there were indications of increased piracy in the area, several transports had gone missing, and a freighter had been found adrift just two days ago. The holds vented, the cargo missing, and a few survivors were found hiding in what was left of the ship’s galley.