Mission Report of Centurion Agrippa to Legatus Solanius
As commander of the geological survey ship, Verutum II, I was assigned to a survey group comprising two Verutum class ships, two Lancea class gravitational survey ships and a Spiculum class jump cruiser. Our mission was to survey the recently discovered Pompeii system, located three jumps from Rome via Antium and Cumae. Pompeii was an important discovery as it has four distinct asteroid belts, comprising over 400 asteroids, plus four rocky planets, four gas giants and seventy moons of various sizes. Given our current severe Uridium shortage, it was hoped a new source would be found in a system with so many potential mineral sites. The system is a little unusual in that only three planets orbit closer than the planetless binary component, a G9-V like the primary, while the rest of the planets and all the asteroid belts orbit further out. The first three belts are at approximately two billion, six billion and twenty-seven billion kilometers while the vast outer belt stretches from 120 to 200 billion kilometers. A super-jovian orbits the entire system way out at 240 billion kilometers.
On the tenth day of Januarius, 877 AUC, the survey had been ongoing for four months without incident and the two Lancea class ships had almost completed their jump point survey. We had even located an asteroid with over six thousand tons of accessibility 1.0 Uridium. As the entry jump point was on the sunward edge of the second asteroid belt, my own ship had taken part in surveying a portion of that belt before moving closer to the primary and surveying the whole of the smaller innermost belt. The second Verutum continued surveying the second belt while the Spiculum held position on the jump point to Cumae.. Once the inner belt was surveyed, I ordered my ship to proceed to Pompeii-III, a gas giant with three small moons. The innermost planet was one of the hot worlds with dense atmospheres that seem common close to main sequence stars while Pompeii-II was a high grav world with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, although the atmospheric pressure of oxygen was too high for humans, even if the gravity had not made the world uninhabitable anyway.
As the survey of the first moon of Pompeii-III was completed, my sensor officer detected a ship at 14.3 million kilometers on an intercept course. The ship was estimated to be 6000 tons, moving at 3000 km/s and had a shield strength of 28. Based on this information, the contact was identified as a warship. As you know, the Verutum class is unarmed so I had no intention of allowing the alien to get any closer than necessary. I immediately contacted Centurion Marius on the Lancea, the most senior Centurion in the system, to advise him of the situation then hailed the alien ship. The alien returned the hail but continued to close the range.
Centurion Marius ordered me to hold the range open but continue communication attempts. To avoid revealing the position of our entry point, I set my course for Pompeii-V, a planet located between the two inner asteroid belts and ninety degrees away from Spiculum and the Cumae jump point. Centurion Marius advised me that his own ship and Lancea II would finish their gravitational survey, even while the aliens pursued my ship, as it was already 93% complete. The second Verutum, commanded by Centurion Albius, was ordered to abandon any further geological surveys and pull back to the jump point immediately.
For twenty-four hours the alien ship followed us towards the outer system. Following the instructions of Centurion Marius, I slowed down to try and encourage the alien to do the same but he continued to close at 3000 km/s, which appeared to be his maximum velocity. With no sign of peaceful intent, except for their apparent willingness to continue communication attempts, Centurion Marius ordered to me to accelerate to Verutum II
