14th June 2378 Tracking stations in Sahara detect an unknown thermal signature, over three times as powerful as that of the Specter Behemoth. The system is two jumps from Knossos and has been colonized by Commune citizens without government support, using abandoned alien habitats. It connects to a total of four other stars, one leading to the human space and three others leading to parts unknown, as they haven't been surveyed. Worse, due to limited budget tracking stations have not been established anywhere beyond Sahara.
As the unknown vessel begins to close on Tadjoura, the only inhabited planet in the system, its speed is calculated to be over twenty one thousand kilometers per second, more or less the same speed as the Destroyer. Moreover the alien ignores all hails.
As the news spread the Commune Defense Force begins to move. The Third Fleet stationed at Knossos moves to the ES – 55 jump point to establish defense. Unfortunately it consists of only two gunboat flotillas and two frigate squadrons, composed mostly of older vessels. The only piece of good news is that Knossos produced enough ordnance to equip them with the most modern shipkillers available.
Fourth Fleet in Atlantic is recalled in its entirety to Knossos, despite inviting a potential invasion from the Hegemony. Unfortunately it is also composed mostly of older vessels and those have older ordnance as well. Even so it comprises four gunboat flotillas and four frigate squadrons. Worse yet while it will take the smaller craft only five days to enter Peters Crossing due to placement of jump points it will take them twenty three to arrive at the ES – 55 jump point. Unless the alien is either friendly or prioritizes ships over planets, by the time they can intervene Knossos will be lost. And of course the frigates are even slower.
The Home Fleet is also sent in its entirety, save for the formations which are either undergoing training or are being refitted. The way is led by eight gunboat flotillas of Sharks, the fastest ships in the Commune. Unfortunately due to their low range they require refueling on their way, adding travel times. Because of that it will be six days before they enter Peter's Crossing, but at least they will be filled with the newest ordnance. Again however it all comes down to whether the alien priorities planets or warships. Following them will be twelve more gunboat flotillas of Piranhas, six frigate squadrons and a cruiser division, all of which are made of the latest warships but their ordnance is a mix of older and newer missiles.
The Second Fleet is ordered to remain in place. It's relatively small with only two gunboat flotillas and three frigate squadrons. If the Home Fleet fails they won't be able to change the fate of the rest of the Commune. In such a case they are to work together with other powers, mainly the Republic, to save what they can.
The other two nations are of course informed about the event. The Republic sends three battle groups to Eden, over half their force. In worst case scenario they'll try to hold the system together with the Second Fleet, saving at least a part of the Commune. The latter are very grateful for the assistance, despite the fact that the trek will take over fifty days. The Hegemony sends four carrier groups towards Boston (known to the Commune as the Atlantic system) but it will take them a month just to get to the jump point. This causes some worry that New Earth may try a take over of the Commune space, but the latter may have no choice in the matter if the alien proves to be too great a danger.
Even as hundreds of warships of three different nations begin to move, the unknown vessel continues moving towards Tadjoura. The planet is home to twenty one hundred and eighty thousand people and is orbited by two anti-missile weapons platforms accompanied by two supporting space stations. As the alien closes to a little over a million kilometers, it opens fire with very powerful and obviously long range energy weapons, quickly destroying all four constructs. Once that is done it turns its batteries towards the colony, which has very thin atmosphere and no other protection. Every man, woman and child is killed within seconds, cutting the feed. Depending on the trajectory the alien, now firmly believed to be the Destroyer, will arrive in Peter's Crossing in a little over five days if it dashes straight for the Commune space. The alien could of course try two other jump points in the Sahara system and move through their chains, which would buy the Commune some time, but that still means there is one in three chances the Destroyer will go directly towards the human colonies.
16th June 2378 The Destroyer is detected entering ES – 55 system adjacent to Peters Crossing. It is obvious now that the alien is moving towards human space. The one piece of good news is that it moves towards ES – 60 first, apparently intending to check the dead-end system first before moving further. This will buy humanity some time, but not much.
24th June 2378 Thanks to the Destroyer taking a detour to the ES – 60 system and performing a sensor sweep there, the Third Fleet managed to get into position mere hours before the alien arrival, readying their weapons. Twenty two minutes past eleven it enters Peter's Crossing.
The First and Second Gunboat Flotillas as well as the Fourth and Fifth frigates squadrons open fire almost immediately, setting pursuit course to keep the enemy in range for as long as possible despite the fact the enemy is both more technologically advanced, and larger massing one hundred and twenty five thousand tonnes.
Many of the railgun shots miss due to the enormous difference in speed, but seven hundred sixty eight missiles and one hundred ninety two interceptors fired in offensive mode follow the shots. One hundred and ninety ones shipkillers and seventy eight anti-missiles manage to hit, but there is no visible damage. Their missile exhausted the gunboats head back to Knossos while the frigate squadrons continue to fire.
To the shock of the human crews all one hundred and ninety two anti-missiles of the second salvo were intercepted by the alien point defense. The frigates continues their barrage using their light guns but they do only minimal damage over the regenerating shields.
Forty seconds into the engagement the Destroyer finally responded, annihilating three frigates with a single salvo. Five seconds later another one died. Within a minute all two squadrons were completely destroyed and the alien begun chasing the gunboats, slaughtering them with merciless precision while its point defense used life boats for target practice.
Admiral Mojica Valadez, commanding the Home Fleet and now the senior officer in the system, watches her plot praying deeply, knowing that depending on what the destroyer does next two hundred million lives may be lost. Fortunately it seems the alien has the same mentality as ADS as it moves straight for her forces. The Home Fleet and the Fourth Fleet arrived three days earlier and Knossos was more or less between their entry point and the wormhole to ES – 55. If the Destroyer wanted, he could lay waste to the planet and then try to deal with the Force. But it was not the case.
The first instinct of Valadez was to retreat to her entry point to try and goad the enemy into another jump point battle, but she was too far away. She was also spread out. Not only did the two fleets arrive separately, frigates and gunboats had different speed. Moreover the Sharks, due to their limited range, were ordered to refuel at Knossos first. As such she simply ordered all hers ships to gather in one place. When the Destroyer assaults them she'll do the only thing she can – she'll launch everything she has hoping it will be enough.
28th June 2378 Twenty four gunboat flotillas, ten frigate squadrons and a cruiser division, more than three quarters of the Commune Defense Force, meet the destroyer in deeps space within the Peter's Crossing system. If they lose, the Commune will fall as they cannot even retreat due to the enemy speed advantage.
The first to fire are the eight flotillas comprising the Shark class gunboats. Designed to operate outside anti-missile umbrellas provided by other ships, they use the Mistletoe shipkillers, a state of the art Commune design. Half the size of Hegemony Tomahawks and only a third the size of the Republican Catapults they have five megaton warheads and on board active sensors. Their only shortcoming is relatively low speed of forty two thousand kilometers per second.
The Destroyer ECM is as powerful as reports stated, limiting the range of Sharks to only seventy eight million kilometers, despite human countermeasures. Fortunately as the alien has shown no use of long range missiles it is not a problem. Finally, with the alien in range, the human forces unleash forty six hundred and eight missiles at it.
Due to high speed and powerful anti-missile defenses of the Destroyer only eight hundred and seventy nine missiles managed to hit. The alien didn't even slow down although it had to take a significant armor damage.
Next to fire are the Piranha class gunboats. Due to limited number of newer missiles it has been decided to equip all of them with second generation shipkillers, to ensure that all warships can fire a single unified salvo. As the Destroyer usually intercepts only two hundred missiles or so, this may not have been as important as initially thought, but nothing could be changed now and sixteen flotillas fire as one with the alien only ten million kilometers away.
The second generation Arrows are the same size as Mistletoes but have no active sensors, shorter range, slightly lower speed of forty thousand kilometers per second and lighter, four megaton warheads. Even so the gunboats release sixty one hundred and forty four of them. This was finally enough to kill the enemy after eight hundred and forty two additional hits, with sixteen hundred Arrows self-destructing.
The Commune was lucky beyond belief. The combination of distances, early warning and poor enemy targeting decisions saved Knossos from total annihilation. Not only did it save over two hundred million people, but the planet is currently the only real source of gallicite. Without it the nation would have to halt not only its shipbuilding but also missile production.
Despite that the cost was heavy. Over two million people died on Tadjoura. The entire mobile element of the Third Fleet has been annihilated, although fortunately it comprised only two frigate squadrons and two gunboat flotillas, all of which were older designs. Two anti-missile bases and two supporting space stations in Sahara has also been lost and over eleven thousand shipkillers have been spent with nearly four thousand anti-missiles lost when twelve corvettes have been destroyed. The Commune will be short on ammunition for years, maybe decades to come and of course, should another Destroyer arrive now, they could not stop it.
The question on everyone's mind now is: what happens next? The Destroyer has of course been analyzed to death after it destroyed Earth and thanks to the Republic the Commune had access to very extensive and detailed data that could only be obtained after the connections to the black hole collapsed. And while there are always fringe theories, the majority of the analysts agrees – the Destroyers both the one that nearly annihilated humanity two hundred years ago and the one that was just defeated are merely scouts, patrolling the galaxy looking for young races to exterminate them before they can become a threat. This also means that somewhere out there is a race that created them and likely possesses not only more of such ships, but also true warships designed to fight more advanced and powerful enemies. And one of those days such warships will arrive in the current human space. The only question is when will this happen and there are three widely popular theories about that.
The first theory states that the Destroyer and maybe other ships of its kind are on a centuries, maybe millennia long routes only sporadically arriving in space of its creators. If one doesn't arrive on schedule, then investigation will begin, one likely involving many warships. The second theory is that a patrol ship is launched only sporadically, every several hundreds yearss but its route is relatively short, anywhere from few months to few decades. In this case the investigation by the aliens will begin much sooner. The third theory is that whatever the exact route is, the aliens have some kind of interstellar level FTL communication independent of the jump gate network and so they already know what happened and are preparing a response.
The third theory is considered to be the most unlikely one. When the original Destroyer was heavily damaged in Earth's orbit no help ever arrived, despite it being under near constant, if ineffective attack by human forces. In addition, while the Commune knowledge is not absolute, neither they nor the other two nations believe any sort of such communication is possible, at last according to their understanding of physics. As such there is a very good chance humanity has anywhere from years to centuries to prepare for another, undoubtedly much larger, attack.
Even so this may not be the case, or the alien scout ships do not actually operate alone. As such a permanent, strong defense will be needed in Peter's Crossing. Unfortunately all the gunboats have exhausted their ordnance so they at least have to return to Baltic to rearm and there isn't enough ammunition to fill all of them. In fact almost all Sharks will be without missiles for a long time.
Putting the frigates on jump point defense duty will also be of no use. They simply don't have enough fire-power to deal with the Destroyer before it moves out of range. For all instances and purposes the surviving squadrons are useless against it, but they still have their function against other powers. Static defenses are a possibility but it will take a long time to erect them.
The news of the victory are of course transmitted through the human space. The Republic is pleasantly surprised and vastly relieved that the crisis is over. They recall their ships home asking the Commune for any information its willing to disclose. After very brief consideration the Administrator, with nearly full support from the Oversight Committee sends them full tactical recording of the event, from the initial detection in Sahara to the destruction of the intruder. This will of course reveal huge amounts of information about the Force, but Phoenix has been very reasonable and cooperative ever since the first contact, and while their ships were slow, they've sent over half their fleet to support the Commune. As far as the government was concerned, full tactical recording of the event was the only reasonable show of appreciation.
The Hegemony response was different however. They flat out accused the Commune of lying about their losses, claimed that this shows once again the need for the human race to unite, and continued on course stating that they will take over the responsibility of defending the gate to the human territory – the system of Peter's Crossing – from further incursions. Whether or not that meant they were prepared to fight the Commune remains to be seen.
4th July 2378 The Republic completes their analysis of the data provided by the Commune and they are somewhat worried. Their Catapult missiles are three times as big as the Arrows but have range of over five hundred million kilometers and twice as powerful warheads. However they are also slower, moving at thirty one thousand kilometers per second, which means they have lower hit chances. Considering eleven thousand Arrows were needed to kill the Destroyer, anywhere from six to seven thousand Catapults would be needed to achieve the same result. As each battle group comprises four battleships, this means two such groups may or may not be enough to win a battle.
In addition the Republican ECCM is not as powerful as the one employed by the Commune and while they have specifically over designed their fire controls to compensate, it's very likely much of the Catapult's range would be wasted. The only piece of good news is that their technology has progressed a little and would allow them to build slightly better missiles right away. Even so the Navy recommends that a new shipkiller be designed, one with higher speed and larger warhead, but not necessarily as much range.
14th July 2378 Steadfast, Resolute, Defiant and Vengeance carrier groups enter the Boston system, known to the Commune as Atlantic, violating the territory of the latter nation. They repeat their statement that due to the losses the Commune has suffered they will take over the responsibility of protecting the Peter's Crossing system. Because of that they do not demand the surrender of the Giblartar Naval Base, but they do demand navigational data on how to get to their target. They however do not expect to get it, so they're accompanied by four survey ships.
The Commune does indeed refuse and demands that the Hegemony withdraws its forces but are ignored. And while on the surface having more ships protect Knossos is good, the issue is the lack of trust. New Earth has already attacked the Commune once without provocation and allowing four carrier groups to orbit what many consider to be the second most important world of their nation is simply too risky, especially since those warships would either need to rotate or permanent Hegemony facilities would have to be erected on Knossos. In addition if the Intelligence is correct, New Earth's fighters don't even have ECCM systems, which means they cannot target the Destroyer anyway, which raises the question whom exactly are they're going to be used against.
Overall the presence of Hegemony forces in their territory is currently unacceptable to the Commune despite potential benefits and they are willing to go to war to protect their space.
16th July 2378 The four carrier groups enter the ES – 09 system and detect sensor emissions from Commune warships. Believing them to be arriving from ES – 01, as this is the shortest route to both Peter's Crossing and the Baltic systems, where the majority of their forces must have been concentrated, the Hegemony ships set course for their general direction, hoping to discover a jump gate with their active sensors.
The Commune has detected the entry immediately with their tracking stations. They currently have three modern frigate squadrons and a cruiser division in the system, but it will not be enough to stop the Hegemony. Those four formations have been sent as soon as they re-armed in Baltic after the battle with the Destroyer to deal with any foreign incursion and four more squadrons will arrive in four days, although they are of the older designs. Three more modern formations have been sent from Knossos once the Hegemony actually entered the Commune space, but those won't arrive for another eight days.
For now the forces already in system retreat towards the jump point to ES – 01 where they will establish blockade while awaiting reinforcements. Fortunately the enemy ships are powered by ion drives and are quite slow, moving at only three thousand kilometers per second which should give the Commune time to concentrate their forces.
22nd July 2378 The Hegemony fleet arrives a little less than five hundred million kilometers from the jump point to ES – 01 where seven frigate squadrons and a cruiser division are clearly visible on their sensors. For now they do not advance further as the Commune flat out stated that any ship trying to transit will be fired upon. Admiral Sheila Stehlin who commands the force, considered using her fighters to remove the enemy picket, but the Commune can simply duck any strike by jumping. For now she decides to wait. This is fine with the government as they have some preparations to do.
Despite the Hegemony being harsh place to live with nearly ten percent of the population being in a state bordering on slavery, the nation has been very stable as the population truly believes that their policies and sacrifices are needed to build military strong enough to oppose the Destroyer. However no one knows what will happen if the Hegemon and his government lose the popular support, however grudging it may be. And they've done all they can to not find out, which is why any information exchange between New Earth and other nations is heavily monitored and censored and why there is a large amount of propaganda, sometimes very false, about other states.
When it comes to the Commune, there are two basic narratives being heavily pushed. The first one is that the nation is a run down Communist state full of poverty, monitoring, government propaganda and shop queues so long they are a joke everywhere. As historically Communism ended up creating just such states, with best examples being twentieth century socialist republics like Russia, this particular lie is widely believed. The second lie is that the Administrator, the governing AI of the Commune has for all instances and purposes taken over, no longer listening to human demands or needs. It is much less widely believed, but as it plays into fears of many people, it is still relevant enough.
Now with the Commune Defense Force flat out threatening to fire, the Hegemony propaganda machine is working overtime, claiming this to be the ultimate proof that the AI has indeed taken over. After all no reasonable nation would refuse help when dealing with an alien genocidal race, so this stance must be the decree of the Administrator afraid that his subjects will interact too much with the Hegemony to the point where they'll see just what have happened to their nation and revolt. And this clearly means the Hegemony should come to the aid of their fellow, oppressed humans.
It is currently unknown whether or not this will be enough to get a public support for a war, but at least this gives the carriers time, as they officially try to negotiate with the human crews to disobey an order given to them by a totalitarian AI. In fact they hope the Commune will make a mistake and uncover themselves for a fighter strike, but for the time being the Hegemony forces have no idea how to force them to do that.
25th July 2378 The Administrator finds itself in a very difficult position. It has been programmed to do its best to fulfill wishes of the people of the Commune but it was also made self-aware so it can refuse to do anything self-destructive. Unfortunately there is also the Oversight Committee which has the power to override any decision made by the AI, potentially forcing it into doing something that will ultimately lead to the fall of the Commune. This is one such situation.
While the Administrator would prefer to force the Hegemony to withdraw without any serious loses on either side, either through diplomacy or demonstration of superior fighting power, the population is simply outraged. New Earth has been slanting and insulting them ever since the first contact and now for all instances and purposes they have decided to stab them in the back after they've spent themselves against the common enemy of Mankind. And while officially they are here to help, very few people doubt that ultimately they are merely positioning themselves to take over the Commune. As far as the population is concerned the Force is supposed not to chase the enemy out but to destroy him. Which will make whole of humanity weaker just after they encountered their most dreaded enemy. As far as the Administrator is concerned this is as self-destructive as it gets.
Unfortunately the Oversight Committee doesn't see it that way. They point out the intelligence reports that the Hegemony can't even target the Destroyer, which means the carrier groups are irrelevant as far as the defense goes and can be eliminated without any real long term consequences. As such they order the warships gathered in ES – 09, which has just been reinforced by the Knossos squadrons, to destroy all Hegemony forces in that system.
Admiral Mojica Valadez is once again in command and she hates her orders as much as the Administrator. She would love to launch a gunboat strike, the safest and surest way to accomplish her mission, but due to ordnance limitations this is simply not an option. Which means she'll have to charge the enemy using anti-missiles in offensive mode and railguns to destroy him. She's certain this means she'll take return fire, possibly a lot of it. Worse she has nine hundred and fifty thousand tonnes of warships against the enemy which has thirteen hundred and thirty thousand tonnes of shipping. The only small blessing is that the enemy carriers are probably weak in energy combat and her ships are faster which should translate into higher evasion and hit chances.
There's really no finesse to be had. She has to close to the enemy and thanks to good sensor coverage both forces knows where each other is. She orders all her warships to gather and move as one, although due to the presence of older designs her speed is limited to sixty one hundred and sixty kilometers per second.
Admiral Sheila Stehlin, commanding the combined Hegemony carrier groups sees the movement and tries to consider her options. As she'll likely have to fire first her priority is to get as much threatening dialogue from the Commune as possible, to justify her 'per-emptive, but purely defensive' action, so she hails the incoming ship asking them to state their intentions. To her shock she's calmly told by the enemy commander that Commune intends to wipe out her entire force down to the last ship.
With that out of the way she begins to consider her tactics. Her biggest problem is that her fighters are actually slower than the incoming enemy warships, courtesy of Commune engines being two to three generations ahead. As such she'll have to launch her fighters only when the enemy is close, so they can be reloaded right away without being caught in deep space and run down. As this means the enemy will be close to firing range, she'll have to be moving away from the Commune to prolong the engagement window. As such she orders her ships to move back towards the Boston jump point.
27th July 2378 As the Commune forces close to less than a hundred million kilometers of their enemy, their cruisers open fire. The five modern Elatha class warships have a total of seven hundred Trebuchet missiles and while those are two generations out of date, they are still powerful. Of course considering the sheer number of enemy escorts, they will likely do only very limited, if any, damage, but at least it will force the Hegemony to spend anti-missiles that could otherwise be used in offensive mode.
The carrier groups detect the incoming ordnance at over eleven hundred thousand kilometers and begin desperately launching anti-missiles. Fortunately they have a total of eight Hammurabi class frigates which are armed exclusively with interceptors. Unfortunately while the incoming shipkillers are obsolete, so are the Patriots racing to meet them. In fact the anti-missiles are slower than the munitions they are trying to intercept. All the same there are only seven hundred incomings.
Hundreds of Trebuchets were intercepted by Patriots and some more were destroyed by desperate last ditch point defense fire. However to the surprise of both sides one hundred and twenty six of them managed to get through striking the Defiant. Over half of her armor has been wiped out and she suffered light internal damage including two of her massive fuel storage spaces, thermal sensors, magazines and part of her hangar deck. Fortunately she lost no fighters, although she lost some of her Tomahawks.
As the distance falls below forty million kilometers the four carriers launch all of their seven hundred and twenty fighters. Those will be supported by seventeen Ra class destroyers, each of which mounts one hundred and twenty launchers of their own. Together they can fire fifty six hundred and forty Tomahawks.
As soon as the missile barrage is detected Valadez orders her ships to reverse course to prolong the missile engagement. She expects to take some hits, maybe lose several warships but otherwise she's confident. She has almost a thousand anti-missile launchers, many of which are the new model capable of firing every five seconds, she can detect and engage incoming ordnance at over four million kilometers and she has advanced interceptors. The only problem is that one of her frigate squadrons have no ammunition and some of her anti-missiles are obsolete, which is the only reason she expects to take any hits at all.
As incoming Tomahawks were being intercepted a serious design flow in the Commune designs became glaringly obvious. They usually had ten or more anti-missile launchers slaved to a single fire control and the Vistuala class corvettes had in fact only a single targeting system for their sixteen launchers. However as the more modern missiles had interception chances of nearly eighty percent, there was no point launching a lot of ammunition at once at any incoming shipkiller. Unfortunately most Hegemony missiles came in salvos of four, which meant most launchers were remaining silent throughout the engagement. As a consequence one hundred and twenty eight Tomahawks managed to break through active defenses and catch their desperately avoiding targets, resulting in heavy damage to the cruiser Oni, leaving her dead in space. Other cruisers of the First Division, Anakim, Elatha and Eriu also suffered some damage although Fachen and the cruiser leader Rugewit were unharmed. Frigates Camaguey, Chimoio, Dublin, Malmo and Nacala also suffered light damage although in most cases it was due to a single missile slipping through the defenses.
With that done the Commune resumes their course towards the enemy.
Stehlin was also surveying the results of the missile strike, but with significant disappointment. She knew the defenses of her enemy were heavy and technologically superior, but she never expected that five and a half thousand missiles would fail to destroy a single enemy warship. Admittedly if she concentrated her entire firpower on that single vessel, it would have been destroyed but doing so would be ridiculous.
She could still launch two fighter strikes, but each of those would unleash only thirty six hundred missiles, which would be enough only if the enemy was out of ammunition. For all instances and purposes both forces were currently at a stalemate which will be broken only once they enter energy weapon range and doing so will be risky for both sides. It was time to implement plan B.
When the decision was made to enter the Commune space everyone knew it would be risky. However as everyone was pointing out it was impossible for a logic driven AI to risk doing anything that would weaken humanity now that the Destroyer have returned. So following this train of thought, if the situation became unfavorable it should be possible for the Hegemony forces to disengage without any major loses through a negotiated settlement. Which is why Stehlin contacted the opposing commander offering a cease fire and withdrawal of her forces back to New Earth, confident the Administrator would accept to make sure humanity as a whole remained as strong as possible.
The answer was unexpected. In fact when she was informed that the Commune orders are to destroy all Hegemony forces that entered the Atlantic and ES – 09 systems, her face became white with shock. It was now obvious that she was trapped in a fight to the death.
Her first order of business was to rearm her fighters and launch additional strikes. She may not be able to get through the Commune defenses, but she could at least run the enemy out of missiles. She also ordered the four survey ships that accompanied her, which were still in the Boston system (known to the Commune as Atlantic) to retreat at their best speed. There was no point losing them if it could be avoided.
The two fighter strikes accomplished nothing, as expected, but the cruisers were out of ammunition and the corvettes spent eighty to ninety percent of their ordnance. The remaining anti-missiles are used in offensive mode as the two forces close to less than fifteen million kilometers and are targeted at four of the Hammurabi class frigates. The enemy commander must have concluded that those are almost certainly armed heavily with anti-missiles, as the Hegmeony defenses were much heavier than those of the first battle and the other types were known from that event already.
Stehlin doesn't even try to intercept incoming Commune anti-missiles with her own Patriots as the hit chances are simply too low. Her last ditch point defense is doing its best however, but it amounts to little. She also noticed that the enemy didn't fire all their ammunition in a single stream, but rather fired some of it and than waited for results. The Commune had the range advantage and they intended to use it to methodically destroy Hegemony warships, wasting as little as possible.
The Frigate Sin-Iqishan was the first to die, destroyed with a single volley, followed by Gunganum. As the third frigate, Hammurabi, has been destroyed, Stehlin begun cursing. She knew anti-missiles in offensive mode were dangerous, but she never expected to lose so many ships so quickly. Akurduana, Shushushi and Zabaia joined them minutes later. Fortunately her decision to launch the two ineffective fighter strikes left the Commune with very little ammunition so no more ships were destroyed. Even so losing six frigates will diminish her combat power.
As soon as the last missile hits the enemy corvettes move away. They likely have no secondary armament and with empty magazines they've become nothing more than targets, so it makes sense to keep them safe. This still leaves forty frigates, ten frigate leaders, four cruisers and a jump cruiser coming her way. Fortunately she still have a lot of anti-missiles and as the range falls below four million kilometers she begins to use them, targeting the four enemy cruisers still in formation. Unfortunately with lower range and longer reload times she cannot afford to do it slowly and methodically, like her enemy. She chooses her targets and goes to rapid fire mode right away.
As soon as the missiles leave the tubes, they are spotted by the Commune sensors and the entire force turns about, trying to get out of range. Stehlin specifically waited until her enemy is several hundred thousand kilometers inside her missile range, but as she checks the plot she curses. Her force is not trained as well as the opposing one and the Defiant Carrier Group fired in unison, but alone. The other three groups were still trying to set their fire controls properly. Finally after two salvos the rest of the group joins the Defiant. After four salvos however the Admiral orders fire to cease. Any more would likely run out of fuel before reaching the enemy and thanks to the Commune change of direction, she can observe the results of her strike and adjust next salvos, so there is no point in wasting ammunition.
Unfortunately rather than calculating, Stehlin went with her instincts and she was used to the way her own slow and ponderous warships maneuver. Her first salvo self-destructed less than a hundred thousand kilometers from the enemy. She ordered new salvos to be launched when the enemy is three million kilometers away. Once again the Commune forces turn about and once again Stehlin orders the fire to cease after four salvos, two of which were fired by Defiant and her escorts alone. Those two accomplished nothing and were shot down by the enemy railguns down to the last Patriot. Three hundred and sixty four from the third salvo managed to hit, causing moderate armor damage to the four cruisers and the jump cruiser of the First Division. A similar number of missiles from the fourth salvo hit as well. The cruisers Anakim, Fachen and the jump cruiser Rugewit ended up with only light to moderate armor damage, but Elatha lost significant amount of protection and Eriu suffered light internal damage, losing a missile detection system and a fuel storage. Even so her armament was fully operational and she still had some armor, despite having a couple of holes in it.
On the side of the Hegemony, Defiant herself run out of ammunition and the two remaining Hammurabi class frigates had only enough for three full salvos and a partial fourth one, but the other warships could fire several more. This time Stehlin waited until the enemy was two million kilometers away and gave orders to the Defiant group a little later. She got the timing right and all her warships fired in unison. As in previous cases the enemy forces turned about trying to get out of range but this time they were so deep Stehlin did not cease fire, concentrating all her firpower on the five enemy cruiser sized ships. This meant she won't be able to adjust fire in case one of them gets destroyed, but after the first three salvos she'll be down a total of one hundred and forty launchers, as Hammurabis will run out of ammunition. Soon after the other three carriers will also be dry, dropping another hundred and twenty launchers out of her salvos. For all instances and purposes the only waves that mattered were the first five ones. The rest would be barely enough to get through the enemy point defense.
Spreading her fire would of course mean she would drive more warships away from the coming energy engagement, but she harbored no illusions. Her entire force was likely dead anyway so the only thing she could do was to kill as many enemies as possible, even if this meant damaging less of them. After all a ship can be repaired very quickly, even in shipyards that normally build civilian vessels, but building a new warship from scratch and training it would take a lot of time.
Three hundred and twenty four Patriots from the first salvo managed to get through the enemy defences. The second salvo scored a similar number of hits, causing moderate internal damage to the cruiser Eriu, which unfortunately included one of her engines. Nearly four hundred anti-missiles from the third salvo hit, causing internal damage to four of the five targets with Rugewit falling out of formation due to the loss of her fuel tanks. The fourth salvo resulted in another three hundred and thirty one hits but no more ships were left dead in space. While the entire Commune force was currently holding their ground, protecting any ship that may lose engines, evasion was an important part of their defense and any ships losing speed became that much easier to hit.
The fifth salvo scores only two hundred and sixteen hits, but the cruisers Fachien and Eriu are both dead in space due to all their fuel tanks being exposed to space while Elatha was slowed to only thirty eight hundred kilometers per second, due to the damage to her engines. She become immobile after losing her fuel tanks with the next salvo, which scored another two hundred and forty hits. Suddenly Anakim, so far relatively undamaged, disappeared in an enormously bright fireball as something inside exploded, causing one hundred and eighty three megaton explosion. Later investigation would reveal it was one of her engines.
As the Hegemony crews celebrate their first kill, Stehlin orders some of her ships to change target, as now they have none. Dozens of anti-missiles already in flight had to self-destruct, but at least finally, for the first time her fleet managed to destroy a Commune vessel. Her elation faded when she realized that despite this being the second war and despite this single battle lasting over twelve hours already and resulting in five of her ships dead, this is the first time an enemy vessel was destroyed by Hegemony fire. Worse, due to the self-destructed missiles it has became easier for the enemy to defend, which is why the ninth salvo resulted in only one hundred and sixty hits. The tenth resulted in only one hundred and thirty but that was enough to finish off Fachen. Once again however dozens of anti-missiles have self destructed and this time it was too much as the eleventh salvo scored no hits, while the twelfth one scored only forty.
The next salvo scored only fifteen hits but even so the Hegemony continued to fire as they knew several Commune warships were damaged and they needed just few lucky hits to finish them off. They've gotten more lucky than expected as the only missile to sneak past all the defenses was enough to finish off Eriu. Fortunately for the Commune crews that was the very last Patriot that managed to hit.
As soon as the missile barrage stops, the Commune frigates leave behind the damaged cruisers and their frigate leaders and set course for the Hegemony force. Stehlin was hoping that the recent exchange changed their minds but it seems her enemy is intent to see this to the bloody end. So far the battle has been going massively in her favor. She sustained inconsequential damage to the Defiant and lost five frigates but in exchange she forced the entire cruiser division out of the battle with three dead ships and heavy damage to all remaining ones.
As the enemy closed her ships readied their particle beams. They had range of two hundred thousand kilometers and no matter how far the target was they dealt constant damage. Each of her seventeen destroyers had five such weapons while each of the seventeen Enki class frigates had a spinal mounted one hundred and ninety millimeters laser with range of nearly two hundred and seventy thousand kilometers. She hooped it was enough.
Admiral Mojica Valadez cursed her luck. Her flagship, Rugewit, sustained rather light internal damage, but this included all her fuel tanks. She was stuck behind the lines while sending forty of her frigates to charge thirteen hundred thousand tonnes of enemy warships. Daunting odds, but much of that tonnage was in the form of carriers, fighters and anti-missile armed ships, all of which were spent and useless. Even so she only had three heavy railguns on each of her Stockholmes, for a total of one hundred and twenty guns. Each of those could fire four times in a rapid succession before needing to recharge and cool down, but they had twenty second recharge cycle and low damage output at long ranges.
As the range closes to two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers Guantanamo receives a single, weak hit, similar to what an anti-missile would do. This is not good news for the Commune crews as if the enemy possesses range advantage it will be more difficult for them to disengage. Fifteen seconds later she received three more hits, as weak as before. While at the moment little more than a nuisance the enemy energy weapons have faster recharge rate, which may end up being problematic.
As the range falls below two hundred thousand kilometers Guantanamo receives seven hits each doing as much damage as a four megaton missile warhead would. However the railguns were in range as well scoring dozens of hits on a Hegemony destroyer Mafdet. Even so the damage output was much lower, making crews worry about the outcome of the coming battle.
Admiral Valadez was less so. The initial hits were as shocking to her as to the rest of the crew, but she realised very quickly the enemy weapons had lower range than their fire controls. She surmised that the initial light hits came from lasers, but the more powerful ones came from something that has limited range but high damage output at long range. The only weapon she could think of were particle beams, which did not dissipate with range. If that was true the best counter to them was to close. The only problem with that was that it would make it easier for the Hegemony to hit her warships. Even so she had the speed advantage and could take some risks, so she ordered her ships to close to ninety five thousand kilometers which will double the damage output of her railguns. She could close even more of course, but she was worried about the enemy point defense weapons. She hoped that with longer ranges enemy fire will be light enough to allow her to send any damaged warships to safety, but she was convinced that with range lower than ninety five thousand kilometers the enemy would have too much and too accurate fire power for that to happen.
Unfortunately the enemy particle beams had recharge time of only fifteen seconds, five seconds less than Commune anti-ship weapons. Guantanamo suffered twenty more hits receiving heavy armor damage and losing one of her one hundred millimeter railguns. Five seconds later however the Commune barrage of metal slugs annihilated Mafdet.
Following her plan Valadez ordered Guantanamo to withdraw even as she ordered her ships to switch targets. The frigate made her way to the damaged cruisers. Seconds later another enemy volley arrived scoring twelve hits on the frigate Chimoio, wiping most of her armor and destroying one heavy railgun battery and her ECM, making her much easier to hit. Once again the Admiral saw no reason to risk her and ordered a retreat. The Commune was down to thirty eight frigates already, having destroyed only a single enemy destroyer. Her mood wasn't improved by the fact that her own next volley failed to destroy the target.
The next to be hit was Wroclaw, but she survived with no internal damage and half her armor still intact, staying in formation. Her forces finally got close enough for her railguns to be twice as effective as before, allowing her to annihilate the already damaged Bennu and the newly targeted Mnevis. Unfortunately Wroclaw also received numerous hits and was left dead in space after her only fuel storage got ruptured. The next volley finished her off. However the balance was clearly shifting to the side of the Commune as they annihilated the destroyers Imhotep and Anubis.
The enemy responded by targeting Malmo and this time Valadez took no chances, ordering her to withdraw after the first Hegemony shots. The next Commune salvo targeted the destroyers Sobek and Aker and while it failed to destroy either, both fell out of formation, dead in space. They were left to the light guns, to be destroyed in passing while the fire switched to new targets. Seconds later due to unlucky hits Bruges falls out of formation, her speed halved after loss of an engine. She is immediately ordered to retreat, but she receives more damage, leaving her dead in space. Seconds later the Commune kills another destroyer, the Khonsu and heavily damages Bes.
The next to fall out of formation is Dublin. She received only moderate armor damage, but she got unlucky. She was already slightly damaged from the anti-missiles and now the relatively few hits she received managed to get through her armor, and destroyed her only fuel tank. She had all her engines but couldn't go anywhere. She wasn't alone in that predicament as the Hegemony destroyer Heket was also disabled, just as Bes was finally destroyed. Those two were followed by Mehit with Isis falling out of formation. Dublin was receiving more and more hits but miraculously she still lived.
The enemy fire switched to Orebro and Valadez orders her to retreat rather early. Moments later two more Hegemony destroyers are turned into wrecks, just as coup de grace is delivered to Isis. By this point the enemy was left with four destroyers, seventeen frigates and four lumbering, defenseless and extremely valuable carriers. Some of her officers were tempted to close the range in order to bring the point defense railguns to bear, but she was afraid what the enemy anti-missile lasers would do to her. She was down to thirty three frigates and while the Hegemony was losing warships much faster than her, she could still lose if she became overconfident. Even so the battle was basically reduced to a mop up at this point. The frigate Orebro retreated with moderate damage but was never in danger even as the enemy destroyers Ra, Osiris and Quetesh were eliminated with Nefertum being heavily damaged. The frigate Athens received some hits, but not very many and stayed in formation. It was obvious that most of the Hegemony short range firepower was in their destroyers and as those were eliminated their beams were becoming less and less of a danger.
Valadez was once again contacted by the enemy commander proposing a ceasefire and once again she refused. She wasn't initially convinced about the wisdom of the battle, but now she wanted to kill as many enemy warships as possible, to make sure all her loses were worth it. Prolonging the battle risked more loses on her side of course, but her forces were in no real danger.
Suddenly all enemy ships exploded. For a moment the Admiral was confused, not knowing what happened but then she understood. The enemy commander knew her ships were lost but didn't want to lose more lives, so she ordered her vessels abandoned and scuttled. The battle, lasting over thirteen hours, was over.
She'd love to rest, but she couldn't. Several of her ships were disabled, few more were damaged and she had to coordinate rescue of survivors from four of her own vessels and thousands, if not tens of thousand, of prisoners.
She also got the final reports of her loses. When it came to ships it was of course three cruisers and a frigate, but as other vessels were damaged, the number of dead was unconfirmed but certainly high. Now she knew for sure – she lost seventeen hundred and forty four people with another two hundred heavily wounded but stable. She was pretty sure those loses will be shocking to the public as for the longest time the Force was suffering negligible loses in its numerous conflicts. Now they've lost an entire fleet to the Destroyer and nearly two thousand more people to the Hegemony. Even so the Commune was safe, if only temporarily.
The news didn't reach New Earth for several hours due to the distances, but as soon as the Commune refused the first offer of ceasefire, there was a general aura of fear hanging over the government. Now that fear was confirmed. Steadfast, Resolute, Vengeance and Defiant were gone together with their seven hundred and twenty fighters and forty two escorting frigates and destroyers. Half the Navy was gone within a day.
The human loses were of a lesser concern to the Hegemon and his ministers, but those were significant as well. Thirteen thousand four hundred and thirty of their personnel died and another thirteen thousand three hundred and eighty three were about to be taken prisoner.
The only good news was that the Commune was now willing to negotiate rather than driving straight for New Earth to finish the Hegemony off. The government agreed to the ceasefire immediately and begun negotiating the release of the prisoners, but it won't be easy. They have nothing to offer in return and it would be in the Commune best interest to deny Hegemony their experienced personnel, especially the type that had experience fighting them. Even so the war was over.
28th July 2378
After over thirty five hours of hard work everyone has been rescued and all damaged ships had at least one fuel storage and one engine restored. The Commune forces begin to head back home for proper repairs. This will of course leave the Gibraltar Naval Base completely defenseless, aside from a couple of anti-missile orbital weapons platforms, as the mobile forces were sent to deal with the Destroyer and never assigned back, but it is considered an acceptable risk. The ceasefire is holding, the Hegemony survey ships have retreated, negotiations regarding the prisoners are ongoing and their enemy has to be hurting from losing four carrier groups, which is estimated to be anywhere from forty to sixty percent of New Earth's forces eliminated. And if Hegemony tries something against the Commune after all, another punishment expedition can be launched, possibly even into their space as there are armed gunboat flotillas available and many frigate squadrons are untouched, if low on ammunition.
It will be some time before repairs can begin as both frigate and cruiser yards around Valhalla will be busy until mid September.
