Author Topic: PC: Month 142 - On the Edge  (Read 4260 times)

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PC: Month 142 - On the Edge
« on: February 19, 2007, 08:18:21 PM »
2nd Empire of Man, Month 142
In accordance with the Emperor?s desire to bolster the defenses of the Core Sector, the following Fleet movements, reorganizations, and transfers are ordered:

1.   The 2nd Fleet detachment under the command of Vice Admiral Von Mellinthin is formally transferred to the 1st Fleet and re-designated the New Berlin Defense Group.  
2.   Twenty strike carriers from the 3rd Fleet, along with their associated escort elements, will be transferred to the 1st Fleet, New Berlin Defense Group.
3.   The nine monitors and escorts of the 1st Fleet?s Task Force currently bolstering the 4th Fleet?s presence in the Contact system on the border with the ASR?s Colmar Sector, are to be withdrawn and returned to the Capital.  

While the Imperial Fleet began reorganizing itself to bolster the defenses of the Core Sector, Admiral Stern?s forces in Axon territory were already taking advantage of the first delivery of warp line data from the ASR.  Admiral Stern did not have the authority to agree to any treaty with the ASR, of course, but both he and the ASR?s military commander, Gwynxa, were canny enough to know that if they began acting on an ?understanding? worked out between themselves, their respective governments would be forced to accept their understanding or repudiate the entire agreement, and neither thought that was likely.  

The ASR forces in Khalkfontein, at Gwynxa?s command, released information on all of the Axon warp links in the Khalkfontein chain out past the Breen and Andanlon systems.  This information revealed several inhabited systems that Imperial forces hadn?t found yet, and Admiral Stern was determined to get those systems under Terran control as soon as possible.      

Month 142, Capital Planet of New Chicago, The Empire
The Emperor continued his walk through the extensive hallways that made up the Imperial Palace.  The Palace was composed of miles of underground hallways that connected numerous above and belowground rooms.  The Palace complex had begun as an old Empire fortification before being taken over by New Chicago?s governors during the interregnum.  The Emperor had decided that the site, built into a mountain as it was, was perfect for his palace as it provided breathtaking views, elegance, and security.    

Ever since the beginning the Emperor had taken to roaming the underground hallways at night when he couldn?t sleep.  It had become a tradition, and his staff always knew when he was stressed or unhappy, because he would spend hours in the underground complex, walking and walking.  The Emperor had always felt that the underground complex was soothing.  The palace?s phalanx of technicians, engineers, and maintenance workers kept the entire complex clean and functional, and for the Emperor it was a symbol of his empire.  

Now, though, in the days since the disaster in New Berlin, the complex had changed.  The endless hallways had become foreboding instead of sheltering, and for the first time the Emperor felt the weight of the mountain above bearing down on him.  The Emperor fretted over the situation as he wandered, knowing that it was going from bad to worse.  The destructive debate continued in the Senate and the Empire was unraveling.  The Empire wanted revenge, pure and simple, and the Pax Bloc in the Senate was steadily loosing support.  Soon the genocide faction would have enough votes to ram their measure through, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.  He had tried to broker a deal, but the Paxers wouldn?t compromise and the Defense of the Empire faction, as they called themselves, knew they had the people behind them and wanted what they wanted.  When he had tried to throw his weight behind the Pax faction the Defense faction had begun a nasty campaign designed to cut him off at the knees.  And it had worked, handily.  He was impotent now, a political pariah, unable to affect the divisive debate that was tearing his Empire apart.    

He sighed as he walked, and shook his head.  His choices were limited now.  He could always disband the Senate, of course.  The errant thought made him chuckle.  Even though that was technically possible it was politically impossible.  The same campaign that had neutered him had made any such move suicide, and Senator Busch and his cohorts knew it.  No, things had progressed too far now.  

He sighed again, pondering how they had all arrived in this situation.  He had learned so much about how to rule an Empire over the years.  He still woke in a cold sweat sometimes when he thought about how politically na?ve he used to be, and about how close to disaster he had come in the beginning.  The ironic thing was that he knew just how to deal with the attack that had finally brought him down, as he had faced many similar attacks in the past.  His first experiences with such a campaign was in the days just after he had seized power at missile-point from the last, and perhaps most corrupt, governor.  His takeover was complete, his power absolute, but that hadn?t swayed the bureaucrats that really ran the Imperial government on New Chicago.  They had viewed him as a threat to their little bureaucratic empires, and feared that he was going to replace them with his favorites from the ranks of the Navy.  Masters of their bureaucratic domains, they had believed themselves unassailable to any tool the new and inexperienced Emperor could bring to bear aside from a direct assault by marines, which they half hoped they could provoke him into doing so as to ?show the people his true colors?.   The bureaucrats had begun a vicious campaign of rumors and innuendoes, backed up by work slow-downs that increased the inefficiency of a government that was already known for inefficiency.  

While the bureaucrat?s attack on the new Emperor might seem petty in some ways, it was a potentially lethal threat at the time.  The Emperor?s position was still fragile, and in large part the people had supported him because he promised change and a new, more efficient and responsive government.  If he allowed the bureaucrats to continue, or if he cracked down and replaced them with his cronies, then he would only be showing everyone that he was no better than any of the despotic governors that he had replaced.   Of course, being a military man his first instinct was to attack, and he really, really wanted to throw the ministry heads into a deep, dark cell.  After thinking about the situation, though, and consulting with his civilian advisors and most particularly with his daughter, he developed a different plan.  He had announced sweeping changes to the government, and hidden in those changes were the creation of a new Inspector General for the government.  The Inspector General?s office was staffed by veteran law enforcement people recommended by his daughter, and was given carte blanche to investigate corruption wherever it went.  

The results were dramatic.  Within a month the new Inspector General?s Office had dozens of major and minor government employees under arrest, and within six months the bureaucrats that had threatened the Emperor had all either retired or resigned under investigation for violating rules and regulations that in many cases they themselves had written but which they never had expected to enforce, except against those that had displeased them.  

The Emperor smiled as he remembered his first real victory after taking power.  It was the first step in his education as a politician, and he had come a long way since.  The smile faded as he considered his current situation.  He knew he could fight back, but the only way he could fight the rumor and innuendo campaign leveled against him by the pro-genocide group was to shift the blame for the deaths of so many innocent civilians on to others, and he just couldn?t do that.  Ultimately it was his responsibility, both directly and indirectly.  It was his policies that had left New Berlin undefended, and ultimately it had been his decision to go to war with the Axons, no matter how many other people wanted that war.  Admitting that responsibility would have been political suicide, though, and it had been the hardest thing he had ever had to do to accept the resignation of the Admirals, many of whom were old, old friends, and not stand up and admit his own culpability.  Doing so would have crippled him politically, though, at a time when the Empire was at war and under great threat.  

He chuckled at that thought.  Ducking responsibility hadn?t done him any good in the end, anyway.  He was still crippled politically and unable to affect the great debate going on in the Senate that could potentially change humanity?s fate.  With that thought the entire situation crystallized for him.  He knew what he had to do.  He turned to head back to his offices, and for the first time since the destruction of New Berlin his shoulders were straight and he walked with a purpose.  

The first thing he did was call a meeting of his privy council.  The councilors weren?t surprised at his decision, and to be honest, he was pretty sure that most of them had expected him too get to this point much earlier.  The next was his Admirals, who would need to know what was happening and why.  The next, and most important was his daughter, who had arrived in the Capital only the day before by burning out a fast scout?s drives.  Finally, he met with the leaders of the Senate, none of whom seemed surprised.  

And so it was that the very next day, Day 5 of Month 142, he gave what would become his final speech to the Empire.  The speech was carried live throughout New Chicago, and was broadcast via the ICN to every corner of the Empire.  ?Fellow citizens, I come before you now to apologize for my role in the catastrophe in New Berlin.  Others have taken responsibility and resigned before me, but the ultimate responsibility is mine.  I was in charge, and I led all of us down the path that led to New Berlin.  I have done my best to guide and protect the Empire, but it is now apparent that mistakes have been made, and, as I said, ultimately I am responsible for those mistakes.  Therefore, effective on Day 10 of this month, I am abdicating the throne in favor of my daughter, the Princess Katrina, Governor General of the New Territories Sector and Heir Apparent to the Throne of the Empire of Man.   In this time of change I ask that all governmental officers and officials do their utmost to minimize any uncertainty and unrest that the public might feel.  I am certain that my daughter will lead the Empire with vigor and intelligence, and that you will all love her as I do.?  The Emperor paused and looked down, and when he raised his head again there were tears in his eyes.  ?Goodbye.  It has been an honor to serve all of you.?

With that the speech was over, and so was the reign of Emperor Anton I.   The next week was spent preparing for Princess Katrina?s coronation and the formal swearing in before the Senate.  Princess Katrina and her father spent most of their time closeted together trying to come up with a plan of action to deal with the divisive debate that was dragging on in the Senate.  The problem was that neither side was willing to compromise, and with the Emperor?s current difficulties no one had the strength to make them compromise.  The Pax bloc refused to countenance any large-scale bombardment of a populated world, while the New Berlin bloc, as they had come to be known, said they wanted nothing less than the destruction of the Axon race.  The Emperor was fairly sure that most of the New Berlin bloc would be willing to settle for limited reprisals against several Axon worlds, and had proposed just such a compromise, but the leaders of the Pax bloc refused to contemplate any compromise that led to the deaths of so many people, which left the Emperor?s effort dead in the water.  

While unrest stirred in the heart of the Empire, the Imperial 7th Fleet was already on the move.  The bulk of the 7th was located in the Axon system of Khalkfontein, and had just received the first download of warp line information from the ASR after Admiral Stern accepted the ASR?s offer of a limited alliance.  Admiral Stern had moved the bulk of his heavy ships and carriers back to cover the warp point in Khalkfontein that led back to the Breen and Andalon systems, to cover them from any further Axon suicide raids, while the rest of his lighter forces spread out down the warp lines that had been revealed by the ASR.  Ground units now staging on Breen and Andalon were preparing to move out into these newly opened areas, and heavy reinforcements were on their way.  Admiral Stern?s orders had made it clear that his number one priority was to find the Axon bolthole and destroy their base of operations as soon as possible.  

The coronation of Princess Katrina went off without a hitch, and in spite of its rushed nature, was welcomed by citizens throughout the Empire with joy inspired, perhaps, by their hopes for a new beginning.  The Senate confirmation went well also, perhaps most because the Senate?s only function in this matter was to determine if the Heir was physically and mentally fit for the position, and that the Heir was actually the intended successor of the last to occupy the throne, and given the circumstances there wasn?t much doubt of that.

And so it was that just two days after her coronation Empress Katrina I met with Senator Busch in the Imperial Gardens outside of the Capitol Complex.  She found the Senator sitting at the meeting site, waiting for her to arrive, and for a second or two she paused halfway hidden behind a hedge to observe the man.  She couldn?t help but view him as an enemy, given his role in her father?s downfall, but here, now, watching him without his knowing, she couldn?t help but feel pity for him.  Senator Busch was a large, florid man, known for his big booming voice and geniality that was legendary in the Capital.   In the weeks since the destruction of New Berlin Prime he had lost weight, to the point that his clothes hung loosely on him, and in this moment of privacy his face was haggard, as if he hadn?t slept in days.  Still, he rallied gamely when she entered the clearing.   ?Empress,? he said, coming to his feet, ?it is an honor to meet with you so soon after your coronation.?

?Senator, given the situation, I felt that meeting with you had to be my top priority.?  She gestured towards the low bench facing the small pond and they both sat.  ?The situation in the Senate cannot be allowed to continue.  The people expect us to resolve this and move on with the work of ensuring their safety.?

Senator Busch had been a politician almost his entire life, and he was too good to let his feelings show on his face.  Besides, he really didn?t know which way the Empress was going to come down on this, as she had been careful to avoid revealing her feelings on the situation prior to her ascension to the throne.   ?I agree, your majesty.  The whole point of our position is to show the other races that we are powerful and that it is dangerous to attack us.  All this endless debate does is show them that we are indecisive and weak.  We must act!?  Given what he had done to her father it was unlikely that she would support him, but there was always a chance, and the opposition to his plan to eliminate the Axons was growing weaker by the day.  A brand new Empress would have little hope of stopping the steamroller he had put together, but her help would sway most of the last holdouts to his side and assure victory.  

?I agree, entirely.?  He looked up hopefully, but before he could say anything she continued.  ?However, and this is why I asked for this meeting, I will not countenance large-scale nuclear bombardment of any inhabited planet.  Period.?

For a few seconds Senator Busch was caught off guard and his control slipped.  No one ever just came out with what they really meant like that.  It just wasn?t done.  Taking a deep breath he shook himself, and in spite of her unflinching statement of opposition he felt his self-assurance returning.  All she had done was reveal her inexperience in the high-stakes game that went on day in and day out in the capital.  ?Majesty, I am sorry to hear that you oppose my plan.  However, your opposition will mean little at this late date, I?m afraid.?

Katrina saw him square his shoulders and she realized that he really believed in his cause, that it wasn?t just revenge that he wanted.  She sighed.  It would have been so much easier for her if he was venal and she could dislike him.  ?Senator, I?m sure you will get enough votes to carry your measure.  You might even have them already.  However, I will veto any measure calling for bombardment of inhabited planets.?

Senator Busch rose in anger.  ?If you do that you?ll be committing political suicide!  The people are with me in this.  They want revenge, and they want the other races to know how dangerous it is to attack humans!?  He was breathing hard, and after a second he turned away from her to look out over the pond.  ?Don?t make the same mistake your father did.?

Katrina stood and walked over to the Senator, who still stood with his back to her.  ?Senator, make no mistake, I will fight you on this, and I will fight to the end.  The only reason my father allowed you to take him down was because he believed in the accusations that your supporters spread behind his back.  He believed that he was responsible for what happened to New Berlin, and maybe he was.  In any case, he allowed you to pull him down as a down payment on what he thought he owed for leaving your system and so many others unguarded.?  She paused and reached out to the Senator.  Although her touch was gentle, he felt himself pulled around to face her.  ?I am not my father, Senator Busch.  I will not order the fleet to bombard a living world, and even if I did I?m not sure they would follow such an order.  It violates the founding principles of the Imperial Navy, which dates back to the founding of the first Empire.  How many officers are you willing to court martial??

He felt anger growing in him.  An anger that had become familiar in the last few weeks.  Anger for his children and grandchildren that never had a chance when the missiles came.  Anger for the hopes and dreams of an entire planet that had been snuffed out in one terrible moment.  He balled up that anger and threw it back at her.  ?There are a lot of admirals and captains in the fleet.  Sooner or later we?ll find one that will do what is right.  If the others won?t, then they aren?t worth their commissions.?  Now that he had unleashed his anger he could feel his control over his emotions slipping bit by bit.  ?Don?t you see?  I?ve got to do this for them!  For everyone on New Berlin that is never going to have a chance because of those bastards!?  In his mind?s eye he could see his granddaughter, just two years old, with her dark curls and intelligent eyes, always into everything she could reach.  Her image brought tears to his eyes and they spilled down his cheeks unnoticed.  ?I?m doing it for her, and I won?t let you or anyone else stop me!?

?Senator, I know why you are doing this, but it is wrong.  Surely you must see that??  When he didn?t answer she continued.  ?If we begin indiscriminant bombing of Axon planets we won?t be any better than them.  We?ll be killing everyone, just like they did.  Old, young, infants even, the bombs won?t care.  Is that a fitting memorial for the dead of New Berlin??  Still he didn?t reply.  ?Tearing the Empire apart and committing genocide, even after the provocation we?ve had, is not going to make us stronger, it?s going to make us weaker.  Surely you must see that!?

The tears had stopped and for a few seconds he merely looked at her.  When he finally spoke his voice was so low that she could barely hear him.  ?There?s no other alternative.  We must show the other races that we are strong, that we won?t let this happen to us without answer.?  His voice gained in strength as he spoke, as if he was tapping an inner reservoir of strength.  ?The Axons deserve to die for what they?ve done, and the weak minded Paxers only solution is a so-called ?re-education? program!?  His voice rose in contempt at the mention of the Pax Bloc?s proposed alternative to genocide.  Her raised hand cut him off before he could continue.  

?That?s why I asked you to come here, Senator.  I have an alternative.  It is a compromise, to be sure.  It?s nowhere close to what you want, but if it will make you feel any better I?m sure that the Pax Bloc will like it even less than you will.?  She gestured at the bench and took a seat herself.  

Senator Busch felt his heart hardening against any alternative proposal, but he did sit down.  Every so-called alternative had just been another namby-pamby way of coddling the Axons, in his opinion.  Still, she was the Empress.  ?I?m listening, highness, but I promise nothing.?

?Senator, as I said before, I agree that the Axons must pay, however, I disagree with your methods.  Not all Axons deserve to die for the actions of a few.  Condemning the old, the infirm, the babies to death for the actions of the Axon leadership and military is just as barbaric as their bombardment of our worlds.  I also agree that the other races must see that we will not let such a barbarous action go unanswered, but again, I want to teach this lesson without convincing them that we are as bad as the Axons.  Therefore, I will issue an Imperial Decree making membership in the Axon military or government, now or at any time in the past, a capital offense.  Immediately after issuing that decree I will order the Imperial Army to begin operations to dismantle the Axon government and arrest all government workers in all territories that we control.  And because the Axon government is synonymous with their religious hierarchy that will also mean that most, if not all, of their religious leadership will also be arrested.  Any Axon who was a member of either of those organizations at any time will be arrested, tried, and executed.  And the only matter to be determined at trial will be their membership in said organizations, not their actions.

Senator Busch stared at her, intrigued in spite of himself.  She?d said the last with a firmness in her voice that surprised him.  ?Well, I?ll say this for you, Majesty, you are right.  Senator Sampson is going to hate this proposal almost as much as mine.?  Senator Sampson was the leader of the Pax Bloc, and was completely opposed to capital punishment in any form.  

?Actually, Senator, I think I?ll have a harder time convincing Senator Sampson about this than I will you.?

A chuckle escaped from him and Busch looked at the Empress in surprise.  ?You think I?ll take you up on this, do you??

?Yes, Senator, I do.  I think you are really a good man, and I think that you know that what you are proposing is wrong.  It?s just that there aren?t any good alternatives.  That?s what I?m trying to do here, offer an alternative that is less bad than any of the others.  My proposal isn?t perfect, and there are a lot of Axons who never did anything but stamp letters or shuffle paper that are going to be executed for nothing more than doing their jobs, but at least my way our ?lesson? is targeted.  We won?t be killing children or the shopkeeper down the street.  We will, however, stamp out the Axon government, their military, and their church as if they never existed.  I think that will be an object lesson that is drastic enough to make the other races take notice.?

?Who would be trying the Axons?  The Army?  And who will provide oversight??

With those questions Katrina knew she had won.  Everything else was just details.

The meeting with Senator Busch was just the first of many, as he insisted on positions for himself and his supporters in the organization set up to oversee the implementation of Order 362, as it would become known.  Senator Sampson never did agree to the compromise, but many of his supporters did, mainly because they agreed that there should be some penalty to the Axon race for their behavior.  Because the order didn?t reach the level of genocide, though, Senator Sampson was never able to rally enough support to oppose it, especially given the way the new Empress was able to sell it to the rest of the Empire.   That?s not to say that it went forward unopposed, because it didn?t.  Senator Sampson held together his core group and fought a rear-guard action every step of the way, but ultimately he didn?t have the support to do more than delay the implementation of the Order.  

One week after the coronation of Empress Katrina the Senate approved Imperial Order 362, which while it was not strictly necessary because of Senate support, was the most certain way to ensure that her program was carried out.  The Senate approved the allocation of vast amounts of money for the program, most of which went towards occupation and support troops for newly conquered Axon worlds.  

***********************************************************************
Month 142, Axon Frontier, Refuge
The Prophet?s Voice looked down at Bishop Korand, who had so recently been the Prophet?s Representative for the glorious mission against the Terrans.  Korand, who had recently returned to the exile capital after the mission, was trying to look cool and calm, but the Voice could easily see the effect he was having on his subordinate, just from the agitated way his facial tentacles were writhing.  Enjoying the moment, he let Korand stand there in silence for a few more seconds.  Finally, deciding that the younger Axon had had enough, he spoke ? ?You?ve done well, Korand.  Very well indeed.?

It took all of Korand?s will power to keep his back straight and an expression of relief off of his face.  Truly, he knew that he had done his best, but the Prophet?s Voice was notorious for having extremely high standards, and he had failed to find and attack any other Terran systems.  Korand jumped when the Voice continued, wondering guiltily if the Voice was listening to his thoughts.

?True, you failed miserably to find and attack any other Terran systems, but I have already spoken with the Prophet and he has agreed to overlook that failure in light of the damage that you have done to the Empire.  The blow you struck will echo down through the ages!  Billions sacrificed for the honor of the one true god!  You have done well indeed!?

?The Prophet is truly merciful and just.  I abase myself before his wisdom.?  

?As we all do, son.  And now I have another mission for you.  This mission is as important as your last, if not more so.?

A smile flittered across Korand?s tentacles.  ?I have heard that the Legions of Retribution are to be sent out again, this time against the ASR.  I look forward to implementing god?s judgment against the heathens of the ASR.?

?The Legions will be going out against the ASR, but you will not be going with them.  We have another mission for you.?  So they were angry with him, after all.  

Korand?s smile disappeared as if it had never existed and he bowed low before the Voice.  ?I live to serve, Excellency.?

The Voice chuckled.  ?Worry not, Bishop.  The mission we are giving you could mean life or death for god?s church.  I would only trust it to someone in whom I had complete faith, and that person is you.  Your performance in Terran space convinced me that you have the intelligence and faith that I need in these dark days.?

Korand felt the world closing in around him.  He was being honored, greatly, but with such honor came an even greater chance of losing it all.  One misstep and he would be cast down without a second thought.  He must be very careful now.   ?I am honored by your trust, Excellency.?

?As you should be.  You will go immediately to the spaceport.  There you will board a shuttle that will deliver you to a ship that has been made available by the Navy.   Once there you will proceed to the Malkhor system and make contact with the aliens that have taken control of that system.  Your mission is to convince those aliens that an alliance with us against the ASR and the Empire is desirable.  We can offer them quite a bit of intelligence concerning the ASR, including the existence of cloaking device that they used to defeat us and the presence of the ASR fleet.  We have been receiving information from the systems along the warp chain in between Axon Prime and Xanti Prime, and it appears that the main ASR fleet is advancing on the aliens in the Malkhor system.  If the aliens appear amenable to an alliance, we can give them all the operational details we have on the cloaking device and the location and composition of the ASR fleet.  You are authorized to agree to allow our fleet to fight along side theirs, if they request it.  The only thing we would ask in return is that they refrain from advancing into our territory and that they assist us in securing our borders against the foul Terrans and the perfidious ASR.?

Korand?s mind was already working.  The Voice had spoken truly, this was a very important mission.  It was also unlikely to succeed, given the fact that the alien invaders that had taken Malkhor and several other systems had done so without even attempting to negotiate.  Still, that made the fruits of success all the more sweet.  If he succeeded not only would he have secured the future of the church but there would be no limits to his career.  

Even as Korand?s ship set out for Malkhor, the two Legions that had performed the raid in Terran space were finishing taking aboard munitions and supplies.  Soon after Korand departed they lifted out of orbit and set out for the warp point back to the main warp chain.  En route to the warp point they were joined by two freshly commissioned Legions that were still shaking down.  Their mission was a raid into the ASR much like the recent raid into Terran space.  Unfortunately, the Axons did not possess a closed warp point into ASR space, so this raid would have to proceed somewhat differently.  The plan was to proceed back up the warp chain towards the main chain between Axon Prime and Xanti Prime.  Once they reached the main chain they would proceed back towards Axon Prime.  The newly established Axon Naval Command was monitoring the ASR fleet that was advancing down the chain towards Xanti Prime and the alien invaders, and once the advancing Legions entered the same system as the ASR Fleet they would go to full speed and proceed back up the chain towards Axon Prime, while avoiding all contact with ASR units.  The four Legions assigned to the raid were ordered to break into the Axon home system, pass through it, and then launch a raid against as many ASR worlds as they could reach before returning to Axon space.  

Ordinarily such a raid would be foolhardy and likely impossible, but the Axon high command felt it had several advantages at this point.  First, having decisively defeated the assembled Axon Legions the ASR was obviously focused on the alien invaders in Malkhor, and would not be prepared for such a strike.  Secondly, the ASR likely had not had time to re-build the frontier defenses that had been destroyed twice in the last several years.  Thirdly, the reports gathered from the Axon systems that the ASR fleet had passed through indicated that the ASR commander was only detaching minimal forces to picket his rear as he advanced, which meant that it was unlikely that the raiding force would encounter significant opposition.  Finally, once the raiding group accelerated to their full speed of 20,000 KPS, the ASR was going to have a devil of a time catching them, even if their own ships went to full speed.  

Privately, the raid planners in the navy high command were doubtful that any of the ships of the raid force would reach their target, and none of them gave the raid force any chance at all of returning to Axon controlled space, but everyone was pretty sure that the raid would cause much confusion and consternation in areas that the ASR considered to be under their control.  
       
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Month 142, Xeon Democratic State
Admiral Constantine could feel the sweat prickling his neck under the stiff collar of his uniform and wished for what seemed like the hundredth time that the Navy had picked a more comfortable uniform for its flag officers to wear.  Here he was, embarking on what could be one of the most momentous events in the history of the State, and all he could think about was his sweaty collar.  

Straightening in his seat he looked around the combat bridge of his flagship to see if anyone had noticed his distraction, but much to his relief no one had.  The bridge was full of bustling activity as his squadron prepared to jump out, and everyone seemed to be focused on their own stations and the people around them.  Although he would never admit it, he still felt somewhat insecure around the other officers, all of whom were long service professionals rather than political admirals like himself.  He was fairly sure that they looked down on him and others like him, as if they were better somehow.  

Well, he would show them all what he was capable of.  That idiot Strang established contact with the ASR and just because he was in the right place at the right time his career was rehabilitated.  When he established contact with the aliens on the far side of this war point it would do wonders for his career, and that of Admiral Balusek, his mentor.  Nothing would be allowed to come in between the benefits this contact would bring the State, and he was determined to bring those benefits home.  

?Sir, the Acton and the Bridgefield report that they are ready to jump.  Admiral Telford has acknowledged that the rest of the Battle Group is at ready status and is prepared to support us.?  The flagship?s first officer waited for his response.

?Very well.  Inform Captain Keller that I authorize transit, and that he may proceed when ready.?  

?Sir.?  The first officer relayed his orders to the Captain, who was on the cruiser?s main bridge.  The combat bridge quieted as the crew took their stations and prepared for transit.  After a short wait the Captain?s voice came across the bridge?s speaker.

?All hands, this is the Captain.  Prepare to transit in thirty seconds.  I repeat, prepare to transit in thirty seconds.?

Admiral Constantine braced himself for the upcoming transit.  It would be his second, and he really didn?t like the first at all.  In fact, he had almost thrown up and he was pretty sure that the ratings on the combat bridge had noticed his nausea and were snickering at him behind his back.  Even as he wondered if the ratings were watching him the final countdown started.  

?Prepare for transit in five?four?three?two?one?Transit!?  

Constantine felt the same imperceptible, indescribable ?lurch? that he felt last time.  This time, though, he was prepared for it and he felt a fair amount of pride that what little nausea he felt didn?t show on his face.  Of course, even though he rode it out much better this time it still seemed like everyone else on the combat bridge recovered before he did.  Even as he began to pull himself together he could hear the crew working to bring the cruiser back under control.  Officers could be heard reporting the ship?s status on the bridge repeater that relayed everything said on the main bridge to the combat bridge.  

?Engines on line, control systems recovering.?

?Navigation and helm computers rebooting, helm answering all stop at this time.?

?Active sensors are down, long range sensors are down as well, passive sensor search initiated.?

Report after report rolled into the combat bridge while Admiral Constantine struggled to get his senses under control.  He had finally gotten oriented when things began to go wrong.  

?Position confirmed.  We are forty-eight light minutes from the inhabited planet previously noted, bearing??  

The helm officer was cut off by another voice.  ?Contact bearing 124 by 020, range two light seconds.  The contact reads as a buoy or other low power object.?

Admiral Constantine cursed to himself.  One of his mission priorities was to maintain the secrecy of the location of the warp point back to Xeon space.  If that was a detection buoy, then he had blown that in the first few seconds of the mission.  The planners back home had been afraid that this might happen, given the warp point?s proximity to the inner system and a heavily populated planet, but he had hoped that he would be able to conceal the warp point?s location at least until contact was established.  The next report was even worse, though.  

?Long range sensors are up.  Scanning?Contact!  Three drive fields bearing 010 by 032, range eight light seconds, designated Alpha-01.  Multiple drive field contacts, now.  Contact Alpha-01 now reads as three battle cruisers.  Contact designated as Alpha-02 now reads as three destroyers.  Five other drive field contacts within detection range.  

?Captain Keller, bring us to a halt relative to the battle cruisers and initiate first contact procedures.?

?Aye, aye, sir.  Helm all stop.  Communications, begin standard contact procedures.?

The trio of Xeon heavy cruisers came to a halt just off of the warp point and began broadcasting standard first contact messages that had been developed from protocols provided by the ASR, which had a lot of experience establishing contact with other races.   The alien battle cruisers, after hesitating for a minute, began to move slowly towards the heavy cruisers.  They came to a halt at six light seconds range from the warp point and then sat there.  The Xeon cruisers had their sensors wide open, listening for any response in any electromagnetic wavelength.  The alien ships made no response whatsoever.          

After ten minutes Admiral Constantine began to fidget, and ten minutes after that he began to pace.  Thirty minutes after the Xeon ships entered the system he ordered all three ships to begin transmitting to all contacts within range, including the inhabited planet.  Thirty more minutes passed without a response.  Unwilling to give up, Admiral Constantine ordered the communications attempts to proceed.  

Two hours later the first group of unidentified drive field contacts had closed to the point that it could be resolved.  During that entire time the three alien battle cruisers, which had been joined by three destroyers, had remained at eight light seconds and appeared to be completely ignoring Xeon attempts to open communications.   Admiral Constantine was meeting with his flag captain when the watch officer broke the news.

Captain Keller?s face was grim as he passed on the information.  ?Sir, our database can?t come up with any match for those ships.  They are bigger than anything that we?ve ever seen.  The computers are working on an analysis now, but our best guess is that they are twenty-five percent larger than a Gallant class superdreadnought, which would make them substantially larger than two and a half times the size of our cruisers.  And there are six of them in that group alone, and there are now ten other unidentified drive field contacts closing on us.?

Admiral Constantine collapsed in his seat, his face ashen.  This was just getting worse and worse.  They had spent three hours trying to initiate communications with the alien ships, and during that time there had been absolutely no indication that they even knew that the Xeon ships were trying to talk to them.  And now this.  

Seeing the Admiral?s reaction, Captain Keller pressed on.  ?Sir, I think that we should retreat through the warp point immediately.?

?And abandon the attempt to make first contact??  The words were sharp, but Admiral Constantine?s heart wasn?t in it.  His career rested on establishing friendly contact with these aliens, but it was becoming apparent even to him that that wasn?t likely to happen at this point.  

?I don?t think we are going to get them to talk to us, sir.  I think they are waiting to build up their strength, at which time they will attack.?

Admiral Constantine gave voice to the fear that was foremost in his mind.  ?Do you think that these might be the ?Eaters? that the ASR is so hysterical about??  The high command had discounted the ASR?s reports about the Eaters as a recruiting ploy to encourage newly contacted races to join their alliance.  He had thought so too, or at least he had until now.  

?Sir, I don?t know.  I do know, however, that the actions these aliens have taken are not friendly.  No one would send huge ships like those unless they either felt very threatened or they were very aggressive.  We haven?t taken any actions that would be considered aggressive by anyone, except for being where we are.  If the aliens were truly interested in talking with us, those three battle cruisers out there should have sufficed for the job, and given the fact that they out-mass our squadron by thirty-three percent the should feel safe.  Instead they are vectoring an unknown number of ships towards us and ignoring our attempts to initiate contact.?

Admiral Constantine sagged in his chair, his chances of promotion and fame falling in ruins around him.  For a few seconds he frantically tried to think of a way out of this, but eventually he realized that his flag captain was right.  He straightened and squared his shoulders.  ?Captain, I am ordering the squadron back through the warp point.  Further, I am ordering you to launch a single missile, with its warhead disarmed, at the nearest enemy battle cruiser.?  Seeing the captain?s face he hurried on.  ?I know, we are beyond our normal engagement range.  That?s okay, I don?t particularly want to hit them, I just want to warn them against transiting through after us.  Once we are on the far side, the battle group will withdraw fifteen light seconds in-system from the warp point.  Our orders prohibit us from shooting first, so I don?t want us too close to the warp point if they do come through.?

Captain Keller?s smile was tinged with a relief that indicated that he hadn?t been sure that the Admiral would be so reasonable about his response to the situation.  He stood and saluted.  ?Very good sir.?

The three Xeon cruisers turned and retreated towards the warp point.  One by one they went through.  Just before the command ship transited out it launched a single standard missile at the nearest alien battle cruiser.  The missile had no chance of hitting, and the alien ship never even moved, although it did track the missile with it?s point defense systems.  

Once the Xeon ships were gone, the battle cruisers moved in closer to the warp point and launched numerous small craft, which swarmed around the warp point in defensive formations.  Shortly after the Xeon ships transited out, numerous new drive fields appeared around the warp point, at distances that ranged from one to six light minutes.  More than two hundred and fifty ships had been scattered around the area, to await the return of the unknown ship that had transited into the Eater system, along with more than a hundred detection buoys.  Now they had the location of the warp point, and a new Chaos Elimination effort could begin.  

Once transit was complete, the six cruisers and six frigates of Admiral Constantine?s battle group moved away from the warp point at full military power.  Five minutes later they settled into position fifteen light seconds from the warp point and began their long wait.  Admiral Constantine sent out several reports detailing the situation, alerting the high command to the fact that contact had not gone the way they had hoped.  One hour after they transited, Captain Keller asked to speak with the Admiral in his briefing room.  

?Sir, I felt that you had to see this right away.?  The captain called up a file on the room?s terminal and a holo image appeared over the desk.  

The image was wavering and difficult to see, but after peering at it for a few seconds Admiral Constantine gasped.  ?But that?s??

Captain Keller was grim.  ?Yes, sir.  I think we can now definitively say that the aliens we just tried to establish contact with were in fact the ASR?s Eaters.  During our entire time on the far side of the warp point my sensor team had our optics trained on the nearest alien ship.  Normally we wouldn?t bother, given the distance and the lack of detail, but given the fact that these are theoretically unknown aliens I decided to give them a chance.  It took a lot of computer processing to put this image together out of data streams from all of our optics, but there it is.?

They both gazed at the alien ship.  In spite of being fuzzy and nearly lost against the black of space, the basic form was clear, largely because at one point the ship had passed in front of the relatively nearby world and had been lit from behind.  The ship was a flattened ovoid, matte black, with numerous spiky protuberances on its hull.  It was totally and utterly alien, and Constantine was pretty sure that even if he hadn?t seen the images of the Eater?s ships that had been provided by the ASR he would still have felt that the ship oozed fear and horror, just from the way it looked.  It was nothing like anything that a human would build, or any other known species for that matter.  

After seconds had stretched into minutes as the two men pondered the unmistakably Eater ship, Constantine shook himself.  ?This changes everything, Captain.  We must get this information off to the home world immediately.  Perhaps we should move in closer to the warp point?the Eaters?our colony??  Admiral Constantine realized he really didn?t have the first idea of what to do.  He was a political admiral, after all, appointed by the State to ensure that central command?s directives were carried out.  Usually a political admiral would act as the deputy to a regular admiral, but for this mission the Political Directorate had wanted its own man in charge.  Now it had all gone to hell, and the only Xeon population outside of the home system was right behind them.  Constantine shook himself again.  There was only one thing to do.  ?Captain Keller, what would you recommend at this point??

If Captain Keller felt anything less than total respect for his superior officer he didn?t let it reach his face.  ?Sir, if we are going to make a stand, we should do it at the warp point.  We could make them fight at our most effective range, and I don?t know about you, but I don?t want to close through those behemoth?s missile range.?

?If we make a stand at the warp point, can we stop them??

?No sir, we can?t.  They?ll roll right over us and likely keep going until they reach the colony.  I?m just saying that we have the best chance to inflict some damage at the warp point.  If we try to engage those monster ships in deep space they wipe us out before we can close to our own weapon?s range.  That means either we try to act as a speed bump at the warp point, and likely get wiped out after causing some damage to their lead ships, or we instead try to shadow them when they enter the system, and pass any intelligence that we gather back to fleet command.?

?IF these are Eaters, and I think we both know that they are, then they will have only one goal, and that is the destruction of any population centers in this system.  Are you saying that we should stand by and allow that to happen??

?Sir, that is going to happen whether we fight them or not.  The simple fact is that these Eaters have the numbers to wipe this squadron out several times over.  I think the best we can do is relay information back to fleet command and let them make the decision about where we should fight.?

Admiral Constantine sighed.  ?You are right, of course.  If we had any chance of stopping them, or even slowing them down, I?d order us back to the warp point.  But against those ships,? he gestured at the display rotating above the desk, ?I don?t think we have a chance.  Very well.?

?Sir, there is something else.?  Captain Keller hesitated as he gauged his superior?s mood.  ?Sir, if this is the Eaters then we cannot retreat from this system.  Doing so would only show them the route back to the home system.  They?ll discover it sooner or later anyway, but we have to do our best to make sure that the home world has enough time to prepare.  We cannot take any action that would give them what they need.?

Admiral Constantine stared at his flag captain for a few seconds, wondering if he should be angry at the implication that he would order such a retreat.  After considering it, he realized that his inferiority complex no longer mattered.  Captain Keller was right, one way or another they would die here, because they didn?t dare retreat.  Against certain death and the threat that now hung over their entire civilization, all of his prior concerns and fears seemed so petty and small.  ?You are right, of course.  Thank you for reminding me.?  Five hours later, the first transits were detected at the warp point.  

Admiral Constantine happened to be on the bridge, conferring with Captain Keller when the alien ships began transiting in.  ?Sir, multiple transits detected!  They read as pinnaces, but something is strange about the readings.  The number has now stabilized at forty-eight on the warp point.?  Several seconds passed as the squadron?s sensors strained to gather every bit of information about the invaders that they could.  ?New contact at the warp point.  This one is much larger, definitely ship strength.  The contact now reads as the new ship class designated as monitor class ships.?

All eyes turned to Admiral Constantine as he digested this news.  ?Communications, prepare to broadcast to the alien ships.  Wide area broadcast, all known languages: This is Xeon space.  You are ordered not move beyond the immediate area around the warp point or you will be fired on.  Transmit immediately.?  He knew it was fruitless, he knew that they were Eaters and that he would never get a response, but he had to try.  

The transmission went out as a second monitor transited in, followed by a third.  Once the third monitor had entered the system, destroyers started entering in rapid sequence, accompanied by more of the odd pinnaces.  The aliens ignored the Xeon transmissions, but they did stay close to the warp point.   Admiral Constantine sent additional messages out via the ICN to warn his superiors of the deteriorating situation.    

The Xeon ships were forced to sit and watch as ship after ship entered their colony system.  Their horror mounted as the magnitude of their mistake became clear.  The stream of ships ended after approximately two hundred ships entered the system, including forty-two of the monstrous monitors.  The Eater ships now in the system out-massed the entire Xeon Fleet and Defense Command several times over.  

Their transit complete, most of the Eater fleet set out for the inner system.  A small group of destroyers and battle cruisers remained at the warp point, while a second group of twelve destroyers and six battle cruisers set out directly for the Xeon squadron at 7,500 KPS.  

Admiral Constantine ordered his group into retreat and sent more messages to the high command.    

Admiral Constantine?s first messages arrived in the home system fifteen hours later.  Grand Admiral Balusek immediately informed the President?s office of the situation, and was called to the Palace an hour later to confer with the President.  The current President had seized power from her predecessor fifteen years ago, and most would agree that she had been a fair and just ruler for the most part.  She had maintained her power by playing off her subordinates against each other, but for the most part had avoided the worst of the inevitable governmental inefficiencies that such schemes imposed.  

Admiral Balusek was concerned about the reports coming out of the Golan system, but things still appeared to be manageable at that point.  During the meeting he suggested mobilizing the fleet and deploying it to the warp point defenses to the Golan system, which the President approved.  The President also approved Balusek?s suggestion of approving Admiral Constantine?s plan to shadow the alien fleet if it entered the Golan system.  They both agreed that it would be best to get more intelligence on this new race before sending the fleet into a potential conflict.  The entire meeting took twenty minutes.  

One hour later Admiral Balusek was back, and this time he was considerably more concerned, if not outright panicked.  He was shown into the President?s working office without delay and without any preamble he put the hard copy of the alien ship that Admiral Constantine had sent on the desk in front of the President.  ?Ma?am, I think we have a very big problem here.?  He knew he was in a very delicate situation, given the fact that the President had decided to ignore the strange absence of electromagnetic transmissions in the alien system and go ahead with the contact effort, in spite of the warnings by both the ASR and the Alliance about the hostile alien race known as the Eaters.  The half-hearted protests and warnings of caution by her advisors had been swept aside by her certitude that the aliens would prove to be valuable allies.  Such certitude and a definite willingness to act had proved to be strengths in the past, but occasionally they led her down dead-ends that had proved to be difficult to extract the State from.  

The President looked at the hard copy image and shrugged.  ?What am I looking at??  

?That is an image of one of the ships that Admiral Constantine is facing in the Golan system.  His ships captured that image just before they transited out of the alien system.  It appears to be a match for the images that both the ASR and the Alliance provided to us as proof of the existence of the aliens that the ASR calls the Eaters.  According to all of the information provided, the Eaters are completely incapable of communication and diplomacy, and will attack any race that contacts them.  They appear to have only one goal, to wipe out any opposing civilization and then use the surviving members of the race as food animals.  If that is an Eater ship, and it certainly appears to be one, then we are in very big trouble.  The ASR, which has an economy fifty times the size of ours, barely beat off a recent attack by the Eaters, and the founders of the Alliance only survived by abandoning their planet and running.?

The President frowned at the picture for a second, as if she could intimidate the image into changing into something more palatable.  Finally she looked up.  ?I decided that the Eaters that the ASR and the Alliance were raving about were nothing but recruiting ploys devised to convince gullible newly contacted races to join them.  I made that decision based on information you and my other advisors provided to me.  Now it appears that you were wrong, doesn?t it??

Admiral Balusek?s heart sank.  He might as well start packing his office up now, because when the dust from this little fiasco settled there would be someone else in not only his office, but several others as well, unless he missed his guess.  ?Yes, Ma?am, we were wrong and now we?ve got a very serious situation.  Admiral Constantine reported that he detected six ships that were at least thirty percent larger than our superdreadnoughts.  When that was all we thought they had I was fairly confident that we could stop them, even if ultimately we were forced to rely on our system defenses.  Now, though, I think we have a much bigger problem.  The Eaters used a fleet that had approximately four hundred ships in it, including nearly eighty ships which the ASR politicians classified as ?very large missile units?, but which we now believe are these newly discovered monitors.  There is literally no way to overestimate the threat that these Eaters pose to our nation.?  Admiral Balusek found he was sweating, and it wasn?t because of the impending burnout of his career.  In fact, he realized that he no longer cared about his career in the face of the incredible threat that now hung over his people.  

?Are you telling me that the Navy cannot stop these aliens??

?If they are the same Eaters that the ASR and the Alliance has been warning us about, then yes, I am telling you that there is no way we can stop them.  We will try, of course, but we don?t have any chance at all of stopping them.  None.?

?Then the true question is ? are these actually the same Eaters?  Everything revolves around this question.  If they are the Eaters, then what you are telling me is that we need help, and we?ll need a lot of it.  We?ll need to bring in both the ASR and the Alliance, which will inevitably mean that they will learn about each other.  Given their mutual obsession with the Eaters they will immediately become allies, which will leave us stuck in the middle, nothing more than a gateway between the two.  A gateway that they will not allow us to close or limit for any reason, which is why we have kept both of them in the dark.?

Admiral Balusek stirred and opened his mouth as if to speak, but the President continued.

?Don?t get me wrong, Admiral, I will call in both the Alliance and the ASR if the alternative is national extinction, but I cannot and will not take that step until I know it is necessary.?

?I understand completely, Ma?am.?  Privately, to himself, Balusek hoped that they didn?t wait too long, because he was pretty sure that they didn?t have much time left.  

Five hours later, Admiral Balusek was back at the President?s Palace, and this time he had all the confirmation the President needed.  Once again he was ushered into the President?s working office with a minimum delay.  Seeing that she was waiting for him, he entered the office and placed the report he was carrying on the desk in front of her.  

?I?m afraid that Admiral Constantine has confirmed our worst fears, Ma?am.  A large force of ships, including forty-two monitors and approximately one hundred and sixty other ships has entered the Golan system and is headed for our colony in the inner system.   They will arrive at the colony in fifteen days.   Admiral Constantine is currently being pursued and is falling back on the inner system.?   President Walden had settled back in her chair as Admiral Balusek reported.  When Balusek looked up he was shocked to see that the President, who had always seemed more than equal to any challenge, looked old and tired.        

?So it is the Eaters, and we?ve lost our gamble.  We may survive the coming days, but our independence is over.?  For a few more seconds she sagged, as if defeated, but then some of the old fire rose to the surface.  ?Very well, if that is the way it is going to be then we?ll just have to deal with it, won?t we??  She looked around her desk and grabbed a sheet of official letterhead stationary.  ?I want you to get out to the warp point, Admiral, and take command out there.  As of now I am placing the System Defense Command under your operational control.?  She wrote on the sheet of paper as she spoke.  ?I want you to get them concentrated around the warp point to the Golan system as soon as possible.  You are authorized to strip the other warp points of all defenses.  We may end up considering ourselves lucky if we ended up under the yoke of the ASR or the Alliance, and we have other things to worry about.?  

She handed him the paper, and Balusek felt light-headed when he realized what was on it.  The President had written out an order placing him in complete command of the military, with complete authority over all of the different commands.  One second he was facing the end of his career and the next he had all of the armed forces in the home system under his command.  Things were truly getting strange.  His thoughts were interrupted as the President continued.  

?I will be meeting with the ambassadors from both the ASR and the Alliance immediately, and I will request that they send every ship they have to rendezvous with our forces at the warp point.?

Admiral Balusek braced to attention.  ?Thank you Ma?am, for everything.?

?One more thing before you go, Admiral.  I will need a trustworthy and senior member of your staff to liaison with me concerning a program that I intend to put into action in the time we have left.  We must ensure that we save as many of our citizens as possible if this turns out to be an Eater incursion.  Therefore, I am going to ask both the Alliance and the ASR to allow us to set up several colonies within their territory, so that if we lose here we won?t lose it all.  That is all.?

Even as Balusek left the Ambassadors from the ASR and the Alliance were being chauffeured from the spaceport to the Palace, in separate aircars of course.  The two Ambassadors had no knowledge of each other, and to date the Xeon government had gone to great lengths to ensure that they each never learned about the other.  Both were housed in separate orbital stations and only allowed to come to the planet on rare special occasions.  Although both governments complained about the way their representatives were treated neither pursued their grievance with any vigor as for the most part the Xeons had been very cooperative in almost every other area.  Both the ASR and the Alliance thought it was strange that the Xeons went to such lengths to isolate the few representatives that they let into their system, but the Xeon had explained that it was just temporary and that such extreme lengths had to be taken so that the government had enough time to prepare the Xeon people for contact with other races.  

Out of consideration for the Xeons, who were Terran humans, both the Alliance and the ASR had sent ambassadors who were also humans.  And so it was that Ambassador Gordon, from the Alliance, was ushered into the Xeon President?s office to find a second human with the President.  Assuming it was one of the President?s assistants or advisors, he walked over to the President?s desk and shook her hand as she rose to meet him.  His surprise was complete when she introduced the other ambassador.  

?Ambassador, I am very pleased to introduce you to Ambassador Deleon of the Allied Sentient Races.?  The President gestured at the other man in the room.  ?And Ambassador, this is Ambassador Gordon of the Alliance.?  With that she stepped back and let the two obviously shocked men stare at each other.  

Ambassador Gordon was the first to recover.  ?Allied Sentient Races you say?  That would imply a multi-racial union of some sort??

Ambassador Deleon cleared his throat to cover his hesitation.  ?Yes.  Yes it is.  We are a union of eight different species comprising many systems and worlds.   How about your Alliance??

?We too are a multi-racial union, although apparently not as large as yours.?  

The President, who had reasonably accurate economic figures for both alliances, hid a smile.  The Alliance Ambassador had no idea how right he was.  ?Gentlemen, please have a seat.?  They all took their seats.  ?I have an admission to make.  We have been in contact with both of you for some time, but for reasons of state security we have chosen to keep the existence of each of you a secret from the other.?

?But why, Madam President?  Surely you don?t think that we would infringe on your sovereignty merely because you were in contact with other humans?  We are not like some other interstellar states.?

The President, who did think exactly that, merely smiled.  ?No, Ambassador, we did not think you would ?infringe? on our territory merely because we were in contact with another human civilization.  We were concerned mostly because of the similarities between each of your alliances.  Under such a situation, neither of your very powerful alliances might think twice about the rights or the sovereignty of a tiny nation such as ours.?

 ?I?m sorry you feel that way, Madam President.  The ASR is scrupulous about observing the rights of the nations it is in contact with.  We would ne
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2007, 11:52:16 PM »
Drat, the story cut off in the middle of the Alliance meeting the ASR ambassador.  Great stuff!
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

Offline Kurt (OP)

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« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2007, 12:10:32 AM »
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
Drat, the story cut off in the middle of the Alliance meeting the ASR ambassador.  Great stuff!


Hmmm...apparently there is a size limit, and I obviously exceeded it.   :D

I'll post the rest ASAP.

Kurt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »
 

Offline Kurt (OP)

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The Rest of Month 142
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2007, 12:15:32 AM »
Ambassador Deleon frowned, while Ambassador Gordon suddenly acquired a creditable poker face.  ?Madam President, I have explained this before.  What happened with the Ayoun happened only because of the existence of an Eater threat in that area.  The Eaters would have destroyed the Ayoun, and my own nation, the Confederation, if the ASR had not intervened.  The Ayoun covered up their involvement with the Eaters and hoped to escape the consequences of revealing the existence of warp points to the Eaters, and in doing so they endangered everyone.  Surely that is not the case here??  He had specifically told the Xeon government about the Ayoun and their misadventure as a way of warning them that there were things that the ASR would not overlook.  

The President shook her head.  ?No, that is not the case.  However, as I said, there are many similarities between your two alliances.  Not only do both of your alliances contain many races, but apparently both of your alliances have had encounters with the species you call the ?Eaters?.?

?What!??  Both ambassadors came to their feet, staring at first the President, and then at each other.  

?Gentlemen, please, sit down and I?ll explain everything.?  Both ambassadors continued to stand for a second and then shook their heads in unison and sat.  ?Ambassador Gordon?s Alliance was formed by a race called the Rogen, who lost their home world to an attack by the Eaters.  They set out in a few ragtag ships, carrying as many of their people as they could cram into cryo-cannisters, for an unknown destination, leaving behind their devastated world and everything they knew, hoping that the Eaters wouldn?t follow.  Eventually, after many months of travel, they found a new world and they found your system, Ambassador.  Soon thereafter they found several other races and by force of will and by using their terrible story they welded disparate races together into an alliance that they hoped would be able to stand against the Eaters.  Ever since then you have been preparing for the return of the Eaters, and have been looking for other races to join your Alliance.  Is that a fair summation??

Ambassador Gordon grinned.  ?As far as it goes, Madam President.  We like to think that we stand for other things aside from survival, but it is true that defending against another Eater incursion is our unifying belief.?

?And that brings us to Ambassador Deleon and the Allied Sentient Races.  The Gorandans, a non-human octopoid race that encountered the Eaters prior to the warp point collapse, formed the ASR.  In the time since the reappearance of the warp points the Gorandans have put together a large alliance dedicated to hunting down and destroying the Eaters.  They have defeated no less than three incursions.?

?Is this true?!?  Until now Ambassador Gordon had maintained an air of polite interest, as had Ambassador Deleon, but now all of his pretenses were stripped away.  The other two humans in the room could feel the intensity of his emotions as if they were tangible.

Ambassador Deleon managed to keep his own composure, but only with difficulty.  If what the President said was true then Ambassador Gordon represented something the ASR very much wanted, a direct route into Eater territories.  And a multi-racial alliance to boot.  ?Yes it is true, although somewhat overstated.?  At that Ambassador Gordon?s expression fell, so Deleon hurried on.  ?The first incursion was the original Eater invasion of the Gorandan home world before the warp point collapse.  The Gorandans admit that they only managed to defeat that attack because the warp point collapse isolated a few Eaters in their system.  The second incursion was more serious, though.  A race known as the Ayoun contacted an isolated Eater world through a closed warp point, giving them the information that the warp points were open again.  They subsequently tried to hide that fact, secure in the knowledge that space is big and that it was unlikely that the Eaters would find their way back to Ayoun space.  They lost their gamble.  The Eaters eventually found an Ayoun colony and destroyed it.  At that time my government was not a member of the Gorandan?s alliance, and we were at war with the Ayoun home world.  We immediately recognized the danger represented by the Eaters and counter-attacked, but our best fleets were sucked in and cut off, and our offensive collapsed.  We were in danger of losing everything when the Gorandans arrived.?  Ambassador Deleon settled back into his chair, a faraway look in his eyes.  ?I was there, with the fleet in the Nexus, when the Gorandan fleet arrived.  It was magnificent!  The answer to all of our prayers.  We knew we were losing, that we wouldn?t be able to hold back the Eaters for much longer.  We had steeled ourselves to retreat behind the defenses in our home system and hope that they held.  The Gorandans changed all of that.  They defeated the Eaters and made it look easy.  Eventually we went on to wipe out that entire infestation, and it wasn?t long after that that we joined the alliance that would eventually become the ASR.?  He took a deep breath, clearing the faraway scenes from his eyes and focused on the other ambassador.  ?The third incursion was much simpler.  Yet another Eater infestation found a closed warp link into an ASR frontier system.  They launched an attack that devastated the colony system.  At that time the ASR was involved in a war with several opportunistic species that launched an unprovoked surprise attack against our territory.  Fortunately, because of the war we had already concentrated our military forces in the area.  Equally fortunately, our enemies recognized the greater threat posed by the Eaters and called off their ill-considered war.  Inn spite of the great size of the Eater fleet, we were able to defeat them before they penetrated even deeper into ASR territory.?  

President Pierce?s expression froze at this revelation.  She had learned more about the ASR in the last few minutes than in all the time since first contact.  As she thought about this new information her eyes shifted to the Alliance Ambassador and she almost gasped.  There were tears rolling down the man?s cheeks, and his expression was the most curious mixture of hope and caution she had ever seen.  

Ambassador Gordon was beside himself.  When the call came in from the President?s office he had never thought, not in a million years, that he would be greeted by this!  

Ambassador Deleon had also spotted the other ambassador and was just as shocked as the President.  

Ambassador Gordon, struggling to control his emotions, rose from his chair and turned his back on the others, and spotting a window he walked over to it to give himself a chance to regain his composure.  After a few seconds he spoke.  ?You can?t know what this means to me.  To my people.?  His voice broke, and he coughed to clear his throat.  ?We survived the isolation after the warp point collapse without too much trouble.  We?d probably still be isolated today if it wasn?t for the Rogen.  They came to us with a fantastic story about a terrible race that had destroyed their home world.  We might not have believed them if it wasn?t for our own historical records.  The old Terran Empire faced something much like the race they described in the days just before the collapse.  Even without our records, though, the Rogen would have been convincing.  They are a proud race, a race of warriors.  And yet there they were, fleeing from a defeat so total that all they had were a few run-down freighters and a small warship.  We helped them settle their new world and they gave us a purpose.  Together we put together the Alliance, which now includes six different races and several dozen populated systems.  We have built a civilization together that is much more than they could possibly have hoped for when they set out from their devastated homeland.?  His head dropped, and the others could feel the despair coming off of him in waves.  ?For all of that, those of us at the top levels of the government have known that we were doomed.  We have thrown everything we have into fortifying the route back to Eater territory, and I think we?ve built up some pretty formidable fortifications, but even so every study that we have run ends with our complete destruction when the Eaters find us.  The Rogen managed to gather quite a bit of data on the Eaters before they were forced to flee their home system, and what that data showed was that we had no hope of holding out over the long term.  The studies showed that not only was the Eater population and economy very, very large at the time of first contact with the Rogen, but that the Eater?s reproduced at a much higher rate than we did.  Our only hope was to postpone contact with them for as long as possible, but every year that went by gave them more and more of an advantage.?  He turned back to the others and shook his head.  ?We?ve had to keep these studies a secret, of course.  It wouldn?t do for the people to know that we had no real hope of winning against the Eaters in the long run.  Our only hope was to delay our eventual rediscovery for as long as possible and hope that we discovered some technological marvel that would save us.?  His eyes went to the ASR?s ambassador and he smiled.  ?Or that we would find a large, advanced civilization that would be able to give us meaningful assistance against the Eaters.?  

Ambassador Deleon rose, crossed the room, and took Ambassador Gordon?s hand.  ?The ASR?s very reason for existence is to secure sentient life against the depredations of the Eaters.  We will give you any and all assistance that we can.  I must consult with my government, of course, but I can give you my personal assurances that we will stand with you against the Eaters, no matter what.?

President Pierce listened to the two ambassadors talk and wondered if they realized how ironic this whole thing was.   The two ambassadors were talking, comparing notes on the Eaters and their two respective alliances, and they had no idea that with every word they just confirmed her original fears.  Given the intensity of the feelings both alliances had about the Eaters, and now about each other, there was no way they would allow anything to come between them.  And that meant that the Xeon State, which lay directly atop the only contact point between the two, would have no choice about allowing ASR and Alliance ships into the Xeon system.  A bitter smile crossed her face.  She was willing to bet that in spite of the ASR?s high-sounding ideals they would think nothing of moving a fleet into her system to ensure continued contact with the Alliance.  They had done it before to the Ayoun, after all, to ensure contact with Ambassador Deleon?s Confederation.  
 
She let the two men talk for a few minutes more, and then cleared her throat, drawing their attention.  ?If you please, gentlemen, there is one other thing I?d like to discuss.?  She gestured at the chairs, and the tow ambassadors looked at each other, then moved towards the chairs.  The looks they gave her were neutral, with a fringe of hostility, which she understood perfectly.  After all, she had kept the existence of each a secret from the other.  Of course, all of that was moot now.  She sighed.  ?Gentlemen, please understand, I had what I thought were good reasons for keeping each of you in the dark about the other.  We are a small nation compared to either of your alliances, and I was afraid that once you learned about each other we would become marginalized in our own system.?  Ambassador Deleon opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand and he subsided.  ?All of that has become irrelevant now.  I?m afraid that I have yet another revelation, and this one won?t be as happy as the last.?  She saw that she had their attention, so she continued.  ?After the Alliance discovered us, we surveyed our home system to discover any other warp points.  We found several.  One, as you know, leads to the ASR?s Le Harve system.  One of the other warp points in our system leads to a system with a habitable planet.  We immediately surveyed that system and it became the home for our first interstellar colony.  During our survey of that system we found another warp point, and like the one in our home system this warp point led to an inhabited system.  The warp point on the far side of the link was closed, so we exercised caution.  We withdrew until we would build up our defenses and until our fleet was rebuilt after our?unfortunate misunderstanding with the Alliance.  Yesterday, Xeon fleet elements entered that system.  They emerged in the system in the midst of a field of detection buoys and warships.  Our ships have since been forced to withdraw back to our colony system by large numbers of warships.  Warships that look like this.?  She gave each of the ambassadors a reproduction of the image sent by the contact team.  

The two ambassadors looked at the images and their faces grew grim.  They looked at each other and then the President.  ?These are Eater ships.?  The ASR Ambassador?s voice was flat.  

?We have come to the same conclusion.  A fleet of Eater ships has entered our colony system and is advancing on our colony.  This fleet is composed of      ships, including some ships larger than anything we?ve ever launched.  My chief admiral tells me that he cannot stop this fleet.  I am turning to you for help.  I?I will apologize for lying to you.?  She looked at Ambassador Gordon.  ?I?ll even apologize for attacking you, although I should think that the results that you obtained made up for what we did.?  She looked down.  ?I?ll do anything I have to at this point.  We are facing complete destruction.?

The two ambassadors looked at each other for a second, then Ambassador Deleon spoke.  ?If this is truly an Eater incursion then you can count on us, Madam President.  We will do everything in our power to stop the Eaters wherever they appear.?

Ambassador Gordon looked at the ASR?s representative and he nodded.  ?You can count on us as well.  We don?t have much of a fleet presence in the area, but what we have will move out as soon as I can get word to them.?  He frowned.  ?Reinforcements will take time, though.  Our main bases are many jumps from here.?

?Fortunately, we don?t have the same problem.?  Ambassador Deleon smiled.  ?The Le Harve system is our largest base and currently has a significant fleet presence.  With your permission, President??  He stood.  

?Yes, of course!  And thank you both.?  

The messages went out from both embassies shortly thereafter.    

Trail?s Branching System, Alliance Territory, interface point with the Xeon State?
The message from the Alliance Ambassador reached the Alliance Border Squadron in just over an hour and a half.
Admiral Cer*!, the CO of the squadron, decided on his own authority to move into Xeon space and provide assistance.  He didn?t really trust the Xeons, particularly in light of the recent unprovoked war, but the fleet?s sworn duty was to protect the Alliance from the Eaters.  While it was true that the Xeon weren?t part of the Alliance, they were still sentient beings and didn?t deserve to become food animals for the Eater Hegemony.  His decision wasn?t completely altruistic, of course.  His squadron was small, just three battlecruisers, three heavy cruisers, and thirteen carriers and escorts, and the three battlecruisers were in the system?s newly built yards for refit.   Even worse, they were far from the Alliance?s main bases, and couldn?t hope for reinforcements for quite some time.  He was absolutely sure that his force would not be able to hold out against a full-fledged Eater assault, but in conjunction with the Xeon fleet and this new alliance it was just possible that they could stop the Eaters before they made it into Alliance territory, which, of course, was the best possible outcome.  

The final factor in Admiral Cer*!?s   decision was the new alliance.  Ambassador Gordon?s message made them sound too good to be true, and in his experience, when something sounded too good to be true it generally was exactly that.  Even so, the possibility that they had actually found a powerful new ally that was already aware of the threat presented by the Eaters could not be discounted and must be followed up.  Given that the Xeon system was their only known contact point with the ASR, it must be defended at any cost.  

Admiral Cer*! sent CD?s through the warp point into Xeon space signaling his intention to transit into Xeon space and requesting permission from the Xeon fortification commander.  Permission was promptly given, and in short order the Alliance Border Squadron entered Xeon space.  Before transiting out of the Trail?s Branching system, Admiral Cer*! dispatched orders back up the chain to the nearest Alliance population.  As the senior military commander for the area, he was invoking Case Omega.  The Alliance had long known that their expansion, while necessary, carried a huge risk in that they could inadvertently come into contact with the Eaters somewhere aside from their current, heavily fortified contact point.  Such a contact would be disastrous from the Alliance, as most of their defenses were concentrated around the known contact point and could not be moved.  Case Omega was one of the plans that had been developed to deal with such a situation.   Case Omega made use of the numerous closed warp links that were scattered throughout Alliance territory.  If contact was made with the Eaters, and retreat through a closed warp point was possible, then Case Omega would be activated.  The entire area ?down-chain? from the closest closed warp point back to the rest of Alliance space would be quarantined.  No civilian traffic would be allowed through the closed warp point at all.  If possible, all civilian populations down-chain from the closed warp point would be evacuated back up-chain to safety.  Military forces would be rushed to the area, but would only proceed past the closed warp point if necessary to delay the Eaters long enough to allow the evacuation of civilian populations.  Most importantly, all records of the location of the closed warp point would be destroyed, aside from those necessary to facilitate the evacuation and military operations.  

In this case Omega was possible, although not particularly easy.  There was a closed warp point two jumps up-chain.  Three major colonies and several minor populations were in the threatened area and would have to be evacuated.  Fortunately there were several already colonized habitable planets just up-chain of the closed warp point where the refugees could be settled.    

Meanwhile, in the ASR?s Le Harve System?
Ambassador Deleon?s message reached the Le Harve Naval Command Center ten hours after it was sent.  The message caused considerable consternation among the command staff assigned to the base.  The appearance of a threat so close to the ASR?s largest base was disconcerting, to say the least.  The commanding officer immediately put the Le Harve Defense Force on full alert and ordered them to concentrate at the warp point to Xeon space.  In addition, on his own authority, he ordered the System Defense Command to begin concentrating the system?s fixed defenses at the warp point to Xeon.  

The orders went out immediately, and shortly thereafter tugs stationed in orbit around Le Harve Prime and at the other warp points in the system began towing bases towards the threatened warp point.  Simultaneously, identical emergency messages were dispatched to Area Marshal Gwynxa and the ASR Capital alerting them to the situation.  

The ASR Government immediately dispatched a negotiator empowered to make treaties to with the Xeon and the Alliance, and sent a message to Ambassador Deleon authorizing him to explore the possibility of signing agreements with both the Alliance and the Xeon.  

Area Marshal Gwynxa received the warning sixty hours later.  His fleet was in the Malkhor system, poised to enter Chosen controlled territory, and this warning of a possible new Eater incursion was unwelcome, to say the least.  In spite of the fact that he had the largest single concentration of naval might in the ASR under his control, the Colmar Sector was beset by enemies and still wasn?t fully under control.  The Antarans must be watched, the Axons subdued, and most importantly, the Cholet system must be secured against further Eater incursions.  The possibility of a new incursion, next door to the Le Harve system, was a devastating possibility.  

While he was pondering the strategic situation in the Colmar Sector Gwynxa was suddenly struck by a thought.  He read and reread the original message sent by Ambassador Deleon, and as he read his metallic tentacles writhed with excitement.  Finally he looked up from the message with a gleam of feral delight in his eyes, and a curl to his tentacles that was positively carnal.  According to Ambassador Deleon, the foolish Xeons had discovered the Eaters through a closed warp point.  A warp link that was closed on the Eater?s side, that they only discovered when the idiotic Xeons stuck their snouts through to establish contact.  That meant that there was no place for the Eaters to hide.  No closed warp point to retreat through.  He had them!

Moving quickly he called up a display of the Colmar Area with the resident naval forces highlighted.  One by one he called up the details of each of the nie naval forces in the Area:      

Current forces in Colmar Sector:
Le Harve:
Active: 3xML, 3xSD, 5xBB, 24xCV, 37xBC, 6xCL, 23xCA, 34xDD, 24xCVE
Undergoing Refit: 3xML, 3xSD, 11xCV, 12xBC, 1xCA, 3xDD, 21xCVE

Axon Campaign:
Gwynxa?s Force: 12xML, 23xBB, 1xCVA, 14xCV, 7xBC, 13xCA, 5xCVS, 2xCL, 18xDD, 11xCT
Gwynxa?s Follow-on Force: 6xBC, 15xCA, 20xCVS
Xanti Defense Force: 15xML, 24xCV, 15xBC, 24xCA, 6xCVS, 3xCL, 34xDD, 14xCVE
Axon Garrison Group: 3xCV, 3xCA, 3xDD

Cholet Defense Force
Active: 6xML, 12xSD, 4xBB, 35xCV, 18xBC, 117xCA, 10xCVS, 8xCL, 88xDD, 6xCVE, 19xCT
Undergoing Refit: 2xML, 6xSD

Evarid Home Defense Force: 3xML, 1xCV, 3xBC, 3xCA, 6xDD, 9xCVE

Antara Garrison: 6xBC, 4xCVL

Reinforcements for Cholet from Evarid: 6xML, 3xCV, 3xCA, 4xCVE

Reinforcements from Capital for Le Harve: 12xML, 6xCV, 3xCA, 6xDD

For several minutes Gwynxa studied the information, motionless except for the tips of his tentacles that were quivering with barely suppressed excitement.  The base at Le Harve actually had a significant force available, although it was light in capital ships.  They would have to be reinforced, obviously, but finding the reinforcements was going to be difficult.  

Cholet was absolutely out of the question.  The ASR Assembly was already up in arms over the way he had stripped the system to provide forces for the campaign against the Axons.  The same thing went for the reinforcements currently in route for Cholet from Evarid.  He had only pried those forces away from the Evarid with the promise that they would be sent directly to Cholet to reinforce the defenses there.  For a few brief seconds he considered diverting the reinforcements anyway, but in the end he was forced to admit that both the Assembly and the Evarid had a point.  It was entirely likely that the Eaters would launch a new attack aimed at Cholet, and if he stripped the system to fight off this new incursion, he would doom most of the frontier to destruction.  

He quickly dismissed both the Evarid Home Defense Force and the Antara Garrison.  Neither had significant strength and both were politically necessary.  That left the reinforcements currently entering the Colmar Area from the Capital and the forces currently assigned to the Xanti/Axon campaign.   The disposition of the reinforcements from the Capital was an easy decision.  They would have to pass through Le Harve anyway, and short-stopping them there, at least until the situation stabilized, would surely be seen as a prudent decision.  After all, the last thing the Assembly wanted was rogue Eaters loose in the core areas of the ASR, which is exactly what would happen if they penetrated the defenses at Le Harve.  

The forces committed to the Axon/Xanti front were more problematic.  Gwynxa?s metallic tentacles curled as he considered the situation.  The Axon fleet was defeated and their home world was occupied, but they weren?t out of the fight, as their strike against the Empire demonstrated.  The unknown aliens that invaded Xanti territory had a large fleet deployed into the area and was advancing on Xanti Prime.  The aliens had to be stopped not only because they threatened the Xanti, who were currently an ally of the ASR, but also because in all likelihood the aliens would not stop with taking Xanti Prime.  Beyond Xanti Prime were ASR systems that must be defended, and Gwynxa was determined to do the defending in Xanti territory rather than ASR territory.  That meant that all three formations currently devoted to the campaign were needed.  His force was needed to crush the alien fleet, the force in the Xanti home system was needed to defend it against invasion, and the follow-on force now entering the Axon system was needed to secure Axon territories already taken.  

Gwynxa stared at the display for a long time.  The only indication of his emotional state was the constant curling and uncurling of his tentacles.  In truth he was conflicted.  He had lived with his hatred of the Axons for a long time, and at this point his dearest desire was to finish crushing the remnants of the Axon state beneath the artificial tentacles that the Axons had made necessary.  He really, really didn?t want to divert resources away from the campaign to anything else, but he knew that if the contact in Xeon territory was a full-fledged Eater incursion, more forces were going to be necessary to stop and then push back the huge Eater fleet that was inevitably going to appear.  

Gwynxa?s eyes drifted to the icon for Le Harve and then Cholet and he came to a sudden decision.  He hated the Axons, but he was still a Gorandan.  Fear and hatred of the Eaters was burned into every Gorandan from birth, and he could no more ignore it than he could stop breathing.  The Eaters would have to be the first priority for his efforts.  He sighed and shook out his tentacles.  It was a moot point anyway.  The Capital was closer to Le Harve than he was.  New orders were undoubtedly on their way here right now, re-tasking his fleet against the Gorandan race?s most hated enemy.  Even if he disagreed with their view of the strategic situation, his own staff and crews would lynch him if he ignored the Eaters to focus on his own hatreds.  

Gwynxa?s tentacles shifted into a complex pattern that suggested intense humor coupled with profound irony.  The reality of leadership was demonstrated to him again and again.  Most often the most basic trait of great leaders was their ability to determine where their followers were already going, and then successfully positioning themselves out in front of the crowd and convincing them that it was the leader?s idea.  One of his tentacles shifted and activated a communicator, calling his second into the room.

?Sir??  Fleet Commander Brykyrok?s tentacles stiffened in salute.

?Fleet Commander, I wish you to send several messages in my name.  The first is to our Ambassador dealing with the Terrans about the Axon situation.  Make sure he knows the changed situation, and inform him that we will be abandoning this conflict.  I anticipate that we will both be receiving orders from the Capital in this matter, and I do not wish to infringe on his responsibilities, but I would suggest that we cede responsibility for all Axon territories to the Terrans, with the exception of the Axon home system.   We should let them deal with the Axons and the unknown aliens while we deal with the Eaters.  The only condition I would insist on, if I was her, was that any Xanti territories should be turned over to our ally, the Protectorate, as soon as possible.?

?Yes sir.  Am I to understand that we are turning back??  The Fleet Commander gestured at the display with one of his tentacles.  The display showed the Fleet on the verge of entering alien-controlled territory.  

Gwynxa shifted his tentacles into a gesture of agreement.  ?I originally considered continuing forward, through alien controlled territory to Xanti Prime.  It is a shorter overall route back to Le Harve, but in the end I decided against it because it would only save us one month, and we would risk losing all of part of the fleet against the unknown aliens.  Therefore, we will turn around immediately and retreat to Axon Prime.  From there all units will continue on to Le Harve at their best speed.  The humans will have to deal with the aliens and the Axons.  While they secure this area, we will deal with the bigger threat beyond Le Harve.?

Area Marshal Gwynxa was right.  Even as he ordered his fleet to reverse course messages were en route from the Capital with orders to abandon the Axon pacification campaign and return to Le Harve, along with the bulk of his fleet.  The Assembly was determined to defeat this new Eater incursion and ensure that contact was maintained with the Alliance, at any cost.  

Orders had already gone out to naval bases throughout the ASR ordering the various national fleets to send reinforcements.  In a less than a week more than one hundred and fifty ships had set out for LE Harve, including seven full monitor battle groups.  They wouldn?t arrive for months, in some cases six months or more, but they were on their way.  
 
The Alliance had their fleet in motion as well, albeit on a much smaller scale.  By the end of the month they had one hundred and seven ships moving towards the Xeon home system.  Unfortunately only twelve were capital ships and they all had a long way to go to reach Xeon space.  

Fifteen days after the Xeon fleet transited into the Eater system the Eater fleet reached the Xeon colony world.  The Eaters followed what appeared to be their standard operating procedure.  After establishing a distant orbit the Eater ships scanned the planet?s surface carefully, and once this was complete they launched several nuclear missiles.  The missiles were targeted on obvious military sites and large population concentrations, but most of the Xeon towns and cities were left alone.  

Once the defensive ground forces were crippled, Eater small craft began surveying the surface.  Admiral Constantine and his squadron were forced to watch helplessly as they retreated across the system, pursued by an Eater force that seemed content to follow them, at least for now.  

Eater Hegemony, Home Hive #1
The Home Hive #1 system was a binary white star/white star system with three habitable planets.  Two of the planets could only house moderate populations because of environmental factors, while the third was perfectly suited for the Eater race.  This planet was the fourth planet of the ?B? stellar component, and it was the center of the system-wide intelligence that, in effect, ruled the entire Eater Hegemony.  The other four Home Hive intelligences managed all issues in their own territories, but it was Home Hive #1?s intelligence that decided overall issues and coordinated between the five Home Hives.  

The system-wide intelligence of Home Hive #1, like all of the other system intelligences within the Hegemony, was divided into numerous different sub-intelligences or subroutines, each of which had been budded off to deal with a specific task.  Some of these tasks were relatively minor, like monitoring and repairing the waste management systems for a mining hive on one of the hive planets, and required only minor portions of the intelligence?s resources.  Other tasks, like that of the Prime Strategy ?Group?, were of prime importance and had first call on the intelligence?s resources.  

The Prime Strategy Group decided on overall exploration and military strategies for the entire Hegemony.  If cooperation was needed between Home Hives, then the Prime Strategy Group made the decisions.  When the message arrived from Home Hive #4 that the chaos species had reappeared in its frontier resource system, and that its fleet was moving into the chaos species? system in response, the Prime Strategy Group was assigned by the overall intelligence to consider the situation.

On its face, the fleet assigned by Home Hive #4 should be enough to deal with any chaos species.  Between the ships immediately available and those en route to reinforce the forward group, Home Hive #4 had assigned ninety three monitors and eighteen superdreadnoughts, along with their escorts, to the mission of eliminating the chaos species.  The Prime Strategy Group had learned caution, though.  An entire Chaos Elimination Fleet had recently been wiped out, and the chaos species that had destroyed the fleet was still in existence.  If this was the same species, then they presented a primary threat to the survival of the race.  After some consideration, the Prime Strategy Group issued orders for reinforcements to proceed to Home Hive #4 from the nearest bases.  In addition, orders were dispatched to Home Hive #3 to deal the planned offensive to destroy the chaos species that had recently defeated a Hegemony fleet.  The planned counterattack was nearing readiness, however, until it knew how large a threat the new species was, the Prime Strategy Group had no interest in involving the Hegemony in yet another war.  

In response to the orders three hundred and thirty three ships left their bases and set out for Home Hive #4, including forty two monitors and thirty superdreadnoughts.  

************************************************************************
Atong Union

Significant Incident Report 004
Artifact Station Command
Most Guarded Level Security, need to know only

At 0805 hours, Day 5, Month 142, the Superdreadnought Ignot, assigned to Battle Squadron #13, Artifact Defense Squadron, suffered a major helm system fault.  The fault took the Ignot off course for a total fo two minutes during a scheduled fleet exercise.  At no time during the exercise did the Ignot or any other ship assigned to BS #13 cross the fifteen light second exclusion control area around the Artifact, however, during the helm fault, the Ignot crossed the sixty light second security control area around the Artifact.  

Immediately after crossing the sixty light second boundary, the Ignot was subjected to a very powerful scan that originated on the Artifact, and was locked up by what the Ignot?s commanding officer describes as a powerful tracking beam.  Immediately after being scanned, the Ignot?s commanding officer ordered his ship to halt until the helm fault was repaired, at which time the Ignot slowly retreated beyond the sixty light second security control area.  The tracking beams, which were confirmed to originate on the Artifact, continued to track the Ignot until it passed beyond 60.5 light seconds range, at which time the tracking was discontinued.  

During the incident, monitor stations on the Artifact detected the activation of six separate, previously unidentified, power sources.  Simultaneously, surface-monitoring stations recorded two instances of previously unknown and unsuspected installations emerging from the interior of the Artifact after large armored covers moved out of the way.  After a short period of time the installations returned to their bays and the armored covers returned to position.  Approximately five minutes after the Ignot retreated the power sources deactivated.    

During the entire incident the supply freighter Nonshalla was on approach to the Artifact, and at the time of the deactivation of the power sources the Nonshalla was approximately one point five light seconds from the Artifact, on a course to dock at the primary research facility.  The Nonshalla?s logs and instrument recordings for the time period of the incident show that the freighter was not scanned or targeted by the Artifact.  

Records checks show that no warships of any kind have entered the sixty light second security sphere around the Artifact prior to the Ignot incident.  

Subsequent analysis indicates that the Ignot?s incursion into the sixty light second sphere around the Artifact activated a previously unsuspected automated defense system of unknown power and capability.  The fact that a freighter on close approach was ignored, while the Ignot was targeted while just under sixty light seconds distant, indicates that a high-level decision-making capability is operative in the Artifact.  To date the only other operative equipment found during the initial survey efforts was repair and maintenance robots, and there was no indication that they were under intelligent direction.  

A review of the records of the incident showed six power sources activating when the Ignot crossed the sixty light second boundary.  Subsequent survey efforts have identified three of the six installations associated with the power sources.  Two are the suspected defense installations recorded by surface monitoring stations during the incident.  The third, located at coordinates 201-019, is a small, isolated installation that does not seem to be associated with any of the previously discovered sites.  The other two power sources have not been localized.  The engineering teams assigned to locate them have pointed out that the only reason we were able to locate the two suspected defense installations was because we caught them on camera when they activated.  In their current deactivated state they are extremely hard to localize even with the visual record as they are shielded by a very thick slab of asteroidal iron.  

Because of the new evidence of an active intelligence in control of the Artifact, a complete re-evaluation of on-going survey efforts is being undertaken.  In addition, Admiral Tolq has enlarged the security sphere around the Artifact to ninety light seconds, and has decided to completely ban all ships from this security zone.  All travel to and from the Artifact will be by means of shuttle or other unarmed small craft.  

Survey efforts are now underway at the newly located site at 201-019.  No effort will be made to penetrate the two known defense installations, as this would certainly be seen as a hostile act by the intelligence in charge of the installations.

That's it for now.

Kurt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »
 

Offline TrueZuluwiz

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« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2007, 12:29:09 AM »
Thanks Kurt. Hope the next installment comes quickly.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2007, 12:46:36 AM by TrueZuluwiz »
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Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2007, 12:40:31 AM »
There appears to be a typo in the Home Hive decision paragraph.  Was there an order to "deal" the attack through the closed warp point into the Cholet chain, or to "delay" it?

From a strategic point of view, it is an interesting conundrum.  Obviously, if it is a different chaos race, the Eaters are wise to deal with one at a time.  But if it proves to be the same one, do they attack through the Cholet chain or not?

A lot depends on how they weigh the risks and rewards.  The purpose of the chaos elimination fleets is to protect the Hive.  So the open warp link into their territory would be more of a concern than the Cholet chain.

However, perhaps the Eaters anticipate that the Cholet chain would be weakened by the chaos race concentrating on the Xeon chain.

In other news, I expect that the Alliance would want to avoid letting the Eaters get Rogen corpses to examine.  Perhaps that would provoke renewed surveying of the Rogen chain.  Perhaps not.  After all, there are countless isolated human worlds, some of which I think the Eaters have encountered before.  Those did not indicate a current warp line connection.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

Offline Kurt (OP)

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« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2007, 09:53:29 AM »
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
There appears to be a typo in the Home Hive decision paragraph.  Was there an order to "deal" the attack through the closed warp point into the Cholet chain, or to "delay" it?

From a strategic point of view, it is an interesting conundrum.  Obviously, if it is a different chaos race, the Eaters are wise to deal with one at a time.  But if it proves to be the same one, do they attack through the Cholet chain or not?

A lot depends on how they weigh the risks and rewards.  The purpose of the chaos elimination fleets is to protect the Hive.  So the open warp link into their territory would be more of a concern than the Cholet chain.

However, perhaps the Eaters anticipate that the Cholet chain would be weakened by the chaos race concentrating on the Xeon chain.

In other news, I expect that the Alliance would want to avoid letting the Eaters get Rogen corpses to examine.  Perhaps that would provoke renewed surveying of the Rogen chain.  Perhaps not.  After all, there are countless isolated human worlds, some of which I think the Eaters have encountered before.  Those did not indicate a current warp line connection.

You are correct, what I said was...

Quote from: "Kurt"
In addition, orders were dispatched to Home Hive #3 to deal the planned offensive to destroy the chaos species that had recently defeated a Hegemony fleet. The planned counterattack was nearing readiness, however, until it knew how large a threat the new species was, the Prime Strategy Group had no interest in involving the Hegemony in yet another war.


What I should have said was..

In addition, orders were dispatched to Home Hive #3 to delay the planned offensive to destroy the chaos species that had recently defeated a Hegemony fleet. The planned counterattack was nearing readiness, however, until it knew how large a threat the new species was, the Prime Strategy Group had no interest in involving the Hegemony in yet another war.

Now that I've re-read the sentence a couple of times I realize that it is a clumsy sentence even when corrected.  

As for the second offensive into the Cholet chain, I have given this a lot of thought.  Originally I intended to have the Eaters launch a (nearly) simultaneous assault, not that they knew that that was what they were doing.  This would put the ASR into a difficult position, to say the least.  The more I thought about this, though, the more I realized that the Eaters wouldn't do something like that unless they were desperate or sure of success.  They are fundamentally conservative in outlook, and believe in eliminating enemies one at a time.  

Kurt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2007, 11:45:01 AM »
There are arguments either way, regarding a simultaneous attack or not.

Even if it is the same chaos race, holding off on an attack means the chaos race still has to commit resources to the defense of Cholet.  The Eaters can conjecture that for the chaos race to have a large enough economy to challenge it, it must be huge in span, and therefore be unable to shift between the two front quickly.

Flipping things around, I expect that the ASR and Alliance will go over the wreckage _very_ intensely.  One thing they will be most concerned with is whether the Rogen, Xeon and Cholet Eater incursions are from the same group.

As the Rogen destroyed one Eater group and investigated the wreckage, they should have genetic samples.  Comparing them, they may note that the Eater incursion into Ayoun space had undergone some amount of genetic drift, but that the other three were more closely related.  This will be a great strategic relief.  A big remaining question would be whether the closed point into Eater Space from the 2nd Empire is the same or not, and that would be much harder to determine.


Question:
What kind of treaty would be involved in creating refugee colonies?  If you are trying to save a race from a genocidal enemy, and the colonies are likely to come under the economic control of an allied friendly race, how would you describe/handle that?
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2007, 11:52:52 AM »
One of the awkward things about that sentence is that it doesn't really describe the situation.  The Cholet front would not be a "new" war.  The Xeon front is the new war.  And that war isn't really a war of choice from the Eater's perspective.  They were intruded upon, the intruder must die.  The Cholet front isn't a new war, it is a restart of paused hostilities.

Perhaps, "New theatre of active operations" would be more accurate.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

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« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2007, 06:27:47 PM »
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
There are arguments either way, regarding a simultaneous attack or not.

Even if it is the same chaos race, holding off on an attack means the chaos race still has to commit resources to the defense of Cholet.  The Eaters can conjecture that for the chaos race to have a large enough economy to challenge it, it must be huge in span, and therefore be unable to shift between the two front quickly.

Flipping things around, I expect that the ASR and Alliance will go over the wreckage _very_ intensely.  One thing they will be most concerned with is whether the Rogen, Xeon and Cholet Eater incursions are from the same group.

The current Eater thinking is as follows:
1.  It is not known if the chaos species that intruded into their space is the same as the one that defeated their chaos elimination fleet.  The odds are that it is not, given the vastness of space and the essentially unlimited number of races that likely exist.  

2.  If the two chaos species are not the same, then launching the counter-attack back into the Cholet corridor puts the Hegemony at risk because its resources would be divided if the intruders turn out to be a major threat.  If the attack into the Cholet cooridor is not launched until the intruders are destroyed, then the force assembled for the counter-attack into the Cholet cooridor can be used as a reserve if the intruders turn out to be a bigger threat than anticipated.  

3.  If the two chaos species are the same, then the Hegemony can make a decision either to concentrate all of its forces on the current point of contact (Xeon), where the primary threat exists, because the chaos species have a route into the Hegemony at that point, or they could go ahead and launch the counter-attack into the Cholet cooridor in the hopes of dividing the Chaos species' forces.  

4.  In either case the Hegemony will wait until it can either defeat the intruders, at which time it will launch the counter-attack into the Cholet cooridor, or until it identifies the two chaos species as being the same (ASR).  

Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
As the Rogen destroyed one Eater group and investigated the wreckage, they should have genetic samples.  Comparing them, they may note that the Eater incursion into Ayoun space had undergone some amount of genetic drift, but that the other three were more closely related.  This will be a great strategic relief.  A big remaining question would be whether the closed point into Eater Space from the 2nd Empire is the same or not, and that would be much harder to determine.

You are correct about the ASR/Alliance desire to determine if the Eater species beyond Xeon is the same as the one beyond Cholet, however, I'm not sure that a DNA test will do the trick.  After all, all of the Eater races in the game are descendents of the original Eaters, which were cut off from their home world just like everyone else when the warp point network collapsed.  

Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
Question:
What kind of treaty would be involved in creating refugee colonies?  If you are trying to save a race from a genocidal enemy, and the colonies are likely to come under the economic control of an allied friendly race, how would you describe/handle that?


Well, there are two ways to handle it.  The first is functional amalgamation, where the colonies become part of the ASR and/or Alliance.  The other way would be for the Xeon to remain at a lower treaty level, say trade & military and remain economically and politically seperate.  I would say that as long as a race has a trade and military relationship or better, and the situation is desperate enough, something like this would be reasonable.  

Kurt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2007, 10:07:28 PM »
What is the time scale of how long it has been since the warp points vanished?

I may be confusing it with a different campaign, (Charles and Will's campaign?) which had a similar premise.  Was there a period of 1,500 years in that campaign since the warp point disappearance?  In the Phoenix campaign it was much shorter, right?  A hundred years?

I think that if you completely separated a species for 1,500 years they would have a noticeably different spread in their genes.  Instead of 50% blondes, they might have 30% or 70% or whatever.  Given a significant sample size, you could make educated guesses as to how long certain populations were separated, at least ranking them in how long they were separated.

Hard to say whether there would be more of a divergence between the Hives and more typical races.  I imagine that the Hives practice serious eugenics, keeping the race to a particular standard.  But separate the Hives, they have different standards, and can't communicate with each other, so they could develop subtle differences that Hives that _are_ in contact with each other would not develop.

I imagine that researching the genome of the Eaters would be a significant Research Project.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2007, 10:39:32 PM »
Regarding Cholet.  A prospective 18 ML, 12 SDs vs a combined 200 Monitors and SDs?  Adding in the CVs as roughly the value of MLs, that is still 200 to 65 in Big Boys.  Fleet costs are probably closer, and tech level and fighting on the defensive helps.

Another consideration for the Eater Hegemony.  If the ASR is forced to reveal the existence of cloaking technology, Home Hive 4 might not launch the attack at all.  After all, every communication with the Home Hive about the progress of the advance against the chaos race runs the risk that a cloaked ship could detect a transit and reveal at least the general location of the cloaked warship.

The problems of running an extended offensive deep into enemy space without being able to get additional resupply makes the Cholet line far less attractive.

On the other hand, the ASR defenders in Cholet have political issues complicating their defense.  For defending the ASR, having the strategic option of maintaining a Fleet In Being to force the Eaters to stay concentrated and focus only on one warp line at a time, and complicating Eater supply situation could be more militarily advantageous than an all or nothing defense of Cholet.  But politically that would be impossible.

In a similar vein, while the Alliance and ASR have overwhelming military power in overcoming the Xeon isolation and sovereignity issues, they will have to treat Xeon internal matters with serious kid gloves.  Xeon will be about as front stage on galactic affairs as Iraq is for Real Life world affairs.  Everybody watches the Big Boys to see how they behave.  News from Xeon is going to be very widely watched, so any mistreatment of Xeon could have negative political implications for both alliances.

The initial responses of the ambassadors indicated something else to me.  Unless the Alliance puts a very negative spin on Xeon, people are going to be _very_ excited about the news from Xeon.  First, there is the prospect of a big ally coming in to help, and second, they will all be rooting for the Xeon defense to hold.  After all, if the Xeon line fails to hold, their new hope is pretty much dashed.  Unless they share warp point data with the ASR before the fall of Xeon, the ASR would be unable to break through to the Alliance.

From the ASR perspective, anything that looks like they are punishing a race that _immediately_ reversed all previous policies upon discovery of Eaters is going to be, hmmm, a problem too. :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

Offline TrueZuluwiz

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« Reply #12 on: February 22, 2007, 02:01:44 AM »
Didn't i see a closed WP in the Xeon line of advance? The Eaters will wipe the colony, but can't find the WP back to Xeon Prime. We also don't know the length of the warp chain leading from the ASR to Xeon Prime.

It looks like the ASR is going to hand the whole Axon situation to the Empire. This will not be a problem for the Empire, and it allows the ASR to wash their hands of the whole affair without even the appearance of committing genocide.

I do wonder if the Empire will want to get involved in the Xeon situation, as the Xeons and the Alliance are composed of humans, with other races added.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by TrueZuluwiz »
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Offline Michael Sandy

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« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2007, 10:43:04 AM »
I don't know how I missed it before.  The Axons are planning a raid against the ASR based on the premise that Gwynxa's fleet is facing the Chosen.  But his fleet is heading back through Axon in order to get to face the Eaters.

Awwww.  Poor Axons. :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Michael Sandy »
 

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« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2007, 11:45:00 AM »
Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
What is the time scale of how long it has been since the warp points vanished?

I may be confusing it with a different campaign, (Charles and Will's campaign?) which had a similar premise.  Was there a period of 1,500 years in that campaign since the warp point disappearance?  In the Phoenix campaign it was much shorter, right?  A hundred years?

Correct, one hundred years, approximately.  

Quote from: "Michael Sandy"
I think that if you completely separated a species for 1,500 years they would have a noticeably different spread in their genes.  Instead of 50% blondes, they might have 30% or 70% or whatever.  Given a significant sample size, you could make educated guesses as to how long certain populations were separated, at least ranking them in how long they were separated.

Hard to say whether there would be more of a divergence between the Hives and more typical races.  I imagine that the Hives practice serious eugenics, keeping the race to a particular standard.  But separate the Hives, they have different standards, and can't communicate with each other, so they could develop subtle differences that Hives that _are_ in contact with each other would not develop.

I imagine that researching the genome of the Eaters would be a significant Research Project.


I'm not sure that fifteen hundred years is enough for significant genetic drift to set in, but that is just my guess, and not even an educated one.  In any case, one hudnred years certainly isn't long enough, absent serious environmental factors that are not present in this case.  

Ultimately the ASR may not be able to figure it out at all, at least not easily.  

Kurt
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 PM by Kurt »