Month 139, The Four Powers War, a recap
The Four Powers war is a conflict over who will control the territories that once belonged to the Unified Races. The uneasy alliance between the Xanti and the Axon races that was the Unified Races fell apart into civil war after the failure of their war against the ASR. The civil war was interrupted when a previously unknown race, the Imperial Chosen, entered UR territory through a closed warp point and seized the heavily populated Malkhor System.
The Malkhor system lay along the direct warp chain in between the Axon and Xanti home systems, and its loss to the Chosen cut the for UR territories into two unequal parts. The Axons were left with control of the bulk of the UR, while the Xanti only had control of a few populated systems outside of their home system.
The Xanti and Axon fleets, which had set out to fight each other for control of the UR, now turned on the Chosen invaders. The invaders were too strong, though, and the Axons decided to retreat, leaving the weaker Xanti fleet in an exposed position. The Axons intended to retreat to their entry point and then assume defensive positions on the far side, preventing the invaders from advancing into their territory. The invading Chosen fleet wiped the Xanti fleet out, leaving the Axon corvette-carriers to retreat behind their warp point.
Fearing that they had no other choice, the Xanti turned to the ASR and asked for assistance against the unknown alien invaders (the Chosen). The ASR agreed to help only if the Xanti would turn over their leaders for war crimes trials within the ASR. The Xanti would also be required to sign treaties with the ASR that would make them little more than a client state.
While the Xanti were trying to recover from the betrayal of the Axons, the 2nd Empire of Man launched its own offensive into UR space through their own closed warp point into the home system of one of the Axon?s slave species, the Breen. The Empire had decided to invade to forestall the ASR?s anticipated grab of UR territory. Light Imperial units escorted troops to Breen Prime while the main Imperial Fleet waited in the outer system close to their entry point. The Imperial Admiral in command of the 7th Fleet had no desire to take his monitors in-system when a large number of Axon corvette-carriers could descend on them at any moment.
The Axons reacted to the Imperial Terran invasion poorly. The Axon leader ordered the corvette-carriers watching the warp point to Chosen controlled territory to turn around and return to Breen to attack and destroy the Terrans. He also ordered his military to destroy the Breen if it appeared that they could not hold the system against the Imperial Terran Navy.
The Axon corvette-carrier Legions arrived in Breen to find it deserted by the Terran Navy. They isolated the Imperial ground troops on Breen Prime and the Axon leader called for ground troops of his own to eliminate the Terran invaders.
At this point the Allied Sentient Races (ASR) became a player. Due to changes in the ASR government and the release of classified intelligence about the Axon mistreatment of conquered populations, the ASR Navy was ordered to ?pacify? the Axons. An ASR ultimatum similar to the one delivered to the Xanti, but substantially more limiting, was delivered to the Axons. Yet again the Axons reacted poorly, and the Axon leader ordered his reserve corvette-carrier Legions in the home system to attack the ASR forces on the border. The first group of ASR navy ships equipped with the cloaking device ambushed the Axon force and inflicted a significant defeat on them. The ASR fleet is advancing on the Axon home system.
In a panic after the loss of their reserves, the Axon government recalled their Legions facing the Terrans in the Breen system to defend their home planet. The Terrans immediately moved back into the Breen system, securing the warp point the Axons retreated through and sending forces towards Breen Prime.
In the aftermath of a change of government of their own, the Xanti accepted the ASR?s terms and allowed ASR naval units to enter their home system to defend it from the Axons and/or the Chosen. As the ASR Navy moved into the Xanti home system, the Chosen were finally ready to move out of Malkhor, and were massing their forces to attack into Axon territory while pushing out lighter forces towards Xanti territory.
That brings us up to the beginning of month 139. The Axon fleets are returning towards their home system at full speed, trying to get there before the ASR fleet can cross the Tirosk system. If they can return in time and destroy the ASR fleet, then they may be able to use their superior strategic speed to face down and destroy the other threats to their territory one by one. The ASR fleet under Gwynxa is intent on subduing the Axon butchers that wreaked so much havoc on the innocent ASR citizens of the worlds they captured, and they mean to take Axon Prime no matter the cost. The Terrans are securing their foothold in the Breen system and looking to expand into what they hope are undefended UR territories, as are the Chosen.
*************************************************************************************
Month 139, Week 1, Breen Prime
?Incoming message from the Axon fleet, Admiral.?
Rear Admiral Trevor glanced at the communications officer and nodded. A second later the command deck?s main monitor lit up and displayed an Axon officer.
?Terran animals, you have no business in our space. Depart at once or feel our wrath!?
Admiral Trevor sighed. The Axons were always so dramatic. They always made her think of the holo villains in the adventures that the public liked so. ?I am Rear Admiral Trevor, commanding officer of the 39th Battle Cruiser Group. I hereby order you to stand down and surrender your ships to the Imperial Navy. Your crews will be well treated. You are outnumbered and have no other choice.? She settled back into her harness as the message made its way to the Axons. At the current separation the message would take thirty seconds to travel to the Axon ships and another thirty seconds to return, plus however long it took the Axons to make up their mind what to say, of course. While she waited she pondered the situation. The Axons had just ten corvettes, which meant that at most they could launch sixty fighters. Given that at least one of the corvettes was almost certainly a command unit without fighters, they probably didn?t even have that many. While her force wasn?t particularly large it easily out massed the Axon force, and more importantly her attached carriers could field more fighters than the Axons. And the Imperial ground force on Breen Prime had already confirmed that the Axons didn?t have any corvettes hidden in the shadow of the planet. Aside from deploying a satellite network when they arrived the Axons had done little about the Terran presence on the planet. They were screwed, pure and simple. Of course, that didn?t mean that they were going to surrender. She?d be very surprised if they did. In her judgment it was much more likely that they?d run for the outer system, where they could hide and act as raiders. They couldn?t get away, of course, given the fact that the 7th Fleet was sitting on the warp point to the rest of the Axon territories, but they could run, if they wanted. A feral smile crossed her face as she thought about it. If the Axons ran they were screwed, although they didn?t know it. The new fighters carried by the Terran carriers were fast enough to chase them down if they ran, even carrying a minimal load.
A minute passed, and then a little more. Finally the monitor lit again. ?This is Axon Hierate space by right of conquest. You will approach no closer to this planet than twenty light seconds. If you do, we will be forced to eliminate your presence on the planet, along with the heretical Breen population. You are further ordered to remove your troops from the surface of the Breen planets and leave this system, never to return, or we will render all habitable planets in this system uninhabitable.?
Admiral Trevor was taken aback by the bald threat. After she thought about it she decided that they were bluffing. Sixty fighters couldn?t carry enough missiles to wipe a planet clean of life, and the Axons wouldn?t get a chance to reload. ?You are bluffing, Axon. I repeat my demand that you surrender. I won?t ask again.? As she talked the fleet passed the twenty light second line and continued to close.
Aboard the Axon command-corvette, Group Leader Shals smiled a particularly Axon smile as he watched the Terrans come on past the deadline. The smile grew even as the Terran leader delivered her message of heretical defiance. He looked down at the button on his console. In truth, he had wanted to do this even before the Terrans had come scuttling out of the outer system after the Legions had departed. The Breen were heretics, one and all, and deserved nothing better. Still smiling with a serenity that defied explanation, Shals pushed the button.
In response, a signal leapt forth from the command ship and was relayed around Breen Prime by satellites deployed for that purpose. As one the satellites that had been deployed from freighters that accompanied the Axon Legions activated. The satellites were special purpose machines, built and deployed with one function. On board each satellite five small, relatively cheap missiles leaped forth, targeted on the planet below. Each missile would only function for a matter of seconds, and would be worthless in a space battle, but each survived long enough to reach the surface of the planet below. After driving through the upper atmosphere each missile separated into multiple warhead vehicles, each of which raced away from the others. When the rudimentary sensors in each warhead confirmed that they were at the proper height the equally crude nuclear warhead detonated. Suddenly across the surface of Breen Prime thousands of nuclear explosions blossomed, pocking the beautiful planet with ugly boils of light. The missiles only had the crudest of guidance systems, but with that many warheads and the dirty nature of the bombs they didn?t need to be that accurate. Five hundred missiles were launched from the one hundred satellites deployed by the Axons, and each deployed five warheads. The planet wasn?t destroyed, of course, or even rendered uninhabitable, but a significant percentage of the Breen cities were gone, as was most of the industry. The planetary population had been devastated.
Group Leader Shals watched the explosions below, his head thrown back as if caught in a religious revelation. Perhaps he was. He watched the explosions below and in his mind?s eye he saw the same explosions marching their way across the other two Breen infested planets in the system. Even the approaching Terran fighters couldn?t pull him back to mundane reality. He knew they were doomed, and so he had little interest in the outcome of the battle. While his subordinates made sure the fighter squadrons were launched he watched the planet below as the explosions faded, leaving glowing craters behind. As he watched, one by one the craters disappeared as clouds covered the globe below. He continued to watch, even as the Terran fighters took their revenge on his squadron. He died watching his handiwork; secure in the knowledge that he had done right by his god.
On board her command ship Admiral Trevor watched in horror as ugly explosions disfigured the once-beautiful planet. She never once thought that the Axons would go through with their threat, and now that they had she could do nothing but watch. She barely noticed as Terran fighters streaked away from the squadron?s carriers to take their revenge on the enemy. Finally, as the last Axon corvette flared and died, she came out of her stupor. ?Comms, contact the ground contingent. See if anyone is left down there, Breen or Terran. And get the medical section online.? She mentally pushed the lethargy that gripped her away as she began to organize her squadron to launch a relief effort to help anyone that might be left below. The situation became even worse when messages from the other two heavily populated Breen planets in the inner system arrived. They too had been subjected to a heavy bombardment from Axon satellites.
Author?s note: The system used by the Axons to bombard Breen Prime is a derivative of the Kinetic Bombardment System (KBS) system. It essentially is a cheap satellite equipment with minimal targeting and communications systems, and five missiles. Each missile had minimal guidance and propulsion systems, just enough to target a city or other large target and reach the target before running out of power. Each missile carries five independently directed warheads. The Axons developed this system quite some time ago after they started conquering other races. The development cost is equal to that of the KBS, and the cost per satellite is .04 MCr?s. The NBS has no other use than nuclear blackmail or genocide. It cannot be used to support ground troops, aside from delivering a preparatory bombardment, and it isn?t very good at that. It is more than a little ironic that while I started out to make planetary bombardment more difficult, I have, in the end, come up with an even better way to accomplish genocide. I can?t see any reason why a system like this wouldn?t be developed by a sufficiently genocidal race, or any technical problems with it.
Month 139, Week 1
The news of the bombardment of the three Breen worlds raced back to the Empire where it caused quite a disturbance. The Empire?s entire justification for the war was to help the poor races enslaved by the Axons, and very few would consider the resulting destruction ?helping?. The fact that the Imperial Navy had done everything it could to prevent the destruction of the Breen didn?t really mean much. Public attitudes began to turn against the Imperial Government on the invasion. The Imperial public had largely been indifferent to the invasion of Axon territory, as it was seen as something that was happening far away from the core areas of the Empire, beyond even the frontier. Some fanatics were against the action, on the grounds that it constituted alien entanglement, while others were for it, on the grounds that they felt that the Empire should conquer all alien races. The vast bulk of the public was squarely in the middle and really didn?t care. Now, though, with evidence that the Navy had bungled the operation and billions had died, the public perception was changing and not for the good. Pressure began to mount on the Navy and the government to do something or to pull out completely.
The naval units on the front lines weren?t immune from the pressure. Rear Admiral Trevor blamed herself for the bombardment of Breen Prime, and after relief units from the 7th Fleet arrived at the planet she offered her resignation to Fleet Admiral Umgowa. In fact, she demanded that she be allowed to resign, citing her obvious incompetence. Admiral Umgowa refused the offer, and cited her bravery and quick thinking in organizing a relief effort as instrumental in saving many Breen and Terran lives. Fleet Admiral Umgowa then turned around and resigned himself, taking the blame for the slow pace of the operation and the bombardment of the Breen worlds. He offered to stay in place until a replacement could reach his location. The Imperial Navy accepted his resignation, but opted to place his second in command, Admiral Stern, in overall command of the fleet. The Navy had been under immense pressure to replace Admiral Umgowa, who had been characterized as being far too timid and cautious, for quite some time. His resignation, coming after the disaster of the destruction of the Breen home world, was really only anticipating his eventual recall.
Month 139, Week 2
Imperial forces re-entered the system down-chain from the Breen system this week. This system is known to be a dead-end system containing colonies from the Breen and Andalonian races, with a leavening of Axon administrators. The Empire probed the system last month, but recalled its squadron when the Axons appeared.
Careful probing by the Imperial ships revealed no bombardment satellites over any of the populations in the system, and no Axon ships. Once the squadron had confirmed that the system was clear, the Imperial troop ships that had been waiting at the warp point set out for the inner system. With this system secure the 7th Fleet was now clear to focus its attention on the Andalonian home system, which was located through the Breen system?s other warp point.
Author?s Note: The Andalonian home system is located up-chain from the Breen System, towards the interior of the Axon Hierate. Like the Breen system, it contains no less than three habitable planets. Unlike the Breen system, only one of the Andalonian system?s habitable planets is an ST. Both the Breen and the Andalons evolved on ST type planets, and the Breen system may be unique in that it contains three ST type planets. The Andalonian system contains two T and one ST type planets. The two T type planets have been colonized by Axons.
Probes from the 7th Fleet?s pinnaces had confirmed that at least some Axon fighters were present on the far side of the warp point. Although they had no idea of the Axon strength on the far side of the warp point, Admiral Stern had the clear example of Admiral Umgowa?s fall behind him and knew that delaying would only lead to his relief as well. The attack started shortly after Admiral Stern took control of the fleet.
Two hundred gunboats led the way, followed by an SBM pod barrage wave consisting of three hundred pods. The pods were targeted on corvettes, and were intended to draw any surviving fighters off of the warp point. Once the pod swarm transited, the 7th Fleet?s strike carriers began transiting, at the rate of one every five seconds.
The first Terran gunboats to transit found sixty Axon fighters waiting on the warp point for them. Both sides immediately tore into each other, but it was obvious from the first that it was an unequal contest. Even transit addled the gunboats performed as well or better than the Axon fighters, which were disorganized and sluggish. By the time the last of the gunboats appeared the Axon CSP had been wiped out, for the cost of fifty gunboats. Intelligence later gathered on the Axon settled planets in the Andalon system would confirm that the corvettes defending the warp point had just been built at the shipyards orbiting one of those planets, and that the pilots were brand new, with no experience what-so-ever.
The Terran SBM pod attack had little effect. The Axon corvette swarm, which had been maintaining station eleven light seconds from the warp point, was already moving away at its best speed, and the SBM pods were forced to destruct at the end of their run due to lack of targets.
Two minutes passed while Terran strike carriers poured into the system. Finally, after the twenty-fourth carrier entered the Axon carriers launched their fighters. Two hundred and forty Axon fighters plunged recklessly towards the warp point and the massed Terran fighters and gunboats. Over six hundred Terran gunboats and fighters meet the Axon fighter group short of the warp point and annihilated them. The inept Axon pilots killed just forty-two Terran fighters.
With the Axon fighters gone, the Terran F3?s accelerated to their maximum speed and chased down the fleeing Axon corvettes. Terran F3?s with a minimal load were able to generate an overtake speed on the corvettes of 7,500 KPS, which meant that the pursuit was short. Not one Terran fighter was lost destroying the Axon fleet. The Axons lost fifty-five corvettes.
With the Axon corvette-carriers destroyed, the 7th Fleet was free to enter the Andalonian system. Admiral Stern immediately dispatched his exploration ships to begin surveying the system, but otherwise the bulk of the 7th was to remain on the warp point. Admiral Stern was determined to be more aggressive than Admiral Umgowa, but he wasn?t stupid. After a short time, Admiral Stern dispatched a single cruiser squadron, escorted by two strike carriers, towards the inner system. Their orders were to approach the Andalonian planet and determine if they were mined as the Breen planet had been. If so, they were to stand off at whatever distance the Axons required, and attempt to negotiate with the Axons.
Unfortunately it didn?t work out the way Admiral Stern had hoped. Eight hours after the 7th Fleet entered the system, all broadcasts and other e-m transmissions from the inner system suddenly cut off. Further study showed that the Andalonian home planet in the inner system had suffered multiple nuclear strikes. The Axons had launched their planetary attack weapons shortly after a light speed transmission from the defenders at the warp point would have been received. They hadn?t even waited for the Terrans to reach the inner system. The two Axon-populated planets seemed to be untouched, but they wouldn?t know for sure until the probe force reached the inner system.
Admiral Stern and the command staff of the fleet were shocked. What kind of fanatics were they fighting, and what had driven them to this extreme?
What the Terrans didn?t know, what they couldn?t know, was that their attack was just the latest in a string of setbacks for the Axons. Their attack was the third in a series of blows that rocked the newly reestablished Axon Hierate.
Several weeks earlier, Week 1, In the Axon territories?
The first blow to the Axons fell in the Elftan system, when the Imperial Chosen launched their assault into the system. The attack was brutal. There was no finesse, just the raw application of force.
The first wave was composed of forty two armed pinnaces, which sped away from the warp point as soon as they materialized. The Axon CSP, twenty-four fighters strong, probably shouldn?t have pursued them. The Apin?s weren?t fast enough to chase down the Axon corvette-carriers, and they weren?t really a credible threat to well-handled fighters, but the Axon pilots were very green. Most had only a few months of training and had been assigned to their carriers for less than two months. With targets in front of them they did what came natural and they pursued the Apin?s. One minute after the armed pinnaces appeared strike carriers and fleet carriers began transiting into the system, one after another. As soon as their catapults stabilized the carriers launched their fighters and then turn back towards the warp point. After a minute the stream of carriers stopped. In another thirty seconds the last carriers had launched their fighters and transited out, leaving behind three hundred and sixty fighters to face the Axons. The battle was short. The Axon fighters had finished off all of the Apins that they could catch, but not without casualties. The CSP was joined by fighters from the corvette-carriers hovering twelve light minutes from the warp point, and then the combined force attacked the Chosen fighters moving towards the corvettes.
The Axons fought poorly, while the attackers fought like machines, which in fact they were. Although the Axons didn?t know it, the Imperial Chosen preferred to risk only machines in warp point assaults. There were still too few Chosen to be risked in such a casualty-intensive environment. In less than a minute there were no more Axon fighters in space. The Chosen machine fighters lost forty-six of their number, along with twenty Apins. The Chosen fighters were not fast enough to catch the Axon corvette-carriers, which managed to escape, albeit without their fighters.
After a few minutes several Chosen machine battlecruisers transited in to determine the situation, and then returned through the warp point. After that a small contingent of machine-crewed warships transited into the system, along with some survey ships.
Meanwhile, in the Axon home system at approximately the same time?
The second blow, and the heaviest, fell in the Axon home system. The ASR fleet that had defeated the Axon reserves in the Tirosk system was engaged in a race with the assembled Axon Legions, which were returning from facing the Terrans in the Breen system. The ASR fleet was slower, but much closer. It reached the warp point to the Axon home system on Day 5, long before the Axon Legions could reach the home system.
The ASR attack was led by a massive wave of SBM pods. The ASR, or rather the ASR?s predecessor, the GDO, had originally discovered the Axons through this warp point long ago, and thus the ASR now had the warp point surge data they needed to launch their attack. Two thousand pods entered the Axon system. They took heavy casualties from the minefield around the warp point, but thanks to the limited programming of their tiny metallic minds that didn?t bother them in the least. The pods raced away from the warp point with the CSP in hot pursuit. The CSP, all of twenty-four fighters strong, managed to destroy some of the pods before they launched, but many more were lost to interpenetration or to the massive minefields that surrounded the warp point.
The pods, which had split up into six groups to cover the most space around the warp point, began a phased launch as they sped away from the warp point. The first group, composed of a third of the remaining pods, was set to launch at four light seconds distance from the warp point, but there were no targets so the pods self-destructed instead. The second group launched at eight light seconds distance from the warp point. This group caught five corvettes as they ran, completely obliterating them. The last group was to launch at twelve light seconds, but again there were no targets and they were forced to self-destruct as well.
The destroyed corvettes were the Axon automated weapon control ships, and before they died they managed to activate some of the numerous DSB-L?s around the warp point. Later analysis would show that the SBM pod attack was largely ineffective, as it merely forced the bulk of the Axon fleet to move slightly farther away from the warp point to avoid the pods. The Axons apparently maintained a backup squadron of automated weapon control ships farther away from the warp point, and those took over as soon as the inner group was destroyed, although there was a delay as they moved closer to the warp point. The most important effect of the pod attack was that it did draw off the Axon CSP, allowing the ASR?s gunboats to enter the system unmolested.
Two minutes after the attack began the ASR gunboats destroyed the last of the DSB?s guarding the warp point. The ASR strike commander was surprised at the skimpy DSB field, but perhaps she shouldn?t have been given the Axon?s focus on offensive actions. By that point the Axon CSP had stopped chasing the ASR SBM pods, but were too weak to return to the warp point. The Axons had only a partial Legion of corvette-carriers on hand to guard the warp point; everything else available had been sent forward to engage the ASR fleet and then lost. Even worse, in addition to being under strength, the Legion was painfully green, with only a smattering of experienced personnel. The corvette-carriers, while at a safe remove from the warp point, were having a tough time getting their fighters into space.
In the meantime ASR gunboats continued to enter the system. A minute after the last pod was destroyed ASR fleet carriers began arriving in the system. The carriers made a tight turn immediately after entering the system and then launched their fighters just before transiting back out. A minute and a half after the first carrier entered the last left, leaving behind 432 fighters and 420 gunboats to face the 138 fighters the Axons had finally managed to launch.
The battle was over quickly. In exchange for fifty five fighters, the ASR fighters destroyed the entire Axon force. After eliminating the Axon fighters, ten squadrons of ASR fighters jettisoned their external ordnance and went into pursuit of the rapidly withdrawing Axon corvettes. As fast as the corvettes were, they couldn?t outrun the ASR?s fighters and they were soon hunted down and destroyed.
With the defenders neutralized ASR BBA?s began transiting in and engaging the heavy minefield with anti-mine missiles. A route through the field was soon clear, and ASR ships began transiting in and moving away from the minefield.
Back on Axon Prime?
With their warp point defenses destroyed and their last reserves gone the leaders of the Axon government boarded the corvettes of the Prophet?s Own and raced away, leaving the planet behind. The Axon military was confident that as soon as the assembled Legions arrived from facing down the Terrans they would defeat any conceivable force the ASR could field, but the Axon leaders had no faith in the navy, which they felt had let them down. For now they take the prudent course and retreat to observe the battle. They could always return after the battle and no one would know they left, or, if necessary, they could run to the fallback position being prepared on the frontier. The Axon leaders took the Prophet?s Own Legion, along with two newly commissioned Legions fresh from the construction docks, with them.
The ASR fleet under Gwynxa settled into orbit around the Axon home planet without further incident. Gwynxa himself demanded that the Axons surrender. When the Axons failed to reply, Gwynxa repeated his demand, and added a requirement that they vacate their orbital shipyard so that it could be occupied. Gwynxa made the consequences of failure to cooperate very clear. The Axons again failed to reply. The ASR fleet?s sensors clearly showed Axon dockworkers frantically working on numerous corvette-carriers and fighters, although what possible use they thought that the ships would be was not clear. When the allotted time passed Gwynxa didn?t hesitate to carry out his threats. The ASR monitors launched on the huge unprotected Axon space stations and in seconds they and their crews were reduced to expanding clouds of dust and gas. The ASR fleet then went on to destroy every bit of the Axon?s orbital infrastructure that they could find, regardless of its military potential.
Several days later the ASR fleet detected what they assumed must be Axon reinforcements headed towards the inner system. Gwynxa immediately ordered the ASR fleet to retreat towards the warp point back to ASR territory, away from the incoming Axon ships. The uncloaked ASR ships met up with the cloaking fleet, which had remained far from the Axon planet and its sensors, and together the two fleets fled the inner system.
The assembled Axon Legions had been racing back towards the home planet ever since the war with the ASR began again. When the Legions sent against the ASR disappeared without a trace, and then the ASR fleet penetrated into the Tirosk system, the Legions returning the to home system had boosted their speed to maximum, risking burnout, spurred on by the demands of the Axon leadership that now felt vulnerable on the suddenly exposed home planet. Those demands had only intensified when the ASR penetrated the home system?s defenses, but by then it was clear that the ASR fleet was going to reach the home world first in any case, so the Axon admirals ordered their fleet to slow down to save their engines.
Now they were closing in on the ASR fleet, which, much as they had expected, was running away from them. The Legion commanders were wary, but confident. Although the ASR fleet before them had apparently been strong enough to destroy the Axon Legions originally sent to confront them, the assembled Legions were much stronger. The ASR fleet looked deceptively weak, though, which increased both the Axon?s confidence and their caution.
As the two fleets neared each other, Gwynxa set up his command space to observe the coming battle. The command space, or battlespace, was the ASR?s latest technological development. It allowed a commander to create a much more flexible alternative to a holo tank in what was essentially cyber-space, through direct neural contact with the flagship?s computers. Gwynxa and his aides would be connected together through the flagship?s tactical computers, and could interact and absorb data much more efficiently than otherwise.
Gwynxa began by bringing up the two main fleets below his perspective, which appeared to him to be floating above the battle area. In front of him, or to the north, was the oncoming Axon fleet, which they now knew was composed of four hundred and five corvettes. Directly behind him, or south, was the main ASR fleet, also known for this operation as the decoy fleet. This fleet was composed of 16 battleships, 8 carriers, 3 battlecruisers, 10 cruisers, and 9 destroyers, all older non-cloaking models. The Axon fleet was coming ahead confidently, apparently focused on the fleeing ASR fleet.
Gwynxa?s tentacles curled with satisfaction when the Axon Legions launched their fighters while they were still fifteen light seconds from the ASR fleet. He had been fairly confident that the Axons would follow their standard procedure, and had studied their tactics from all of the previous battles to get the best information he could. The fighters raced away from their corvette-carriers, on a direct course towards the fleeing ASR fleet, their pilots no doubt gleeful about the destruction they thought they were going to cause to the ASR. The Axon corvettes came to a halt to wait for the fighters, and the ASR fleet also halted to go into a defensive formation. For one minute the fighters continued towards the ASR fleet.
The tension mounted as Gwynxa watched. This was one of the most difficult parts of the battle. He was fairly sure that the Axons knew nothing about the ASR?s cloaking device, but it was always possible that they might detect the cloaked ships anyway, or that they had somehow learned about the cloaking device and held back a reserve, or had some other trick up their sleeves. Finally, one minute after the fighters had launched the moment that Gwynxa had been waiting for came. The icon for the ASR cloaking fleet materialized to the north east of the Axon corvettes, which appeared to be completely surprised. Eighteen monitors, six battleships, and assorted other smaller ships launched as one on the Axon corvettes.
Gwynxa watched as his plan played out. He had noted what he believed to be a weakness in the Axon Legions. It was something that the ASR had been unable to exploit, but with the advent of cloaking ships they could now do much that had been impossible before. Every ASR missile launched from the cloaking fleet was targeted on an Axon command ship, which had been identified when all of the other Axon corvettes launched their fighters or armed pinnaces. One by one the command ships were wiped from space, obliterated in spite of their point defense.
The appearance of a threat to their rear, and the destruction of their command ships, sent the Axon Legions into what appeared to Gwynxa to be an uncontrolled panic. The Axon corvette-carriers split into multiple groups, all of which headed generally west, directly away from the cloaking fleet. The Axons apparently weren?t concerned about the ASR decoy fleet, which could now cut across their course and might be able to close. They were much more concerned about the monitors which had just appeared and were lobbing monstrous missiles into their midst. The ASR cloaking fleet set out after the fleeing Axon corvettes, heading generally northwest, angling away from the Axon fighter force that had been closing on the decoy fleet.
The Axon fighters had lost their telemetry input from their command ships, but their internal chain of command was still intact. The Axon strike commander ordered the fighters to come about and charge the main threat, the ASR cloaking fleet. Unfortunately, this soon proved to be a problem. The ASR had destroyed every Axon ship that possessed long-range scanners, and the corvette-carriers had panicked and run, and could no longer detect the ASR ships with their basic scanners. The fighter?s scanners were even more limited, and it quickly became clear that they had no idea where the ASR?s ships were.
Gwynxa began launching and his mechanical tentacles began twitching as he imaged the panic aboard the Axon corvette-carriers as the missiles launched from invisible ships began to strike them. Without long-range scanners the corvettes couldn?t see beyond 7.5 light seconds, and the monitors had slipped beyond that range. Heavy ASR missiles destroyed eight corvette-carriers in seconds and more were damaged.
Gwynxa hunched forward, watching intently. This was the key phase of the battle. The Axon corvettes would be able to escape from the ASR monitors in a minute or so, and although they had taken losses they would be able to escape with most of their fleet intact. If they were able to recover their fighters they would be able to re-equip at least some of them with the fighter-Xr packs they undoubtedly carried and would be immune to this tactic. Even worse, they would know about the cloaking ships and would have heavy scanner-equipped fighter patrols out in the future. He had no intention of letting the corvettes get away, though.
Gwynxa watched as, unseen by any Axon ships or fighters, the ASR carriers that were stationed to the north west of the Axon carriers now de-cloaked and launched their fighters. The ASR carriers, which were ten light seconds from the Axon corvette-carriers, de-cloaked, launched their fighters, and re-cloaked, all without being seen by their intended victims. The Axon corvettes continued to run directly towards the trap, unaware of what awaited them.
The Axon corvette-carriers continued to run from the missiles coming at them from the rear. They knew that the original ASR fleet (the decoy) was somewhere around, but it was fifteen light seconds away when the ambush started and couldn?t have closed much since then. The thought that the ASR might have another cloaking force slipped through the cracks as the gaggle of corvette-carriers frantically tried to get away from the heavy ASR missile ships by running straight towards an ASR fighter force they didn?t know was there. Another salvo of missiles slammed into the retreating carriers from the invisible ASR missile ships, focusing them on the threat behind them. With a thought Gwynxa caused a bubble to appear around the Axon corvettes at five light seconds, denoting the rage at which they would detect the ASR fighters.
Gwynxa chuckled as the 306 charging ASR fighters finally crossed the five light second sensor threshold, imaging the renewed panic aboard the Axon ships. The Axon corvette-carriers needed a few seconds to comprehend what their sensors were now showing in front of them, and then they all turned north and shot away at right angles from the fighters in front and the missiles behind. Yet another salvo slams into the corvette-carriers from the ASR missile ships behind them. The commander of the Axon carriers, which had finally shaken out and established some sort of pecking order, sent an emergency omni-directional message to the Axon fighter strike group, recalling them for the defense of the fleet.
Gwynxa could see what the Axons had to know but probably couldn?t accept. The ASR fighters were cutting across the Axon corvette?s course and were 2,500 KPS faster in any case, and would catch the Axon carriers no matter what happened. And unlike the corvette commanders, Gwynxa knew exactly where the Axon fighters were, and knew that they were not in position to intervene. Ever since the ambush the Axon corvettes had been running at full speed, which matched the maximum speed of the Axon fighters, which had been looking for the cloaking fleet in any case.
Because the Axon carriers had turned away from the incoming ASR fighter force, the ASR monitors were just able to keep the fleeing corvette-carriers within range of their missiles and they launched yet another salvo, damaging and destroying more of the tiny ships. The Axon strike commander turned his fighters and armed pinnaces towards the reported location of his carriers, but because neither the ships nor the fighters have long-range scanners they can only estimate their location and could not be sure they are headed in the correct direction. Curious, Gwynxa called up the axon loss figures. Fifty-three corvettes had died so far from missile fire, and more were damaged.
Continued in part 2
