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Offline IanD (OP)

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Epilogue. (13)
« on: January 20, 2013, 04:30:20 PM »
WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS WITHIN!!

Tales of the Union.

 
Epilogue.(13)



21st October 91. Delta Cassiopeiae.
Exploration of a jump point in the Woolley 9120 system by Survey Task Group 3 revealed the new system of Delta Cassiopeiae, an A5-V type star with only a few comets for company

22nd October 91. 10 Tauri.
The Hierarchy colony on 10 Tauri-A IV surrendered. The colony consisted of a population of 0.87 million and some infrastructure.  54.4 shillings in reparations were secured from the colony.

25th October 91. 27 Cygni.
The portal stabilisation ship Galain III-001 had been parked at the jump portal for years without activity. Ever since exploration in the Imperial arm had ceased. Relief crews were shuttled in for their six month tour of duty then shuttled home again, home meant Refuge – HIP 96183, six jumps away. 27 Cygni was as far away from Avalon as you could get, fourteen jumps only recently equalled by the exploration out of the Lleida Hierarchy home system.
02:30 hours found Lieutenant Chiu Bao Cui lounged at his watch station. He was the nominal captain of the vessel and could choose his watches. He chose the middle watch for one as it was always quiet; no one else was awake to bother him, he was the only person on the bridge. The great portal stabilisation vessel was at harbour stations, even though it was in deep space, it wasn’t going anywhere soon and just required routine preventative maintenance to keep it in working order. Lieutenant Cui put down the duty tablet after making a few desultory alterations and picked up his reader, slipped on the wraparound specs with the built in ear pieces and prepared to settle into one of his favourite sims for an hour before picking up his studies in preparation for his Captains examinations.  However that wouldn’t be for some time as he was ranked 311 out of 325 lieutenants in Star Corps service.

02:59 The proximity alarms went off with a blare!, red lights flashed across Lieutenant Cui’s board, his scrambled to tear off his specs and examine the board ,dropping his reader in the process. He first noticed that the jump portal was active, a vessel had just emerged, it’s icon flashing blood red on the sensor display (portal stabilisation vessels didn’t run to holotanks). Data streamed across his screen. “Unknown vessel, unknown class, unknown race!” was all it could do before a little used part of the ships AI kicked in. As crew hurried to their bridge stations the mechanical voice of the AI came over the speakers. “New race detected in 27 Cygni, unknown vessel now designated Boreum Planum 002.” “Why” Cui wondered “didn’t the class designations ever start at 001? A friend in IT once told him it was an old programming error no one could ever be bothered to fix. Cui shifted in his couch and gave his first and last order as the ansible powered up “Comms data dump to Star Corps HQ, report our situation, request support, Galain III-001 out.” A video feed flickered on, a transmission from the alien ship; the image of an improbably huge hairy arachnid began to form on Cui’s video link. As he watched the link firm up the red icon on his sensor display was replaced by a white one indicating a neutral classification. All that meant thought Cui morosely was that the aliens hadn’t blown the ship up yet. 
The alert was received with some dismay at Star Corps HQ. There were no spare task forces to send. Survey Task Group 1 would have to abort its search for the Empire of Caserta and be sent off in pursuit of this new alien contact. There were a few spare parts from which an a couple of Venture C class survey vessels could be constructed with an accelerated build, not the latest class but every little would help. Another three of the Venture D2 class would be ordered from the ‘Yards at Devaria, even though they had yet to deliver the first of the class to Survey Command.
In light of Task Force 3’s experience in confronting the Lleida Hierarchy Task Forces 1 to 4 were being reorganised to form two Task Forces of seven Task Groups instead of the usual four, with a few support groups created based on the spare jump destroyers and missile boats. All that could be done was to send the task groups being allocated to Task Force 1 with the exception of the new Venomous class anti-missile escorts which were still working up.

25th October 91. HD37008.
Survey Task Group 10 discovered a second Hierarchy colony in the HD37008 system, located on comet #8. It had strength 30 ground defences and small EM and thermal emissions of 5 and 10 respectively.

27th October 91. 10 Tauri.
The 1st Leviathan Division landed on 10 Tauri-A III leaving the 14th Marine Division on 10 Tauri-A IV.

2nd November 91. 10 Tauri.
The invasion of the Hierarchy colony on 10 Tauri-A III got off the a good start. Three Hierarchy garrison battalions were engaged by elements from the 1st Leviathan. Severe casualties (around 30%) were inflicted an the enemy ground unit

7th November 91. Gliese 249.
The old Ashen Shugar II-004 survey vessel, operating solo, discovered the new system of Gliese 249. Gliese 249 was an M4-V star with four planets, dozens of moons and a handful of comets, but no terraforming candidates and no sign of the aliens Ashen sugar II was hunting
The ground war continued. The Hierarchy commander was not shy about coming forward and threw his troops into the fray, but suffered disastrously as his forces received 50% casualties at the hands of the 1st Leviathan. The Hierarchy soldiers were ill equipped to take on Union CSUs. This effectively ended armed resistance on 10 Tauri-A IV. The ragtag remains of the Hierarchy forces were disarmed over the course of the next week.

17th November 91. Ross 555.
Survey Task Group 2 investigated the unexplored jump portal in 10 Tauri. It was discovered to link to Ross 555 in the Phi-2 Ceti Expanse, just three jumps from Phi-2 Ceti itself! The backdoor to Union space was revealed. The survey group found the Hierarchy Simiyiar 005 and the Baneh Morningstar 002 portal construction vessels in Ross 555 located at the jump point to 10 Tauri.

18th November 91 10 Tauri.
The Hierarchy colony on 10 Tauri-A III formally surrendered. The event was broadcast throughout the Lleida Expanse. The Hierarchy merchant marine surrendered seeing all was lost and submitted to Star Union control. This brought 49 Freighters, 46 Colony transports, 16 terraformers, 5 portal stabilization vessels, 5 gravitational survey and one geological survey vessel onto the Union lists. All were in need of urgent maintenance and modification to bring them close to current Union standards.

Gram – Avalon-A II.
With the fall of the last major Hierarchy colony and the winding down of the war a conclave of Sector Controllers and Planetary Coordinators could be called without disrupting the war effort.  The main business of the meeting was to appoint a new Director.
At the close of the Conclave the identity of the next Director of the Star Union of Avalon was announced. Daniel Burrows former Governor of Saginaw – Xi Pegasi-A II – Moon 3 was elected to replace the late Lakshmir Ponarkaar. Born in 46, Burrows was a relatively young appointment for this august post. It was hoped he would serve the Union with distinction for many years to come.  It is rumoured that he had family links to the old Windwalker clan.
Aidan Fletcher was appointed to the now vacant post of Planetary Coordinator of Saginaw – Xi Pegasi-A II – Moon 3. This was an important post being the nearest major Union colony to the Baneh Empire and was beginning to eclipse the sector capital next door at Zwickau – S.W. Burnham 157-A II. Aidan Fletcher’s previous post was as Planetary Coordinator of Enterprise – HIP 98505-A IV.

20th November 91. Woolley 9120.
Task Force 7 intercepted Tramontana 013 which was lurking in the Woolley 9120 system.  The missile boat Catoblepas terminated it with prejudice using 45 Firestars.

3rd December 91.  10 Tauri.
9th Marine and 18th Assault Divisions landed on 10 Tauri-A II – moon 20 in preparation for an assault on the Hierarchy colony. It was decided to soften up the defenders using the lasers of STG 8 as in previous occupations very few installations had been recovered without the use of orbital bombardment.

7th December 91. 10 Tauri.
STG 8 reached 10 Tauri-A II – moon 20 and opened fire on the Hierarchy ground forces. There was no atmosphere to impede the deadly beams, invisible with no atmosphere to perturb. Domes crumpled as though an invisible giant fist had smote them. The rocky surface exposed through rents in the domes first glowed red then turned molten as the energy of the five X-ray beams burned into anything that hinted at a military installation and held it as their focus to reduce it to slag. Duranium flowed like thin toffee, reducing complex machinery to ash in a heartbeat. 30 seconds after the start of the bombardment all the designated targets were sullen glowing dull red scars on the surface of the moon. Defensive works were melted back into the bedrock of the airless moon. As the orbital assault finished the 9th Marine and 18th Assault divisions swept across their start line and occupied what remained of the charred Hierarchy colony. The thermal emissions of the colony were reduced from 640 to 520 and the EM emissions from 1385 to 1520. The wreckage of at least thirteen Hierarchy battalions was discovered after the occupation. 104 automines were recovered from the colony. 

8th December 91. Avalon.
After the election of the new Director of the Star Union the news of the retirement of two well known Planetary Coordinators was released.  The first was Wang Li Xue, lately Planetary Coordinator of Clarent – Avalon-A III. Wang Li Xue was an appointee of former Director Gong Cai Wei, and he was replaced by Klara Steig, who had been between appointments after a couple of tours governing mining colonies. The other Coordinator to retire was Kunti Rao, former Planetary Coordinator of Woolley 938-A VII, the home world of the alien Adelsoni. Eve Rowley formerly Planetary Coordinator of Iota Piscium- A II was appointed to the sensitive post that was occupied by Kunti Rao.

26th December 91. 11 Aquarii.
Exploration of a jump point in the 27 Cygni system by Survey Task Group 1 revealed the new system of 11 Aquarii, a G1-V star with an extensive planetary family with two excellent terraforming candidates, but no alien colonies.

 6th January 92. Delta Cassiopeiae.
The gravitational survey completed in the Delta Cassiopeiae system revealed a total of no less than nine jump points.

11th January 92. GJ 2043.
The ex-Hierarchy survey vessel Brahmaputra 002 was enroute to 12 Persei when it suffered a catastrophic maintenance failure and exploded! The maintenance of all ex-Hierarchy vessels was appalling and it was surprising that more were not lost by a failure to maintain vital equipment properly.

20th January 92.Mu Andromedae.
Exploration of a jump point in the Delta Cassiopeiae system by Survey Task Group 3 revealed the new system of Mu Andromedae an A5-V star with only a few asteroids and comets in company.

27th January 92. 51 Aquilae.
Exploration of a jump point in the 27 Cygni system by Venture B-011 of STG 1 revealed the new system of 51 Aquilae, an F0-V star with a well endowed planetary system which included a 1.9 colony cost world, two asteroid belts and many comets, but no aliens.

15th February 92. HD 37008-A Comet #8.
The 9th Marine Division began deployment on HD 37008-A Comet #8.

24th February 92. Phi-2 Ceti.
The 339th Engineer Brigade disturbed an underground vault on Beaumaris Alpha - Phi-2 Ceti-A II that contained hostile droids. Fierce fighting broke out immediately, nearly 20% of the 311th Garrison Battalion were casualties in the first few hours but the murderous automatons lost approximately 90 % of both the attacking formations. The fighting also cost the lives of 50,000 colonists and totally destroyed a mine complex.

26th February 92. V491 Persei.
The last of the Baneh Empire Shadow Hawk wrecks in V491 Persei were salvaged. This vessel appeared to be an escort cruiser armed with size 1 missile launchers.  This class is still in service with the Baneh Empire.

28th March 92. Mu Cygni-A IV - Moon 4.
New deposits of Tritanium have been found on Quarry-Mu Cygni-A IV - Moon 4 by the Bai Ting Kang Geology Team, The total amount available increased from 3,181,875 to 3,281,875 tons and the accessibility from 0.2 to 0.4.

29th March 92. Rho Aquilae.
Elements of STG 1 discovered Rho Aquilae out of 27 Cygni. This was the 200th system discovered by the Star Union. It was an A2-V star with ten planets of which no less than three had a colony cost of 1.90, but still no alien colonies were located.

30th February 92. Phi-2 Ceti-A II.
Fighting continued on Beaumaris Alpha as the droids were pushed back, destroying a third of the mechanical monstrosities in the process.

2nd April 92. HD 37008-A Comet #3.
The assault on the Hierarchy cometary colony began with a laser barrage from STG 10, great gouts of sublimed ice exploded from the comets surface. Defending ground units stood not a chance and organised resistance ended before it began. A Union garrison battalion occupied what little remained.

5th April 92. Roadrunner - HR 8853-A II.
The recoverable ruins on Roadrunner – HR 8853-A II have been fully exploited, unfortunately insufficient facilities were recovered to make a viable colony in this dead end system, and thus development of the naval base was cancelled. Facilities will be transferred to the 10 Tauri system.

11th April 92 HD 37008-A Comet #8.
The 9th Marine division began its attack on the second Hierarchy cometary colony, this time without the benefit of an orbital bombardment which had totally destroyed the colony on Comet #3. The advantage was with the defenders initially as they used old mining tunnels and managed to erupt in the marines’ rear areas destroying a fifth of a replacement battalion. But soon the Marines were ascendant and killed or captured a third of a two battalion Hierarchy battle group.

18th April 92. V491 Persei.
A Baneh Longbow class freighter ventured into V491 Persei to trade. This was mildly surprising given the number (26) of Longbow wrecks in the system which occurred while it was under the previous ownership.

HD 37008-A Comet #8.
The Marines continued their sweep across the comet, which was punctuated with intense firefights.

22nd April 92  HD 37008-A Comet #8.
Hierarchy losses mounted as they tried to resist the overwhelming strength of the Marine Division. Quarter was offered but not one Hierarchy soldier took up the offer.

28th April  92. Avalon.
Communications with the Prague Empire, previously the 27 Cygni aliens, was formally opened today.

HD 37008-A Comet #8.
The campaign was drawing to a close as two Hierarchy battalions were totally destroyed. Unfortunately little remained of the mining colony by now.

4th May 92 HD 37008-A Comet #8.
With destruction of the final Hierarchy battalion organised resistance ended.

11th May 92. HD 37008-A Comet #8.
Little remained of the Hierachy colony but a hole in the ground, the few survivors were dependent on the Union for their every need; practically the colony had ceased to exist.

29th May 92. Xi Scorpio.
Ashen Shugar II-004 discovered Xi Scorpio out of an unexplored portal in Struve 2173. Xi Scorpio was a quaternary system, consisting of F6-IV, F6-V, G3-V and K5-V stars. While the primary had only one planet in attendance the other three stars had extensive solar systems and the C component contained five good terraforming prospects, but still no aliens. 

14th June 92. GJ 1069.
STG 3 was surveying the next system down the line in a jump arm revealed in the databases recovered from the Hierarchy. The survey vessels had split up and each surveying on their own. Venture B-008 was about to start Surveying survey point #06, Captain Chen Yu Dong ordered “crew to survey stations” and the ship settled down to commence operations. About an hour into the survey the Sensor subofficer announced “fault in main sensor, I am starting the diagnostic programme, but its going to be down for a few hours at least. Captain Dong sighed, “Very well, let me know a projected time to restore the sensor as soon as you know. Comms notify Captain Hargreaves that we are blind; The system appears empty so I don’t think we’ll need to buddy up. ” Half an hour later the sensor subofficer made another report “sorry sir that’s the short range missile sensor down, it begins to look like we have a virus in the sensor suite, probably came aboard at Lleida.  We now only have a very short range sensor capability, be lucky to see anything beyond 50,000 klicks sir.” Captain Dong replied “Ok Sensors,  Pilot,  let’s finish up here then go join Lieutenant Zhen in Venture B-006, just to be on the safe side.” 
The Sensor subofficer was working at his boards when he went white and hit the action stations klaxon. “Sir! It’s the Horde, hundreds of them” was all he got out as the bridge exploded about him. The rest of the squadron were alerted by the omega transmission, it managed to identify over two hundred Triththass class gunboats before it cut off.
The wreck of Venture B-008 pulsed on the sensors of the rest of the squadron. Captain Hargreaves main problem was assembling the Task Group. It was uncomplicated except for Lieutenant Zhen in Venture B-006 who was on the opposite side of the system. They would have to cut round the edges of the system or risk running headfirst into the Horde gunboats.

18th June 92. GJ1069.
Captain Hargreaves managed to assemble the remains of STG 3. He now intended to wait for the gunboats then take his revenge before they could get into range of his vessels.

19th June 92. V398 Aurigae.
Task Force 7 returned to V398 Aueigae. The four ship Destroyer squadron was orbiting the sixth planet while the Mistral and Cabo Fradera orbital forts orbited the fifth planet.
Task Force 7 set its course for the Destroyer task group. The Destroyer squadron moved out to meet the Union Task Force.

20th June 92. V398 Aurigae.
Group Commander Ashley Holden, who had succeeded Squadron Leader Jennings, Watched the senor repeater at his station intently.  At 18:45 and a range of 119.75 million klicks Holden ordered “Fire Plan alpha, fire!” Holden felt justified in launching early as the Destroyer warships were still on approach and would continue so until they reached the engagement range of their Hellcat missiles, some 113 million klicks. Five seconds later the ten well drilled missile cruisers each launched fifteen Firestar IVs. The Destroyer squadron could have been on a peace-time cruise until they disappeared in a maelstrom of thermonuclear death.

21st June 92. V398 Aurigae.
Task Force 7 next set out to eliminate the orbital forts. This required the expenditure of only sixty missiles. Once more the Destroyers seemed asleep.

24th June 92. GJ 1069.
Having gathered the remaining four vessels of STG3 together captain Hargreaves settled down to wait. He did not have too long before the signature of the Horde armada appeared on the sensors of the survey vessels. At 03:08 hours the sensor alarms aboard STG 3 went off signalling all crews to assume defence stations. All crews were forced to mute the combat comp well before it could finish iterating the designation of all two hundred and thirteen gunboats.  Now the trick was to lure them into laser range while staying out of meson beam range. That shouldn’t be too difficult as the Venture B class had an 1120 k/s advantage over the Horde gunboats.
08:18. After several hours of careful manoeuvring the Horde gunboats were now bunched astern of STG 3 and just entered 20cm advanced laser range. The crews were now at action stations and all Hargreaves had to do was order open fire over the laser comm to begin the squadron’s revenge for the loss of their comrade. It took 15 seconds to destroy the first gunboat.
08:20. As the range decreased to below 100,000 klicks Hargreaves ordered “squadron increase to 10,000 k/s.” The gunboats were proving tough to kill, they were taking nine kiloton equivalents of laser damage without breaking stride. Hargreaves began to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew and at only 92,000 klicks from his adversary he had not a lot of room in which to manoeuvre. Then he realised all his ships had to do was immobilise the gunboats then pick them off at their leisure. This worked well; a trail of broken gunboats began to mark the passage of the small squadron and its pursuing horde.
08:32. The last pursuing gunboat had been eliminated or immobilised, there was a trail of damaged and broken gunboats nearly 8 million klicks long. STG 3 started back along it course to make sure none of the wounded gunboats recovered and grew up to become a mothership.
08:44. The last gunboat burst like a ripe boil as the lasers played over its charred surface. All two hundred and thirteen gunboats had been killed, but Hargreaves was not satisfied. He was going after the miners if he could catch them away from the mother ship. Venture B-009 was detached to rescue the survivors of Venture B-008 and take them the Saginaw – Xi Pegaus-A II, the rest of the squadron moved towards the small planetary system hoping to find the miners unguarded

26th June 92. V398 Aurigae.
At 06:44 Task Group 7.3 trapped Tramontana 0014 in its missile envelope and launched 45 Firestars at the unfortunate vessel. 07:15. Tramontana 014 was overwhelmed by the missile strike . Group Commander Ashley Holden pronounced the system cleared of Destroyer vessels and safe for survey and clearance work.

GJ 1069.
Captain Hargreaves was alerted to the sudden appearance of a gunboat wreck on the sensors and ordered his small squadron to investigate.

27th June 92. GJ1069.
Captain Hargreaves got his wish of tracking down the miners; thirty appeared on the repeater screen at his station. The mother ship was still an unknown and while it remained so Hargreaves was going to wreak as much damage as he could.
16:46. STG closed the miners and opened fire with all weapons. There was no return fire so the survey vessels continued to close till the Horde vessels were just 10,000 klicks away. A minute later the squadron closed to 10,000 klicks and continued to fire on the miners unopposed. Less than a minute after that the thirty Horde miners were history.

28th June 92. GJ1069.
Venture B-009 streaked in to rescue survivors of Venture B-008, as it did so the Horde mothership appeared on the edge of the ships sensor envelope. However it made the pickup and exited the system.

29th June 92. V398 Aurigae.
Elements of STG 6(G) discovered hostile Destroyer ground forces on V398 Aurigae-A VI strength 45.

30th June 92. V398 Aurigae.
Elements of STG 6(G) discovered a second ruined colony on V398Aurigae-A V.

4th July 92. Dela Velorum.
The ruins on Delta Velorum-B V have been fully surveyed by the Nicholas Porter Xenologist Team. The alien race which inhabited the planet was identified as the Democratic People's Republic of Hamilton and their language and symbology were translated. They had reached TL 5 before they lost the race to survive. 68 abandoned installations were found which might be recoverable by an engineer regiment

5th July 92. GJ1069.
23:10. Task Force 3 appeared at the jump point to HIP 17743, a couple of minutes later the signature of the brood mother appeared on Task Force’s sensors. The Task Force moved to intercept.  The debt of Venture B-008 would be collected in full.

6th July 92. GJ1069.
02:50.Once in missile range four missile boats, Elf, Efreet, Gargoyle and Ghoul fired 256 Firestar IVs at the 60,000 ton Horde mothership. 03:18. The missile storm broke about the misshapen monster, which under the ministrations of 220 ten-kiloton warheads burst like a ripe boil shedding twenty gunboats as it did so. The missile frigates in the task force made short work of them, using the Firestar IV, a much improved weapon compared to the Firestar III which had problems intercepting the agile gunboats.

12th August 92. V398 Aurigae.
The 18th Assault Division began its attack on the Destroyer base located on V398 Aurigae-A VI. At least five droid battalions were engaged, one was destroyed and the rest suffered a third casualties.

18th August 92. V398 Aurigae-A VI.
The 18th was making slow but steady progress, this infestation was one of the largest droid concentrations yet seen. Fierce fighting saw the destruction of yet more destroyer units without significant loss to the Union assault troops.

27th August 92. V398 Aurigae.
The 18th finally entered the Destroyer base smashing the last two droid units which tried to impede them; the carcasses of the cybernetic killers lay strewn about the outpost.

3rd September 92. V398 Aurigae.
V398 Aurigae-A VI declared cleared of Destroyer opposition and open for colonisation.

12th October 92. Gliese 215.
The ruins on Gliese 215-A III have been fully surveyed by the Matthew Graham Xenologist Team. The alien race which inhabited the planet was identified as the Gharz Imperium and their language and symbology were translated. This civilisation had only achieved TL 1 before their demise. 149 abandoned installations might be recoverable from the ruined city.

9th November 92. Woolley 1920.
The ruins on Woolley 9120-A II have been fully surveyed by the Trishna MudiRaj Xenologist Team. The alien race which inhabited the planet as been identified as the Kelang Coalition and their language and symbology were translated. They reached TL5 before the Destroyers snuffed them out.  384 abandoned installations were found which might be recoverable by an engineer regiment.

23rd November 92. Sigma Andromedae.
Deep in the Imperial Arm STG1 split into two three ship sections to try and increase t he number of systems surveyed.. STG 1A investigated an unexplored jump portal in Alvahet and discovered Sigma Andromedae. An A2-V star with four planets dozens of moons and an asteroid belt.  Sigma Andromedae-A II – moon 4 had a colony cost of 1.90, but no alien colonies.

29th November 92. 5 Andromadae.
STG 1B working out of Alvahet discovered 5 Andromadae, an F5-V star with eleven planets one of which had a colony cost of 1.90, but yet again there was no detectable alien presence in system.

1st January 93. 10 Tauri.
A geological survey of 10 Tauri-A IV  by the Scott Tyler Geology Team has been completed.  New deposits of Duranium were found, The total amount available increased from 5,232,645 to 5,526,448 tons and the accessibility from 0.2 to 0.8.

25th January 93. V398 Aurigae.
The ruins on V398 Aurigae-A VI have been fully surveyed by the Trishna MudiRaj Xenologist Team. The alien race which inhabited the planet was identified as the Baxley Cartel and their language and symbology were translated. They had achieved TL3 before the Destroyers got them. 29 abandoned installations might be recoverable by an engineer regiment. The planet would be renamed Baxley Alpha.

8th February 93. Theta Sculptoris.
The 46th Engineer Brigade has disturbed an underground vault on Khan - Theta Sculptoris-A VI that contained hostile Droids. But the 15th Light Assault Division was ready and destroyed all of the robotic reavers before they could do more than break out of their vault.

28th March 93. Rho Andromedae.
Exploration of a jump portal in the Sigma Andromedae system by STG 1A revealed the new system of Rho Andromedae, an F5-III star with only six planets but two were excellent terraforming candidates. However there was no sign of the elusive aliens.

21st October 93. SRS 3867.
STG 5(G) entered SRS 3867. SRS 3867 was a Hierarchy discovered system consisting of a G8-V and an M2-V binary. There were a total of five eminently terraformable planets, four orbiting the G8-V and one the M2-V with colony costs varying from 1.67 to 2.85. Group Commander Qian watched his repeater sensor screen as the squadron diverged to take up their pre-arranged survey stations. Qian was surprised to note that the system had several wrecks present around the sixth planet, one definitely a Destroyer Alcanada class warship and another was a Hierarchy Action IV class survey vessel plus three unknowns. There had been no mention of this in the preliminary report from the former Lleida Hierarchy survey archives and STG 9 conducting a gravitational survey had not updated him on the presence of the wrecks upon his arrival in system. With the presence of so many colony prospects in system and Destroyer wrecks he decided to allocate SRS 3867-A VI, a colony cost 1.9 world, to his own ship the Citrine.

23rd October 93. SRS 3867.
The geological survey vessel the Citrine slid into orbit about the blue planet which occupied the sixth orbital slot of the G8 primary.  Group Commander Qian watched the senor repeater screen at his station intently; it was difficult to pick out faint objects with the old MR192-R100 set the Citrine was equipped with.  The action stations alarm wailed as the sensor sub-officer sang out “fifteen mines on sensors, size 24, no active sensors.” The entire crew waited for the next announcement, “incoming” that would spell the death of many of them, Qian gripped the armrests of his command couch until his knuckles were white. The seconds ticked by, still no word from the sensor console. A whole minute went by, still no news of a missile salvo bearing down on them. Finally Qian ordered “secure from action stations, resume survey stations. Looks like the Hierarchy did us a favour, these mines are spent!” referring to the Action IV wreck. All now looked forward to the survey report; it was unheard of for a minefield to be placed around a planet without ruins of some kind on it.

13th November 93. SRS 3867.
Citrine, (STG 5(G)) discovered a ruined city on SRS 3867-A VI.

14th November 93. Xi Andromedae.
Exploration of a jump portal in the Rho Andromedae system by STG 1B revealed the new system of Xi Andromedae, an K0-III star with only six planets but the moon of one of the gas giants was a good terraforming candidate. Still there was no sign of the elusive aliens.

3rd December 93. Avalon.
Prague Empire granted trade access to the Star Union of Avalon. It was a pity the Star Union  had no idea where they were located so it could set up a trading hub.

16th January 94. Phi-2 Pavonis.
Phi-2 Pavonis, an F8-V star, was discovered out of Gliese 209 by STG 9 still searching for the elusive Casserta and Prague Empires. Phi-2 Pavonis-AIV had a colony cost of 0 and Phi-2 Pavonis-A V a colony cost of 1.9. The system consisted of twelve planets in all and once more was devoid of aliens.

3rd February 94. Avalon.
The Casserta Empire granted trade access to the Star Union of Avalon. It was a shame the Star Union had no idea where they where to start trading, but that would come in time.
With relations with the last known alien polity showing a distinct improvement the Star Union of Avalon was victorious over its foes and had good foreign relations with all known alien races. Over 200 systems were known to the Union and most had been surveyed. The Star Corps possessed eleven formations of Task Force size with a further four independent Task Groups, Every task group element had jump capacity for the entire group. In six months a further Task Force would join the Star Corps and after that every year another task force would be added to the Star Corps. 
 The future would be a golden age of exploration and discovery. No other space-faring empire could match the prowess or had the depth of resources possessed of the Star Union which lasted until the coming of the Invaders. 

The End.
IanD
 

Offline Beersatron

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Re: Epilogue. (13)
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2013, 12:01:16 PM »
Sad to see the end of this series, but hoping you get the chance to start another!