A further update
At 13:16, forty-five minutes after the second Commonwealth missile launch, the first salvo of missiles reached the crippled Hrothgar. There was no sign of any defensive anti-missile fire, which indicated that if the thin-skinned Hrothgar was an escort vessel, the initial damage has taken out something vital such as fire control or active sensor. A ripple of missile detonations was punctuated by an magazine explosion and the alien ship disintegrated. The damaged Grendel, which had been moving away from the rest of the alien fleet, reversed course and headed for the Hrothgar life pods. Three minutes later it was struck seven times by the second Commonwealth salvo. The atmospheric loss that accompanied five of the hits suggested considerable internal damage; the ship slowed to 1100 km/s and continued on course for the life pods.
Rear Admiral Gilles decided to refrain from further missile attacks, conscious of her limited supply and the continuing missile shortage within the Commonwealth. Instead, she intended to close on the crippled vessel and destroy it with the railguns of the Trafalgar class escorts. Thirty-five minutes after the missile strike, the damaged ship repaired an engine and increased speed to 1651 km/s. Fifteen minutes later it recovered the life pods and resumed its original course, diverging from that of the two intact ships. By this point the leading Commonwealth ships were twenty million kilometres away from the crippled Grendel and forty million from the other two ships.
Once the fleet closed within two million kilometres of the alien warship, Rear Admiral Gilles detached the Trafalgar class escort Bellerophon while the rest of the fleet returned to its pursuit of the Beowulf and the undamaged Grendel. The Admiral saw no point in risking more than one ship if the alien did turn out to be armed with beam weapons.
[attachment=2:2ecmzt2j]CloseForTheKill.GIF[/attachment:2ecmzt2j]
Bellerophon moved to point blank range and engaged the 5450 ton alien vessel with just three of her nine 10cm Advanced Railguns, keeping the other six linked to fire controls set up for missile defence. Her initial salvo scored eleven strength-1 hits, seven of which penetrated the armour. With no resistance evident and no way to demand surrender, Bellerophon's captain, Commander Valentine Lamarliere, ordered his tactical officer to turn all available weapons on the alien, obliterating it in a hail of fire. The Commonwealth destroyer moved in and picked up one hundred and fourteen alien survivors from life pods than raced after the rest of the expeditionary force. The aliens were humanoid in shape, although taller than humans, and had a knobbly, chitinous exoskeleton covering their entire body. Attempts to communicate began immediately, primarily so that any captured alien crews could provide intelligence. Thereafter, the situation in Salt Lake became a simple stern chase, with the expeditionary force gradually closing on the two remaining alien ships.
In the Washington system, the newly refitted survey ship Galileo arrived at the capital. Although the ship was intended to begin a survey of the systems in the San Francisco nebula, the discovery of a new, hostile alien race in Salt Lake had changed those plans. The ship was immediately dispatched to support Rear Admiral Gilles in case the aliens did not reveal their entry point. The more advanced Magellan class survey cruisers were all involved in a survey of the Rosyth system, seven transits from Salt Lake, so the Fleet Admirals had decided to send Galileo rather than wait longer for the more capable ships.
Meanwhile, the pursuit across Salt Lake continued. At 00:24 on June 14th, sixty hours after the battle, with the Commonwealth ships less than twenty-three million kilometres behind the fleeing aliens, the two alien ships vanished into a previously unknown jump point. The active sensors on the two battlecruisers pinpointed the location; one point seven billion kilometres from the Salt Lake primary on a bearing of 317. Reluctant to risk the battlecruisers in a probe of the jump point, Admiral Gilles decide to hold position and request both instructions and assistance. The escorts were less critical units but their sensors were extremely short-ranged so they were of little use as scouts. The immediate response of the Fleet Admirals was to dispatch the fleet support vessel Aconcagua with fuel and maintenance supplies and the collier Douglas with ninety SS-N-2 Sunburns to partially replace those expended plus eight large thermal sensor buoys and a dozen SR-N-1 Raven Recon Drones. There was little available in terms of reinforcements without seriously compromising security in another part of the Commonwealth and Salt Lake was simply not important enough to consider such risks. For the moment, the expeditionary force was ordered to hold its position and interdict any alien traffic through the jump point.
Fourteen hours after the transit of the two alien warships, a new contact was detected at the edge of sensor range, en route to the same jump point from the south-west. Designated as the Breca class, the new ship was 3000 tons and moving at 4000 km/s.
[attachment=1:2ecmzt2j]SaltLakeNewJP.GIF[/attachment:2ecmzt2j]
[attachment=0:2ecmzt2j]SL-NewContact.GIF[/attachment:2ecmzt2j]
Guessing it was too small to be a warship, Rear Admiral Gilles assumed it was some type of scout or survey ship and ordered the launch of a single volley of ten SS-N-2 Sunburns. Forty-two minutes later, with no sign of defensive fire, the missiles reached the alien vessel. Despite almost a fifty percent chance to hit, only two missiles struck their target, both of which resulted in atmosphere loss. The only visible sign of damage was a drop in speed to 3000 km/s. Unwilling to expend further missiles on a minor target, the Admiral detached Bellerophon once more, with orders to intercept and destroy the damaged Breca. Commander Lamarliere carried out his assignment in his usual efficient way and the alien was eliminated twenty million kilometres from the jump point. Sixty-seven survivors were picked up.
The events in Salt Lake highlighted the Commonwealth's need for a way of setting up fleet bases away from major population centres. This resulted in a design for the Mulberry class Maintenance Base, a PDC that contained five maintenance modules. Although the base would only be capable of providing maintenance support for ships of up to 1000 tons, several Mulberrys working together could provide support for much larger vessels. It was more expensive than building normal maintenance facilities, far less flexible as it could not be moved once built or assembled and it could not produce maintenance supplies. However, it could be setup on small moons or even asteroids and required no supporting population, allowing much greater choice in terms of the location of a fleet base. Raw materials and maintenance supplies would need to be shipped in if required.
Mulberry class Maintenance Base 6650 tons 645 Crew 1086.2 BP TCS 133 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-31 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maintenance Modules: 5 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 1000 tons
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 3 sections
Steve
