Sol
AD 2328 November 14
Commissioner Louise Holloway sipped her tea admiring the sunset against the Atlantic ocean seen from her office in the Northern Coalition Commission building in Goose Green. Her gaze returned to the screens on her desk, status reports, requests, briefs, notes and a dozen more called for her attention. 'No major crissis at least.' she sipped her tea again before calling up the status of the various system so far settled under the NCC's Bureau of Interstellar Colonization. Humanity had spread out along 3 main paths and now a dozen systems has growing populations on them. Sol remained the most populated system, with the population on the moon's of Jupiter exceeding the original population of the Norther Coalition and Mars at nearly 750 million. Venus had nearly 41 million with 1.75 million of that in the 7 orbital habitats.
System Population Fuel Farm Production
Sol 3700m 30.8 Ml Shipyards (10/32); Factories (529); Research (47); Refineries (120); Ordnance (65); Fighter (25)
Alpha Centauri 142m 27.6 Ml Tiendidth&Calheme under terraforming; Factories (120); All minerals: Boronide, Corbomite, Sorium
FL Viginis 37m 33.4 Ml Factories (32); All minerals: Galicite, Uridium, Vendarite, Corbomite
Lacaille 9352 29m 4.7 Ml Alembec&Crucible under terraforming; Minerals (no boronide): Galicite, Neutronium, Corbomite
Gliese 526 28m 18.6 Ml Minerals: Tritanium; Rosetta fully habitable
Gl 493.1 23m 23.9 Ml Minerals (no boronide, uridium): Galicite, Duranium; Poesidean fully habitable; Factories (47)
Gliese 408 23m 0 Ml Arboria partially habitable; Minerals: Duranium, Vendarite
Gliese 382 3m 0 Ml Sturmhiem fully habitable
Gliese 832 3m 2.7 Ml Eureka under terraforming, Exhausted Alien Ruins
Luyten 205-128 2m 6.6 Ml Scout's Fall under terraforming; Ruined City of the Bissau Empire under recovery
Gamma Virginis 1m 0 Ml Twilight fully habitable; Minerals: Galicite, Duranium
AD Leonis - 39.2 Ml Forge; Minerals: Duranium, Tritanium, Corundium
Sol produced a considerable amount of minerals on Venus, Mars, Io and Calisto plus the comets Comas Sola, Macholz, Chernykh and Borrelly the first having 30 teleoperated mines and the rest 20. Venus gained around 10 teleoperated mines per year (currently 140 were in operation). Haumea and Sedna were home to 67 and 31 civilian mining operations respectively. Still two minerals remained in low supply on Earth Vendarite and Galacite. Galacite had been an issue ever since she become Commissioner, with the amount dropping to a few thousand tonnes for most of the last decades. Currently it was at 12K tonnes, but the light cruiser and destroyer naval yards were at full production and even more Galacite was enroute. The change had come about due to the increased production on Venus (3220 tonnes per year), bringing Comas Sola on line (840 tonnes per year) and efforts in Lacaille 9352, Gl 493.1, and FL Virginis. Poesidean was still in the process of bootstrapping its local industrial base and had a Galacite production of 2,282 tonnes per year while a ground survey of Biforst had found a new high accessability deposit of the mineral and production is currently at 1,550 tonnes per year. Alambec in Lacaille 9352 currently produces 1,150 tonnes per year. Additional sources add some 1000 tonnes per year. The slow and steady increases plus the surprising find had made it possible to increase the supply to the current levels while allowing for the construction of new fuel harvesters, and terraformers long needed to service the new colonies. It also allowed replacement of the combat losses suffered in Tau Ceti (two Warder class CLEs, a Fallen Class CL, a Tribal class DD and several Starslayer FACs) plus the replacement of the recently lost 8th Squadron (a Fallen Class CL, three Tribal class DDs, and 2 Quiver class DD support ships) not to mention completing the support ships for the 10th Squadron. She had already signed off on the construction of two new Sirocco class heavy cruisers. Production of Galacite was a necessary pre-condition on expanding the NCN a force held back for the past decades by the low levels available.
Earth's Mineral Stockpile
Duranium 289K tonnes
Neutronium 175K tonnes
Corbomite 134K tonnes
Tritanium 68K tonnes
Boronide 72K tonnes
Mercassium 67K tonnes
Vendarite 24K tonnes
Sorium 112K tonnes
Uridium 240K tonnes
Corundium 89K tonnes
Galicite 12K tonnes
Naval Construction
Old Norfolk Naval Yards
Grace Prichard CL Fallen Mod1.2
Naskapi DD Tribal Mod3.2
Maliseet DD Tribal Mod3.2
Deschimag A.G. Weser
Armory II DD(support) Quiver Mod2.2
Arsenal II DD(support) Quiver Mod2.2
Sarcee DD Tribal Mod3.2
S/A Ansaldo Shipyard
Expedition JCS Caravan
But more had changed, started by the discovery on Rosetta of two alien ship borne production systems which were a complete mystery until the discovery of the so-called jump gate in GJ 1002. With the data from the existing gate suddenly the mystery systems made sense and human scientists were able to replicate the function of the gate and two construction ships were in operation and third was being laid down. Jump gates now linked Earth to Alpha Centauri, Lacaille 9352 (and GJ 1002 beyond) and Lalande 21185. Further the two existing ships were building gate connecting Poisedean to AD Leonis and would then complete the gate linking AD Leonis to Lalande 21185. Those ships were then scheduled to bring Rosetta, Sturmheim and Biforst into the network. She shook her head and smiled slightly sipping her tea slowly. The NCN had opposed this completely but the economic benefit to the shipping lines had made them lobby the Assembly hard and in the end the Assembly had authorised the connection of the colonies humanity had so far established excluding for the moment Twilight. But the change in the balance books had been dramatic. In the last year Income Taxes had dropped to 83% of the collected tax by the NCC. Shipping goods now amounted to 14.5%, and passenger liners and colonists added a further 2.3%. On the expenses side of the books civilian produced minerals was now tied by the cost of research, each at 27% of the budget. But the shipping of colonists outraged more than the NCN, BIC had to pick up the pieces when "dumps" again happened...in particular on Almbec, and Tientidth and Calheme in Alpha C. It was a reason why the jump gates were being built in such a way that Arboria and Poesidean would be available as destinations...hopefully preventing hopeful colonists from being dumped on partially terraformed worlds and overloading their existing infrastructure. The ship under construction would be used to add Eureka and Scout's Fall to the jump gate network.
The Centre's for Excellance were being expanded as fast as possible. Research was underway currently on:
Intersellar Trade Streamlining Dr. I. Doan (15 RL)
Takamak Fusion Reactor Technology Dr. H. Sinclair (9 RL)
Integrated Terraforming Technology Dr. W. Welke (5 RL)
Sensor Return Reducing Materials Dr. E. Ashton (4 RL)
Enhanced Laser Mirror Size (25 cm) Dr. S. Hildibjörnson (4 RL)
Improved Graviton Generation Dr. S. Clayton (4 RL)
Box Launcher Technology Dr. G. Winter (4 RL)
Streamlined Ship Assembly Studies Dr. J. Morgan (2 RL)
The bulk of them looked to be completed in 2029 or 2030. One research lab transported from Scout's Fall was waiting on the last shipment from the colony and would then be added to the CoE for Propulsion Engineering. After that the other CoEs could be expanded (by one RL each). The capabilities of the NCN were slowly closing in on the Wolvers, but as the recent loss of the 8th Squadron showed they were no where near to being on par with the enigmatic alien infestation. Ten Wolver box launchers recoved from Nagato FAC wrecks in Tau Ceti had been subject to reverse engineering efforts without success, unfortunate as it had been hoped that would speed up the process of developing that technology.
Operation Olympic, currently ongoing had gotten off to a poor start. The 8th Squadron had been conducting a recon-in-force of the inner worlds hoping to see if they could determine more about the Wolver facilities there. Unfortunately for Captain Prichard and her crews the estimated range of the "Magic Missile" as it was referred to in Naval parlance had been off by several million km. The After Action Review had clearly wanted to blame her for overly-aggressive behaviour but her plan as recorded in the recovered logs had been to reduce the threat to her ships by maintaining a course until the only threats she knew of had exhausted their known magazines and then to turn away and run. The tactic had had every chance of working except for the sudden revelation of the missiles 40m km range. 8th squadron had fought but while their defenses had been sufficient to blunt the Wolver ships 6 Magic Missile salvos the super salvos launched by the base (presumably) had rendered them moot. The Destroyer Chippewa had been the last survivor and had been under repair when a second bombardment had started and the crew had abandoned ship. All life pods had been recovered at least. Louise shivered, she had seen the pictures captured by the other ships as the Bradley Gardner had been ripped apart by repeated missile strikes over 30 s. But the data also revealed the Batch 2 Darts had been doing their job, still the report had concluded that even 100% effective defenses would have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of missiles fired at the squadron. That the Chippewa had survived even if badly crippled was the hardest blow; had they started running earlier they may have outpaced the on coming storm...but they had no reason to believe it was coming. Even the two Wolver ships engaging at 37.7m Km had been a surprise but their maneuvers had been consistent with other times Wolver ships had been launching bombardments.
To deal with this tactical nightmare the NCN had two plans. The first relied on improvements to close in defenses combined with improved Dart missiles. This would enable a CLE screened force to penetrate to ranges where the NCNs missiles could strike back. Unfortunately the recent battle indicated that the layered defenses would need to be nearly 90% effective to prevent significant loss of ships and that would be nearly a decade of R&D in the future. The second was to exhaust the enemy supply of missile by the deployment of a heavily armoured missile against the bases. The missile would have a minimal warhead but contain an active terminal guidance system so it could be fired at a waypoint near the Wolver bases and then find them with its onboard systems. The Harpoon missile series could be up armoured to require 5 counter missiles to ensure a kill. Four Siroccos could fire 16 missile volleys against the enemy, after 11 they could reload from colliers and continue the bombardment. 480 missiles inbound would force the Wolvers to fire a number of Magic Missiles equal to what they have so far fired in total. The design of the missile is waiting on some R&D developments, though it is certainly within the NCNs current capabilities.
The other part of Operation Olympic was going well, the 4 CLEs of 9th Squadron were escorting the recovery ship Junkyard and its freighter consort as they recovered the wrecks in the outer system. The 7th Squadron was stationed further in-system to intercept the Wolvers if they left the inner world they were orbiting, but it was looking like they would not. It might take a bit of time but it should be possible to recover the wrecks of the 4th Squadron and at least two wolver wrecks.
She wondered how the two carrier squadrons were faring. One had been dispatched to Luyten 205-128 after a recently re-activated Bissau orbital sensor array had detected a Wolver troopship lieing doggo in the system. The other was on the way to 40 Eridani to eliminate 3 such ships detected during survey efforts by Interstellar Survey Mission III. The presence of the Wolver ships was curious...each system where a troop ship had been found had also included ruins, the first such detection had been Gliese 832. Luckily these ships mounted no offensive weapons only defensive anti-missile defenses. This meant the Starslayer FACs could run them down and destroy them with laser fire. 'Still, why were they present in the systems in the first place?'
But for the moment the further re-organization of 1st Fleet plus the plans to replace the heavy frigate patrol squadrons with destroyers had to wait on the replacement construction and then the next heavy cruiser squadron escort vessels. Still the size and capabilities of the NCN were set to increase.
The situation on Earth with respect to the southern nations was stable but a steady stream of refugees economic or otherwise entered the territory of the NC. The bulk of them ended up taking a ship to one of the colonies, and of those unfortunately there was still a high death toll as the haulers dropped them off on colonies who were not ready for a large influx of new settlers. Nearly a dozen construction brigades worked to repair the pre-fall cities of Europe and North America while 15 Brigades of troops maintained a watch on the borders. Mars had 2 Brigades of troops and a further 8 Brigades were stationed in the colonies. The lure of a better life in either the NC itself or on one of the colonies was strong, and caused considerable friction with many of the larger southern "nations"...but the NCN and the NCA were powerful arguments for keeping the protests to diplomatic ones.
'Enough woolgathering...' She set her tea down and returned to the report she was reading.
