28th May 2028
The Soviet task group has completed its sweep of the Alpha Centauri-A system and is heading into the Alpha Centauri-B system when it detects several new active contacts near Alpha Centauri-B V, a super-jovian with twenty-three moons. All the contacts are different types, with signatures of 6450 tons, 12,400 tons, 12,850 tons and 12,900 tons. They appear to share similar characteristic to the ship destroyed near the Alpha Centauri-A system, suggesting they have been built by the same power. The surviving Soviet geosurvey ship is operating in the Alpha-Centauri-B system and it is fortunate that it did not stumble across the small fleet before the Soviet warships.
This time, Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov decides to soften up the enemy ships with a fighter strike before moving in for the kill with his fleet. While the task group holds position just inside sensor range of the new contacts, twenty-four Sukhoi-40 fighters, each carrying three P-500 Palash anti-ship missiles, head for their targets at 7272 km/s. Soviet Fleet Headquarters on Ganymede is following the action via the relay provided by the NATO-built jump gate. Their analysts soon conclude that given the size of the new contacts and the KGB's best estimate of NATO and Chinese jump drive technology, that these ships are of non-human origin. The Soviet Union is going to war against an alien foe.
The twenty-four fighters approach Alpha Centauri-B V without any sign of activity from the alien ships and launch all seventy-two P-500 missiles at the largest target. With two complete reloads for the fighters on board Minsk, the Project 1206 aviation cruiser, Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov is content to risk overkill. The missiles close on the apparently unsuspecting aliens at 24,000 km/s. 700,000 kilometers from its target, the missile wave is suddenly torn apart by small nuclear detonations and the fighters lose tracking on all but fifteen P-500s. Ten seconds later, the remaining Soviet missiles are destroyed. The stunned pilots head back to their carrier as Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov begins to swiftly revise his estimate of alien capabilities, particularly in the area of point defence. The alien ships show no inclination to pursue and there is still no sign of active sensors. Bogdanov holds his task group at one hundred and fifty million kilometers from Alpha Centauri-B V while he waits for the fighters to land and re-arm.
Realizing his limited fighter strength cannot penetrate the alien point defence, Bogdanov elects to take his fleet within shipboard missile range. His Project 1201 battlecruiser, Frunze, and his three Project 1204 missile cruisers, Slava, Varyag and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, have three hundred and twenty P-501 'Garpun' anti-ship missiles between them. Minsk is armed with sixty P-501s in her shipboard launchers and has one hundred and fifty P-500 'Palash' missiles for her fighters. The four Project 1200 missile cruisers each have twenty-four P-500s. The two different anti-ship missile types have different speeds, which makes coordinating an attack problematic. Therefore, Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov decides to launch a single wave of all three hundred and eighty Garpuns, targeted on the three largest alien ships, and then use the Palash missiles for a second wave against weakened defences. The wave of Soviet anti-ship missiles closes on the moons of Alpha Centauri V at 22,500 km/s, gradually dividing into two groups as the targets are split between the super-jovian and its second moon.
[attachment=5:16jhopjh]AlphaCentauri-1.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
As the missiles reach a point two point seven million kilometers from their targets, the smallest and largest contacts suddenly leave orbit of the second moon and begin heading away from the missiles at 6975 km/s. Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov orders his ships to pursue in order to ensure the targets don't move outside fire control range. Alien point defence missiles begin intercepting the Soviet anti-ship missiles at two point five million kilometers, indicating impressive anti-missile sensors and fire control systems. Hundreds of explosions litter the wake of the Garpuns as they struggle through a hurricane of fire and the formidable missile wave melts away like ice in a furnace. The last P-501 is destroyed one point seven million kilometers from Alpha Centauri V. Aghast at the ease with which the alien ships turned aside the full force of his task group, Kontr-Admiral Bogdanov orders his fleet to retreat to the jump point. Colony ships and freighters en route to the B component to create a Soviet settlement on Alpha Centauri-B III are diverted to Alpha Centauri-A III; a less desirable but far safer destination.
The two alien ships that had broken orbit during the attack continue heading away from Alpha Centauri V and within a couple of hours Bogdanov's staff realise they are on course for the Lagrange point trailing sixty degrees of orbit behind the super-jovian. The other two Lagrange points in the system are in the orbits of Alpha Centauri-B VI and Alpha Centauri-A VII. The planets around the primary star suddenly begin to look less safe. All the ships in the system, with the exception of gravitational survey vessels that are well outside the combat zone, are all ordered back to the jump point.
3rd June 2028
A Chinese survey of Barnard's Star reveals a single jump point that already has a jump gate, presumably of alien origin. A Jinan class geosurvey ship transits the newly discovered jump point and discovers the system of 70 Ophuichi, a binary with two K-class stars. The third planet of the primary has a non-breathable nitrogen - oxygen atmosphere, with forty percent the density of Earth's, and a surface temperature of -30C. A definite candidate for terraforming
7th June 2028
The Soviet Union begins development of a new anti-ship missile; the P-503 Ametist. Designed to be fired from the B-408A VLS System mounted on the Project 1201, 1204 and 1206 classes, its intended function is to overwhelm the point defences of fixed targets. Although the P-503 is slow and relatively short-ranged, it contains four P-502 Yakhont sub-munitions, which have very short range but high speed. This missile will allow Soviet warships to quadruple the number of incoming missiles that will confront the point defence of their intended target. It will be of limited use in a more traditional ship to ship engagement. Soviet strategists just hope they gave time to put the missile into production before the aliens in Alpha Centauri become an even greater problem.
P-503 Ametist
Missile Size: 8 MSP (0.4 HS) Warhead: 0 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 5600 km/s Endurance: 104 minutes Range: 35.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 7.95
Second Stage: P-502 Yakhont x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 4,000,000 km
Overall Endurance: 2 hours Overall Range: 39.5m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 56% 3k km/s 10% 5k km/s 11.2% 10k km/s 5.6%
Materials Required: 4x Tritanium 2.7x Gallicite Fuel x3125
Development Cost for Project: 795RPP-502 Yakhont
Missile Size: 1.5 MSP (0.075 HS) Warhead: 4 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 32000 km/s Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 4.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.8
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 320% 3k km/s 100% 5k km/s 64% 10k km/s 32%
Materials Required: 1x Tritanium 0.55x Gallicite Fuel x75
Development Cost for Project: 180RP
In the meantime, Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 02 has returned to Earth to refuel and re-arm. Unfortunately there are insufficient P-501 Garpun anti-ship missiles to arm the launchers on all ships of RKO-02. One of the three Project 1204 Atlants is at sixty-five percent capacity and the other two have empty launch tubes. The second major formation of the Soviet Fleet, Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01, or the First Missile Ship Division, remains in orbit of Ganymede. Its order of battle is identical to that of its sister formation, except it includes two Project 1201 'Orlan' battlecruisers.. Raketnyy Kater Otdel 01, or the First Missile Boat Division, which comprises ten Project 1202 'Molniya' fast attack craft and a pair of Project 1203 Molniya-S scouts, has taken up a picket position at the Alpha Centauri - Sol jump point. The other two Missile Boat Divisions in the Soviet order of battle are located at Earth and Ganymede respectively. Also based at Ganymede are ninety Tupolev-50 bombers, each armed with four P-501 Garpun. Unfortunately, they do not have the range to reach the alien targets in Alpha Centauri, although that range could be extended by some form of in-flight refueling. For the moment the Soviet Union adopts a waiting game, trying to rebuild its missile stocks and introduce the P-503 before launching a second assault. A Project 1205 'Vishnaya' Intelligence Ship is dispatched to the vicinity of Alpha Centauri-B V to check on the activities of the alien ships.
17th June 2028
The Project 1205 'Vishnaya' detects all four known alien ships in orbit of either Alpha Centauri-B V or its second moon. When RKO-02 left sensor range, two of those ships were headed for the nearby Lagrange point. Wherever they went to, they have now returned.
29th June 2028
NATO completes a geological survey of Epsilon Eridani. While the mineral resources at the three best colony sites are extremely limited in either accessibility or quantity, there are several useful finds on other system bodies. The seventeenth moon of Epsilon Eridani II, just one orbit in from the ideal habitable eighteenth moon, has significant quantities of eight minerals, many of which are reasonably accessible. While the moon has no atmosphere and the temperature is -38C, its gravity is high enough to support a human colony and therefore can support manned mining complexes, assuming sufficient infrastructure is provided for the necessary workforce. The moon's colony cost is 2.00. Three uninhabitable moons have good quantities of accessible Duranium and several other minerals, which can be extracted using automated mines. Survey reports for all four of the above moons are provided below.
Epsilon Eridani-A II - Moon 17 Survey Report (colony cost 2.0)
Duranium 1,767,200 Acc: 0.6
Neutronium 1,488,400 Acc: 0.8
Corbomite 883,600 Acc: 0.2
Boronide 3,385,600 Acc: 0.2
Mercassium 25,600 Acc: 0.4
Vendarite 193,600 Acc: 0.7
Sorium 774,400 Acc: 0.3
Gallicite 921,600 Acc: 0.9
Epsilon Eridani-A IV - Moon 20 Survey Report
Duranium 307,328 Acc: 1
Neutronium 196 Acc: 0.7
Boronide 12,544 Acc: 0.9
Mercassium 35,721 Acc: 0.8
Vendarite 345,744 Acc: 0.7
Sorium 480,249 Acc: 0.7
Epsilon Eridani-A V - Moon 7 Survey Report
Duranium 415,872 Acc: 1
Neutronium 246,016 Acc: 1
Corundium 7,744 Acc: 0.7
Epsilon Eridani-A V - Moon 16 Survey Report
Duranium 2,860,832 Acc: 1
Boronide 256,036 Acc: 0.5
Sorium 19,044 Acc: 0.1
Uridium 103,684 Acc: 0.8
Gallicite 1,024,144 Acc: 0.9
1st July 2028
The Soviet Union completes a gravitational survey of Alpha Centauri, revealing a single new jump point just under a billion kilometers from the primary. The two Project 1215 'Fyodorov' class jump-capable gravitational survey ships head for the jump point, so that one can probe while the other maintains a communication link. The three older Project 1214 'Kamenka' class gravitational survey ships return to Earth for an overhaul.
19th July 2028
A Chinese geological survey ship discovers the ruins of an alien outpost on the third planet of 70 Ophuichi. The Chinese are unaware of the NATO and Soviet encounters with aliens so they believe they are the first human power to discover evidence of extra-terrestrial life. One of the two Huangwen class gravitational survey ships heads back to Sol with the news.
21st July 2028
A Fyodorov class survey ship probes the recently discovered jump point in Alpha Centauri and emerges in Ross 128, a system with a dim M4-V red dwarf primary and seven planets, none of which are habitable or have any suitability for terraforming.
28th July 2028
A Soviet geological survey vessel, surveying asteroids in the belt close to the system primary, detects a small thermal signature, indicating an alien listening post or other installation. The commander of the survey ship sends a report to Fleet Headquarters and then continues with his mission. Moments later, his sensors detect a dozen small thermal signatures accompanied by faint active sensor emissions. He barely has time to order full power before his ship is blown to pieces by multiple missile impacts. The explosions are detected by the scouts of the First Missile Boat Division at the Sol jump point and by two Project 1205 'Vishnaya' class intelligence ships, one of which is watching the alien ships near Alpha Centauri-B V while the other is monitoring the Lagrange point of Alpha Centauri-A VII, the only Lagrange point in the planetary system of the primary. The latter vessel is ordered to investigate the destruction of the geosurvey ship to determine if enemy ships were responsible or some form of captor mines.
1st August 2028
The Vishnaya scans the area but can find no trace of any alien ships. The best guess of Soviet analysts is that the suspected alien listening post was protected by a small minefield. A pair of Project 1210 'Moskalenko' class Desatnyy Korabl', or Landing Ships, are ordered to pick up two battalions of the 76th Airborne Division from Earth and combat drop them on the asteroid.
15th August 2028
The two Soviet airborne battalions land on the asteroid and find it defended by robotic soldiers. A fierce battle ensues while the two landing ships are sent back to Sol for reinforcements.
24th August 2028
A Chinese survey ship finds a second ruin site in 70 Ophuichi; this time an alien colony rather than an outpost. As NATO and the Soviet Union have each annexed one system each, once news of the new find reaches Earth the Chinese announce they are annexing Bernard's Star, which is the only route to 70 Ophuichi from Sol. Intelligence analysts in NATO and the Soviet Union are puzzled by the Chinese move, as Bernard's Star has no habitable planets and no candidates for terraforming. Their warnings to their political superiors that the Chinese must have found something beyond that system are dismissed as the two major powers are fully occupied with their own problems and have no desire to force an incident with the People's Republic. For the moment, the Chinese annexation stands unchallenged.
9th September 2028
Two more airborne battalions and the headquarters of the 104th Guards Airborne Regiment join the fighting on asteroid #15 of the Alpha Centauri-A system. So far, the alien robotic soldiers are holding out.
17th September 2028
The Soviet Union establishes a colony on Alpha Centauri-A III, landing 100,000 colonists in the first wave. Even though alien ships are present in the B component of the system, there is no sign of them moving to the planetary system of the primary.
19th September 2028
A jump gate is completed at the Epsilon Eridani - Sol jump point, allowing NATO to begin colonization of the system and also allowing the Independence carrier group to return to Sol. The Virginia class cruiser Nevada remains behind to protect the site of the first new colony.
21st September 2028
The Project 1205 Vishnaya class Intelligence ship monitoring the four alien ships near Alpha Centauri-B V loses contact with two of them. Unfortunately, the junior sensor tech on duty was distracted at the time by the sight of senior sensor tech Valentina Romanova performing her morning calisthenics and did not track the direction in which the two ships departed. Once informed of the situation, Soviet Fleet Headquarters makes the assumption that the creation of the new colony might be the reason for the sudden alien activity and plans accordingly. The ten fast attack craft and two scouts at the Alpha Centauri - Sol jump point are ordered to head for the Lagrange point near the last known alien location. While they will arrive long after any alien ship from Alpha Centauri-B V, they might be able to launch an attack when the missing aliens return, assuming they are following the same route as the last time they left the area. If the impressive point defence is primarily from the ships still on sensors, it may be possible to defeat the aliens in detail. Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01, the more powerful of the two Soviet missile ship divisions and still fully armed, leaves its base on Ganymede bound for Alpha Centauri. Once more is known about the aliens' location and intentions it may be used to attack part of the divided alien force. Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 02 leaves Earth orbit and sets course for Ganymede.
25th September 2028
The two missing alien ships reappear in a totally unexpected location, intercepting a group of four colony ships from Kazakov Transport, a quarter of the distance from the Sol jump point to the primary star. All the Soviet warships and scouts in the system are completely out of position and unable to help the hapless colony ships. The nearest is Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01, which has recently arrived in Alpha Centauri but is bound for the B component. Vitse-Admiral Karen Kravchenko orders her task group to change course and move to intercept. The ten fast attack craft that have almost reached the B component are directed to a point between Alpha Centauri V and the colony ships in an attempt to intercept the two alien ships if they attempt to rejoin their companions.
[attachment=4:16jhopjh]Centauri-1.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
The colony ships are torn apart by a constant barrage of small missiles. Strength 1 explosions suggest the two alien ships are actually escorts, using anti-missile missiles in offensive mode. Less than a minute after the initial contact, all four colony ships are destroyed, along with 200,000 frozen colonists. Contact with the two alien ships is lost. With no way to track them, Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko decides to take her task group to Alpha Centauri-B and try to find them again before they rendezvous with the others.
29th September 2028
The elusive pair of alien ships reappears once more. This time they are in orbit of the asteroid on which ground combat is raging. The first warning of their presence is an orbital bombardment of the Soviet airborne battalions. With the Soviet naval forces in the system converging on the B component in an effort to intercept the two ships, they are once more completely out of position and can do nothing to interfere. Within thirty seconds, the devastating bombardment wipes out four battalions and a headquarters unit, leaving the robotic alien soldiers in control of the listening post. With contact broken, the two alien ships vanish from sensors once again.
[attachment=3:16jhopjh]Centauri-2.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
30th September 2028
The two alien escort ships are detected approaching the Alpha Centauri-A VII Lagrange point. In anticipation of their course, the ten fast attack craft of the first missile boat division have already arrived at the Lagrange point after an intra-system jump from the B component. Between them, they are armed with one hundred and twenty P-500 Palash anti-ship missiles. While a salvo of this size is very unlikely to penetrate their point defence, the far more powerful Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01 is still en route to the B component and will probably not arrive in time to intercept before the alien ships makes it back to Alpha Centauri-B V, which leaves the FACs on their own.
[attachment=2:16jhopjh]Centauri-3.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko orders them to attack. At the very least their salvo may absorb some alien anti-missiles and the aliens must have a finite supply. So far there is no sign of any significant alien population in either Alpha Centauri or Ross 154 so their source of supply must be at least two systems away. As expected, all one hundred and twenty missiles are destroyed by alien anti-missiles, although the destruction takes longer than in the past and the missiles get within a million kilometers before the last one is shot down. During their defence against the missiles, the alien ships come about and head away from the Lagrange point. After the brief engagement, they continue on their reverse course. Unsure as to their destination Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko orders the two fast scouts accompanying the FACs to give chase while Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01 tries to reach the Lagrange point. The ten FACs, their launch tubes empty, head for Earth to rearm and refuel.
[attachment=1:16jhopjh]Centauri-4.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
Despite a top speed of 6000 km/s, the scouts cannot keep pace with the alien ships and lose contact as the aliens enter the asteroid belt orbiting close to Alpha Centauri-A. Their course indicates that they are heading back to asteroid #15. Two hours later, the alien ships re-appear on a course back to the Lagrange point. The scouts reverse course and retreat ahead of them. Why the aliens revisited the sensor outpost is unclear, although some Soviet analysts believe the aliens may have a stockpile of weapons on the asteroid. That would explain why they returned there after fighting off the missile launch by the Soviet FACs and also why the two alien ships left their original position near Alpha Centauri-B V after the attack by Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 02. Neutralization of the outpost becomes even more important than before. The troop transports that landed the airborne regiment are heading back to Sol where they will load a second regiment. Next time, any landing will be supported by orbital bombardment, regardless of the chance of destroying the suspected alien tracking station through collateral damage.
1st October 2028
Raketnyy Korabl Otdel 01 carries out an intra-system jump from the Lagrange point of Alpha Centauri-B V to the Lagrange point in the Alpha Centauri-A system toward which the two alien ships are heading. This gives the Soviet task group a chance to launch a new attack on the ships while they are on their own. However, if the attack fails, the Soviets will have used most of their missile stocks without result. Only a dozen of the new P-503 Ametist missiles have been produced so far and it will be many months before stocks return to the point where a new attack is possible. Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko decides to wait until the alien ships are very close to her own force before opening fire so they cannot turn and run out of range.
With the enemy ships just four million kilometers away, Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko gives the order to open fire. The twenty-four Sukhoi-40 fighters from the aviation cruiser Kiev and the four Berkut class missile cruisers launch a total of one hundred and sixty-eight P-500 Palash missiles, targeted on the smaller ship. As these missiles are slightly faster than the larger P-501 Garpun, they will enter enemy anti-missile range first and act as a distraction. Kiev, the two Project 1201 Orlan class battlecruisers Kirov and Kalinin and one project 204 Atlant class missile cruiser launch three hundred and eighty P-501s Garpuns at the larger alien ship while the other two Atlants fire one hundred and sixty Garpuns at the smaller one. Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko is concerned this might prove to be overkill but she has no intention of wasting this chance to defeat her enemy in detail. In all, more than seven hundred Soviet anti-missiles are launched against just two alien ships. As the Soviet task group is so close, the defensive missiles launched by the alien ships are detected by the Fregat MAE-30 Missile Detection Sensors on the Project 1200 Berkuts.
[attachment=0:16jhopjh]Centauri-5.GIF[/attachment:16jhopjh]
Despite their impressive point defence, the alien ships are totally overwhelmed by the tsunami of Soviet missiles. Eight of the P-500 Palash missiles strike the smaller ship and the alien efforts to stop the smaller missile wave leave them open to the much larger wave of P-501 Garpuns. Only thirty P-501s are shot down and the rest completely obliterate the troublesome alien warships. While in hindsight Vitse-Admiral Kravchenko realizes she did use too many of her own missiles, the aliens' obvious technological advantages over the Soviet Navy were assuming mythical proportions among Soviet crews. The conclusive demonstration that the aliens could be killed by concentrated Soviet firepower has a morale-boosting effect beyond that which would normally be expected from a relatively one-sided encounter. Kravchenko takes her fleet to the Alpha Centauri-A asteroid belt and into orbit of the sensor outpost. The battlecruiser Kirov uses her secondary battery of 200mm railguns to annihilate the alien tracking station and the ground force of robotic soldiers. Now the only known alien presence in the system is the two alien ships in orbit of Alpha Centauri-B V. Given their total lack of movement since they were first detected, the assumption of analysts from Soviet Fleet Headquarters is that they are some form of defensive base. Preparations begin to take them out.
to be continued...
