Part 4:Scientia vincere tenebras
In early September 2086, two of the Eastasian Kongo class destroyers monitoring the Washington jump point transited into the alien jump gate, probably indicating the four Kagero class survey ships had found the jump point to Denver and required warship support. Two Jianghu class heavy cruisers and a third Kongo remained at the Sol side of the jump point. Despite their apparent lack of jump ships, there was nothing to prevent the East Asian Alliance from concentrating all its efforts on exploring the chain of systems that began with Washington. Two more Kageros transited into Washington on October 1st, increasing the number of Eastasian survey ships to six.
The Ark Royal class carriers Lexington and Courageous were completed on October 6th 2086, taking Oceanian carrier strength to six. VFA-03 ?Space Barons? was assigned to the Lexington while VFA-06 ?Sky Demons?, now fully up to strength, was assigned to the Courageous. An understrength seventh squadron, VFA-07 ?Siberian Tigers? was formed in Earth orbit with six Eagle fighters. The two carriers were formed into a new fleet, named the Third Carrier Striking Force, and dispatched to Titan Base to relieve Ark Royal and Enterprise, now the First Carrier Striking Force, who would return to Earth along with Apache for much-needed overhauls.
A gravitational survey of the Santiago system, the third in the Washington chain, was completed on October 20th, revealing two new jump points, both of which had the increasingly familiar alien jump gates. Port Phillip explored the inner jump point, just 250m kilometres from the protostar and emerged via another jump gate in the same nebula, this time located near a G3-V protostar orbited by a gas giant, a barren airless rock and a Venusian world. The new system was named Buenos Aires. A few days later, Sullivan Bay entered Montevideo, yet another nebula system with a jump gate but this time with a planetless G2-V protostar. Beyond Washington, there were now four systems inside the level 5 nebula, Denver, Santiago, Buenos Aires and Montevideo, all with alien jump gates. Despite the fact Washington was actually outside the nebula, the area had quickly become known as the Washington Nebula. As the Oceanian survey ships still had fuel and spares available, they moved into Buenos Aires to begin a new survey.
On November 11th, the Eurasian Union built a further five Tarantul IIs, taking their fast attack inventory to fourteen Tarantul Is and eleven Tarantul IIs. In late November they constructed two units of a previously unseen class. The new ships were 4000 tons and their intended role was unknown. For the moment, Intelligence designated them as the Nov86 class. Oceanian sensors also detected Eastasian freighters travelling to and from an asteroid in the Mars ? Jupiter belt. It appeared the Alliance was setting up a mining colony. The Eurasian Union followed suit in early December, establishing their own asteroid mining operation.
The gravitational survey of London was completed on November 25th. The jump ship Sao Paulo investigated the inner jump point on December 14th, discovering a planetless M8-VII red dwarf system that was named Manchester. The three Melbournes that had just completed the survey of London entered Manchester to begin a new gravitational survey. Seven days later, Sao Paulo entered Edinburgh, a trinary system of orange K-class stars that was the most important find of human space exploration up until that date. The primary was a K1-V, a star of eighty percent Sol?s mass with forty percent of its luminosity, orbited by an asteroid belt and two rocky planets. One of which was a desert world with a thin atmosphere of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide and a surface temperature of 85C. Edinburgh-B, a K3-V star, orbited the primary at 2.25 billion kilometres, which would be inside the orbit of Uranus in the Sol system, and had its own asteroid belt and a solitary Venusian world. Edinburgh-C, a K6-V, orbited the B component at just 525 million kilometres and had four planets. The first was the hottest Venusian world even encountered, with a virtually molten surface, the second was a hot, airless rock similar to Mercury while the outermost was a small, barren chunk of rock. Planet three was an ideal habitable world. The gravity of 1.1G, surface temperature of 18.5C and an oxygen ? nitrogen atmosphere with an identical atmospheric oxygen pressure to Earth made this world perfect for human habitation, without any need for supporting infrastructure. Colonists could simply walk out of their ships into the meadows and forested hills and pitch their tents. Commander Patrick Wallace, captain of the Sao Paulo, knew the importance of his discovery and immediately took his ship back into London and headed for the Sol jump point. It had suddenly become even more important to guard the London jump point, so that no other power could gain access to the Edinburgh system.
On December 22nd, the East Asian Alliance completed two more Jianghu class heavy cruisers, taking the total number of that class to seven and the overall number of Eastasian warships to sixteen.
Oceanian scientists completed their research into Ion Engine technology on January 7th 2087, aided in part by ongoing scans of the new Eurasian fast attack craft by Pueblo. An engine using the new technology and named after Oceania?s two leading propulsion experts was developed within weeks, providing fifty percent more thrust than the existing nuclear pulse engines.
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive
Power Output: 60 Explosion Chance: 5 Efficiency: 0.7 Thermal Signature: 60
Engine Size: 5 Engine HTK: 2 Internal Armour: 0
Cost: 30 Crew: 25
Materials Required: 7.5x Duranium 0x Neutronium 22.5x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 300 RPOn January 13th, Sao Paulo transited into Sol and Commander Wallace informed Naval Operations of the habitable world in the Edinburgh system. The stunning news caused a complete re-assessment of Oceanian priorities. Up until this point, the plan had been for eventual colonisation of London-II using domed cities until sufficient oxygen could be added to the atmosphere by terraforming installations or even terraforming ships that were still in the design stage. Exploration beyond Sol?s other jump points, especially in those systems within the Washington Nebula, had continued in the search for even better colonization prospects and greater mineral resources than those found by the disappointing geological survey in London. Now an ideal colony site had been found; one that could serve as a fleet base and a eventual location for the majority of Oceanian industry, far beyond the weapons and sensors of the East Asian Alliance and Eurasian Union. It could be defended at a single point of contact and London-II, protected by that same point of contact, could also be terraformed into a second habitable world over time. Admiral Marcus Nelson decided that all Oceanian efforts would now be directed through the London jump point, especially as the first two Tarawa class jump destroyers were less than six weeks from completion. Once they were in service, colony ships and Alaska class freighters could be escorted through London and into Edinburgh.
Iroquois, still holding position at the alien jump gate on the Sol - Washington jump point, was ordered to head down the Washington chain, find the three gravitational survey ships and single geological survey ship and order them to return to the Sol system. Exploration of the Washington Nebula was to be abandoned for the moment and left to the East Asian Alliance. Kinkaid and Spruance, the two geological survey ships in Chicago, the system beyond Sol?s fourth jump point, were sent a message via the jump ship Serra da Cantareira, ordering them to abandon their survey and head across Sol, through London and into Edinburgh to assess its mineral resources.
An updated version of the Tarawa class Jump Destroyer, using the new Congreve-Hale Ion Drive, was designed in late January. The ship was essentially the same except for the newer engines and, like the original Tarawa, would be built in the BAE systems yard. The shipyard was already starting to retool for the new design, even before the completion of the first two Tarawas and would be ready to lay down the first of the updated hulls in early April 2087.
Tarawa Mod 1 class Jump Destroyer 6000 tons 493 Crew 846.4 BP TCS 120 TH 540 EM 0
4500 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 4-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 10/10/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 7.2
Magazine 48 Replacement Parts 5
J600 Jump Drive Max Ship Size 6000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive (9) Power 60 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 128.6 billion km (330 days at full power)
Mk 2 VLS Single Cell Launcher (16) Missile Size 3 Hangar Reload 22.5 minutes MF Reload 3.7 hours
SPG-1 Missile Fire Control (1) Range 21.6m km Resolution 20
Katana Anti-Ship Missile (12) Speed: 16700 km/s End: 21.4 minutes Range: 21.5m km WH 5 MR 15 Size 3
Recon Drone (4) Speed: 3300 km/s End: 321.4 minutes Range: 63.6m km Warhead: 0 MR: 10 Size: 3
SPS-375/75 Active Sensor (1) GPS 3750 Range 37.5m km Resolution 75
SPS-80/16 Active Sensor (1) GPS 800 Range 8.0m km Resolution 16
SQS-2 Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 10 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 10m km
SE-2 EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 10 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 10m kmAn updated version of the Alaska class freighter was also created and would be built by the Electric Boat shipyard once it completed its own retooling operation.
Alaska Mod 1 class Freighter 4850 tons 237 Crew 366.6 BP TCS 97 TH 420 EM 0
4329 km/s Armour 1-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 5 Replacement Parts 1
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive (7) Power 60 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 160,000 Litres Range 84.8 billion km (226 days at full power)Finally a new fighter, the Eagle II, was designed using the new Congreve-Hale Twin Ion Engine, a engine designed specially for fighters. The Eagle II was ten percent smaller than its predecessor, which would allow the Ark Royals to carry a full squadron of twelve Eagle IIs and still have room for a Hawkeye. As resources permitted, the new fighter would be built to replace the existing Eagle squadrons. The new engine would restore the Oceanian fighters? previous speed advantage over the Eurasian fast attack craft.
Eagle II class Fighter 225 tons 12 Crew 33.9 BP TCS 4.5 TH 36 EM 0
8000 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 1.8
Magazine 12
Congreve-Hale Twin Ion Engine (1) Power 36 Efficiency 100.00 Signature 36 Armour 0 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (27 hours at full power)
Mk 3 VLS Single Cell Launcher (3) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
APG-1 Fighter Fire Control (1) Range 16.2m km Resolution 45
Falchion Anti-Ship Missile (3) Speed: 17500 km/s End: 15.3 minutes Range: 16.1m km Warhead: 10 MR: 10 Size: 4On February 2nd, the new Tribal class destroyers Mayan and Visigoth joined the Fleet and were dispatched to join the Second and Third Carrier Striking Forces, allowing Gurkha and Zulu to return to Earth for much needed major overhauls. Construction of further Tribals was halted until a new destroyer design, incorporating the new engines, could be finalised.
Macedon, Melbourne and Yarra carried out their survey of Manchester in less than two months, completing it on February 8th. The speed of the survey was due to the low mass of the red dwarf primary, which meant the survey area was much smaller than for a G-class star such as Sol. Two new jump points were discovered. Sao Paulo was already in the system after returning from her trip to the London - Sol jump point and Commander Wallace decided to investigate the new jump points before escorting the survey ships to Edinburgh. The inner jump point led to the Birmingham system, comprised of an orange K8-V primary and an M7-VII red dwarf companion, both of which had large asteroid belts and numerous unremarkable planets. The companion star was at three trillion kilometres and therefore well beyond contemporary propulsion technology. The outer jump point connected to Newcastle, a quaternary system with four K-class stars, split into a pair of stars 675m kilometres apart, orbited by a second pair four point five billion kilometres away and 500m kilometres apart. Due to the close proximity of the paired stars, there were only seven planets and seven moons in the system, just one of which was of interest. The fourth planet of the primary had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere that was close to breathable but the temperature of -64C made this a low priority for terraforming compared to London-II.
On February 18th 2087, Tarawa and her sister ship Saipan were launched from the BAE Systems shipyard on Earth. Both ships were immediately dispatched to the London jump point where Tarawa would remain while Saipan moved on to the London-Edinburgh jump point. The two ships would them hold station, ferrying ships through their respective jump points as required. With the two jump destroyers finally available, the eight Roanoke class colony ships began loading for the eleven billion kilometre voyage from Earth to New Scotland, the official designation for Edinburgh-C III. Each round trip would require more than one hundred days and the colony fleet could carry 320,000 colonists in cryogenic storage per trip, which meant approximately one million colonists per year could be transported to Edinburgh. Admiral Nelson was well aware that larger and faster ships were needed if New Scotland was to support any appreciable amount of industry. The four Alaska class freighters began loading construction factories and mines so that New Scotland could eventually start to build its own installations. Two more Alaskas were due in April and thereafter the faster Alaska Mod 1 would be built. Even so, their lift capability was limited. Twelve older North Carolina class freighters were available, each with double the lift capacity of an Alaska but at 8000 tons they were too large for the jump engines on the Tarawas. In any event, they did not have the range to reach New Scotland without refuelling en route and were very slow at 2250 km/s, a result of a design philosophy established in the days before interstellar travel was a possibility.
A new colony ship was designed in early March. The Jamestown class was fifty percent larger than the Roanoke, had a fifty percent greater carrying capacity and was sixty percent faster. The problem was that the only shipyard available to build the Jamestown was Swan Hunter, which had recently completed two Tribal class destroyers. With no significant incidents with the other two powers in the last eighteen months, the need for colony ships was greater than the need for warships so Swan Hunter started retooling its two slipways to build the Jamestown class, with an expectation of laying down the first two hulls in October 2087 and delivering the first ships in December 2088.
Jamestown class Colony Ship 5550 tons 299 Crew 944 BP TCS 111 TH 480 EM 0
4324 km/s Armour 1-27 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Colonists 60000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 5 Replacement Parts 2
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive (8) Power 60 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 46.3 billion km (124 days at full power) On March 18th 2087, the East Asian Alliance completed two units of a previously unseen class. The 5100 ton ships split up and, escorted by Kongo class destroyers, departed Earth orbit on direct courses for the Los Angeles and San Francisco jump points. It appeared the East Asian Alliance finally had its own jump ships and at 5100 tons they were larger than either of the first generation jump ships deployed by Oceania or the Eurasian Union. In fact, with the Eastasian colony ship and freighter designs being 4150 tons and 4900 tons respectively, the new jump ships could escort every Eastasian ship except the Jianghu class heavy cruisers. Several days later, two Kongo class destroyers were launched from the Eastasian shipyards.
The geological survey ship Spruance completed a survey of New Scotland in late March, revealing large quantities of accessible Uridium and Gallicite, very large quantities of moderately accessible Corbomite, huge but inaccessible deposits of Duranium and Mercassium and smaller amounts of Vendarite and Sorium. The full mineral survey results of are shown below. After completing the New Scotland survey, Spruance began work on investigating the six other planets and numerous asteroids in the system. Kinkaid was also scheduled to arrive within a few days to assist with the geological survey.
New Scotland
Duranium 45,334,240 Acc: 0.1
Corbomite 32,012,960 Acc: 0.6
Mercassium 32,012,960 Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 42,849 Acc: 0.3
Sorium 19,044 Acc: 0.4
Uridium 4,284,900 Acc: 0.9
Gallicite 10,074,280 Acc: 0.9
Humanity?s first extra-solar colony was established on New Scotland on April 8th 2087. 320,000 colonists began the long task of building a new world far from the constant dangers threatening their existence on Earth. Admiral Nelson hoped that in time their numbers would grow until New Scotland became a powerful world in its own right and might even surpass Earth one day.
Two more Alaska class freighters were completed in mid-April. At this point, Admiral Nelson decided that Titan Base had actually been an expensive mistake. The need for so much of the population to work in the environment and food production sectors combined with the shortage of Duranium meant that the size of manufacturing sector required to man sufficient maintenance facilities had never been reached. Therefore the two freighters were ordered to begin moving the existing maintenance facilities from Titan to New Scotland. This would also remove the need for ships to guard Titan and they could used instead to reinforce the ships guarding the Sol ? London jump point.
With the discovery of several planets that could benefit from terraforming, in particular London-II, the need for a terraforming ship was increasing. Therefore a design for the Genesis class Terraformer was created. The Genesis was the smallest of several proposed designs and also the most limited due to its single terraforming module. Its greatest advantage those was that it could be built in the three slipways of the Bath Iron Works, a shipyard with a capacity of 4300 tons per slipway. Retooling was expected to mid-August, when the first three ships would be laid down.
Genesis class Terraformer 3700 tons 334 Crew 599.6 BP TCS 74 TH 120 EM 0
1621 km/s Armour 1-21 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Replacement Parts 11
Terraformer: 1 module(s) producing 0.0012 atm per annum
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive (2) Power 60 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 34.7 billion km (248 days at full power)One of the new Eastasian jump ships, now designated the Jinan class, returned to Earth orbit on May 4th, along with its Kongo class escort. After refuelling, it left orbit on a direct course for the London jump point, accompanied by a much stronger force of two Jianghu class cruisers and two Kongo class destroyers. As far as could be determined, the London jump point was likely to be the only one yet to be explored by the East Asian Alliance. The alien jump gate gave them access to the Washington jump point and their jump ships had been apparently operating in the western half of the Sol system, where the other four jump points were located, for the past several weeks. The Second Carrier Striking Force stationed on the London jump point comprised Yorktown, Illustrious and Visigoth supported by the few missiles carried by Tarawa. The Third Carrier Striking Force (Courageous, Lexington and Mayan) was already en route after Titan Base lost its importance and would be at the London jump point well ahead of the Eastasians. However, if the East Asians decided to press the issue they could cause problems for the freighters and colony ships making the journey between the London jump point and the inner system.
In an effort to avoid tensions, Admiral Nelson contacted his opposite number in the Eastasian military, Admiral Du Zhu Hong, and requested that the East Asian Alliance refrain from attempting to transit into London as Oceanian ships were guarding the jump point. Admiral Du seemed in a negotiating mood, presumably because of the Eurasian wrecks still floating near the Los Angeles jump point. He drove a hard bargain but in the end, agreed to ignore the London jump point as long as Oceania stayed away from both the Los Angeles and Washington jump points, or as the East Asian Alliance called them, Shanghai and Beijing. Even so, Admiral Nelson was suspicious of how easily Admiral Du accepted the idea of leaving London alone and suspected the canny Chinese had long-term plans that he wasn?t going to like. Shortly thereafter, Oceanian sensors picked up a fleet of eleven Eastasian freighters travelling between their mining colony in the asteroid belt and the Los Angeles jump point. The freighters vanished into Los Angeles and returned to Sol two weeks later. It seemed likely that the other Jinan was stationed on the Los Angeles jump point, allowing Eastasian freighters to move automated mines from their asteroid colony to a new location within Los Angeles, probably Los Angeles II given its known mineral resources.
The resource situation on Earth continued to deteriorate. Deposits of Tritanium, Mercassium, Vendarite, Sorium and Corundium were all exhausted, Gallicite would run out in less than six months and Duranium was at accessibility 0.2. Stockpiles were getting lower and on May 13th 2087, Oceania ran out of Sorium. Fuel production had to stop immediately, although twenty-five million litres had been stockpiled, but the shortage would also affect maintenance and ship construction. The largest known deposit of Sorium in the Sol system, 170,000 tons, was on Mercury but at 0.4 accessibility. Apart from that, there were a couple of asteroids with 3200 tons and 1200 tons respectively. Some larger deposits could be found among the moons and comets of the Chicago system but that would divert Oceanian efforts away from London and Edinburgh so as a short-term emergency measure, the North Carolina class freighters began moving mines from Tethys to the asteroid with 3200 tons of Sorium.
A week later in Edinburgh, Spruance completed a geological survey of the hot desert world orbiting the primary, finding two things of interest. The first was a deposit of twenty-two million tons of Duranium at 0.9 accessibility, along with smaller and much less accessible deposits of several other minerals. Edinburgh-A II was a colony cost 2.0 world due to the heat and the thin atmosphere, but it was possible to setup a colony using the infrastructure currently on Titan, allowed the use of manned mining complexes to extract the Duranium, rather than the more expensive automated mines required for asteroids, small moons and hostile or low gravity planets. As the planet was in the Edinburgh system, mass drivers could be established to send the minerals to New Scotland. Even more important than the mineral resources, the survey ship discovered the remnants of an destroyed alien building on the surface, the purpose of which was unknown. An archaeological team was assembled on Earth and the grav survey ship Port Phillip was diverted to collect them. The discovery of the ruin combined with the alien jump gates found throughout the Washington Nebula indicated that at least one alien race must have been very active in the systems around Sol at some point in the past.
Edinburgh-A II
Duranium 22,848,800 Acc: 0.9
Tritanium 976,144 Acc: 0.1
Boronide 1,308,736 Acc: 0.1
Vendarite 3,312,400 Acc: 0.6
Uridium 7,595,536 Acc: 0.4
Corundium 12,873,740 Acc: 0.1
The gravitational survey of Edinburgh was completed on August 20th 2087, revealing three new jump points. Serra do Mar transited the innermost jump point ten days later and discovered a binary system with two white A7-V stars two point three trillion kilometres apart, the first A-class stars to be found. The primary, twice the mass of Sol and fifteen times as bright, had five rocky planets, one of which had a thin oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of -64C while the companion star had a dozen planets, including four Venusian worlds, but was far out of reach. In keeping with the tradition of naming systems in this chain after cities in the British Isles, the new system was named Leeds. Serra do Mar transited the second new jump point in Edinburgh on September 14th and discovered Bristol, a system with a planetless lithium dwarf. As the low mass of the star made the system relatively easy to survey, Serra do Mar transited back into Edinburgh and remained on the Edinburgh ? Bristol jump point while the three Melbournes converged on her position.
The first two Alaska Mod 1 class freighters were launched from the Electric Boat shipyard on October 3rd. Their speed of 4329 km/s made them the fastest non-fighter ships in the Oceanian Navy. Now the decision to abandon Titan had been made, the six first generation Alaskas were engaged in moving maintenance facilities from Titan to New Scotland and infrastructure from Titan to Edinburgh-A II, so that a domed colony could be established to mine its Duranium. Colony ships were moving the Titan colonists direct to New Scotland. While this was a longer trip than from Earth, as Saturn was on the opposite side of the system from the London jump point, the alternative was to leave the colonists to die on the frozen moon. The Alaska Mod 1?s joined their slower sisters in the evacuation.
Serra do Mar explored the last of Edinburgh?s jump points on October 23rd, finding a planetless binary with an orange K1-V primary and a brown dwarf orbiting at 450m kilometers. After naming the system Sheffield, the jump ship re-entered Edinburgh and headed for Leeds to check on the progress of Spruance, which was carrying out a geological survey. Despite the limited number of system bodies, Leeds turned out to have some very useful mineral deposits, in particular a moon with nearly three million tons of accessibility 1.0 Duranium and also large quantities of accessible Mercassium, Corundium and Boronide. The survey results are shown below.
Leeds-A II - Moon 1
Duranium 2,700,488 Acc: 1
Boronide 56,644 Acc: 0.5
Mercassium 592,900 Acc: 0.9
Sorium 3,136 Acc: 0.4
Uridium 1,764 Acc: 0.4
Corundium 659,344 Acc: 1
Gallicite 1,960,000 Acc: 0.8
Leeds-A III
Duranium 14,112 Acc: 1
Neutronium 10,404 Acc: 1
Corbomite 1,521 Acc: 0.9
Tritanium 36,864 Acc: 1
Mercassium 49,284 Acc: 1
Vendarite 1,089 Acc: 0.9
Uridium 53,361 Acc: 0.9
Corundium 900 Acc: 0.9
Gallicite 729 Acc: 0.9
While Serra do Mar was exploring Sheffield and escorting Spruance back into Edinburgh, the survey ships Yarra, Macedon and Melbourne completed a survey of Bristol, finding two new jump points. Serra do Mar returned to Bristol check them out. Neither of the newly discovered systems, named Oxford and Cambridge, had habitable or near-habitable planets, although between they had eighteen planets and almost two hundred moons between them, giving them a good chance of significant mineral deposits. Cambridge had two low mass M-class stars, so the three gravitational survey ships moved into that system while the geological survey ships, Spruance and Kinkaid, split their efforts between both systems.
With the increasing size of known space, which included twenty-one systems by December 2087, Oceania needed a way to refuel ships without recalling them to Earth. In addition, there was a need to establish a fuel stockpile at the colony on New Scotland. Ark Royal class carriers had been used to transport fuel to Titan but that was completely unworkable on an interstellar scale. Therefore a design for the jump-capable Sacramento class Tanker was created. The ship would be able to carry out independent support operations without the need for escort and could serve as a backup jump ship to the Tarawas if required. The first of the new class would be constructed in the single slipway of the recently built Victoria Shipyard and was due for delivery in February 2089.
Sacremento class Tanker 6000 tons 498 Crew 971.6 BP TCS 120 TH 420 EM 0
3500 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0 PPV 0
Replacement Parts 6
J600 Jump Drive Max Ship Size 6000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Congreve-Hale Ion Drive (7) Power 60 Efficiency 0.70 Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,500,000 Litres Range 1071.4 billion km (3543 days at full power)In the chain of systems extending beyond London?s innermost jump point, Dandenong, Port Phillip and Sullivan Bay completed the gravitational survey of Birmingham, finding one new jump point. Serra de Cantareira transited into new jump point and discovered an unremarkable binary that was named Brighton. As the three Melbournes had been in action for almost three years and were starting to suffer maintenance failures, Serra de Cantareira escorted them from Birmingham, through Manchester and London to Sol, where they could refuel and undergo an overhaul.
Ark Royal, Enterprise and Apache completed their overhauls in early January 2088 and departed Earth orbit for the London jump point, allowing Illustrious and Yorktown to return to Earth for their own overhauls. In addition to the overhauls, Ark Royal and Enterprise embarked the new Eagle II squadrons VFA-09 ?Star Knights? and VFA-08 ?Thundercats?. Their existing Eagle I squadrons, VFA-01 ?Wild Tigers? and VFA-02 ?Shooting Stars? remained in Earth orbit.
Macedon, Melbourne and Yarra completed the survey of Cambridge on February 12th 2088, finding an amazing seven new jump points, two of which connected to the known systems of Edinburgh and Sheffield. While Sheffield had yet to be surveyed, the survey of Edinburgh had not detected the jump point to Cambridge, which had serious future implications for the security of inhabited systems. Once Oceanian scientists had analysed both the original survey data and the new data from the transit of Serra do Mar from Cambridge into Edinburgh, they concluded that some jump points might lie dormant and undetectable until a ship passed through them, at which point they began causing the gravitational anomalies that allowed a survey to detect them. The other five jump points in Cambridge led to the systems of Fitzwilliam, Selwyn, Darwin, Robinson and Pembroke, none of which had any features of great interest, although Darwin and Robinson had asteroid belts and several planets, making them worthy of a geological survey.
Two units of a new ship class were launched by the East Asian Alliance on April 4th. The class massed 5100 tons, a size that allowed it to be escorted through jump points by the Eastasian Jinan class jump ship, and had a thermal signature of 306, suggesting a maximum speed of around 3000 km/s. Its intended purpose was unknown, although Pueblo began scanning it immediately. In addition to the new ships, the known classes and deployments of the East Asian Alliance Navy (EAAN) in April 2088 were as follows:
Jianghu class Heavy Cruiser
Seven units in class, five currently in Earth orbit and two last detected on Washington jump point in January 2087.
Estimated Tonnage: 8000 tons
Observed Speed: 3000 km/s
Active Sensors: Range 13.5m, Resolution 45; Range 1.6m, Resolution 16
Scanned Technology: 15cm Visible Light Lasers, Composite Armour, Pebble Bed Reactors, Beta Shields, Nuclear Pulse Engines, Base Fire Control Range 24000 km/s, Base Tracking Speed 2400 km/s.
Kongo class Destroyer
Eleven units in class: Seven currently in Earth orbit, one last detected in near-Earth space in March 2087, one last detected on Washington jump point in January 2087 and two last detected on Washington jump point in Sept 2086.
Estimated Tonnage: 4000 tons
Observed Speed: 3000 km/s
Active Sensors: No operating sensors detected by EM, although active sensor technology detected by active scans
Scanned Technology: As Jianghu
Jinan class Jump Ship
Two units in class, one suspected to be on the Los Angeles jump point and the other in the Washington Nebula
Estimated Tonnage: 5100 tons
Observed Speed: 3137 km/s
Active Sensors: None detected
Scanned Technology: Jump Drive Efficiency 3, Composite Armour
Kagero class Gravitational Survey Ship
Six units in class, all suspected to be operating in Washington Nebula.
Estimated Tonnage: 1700 tons
Observed Speed: 2352 km/s
Active Sensors: None detected
Scanned Technology: Gravitational Survey Sensors, Composite Armour, Nuclear Pulse Engines.
Sendai class Geological Survey Ship
Three units in class, all last detected 18th March 2087 leaving Earth detection range
Estimated Tonnage: 2000 tons
Observed Speed: 3000 km/s
Active Sensors: None detected
Scanned Technology: Geological Survey Sensors, Composite Armour, Nuclear Pulse Engines.
Bangalore class Freighter
Eleven units, currently shuttling between asteroid belt and Los Angeles jump point
Estimated Tonnage: 4900 tons
Observed Speed: 2040 km/s
Active Sensors: No operating sensors detected by EM, although active sensor technology detected by active scans
Scanned Technology: Cargo Hold, Cargo Handling System, Composite Armour, Nuclear Pulse Engines.
Hegu class Colony Ship
Two units in class, both in Earth orbit
Estimated Tonnage: 4150 tons
Observed Speed: 0 km/s
Estimated Speed (based on thermal signature): 2400 km/s
Active Sensors: None detected
Scanned Technology: Cryogenic Transport, Cargo Handling System, Composite Armour, Nuclear Pulse Engines.
During its survey of the Birmingham system, the Radford discovered an asteroid with 65,000 tons of accessibility 1.0 Duranium and 34,000 tons of accessibility 0.9 Sorium. Given the severe shortage of Sorium, with only 1000 tons stockpiled on Earth, 2000 tons left on the asteroid being mined in the Sol system and very little in the way of Sorium anywhere else in Sol, the opportunity to mine both high accessibility Duranium and Sorium from the same source was too good to be missed. The operation to move maintenance facilities to New Scotland and infrastructure to Edinburgh-A II was put on hold so that the automated mines on Tethys and in the asteroid belt could be moved via London and Manchester to Birmingham. To save some time, the twelve North Carolina class freighters that were too large to leave Sol began moving mines to a comet that lay between the orbit of Jupiter and Saturn in the general direction of the London jump point. The comet quickly acquired the name of Midway, although in reality it was about a third of the distance from Sol to the jump point. Although the automated mines couldn?t be transferred in space, the Alaska class freighters could pick up the mines from Midway, cutting their time in the Sol system by almost half, although also depriving them of the ability to refuel and receive maintenance checks on Earth. For this reason, a small fuel stockpile was also established on Midway. The full survey report for the asteroid in Birmingham was as follows:
Birmingham-A Asteroid #303
Duranium 64,800 Acc: 1
Neutronium 40,000 Acc: 0.9
Sorium 33,856 Acc: 0.9
Uridium 36,100 Acc: 0.9
Gallicite 256 Acc: 1
A serious problem facing the effort to transport automated mines to the Birmingham system was the lack of jump ships capable of escorting Alaska class freighters through jump points. Tarawa was stationed on the Sol-London jump point and the second Tarawa-class jump destroyer, Saipan, was stationed on the London-Edinburgh jump point. One option was to group the freighters into a single fleet so that Saipan could leave her station and escort them into Manchester and Birmingham in between escorting the colony ships into Edinburgh. Fortunately, the two Tarawa Mod 1 jump destroyers Nassau and Peleliu were launched from the BAE Systems yard on April 29th, doubling the number of 6000 ton jump ships. No more Tarawas were scheduled for construction as the BAE yard would be retooling to build Jamestown class colony ships. However Oceanian scientists had recently completed development of the JX Jump Drive, a jump engine that could be mounted on a ship of up to 10,000 tons. As soon as a design could be agreed and sufficient resources were available, the Newport News yard that had built the six Ark Royal class carriers would be laying down two new 10,000 ton jump ships.
The three Genesis class Terraformers were completed on May 9th 2088 and left orbit destined for London-A II, where they would begin adding oxygen to the atmosphere in an attempt to bring it up to a breathable level. Five days later the East Asian Alliance launched two more of their Jinan class jump ships.
On June 16th, Pueblo gained a startling scan of the new Eastasian class launched in early April. Over the previous two months nuclear pulse engines, composite armour and strength-12 gravitational sensors had been detected, showing no sign of any technical improvements over any prior Eastasian classes. However, the June 16th scan detected box launchers for missiles, the same technology as used on the Tribal class Missile Destroyers. The East Asian Alliance was either changing its previous concentration on lasers or building this new class as a support type. Whatever the East Asian motivation, Oceania had just lost its monopoly on shipboard missile launchers. The capabilities of the Eastasian missiles carried by the new class were unknown but Oceania now had to give serious consideration to its missile defence strategy. With all shipbuilding efforts concentrating on freighters, colony ships and terraformers, this was not a good time for new warship construction. Fortunately, Oceania had recently updated its sensor technology and was already working on further advances. In addition, since the development of Ion engines, the same technology had been applied to missiles, resulting in updated versions of the Katana and Falchion and the development of the Space Wolf missile, intended to be used an anti-missile missile once sensor technology has reached the required level. All three types were already in limited production.
Katana Mod 1
Missile Size: 3 MSP (0.15 HS) Warhead: 6 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 24000 km/s Endurance: 15 minutes Range: 21.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.7
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240% 3k km/s 80% 5k km/s 48% 10k km/s 24%
Materials Required: 1.5x Tritanium 1.2x Gallicite 625x Fuel
Development Cost for Project: 270 RPFalchion Mod 1
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 10 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 21000 km/s Endurance: 13 minutes Range: 16.1m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.9
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 210% 3k km/s 70% 5k km/s 42% 10k km/s 21%
Materials Required: 2.5x Tritanium 1.4x Gallicite 625x Fuel
Development Cost for Project: 390 RPSpace Wolf
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 24000 km/s Endurance: 45 minutes Range: 64.3m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.65
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240% 3k km/s 80% 5k km/s 48% 10k km/s 24%
Materials Required: 0.25x Tritanium 0.4x Gallicite Fuel x625
Development Cost for Project: 65 RP
Earth?s supply of Duranium ran out on July 4th 2088. The Oceanian stockpile was just 338 tons and steadily falling even with the mineral packets sent by the mass drivers on Tethys. Fortunately Midway also had Duranium and mass drivers were moved to the comet so the automated mines located there for transhipment could contribute. Even so, the situation was grave. All non-essential use of minerals had been halted with the exception of the five ships under construction, including two Alaska Mod 1s, two Jamestown class colony ships and the Sacremento class Tanker. The asteroid colony in Birmingham would not be online for several months and even then Oceania?s limited supply of automated mines could not make up for the almost eight hundred manned mining complexes on Earth. The long term solution seemed to be domed colonies on Edinburgh-A II, which had a vast deposit of accessibility 0.9 Duranium, but the same freighters required to transport infrastructure and mines to that colony were already in use moving automated mines to Birmingham. Any new warship construction was out of the question until a secure supply of Duranium could be established as the meagre amount being mined would be needed for maintenance and emergencies. Earth?s remaining mineral deposits are listed below.
Earth
Neutronium 18,214 Acc: 0.26
Corbomite 11,897 Acc: 0.2
Boronide 28,688 Acc: 0.1
Uridium 18,674 Acc: 0.17
Steve
