The Jarl stared at the warp point intensively. A pinnace send through to scout the Meirica side had not returned two days ago. But now, seven had been send and none had returned again, indicating that the warp point was closely guarded. In response, the captains of war had met on the home world, and now the high priest of Odin was speaking to the massed warriors.
“A fearsome and treacherous foe has come to our door step. The Regia have declared war, and come thinking their technology will grant them victory, but already they have been bloodied, and their advance has been stopped. Now it is time to fight! Now it is time not to think of loss and pain, but of the glory to feast in Valhalla, the swords of your slain foes piled before you, drinking the mead of the gods as the warriors past will salute you as brethren, as worthy victors! It is time to gather the souls of the Regia to serve forever under you! It is a day to show that we too have new and powerful weapons, and that one is not save hiding behind a hole in space!
It is an axe day! It is a blood day! It is a fighting day! Raise berserkers, and fall upon our foes! Odin watches you, the Valkyries are a flight, and the gods themself will fight alongside you! For the glory of the Aesir!
In response, a few hours later, new and modified pinnaces began to rise from their landing fields on the planets of the closer primary, where they had trained in the past month. Young and enthusiastic were the crews, and eager to show their skill in battle. Two large swarms joined forces while the ground crews already waited for the delivery of new, freshly produced crafts, and aided by destroyer sized carriers the apn shuttled to the close by warp point, ready to fall upon the foe. Ships already guarding the warp point prepared to exploit any success.
Furthermore, the repaired Task Force Meirica was send out, strengthened with more scouts and Slashers and some apn carriers to explore an warp point where one was certain the RM should lie, according to navigation data gathered long ago. In Rafla, the yards also where busy, assembling a second fast striking force to explore the new point of contact found two months ago. And in Oraiste the last ships destined for Task Force Mjoelnir where shaking down after a refit. The delays imposed had given them time to catch up and now strengthen the hammer to fall.
****
The Warp point to Meirica, day 5 00:00 hour. The Thing fleet sat waiting, several formations of ships clustered up near the warp point to respond accorrdingly to the reports soon to comey. The 144 apn from the planetary bases of the closer planets of the binary star had arived at the warp point and lined up for the assault. They were joined by six pinaces. Then, upon the signal, 144 apn raced foreward piloted by eager young men and women fresh out of the academy and transited into Meirica. There, they apeared in a blib and then a flash as 24 of them interpenetrated. Then six pinaces followed them more leisurely. Facing them where five squadrons of fighters and four assault shuttles. The small crafts of both sides tore into each other, witth most of the fighters activating and killing twenty apn. In return, 35 of the transit addled apn had to expend their two external rockets to augment the fire from their degraded guns to kill the fighters in a dog fight wich barely lasted a minute. The four shuttles died as an afterthought. Thereafter the apn spread out a bit for two light seconds but found no further contacts. Thus they returned to the warp point to close into one heavy wave, while the pinaces transited out and summoned eight corvettes through the warp point. These, once recovered, detected drive fields waiting in direction of the sun. The closes group at eight light seconds was nine contacts with 20 engines and six with fifteen. Then, at 8.5 ls there were another three 20 engine contacts and seven nine engine contacts. Then, at 13 ls there were 14 four engine contacts and two twelve engine ones with a fifteen engine one. And beyond them three more nine engine contacts and two twelve engine ones.
As the Thing had gained scans from SBM missiles and antimatter, they knew that they would have a hard time in the deep space fight. And that their apn would have to charge througha lot of anti-fighter fire to reach the ships and carriers waiting for them, they considered the scouting information and the destruction of 30 fighters a good gain for 44 apn spend and broke off the assault. The RM did not interfere with their exit from Meirica.
****
Dark red ships like blood poured upon the stars swam through the void. Brutal practicality dominated the designs, no embellishments marring the efficiency of their construction. The six dreadnaughts, six battle cruisers, three heavy cruisers and seven light cruisers joined the four light cruisers waiting survey fleet. Together they all lined up and slipped through the warp point which was closed on the other side. With the survey cruisers spreading out they set out to travers the unsettled rock ball system, towards the system with two live giving worlds which the survey fleet had discovered two months ago. Periodically, small craft would detach themself from the silent hulls and sweep space, chasing possible lurkers ahead and to the sides of the fleet in a spread out pattern, swimming like a school of minnows though the void, circling around sharks. Within two weeks they would reach the planets and the fleet the undines had scrambled to react to the intruder who had not responded to the planets hails.
****
In the third week of the month, a drive field approached the Thing warp point in Meirica from outsystem. THe Regia Marina commander on the spot send several corvettes to intercept it and discovered a light cruiser of an unknown race. Soon a contact was established, and they seetled in to deal witha first contact. The new races proved to be man-sized hairy spiders of fierce demeanor, but for now amiable to learn the Regias language.
****
The red fleet finally had transited in system and closed upon the planets, coming to a stop just a bit outside of a quarter light minute while refusing to answer any of the hails for communication send towards them. As the waiting undine fleet of nine battle cruisers, nine heavy cruisers, nine frigates and three corvettes watched, small craft launched and approached. Thirty-six armed pinnaces crossed the distance and settled at four light seconds, staying ahead of the undine fleet while waiting for any reaction. Aside from launching their own small craft as a close range patrol, the undines did not start chase the waiting pinnaces. Then, the red fleet launched further waves of small craft of a type so far not seen by the races of known space. Over two hundred prototype gunboats separated from their cradles and divided up into two flights which arced out to flank the undine fleet at ten light seconds, while the red fleet slowly advanced to match them at this distance while the red survey ships, a light cruiser and the three pinnace carriers remained behind. With the other light cruisers guarding the dreadnaughts, the six battlecruisers inched closer, testing whether they would draw any fire by long range missiles, but the undines did not fire upon them. Thus they moved closer, edging into capital missile range while the dreadnaughts stayed by a light second behind them, and the gunboats closed to skirt the edge of capital missile range. The undines now faced a quandary. Turn towards either group of gunboats and hope to chase them down, or face a hostile fleet of about even weight and by now evident superior technology. But if they turned to flee the prototype gunboats might catch them and they would leave the planets exposed.
The undine fleet moved in an arc swinging hard right to chase down the gunboat group which lurked in that direction, but the gunboats turned away and ran before the fleet, while the other group paralleled the undines course, keeping at range. Only the red BCs closed to 6.25 light seconds, and the red dreadnaughts to 7.5 light seconds of the undine battlecruisers, taking advantage of the arc movement the undines followed while turning away. They also split up, with the dreadnaughts and the light cruisers keeping a straight course and the battlecuisers turning left to parallel the undine’s course. In the following exchange of fire the red battlecruisers finally managed to hit the undine corvette with two missiles. Spitting defiance the undine battlecruisers targeted one of their hostile counterparts and managed to reduced its shields. But the dreadnaughts in return send a total of 36 missiles scything towards one of them in two salvos, and scoured five hits. Titanic fireballs smashed through the undines heavy shields, leaving the armor slightly scorched. The red fleets missiles seemed to have more explosive force than the undines nuclear and fission missiles. Could they have weaponised antimatter? The engineering to keep antimatter and mater in contact for any significant reaction to occur was beyond the undines keen, but it implied advances in other disciplines which might be equally devastating.
The chase continued, with the red battlecruisers still being denied further success by the damaged corvettes point defense. Unfortunately, the undines did not really like capital missiles, and thus only three of their battlecruisers were armed with the weapon, and only four launchers, making the dual at longer ranges very one sided. Still they valiantly returned fire, and punched a missile through against the same battlecruiser they had engaged with the last salvo. Then the dreadnaughts returned fire, though one salvo being ineffective the other one scoured away the remaining heavy armor of the undine Whiskey battlecruiser, exposing the vital datalink to further damage.
Keeping their heading the undines would have exposed their blind spots to the dreadnaughts, and thus the fleet turned left, nearing the crimson battlecruisers as the gunboats refused to be caught. And the gunboats continued to shadow them outside of capital missile range except the left group who now found themselves in the battlecruisers blind side and lunged closer. This brought the undines somewhat closer to the red BCs, and they now where able to add their XO launched missiles to their salvo, but the enemy ECM continued to deter their accuracy and the dense point defense web shot down most missiles. The next salvo from the red dreadnaughts further tore at the Whiskey, and though the point defense crews shot down all but two missiles, the advanced warheads of the red fleet gauged deep chunks out of two engine rooms slowing the valiant ship, with the salvofrom the next datagroup gutting the ship. In Retaliation the Victor BCs scoured a solid hit with their XO launched salvo, punching three capital missiles through the point defense to abrade the alien BCs shields further. In return the alien BC took potshots at an undamaged Whiskey BC, but only one missile was on course, revealing a powerfull laser warhead.
In the next thirty seconds, the undine fleet had to hook around again, and though with the gun boats remaining elusive they did manage to close onto the red battlecruisers, cutting down the range with the frigates and corvettes closing in to 4.75 ls. In response the armed pinnaces moved to interpose themselves though so far staying out of range for any point defense fire. Again the red dreadnaughts opened the exchange, with their capital missiles ripping the armor of the second Whiskey, ignoring the launched EDMs as laser beams stabbed from the exploding missile warheads. While the undine’s return salvo failed to penetrate their targets point defense, the other dreadnaught datagroup stripped the armor of the third whiskey in the same way, leaving them open for further salvoes. Continuing the exchange the undines Romeo CAs used their XO launched CMs to strip the shields of the target BC further, the red BCs launched their small salvoes of laser torpedoes to remove the datalink of the second Whiskey.
The battle continued to draw closer, with the undine fleet turning upon the enemy BC, and now the Victors where able to engage with their force beams, and used their normal point defense on the apn who had tried to slip in behind the frigates, killing one. In return the red BC targeted their previous victim, the Bravo 07 corvette, and hit with two missiles. Luckily the crew had been able to reset their shields some, saving it from destruction. The alpha frigate flanking it was not so lucky, as twelve powerful lasers stabbed out, ten hitting it at almost 3 ls and cutting it in half. The other Victor datagroup split its fire, with the force beams finally removing the red BCs shields, and the point defense taking out three apn, while their rapid fire launchers tried to engage gunboats, but the missiles on target where shot down by the gunboats point defense. The other red BC group also tried split fire, with mixed results. While two missiles hit Whiskey Two, the lasers did not eliminate either of the two remaining corvettes.
The exchange of fire between the fleets continued, with the apn salvoing their rockets into the frigates until none where left, and 21 peeling off towards their carriers for a reload, leaving 10 to complicate things. In the end, the six red CL added salvoes of standard missiles, swatting the crippled corvettes from the field, and as an afterthought the left gunboat group fired fighter missile salvos at long range into the crippled Whiskey until it was destroyed.
((Ok, forgot to write down further battle as I've been at for some time and it was getting late.
)
The apn break the CAs out of link, as do the dreadnaughts. The red CL eliminate cripples, as does the left gunboat group. The BCs of both sides close to brawling range in two rounds and exchange salvoes, and the right gunboat group slips into the blindspot at 9 and uses the fighter missiles to reduce the CAs and BCs to weaponless wrecks. 14 gunboats and a battlecruiser die from the red fleet, and one BC is stripped of armor, dooming 20 gunboats anyway, so six gunboats get ditched in the end due to a lack of cradles. The fleet closes on the planets and settles down while the survey cruisers spread out.)
