1893After its discovery in September 1892, the Palmyra system was surveyed by
Thetis and
Tribune and four new jump points were located. Initial probes by the gravitational survey cruisers revealed the systems of Babylon, Delphi, Jericho and Tyre. Babylon II, one of seven planets orbiting an M3-V red dwarf, was an excellent terraforming candidate, with acceptable gravity, a temperature of -25C, plentiful liquid water and a nitrogen–oxygen atmosphere of 0.64 atm that was close to breathable. Jericho was a G5-V yellow star with eleven planets, two of which were ocean worlds with nitrogen – oxygen atmospheres, although both had low oxygen content. Delphi was an orange star – red dwarf primary with another reasonably good terraforming prospect orbiting the companion star.
Thetis and
Tribune headed for Tau Ceti to meet with a tanker, leaving the geological survey cruiser
Sybille to conduct geological surveys of the promising systems around Palmyra. After completing a survey of Delphi, which revealed three million tons of accessibility 0.8 Duranium at the potential colony site,
Sybille moved into Babylon on April 24th 1893. Her C.O., Commander Oscar Scott, ordered a course for the innermost planet, with the intention of surveying outwards from the centre of the system. The jump point was half a billion kilometres from the star so, at
Sybille’s top speed of 2800 km/s, the journey would only require a couple of days.
As
Sybille moved within a hundred million kilometres of the planet, her tiny Rutherford RT-2 Passive Thermal Sensor detected four strength-13 thermal contacts at one point one million kilometres. Given their speed of 44,000 km/s and the fact they were on an intercept course, there was little doubt the contacts were hostile torpedoes. Commander Scott put aside the shock of encountering hostile aliens and ordered an immediate course reversal, plus the activation of the ship’s Maxwell MX-36 Area Surveillance Sensor. The sensor had a range of thirty-seven point three million kilometres against target of 6000 tons or larger. No ships were detected and the torpedoes were too small for the resolution of the active sensor to detect at their current range.
Fifteen seconds after the initial detection, a further seven strength-13 thermal contacts appeared six hundred and sixty thousand kilometres behind the first.
Sybille had only a light armament of two Mk I Naval Torpedo Launchers, no anti-torpedo defences and limited armour. With no active sensor lock, she could not even try to target the inbounds with her own torpedoes, faint as that hope would be.
Thirty seconds after the initial detection, the first wave of torpedoes reached the fleeing ship.
Sybille was too slow to evade and suffered seven strength-6 hits. While the strikes were reasonably well distributed and mostly absorbed by her armour, she suffered the loss of a torpedo launcher and damage to her fuel storage. Forty-seven percent of
Sybille’s armour was destroyed and a third wave of seven torpedoes had entered sensor range.
The second wave struck fifteen seconds after the first, smashing through the battered armour. The damage was catastrophic.
Sybille lost both her Parsons PN-250E Triple Expansion Ion Drives, her jump drive, her fire control, active sensor, both passive sensors, two of her survey sensors and most of her fuel storage, as well as numerous minor systems. She was dead in space and completely blind, with over forty percent of her crew dead. Commander Scott ordered his surviving crew to abandon ship. Moments after the life pods were launched, the third wave of torpedoes blasted
Sybille to pieces. Within a few hours, the survivors were rescued by the unknown hostile alien race. As there was no other friendly ship in the system, the rest of the Empire remained unaware of the fate of the survey cruiser.
On Earth, the Empire was faced with rapidly depleting stockpile of Duranium and Neutronium as consumption continued to outstrip mining output. Ship construction had been cut back and the rate of shipyard expansion was slowed. The Argolis mining colony in Argos was expanded as it had Duranium at 0.9 accessibility, the same as on Earth, and Neutronium at 1.0 accessibility, compared to 0.4 on Earth, plus the mining expert Henry Dale was assigned to the colony to boost its production. While Dale was not experienced enough to handle the vast scale of mining on Earth, managing the much smaller Argolis operation was well within his capabilities.
On July 2nd 1893, the gravitational survey cruiser
Tribune transited into Babylon and immediately detected the wreck of
Sybille. While a ship constructed of Trans-Newtonian Elements travels primarily in the Aether, making it hard to detect, the wreckage of a Trans-Newtonian ship that loses structural cohesion is pushed out of the Aether, like an object floating to the surface of a fluid, and is easily detected in normal space. Seeing no sign of life pods or other ships, the captain of
Tribune, Commander Charles Morton, ordered an immediate withdrawal to Palmyra. While it was possible that
Sybille had suffered some form of catastrophic maintenance failure, hostile action was a far more likely cause.
The first destination for
Tribune was the Palmyra – Delphi jump point. While it was a diversion from the direct route to Tau Ceti and the rest of the Empire, Commander Morton decided the small loss of time was less important than warning
Tribune’s sister ship
Thetis, which had recently entered Delphi on its own survey mission. With the warning delivered,
Tribune headed for Tau Ceti and beyond with
Thetis in her wake.
Tribune arrived in Alpha Centauri on July 26th 1893 via the Tau Ceti jump point. The Alpha Centauri – Sol jump point was stabilised, which allowed Commander Morton to send a message through the jump point to the Admiralty on Earth. The news caused great consternation among both the civilian and military leadership of the Empire. While the crashed alien ship and the ruins in Memphis had provided evidence of aliens in the distant past, and helped to drive the growth of the Royal Navy, they were viewed by many as a warning from history, rather than a current and immediate threat.
By this point, the population of the Nova Terra colony in Alpha Centauri had grown to 750,000 and was the closest inhabited world to Babylon, via Tau Ceti and Palmyra. Defence of this colony was the first priority. The prime minister of the Empire, William Gladstone, ordered the First Naval Lord, Sir Frederick Richards, to protect Alpha Centauri, to investigate the alien threat and to eliminate any alien forces in the systems around Palmyra.
Thus far in 1893, new construction comprised the fourth Hyperion class jump tender, three Athena class colony ships, three Poseidon II freighters, a second Helios class Harvester station and, most recently, the Royal Sovereign class battleships
Empress of India,
Hood and
Ramillies. Eight battleships were now in service, supported by six Diadem class heavy cruisers, seven Pelorus class light cruisers and nine survey cruisers. Due to the recent mineral shortages only three armed vessels were under construction; a Diadem, a Pelorus and the first Majestic class battleship, an enlarged version of the Royal Sovereign with a displacement of 18,750 tons.
Psyche, the Pelorus class light cruiser, would be ready within a month. The Diadem and the Majestic would not be launched for one and two years respectively. In practical terms, the strength of the Royal Navy would not change significantly within the next couple of years.
Babylon was twelve billion kilometres from Earth, which was outside the combat radius of the heavy and light cruisers and on the limit for the battleships, which was a moot point as the lack of stabilised jump points beyond Alpha Centauri prevented the deployment of the battleships beyond that system. The Diadem, at 9000 tons, could be escorted by one of the survey cruisers. The distance meant that any initial deployment would require support from a tanker and any sustained operations would need a forward base for maintenance and ordnance resupply.
A new colony, similar to the Leonidas colony in Sparta, would normally be an option. However, both Palmyra and the preceding system of Tau Ceti were planetless, so any such base would need to be in Alpha Centauri. That was simply not practical as Nova Terra was more than eight billion kilometres from Babylon. The first Resurgent class replenishment ship, which would provide a stationary point for resupply of fuel, ordnance and maintenance, was under construction but would not be ready until September 1894. A further problem was a lack of replacement ordnance as the total stocks available, beyond those loaded on to the existing warships, comprised one hundred and thirty-seven Theseus torpedoes, thirty-five Perseus torpedoes and eleven hundred Daedalus AT torpedoes.
Resurgent class Replenishment Ship 50,000 tons 347 Crew 1,525.9 BP TCS 1,000 TH 1,440 EM 0
1440 km/s Armour 1-120 Shields 0-0 HTK 143 Sensors 2/5/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 6,019 Max Repair 25 MSP
Magazine 3,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
CD-144E Commercial Drive (10) Power 1440 Fuel Use 1.97% Signature 144 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 7,500,000 Litres Range 1,369.3 billion km (11005 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 150 hours
Ordnance Transfer Rate: 40 MSP per hour Complete Transfer 75 hours
Maxwell MX-20 Navigation Sensor (1) GPS 1440 Range 21.6m km Resolution 120
Rutherford RT-2 Passive Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 2 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 11.2m km
Rutherford RE-5 Passive EM Sensor (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
Given the limitations on support capability and ordnance, Sir Frederick Richards decide to launch a reconnaissance in force to Babylon, with no plan to remain in the systems around Palmyra for more than a few weeks. One Diadem and one Pelorus were already deployed to the Sparta Station and therefore unavailable, plus Sir Frederick had no intention of leaving the Sol system without a strong defence. Therefore, he left all eight battleships in Sol, supported by three Pelorus class light cruisers. The five available Diadems supported by the other three Pelorus class available in Sol were ordered to Alpha Centauri on the first leg of their journey, where they would rendezvous with
Tribune and
Thetis. The survey cruisers would provide jump support for the expeditionary force. A third survey cruiser,
Intrepid, was close to completing an overhaul in Earth orbit and would be sent as a reinforcement once it was available. The Demeter class tanker
Thesmophoros and the Hyperion class jump tender
Selene were dispatched independently to provide refuelling and message relays. The Pelorus under construction would join the Sol force within a few weeks. A second Majestic and another Pelorus were laid down to boost future naval strength.
The warships of the expeditionary force reached the Alpha Centauri – Tau Ceti jump point on August 14th, where they were joined by
Tribune and
Thetis. The heavy cruiser
Niobe was detached and joined
Thetis in picketing the Tau Ceti side of the jump point to detect and hopefully prevent any alien ships entering Empire territory. While the expeditionary force was intended to directly confront the aliens in Babylon, it was possible one or more alien ships could evade detection and move toward Alpha Centauri.
Tribune joined the main body, which headed for the Palmyra jump point at 2800 km/s.
The expeditionary force moved across Tau Ceti and Palmyra and arrived in Babylon on the 6th of September. Captain Marcus Bowen, commander of the heavy cruiser
Ariadne, was the senior officer within the force and acting as temporary commodore. Bowen was a tough and aggressive officer with a reputation for going straight at the enemy. His crew would have been surprised to learn he was also a keen ornithologist when planetside. Well aware that his force would be trapped in Babylon if anything happened to
Tribune, Captain Bowen ordered Commander Morten to remain at the jump point. The absence of the survey cruiser’s two torpedo launchers would have little impact in a battle plus, if the battle went badly,
Tribune would be able to report on what happened. The other ships engaged their active sensors and set course for the wreck of
Sybille.
They arrived thirty hours later with no sign of any hostile ships, so Captain Bowen decided to take his fleet to Babylon II. With a surface temperature of -25C, plentiful liquid water and a nitrogen–oxygen atmosphere of 0.64 atm, albeit with an oxygen content too high for humans, the world could potentially support alien life. As soon as the planet was within the fleet maximum active sensor range of fifty-two million kilometres, six alien ship contacts appeared in orbit, all of different classes.
The Naval Intelligence Department (NID) of the Royal Navy had considered contact with alien life long before it became a reality and had laid out directives for such an eventuality. One of those directives concerned the naming and tracking of alien warships. Each alien race would be assigned a list of designations to be applied to each warship class of that race. The designations for each race would share a common theme, so that the identity of the alien race would be obvious from the name of any alien class. The first set of designations was based on creatures from myth and legend. On that basis the six alien classes were designated Basilisk, Cerberus and Hydra, all of which were 15,750 tons, plus Gargoyle, Harpy and Hellhound, all of which were 7850 tons. In total, the alien ships totalled over 70,000 tons, compared to 54,000 tons for the Empire force.
Captain Marcus Bowen was privately concerned that three of the alien ships were larger than the Royal Sovereign class battleships, especially as no population signature had been detected so far. The apparent lack of a major population centre meant this was a force the Babylon aliens were prepared to deploy to a less important system, which suggested their overall naval strength could be considerable. There was also no information whatsoever regarding the technological capabilities of the aliens. If they had left orbit, it would have least provided information on their speed. Regardless of his concerns, he knew the expeditionary force could not come this far and simply turn around, so he gave the order to move within the fleet’s fifty million kilometre torpedo range.
To maximise the effectiveness of his fleet’s first salvo, Captain Bowen instructed the commanders of the four Diadem class cruisers to open fire as soon as all ships had indicated their readiness.
Europa signalled her readiness after fifteen seconds, but it was another twenty-five seconds before the other three ships, including his own ship
Ariadne, were all prepared to fire. Bowen filed a recommendation in his log that the Royal Navy should institute a program of fleet training exercises to improve combat reaction times. A further problem arose as the alien ships had some form of electronic countermeasures that was preventing lock-on at maximum range. Captain Bowen ordered the fleet to close the range by five million kilometres.
The second fire attempt was successful, although accompanied by another long delay in coordinating the launch. Thirty-two Theseus torpedoes headed for the enemy ships at 19,200 km/s. Twenty-five seconds later a second salvo was launched. Captain Bowen ordered his ships to cease fire. So far, there was no return fire and the enemy fleet seemed content to hold its position, so he was happy to make use of the time that gave him. Given the size of the opposing force, he wanted to judge its defensive capabilities before committing any more of his limited ordnance.
Thirty-seven minutes after launch, with the leading salvo two million kilometres from the target, twenty-four of the thirty-two torpedoes were destroyed by strength-1 detonations; presumably an alien version of the Daedalus AT Torpedo. Over the next thirty seconds, the rest of the first wave and the entire second wave were wiped out without even getting close to their target. Captain Bowen was left without any good options. Firing the rest of his missiles would very likely be futile, while moving in close to allow the Pelorus class light cruisers to use their Daedalus AT torpedoes would open his fleet up to counter-fire. In fact, the only bright spot was the lack of hostile anti-ship torpedoes. Presumably the alien ships had shorter range torpedoes but were not prepared to move away from the planet they guarded to bring the Empire ships into range. It was a stalemate. As his heavy cruisers were below thirty percent fuel, Captain Bowen decided to pull back to the Palmyra jump point and head for home. A much larger force would be required to overcome the alien defences and he had accomplished his primary objective to conduct a reconnaissance in force. There was little to be gained by maintaining the status quo.
Despite the events in Babylon, life in the rest of the Empire continued as it had before first contact. The Achaea Colony was established on the lone planet in Corinth, a system three jumps from Earth via Rhodes and Ephesus. Ephesus had three jump points, with the other connecting to Sparta. Corinth I was a dwarf planet, with less than half the diameter of Earth’s moon. The gravity of 0.113G was due its high density, which kept the planet just within the range of human gravitational tolerance and enabled it to retain an atmosphere if one was added in the future by terraformers. Despite the lack of air or water, the planet did have two redeeming qualities. It’s temperature of -14C made it colony cost 2.00 and it had very useful mineral deposits, which meant it could serve as a future destination for manned mining complexes.
Achaea Colony Survey ReportDuranium: 204,800 0.90
Neutronium: 215,296 0.90
Tritanium: 20,736 1.00
Vendarite: 215,296 0.70
Sorium: 179,776 0.80
Uridium: 360,000 1.00
Corundium: 379,456 0.70
Gallicite: 627,264 0.70
The Expeditionary Force ran out of fuel on September 28th, half way across the Tau Ceti system. Fortunately, by that point the Demeter class tanker
Thesmophoros had transited the Alpha Centauri – Tau Ceti jump point and was on its way to a rendezvous. While he was waiting for his ships to be refuelled, Captain Bowen contacted the Admiralty via the picket on the Alpha Centauri jump point picket, gave his report and requested instructions. The survey cruiser
Intrepid and the Hyperion class jump tender
Selene had also recently arrived at the Alpha Centauri – Tau Ceti jump point.
The First Naval Lord, Sir Frederick Richards discussed the situation with the civilian leadership and his own advisers. Firstly, even if the entire cruiser strength of the Royal Navy was sent to Babylon, there was no guarantee they would be able to overcome the obviously formidable alien anti-torpedo defences, nor was there was no appetite for the level of risk that would entail. The eight Royal Sovereign class battleships probably would make a difference, but they could not reach Babylon with stabilising all the jump points in-between and leaving Sol undefended was not an option anyway. That removed all offensive options and left two short-term and one long-term objectives; guard the approaches to Empire space, which meant either the Tau Ceti – Alpha Centauri jump point or the Palmyra – Tau Ceti jump point, determine the overall level of threat, which meant more reconnaissance missions, and finally, build up the strength of the Royal Navy so it was capable of effective offensive action at significant distance from Sol.
Sir Frederick decided that forward defence was the better option, so he ordered Captain Bowen to deploy two of his heavy cruisers and two light cruisers at the Palmyra – Tau Ceti jump point, where he could engage any approaching ships before falling back into Tau Ceti. The survey cruiser
Thetis would join this picket force to provide jump support. The gravitational survey cruisers
Tribune and
Intrepid would survey Jericho, Delphi and Tyre, which were the systems beyond Palmyra’s other three jump points. They would be accompanied by the jump tender
Selene, which would remain at the entry jump point for each system to relay messages if any alien force was encountered. Another Hyperion would be made available to provide a communication link on the Tau Ceti – Alpha Centauri jump point. The remaining three heavy cruisers and the remaining light cruiser would return to Sol, on the basis that if this deployment was to be a long-term commitment, fresh reinforcements would be required in a few months.
Once everything was in place, if
Tribune and
Intrepid detected any alien forces, they would send a message to
Selene on the local jump point and
Selene would jump into Palmyra and inform the picket force.
Thetis would jump into Tau Ceti and relay the message the second Hyperion on the Alpha Centauri jump point, which would jump into Alpha Centauri and relay the message to Earth via the stabilised Sol jump point. In this way, almost real time communications could be maintained between the Admiralty and the most forward-deployed forces. Captain Bowen took his own
Ariadne, plus
Niobe, which had been picketing the Tau Ceti – Alpha Centauri jump point while the expeditionary force was in Babylon and the Pelorus class light cruisers
Pegasus and
Perseus back into Palmyra to act as the forward picket. All the other ships moved to take up their assignments or headed for home.
On November 16th 1893, the first Hephaestus class Mining Platform was built by construction factories on Earth. With twenty-four mining modules, the Hephaestus would have the same output as twenty-four manned mining complexes, although it was restricted to mining small bodies of up to one hundred kilometres in diameter. Research was planned to increase that diameter over time. As Sparta had the largest number of small bodies with accessible minerals, the Atlas class tug
Hercules began the long task of towing the Hephaestus to that system at 872 km/s.
Hephaestus class Mining Platform 122,550 tons 1,216 Crew 3,294 BP TCS 2,451 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 160 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 16 Max Repair 120 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Orbital Miner: 24 modules producing 336 tons per mineral per annum
Maxwell MX-20 Navigation Sensor (1) GPS 1440 Range 21.6m km Resolution 120
Rutherford RT-5 Passive Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
Rutherford RE-5 Passive EM Sensor (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
Tribune and
Intrepid began their survey work in Delphi, a close-orbiting binary with six planets, while
Selene remained on the Palmyra jump point. A geological survey of the system had been completed by
Sybille before her she met her demise in Babylon, so the risk level was low. By early December, the geological survey cruiser
Spartan had joined the survey force around Palmyra and it made no sense to send her to Delphi. Therefore, as there was no sign of any alien presence in Delphi,
Spartan was dispatched to Tyre to survey the single planet in that system, plus three comets.
Selene moved to the Tyre – Palmyra jump point to maintain a communication link while the jump-capable tanker
Thesmophoros took over relay duty in Delphi.
A total of eight new systems were discovered in 1893, including the four connected to Palmyra and four more in the chains of systems beyond Argos’ two outward jump points. By December 31st 1893, known space comprised a total of thirty-five systems, ten of which contained Empire populations, including Sol, and an eleventh which contained the growing Argolis automated mining colony.
