Posted by: Kurt
« on: Yesterday at 03:25:50 PM »March 24, 2165, Sol System
On this date the 1st Expeditionary Force departs Terra, bound for the base in Upsilon Puppis, in the Bobruisk territories. The fleet consists of fifty-five warships of various classes, and two hundred and forty-one strike fighters. It is by far the largest fleet deployed to the frontier by the Empire to date. The fleet’s departure is marked by planet-wide celebrations and holidays. The young Emperor himself attends several of the celebrations and the public is ecstatic at the display of the Empire’s might. Much is made of the complement of the fleet. Legendary ships are leaving Terra to subdue the alien hordes and make the galaxy safe for humanity. The CVA’s Allegiance of Terra, Angel of Retribution, and the Eternal Crusader, and the dreadnoughts Pegasus, Andromeda, and Sauron all by now were legends to the people of Terra, their defenders and avengers of past wrongs committed by the aliens who had devastated the planet over and over again for decades. Accompanying the mighty ships were the backbone of the navy, the carriers and battlecruisers that had defended the empire for decades now against hivers and raiders and every threat imaginable. Legendary ships like the battlecruiser Saturn, that had single handedly destroyed five rifter ships, and the carriers Japan, France, and Canada, whose fighters had been involved in battles for longer than many citizens had been alive. These ships were the shield and sword of Terra, and they carried the hopes and dreams of the empire with them. They had always won their battles, and always returned.
The fleet commander is Vice Admiral Wiley Paglinawan, flying his flag aboard the heavy carrier Allegiance of Terra. His orders are to advance to the base in the Upsilon Puppis system, where he will fuel his ships and give his crews shore leave. Once readied his fleet is to advance to the Oct controlled HP 84051 system. Once that system is secure, the fleet will then advance on the Oct home system of Rho Camelopardalis and eliminate all Oct resistance, clearing the way for a base to be established in the system and for troops to be brought in to subdue the Oct home world.
Support squadrons of tankers, UNREP ships, and munitions carriers have been stationed at the base in Upsilon Puppis. In addition, two corps of Guards units, and two corps of Marine assault units, along with heavy armor support, have been prepositioned in Upsilon Puppis, and an additional three corps of Guard units, logistical support, and a brigade of the Guard’s latest Titan assault tanks are en route to the base, and will arrive shortly after the fleet.
During the outward voyage, Admiral Paglinawan isolates himself from his staff and the day to day running of the fleet. While he justifies it by telling himself that he is focusing on the coming campaign, in truth he fears that the stress he feels will become obvious to his staff and his subordinate commanders. He fought tooth and nail for this assignment, by doing everything he could to promote the War Party’s cause both within and without the Navy. But now that he had command of the largest fleet every deployed, the reality of the situation felt like it was crushing him. He was leading the fleet against an implacable enemy that was known to possess superior technology, and which had an unknown sized navy and capabilities. His orders were to take and secure the HIP 84051 system, and then to advance into the suspected oct Home System of Rho Camelopardalis and destroy the Oct fleet. The Navy’s senior staff and the Regent believed that the Octs had been depleted by their long war with the Bobruisk, and that the Imperial Navy would crush the remnants of their fleet. And he had believed right along with them, right up until the fleet left and he realized that their success or failure would be hung on him. If the fleet succeeded, his success was assured, and nothing would stop is rise to the pinnacle of the navy, and maybe beyond. If they failed, though, he would be through. He’d either be disgraced or dead, and his long and successful career would end in failure. The weight was crushing him, along with the unknowns they faced.

May 8, 2165, Upsilon Puppis system
The 1st Expeditionary Fleet has arrived and completed refueling. Admiral Paglinawan has given its crews liberty while he and his staff begin final planning for the attack. Perhaps fortuitously, the war between the Bobruisk and the Oct’s has flared up again, with extensive fighting in the 86 Cygni system. In addition, a large Bobruisk fleet was observed transiting into the Rho Camelopardalis system. After absorbing this new information, Admiral Paglinawan decides to cut his crew’s liberty short to take advantage of the fighting. The fleet will depart in twenty-four hours.
On the 9th the fleet departed, after absorbing several of the ships guarding the base at Mu Puppis. The fleet was now organized into four jump point assault groups, a carrier wing, a missile combat group, a boarding group, and an escort group. It would take them just over twenty-four hours to reach the jump point to the 86 Cygni system.
May 10, 2165, 0456 hours, 86 Cygni system
86 Cygni System: Located 13 jumps and 38.5 billion kilometers from Terra, deep within Bobruisk territory, one jump from the suspected Bobruisk home system and two jumps from the suspected Oct home system. It is a single-star system, an M3-V primary orbited by five planets, two terrestrial, two gas giants, and a super Jovian class planet. None can be considered habitable or easily terraform-able for Terrans.
The Bobruisk have one known colony/base in system. This is a small outpost, located on the outermost moon of the fifth planet, a gas giant. The moon was confirmed to possess minor resource deposits by Terran survey ships.
At the time that the Terran fleet entered the system, several sensor buoys deployed by the survey group are still operational. There is a cluster of wrecks, some belonging to Bobruisk naval ships, around the jump point to the Oct controlled HIP 54051 system on the far side of the system.
The 1st Expeditionary Fleet enters the 86 Cygni system and immediately strips the latest data from the sensor buoy closest to the jump point. The most recent combat was three days ago, close to the jump point to the HIP 48051 system. At the current time there were life pods belonging to both the Bobruisk and the Oct’s scattered throughout the wreckage close to the jump point.
The jump point to the Oct controlled HIP 48051 system was on the far side of the system from the fleet’s current location. There were no active ships of either side detected in the system, and the Bobruisk outpost on a moon of the fifth planet was still present, indicating that the Oct hadn’t penetrated too far into the system. Admiral Paglinawan ordered the fleet to set course for the inner system, as the first step towards advancing to the jump point to the Oct controlled system.
May 12, 2165, 86 Cygni system
The 1st Expeditionary fleet reached the inner system without incident. A single Bob battleship was detected transiting through the inner LaGrange point to the orbit of the fifth planet, but no other ships were detected. Admiral Paglinawan ordered his fleet to follow the Bob ship. After transiting there was no sign of the much faster Bob ship, so Admiral Paglinawan ordered the fleet to advance on the jump point.
May 13, 2165, 86 Cygni system
The fleet’s passive sensors detect a single Oct ship moving at 18,055 km’s towards the fleet. The ship is of an unknown class and type. Admiral Paglinawan orders the carrier Japan to launch its fighters to intercept the contact. An hour later the fleet detects the Bob battleship, in between the fleet and the Oct contact, running back towards the fleet and away from the Oct ship. The Bob ship is approximately 700 km/s slower and will eventually be overhauled by the Oct ship.
At 0659 hours the Bob battleship passes the fleet and continues in-system. The Oct ship, meanwhile, has turned to a course towards the jump point to the Mu Puppis system, on a course that puts them on a tangent with the approaching Terran fighters. Shortly after that the Oct ship drops off of the fleet’s sensors. The fighters continue towards its last known location. Fortunately, it soon reappears on the fleet’s sensors.
The fighters continue to pursue the contact, while the fleet heads for the jump point. The pursuit has now turned into a stern chase, and the fighters, while faster, are only 1,200 km’s faster. It will take them over fifteen hours to chase down the Oct ship.
Finally, at 0401 hours on the 14th, the Japan’s strike group has reached firing range, at 900,000 kilometers from their target. The target is an Oct LDD, which is 8,585 tons. The fighters launch eighty Sparrow III light ASM’s with laser warheads. This is the Empire’s first use of laser warheads, which trade of damage for standoff detonation range to avoid point defense fire. The Oct LDD seems to be lightly armored, as a relative few penetrating hits eliminate the ship when something inside explodes, ripping the ship apart. The fighters turn back towards their carrier, which, along with the fleet, is approaching the jump point to the Oct controlled system.
May 15, 2165, 1303 hours, 86 Cygni system
The 1st Expeditionary Force has reached its assembly point three million kilometers from the jump point to the HIP 84051 system, and the Japan’s fighters have returned and rearmed. Admiral Paglinawan orders his carriers to launch their fighters, and in short order one hundred and fifty-six strike fighters are en route to their watch station one million kilometers from the jump point. With the fighters on their way, Admiral Paglinawan orders his three assault groups to move to the jump point. Finally, he detaches the DDE Chimalli to pick up the life pods drifting near the wrecks close to the jump point. Once the Chimalli has the Oct and Bob survivors on board, she will return to the forward base in Upsilon Puppis.
Forty-six minutes later the Chimalli has recovered all of the survivors at the jump point and his headed towards the two groups of pods in between the jump point to the HIP 84051 system and the jump point to the Bob home system.
With the DDE clear, Admiral Paglinawan orders the assault groups to jump into the HIP 84051 system. The three groups, composed of three dreadnoughts, three assault carriers, five battle cruisers, a jump cruiser, and three destroyers, immediately jump out.
The assault groups arrive in the HIP 84051 system, scattered around the jump point, but find no defenders. Their only company are the eighty wrecks silently drifting near the jump point, including the wreck of a Terran survey ship that had apparently made a run to the jump point, only to be destroyed just short of it. There are Bob life pods near one of the wrecks, a Defamatory class light battleship, meaning that the ship hadn’t been destroyed all that long ago. The wrecks mostly belong to Bob warships, although thirty-one are unknown, indicating that they are likely Oct warships of some sort. Two of the wrecked Oct warships are close to the size of Bob light battleships, at 35,975 tons, while the bulk are 16,278tons, or between an Imperial DD and BC in size. There is a stream of wrecks headed across the system towards the jump point to the suspected Oct home system, along with a group of wrecks in orbit over the third planet. In all there are one hundred and thirteen wrecks in the system.
On this date the 1st Expeditionary Force departs Terra, bound for the base in Upsilon Puppis, in the Bobruisk territories. The fleet consists of fifty-five warships of various classes, and two hundred and forty-one strike fighters. It is by far the largest fleet deployed to the frontier by the Empire to date. The fleet’s departure is marked by planet-wide celebrations and holidays. The young Emperor himself attends several of the celebrations and the public is ecstatic at the display of the Empire’s might. Much is made of the complement of the fleet. Legendary ships are leaving Terra to subdue the alien hordes and make the galaxy safe for humanity. The CVA’s Allegiance of Terra, Angel of Retribution, and the Eternal Crusader, and the dreadnoughts Pegasus, Andromeda, and Sauron all by now were legends to the people of Terra, their defenders and avengers of past wrongs committed by the aliens who had devastated the planet over and over again for decades. Accompanying the mighty ships were the backbone of the navy, the carriers and battlecruisers that had defended the empire for decades now against hivers and raiders and every threat imaginable. Legendary ships like the battlecruiser Saturn, that had single handedly destroyed five rifter ships, and the carriers Japan, France, and Canada, whose fighters had been involved in battles for longer than many citizens had been alive. These ships were the shield and sword of Terra, and they carried the hopes and dreams of the empire with them. They had always won their battles, and always returned.
The fleet commander is Vice Admiral Wiley Paglinawan, flying his flag aboard the heavy carrier Allegiance of Terra. His orders are to advance to the base in the Upsilon Puppis system, where he will fuel his ships and give his crews shore leave. Once readied his fleet is to advance to the Oct controlled HP 84051 system. Once that system is secure, the fleet will then advance on the Oct home system of Rho Camelopardalis and eliminate all Oct resistance, clearing the way for a base to be established in the system and for troops to be brought in to subdue the Oct home world.
Support squadrons of tankers, UNREP ships, and munitions carriers have been stationed at the base in Upsilon Puppis. In addition, two corps of Guards units, and two corps of Marine assault units, along with heavy armor support, have been prepositioned in Upsilon Puppis, and an additional three corps of Guard units, logistical support, and a brigade of the Guard’s latest Titan assault tanks are en route to the base, and will arrive shortly after the fleet.
During the outward voyage, Admiral Paglinawan isolates himself from his staff and the day to day running of the fleet. While he justifies it by telling himself that he is focusing on the coming campaign, in truth he fears that the stress he feels will become obvious to his staff and his subordinate commanders. He fought tooth and nail for this assignment, by doing everything he could to promote the War Party’s cause both within and without the Navy. But now that he had command of the largest fleet every deployed, the reality of the situation felt like it was crushing him. He was leading the fleet against an implacable enemy that was known to possess superior technology, and which had an unknown sized navy and capabilities. His orders were to take and secure the HIP 84051 system, and then to advance into the suspected oct Home System of Rho Camelopardalis and destroy the Oct fleet. The Navy’s senior staff and the Regent believed that the Octs had been depleted by their long war with the Bobruisk, and that the Imperial Navy would crush the remnants of their fleet. And he had believed right along with them, right up until the fleet left and he realized that their success or failure would be hung on him. If the fleet succeeded, his success was assured, and nothing would stop is rise to the pinnacle of the navy, and maybe beyond. If they failed, though, he would be through. He’d either be disgraced or dead, and his long and successful career would end in failure. The weight was crushing him, along with the unknowns they faced.

May 8, 2165, Upsilon Puppis system
The 1st Expeditionary Fleet has arrived and completed refueling. Admiral Paglinawan has given its crews liberty while he and his staff begin final planning for the attack. Perhaps fortuitously, the war between the Bobruisk and the Oct’s has flared up again, with extensive fighting in the 86 Cygni system. In addition, a large Bobruisk fleet was observed transiting into the Rho Camelopardalis system. After absorbing this new information, Admiral Paglinawan decides to cut his crew’s liberty short to take advantage of the fighting. The fleet will depart in twenty-four hours.
On the 9th the fleet departed, after absorbing several of the ships guarding the base at Mu Puppis. The fleet was now organized into four jump point assault groups, a carrier wing, a missile combat group, a boarding group, and an escort group. It would take them just over twenty-four hours to reach the jump point to the 86 Cygni system.
May 10, 2165, 0456 hours, 86 Cygni system
86 Cygni System: Located 13 jumps and 38.5 billion kilometers from Terra, deep within Bobruisk territory, one jump from the suspected Bobruisk home system and two jumps from the suspected Oct home system. It is a single-star system, an M3-V primary orbited by five planets, two terrestrial, two gas giants, and a super Jovian class planet. None can be considered habitable or easily terraform-able for Terrans.
The Bobruisk have one known colony/base in system. This is a small outpost, located on the outermost moon of the fifth planet, a gas giant. The moon was confirmed to possess minor resource deposits by Terran survey ships.
At the time that the Terran fleet entered the system, several sensor buoys deployed by the survey group are still operational. There is a cluster of wrecks, some belonging to Bobruisk naval ships, around the jump point to the Oct controlled HIP 54051 system on the far side of the system.
The 1st Expeditionary Fleet enters the 86 Cygni system and immediately strips the latest data from the sensor buoy closest to the jump point. The most recent combat was three days ago, close to the jump point to the HIP 48051 system. At the current time there were life pods belonging to both the Bobruisk and the Oct’s scattered throughout the wreckage close to the jump point.
The jump point to the Oct controlled HIP 48051 system was on the far side of the system from the fleet’s current location. There were no active ships of either side detected in the system, and the Bobruisk outpost on a moon of the fifth planet was still present, indicating that the Oct hadn’t penetrated too far into the system. Admiral Paglinawan ordered the fleet to set course for the inner system, as the first step towards advancing to the jump point to the Oct controlled system.
May 12, 2165, 86 Cygni system
The 1st Expeditionary fleet reached the inner system without incident. A single Bob battleship was detected transiting through the inner LaGrange point to the orbit of the fifth planet, but no other ships were detected. Admiral Paglinawan ordered his fleet to follow the Bob ship. After transiting there was no sign of the much faster Bob ship, so Admiral Paglinawan ordered the fleet to advance on the jump point.
May 13, 2165, 86 Cygni system
The fleet’s passive sensors detect a single Oct ship moving at 18,055 km’s towards the fleet. The ship is of an unknown class and type. Admiral Paglinawan orders the carrier Japan to launch its fighters to intercept the contact. An hour later the fleet detects the Bob battleship, in between the fleet and the Oct contact, running back towards the fleet and away from the Oct ship. The Bob ship is approximately 700 km/s slower and will eventually be overhauled by the Oct ship.
At 0659 hours the Bob battleship passes the fleet and continues in-system. The Oct ship, meanwhile, has turned to a course towards the jump point to the Mu Puppis system, on a course that puts them on a tangent with the approaching Terran fighters. Shortly after that the Oct ship drops off of the fleet’s sensors. The fighters continue towards its last known location. Fortunately, it soon reappears on the fleet’s sensors.
The fighters continue to pursue the contact, while the fleet heads for the jump point. The pursuit has now turned into a stern chase, and the fighters, while faster, are only 1,200 km’s faster. It will take them over fifteen hours to chase down the Oct ship.
Finally, at 0401 hours on the 14th, the Japan’s strike group has reached firing range, at 900,000 kilometers from their target. The target is an Oct LDD, which is 8,585 tons. The fighters launch eighty Sparrow III light ASM’s with laser warheads. This is the Empire’s first use of laser warheads, which trade of damage for standoff detonation range to avoid point defense fire. The Oct LDD seems to be lightly armored, as a relative few penetrating hits eliminate the ship when something inside explodes, ripping the ship apart. The fighters turn back towards their carrier, which, along with the fleet, is approaching the jump point to the Oct controlled system.
May 15, 2165, 1303 hours, 86 Cygni system
The 1st Expeditionary Force has reached its assembly point three million kilometers from the jump point to the HIP 84051 system, and the Japan’s fighters have returned and rearmed. Admiral Paglinawan orders his carriers to launch their fighters, and in short order one hundred and fifty-six strike fighters are en route to their watch station one million kilometers from the jump point. With the fighters on their way, Admiral Paglinawan orders his three assault groups to move to the jump point. Finally, he detaches the DDE Chimalli to pick up the life pods drifting near the wrecks close to the jump point. Once the Chimalli has the Oct and Bob survivors on board, she will return to the forward base in Upsilon Puppis.
Forty-six minutes later the Chimalli has recovered all of the survivors at the jump point and his headed towards the two groups of pods in between the jump point to the HIP 84051 system and the jump point to the Bob home system.
With the DDE clear, Admiral Paglinawan orders the assault groups to jump into the HIP 84051 system. The three groups, composed of three dreadnoughts, three assault carriers, five battle cruisers, a jump cruiser, and three destroyers, immediately jump out.
The assault groups arrive in the HIP 84051 system, scattered around the jump point, but find no defenders. Their only company are the eighty wrecks silently drifting near the jump point, including the wreck of a Terran survey ship that had apparently made a run to the jump point, only to be destroyed just short of it. There are Bob life pods near one of the wrecks, a Defamatory class light battleship, meaning that the ship hadn’t been destroyed all that long ago. The wrecks mostly belong to Bob warships, although thirty-one are unknown, indicating that they are likely Oct warships of some sort. Two of the wrecked Oct warships are close to the size of Bob light battleships, at 35,975 tons, while the bulk are 16,278tons, or between an Imperial DD and BC in size. There is a stream of wrecks headed across the system towards the jump point to the suspected Oct home system, along with a group of wrecks in orbit over the third planet. In all there are one hundred and thirteen wrecks in the system.