May 3, 2064

Terran Republic Cruiser Mars


Vice Admiral Conway felt more excited than she had in years as the shuttle bay beyond the airlock pressurized.  This was the Fleet's moment.  It was humanity's moment.  Soon, she and her team would meet face-to-face with the inhabitants of another civilization. 

She turned to the cluster of officers nearby, resplendent in their red and silver dress uniforms.  Lieutenant Commander Ino Fuyuuji, her communications officer, appeared to be reciting a prayer to himself.  Her loyal and long-serving communications officer, Captain Christopher Butler, regarded her with a nod and a confident smile.  Her intelligence officer, young Bai Wing Wan, was developing beads of sweat on his face despite his stony expression.  Also present was stern-faced Commodore Ajibana Masamura, commander of the Mars.  Behind them were a pair of public relations techs, working a set of camera-drones.  Behind them were a half dozen fully armed and armored Marines.

In a glaring oversight, and despite Conway's objections, no Xenos officer had been assigned to the Fleet when it had departed Earth several weeks ago.  Therefore, the responsibility of first contact fell to the Admiral herself.

The airlock hissed.  A green light indicated pressurization.  "Ladies and gentlemen, words fail to capture the importance of these next few minutes.  Whatever happens, I trust that no one here will tarnish the Fleet's honor by fainting."  The group laughed, but they knew she meant it too.  "Now if you will all follow me and take your places." 

Conway led the group of humans into the cool air of the bay.  In front of them, the strangely designed alien shuttle pinged and clicked as its hull warmed to the atmosphere.  Her officers formed a loose row to the left and right of her.  The Marines took positions between the officers and the shuttle, three to a side, and came to perfect attention.

With a hiss the ramp of the shuttle lowered.  Four figures emerged.

They were tall, all of them, the shortest standing over six feet tall.  They were inscrutable in their armored suits.  Each suit contained similar overall design elements, but individually, they were as different from each other in their colors and strange tatoo-like patterns as any personalized heirloom.  Not a single piece of skin or flesh was visible, if the creatures possessed such things.  The group paused at the foot of the ramp.  One of them, the largest, took a few strides forward.

Conway didn't need need her years of experience to tell her that this was a warrior.  It was obvious.  The towering specimen was nearly seven feet tall, clad in gleaming interlocked armor of a light green hue.  Yet this was no musclebound freak; it was as lean and powerful as a hunting dog.  It wielded a vicious yet ornate bladed pike with confident ease. The warrior paused to regard the group for a moment, particularly the armed Marines standing nearby.  Seemingly satisfied, it stood aside, and stamped its pike to the deck twice.  It blurted a short stream of hard consonant and vowel sounds that, to Conway's ears, seemed completely unintelligible. 

The remaining three aliens did not move immediately.  They seemed to be having an animated discussion amongst themselves, but all Conway could hear was a series of intermittent clicks.  She surmised that they were using private channels to speak to each other directly.  The smallest, clad in red, seemed to be discussing, no, arguing, with the other two.  As the clicking sounds continued it shook its head.  The universal expression for "No."  It gestured toward the humans.  The alien in the most ornate armor, a suit of shining silver, made a sharp cutting gesture with its hand.  The clicking of its compatriots fell silent.  The entire exchange lasted less than four seconds. 

Conway took all this in, but kept her expression carefully neutral.  Assuming her expression mattered to them.

Order restored, the aliens approached, Red lagging behind with noticeable reluctance.  Silver stopped three paces away from Conway.

Conway took her cue and bowed.  "On behalf of the Terran Republic and the human race, I extend the warmest greetings to our new friends from the Union of Ra.  I am Admiral Sophia T. Conway.  To my right is Commodore Ajibana Masamura, commander of this vessel, the Terran Republic ship Mars.  Also present are members of my command staff and crew of this vessel.  We welcome you aboard in the spirit in peace and friendship."

Silver bowed.  Its voice was slurred, heavily accented and synthesized, as if through a speaker.  "Ad-mural.  I em Visarch Thra'vull.  We acceep your speerit.  I em forst deeplomat to Union uf Ra.  Also heere are they who fund your sheeps. One, is Altern Vaar'eil."  The alien in gold bowed at Thra'vull's gesture.  Two, is Sub-altern-"

A heavy thudding sound and crashing of metal interrupted Thra'vull.  Red was lying prone on its back on the floor.

Conway raised her eyebrow.  Good lord, had it just... fainted?  Nearby, the stoic green warrior clenched its pike even more tightly.  Thra'vull's shoulders seemed to slump in disappointment.

"Visarch Thra'vull," Conway said, "Is your comrade ill?  I earnestly hope our appearance does not offend you."

"Is not bad," intoned Thra'vull with a hint of disappointment as he gestured toward the unconscious form on the shuttle bay floor.  "Is Sub-altern Vo'qox."

June 24, 2064

Over many years of exploration it had become apparent that the majority of worlds with a habitable biosphere were guarded by some form of Ancient Guardian naval presence.  In an effort to avert unnecessary loss of life, and with the Kepler-class exploration ships not yet in common service, it was standard practice to withdraw upon finding such a system until the Fleet could arrive and certify that it was clear.

One such system was SFT 1321, the last system to be logged by the Pathfinder Thor Heyerdahl prior to is decommissioning.  This system was five jumps from Sol on the anti-spinward frontier, in an area of space where exploration had been delayed until after 2054 due to the Stalkers that had been preventing travel through Alpha Centauri.  This was a binary star system with one potentially habitable planet orbiting the primary orange star, and three more candidates orbiting the distant red dwarf secondary star, some 13 billion kilometers from the primary.  The candidate orbiting the primary star was particularly notable, for while it was relatively warm it also had oceans covering just over half of its surface, as well as an intact nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.  Per procedure, upon noting the high number of potentially habitable worlds in this system the Thor Heyerdahl dropped a buoy at the jump point on the way out and proceeded on its final journey to Earth.  The Fleet arrived at the SFT 1321 jump point in WX Ursae Majoris a few weeks later, on June 24.

Onboard the cruiser Mars, newly promoted Vice-Admiral Sophia Conway stretched her back in her high-g command couch.  She grimaced as the effort yielded little relief.  She had always been a tall woman, and in a profession dominated by men it certainly hadn't hurt that she rarely had to look upwards at anyone.  It hurt now, though.  Thought she was still as fit and trim as any highly athletic woman half her age, after a lifetime of demanding military service her back had gotten into the bad habit of constantly reminding her that she was now 58 years old.

Getting old was exceedingly irritating, she thought to herself.

In the command pit of the flag bridge the holotank displayed a timer counting down for the jump to the SFT 1321 system.  Over the command net the cool voice of a male crewman accompanied the countdown.  After many, many years of tearing apart Ancient Guardian ships Conway was not worried.  Even so, as the timer counted down to zero there was a tiny bit of uncertainty that gave rise to a rush of adrenaline.  She relished it.  If the Aggies had any ships there, she'd dispose of them too, just like all the others before. 

"...Three.  Two.  One.  JUMP!" 

This feeling never became familiar.  Conway's vision warped as the bridge around her turned into a mush of unintelligible shapes.  Closing her eyes didn't help.  She felt her consciousness being stretched into infinity as Mars was unceremoniously removed from one point in the universe and forced back into existence in another.  This single moment seemed to go on forever; no, it HAD been going on forever, and always would be. 

And then, it wasn't.

Mars emerged with a flash of light into the SFT 1321 system.  Over two dozen more flashes followed as the rest of the task force arrived behind her. 

"...jump complete.  All ships accounted for," announced the same voice over the net.

A few minutes passed as the ships of the task force recovered and got their bearings.  Unexpectedly, one of the other ships hailed Mars.  "Command priority.  Fleet actual, this is Ark Royal actual.  Admiral, we're detecting an EM signature of unprecedented strength emanating from the second planet of this system's primary.  Are you seeing this as well?"

"Ark Royal actual, Fleet actual.  One moment."  Conway's heart soared as she reviewed the data coming in from Mars' own less powerful EM sensor.  Could it be?  As the Sensor team began to separate the massive amount of noise for her, clear patterns began to emerge.  Transmissions.  Broadcasts.  And was that... music?   These were not the long-dead echoes of some ancient race.  This was happening now. 

"My god,"  she said. 

In that sublime moment she didn't hear the crew cheering around her.

August 28, 2063

*In game terms, each Pathfinder has a crew of 181.  However, it seemed that I was getting considerably more than this added back into my pool of crewmen each time a Pathfinder was scrapped.   

If your crew grade for the ship being scrapped is above the racial crew grade then you get proportionally more equivalents back to the crew pool, if its less for some reason (eg. it was a conscript ship, or you ran out of trained crew when it was built, and it hasn't yet trained up to the racial average) then you get less.

October 14, 2062

Twelve years after it was first discovered, the ruins on Corronis in 61-Cygni have finally been fully explored.  In addition to the recovery of several valuable technologies, these efforts put many dozens of mines, factories, and other installations back into service.  These included 11 Research Facilities, 3 genetic modification facilities, and enough maintenance facilities to accommodate ships up to 17,000 tons.  Also recovered were over 36 million liters of fuel, vast amounts of wealth, and tens of thousands of tons worth of minerals.  Corronis has taken its place as a major colony and the Republic's most important research center for Logistics/Ground Combat technologies, due to the ancient alien installation present there (100% bonus). 

The Pathfinder Henry Hudson has discovered an abandoned city on the distant, isolated earthlike world in the Gliese 745 system.  This world was home to a TL3 civilization calling itself the Federal Republic of Lampeter.  Despite the 60% power/production research facility located here, it is unlikely that the Republic will ever colonize this world.  It would take most civilian vessels over a year to travel from Gliese 745's inner system to its B star, where Lampeter is located.  Colonization of this world is simply unfeasible. 

Its work done, the Henry Hudson turns around and starts the long journey back in-system. 

June 25, 2061

The single Ancient Guardian Fighter-Killer that had entered Gliese 588 from WD 1142-645 turned out to be an anomaly.  In the weeks following that encounter, the Farsight quietly and carefully entered 1142-645 in order to perform a close-range scan of each of that system's bodies.  All that it found was a single small automated outpost on the system's second planet.  No further ships were detected.

Captain Masamura was then directed to take the Farsight to the Lacaille 8760 jumpgate in Luyten 347-14, to rendezvous with the 1st Fleet.  The Stargazer had detected some Ancient Guardian ships in Lacaille 8760 some months earlier, and had barely escaped through the jump point ahead of a swarm of missiles fired from a flotilla of Pegasus-class attack boats. 

As the 1st Fleet pulled into formation alongside his ship, they were close enough to be seen without magnification.  Captain Masamura could not help but stare at the cruiser dwarfing all the other ships in the formation.  "My god, that's a big girl," he whispered quietly to himself. 

On the flag bridge of the cruiser Mars, Admiral Conway felt a sense of long-delayed satisfaction.  Here, at last, was a ship that could take anything the universe could throw at it.  Nor could she deny that she had hated commanding from the Nakhimov, skulking in the back like a ghost.  Damn the practicality of it, it just didn't feel right.  Riding a 43,000 ton beast into battle?  Yes, this was much better.

For this operation the Fleet had brought along the Mars and three new Nautilus-class missile boats, but had left the Akizuki-class missile boats, the fighters, and the slower fleet support vessels back at home.

Lacaille 8760 was quickly cleared.  The Mars sustained about a dozen missile hits, but easily shrugged them off.





A few weeks later the Fleet was clearing the AD Leonis system.  A few more ships opposed the Fleet than at Lacaille 8760, but they were disposed of just the same.





WD 1142-645, AD Leonis, and Lacaille 8760 were now open for salvage and exploration.  Furthermore, the debut of the Mars-class cruiser had proven to be successful.  It had easily soaked up a light battering that would have destroyed a lesser vessel.  Its self-defense anti-missile missiles had proven to be fairly effective.  Furthermore its powerful secondary missile targeting systems had been very useful in allowing it to acquire small ships with size-5 missiles at a distance beyond what other ships were capable of.  In the words of Admiral Conway, it was a step in the right direction. 

Unfortunately, the impending completion of the second ship in the class, the Terra, would leave virtually no trained crewmen in the Republic's pool of available manpower.

Yeah that's a nice haul.