7th June 2390 The Fifth Cruiser Division and the First Destroyer Squadron detached from the Commune Fifth Fleet and under the command of Vice Admiral Enrick Chitul entered the system of ES -94 and closed in on the Spectre Mothership, destroying her easily with long range fire from the Elatha class cruisers. The twenty FACs were destroyed by the Skrzak class destroyers with medium range missiles.
Their job done, the ships turned about to head towards Gaillard.
22nd June 2390 The anomaly in Peter's Crossing moved once again. Jasso considered putting her forces into high alert, but the movement doesn't necessarily mean the enemy will be coming and there is only so long people can maintain heightened concentration.
23 June 2390 The jump gate to the Untama system is ready and the reinforcements have arrived. The Hegemony invasion of the alien home system will be performed by twenty one warships and two hundred and forty bombers. Late evening they are finally ready.
The enemy turned out to be extremely well trained and before humans even realized the jump was finished, Normandy, the lead command cruiser of her class, has been annihilated by energy weapon fire. Rear Admiral Rosa Landmann who commanded the assault was optimistic however as her passive sensors detected only what appeared to be four corvettes, seven frigates and twelve destroyers, which was a much lighter force than the one fought in Newark. Jump gate was also present allowing for an easy retreat. However it was also true the sheer speed and ferocity of the enemy reaction was troubling to say the least. As such she ordered her fighters to fire blindly into a waypoint near the jump point, hoping the missile active sensors will find targets on their own. Unfortunately her crews were inexperienced and panicked by the sudden destruction of Normandy, making them slow to respond. In the meantime the alien point defense was firing in offensive mode, scoring many hits on the destroyer Danand, but not penetrating her armor.
As dozens of anti-missiles begun exploding against Danands hull, penetrating her armor, the sensors on larger warships begun coming online. Five of the ships turned out to be some sort of commercial vessel, as they had low thermal signatures but high mass. That still left seven destroyers and seven frigates. The admiral immediately ordered all weapons free, including the missiles. She knew it would be overkill, but she didn't know how quickly her forces will react and the enemy short range firepower could cut many ships to pieces if given time.
As the warships tried to fire Landmann realized there was a another discrepancy between the number of enemy warships based on their thermal signatures and their actual sensor returns. To her dismay four of the supposed destroyers were actually frigates moving at over six thousand kilometers per second. Whether this meant they were a new construction with vastly improved engines, or simply very fast scouts using ion drives, she did not know. But she didn't have time to ponder the question as Danand begun taking internal damage. Five seconds later she died, but at least all enemy heavy weapons, finally recharged, were forced to focus on her, buying her consorts time to organize themselves and finally reply.
Fortunately it seemed like the point defense guns were out of range, so the human warships got a respite while the aliens recharged.
The more distant groups finally begun to respond. Each of those comprised a command cruiser, an older Ra class destroyer and three Hammurabi class frigates. They begun using their lasers and particle beams to damage the nearest enemy ships while launching a total of three hundred and sixty Tomahawk Cs and four hundred and thirty two Patriot Cs in offensive mode. The situation quickly became confused as the human munitions zoned on their targets while Royal interceptors were being detected, although whether they were fired in offensive or defensive mode was unknown. As the situation clarified, four alien fast frigates, one frigate, one destroyer and one large suspected commercial vessel were gone but six destroyers and two frigates remained. In response the enemy targeted the command cruiser Arnhem. Moment later the frigates Damqi-Illishu and Sumu Abum has been annihilated by energy weapon fire. Neither the fighters nor the four modern Morrigan class destroyers fired yet while around them the destruction continued with a Royal destroyer dying, followed shortly by another one.
Two more alien destroyers died and neither the fighters nor the four modern destroyers fired. Landmann ordered the former to cease fire, as their missiles likely won't be needed now but will definitely be needed to deal with the planet. A minute later the battle was finally over. No more Hegemony ships have been lost but the four Morrigans still haven't fired.
Landmann glowered at the icons of those four ships, as with their support it would have been over much sooner, but she had little attention to spare while she surveyed the damage. The command cruisers Arnhem and Suomussalmi had light armor damage but fortunately no internal one and no casualties. The destroyer Caer has taken a beating however, losing an engine among other things. She will have to be sent home for repairs which means the Resolute Carrier Group will be one cruiser and two destroyers short. Thirteen hundred and sixty six humans lost their lives.
With that done the time has come to secure the jump point and clean up after the battle. The fighters are ordered to head back to their carriers, which are already on their way and will enter the system shortly. The nine ship task group on the other side enters the system as well, to ensure the Kingdom doesn't retake it although there are currently no enemy warships within sensor range. Caer is ordered home, performing some repairs on the way, but no other ships leave due to battle damage, despite the fact that a total of three ships, including Namhein from the Newark picket group have lost some armor. Meanwhile the Hammurabi class frigates, which have no ammunition left, making them useless, are ordered to pick up survivors and head to Des Moines and then home.
Fifteen hundred and sixty four aliens have been taken prisoner.
24th June 2390 Defiant, Resolute and their escorts entered the Untama system, absorbing the detached warships. Three command cruisers and three Ra class destroyers which were sent for the assault from the capital, are ordered home. The warships have next to no ammunition, are too few in number to stop any sort of attack on the jump point and are too slow to accompany carriers. Meanwhile all other warships will head towards the inner system. While in theory this allows the Kingdom to cut them off, considering technological imbalance and the loses already sustained by the aliens it is very unlikely they could accomplish anything.
So far there has been no new contacts within the active sensor range, but radar emissions have been detected from two ships of previously unknown classes headed towards the humans from the planet.
28th June 2390 Twenty three alien gunboats are detected heading towards the Hegemony carrier groups. Thanks to interrogations their armament is know – eight launchers with slow missiles capable of attacking targets from a little less than fifty million kilometers. This will make it a perfect opportunity to test the Da Yu class destroyers developed specifically to deal with such ships.
29th June 2390 As soon as the gunboats got into range the two destroyers begin to fire, launching three Harpoons at each. Despite the fact the targets have minimal armor, no active defenses and too low speed to evade a single shipkiller, eleven of them manage to survive the first salvoes, but the following ones finish them off easily. With the way cleared the Resolute fighters are launched to deal with the four warships following the gunboats. They accomplish their mission without incident. The frigate Bizhan is detached to collect the survivors and deliver them to Des Moines.
3rd July 2390 The two Hegemony carrier groups got close enough to the inner system to have it within sensor range. As the actives aboard the carrier have very good resolution it is very likely everything the Kingdom has can now be seen.
Three planets are inhabited. The fourth one is almost habitable for humans and is suspected to be the enemy homeworld. The fifth planet has much smaller energy signature but the planet itself has far too low temperature to be habitable, even for the aliens. The last colony is located on the sixth planet which is extremely cold and while it could be terraformed, it would require about as much work as Galilean moons in Sol would have.
A number of suspected commercial vessels have also been discovered, but those are of no consequence. What matters are orbital installations circling the fourth planet, which comprise ten destroyer sized and two cruiser sized objects. Some of those may be commercial vessels which has not begun evacuation, ships which for some reason stayed behind or any other number of things, but most officers agree at least some of those are actually military bases. In addition there is a shipyard complex with a total mass of over eight million tonnes, making it much larger than that in orbit of New Earth. Of course there is now way to know how the complex is split between commercial and military shipbuilding.
The presence of the yard was expected and led to a lengthy discussion over what to do with it. Due to very low speed of troop transports, invading the planet won't be possible for some time and it is currently unknown whether or not the forces available will be able to even secure the planet. Moreover the Hegemony has barely strong enough economy to support their current shipbuilding and the early years of occupation will significantly impact productivity of the planet. As such the captured yards will be essentially useless but if they continue to function they may endanger the upcoming ground invasion. As such the Hegemon has ordered the yards to be destroyed.
Many argued this decision pointing out that having available yards, even if useless in the short term, will save huge amounts of money and resources that would have to be spent on expanding the existing complexes above New Earth. Those arguments however were insufficient.
All of those considerations would have been moot of course if the planet surrendered as soon as it was limited to orbital installations, but while humans attempted to open negotiations, they were simply ignored. This was surprising even for the most unforgiving of Hegemony officials, as they expected at least some answer, even if it boiled down to telling the humans to go away. With that however the military option is the only one left.
Meanwhile Bizhan completes recovering one thousand and eight one Royal survivors and heads towards Des Moines.
4th July 2390 The two hundred and forty Hegemony fighters arrive close to the planet with half targeting the shipyard and the other half targeting the other objects in orbit. The orbital industry was annihilated easily enough with twelve hundred shipkillers, but half of the suspected bases managed to survive. Those Peregrines which did not fire, did so now, easily eliminating their targets. As they headed back to rearm, the Hegemony once again tried to open negotiations but to no avail. As the suspected commercial vessels were obsolete by human standards anyway, but could be dangerous if attempted to ram, they became next target although one that could not be immediately pursued due to most Peregrines having no ammunition.
In the meantime the frigate Faranak is detached to collect the survivors.
7th July 2390 All alien ships in sensor range has been destroyed, but it failed to impress whoever is in charge of the planet below and there is still no communication. Resolute and her escorts will stay in system to keep an eye on things but Defiant is low on ammunition and has been in space for almost ten months, close to their supposed endurance. As such she will rescue the survivors of the commercial vessels and head home for overhaul.
Four thousand seven hundred and seventy aliens have been recovered over the next several days.
13th July 2390 The ongoing interrogations of the Royal prisoners on Ankeny has allowed the Hegemony to develop improved tracking systems for energy weapons.
26th July 2390 The Hegemony Central Naval Command has completed their analysis of the recent war with the Kingdom. While said war is obviously not over, it is very unlikely the Navy will be needed unless they manage to build new shipyards before the troops arrive.
The first part of the report deal with the deep space combat and is little more than a long list of confirmation of fighter superiority pointing out that two carrier groups managed to bring an entire alien nation to its knees without losing a single human spacer. As such there are no recommendations for this particular part of the Navy. And while there are many officers disagreeing about the issue of fighter performance even they have to admit that the war was so one sided, there is no new information to be had.
The jump point assault was a different matter. The most important part was the entry of the Normandy group, which comprised the command cruiser itself and five Morrigan class destroyers, which never engaged in combat. The analysis have shown that the group made a standard transit using the jump gate rather than a squadron transit like other groups did. This led to their electronics being disrupted for a much longer time. It is firm belief of the officers that if the destroyers managed to engage as soon as other ships the fight would have been much shorter and at the very least two frigates, and some three hundred people, could be saved. Whoever was responsible for such a mistake would have faced very serious charges, but unfortunately both ship and flag bridge have suffered direct hits. The remaining survivors had no knowledge of the incident and no records have been recovered. As such it will never be known what exactly have happened and whoever was responsible for the debacle is very likely dead.
Other than that it has been pointed out that the assault worked in principle, but there were serious issues. First he squadron transit worked exactly as intended, putting ships away from the most devastating weapons and shortening recovery times. Unfortunately due to scarcity of modern warships older ones have been used to the point where Hammurabis were used as little more than targets, diverting enemy fire from more important assets. If the jump point have been defended much more heavily, the entire assault could have ended in disaster.
The second important issue was the training of the Hegemony crews, as they panicked far too easily. Not only did it take them much longer to start firing than it should, it took their engineers far too long to get the ships moving. This was especially bad in case of bombers, which were supposed to quickly get out of energy weapons range, but stayed on the jump point for nearly a full minute. In the end they didn't even had an opportunity to fire, but if the strike was done without warships, the small craft would have suffered catastrophic loses. In the end the board is undecided whether or not fighters should be making jump point assaults by themselves although of course they would have to be modified for the role. Either a dedicated sensor scout would have to be added, or all Peregrines would have to be refitted with short range sensors.
In the end the Central Command recommends very few changes. New escorts are being built which will help in future assaults and the doctrine seems to be working. The most important thing in their opinion is to begin serious training of their warships, despite the length of time and costs it would take.
28th July 2390 The components salvaged from the Traveller construction ships have been delivered to Gagarin. Much was learned about antimatter drives, but not enough to copy them and as the Commune has not even developed appropriate reactors, it was impossible to follow the foundations and continue development from national resources. Fortunately there are many new wrecks waiting to be recovered.
The disassembly of the single CIWS station found also shed some light on other aspects of Traveller technology. Overall they seem to be a generation ahead of the Commune in every aspect with exception of areas neglected by the humans, such as beam weapon fire control range, where the gap is the largest.
As the new salvage ships won't be available for quite some time – the shipyard which will build them is busy with new tugs which won't launch for another year – the existing ships are sent back to Peter's Crossing despite their low speed making things not only slow but also risky as it will be difficult for them to run if something happens.
15th August 2390 As older Hegemony escorts were too slow and the need to enlarge the navy meant new construction was preferred over the engine refits, modern escorts were scarce as it was. To make matters worse, the survey vessels had to be upgraded, which forced the Navy to cease construction of the new frigates at least for a while. Due to all of this no new carriers have been laid down after Resolute left the yards. Fortunately all exploration ships have been refitted to the new design, nine additional Ghaaran class frigates have been laid down and assembly of Morrigan class destroyers was never interrupted. With that the time has come to lay down the next carrier and the combination of enlarged shipyard and new armor meant a next generation vessel has been designed, the X-231 Vengeance.
Forty thousand tonnes larger than her predecessor, the vessel carries thirty three percent more bombers for a total of one hundred and sixty. This is in part due to newer, lighter armor but also thanks to the removal of the eighty anti-ship missile launchers. Those were added for emergencies, but considering the size of the fleets usually engaged it's very unlikely those eighty launchers would make a difference in any circumstance except a very specific one. In addition the passive and active defenses remain unchanged as those are considered to be quite heavy already. Overall unless new wars lead to new lessons, the future carriers will concentrate on expanding their strike capability rather than protection.
X-231Vengeance class Carrier 260 000 tons 4612 Crew 38255.4 BP TCS 5200 TH 26000 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 8-362 Shields 0-0 Sensors 700/900/0/0 Damage Control Rating 227 PPV 40
Maint Life 1.66 Years MSP 20875 AFR 2382% IFR 33.1% 1YR 9010 5YR 135156 Max Repair 1400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 0
Hangar Deck Capacity 80000 tons Magazine 10480 Cryogenic Berths 3000
Ding-Zheng Naval Internal Fusion Drive (26) Power 1000 Fuel Use 25% Signature 1000 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 32 000 000 Litres Range 88.6 billion km (205 days at full power)
Phalanx CIWS Mk2 (20x10) Range 1000 km TS: 25000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Karalis-Nallie Advanced Anti-Missile Launcher (40) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Foxe Aerospace Industries Anti-Missile Fire Control (4) Range 60.5m km Resolution 1
Patriot C (880) Speed: 65 000 km/s End: 1.6m Range: 6.4m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 715/429/214
Spacebolt (3200) Speed: 50 000 km/s End: 25.1m Range: 75.4m km WH: 9 Size: 3 TH: 166/100/50
Bretschneider-Bachmann Long Range Missile Detection System (1) GPS 336 Range 60.5m km MCR 6.6m km Resolution 1
Mckenney Space & Security Battle Management System Mk2 (1) GPS 28000 Range 1 127.0m km Resolution 20
Lichtenberg-Lambeth Huge Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 700 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 700m km
Lichtenberg-Lambeth Huge EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 900 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 900m km
ECCM-4 (4) Strike Group
160x X-225 Peregrine Bomber Speed: 10000 km/s Size: 10
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes30th August 2390 The thirteenth Normandy class command cruiser has been laid down. Originally ten has been planned, but carrier construction was resumed sooner than anyone expected so the number was increased to twelve and then to thirteen after one ships was lost during the assault on the Untama system. With that the shipyard, which by now has five slipways, became available for new tasks.
Two designs have been proposed to take advantage of the available slipways. The first one, X-232, is for all instances and purposes enlarged version of Morrigan, although there are some subtle differences, such as much thicker armor, much larger magazines, allowing launching of higher numbers of anti-missile salvos and somewhat lighter energy armament, at least proportionally speaking, but it's still a well built multi-role vessel that can either escort carriers or operate on its own when needed.
The X-233 is a much different proposition for it was designed specifically to assault fortified jump points. To this end the armament is somewhat minimalistic comprising two hundred shipkiller cells and ten offensive beam weapons. While the vessel lacks point defense, in close confines of the jump point battle it is not unusual for missiles to cross distances so fast they cannot be intercepted, do any active defenses are useless. However the ship does have very heavy armor, making it very resistant to damage.
While everyone expected the Hegemon to give full support to the X-232, to their surprise he was very interested in the assault cruiser, complimenting its design. However as he pointed out right now the Navy is really lacking escorts, especially ones that can fight on their own, which forced obsolete vessels to serve as glorified targets during the entry to Untama, so the cruiser will take precedence. However as shown in that battle a dedicated assault cruiser may be needed so in the future several X-233 may be built.
The new warship was given name of Mitra.
X-232 class Cruiser 30 000 tons 717 Crew 7171.4 BP TCS 600 TH 3000 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 10-86 Shields 0-0 Sensors 36/36/0/0 Damage Control Rating 19 PPV 208.68
Maint Life 2.45 Years MSP 2839 AFR 378% IFR 5.3% 1YR 652 5YR 9773 Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 3
Magazine 1347
Ding-Zheng Naval Internal Fusion Drive (3) Power 1000 Fuel Use 25% Signature 1000 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2 050 000 Litres Range 49.2 billion km (113 days at full power)
Gothe Systems 300mm Spinal Mounted Far UV Laser (1) Range 320 000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 24-6 RM 5 ROF 20 24 24 24 24 24 20 17 15 13 12
Gothe Systems Improved Particle Beam (4) Range 320 000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 22-6 ROF 20 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Twin Gothe Systems Gauss Cannon Turret (3x10) Range 30 000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Timblo Electronic Systems Improved PD Fire Control (3) Max Range: 80 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Timblo Electronic Systems Improved Beam Fire Control (2) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 6250 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Mcquerry-Cassin Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology (4) Total Power Output 32 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Eshleman-Burrell Design Bureau Box Launcher (150) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Karalis-Nallie Advanced Anti-Missile Launcher (27) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Foxe Aerospace Industries Anti-Missile Fire Control (2) Range 60.5m km Resolution 1
Gaekwad & Saigal Missile Fire Control (6) Range 151.2m km Resolution 100
Tomahawk C (150) Speed: 50 000 km/s End: 23.8m Range: 71.4m km WH: 15 Size: 4 TH: 166/100/50
Patriot C (747) Speed: 65 000 km/s End: 1.6m Range: 6.4m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 715/429/214
Chen Manufacturing Medium Missile Detection System (1) GPS 168 Range 30.2m km MCR 3.3m km Resolution 1
Gaekwad & Saigal Small Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 8400 Range 151.2m km Resolution 100
Chen Manufacturing Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
Chen Manufacturing EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
ECCM-4 (6) Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
X-233 class Assault Cruiser 30 000 tons 670 Crew 7831.8 BP TCS 600 TH 3000 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 20-86 Shields 0-0 Sensors 36/36/0/0 Damage Control Rating 21 PPV 210
Maint Life 1.32 Years MSP 1795 AFR 654% IFR 9.1% 1YR 1096 5YR 16444 Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 800
Ding-Zheng Naval Internal Fusion Drive (3) Power 1000 Fuel Use 25% Signature 1000 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 800 000 Litres Range 43.2 billion km (100 days at full power)
Gothe Systems 300mm Spinal Mounted Far UV Laser (1) Range 320 000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 24-6 RM 5 ROF 20 24 24 24 24 24 20 17 15 13 12
Gothe Systems Improved Particle Beam (9) Range 320 000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 22-6 ROF 20 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Timblo Electronic Systems Improved Beam Fire Control (3) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 6250 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Mcquerry-Cassin Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology (8) Total Power Output 64 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Eshleman-Burrell Design Bureau Box Launcher (200) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Gaekwad & Saigal Missile Fire Control (8) Range 151.2m km Resolution 100
Harpoon C (200) Speed: 50 000 km/s End: 55m Range: 164.9m km WH: 10 Size: 4 TH: 166/100/50
Gaekwad & Saigal Small Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 8400 Range 151.2m km Resolution 100
Chen Manufacturing Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
Chen Manufacturing EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
ECCM-4 (11) Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes9th January 2391 Five Hegemony divisions including two assault, two mobile infantry and one garrison, land on Untama IV, known to the locals as Khamali. The Resolute Carrier Group is in orbit to provide support when needed, but most people hope it won't be necessary. The forces landed close to the north pole, away from settlement and heavy defenses and the aliens moved in to encircle them, hoping to keep them confined and away from more important areas.
10th January 2391 The initial attacks had not gone well for the humans. Fourteen battalions suffered casualties while the Kingdom suffered only light loses to five of their battalions. Thanks to the information gathered during the short, vicious fights the Intelligence now believe Hegemony would need twice as powerful force as they had to gain a parity. Unfortunately there are only two national guard divisions available on New Earth, which are not optimized towards offensive operations and only five new battalions could be trained simultaneously.
Of course with no orbital industry and no space ships the aliens could be kept bottled up indefinitely. Unfortunately at least one carrier group would have to be stationed in the system, it would take years to build up the ground forces to necessary level and with no new Traveller incursions into Peter's Crossing there is fear the Commune may try something. As such the Hegemon orders the use of anti-missiles in offensive mode to at least severely weaken the enemy troops.
Three salvos comprising a total of four hundred and eighty Patriot Cs were fired, after which the humans resumed their ground offensive. However it will take some time for them to analyze the Royal responses and, by extension, the results of the bombardment.
15th January 2391 The bombardment has helped some, but the Hegemony troops are still essentially confined within their original landing zone and all attempts to break out has resulted in much heavier casualties for humans than for their enemies. Five more salvos are ordered, for a total of eight hundred Patriot Cs. Observations from orbit show that seventeen enemy battalions have been destroyed, although the accuracy of those observations is uncertain.
Despite the Patriots having very light warheads, the damage to the planet itself is quite severe. The temperature has dropped by nearly thirteen degrees Centigrade and radiation is certain to affect industry and population. Because of this the government fervently hopes the damage has been heavy enough to break the alien defenses, as they would rather not use any more missiles on the troops below.
20th January 2391 The recent bombardment has proven to be decisive and Hegemony has finally broken out of their landing zone. In exchange for moderate damage to two of their battalions, three enemy ones have been completely destroyed and seventeen more has suffered loses. Despite that the resistance continues to be stiff and the ground war is far from over.
25th January 2391 The ground combat on Khamali continues with humans advancing slowly but steadily. Four enemy battalions have been completely annihilated and sixteen more have suffered casualties, while Hegemony loses were negligible. In terms of sheer combat power the humans don't really have that big of an advantage, but the nuclear bombardment has severely disorganized their enemies and as long as this continues to be true, there should be no question about the ultimate Hegemony victory.
26th January 2391 The Commune salvage group is back in Peter's Crossing but this time it's joined by modern, fast freighters. While it won't help with the wreck recoveries themselves, once that is done the modern transports will be able to deliver any intact components found to their destinations nearly six times faster than the obsolete models.
14th February 2391 Ever since the second bombardment, the Hegemony forces have been moving fast into the more heavily populated areas. Using his highly mobile troops General Lu Zhen Zhu was encircling and destroying weakened enemy formation before those could reorganize and re-establish defensive lines. The strategy, while risky due to potential overextension has worked and by now humans have significant numerical advantage. While the ground war is far from over, it has effectively moved to the mop up stage.
17th April 2391 All Royal ground forces have been destroyed and the human divisions begun to spread out to secure the major cities and industrial centers. The capital however was practically abandoned and the King was nowhere to be found. There are many theories as to what happened. Some believe he went into hiding, others think he's dead, possibly due to suicide while yet others believe he never existed and was used as a figurehead by some shadowy organization. With him gone however the planetary population begun to surrender.
The fighting has been fierce and approximately a quarter of the planet has been devastated with millions dead. The exact numbers will likely never be known as the nation used tight information control so the true population size and level of industrialization before the war is not known. Even so the remaining databanks are being examined very carefully to see what information is available.
The Royal technology is mostly behind that of the Hegmeony, but there are some areas where they managed to get ahead. Unfortunately this is mostly due to the fact that those areas have been largely ignored by New Earth so improvements to railguns or shields are of no use to them. The only items of interest were fire controls for energy weapons which were superior and will likely be used.
The material gains are much, much larger. The planet had population of over six billion, half again as much as the Hegemony and was heavily industrialized. Unfortunately due to the unrest the efficiency of the industry will be severely diminished and moving it away will be impossible due to very limited lift capacity and lack of sufficient manpower to man all the captured industries. The full planetary industry is given below.
Population: 6 515 million
Maintenance facilities: 288 (sufficient to support warships up to 57 600 tonnes)
Construction Factories: 1 638
Ordnance Factories: 548
Fuel Refineries: 914
Mines: 2 117
Automated Mines: 540
Research Laboratories: 95
Consumables: Approximately three hundred million liters of fuel, over a hundred thousand tonnes of maintenance supplies, over six hundred thousand tonnes of assorted TN elements
The most valuable gains are fuel, minerals and research facilities. The planet has deposits of all eleven TN elements, all of which are in moderate to high accessibility with deposits ranging from three hundred thousand tonnes to a million. Coupled with huge amounts of fuel, the immediate material problems of the Hegemony has just been solved.
The research labs will help even more in the long term. Hegemony has always been larger than the Commune but their technology was simply not up to par. With their R&D sector doubled, they will have much easier time to overcome that particular deficiency, although the facilities themselves will likely be transported to Ares.
The war is not over yet as two enemy colonies remain, but those should pose little danger and as such the government prepares to make plans for the future. First the planet is ordered to enlarge their maintenance sector in order to support a carrier group in orbit. Vigilant, the smallest and oldest carrier currently in commission, and her group are ordered to the Untama system to take over from the Resolute. She will need a hundred days to arrive.
The invasion has also proven that the ground forces available to the Hegemony are insufficient. New ones are being trained almost constantly but only five at a time which is too few. In addition the existing troop transports are simply too slow.
The end of the ground campaign has been met with relief among the Hegemony citizens although very few doubted the outcome, especially with significant naval forces in orbit ready to provide support. The Commune is very worried, but they cannot officially condemn the right of the Hegemony to defend itself. Only the Republic takes confrontational stance on the international scene, pointing out that the war could have been resolved without so much death and destruction.
