Month 182, Day 1, Kirov system – border with Tomsk
1st Battle Fleet (Rear Admiral Helena Carstairs)
3xSD, 3xBB, 12xBC, 6xCA, 6xDD, 3xCT
Union Assault Corps (Strike Leader Yuri Popov)
32xCL
Admiral Helena Carstairs was a very unhappy woman. She had the most powerful force in the Colonial Union under her command, and was second in command of the mission to ‘liberate’ humans that her government were characterizing as helpless victims of alien subversion, but in spite of all of that, she was deeply conflicted. She didn’t believe the people of the Tomsk Union were victims of alien subversion, any more than her bosses both in the Navy and the government believed it, but the vast majority of the voters had bought into the story that the Tomsk Union had been subverted by the Bjering and that humans in the Tomsk Union were little more than slaves. The Senate was dazzled by the power of the new superdreadnoughts, and the refits the fleet had recently gone through, and was eager to try their new toys against someone slightly less threatening than the D’Bringi Alliance. The Prime Minister was a New Dawnist, and her Council of Ministers was dominated by that party, and they wanted the Tomsk Union integrated into the Colonial Union as the next step in reuniting Humanity. And they didn’t particularly care how that happened, as long as it happened.
Admiral Carstairs stepped over to the large holo tank in the center of the command deck, looking over her fleet’s disposition, carefully hiding her unease with the situation. In spite of the fact that the Tomsk Union had cancelled their trade treaty with the Colonial Union several years ago, coincidentally cutting off most contact between the two states, there was still some limited contact between the two nations. Diplomatic efforts continued, and in spite of significant resistance on both sides, the Colonial Union had maintained a trade relationship with the Bjering, mostly as a way to keep an eye on that alien nation. That was a two-edged sword, though, as it allowed the Bjering to keep an eye on them as well. The buildup within the Colonial Union towards this invasion had not been subtle, or quick, and it was pretty clear to Admiral Carstairs that the Tomsk Union, and their Bjering allies, couldn’t have missed the change in the public’s attitude towards the Bjering and their human allies. The Senate, and the Navy high command, were dismissive of the possibility that the Tomsk Union could do to stop them, but it was easy to be sure in the safety of your office in the capital of the strongest human nation that had ever existed. Out here, on the fringe, facing the uncertainty of an assault into what was essentially a defended home world, things weren’t as clear.
Admiral Carstairs took a deep breath, looking at the holo tank but seeing the office in the Admiralty where she had been given her orders. She had known they were coming; Senator Semenov had warned her of the likelihood. Her first thought was to resign in protest. The Tomsk, with Bjering assistance, had to have been preparing for just this, and a frontal assault into their home system was just asking for disaster. Plus, she didn’t believe in the political justifications that were being used by the government, and leading her fleet into disaster based on lies was not something she wanted to do. But Senator Semenov had been accompanied by an old friend, Admiral Ruston, who had retired from the fleet way back when the New Dawn party had come to power. Admiral Ruston had convinced her that if she resigned, not only wouldn’t it stop the invasion of Tomsk, but it would mean her fleet, and her people, would be led by someone who didn’t know them. Perhaps even one of the new breed of officers who were rising in the United Colonial Defense Fleet. Mostly Russian, and all from refugee families displaced from Earth during what was now called the Exodus, they were hard men and women, forged in refugee camps on Earth and across the Union, and they were fervent New Dawnists for the most part. She had shuddered at the thought of one of those in command of her fleet. An officer like that wouldn’t hesitate to order her entire fleet into a cauldron of destruction if they thought it served humanity, and sometimes it seemed like the sacrifice of those around them, or even personal loss, meant little to these new officers. She suspected that officers like that preferred great sacrifices, and bloody battles, over bloodless victories, as it reinforced their world view. In any case, they had convinced her to stay on and lead her fleet, even though she felt sure that this offensive would be a disaster.
Her eyes strayed to the icon for the warp point to the Tomsk system, just a light minute from her fleet. It was possible that the Tomsk Union would be able to stop her fleet from entering their system, in spite of the thirty-two assault light cruisers that had joined them at the assembly point. The Union Assault Corps was exactly what she feared when she had considered resigning. It was led by Admiral Yuri Popov, a Russian who had lost most of his family in The Fall, and some of the rest in the chaos that had followed. She had had several meetings with Popov since the arrival of the assault ships, and he had struck her as a fanatic dedicated to ensuring the safety of humanity at any cost. She actually feared the possibility of successfully breaking into the system more than a defeat at the warp point, though. The general population believed that the Tomsk people, once they were given the chance to throw off the yoke of their Bjering oppressors, would jump at the chance. The Senate had convinced itself that the Tomsk government would surrender once the UCDF was overhead. The Prime Minister had said all of the right things, but Carstairs worried about secret orders covering this situation that might have been given to the Mission Commander.
Admiral Carstairs’ face twisted as that worthy came to mind. She had thought that she was free of Lieutenant General Rogov after the conquest of the Tarek. He had been promoted to Colonel-General and was given the post of Military Governor of Tarek Prime. He had wisely chosen to rule his demesne from the neighboring planet of Wunderland, as unwise Colonial Union officials, and even some troopers, had a tendency to go missing on Tarek Prime. These days the Tarek were disarmed, in terms of anti-starship weaponry, and they ‘donated’ their income to the Colonial Union’s budget, as expected, but they definitely were not subdued. Last, she had heard, Rogov was happily gorging himself on the wealth that was flowing from Tarek Prime, and she had figured he would never leave that plum position. But she had been wrong. She had been told that she was the second in command of Operation Valkyrie, responsible for space operations and the safety of the troops assigned to the operation during transit. The overall mission commander would be someone else. That someone else had turned out to be Colonel-General Rogov himself. Arrogant as always, General Rogov had made it clear from the moment that he arrived that she would take no action without first clearing it with him. He had also made it abundantly clear that the only way this operation would fail would be if the fleet let him down.
General Rogov had immediately dismissed her request for additional assets. Amazingly, no survey units had been assigned to the assault. The administration thought that moving survey units from their current assignments would tip off the Bjering and their human subjects that an assault was coming. She could see the logic, but honestly, if the Bjering or the Tomsk were in a position to gather that kind of intel, they would already know that the attack was coming. They hadn’t really been subtle, after all. For heaven’s sake, this year’s most popular tri-Vid entertainment was a series about the liberation of the humans of the Tomsk Union from Bjering domination. After getting chewed out for her ‘defeatism’, Popov had explained the Senate, and the Prime Minister’s, thinking. Once the UCDF fleet punched through their warp point defenses and made orbit over Tereshkova with an invasion force, the Tomsk Union would be forced to surrender without further fighting. There was a certain logic to this line of thought. The Tomsk system was a warp point nexus with an astounding twelve warp points. The Tomsk Union’s prosperity was built on this happy astronomical reality. The large number of warp points gave the Tomsk Union’s most populated planets access to a large number of routes for expansion, but that came at a price. The Tomsk Union was built around the Tomsk Warp Point Nexus, and if the Colonial Union controlled that nexus, then it controlled the Tomsk Union as well. With the capital of the Union under the guns of the UCDF, and their shipyards under UCDF control, all of the other colonies within the Union would eventually have to surrender to the CU or be cut off from all support.
However, Admiral Carstairs couldn’t help but think that both the Senate and the administration were engaging in what could only be called ‘hopeful thinking’. Their plan relied on the Tomsk government seeing sense and surrendering when the UCDF and the invasion force reached orbit over their planet. In her experience, relying on humans to see sense or act logically when faced with aggression was a fool’s errand. It might work, but that was a big assumption. And it left the Bjering completely out of the equation, and that was another very dangerous assumption. The Senate assumed that the Bjering, who had always seemed relatively reasonable, for aliens, would want to avoid a war with the Colonial Union. Assuming that the Bjering didn’t want war with the Colonial Union, it was reasonable to assume that they would decide that this was an internal human matter and stay out of it. Admiral Carstairs didn’t agree, but no one had cared and Popov had used her concerns about the Bjering response to again accuse her of defeatism. He was clearly positioning himself to take all of the credit if the campaign was successful, and to shift all of the blame to her if it failed. To be honest, at this point she didn’t really care about credit or blame, she just wanted to keep as many of her people alive as possible and prevent the commission of an atrocity during the campaign if possible. She didn’t trust Rogov further than she could throw him, and she suspected he had secret orders giving him extraordinary powers, she he decide he needed them.
The command deck crew worked around her, keeping themselves as silent as possible, as they watched their Admiral brood over the tank. They knew that she was trying to keep her disquiet from them, but they knew her well, and they could see her concerns written on her face and her posture.
Suddenly, the command computer signaled an incoming message. “Alert from the flag, ma’am. The fleet will advance on the warp point and prepare to assault.”
Admiral Carstairs nodded. “Very well. Orders to the fleet: Advance on the warp point and assume assault positions.” She turned back to the plot. That idiot Rogov had already given his inspirational speech to the fleet, or at least what he thought of as an inspirational speech. The speech’s repetitive calls to patriotism and “the honor of the Union”, and numerous mentions of the evils of “alien influence”, seemed disjointed and a mis-mash of pro New Dawn tracts and various popular conspiracy theories. It certainly hadn’t done anything for her, and she was pretty sure most of her people had been rolling their eyes at the blatant attempt to stir up the emotions of the crewers.
As the fleet began to move towards the warp point, Carstairs’ eyes returned to the warp point, wondering what waited on the other side.
Tomsk System, WP to the Colonial Union…
The defenders had watched the warp point for some time, waiting for something to happen. They simultaneously didn’t want anything to happen, and desperately wanted something to break the deadly boredom that stalked their daily routine. Six cruiser-sized bases squatted on the warp point; their energy beams dialed in on the area where the Colonial Union ships would have to appear if they wanted to force their way into the system. A belt of mines surrounded the warp point, and would hopefully keep the intruders on the warp point for the bases to engage at close range. The mines were active all of the time, and the Colonial Union had been warned of their presence. The Colonial Union had not been notified of the 150 laser buoys that were interspersed with the mines. The buoys were currently inactive, as the Tomsk Union’s government had no desire to provoke a war if a Colonial Union diplomatic ship happened to come through the warp point at an unexpected time. The Tomsk Union’s Starfleet had argued against this, pointing out that the Colonial Union knew there were defenses present at the warp point, and the no-contact treaty specified that prior approval must be gained by either side before transiting into the other’s territory, but the government had been adamant. Destroying an intruder that meant no harm could provoke a war with the largest human government, and the Tomsk Union wanted to avoid a war with the Colonial Union, if at all possible. Therefore, the laser buoys were deactivated, but two control ships were present, and would activate them if intruders entered the system.
For the last month, the Tomsk Union’s Starfleet had stood off of the warp point, just outside of capital missile range, acting as reinforcements for the bases on the warp point. The nine battlecruisers, nine light cruisers, nine destroyers represented nearly the entire mobile fleet strength of the nation. The only other mobile force was also assigned to the warp point. The Warp Point Defense Group was composed of sixteen tiny escort class units, each armed with a single force beam, and they were stationed behind the bases, within sprint distance of the warp point. They would close on the warp point once they got their crews to their stations, and bolster the base’s firepower. They were due to be rotated into mothballs once the next group of bases come online, but that was several months in the future.
The entire force was divided into five watch groups, with one watch group at action stations at all times, while the rest performed maintenance and gave their crews down-time. The bases, of course, stayed in their positions whether they were active or not, while the fleet units rotated in and out of range of the warp point based on their activation status and the type of weapons they mounted.
Colonial Union, Warp Point to the Tomsk System
Second Lieutenant Kirilenko sat on the bridge of the lead assault cruiser through the warp point. He was assistant weapons officer on the CLL-001, the lead ship in the class, and the lead ship in this assault. He was young for his rank, and if he had been in the United Colonial Defense Fleet he likely still would have been in the academy, or he might have been an ensign serving aboard his first ship. But the UAC was new, and many of the officers were young and filling roles that were as new to them as they were to the ships that had been hauled out of mothballs and hurriedly modernized. Oleg was also terrified, not just of the enemy, but also of his own ship.
Oleg Kirilenko was a teenager when the Soviet Union self-destructed in an orgy of death and chaos. His father was killed serving in the Soviet Fleet, and his mother and older brother died in the final war. He somehow survived with his two older sisters, and, as a good brother, got his sisters to a refugee camp set up by the off-world colonies to help the survivors of the war. Life in the camps was hard, but Oleg thrived in the difficult environment, taking care of his sisters and helping anyone nearby that needed assistance. He was a favorite of the camp, and soon everyone there was chipping in to help the Kirilenko’s. It wasn’t Oleg’s fault that his oldest sister was caught by raiders outside the camp and taken, never to be seen again, but he blamed himself anyway. Shortly after, the remaining two Kirilenko’s were relocated to the old-Russian colony of Krasnodar. Krasnodar was settled by the USSR, and was a key Soviet colony throughout the interstellar era, providing resources to support the fleet from its first inception. As a benign planet within four transits of Earth, it also became a prime relocation site for the refugee effort, and it was here that the Kirilenko siblings made their home after arriving.
Elena Kirilenko did her best to take care of her younger brother, while also rebuilding her life, and for the most part succeeded, keeping Oleg out of the clutches of the gangs that infested the fringe areas of the vast relocation camps by signing Oleg up for labor teams clearing land for the new settlements being erected for the refugees. Oleg found purpose in those teams, bonding with his fellow laborers, and, when they went to a meeting being put on by a New Dawn organizer, he went too. It was there that Oleg found a direction for the anger he felt surrounding the loss of his family. The out-system colonies had worked hard to squash nationalistic feelings in the refugees, preferring that the internecine conflict that destroyed Earth die with the old nations, and their relentless focus on a brighter future had given many of the refugees nowhere to focus their anger and loss. The New Dawn Party harnessed that anger, and gave it a focus. The New Dawn organizers made it clear to anyone who would listen where the blame for the disaster on Earth lay. The responsibility for the fall of the old nations and the destruction of much of human race lay squarely on the aliens, particularly the D’Bringi. Oleg, among many others, experienced a near-religious revelation at that meeting that night, and his course was set. He wanted to apply to the United Colonial Defense Fleet that night, but the fleet was downsizing, and his sister needed him. Oleg was a responsible young man, and so he stayed to help what was left of his family.
Several years later, the situation had changed. Elena was now married with a child of her own and another on the way, and so when the Union Assault Corps came to Krasnodar to fill its ranks, Oleg was one of many young former-refugees who volunteered immediately. Oleg excelled in the training academy, and as the UAC needed officers as desperately as crewers, Oleg was identified as officer material and transferred to the officer academy and given accelerated training. And so it was that twenty-two year old Oleg Kirilenko was a second lieutenant and assistant weapons officer on board the Gordi. It was Oleg’s first battle, and he was terrified, like almost everyone else on board the ship. As a weapons officer, though, Oleg knew enough to be terrified not only of the enemy but also of the weapons on board his own ship. As an assault ship, the Gordi was built around a massive laser system that could put out incredibly powerful X-Ray laser beams, causing heavy damage to anything they hit, but at a cost. At the heart of the ship was a heavily armored chamber where a powerful magnetic bottle contained (hopefully) an actual nuclear blast, then channeled the resulting energy to laser emitters on the hull of the ship. The training cadre at the academy claimed the system was safe, and that the safeties surrounding the detonation chamber would engage if anything went wrong, saving the ship from the nuclear explosion taking place inside of all of its defenses, but the trainees suspected that the cadre were shading the situation to make them feel better. Indeed, as they learned more about the weapons system, they realized that the dangers were higher than they had originally suspected. There existed a significant chance that the safeties would engage any time the detonation chamber was used, rendering the ship combat ineffective several minutes until the system could be reset. Worse, there existed a chance, small but real, that the chamber could explode, destroying the weapons system, or even the whole ship. The whole system was incredibly risky to use on an expensive ship, but the UAC felt that the risk was justified on an assault ship, where the need to hit the enemy as hard as possible, as soon as possible, was critical. The fact that an actual nuclear explosion was happening just several tens of meters from where he was sitting terrified Oleg, but the New Dawn Party had instilled in him a fervent desire to protect humanity, and if that meant using the x-ray laser system, then that is what he would do.
When the mission had been announced, many among the UAC’s crews had been uncertain. They had signed up to fight the D’Bringi, and to protect humanity from the aliens that wanted to destroy everything that humanity stood for. Fighting against the humans in the Tomsk system seemed to go against everything they had learned and believed, but Oleg was among the true believers. The New Dawn Party taught that the Tomsk Union had been subverted by the aliens they had so unwisely cozied up to after the fall of Earth, and it was their duty to free their fellow humans from the alien contamination that was creeping throughout their society. Oleg and his friends had spread the word, and before they reached the border the UAC was united behind their mission once again. Humanity would be free!
Tomsk System, Assault Force
One minute the warp point was clear, and the next Colonial Union light cruisers began appearing. CLL-001, the Gordi, was the first ship through the warp point. Lt. Kirilenko shook his head to clear it, struggling to focus on his instruments. The targeting display began to update. “Sir, six cruiser-sized bases at close range. Also, six escort class ships in close proximity to the bases.”
Lt. Commander Forbes was looking around the bridge blearily. “Fire!”
As the pre-assault planning dictated, Lt. Kirilenko targeted the nearest and largest target, one of the bases. The senior weapons officer, Lt. Konstantin, as the most senior and best trained weapons officer on the ship, was in charge of managing the detonation chamber, while Kirilenko handled targeting and refining firing parameters, under the captain’s direction. Lt. Konstantin announced – “Firing!”
The lights on the Gordi’s bridge dimmed as the ship’s power was diverted to the critical magnetic bottle that was all that stood between the crew and total destruction. Kirilenko didn’t really know what to expect, none of them did, as none of them had actually fired the laser system for real. There was a loud SNAP, and the ship actually shuddered. Lt. Kirilenko was sure they were all dead, but then the lights came up and Lt. Konstantin shouted – “Mag bottle steady!”
Lt. Kirilenko’s eyes went to his display and he turned to the captain. “Sir! Two hits. The base’s armor is breached and it is streaming atmosphere!”
Lt. Commander Forbes nodded. “Very well. Helm, come to a halt as planned.”
The light cruiser came a halt relative to the warp point to avoid the mines that were almost certainly placed nearby. Behind the lead ship more light cruisers spilled from the warp point, firing as soon as they materialized. By that time the Gordi’s plot tank had updated, showing contacts out to seven-point-five light seconds. The tank now showed additional contacts, with ten additional escort class ships at two-point-two-five light seconds and three battlecruisers and three light cruisers at four-point-five light seconds.
“Incoming missile strike! Target…” Oleg held his breath as the dispassionate voice of the bridge AI paused. The Gordi had minimal missile defenses, and depended on its datalinked partners to provide additional missile defenses, but their datalink was down after the transit and they were on their own. The three icons for the enemy battlecruisers in the plot tank had begun pulsing, indicating that they were the origin of the missile salvo, and the number of missiles a battlecruiser squadron could throw would put a serious dent in any light cruiser’s defenses. “…is the Minneapolis.” Oleg released his breath as their sister ship just behind them in the assault wave was wreathed in explosions before it could fire its laser system.
Lt. Commander Forbes turned to the comm station. “Update and launch the courier drone!”
LT. Commander Forbes’ calm tone brought Oleg back to the present. The plan called for all surviving ships to launch their CD’s as soon as they had information on the defenses, to update the assault commanders on the far side of the warp point. He began focusing on his console again, as a second attacking light cruiser came under fire from the light cruisers escorting the Tomsk battlecruisers. To Oleg the entire situation was chaotic. The Minneapolis, and the Jean Bart behind her, were heavily damaged and their light codes on the main plot tank were flickering. Even as Oleg watched, the last attacking cruiser in the line, the Trudeau, came under fire from the enemy escorts at close range. The enemy was suffering, though, and Oleg took heart from that. The light codes for five of the six Tomsk bases were flickering, indicating that their armor had been pierced and that they had suffered internal damage.
Continued in part 2