Briefing on Colonial Naval Assets

For much of its existence the Colonial Independence Navy has been a hodgepodge collection of retrofitted civilian vessels and appropriated colonial defense ships. As a result, most actions carried out by the CIN have been ambushes or raids. Over the course of the war however, the Colonials have managed to form a core of capital ships that are a match for their UNE counterparts in conventional fleet actions.

The Colonial frigate is actually a modification of the civilian Kodiak freighter design. For that matter, many frigates early in the war were little more than upgunned and uparmored freighters. The modified design is actually fairly respectable as a fighting machine with good coverage by the various mounted guns. The Colonials were however never able to fully shed their frigate's civilian origins and even today these ships suffer from numerous structural weaknesses in their hull. This was especially true early in the war and the Colonials lost many of these early ships to skilled fighter pilots. Newer models are generally better armored and usually operate in pairs to help complement each other's defenses, but the core design flaws still remain. There have however been reports of a new generation of frigates that are mounting cruiser grade beam weaponry. How exactly the Colonials are managing to power these weapons without shutting down other critical systems is unknown, though this design approach suggests the Colonials have decided the best way to ensure the survival of their frigates is to kill the opposition as quickly as possible.

Colonial cruisers are of an older UNE design that was deprecated after the introduction of the current generation. The initial batch of cruisers employed by the Colonials was either originally assigned as colonial defense flagships and lost in the subsequent mutinies or stolen from mothball facilities. Since then the Colonials have managed to build more, making improvements where they can in terms of weapons, propulsion, and power generation. As most UNE officers know, this cruiser class suffered from a few design issues such as the placement of power conduits on vulnerable nacelles. The Colonials have however significantly increased the density of point defense systems on this class's flanks, making approaches from above or to the sides extremely hazardous for fighters and bombers. Approaches from below or aft are more likely to succeed, though the Colonials did not leave those angles completely undefended either.

The Colonial carrier is perhaps the first original warship design by the colonies. Larger than their UNE counterparts, these carriers seem to sport significantly heavier armor and carry larger complements of light craft. These vessels also carry a respectable complement of heavy anti-ship cannons, making them far more lethal and durable than most UNE officers would like to admit. This combination of armor and weapons actually make Colonial carriers potent direct combatants capable of taking on multiple enemy capital ships. The only good news is that the Colonials have not been able to mass produce these powerful warships due to their limited industrial capacity. Carriers are only assigned to their most successful admirals and are rarely concentrated in single fleets. ***REDACTED***Should the Colonials ever change their doctrine however, any UNE force that finds itself engaged with a Colonial fleet with a core of carriers will face significant difficulties winning or even surviving the battle.***ENDREDACTION***

Commodore Evan Truman

Director, Operational Analysis

Office of Naval Intelligence, United Nations of Earth

Chapter 3: Of Blood Shed

"I see Admiral Suvorov is merciless as ever," Taylor commented.

"He never was one for subtlety," Kosygin agreed, looking down at the chessboard. "According to him, it's mate in five."

Leaning over, Taylor tried to see if he could predict the intended moves. While it was true the fleet admiral was in a tight spot, he was not quite sure just how Suvorov could be so confident of victory so soon.

"Your queen is still on the field while he has already lost his," said Taylor. "You have considerably more tactical flexibility due to it and should at least be able to inflict a few more losses."

"Ignoring the fact that he has three pawns about ready to convert," said Kosygin. "And I can't take any of them without trapping my queen."

"So assuming he converts all three, that leaves him with two moves. Not quite sure how he would achieve mate with just two moves."

"That is assuming he does convert all three," Kosygin said. "I somehow doubt he would be that straightforward."

"That sounds a bit too like him," Taylor conceded. "Though if the admiral does not mind taking a suggestion on tactics from a subordinate, perhaps you should focus on his king instead to force him to divert his attention from advancing his pawns. If nothing else, it might prove false his mate in five."

"Great minds think alike, Vincent. I definitely see a flag rank in your future."

Taylor chuckled. "But what would you do without me looking after you ma'am?"

"You mean you'll follow me into retirement?" Kosygin said, her grin even wider. "Why, how thoughtful of you Vincent. Anyway, I presume you had something for me besides coming to comment on my abysmal chess skills?"

"Yes ma'am," Taylor said, straightening. He made no correction of the admiral's self-assessment, Kosygin noticed. "The parameters for the fleet wide simulation you wanted to carry out."

Taking the offered tablet, Kosygin browsed through the summary. One thing the combined CIN fleet badly needed was more practice working together as a single unit. They had done well enough at Sybille and it was unlikely they would face any further opposition serious enough to threaten the fleet but Kosygin believed in being prepared.

"Looks good, Vincent, though we might want to-"

The terminal on Kosygin's desk beeped, interrupting the admiral midsentence. After hitting a button, Summers' face appeared on the display.

"Ma'am, the attack force you sent after the stragglers just returned," the captain said, her voice tight.

Kosygin frowned. "What's the matter Rebecca?"

"Only six fighters returned ma'am," Summers said quietly. "The others were all wiped out."

Kosygin's eyes went wide but she recovered quickly. "Debrief the pilots immediately and pull a dump of their sensor logs. I want to know exactly what the hell happened."

"Yes ma'am."

Kosygin exchanged an unhappy glance with Taylor. The losses implied by Summers was miniscule compared to the defeat they just handed the UNE but that did not change the fact that men and women sent by Kosygin into battle had died. Now she needed to know how they died and exactly who she needed to hunt down to exact vengeance.

"Its mass is approximately that of a Unie bomber," Summers said three hours later, "though its flight performance is slightly better than that of an Apex fighter. Our databases have no record of anything like it. It has to be an entirely new class, probably something they had been working on at Thule."

The attending officers, most of them doing so virtually, all grimaced as they examined the blurred images extracted from a fighter's sensor logs. The fighter in question was one of the very few survivors from a disastrous attempt to finish off a small group of UNE stragglers. The loss of two frigates was bad enough but if the accounts were to be believed, this single craft had been instrumental in holding off the Colonial forces long enough for a UNE taskforce to arrive and turn the tide.

"This is really all we have?" Radek asked.

"Unfortunately yes sir," Summers said. "This particular fighter was lucky to get anything at all. Based on the debriefings, those ships that actually attempted to engage this new craft tended not to survive. Either the pilot was very good, or this craft represents an unprecedented improvement over the current generation of UNE light craft."

"Or it could be both," Kosygin said. "It would seem Thule was not shut down after all."

"So it does ma'am," Taylor agreed.

This chain of events had started out simply enough. One of the frigates Kosygin left behind to hunt down stragglers had suddenly returned to the fleet, heavily damaged and reporting a UNE carrier and frigate had gotten their systems back online. They would obviously have escaped by the time anything Kosygin sent back could reach Sybille, but her staff was able to detect a series of messages between the survivors and a research facility that the UNE was supposed to have abandoned years ago. Kosygin had had no reason to be particularly worried and only sent two frigates, a few corvettes, and a fighter screen to deal with the situation. Unfortunately the survivors turned out to be more numerous, and far better equipped, than originally believed, resulting in the current debacle.

"Restrict access to this information for now," Kosygin ordered. "We need more concrete data before we can share accurate information with the rest of the fleet about this new ship."

"Yes ma'am."

"Henri, I'm sending you after them," Kosygin said.

Radek raised an eyebrow but nodded. "As you wish ma'am."

"Make this quick. I don't want those stragglers to get the chance to cause any more trouble."

"Understood. I'll get underway within the hour."

Though all of his surviving ships had suffered damage, there had been time to conduct sufficient repairs to make them combat worthy and Radek's current fleet strength stood at four frigates and cruisers respectively. That should be more than enough to deal with the stragglers, even with their new toy. With the Relic having proven its effectiveness, Kosygin could afford to detach so many capital ships even with the battle looming ahead. Then again, with the Relic it would hardly be a battle at all.

"Alright, we have another couple of hours before we hit Magellan," Kosygin said. "I suggest we all get some rest until then. Dismissed."

The displays went dark and Summers made her way out. Once alone with Taylor, Kosygin allowed herself to sign.

"It appears we've hit our first snag."

"It's not quite that bad ma'am," said Taylor. "We expected to take losses when this operation began."

"And we knew the most likely way we would take losses is when we engage the Unies away from the Relic," Kosygin shot back. "I should have sent a heavier force to deal with this carrier when the report first came in."

"Ma'am, you're not omniscient and no one expects you to be. You can only make the best call you can with the information immediately available."

"That's cold comfort for the people who got killed following my orders."

"This is war, ma'am. And you are fighting to end the deaths."

"Even if I'm preparing to kill billions in the process?"

Taylor fell silent and Kosygin shook herself.

"Sorry Vincent, didn't mean to snap. Anyway, you better get some sleep as well. Consider that an order."

"So long as the admiral will remember to do so herself, ma'am."

Kosygin chuckled. "Alright, alright, I'm going. I suppose I'll see you at 0900."

"Sharp, ma'am."

Rear Admiral Pierre Ackers was remarkably young for his position. He had only enlisted after the independence movement turned into a full-fledged war against Earth but his achievements saw him rise quickly through the ranks. Despite that rise, or perhaps because of it, he was growing increasingly weary of the fighting. Perhaps that was one reason why he could not stomach participating in a mission that might see billions of people dead when all was said and done. He was grateful the fleet admiral had allowed him to withdraw and save his conscience but he also felt somewhat guilty for letting his comrades carry out this operation without him. Then again, his current station was as important to the mission as any he could have taken with the fleet itself.

The Hydra supply depot had originally been a small UNE outpost before its capture by Admiral Kosygin almost a year ago. Since then the CIN had built it up into the primary supply base for all CIN operations in this region of space. As such it would likely have been the first target of the combined UNE fleet before its destruction at Sybille. Now Ackers doubted there were enough UNE ships left to even try attacking even with only a skeleton garrison protecting it. Then again, his own cruiser flagship was by itself a significant deterrent.

"Admiral, you requested an update for when the convoy had finished loading supplies."

"Thank you ensign," Ackers said and he brought up the details on his terminal.

The munitions scheduled to be forwarded to Admiral Kosygin came to about a quarter of Hydra's stockpile. That was probably the single largest expenditure ever drawn from the base, not surprising considering everything the CIN expended destroying the combined UNE fleet. Then there were the reports filtering back about a group of UNE stragglers that had escaped Sybille. No one knew what they were up to but the fact that they managed to thoroughly maul the two CIN task forces that confronted them was not encouraging. Now that Admiral Radek had been dispatched however Ackers had little doubt the stragglers would be put down shortly.

Still, the stragglers had not been dealt with yet, which meant they were a potential threat to the convoy preparing to depart. With Hydra's defenses stripped so bare already, Ackers did not have much that could protect the freighters while they traveled to the fleet. Hypothetically he could have his flagship act as an escort save for the fact that a cruiser was massive overkill for convoy duty and he would be abandoning his station in the process. It looked more and more like Ackers would need to part with at least a squadron of light craft and maybe a few corvettes for however long it took for the convoy to meet the fleet and return, but that seemed an acceptable risk. After all, it was highly unlikely the UNE would be able to muster the forces to seriously threaten-

"Fold signature!" an officer shouted. "Detecting multiple fold events!"

"Give me numbers here," Ackers ordered, instinct taking over as his mind grappled with the suddenness of the alert.

"Sir! Platforms make it to be a squadron of fighters!"

Ackers frowned. The count was not remarkably high, which only made their presence all the more bewildering. They might inflict some damage to Hydra but there was no way they would survive the attempt.

"Sir, I'm getting reports from the other platforms! Additional Unie forces have penetrated the perimeter!"

More lights flashed on the main plot and the nature of the UNE attack became clearer. It was a three pronged assault, likely intended to split the defenders to avoid being overwhelmed.

"CIC reports that the group hitting perimeter command is composed of bombers with an interceptor screen. Third group hitting the outer depots is fighters and, an unknown class."

Ackers blinked. "What does CIC mean unknown?"

"Exactly that sir, CIC says the ship profile doesn't match anything in its databases."

Ackers grimaced. Surprises in battle tended to be fatal, though he doubted a single ship could change the equation so radically.

"Move Solaris towards the fighters," Ackers ordered. "Have our interceptors interdict enemy movement to our immediate sector."

"Sir!"

Even as the deployed patrols raced to meet the intruders, more interceptors launched from the space station. No matter what, Ackers had to keep the UNE fighters from hitting the supply platforms scattered around the station. If that meant painting a giant target on his own ship, he was more than ready to risk it. Besides, the Solaris was a cruiser and without any bombers the UNE attackers would be hard pressed to inflict major damage.

Light craft weaved about as each side tried to outfly the other. Plasma splashed about and missiles streaked through the darkness, the ships themselves seemingly dancing around the explosions. It was quickly apparent that the UNE forces had not counted on the presence of a cruiser and did their best to give the warship a wide berth. But streams of interceptors continued pressing them in and soon the enemy was straying into Solaris' fields of fire.

The space around Solaris lit up with weapons fire and explosions as the cruiser's plasma batteries unleashed their fury. The UNE fighters did their best to ride the storm but more than one was blown off course by the bursts of flak into the streams of plasma. Others became easy targets for the interceptors as they found themselves unable to maneuver without being cut to pieces. The fighters were whittled down one by one as the Colonials overwhelmed their opponents with both numbers and power. Ackers could almost taste victory when the unthinkable happened.

"Sir, command reports that the outer supply platforms have been taken out!"

"What!? How!?"

"The unknown class is ripping through our interceptors sir! Two squadrons have already been wiped out!"

The report seemed ridiculous but as Ackers looked at his own terminal the news was grimly confirmed. Almost all of the outer platforms had been destroyed, nearly a third of Hydra's stockpile of munitions and supplies. The speed at which the UNE force had achieved this suggested his own forces had not even slowed them down. And then Ackers' eyes widened.

"What about the convoy!?"

"The freighters made it away from the platforms when the attack hit, but they're reporting pursuers!"

"Divert two squadrons to provide cover, those ships have to get to the fleet!"

"Aye sir!"

"Fold signature! New contact, UNE frigate has folded in!"

Ackers' head snapped back to the plot and he growled. The frigate had managed to fold in right behind his ship and was beginning its bombardment. Even worse, a quartet of torpedoes burst forth and barreled down on his flagship.

"New target, Captain Walker, take out that frigate!"

"Aye sir! Helm, starboard 120 degrees. Guns, concentrate on the frigate's weapons."

Taking advantage of the situation, the UNE fighters broke away from Solaris and flew over to support their savior. The interceptors followed but now they were the ones that flew into flak.

"Interceptors, focus on the torpedoes," Ackers ordered. "Do not let any through!"

The squadrons reacted quickly, breaking off pursuit of the enemy fighters and falling back to form a protective shell around Solaris. The cruiser continued turning even as the frigate charged forward trying to stay outside the field of fire of Solaris' beam cannons. The effort was for naught as Walker began rolling the cruiser, bringing the top two turrets to bear and opened fire. The blasts struck the frigate head on and the ship's heavy plasma turret exploded in an inferno. A second broadside caught several other turrets in its path, stripping the frigate of more and more weapons.

Seeing their rescuer crippled, the UNE fighters broke formation and charged forth once more. The space between the two capital ships was soon filled with fighters and interceptors dueling one another for dominance. With more room the maneuver the fighters actually held their own, but their earlier losses were taking their toll.

"Sir! Perimeter command is reporting its defenses have been breached! Unie bombers are making runs on it!"

"What happened to their screen!?"

"The unknown class, sir! It and the other fighters moved in to reinforce the bombers and wiped out our interceptors!"

"Evacuate the station," Ackers ordered. "Once we're done with these bastards, we'll move to support them."

Ackers remained calm however as he watched his flagship finish turning about. All three beam cannons opened fire, now focused on destroying their target instead of merely crippling it. The frigate's hull cracked under the bombardment and flames burned ever so briefly before exhausting their immediate atmosphere. Apparently deciding it could not win the frigate tried to pull away, turning to present its less damaged side to the cruiser to buy some time. The maneuver did little good as the beam cannons lashed out again, blasting more holes.

A few of the surviving UNE fighters broke off from the melee and charged the cruiser. Their courage was laudable but ultimately suicidal as Solaris' remaining screen intercepted them. Two of the fighters died well before reaching the cruiser. The lone survivor got close enough to open fire but a torrent of plasma quickly incinerated his craft.

"New contact! UNE fighters have just folded in! Unknown class detected!"

Ackers' thoughts froze for a moment, his surprise finally overtaking his senses. But he composed himself quickly and tried to get a grip on the situation.

"What happened with perimeter command?" he asked.

"The station's been destroyed sir!"

Ackers let loose a few curses under his breath but quickly issued more orders.

"Divert additional interceptor launches to the newcomers. Captain, I need that frigate gone now!"

"Sir, the unknown is accelerating towards us!"

Looking at the plot, Ackers saw a lone signal shoot forth from amongst the UNE fighters towards his flagship. Either the pilot was insane or insanely confident in his skills, but Ackers did not care. The unknown would be as dead as the frigate once it was-

Ackers' musing was chopped off mid-thought as suddenly a flare of fold energy erupted from the unknown. For a moment the admiral thought the unknown was preparing to fold out, yet he struggled to understand just what the pilot could be thinking. It became apparent immediately however that the fold signature was unlike anything he had seen before and was most certainly not in preparation for a jump. And then the impossible happened.

"Missile lock! Multiple missile lock!"

Over two dozen new signatures sudden sprang forth from the unknown and came crashing down on Solaris. The cruiser shook under the impact and Ackers' grip tightened as he waited for the explosions to subside.

"Report!"

Responsibility for dealing with the ship's damage was ultimately the captain's responsibility and Ackers really should have stayed focus on commanding the overall defense. However, Solaris was Ackers' only mobile platform and constituted a significant percentage of his power projection. Any damage it suffered thus disproportionally affected Ackers' ability to mount an effective defense.

"Beam cannons are down! Two of the heavy turrets have been destroyed as well! Plasma turrets on the port side are offline!"

Ackers heard the report, but he could not quite process it. It took a few seconds as the implications of what the rating had said finally worked its way through.

"What!?"

"Missile lock! Second salvo incoming!"

Turning to the plot, Ackers could only watch in horror was another wave of missiles smashed into his flagship. More explosions rippled along the hull and sparks and fires broke out all across the flag bridge. Ratings ran about dousing the flames even as they tried to make sense of the battle still raging about them.

"We've lost all heavy weapons! Starboard plasma turrets are also inoperable! Flak turrets are still functional, but we've lost point defense coverage for three quarters of our perimeter!"

"Admiral, UNE bombers have just folded in!"

"Move the Solaris closer to the station!" Ackers shouted. "Order their defenses to cover us!"

"Aye sir!"

"Get those interceptors after that unknown, I want it gone now!"

"Sir, the UNE frigate just folded out!"

"Let it go, we need to get out of this alive ourselves!"

Ackers' eyes fell to the plot once more and he watched the unknown dance around the battlefield. From time to time it would flare again and every time dozens of signals dropped. Even worse, the unknown was going after the supply platforms, blowing them apart in between slaughtering the interceptors sent after it. With his forces being rapidly depleted, Ackers did not know if he could stop the bombers now barreling down on his ship.

"Admiral, the unknown is headed back this way!"

This time Ackers' cursing was much louder but he doubted anyone actually heard. His crew was too focused on the task of staying alive even as they tried to grasp the absurdity of this situation. The unknown weaved around Solaris and flared again. For a moment, Ackers thought it was going to open fire on his ship. For a moment, he thought the unknown would reveal some new weapon that could breach even the armor of a cruiser. Instead the unknown unleashed another missile salvo and entire banks of point defense turrets disappeared on the station. The unknown's pilot knew what he was doing. Apparently unable to kill the cruiser himself, he was making sure nothing would impede the bombers as they made their runs. As the unknown moved to hunt down more interceptors, Ackers knew he had no choice. He punched the all-ship intercom.

"Abandon ship! All hands abandon ship!"

The crew was too stunned to react immediately but they were all on their feet before the klaxons started blaring. Of her crew, two thirds managed to evacuate the Solaris before the ship broke under the bombardment of the torpedoes. Rear Admiral Pierre Ackers was not amongst them.

Another pair of fighters appeared on the plot and Radek leaned forward in anticipation as they uploaded their sensor dumps. Indomitable's computers were far more powerful than anything that could be mounted in a light craft and chewed through the data, filtering out noise in a perhaps vain effort to find any hint of its targets. Two days had passed since Radek's fleet was ambushed by the UNE stragglers and drawn into a chase into the nebula. That chase had turned into a rout when his ships became separated due to the interference from the gases and radiation.

A pair of his frigates had managed to blunder into the enemy carrier and managed to get a call out for reinforcements but by the time two of his cruisers arrived, they had already been somehow neutralized. Even then they should have been able to take out the lone carrier, except it turned out the carrier was not so alone after all. Only three fighters had escaped the massacre when two enemy cruisers and another frigate pounced Radek's ships. The cruisers at least had not been reported as being present at Thule, suggesting the stragglers were linking up with other UNE detachments. There was no telling what other reinforcements might be on their way.

The enemy had likely already left the nebula, but Radek had to assume they might be trying to set up another ambush. While he would not say no to a chance to fight them, he would prefer the battle be on his terms. In the meantime however, he had other matters to attend to.

"No indication of pods in that sector either sir," came the report.

Radek nodded, acknowledging the grim news. The surviving fighters had provided rough coordinates for where his ships had been ambushed but their sensors had been so thoroughly scrambled by the nebula and the EM that their coordinates were very, very rough. The radiation also was doing a damn good job washing out any transponders unless at relatively short ranges, which made trying to locate survivors fiendishly difficult. The admiral was not about to give up on them however. There was nothing worse for a spacer than to be left to die in the void and he would be damned if the men and women under his command suffered such a fate without him at least trying to find them.

"Admiral, I've been thinking."

Radek glanced over at his communications/navigations officer and grinned. "Well good, cause I'm not exactly known for that."

Commander Ulysses Templeton chuckled back before continuing. "I've been going over the data from the survivors, trying to refine them better, and I noticed that they all had this weird discrepancy in their orientations. The computers probably just tried to average them the best they could when we had it back track their folds, but I don't quite like how it was done."

"You thinking we could be looking in the wrong places?"

"The jitter's small, but then again space is big," Templeton said. "Even a small error could put us hundreds of thousands of kilometers off."

"Alright, slice off some cycle time and see if you can't get a better estimate."

"Yes sir."

Computers, while useful, were still only tools. As with any other tool, their effectiveness depended on the skill of their users. While Radek was perfectly competent in employing a ship's tactical systems to help him get the job done, it was people like Templeton that could work literal miracles with technology. The CIN was fortunate to have quite a few people like him and Radek would have liked to have even more, but their skills were even more urgently needed back at Taranto and the colonies maintaining and upgrading the industrial capacity that supported the navy. There were only so many warm bodies to go around and so Radek counted his blessings that he had Templeton on his staff in the first place.

That confidence was duly rewarded as the commander returned a few hours later and presented Radek with a modified search pattern.

"I was right sir," Templeton said with a sense of well-deserved triumph. "The computers made some really stupid rotations and adjustments and plain got at least two folds backward. They ended up almost canceling each other out, but not quite."

"Alright, get our fighters the new coordinates. Let's not waste any more time than we already have."

"Yes sir."

Once more they were back to the waiting game as the fighters folded out to check on the new coordinates. As a mark of confidence in his subordinates' abilities, Radek turned in for some rest with instructions to wake him if the scouts found anything. The role of an admiral was to provide directives, not micromanage his subordinates as they carried them out.

When the console started beeping for his attention, Radek felt as if he had just closed his eyes. A quick glance at the clock indicated he had gotten a whole four hours of sleep, which should have been enough time for at least two sweeps by the scouts. Before he could ponder the implications of the timing, the ship shuddered and Radek felt it get under way. That woke him up and the admiral swung himself out of bed.

"Report," he said.

"Sir, a scout just returned with confirmation of survivors," Templeton said excitedly. "I ordered the fleet to get underway immediately, I hope you don't mind."

"The faster the better," Radek said. "I'll be up shortly."

Glancing down at his sleepwear, Radek grunted and spared enough time for pants and a shirt. The nice thing about being an admiral was that no one was going to question him for being completely out of uniform. He could probably have showed up on the flag bridge in just his boxers, but that might be pushing things a tad.

The ship transitioned through its fold before he reached the bridge and by the time he arrived they were already at their destination. Signals were popping up on the plot, a lot of them, and Templeton was listening intently to the transmissions they were broadcasting.

"Status," Radek said.

"We're detecting over three dozen pods and counting sir," Captain Celine Laurene, Radek's chief of staff, reported. "Shuttles and fighters are already deploying to pull them in and we're trying to establish priority for wounded and those with low life support reserves."

Radek nodded, managing not to wince at the number of pods. The four ships he lost had twice that many in total, indicating at best half of their crews managed to get off before they blew. At least these men and women would live, perhaps to fight another day.

"Sir, we're detecting the wreckage of our ships as well," Laurene continued. "We should try to salvage its black box and computer cores, they might have some useful logs about the stragglers."

"Do it," Radek ordered.

The majority of the light craft was busy dragging back however many pods their engines could support to the cruisers while the frigates peeled off to examine the wreckage. The broken hulks indicated that the reactors on the two frigates and one of the cruisers had overloaded, consuming and shattering the ships in the process. The second cruiser however appeared to have managed to shut down its reactor in time and more of its hull was intact. That suggested at least some systems might be intact and so the frigate crews busied themselves with locking on and boarding the wreck.

Radek's own attention was focused on the list of personnel as it was being compiled with each escape pod that they managed to contact. Captain Cherenkov was the only ship commander that managed to make it off his command and crew from his ship actually made up two thirds of the survivors. Luck as much as skill probably played a part in that but Radek was not about to quibble. With little need to issue any new orders for the time being, Radek tapped into the comm channels and listened in on the back and forth between the survivors and his staff.

"-never seen anything like it," Cherenkov said. "This new ship the Unies had with them was flying circles around everything we sent against it."

"You said it also went after your capital ships?" Templeton asked.

"Charged right at us and blew off the beam turrets on the Gallant. Caused a chain reaction that crippled the rest of her weapons. Then that thing hit my ship. After it was done, the rest of the UNE taskforce dropped in and started hammering us."

"Alright, I'll brief the admiral on what you've told me. Hopefully we'll be able to get some useful data off of Orlando's computers."

"I had enough time to dump the critical sections, but the sensor logs should still be intact, assuming the computers themselves are."

"The salvage teams are already on it. We'll see you when we get your pod onboard. Templeton, clear."

The conversation ended and Templeton turned to face his admiral. An eyebrow rose when he saw Radek with one hand pressed against his earbug before sighing.

"I am capable of performing my duties without you looking over my shoulder sir," he said.

"Undoubtedly," Radek said. "Sometimes however doing my job does involve looking over your shoulder. So, were there any tidbits about this new ship that I didn't manage to overhear?"

"Probably not much sir," Templeton replied. "Captain Cherenkov's had some time to compose his thoughts on the battle, but so much was happening that much of it is just a blur. What he does remember however is that this one ship was instrumental in neutralizing his ship and Gallant. Even without the Unie reinforcements, they had already been crippled enough that the carrier could have finished them off by herself."

Radek frowned. "A single ship did that?"

"According to the captain, yes. And I know it sounds ridiculous sir, but we know the Unies picked something up at Thule."

"We'll see if there's any surviving data to collaborate Cherenkov's account," Radek said. "Still, a single ship, no matter how powerful, won't be enough to turn the tide."

"Agreed sir," Templeton said. "Certainly not with the Relic on our side."

It was an excellent dinner as usual, though Kosygin was still not sure how exactly her chief of staff found time to actually cook in between all his other duties. Though she felt a bit guilty with Taylor having yet another thing on his already considerable plate, the admiral was not about to ask him to stop considering the absolute miracles he managed with the packaged nutrients that were standard fare aboard ships. While not even Taylor could make something like paste look like real food, his skill in applying flavorings and mixing pastes was the envy of every person who had ever served on an interstellar ship. At the same time, Kosygin did feel guilty enough about enjoying such luxury as actually edible food that she tried to at least share some of that privilege with the rest of her crew, which was why every member of her crew received at least one invitation to have dinner with her staff.

Usually there were no more than two or three others as that was about all the extra bodies that would fit in. Today was no different as Ensign Samantha Wyler and Lieutenant Jacques Agen found themselves seated with the monumentally senior personages. The ensign was a new transfer to Independence as a member of the engineering staff while today was Agen's third time joining the admiral for dinner. Winning repeat appearances required getting a very good fitness report from one's section leads, something Agen had no problem achieving despite his somewhat irreverent conduct.

As a repeater and as someone who had been on the Independence for over a year now, Agen was considerably more relaxed and comfortable striking up conversation with the other attendees. The presence of a more experienced member of her section and the familiarity he demonstrated with the command staff had helped soothe Wyler's nerves and the ensign even managed to crack a joke as Taylor was in the middle of a quick sip. The gurgle that erupted was the closest Kosygin had ever seen her chief of staff lose composure while at the dinner table and her laughter was as much due to that as Wyler's wordplay. Something told Kosygin the ensign would be quite an enjoyable dinner partner once she grew a bit more acclimated to her new home. For now however as the most junior member present she had one more duty to perform with dinner over.

Picking up her cup, Wyler raised it to the others. "Sirs and Ma'ams, I give you the freedom of the stars!"

The others returned the toast and drained the rest of the dinner's wine, the only non-synthetic food of the meal and the other reason a spot at the admiral's dinner table was actually coveted.

"Well, I hope all of you enjoyed Vincent's handiwork," Kosygin said as she set her glass down.

"Always a pleasure admiral," Agen said. "No one else seems able to duplicate his feats, much as we take turns trying. Some days I really think we ought to give up, considering we've discovered combinations that actually taste worse than their constituent parts."

"My, that's a rather impressive achievement all by itself," Kosygin said with a chuckle, both at the comment and at the horrified look on Wyler's face. "I trust however the products of those experiments have remained within the boundaries of regulations?"

Agen nodded with a wiry grin. "Of course ma'am. We're very careful."

It took Wyler a few seconds to realize what Kosygin was hinting at and her face stiffened slightly. Her eyes wandered over to the empty wineglass before she managed to catch herself.

"Well, so long as you are careful," Kosygin said, returning Agen's smile.

The good lieutenant was not only an excellent power management specialist, he was also one of the three people onboard that knew to how distill alcoholic beverages. Running a ship's unofficial and completely illegal still was by tradition the responsibility of someone in the engineering section, primarily because they tended to be the ones with sufficient knowledge of chemical processes to both perform them and know which components to borrow from a ship's inventory to do so.

Most captains turned a blind eye to these activities so long as nothing got out of hand, especially since these intrepid entrepreneurs tended to be the most capable of their respective sections. It was almost as if their daily responsibilities were so routine and boring that they actively sought out other avenues for their talents.

"Well, at least you'll have many talents available for when you return to civilian life," Kosygin said.

"Maybe ma'am, but I rather like being in the navy," Agen replied. "I get to play with all these neat toys and I'm even paid to do it!"

"Perhaps we need to do another audit of the engineering section's inventory of spares ma'am," Taylor said dryly. "I seem to recall we're supposed to be overprovisioned by at least 20% since we left Taranto."

"By that much?" Kosygin said with feigned shock, though traces of curiosity could also be heard. "However did the bean counters let us get away with that?"

For some reason Wyler was looking more and more uncomfortable, eliciting a raised eyebrow from the admiral.

"Well," Agen began, "as the admiral knows, we've got a lot of yardbirds at Taranto. Most of them still aren't quite used to the rigors of military life and crave the comforts of their previous civilian existences. Making spirits is an art they've long mastered so none are terribly impressed with anything I could offer. On the other hand, Ensign Wyler here apparently receives monthly care packages from her friends and family back home, which include an astonishingly large selection of confections, baked and otherwise."

That caused both eyes to go wide for Kosygin as she regarded the now very red Wyler.

"My," Kosygin said. "I hope, ensign, that you did not hand out all of your prizes for the bounty of parts."

"Oh no ma'am!" Wyler said almost immediately before managing a weak smile. "I kept the fudge brownies for myself."

Kosygin let out another laugh and nodded. "A most wise decision, ensign. I believe I will have no reason to ever question the soundness of your judgment."

"Would this also be why engineering's efficiency report was a whole five percent higher this time around?" Summers asked, her own amusement almost bubbling over.

"Something to that ma'am," Agen said. "Wyler's aunt knows how to make a hell of a chocolate chip cookie."

"Perhaps we should see about encouraging more care packages with these sorts of composition," Kosygin said. "They seem to be doing wonders for morale."

"We'd have to do it unofficially ma'am," Summers said. "You know anything that goes through the official supply chain would get completely mangled before getting to us."

"Too true," Kosygin agreed. "Well ensign, I think you can be assured you'll be making regular appearances at this table, if you would be so kind to let us know when you receive another package from home."

"Oh of course ma'am!" This time Wyler's smile was completely natural. "I'd have no objection to sharing with someone as good a chef as the commodore."

"Excellent," Kosygin said. "Maybe I could even expedite-"

The comm beeped before Kosygin could finish and she regarded the console with scant favor. With a sigh the admiral accepted the call.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Admiral, I apologize for interrupting your dinner, but we just got a dispatch from Hydra."

There was a stiffness in the rating's tone that caused Kosygin to frown.

"It seems I will have to cut short the gossiping," the admiral said to her guests. "Thank you for coming, both of you."

"Always a pleasure ma'am," Agen said as he stood.

The two junior officers saluted and Kosygin waited until the door closed behind them.

"Alright, what's the dispatch?" she asked.

"Ma'am, the report is only preliminary, but the Unies managed to launch an attack. Estimates place our losses at 85% of the stockpiles. And ma'am, they killed Admiral Ackers."

The last sentence was almost a whisper but Kosygin felt as if she had just taken a blow to the head. Ackers was the youngest of the flag officers and one of the strongest believers in the principles of colonial independence. He had showed promise not only in his skill, but also in his sense of duty and Kosygin had actually been relieved when he requested not to participate in the Earth operation. Except now he was dead and the CIN had lost one of its brightness future stars.

"There's more ma'am," the rating continued. "We also received an update from Admiral Radek. He's reported that the Unies managed to ambush his forces in a nebula and inflicted heavy losses. He's down to half strength with his taskforce."

"Understood," Kosygin said. "We'll be up shortly."

Summers and Taylor both looked grim as Kosygin regarded them. The admiral doubted she looked any happier.

"Vincent, Rebecca, I want the two of you to go through the Hydra data with a fine comb. I want to know exactly what they hit us with and how they managed to get Pierre."

The two nodded.

"Prepare a briefing for three hours from now with the other flag officers. The Unies may have blindsided us this time, but we're not going to let them pull another fast one on us."

"Unlike the ambush at Thule and in the nebula, the sensor platforms at Hydra were able to gather detailed readings of the unknown class. We are provisionally designating it Kanzeon, for reasons which will become obvious later.

"The standard armament of Kanzeon appears to be the UNE's standard Crew 1000ep plasma cannon and a heavy machine gun. This combination allows Kanzeon to very quickly destroy any light craft it happens to target. At Hydra it appeared to have mounted only rocket pods, but all UNE light craft have the ability to swap between rocket pods and more traditional missile mounts and we have no reason to believe Kanzeon is an exception. It is Kanzeon's secondary mode however that has proven to be so exceptionally lethal."

The projection blinked from the bulky looking fighter to a sleek humanoid looking mech.

"Kanzeon possesses the ability to transform into a bipedal mech. In this form, its primary weapon appears to discharge fold energy, causing micro-folds that can rip apart anything caught in the blast. Each blast is approximately as destructive as that of its plasma cannon and the rapidity with which the weapon can be discharged makes it very lethal, especially for our light craft and also likely our corvettes. The mech's second weapon is however even more devastating."

The image shifted again, this time to an animation showing over two dozen points spawning from a single source and racing out to other signatures.

"According to the sensor logs, Kanzeon is capable of launching salvoes of up to thirty missiles at multiple targets. The missiles themselves are remarkably small but have very high acceleration, leaving very little time between when one is close enough for an EM pulse to affect it and impact. They also seem to use fold energy as the primary explosive component and a hit by even one of these is enough to mission kill one of our interceptors. We also speculate that each missile can be individually targeted and for this reason, trying to take Kanzeon down with interceptors is likely to only lead to one sided slaughters. In many ways, Kanzeon appears to be specifically designed to counter our emphasis on using light craft."

With that conclusion to his presentation Taylor gazed out all the projections of the other flag officers, letting them absorb the information. Most had been resting like his own immediate superior when the report came in but none of them looked the least bit frazzled or sleepy. Instead there was a sense of shock on several faces while rage flickered on others.

"It appears we've confirmed just why the Unie survivors stopped off at Thule," Kosygin said grimly.

"Abandoned my ass," Gennai muttered. "They really managed to pull a fast one on us there."

"Agreed," said Kosygin. "On the other hand, it does not appear the Unies have been able to put this new class into mass production. They likely deployed it as an act of desperation."

No one argued the point, not least because of the implications otherwise.

"I don't think I need to explain the blow the CIN has just suffered," Kosygin continued. "Not only did the Unies destroy munitions we spent years stockpiling, they also took out the convoy that was supposed to replenish what we expended at Sybille."

More grimaces spread.

"In light of this, I have decided we will not attack the other two UNE outposts along the way to Earth. We could easily take them even with our current levels of munitions, but at this point it's just not worth it. I have also issued a request for supplies from Taranto. It'll take considerably longer for them to reach us, but Taranto does have the stockpiles needed to rearm us."

Nods indicated the agreement with her decisions, though a few seemed reluctant to forgo the opportunity to avenge Hydra and Ackers quickly. They would have that chance however once they reached Earth.

"What of the stragglers ma'am?" Soren asked.

"The survivors are obviously much stronger than we had presumed. And with the presence of Kanzeon, any force we deploy to hunt them down will need a much stronger fighter screen. As such, I am recalling Admiral Radek and deploying Admiral Suvorov to deal with them."

Looks of approval came in response to Kosygin's decision. The UNE stragglers were proving both tenacious and skilled, scoring major victories against rear targets whose defenses had been stripped to provide the ships for this very operation. But the gloves were coming off now and the stragglers would get a taste of what happened when they fought a battle on equal footing. No matter how wondrous their new ship, not even it would be able to survive an encounter with the elite pilots of the Black Fleet. Its destruction would herald the defeat of the UNE stragglers and the victory of the Colonial Independence Navy.

End of Chapter 3

Humanizing the colonials wasn't terribly difficult. Even in the original game reading between the lines It's clear the colonials' grievances are justified. Not to the point of committing genocide, but as clearly shown here, the situation was more nuanced than the colonials wanting to kill everyone on Earth. The UEF forces just couldn't take the risk that they weren't genocidal, and desperation drove both sides to extremes.