Ivan Kal - Warpath

August; Sanctuary system

Fleet Commander Bethany Jones-Wright of the Second Fleet stood in the Command Center of her flagship the Audacious. She gazed at the holo in front of her, her fleet was moving slowly towards the trans-station that led to Waypoint system. Two hundred Mark Two dreadnoughts and another one hundred of the Kraken class, supported by seventy auxiliaries – forty ammo factory ships, ten medical ships, ten army transports, and ten repair ships.

She knew that Adrian’s Warpath fleet would start its trip to Nelus in a month, the trip from Warpath to Nelus was much shorter than what her fleet would need to go through. She also knew that Adrian had some kind of new ships, but not much about them.

For a moment she debated contacting him, but so much time had passed between their last talk that she was afraid that she wouldn’t have anything to say. She would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that there were times during the last thirty years when she regretted not waiting for Adrian. She and Harry had a good marriage, for the first few years. And then after the reality of her life calling hit her husband, they started to fight, constantly. Eventually he found someone else to keep him company during the time she was away.

When she found out about it, she was surprised that when it didn’t hit her as hard as she thought it would be. She cared for Harry, but she knew now that she had made a mistake. But even with that knowledge she had refused to get a divorce. Instead she insisted that they try to mend things. And they did in a fashion, although things were never again the same.

She knew why she stayed and insisted on them fixing things. It was because of her Pride. All her friends had told her that she was making a mistake, and yet she ignored them all. And now she didn’t want to admit to all those who had warned her that she was wrong.

Shaking her head she dismissed those thoughts and turned to her holo. There she saw her fleet of three hundred and seventy ships on its way deep into the Sowir territory. Her fleet was about to use the trans-station, and soon her ships will start the transfer. Bethany watched as her ships stopped in the Sanctuary-Waypoint trans-station, and she opened the comm to her fleet.

“This is Fleet Commander Jones-Wright to the Second Fleet, prepare for transfer.”

Fleet Commander Nair Hakeem of the Third Fleet watched as Second Fleet entered the trans-lane vortex in a violet wave of light. It will take them several hours to go through the trans-lane, several hours during which no ship could enter that lane. That was why his ships will be using the trans-lane to Nuva. Their travel time will be two days, and then they will need to take several more lanes to get to Sowir territory. The two fleets would be going to different areas of their territory, the Third Fleet will strike at their border systems, while the Second Fleet attacks the systems deeper in the Sowir controlled space.

The two fleets will still have to use hyperspace travel to their targets, the Empire hadn’t explored all the trans-lanes in the Sowir territory. But it would still be much faster than the Sowir fleet, the two fleets will be in position before the Sowir arrive at Nelus. But since Sowir now had FTL communications they needed to wait until Warpath’s fleet attacks that fleet in order to prevent it turning around to defend their space. Their attack won’t start until the Sowir fleet commits to sieging Nelus. Nair commed his fleet, and announced their transfer.

October; Year 31 – Warpath

The ten massive ships moved slowly out from the massive opening of the asteroid. Each of the ships completely different than the other, their hulls painted in different colors. But all shared one thing, the emblem of their fleet, the Vanguard Fleet as it was dubbed by Clan Leader Adrian Farkas. A red shield with two swords crossed on it.

The ships moved in formation with two ships that were larger than the others in the lead, followed by the others arranged in two rows of four. The small force increased its speed as they exited the asteroid and set a course towards the trans-station to Waypoint. About thirteen hours later, the fleet arrived in Waypoint system and was greeted by a fleet of three hundred and fifty sovereign class battleships. At 800 meters long the two hundred battleships were a force to be reckoned with, but they were an old class, their hulls built only with metals that the humanity had used before the forming of the Empire. They were still powerful, the level of their technology on par with Sowir Dominion, but the ten ships that moved to join them were far more advanced.

The two forces met and joined in a fleet. In concert they moved towards one of the Waypoints less used trans-stations that would take them in the direction of the Nelus system. The travel time was about a week, but the fleet would sit in wait for the Sowir fleet to arrive and begin its assault on the system. Then when they were committed, the Warpath Fleet would enter the last trans-lane and catch them from behind, while the Nelus fleet attacks from the front. Together the two smaller fleets would be able to take on the Sowir fleet.

December; Year 31

Adrian sat and waited for the Sowir forces to arrive at Nelus. The timing was tricky, his fleet needed to arrive early enough to prevent as many Nel casualties as they could, but also late enough for the Sowir fleet to be already engaged with the defenders. Which was why his fleet was waiting for their monitoring drone to report on Sowir’s arrival. It will take the invading fleet about five hours to reach the first of Nelus installations in the orbit of the system’s gas giant, and it would take Adrian’s fleet five and a half hours to arrive by trans-lane.

Giving Sowir an hour and a half to attack the installations. Nelus had about forty ships stationed there as a defense, in spite of Adrian’s suggestion that they move them and evacuate the installations. The Nelus council was still playing games, they refused to believe in anything that the Empire told them. Deluding themselves in some kind of superiority. They believed that they could take the Sowir fleet, if one existed, by themselves. Adrian just hoped that the council doesn’t do anything stupid once they realize the magnitude of the threat.

Nelus

The relative peace and calm of Nelus system was shattered as the Nelus defending fleet’s light speed sensors detected a fleet of invading ships exiting hyperspace at the barrier of the system. Immediately after their arrival two thousand and two hundred ships started moving towards their closest target, a fueling station in the orbit of the system’s gas giant.

Short time before that, unnoticed by anyone a small monitoring that was positioned close to the most likely arrival point of the invading fleet, detected the invaders and sent out an FTL feed of their arrival to another system. The hyperspace communication was undetected by the invaders whose own sensors were blinded by the massive hyperspace transfer of their fleet.

Upon receiving the feed from the drone, Adrian immediately passed the information back to Sanctuary and then ordered his fleet to open a vortex to the trans-lane. A few seconds later his ships were washed in a violet wave of light and disappeared. It will be five and a half hours until they reappear again.

Bethany read the orders coming in from Sanctuary. She ordered her ships to enter the trans-lane, on their way towards one of Sowir key systems. Her ships would travel for a week, but would travel some twenty light years. The system had only a few ships defending it as it was deep in the Sowir territory. But it had a significant industrial capability, which her ships would take for the Empire. Any installation that they could land troops on will be taken, any other will be destroyed.