Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

It was a list of ship names, along with some additional information. Each ship was already named by their commander. He read down the list of ship names.

- Olympus Light Cruiser Conqueror

- Olympus Light Cruiser Swift

- Olympus Light Cruiser Sting

- Olympus Light Cruiser Talon

- Olympus Heavy Cruiser Enterprise

- Olympus Heavy Cruiser Freedom

- Olympus Heavy Cruiser Valkyrie

- Olympus Battleship Battle Song

- Olympus Battleship Protector

- Olympus Dreadnought—

The empty spot where his ship’s name was supposed to be made it all too real. He had an idea about the name. A name of a beast in ancient human mythology. Adrian typed in the name, and waited for the response from Fleet server, to see if the name was available. When the response came he was asked to verify the name. He did so, and the name was recorded.

- Olympus Dreadnought Leviathan

As soon as he put in the name he felt that it was right. He entered a few commands and a notification was sent to every crewmember, notifying them of their ship’s name. He looked over the orders from the fleet, the coordinates of where Leviathan needed to meet with the rest of the fleet. The Second Fleet would be there as well, it was an exact mirror image of Adrian’s. They were supposed to practice maneuvers together, and participate in war games. Adrian sent out the alert to his crew, letting them know that they would leave the shipyard in two days. With that he leaned back in his chair, thinking of how much more responsibility was just put on his shoulders.

Orbit of Nuva

“I fail to see how this will aid us against the Sowir. Don’t misunderstand me, I realize that it is an amazing feat of technology, but it will not fight the Sowir Dominion for us.” Lanai Sumia said to Retsar Isani.

“No, it will not. But it will give us an advantage. With this communication devices our ships will be able to communicate instantly, with no lag time, and in battle every moment counts.” Retsar Isani said.

Sumia sighed. “If you say so Retsar, Warcraft is your domain.”

“Trust me Lanai, it will aid us.” Isani said. The Humans had contacted their people, and have agreed to help. For now that help came in the form of the FTL comm devices. It was an amazing piece of technology, and even more astonishing was the fact that the Humans gave them as a gift, without asking for anything in return. They gave them two devices, one to study and reproduce and the other to use and communicate with their leadership. Isani and Suma were guarded, and had already made a list of what they were willing to trade, they did not want to give away Consortium technology, and the gift threw them off their guard. It made them reevaluate the way they treated with the Humans. But in the end no matter how amazing of a gift it was, ultimately it will not matter. Even with it, they only had 13 ships available to protect 10 million people on Nuva. His small force consisted of 4 frigates, 6 light cruisers, 2 heavy cruisers and his own battleship. The frigates were small ships meant to patrol and fight retrofitted pirate ships, not warships. His light cruiser were the newest models, they were fast, but had very little in term of armor. The ships were designed as supports for the larger vessels. The heavy cruisers were his most important weapons, with their long range weapons and moderate speed. And then there was the battleship. Isani has been in its command for years, it was an old ship, an outdated model. It was heavily armored, more so than newer models, his ship could take a pounding. It could go toe to toe with Sowir battleships in terms of firepower, but it was slow, it maneuvered poorly and it lacked in terms of combat effectiveness. Its lasers were power hogs, and it had a limited amount of missiles. It did not have the facilities necessary to replenish its supplies like the newer ones did. And the missiles it used were of older make, and were no longer produced. And it lacked particle beam weapons that newer ships had.

Nuva was intended to be a farming world, and they had very little to defend themselves. Early, when the war started, every colony was given a guard task force, as they didn’t know where the Sowir would attack. The size of a task force was based on the likelihood of an attack and distance from Sowir worlds. Nuva was a colony farthest away from Sowir territory, but had a high likelihood of being attacked. Sowir tended to attack poorly defended planets in the opening of the war. And Nuva was in perfect position to be used as a staging base for Sowir, so it was assigned a 20 ship taskforce, before the home world recalled all ships back. Many colonies lost their protection and then fell to Sowir. The task force guarding Nuva, on the other hand was different, Isani refused to leave. He told his subordinates that he would rather commit Ras Tu, ritual suicide, than to leave innocents to die so that he could protect the rich and powerful. So he stayed, along with most of his taskforce. Some did go, and Isani didn’t hold it against them. It was their choice.

Now Isani tried to figure out a way to save those innocents, even though he knew it was impossible. He knew that Sowir rated Nuva as a low priority, they weren’t any danger to them. He assumed that at the most they would send two taskforces against them, composed out of 3 heavy cruisers, 3 light cruisers, 3 battleships and one troop transport each. That was twenty ships, if by some miracle Isani and his 13 ships managed to defeat them, they would only get a small reprieve. The next time Sowir would send double that, four taskforces. And Isani knew exactly what would happen if his ships failed, he has seen enough recordings from colonies that had fallen. First the Sowir would clear the orbit, then they would bomb the biggest population centers if a planet had them, and finally send their troops to hunt down and kill those that survived.

No matter what Isani said to Sumia, he knew that there was no way for them to survive. And deep down he believed she knew it too.

“Is there anything else that we can do Retsar?” Sumia said, she sounded defeated.

“No. When Sowir come we can send the civilian ships away. Perhaps they could survive, though without support from a planet they would perish soon after us. Maybe the Humans would be willing to take them, but we know next to nothing about the size of Human domain, Sowir will eventually expand and meet them. There is no way for us to evacuate the entire population. It would take a lot more ships and time. And even if we could there is nowhere for them to go.” Isani said. Sumia didn’t respond, she knew this all already.

“Is there really nothing?” Sumia asked again. When Isani didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you think that Humans would send ships to help us? If we asked?”

Isani didn’t respond immediately, he looked at the viewscreen to the side of the room, it showed the planet below them. After a while he turned back to Sumia. “I thought about that. But the impressions that Oferani Esama’s team got was that their ship was traveling for a long time, more than a year. Assuming their hyperdrives are as good as ours, still it would take them at least that long to get here. And I believe that we will see Sowir Dominion in our system long before then, a month at the most. They will want to isolate the home world, break their will before finally going there. And why would Humans fight for us, they just met us. They couldn’t even be sure that our side was right, perhaps they believe we provoked the Sowir.” He raised a hand when he saw Sumia try to say something. “No, I don’t really believe that they think that. Their gift tells me that they believe our side of the story. Although why they would take only our words for truth, I do not know. I wouldn’t if I was in their place. But I am thankful for them. But it is a great leap from giving us some technology, to dying for us.”