Ivan Kal - Sanctuary

“Alright, we will meet them here.” Fleet Commander Farkas agreed. They spent the next hour talking about possible strategies, quickly they decided that the two fleets should act separately but try to support one another. As the meeting grew to a close, the humans stood and got back to their ship. Isani gave them an escort back, and left to for his office to contact Sumia. As soon as he entered, he opened a communication using the human FTL device. He still wasn’t used to the way it worked, where one needed to record and send a message, then wait for the other person to respond.

“How did it go?” Sumia’s message said.

“About as I expected it to.” Isani said. “We will fight separately, there is not enough time for us to learn to fight together.”

About a minute later came Sumia’s response, “What about the planet?”

“They have brought five hundred soldiers. The Fleet Commander said that he will have all of them on the planet by the end of the day. They will coordinate with our people down there to help should Sowir land.” Isani sent.

“Will their weapons be able to harm the Sowir?”

“Humans believe that they will, their weapons are alien to us and I have no time to go down to the planet and see them fired. We will have to trust them, and hope that no dropship reach the planet.”

“I shouldn’t have let you convince me to go with the refugee ships. I belong on Nuva.”

“Our people will need you Sumia. They are going into unknown with people they have just met. They need someone like you to look out for them.”

“I know, but I don’t need to like it.” Sumia’s final message said.

Leviathan

Adrian watched on his command board as the Leviathan’s shuttle left on its last trip to the planet to deliver Olympus soldiers. Company Commanders Okoro, Hughes, and Mao will be in charge of the land battle, if Sowir manage to land anything on the planet, but Adrian was not going to make it easy on them. He understood why they needed to keep the Sowir occupied, to give Sanctuary enough time to grow, to become strong enough to protect itself against any threat. Adrian turned to Ship Master Isaacs.

“Anything from the Sowir?” He asked. They had been sending a continuous laser communication to all Sowir ships for the past five hours.

“Nothing.” Paul said.

Adrian looked at his board, there was no change with the Sowir ships, not even when they saw Adrian’s ships. They still kept coming, no change in speed or course. Fleet thought that there was no way for these ships to have any information about Voyager. That incident happened eight light years from here. Unless they had FTL comms there was no way for them to know, but that was unlikely, the Consortium didn’t.

“Halt the communications.” Adrian said.

“You knew that it was very likely that they wouldn’t respond.” Iris said.

“Yes, but I don’t understand why? They must know that we aren’t from the Consortium. We told them so in the message. And they must see that we outnumber them now, why keep coming when the chance of defeat is much greater?” Adrian said, frustrated, he kept hoping that the Sowir would turn away. That is why he came to Nuva without trying to hide, he gave them time to detect and study his ships.

“Perhaps they don’t think so. Perhaps they believe that they will win.” Iris said.

Adrian shook his head. Olympus knew the capabilities of the Sowir, and he knew that his ships were more than a match.

“Get some rest Paul, tomorrow will be a long day.” Adrian said, tomorrow the battle for Nuva will start, until then there was nothing else he could do.

February 2170 – Battleship Valor

Isani sat on the bridge of his ship, after one more meeting Isani and Fleet Commander Farkas decide to intercept the Sowir fleet. Close enough so to be able to respond should any ship get past them, but far enough to spare the planet of any accidental damage. Looking at the far wall at the viewer, Isani watched as human ships accelerated and joined his own ships keeping up with them. If they kept this acceleration they would reach maximum effective missile range in an hour, at least for Nel ships. And then the battle would start in earnest. Isani had told Fleet Commander Farkas that their priority should be the three Sowir battleships, they posed the greatest danger to their ships. The two forces would operate independently, but try to cover one another. That meant that they will need to keep close enough to provide aid should it be required. The Sowir ships still kept the same course and speed, although they should see the light from human and Isani’s ships in a couple of minutes. Isani kept a corner of his eye on the viewer on his left that showed the Sowir fleet, waiting for them to make a move. And then five minutes later there was a change. Sowir ships started to slow down and change their formation. Isani felt excitement, as he always did when he knew a battle was imminent. He gave command of the ship to his third in command, and went to catch a few more minutes of sleep. There was still time yet before the two forces drew close enough for the battle to start in truth.

Traveler

Ship Master Kisaragi Hana watched her holo as her ship and the ten refugee ships passed the hyperspace barrier. The Traveler left Nuva when the First Fleet arrived in the system. Out of the refugee ships that were following the Traveler, one merchant ship was filed by representatives of Guxcacul that were on Nuva and few Mtural families that called Nuva home. Hana didn’t have the chance to meet them in person, there was little time. The other nine ships were filled with Nel, women and children. Nuva’s leaders held a lottery of sorts, to decide who got a place on one of the ships. In the end a lot more were left on the planet, waiting to see how the human and Nel ships would fare against the Sowir.

“We are ready to enter hyperspace Ship Master.” High Prime Rolland Ricks said.

“Comm the Nel ships, and start the countdown.” Ship Master Kisaragi said.

“Entering hyperspace in sixty seconds.” Ship Handler Jorge Nunez said.

As Hana watched the countdown she couldn’t help but be amazed by the Nel. They were following the Traveler not knowing where they were going, but that just went to show how desperate they were, they had no hope before the Traveler arrived. Their ships could travel through hyperspace faster than the Traveler, but would follow at Travelers speed. For the Traveler the trip would usually take 9 months, but they would take a detour to limit the chance of anyone finding Sanctuary, which meant instead of 9 it would take a bit more than 10 months.

“Thirty seconds.” Ship Handler said.

Hana wondered whether the First Fleet met the Sowir in the battle yet. A part of her wanted to stay, to help, but she knew that her ship wasn’t made for war.

“Ten seconds… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Entering hyperspace.” Ship Handler said. A moment later, eleven ships disappeared in a flash.

Leviathan

Adrian took his seat in the Command Center, as soon as he sat down the command board came online, a holographic representation of his and Retsar Isani’s ships was shown in front of him. In a few minutes they would enter the maximum firing range of his fleet. Looking at the Sowir fleet, and seeing that they were still coming in the same formation they formed an hour ago. Going through the mental list of his opening moves, he took a deep breath, “Here we go.” Adrian said to Iris, and then he started manipulating the command board. He assigned orders, but didn’t execute them just yet, he opened a channel to Retsar Isani from the list on the left side of his command board. A window opened in front of him with Retsar Isani looking out of it.