UGT: Unknown; 45 minutes after May repaired the camouflage shield reactor
Location: Unknown yellow dwarf system: near the third planet
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Frowning, Admiral Thorrison looked at the tactical map in front of him. The situation wasn`t dire just yet, but it was far from optimal. The last confrontation with the Association forces had led to first losses and the damage reports from his fleet started to mount. "A report of our tactical losses and current battle situation, now."
"One of our Frigates was destroyed and a Destroyer was forced to disengage. The Association has a firm grip on the fifth and sixth moon, while also having current operational control of the space around the third moon. The control over the fourth and seventh moon, as well as our orbital refinery station, is currently contested. The first, second and eight moon are firmly under our control. Optical feed is getting send... now." his sensor officer answered with confidence. He was one of the newer officers in leadership position and probably didn`t understand the true situation they were currently in.
The optical feed showed what he had already known. Nine of his Frigates were protecting the controlled moons, as well as creating an sensor grid to stop any unexpected Association advances. Six more were fighting at the orbital refinery station and the last six were equally split between the fourth and seventh moon. He also had three destroyers and a cruiser on each of the contested regions for fire support. His flagship, the Battlecruiser FSF Defiance, supported by an destroyer, two Cruisers and another Battlecuriser were the rapid deployment force, should the Association capital ships dare to move. Theoretically, they were also supposed to secure the third moon, but just trying would be courting disaster.
"What are the Association losses currently at? Furthermore, give me the location of their ships through again." An order he had given regularly throughout the last day. He had no problems to admit that he was part of the old admirality, captain at a time where much less of the ship processes were automated. A relic of over 200 years of peace, where the human race was still scrambling to pick up the remnants of the Great Collapse. Advancing military technology or, gods forbid, real wars, were far from everyones minds at the time. In a few hours he would have to rest to stop his thought process from detoriating anyways, but for now he was fully capble to oversee the fleet actions a while longer.
"One of the mercenary Frigates, as well as their Destroyer got annihilated by our antimatter Weapons. Serves these traitors right. Otherwise, they had no losses and the remaining mercenary Frigates seem to have completely joined in with the Association forces. All their nine Frigates, six Destroyers and all of their three Cruisers are positioned inside the contested regions. Their rapid deployment fleet contains their sole Battlecruiser and four Destroyers. Current reports indicate that the battle for the orbital refinery station is close to being won, the Asssociation forces showing signs of retreat."
A small victory. Admiral Thorrison wanted nothing more than crushing the Association forces under his feet, which would normally be no problems at all with a fleet of this size under his command. The Federation forces outnumbered these of the Association by a massive amount. The problem was, that these Association bastards hat no qualms bombing the living shit out of the civilian colony if given the chance. That, they had already showed with their original attack on the first moon, the second colony in the system besides Hestias Crown. There was no doubt in his mind that the moment he took some of his Frigates away from protecting the colony on the first moon and the other moons around it, the enemy would jump at it and make him pay dearly for his decision. All at the expense of innocent lives.
The Association new perfectly well that he battle was, as of now, lost for them. But instead of doing the resonable thing and retreating out of the system? Well, they decided to stay and isssue a challange in the form of an battle of attrition. Still, normally an enemy force that heavily outnumbered would fall short of the challange and get wiped out in hours at most. But that was where the other particularities of the Association forces came into play: Their absolute disregard for the Galactic Convention of War, or GCW for short, as well as their absolutely ridiculous antimatter output and technological advancements.
He knew that the main branch of the Association was one of the strongest nations in the galaxy. He knew that they held a technologival advantage over most other nations, even the Federation. But that didn`t change the fact, that they should have run out of antimatter hours ago with how liberal they used it! Hell, give it another day of fighting and he would be out of antimatter weaponry, while only using a third of the amount they invested into their attacks!
This was the main reason why the Association forces weren`t crushed already. A reckless attack would lead to him loosing, because plasma shields and PDC-L did jackshit against a bunch of railgun projectiles with an antimatter load. Sure, the capital ships under his command had hypershields, but even these would fall short under fire from sufficient antimatter armaments. Meanwhile breaking hypershields with purely conventional weaponry was near impossible in an combat situation. The Association had hypershields on ALL their ships, not just their capital ships. Something that should be impossibleby Federation standards, but the Association didn`t care. At the same time, a third of their total firepower consisted of antimatter weaponry. For the Federation forces it was only a tenth. This drastic difference was enough to derail any plan to simply swarm the Association forces, making it a fools errand.
"But why do they protect the third moon? It just doesn`t make any sense. Although a serious failing on part of the local fleet elements, I can understand why they didn`t manage to find the Association bases on the fifth and sixth moon before it was to late. Now they are strongly equipped against space assults and it will be hard to take them back. But why place the rapid deployment forces over the third moon instead? They won`t find anything of note there. And why actively seek battle if they could just fall back to the fifth and sixth moon? Why protect the third moon especially? It just doesn`t make any sense." He muttered to himself. He really didn`t understand what the Association was thinking.
Suddenly his personal voice com crackled. "Eh... Admiral? Here is junior officer Morris. I... more or less hacked myself into your voice com. Sorry for that. But I have somthing that I think might be of interest to your person, Sir."
Admiral Thorrisons brows furrowed. That should theoretically not even be possible. But for the moment, he was willing to lend the junior officer an ear. There were no incompetent people on this ship, he had personally made sure of this. "What is it junior officer Morris? Is there a reason for you to use this... peculiar way of communication?" He subvocalised into his voice com.
"As I said, Sir, there is something I think you should now about. My senior officer rejected my attempt to contact you over the correct channels, Sir, as I was unwilling to give this information to anyone else." The by now definitly nervous junior officer said.
"Junior officer Morris, I will give you this one chance to tell me what you want to tell me, but you better hope it truly is as important as you say. Pestering me while in battle over an illegal way of communication and skipping over your superiors to directly speak to me can be seen as sabotaging the war effort. By extension even as munity while in battle and treason. This better not be some kind of joke, you understand?" He said menacingly.
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Junior officer Morris gulped audiably before speaking again, definitely very nervous by now. "I understand, Sir. As I went about my duties as junior sensor officer and analysed the surroundings of the enemies rapid deployment forces, including the third moon, I noticed an unusual signal on its surface for a fraction of a second. To be more precise, the signals came from a specific mountain range on the moon. Noticeably, the signal appeared less than an hour after some of our missfired projectiles hit said mountain range as a consequence of us trying and failing to force the Association forces away from the third moon. As I said, the signal disappeared again only a fraction of a second after its appearence and purely by chance I had even seen it. But I knew there had been something and the sensors reported no problems whatsoever. Therefore, I shifted my focus from the enemies rapid deployment forces to this particular mountain range on the third moon. For multiple hours there was nothing and I already starting to think I had been wrong, as the signal suddenly reappeared directly inside the mountain. It was very much different from before, it was consistent and low enough that I doubt I would have identified it if my sensors hadn`t been focused on its exact location already. What I identified was barely enough te register on the sensors, but it was undoubtedly the energy output of an fully working antimatter reactor. That was the first time I tried to contact you, Sir, but was rejected. A few hours later, the signal suddenly cut off completely. That was the moment I tried to contact you a second timey Sir, and got rejected again. The last 45 minutes I spent finding a way to create a contact through the voice com, which was luckily connected to the ship."
Admiral Thorrison`s eyes widened the longer the junior officer spoke. A secret undetected base on the third moon as well? It was possible. It would definitely explain why the Association protected the moon. The third moon strategically blocked many of the vectors usable to reach the fifth and sixth moon. But the base one the third moon seemed to not be protected all to well, if it was hidden on that level. Therefore the Association forces wouldn`t have the ground support the fifth and sixth moon could offer. But said ground support would be needed if the Association wanted to secure a chance at victory against the Federation forces. That would have meant giving up the third moon, which they were clearly unwilling to do. But why? He would have never even heard about the Association base on the third moon if the Association had just quitly given the moon up. Hell, he wouldn`t even have scanned the moon! There would have been no chance in hell that he would have found the base! "Thank you, junior officer. I don`t understand why you wanted to keep this information to yourself and me instead of informing your superior, but it was valuable data. Therefore, Im willing to forgive you. Thanks to you, I finally understand the situation currently at play. You will now go and inform your superior in detail and-"
"I sincerely appologise, Sir, but I don`t think you understand the situation at hand, as I wasn`t even at the important part just jet." the junior officer interruptedt Admiral Thorrison ruthlessly. "The energy signature wasn`t that of the Association. The signature I identified was very old, older than the Association itself and has a frightening similarity to the known old aetherian energy signatures, just much weaker. In all of galactic history, only a single star nation ever managed to reverse engineer the aetherian technology even just partly. What we will find down there will be still working technology from the First Federation before its downfall!" The junior officer said, clearly excited for it.
"Okay, junnior officer, you are now going to do exactly what I tell you. Delete everything you found out in a way it is irreversible. The same with our communication. If someone ever asks, you know nothing, understood? You`ve stumbled into something that`s far above your pay grade. Hell, it`s even above my paygrade! So I can only repeat myself: You know nothing, else everything can happen to you once people know that you know. Understood?" Admiral Thorrison said.
"I understand, Sir. Good day, Sir." Junior officer Morris said and abruptly the voice com lost connection. Admiral Thorrison really hoped the junior officer would do as told. Because otherwise... he would be dead rather sooner than later, his only crime being to perceptive of things he should`ve never become aware of. Finding something still intact from the much more technologically advanced First Federation... The different galactic powers would stop at nothing to get their greedy little hand on it, seeing as even the Association would be utterly outmatched next to First Federation technology. And suddenly, he understood.
While the Second Federation and the Association hadn`t really been allies, they had been on friednly terms with each other. The Ruidan Raider Association was located far away from the Second Federation. As there was no conflict of interest, there were no tensions between the two out of four galactic superpowers. Hell, the Federation had been in multiple trade deals and contracts with the local branch of the association! 250 years after the Great Collapse and 210 years after the First War of Independence had finally ended, the Federation had finally managed to partially recover. 200 years of peace could do much for a nation. Perhaps it had been to long of a time without war, because no one had been prepared for the Second War of Independence that broke out 16 years ago. A coalition of multiple star nations that broke free from the Federation after the Great Collapse and the First War for Independence, as well as multiple rebelious Federation systems decided that the time to truly end the Federation had come. They even secured the indirect support of the Independent Systems Alliance, another of the four galactic superpowers. But unlike last time, the slowly recovering Federation managed to rise to the challange.
Battle after battle Admiral Thorrison had fought these last 16 years and from most he had emerged victorious. Just a few years ago, the Federation finally managed to go on the offensive instead of just defending. Hell, this system here, he had personally freed seven times in the last 13 years, pushing back the invaders time and time again. A little more than a year ago, the Federation had finally managed to take back the last of their systems occupied by the invaders. Than, the Association and the Independent Systems Alliance attacked. No war declaration, no diplomatic meetings, just a hard first strike, effectively crippling the finally advancing FSF in one fell swoop. And suddenly the Federation faced overwhelming odds with enemies all around them, even the own allies unwilling to support.
For the last months, Admiral Thorris questioned why two of the galactic superpowers who hated each other would work together. The Federation was far more usefull to keep around from an Association perspective. It just hadn`t made any sense that they would suddenly work with their archnemesis to bring the Federation to its knees. He knew the situation on the main frontlines. He knew the horrific losses and war crimes comitted by both sides. He knew that the civilists wanted nothing more than that grueling war to finally end. But no end was in sight and even he had started to question why his enemies even fought. Now he knew.
The Independent Systems Alliance just wanted to expand its influence and get rid of the Federation for good as they were enemies. Easy enough to understand. The rebels and smaller humand nations were also easy to understand. They wanted independence and expansion respectively. But now he knew why the Association got involved as well. It wasn`t that they had any problems with the Federation per se. They just wanted to get their hands on that sweet First Federation technology they somehow found before the Second Federaton did, even though it was on their territory. If Admiral Thorris had to guess, the Association would immediately back off and maybe even switch sides, one they got the First Federation technology for themselves. It at least wouldn`t surprise him, considering that even now, the Second Federation manged to hold their own against two of the other three galactic superpowers.
Did the Second Federation get support from the fourth galactic superpower, the Aetherian Memorialist Union? Yes definitely, they got a shitload of equipment, weapons and even space ships send their way. But it was still a impressive feat nonetheless. But now, Admiral Thorrison had to make a decision. A hard one.
"The entire fleet is to concentrate around us. Our new primary objective is taking control over the third moon. The costs are irrelevant. Our one and only goal ist taking over the third moon. Prepare everything for a landing on the moon itself as well."
Would this decision lead to many civilian deaths on the first moon colony? Most likely, yes. But the technology on the third moon could be what the Second Federation needed to change the tides of the war one and for all.