The probe’s travel time through the trans-lane was nine hours, and after it arrived in the next system it relayed its position – which was a system about fifteen light years from the Gracious’ position, it then started taking passive scans of the system. The scans didn’t reveal anything unusual at first, but then as its scans progressed deeper into the system it detected something strange. We studied the scans, and I decided to let the probe get closer and allowed it to take active scans of the anomaly.” Resaani then grew quiet, but Johanna didn’t say anything. She knew the Ship Master well enough to know that he was simply organizing his thoughts. “The scans revealed that the anomaly was in fact a debris field, and according to the scans it was a result of a battle. By our estimates the battle happened sometime in the last month.” Resaani said, and Johanna nodded.
“Thank you Ship Master Resaani.” Johanna said dismissing him, she will need to take the fleet to take a closer look at the debris field. The Empire had learned its lesson from what happened to the Voyager when they first encountered the Sowir, and they knew that the galaxy was a dangerous place.
Chapter Seven
July; Year 30 – Sanctuary
Laura Reiss Fleets Master of the Empire walked down the corridor of Fleet Headquarters on Sanctuary’s moon – Thanatos. The entire moon belonged to the Fleet. The moon itself didn’t support life, but the Empire had the technology and was able to build facilities with their own artificial atmosphere and gravity. Laura turned a corner, and reached her destination. She entered the meeting room and found that everyone who was supposed to be there had already arrived. Immediately after entering she started the meeting, she had known people inside for a lifetime, and there was no need to waste time on greetings.
“The Emperor had finally sent the word, from about an hour ago the Fleet is officially on the imminent war footing. We don’t know when the attack on Nelus will begin, but we need to be ready. You all know the plan, as soon as the Sowir fleet gets committed to sieging Nelus, our fleets will attack the Sowir Dominion’s territory. Until that happens we need to focus all of our resources on figuring out what we can expect from the Sowir, their capabilities, numbers, and anything else that may impact the war. We will also increase our ship building efforts. The more time the Sowir take to commit to their attack on Nelus, the more time we will have to build new ships, train crews, and upgrade our existing ships. Questions?”
Oswald Mein Commander of Fleets was the first to comment. “We are really going to leave Nelus to themselves? We are going to sacrifice them to defeat the Sowir?”
Laura shook her head. “There is another plan concerning Nelus, if they hold out long enough or Sowir take too long before they attack we will help them. The key to our plan is that using our trans-travel capabilities we will be able to move faster through Sowir territory. If most of their fleets are committed at Nelus we will be able to smash through any other defenses they have and lay waste to their industry, before the fleets attacking Nelus realize what is happening. And once they do find out, their most likely response will be to race back to defend their territory. Rest assured, if we are able, we will give aid to Nelus.”
Relieved Oswald nodded. Then Maret, former Retnor of Nuva now Fleet’s Head Quartermaster spoke, “I assume that I am free to start constructing support ships and stations? We also need to choose a staging system, someplace out of the way but still close to Sowir territory, preferably a hub system with many outgoing and incoming trans-lanes.”
“Yes, I am approving the fabricator time for your department. As for the staging system, we will be meeting separately later to discuss that.” Laura answered.
“What about our warship construction lines?” Daria Veisi Head builder for the Fleet asked.
“We’ll have other meetings, but for now you should prepare for a full scale ramping up of all our projects. I am also approving your designs for the Furious class battleships.”
“What about the Kraken class dreadnoughts?” Daria asked.
Laura grimaced. “I am not so sure about that one. The thirty five percent less firepower than the Mark Two dreadnought class worries me.”
“But it would be at least three times as maneuverable.” Daria pressed.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Laura said. Then she looked around the room and clapped her hands. “Okay, go meet with your people, write up plans and send them to my office for approval. We have no time to waste.”
A couple hours later, Laura sat in a room surrounded by holograms and displays, listening to Daria and her team trying to convince her that the Kraken class dreadnoughts were viable. They started with listing all of the specifications of the proposed ship, then moved to the simulations they ran, and finally to what the role of these ships would be in a fleet.
“Everything that you have just told me, a Mark Two can do better.” Laura said.
“The Mark Two’s are slow, the Kraken class could move to engage much faster—” Daria started.
“We have battleships for when we need to engage faster. You are not doing a great job of convincing me that we need these ships…” Laura interrupted.
Daria looked helpless, Laura could see that both she and her team were very enthusiastic about it, but they just didn’t provide a sufficiently valid reason to make these ships. Laura sighed, she was about to call an end to the discussion when one of the Daria’s team leaders stepped forward.
“Ma’am, if I may.” He said. Laura looked at him, reading the name provided by her implant above the man’s head.
“Go on Ritsarni.” Laura said, and the young Nel took a deep breath. He was very young, Laura accessed his files and saw that he was 24 years old, and that he was also one of the first Nel to be born in the progeny centers on Nuva.
“You are correct Fleets Master, together our battleships and dreadnoughts can do the same thing that the Kraken class would be capable of. But it isn’t really about that. Currently our fleets are much more firepower oriented, I believe that what happened with the Ra’a’zani scared us in a way. We downsized our drone program before it even had the chance to shine, because we knew that those drones wouldn’t be a match for the Ra’a’zani.” He turned to look at the screen.
“We chose to focus on quality over quantity, and we turned our fleets into juggernauts. We stopped building cruisers, and instead focused on battleships and dreadnoughts. Because we are not limited by budgets and costs, we made them bigger, more powerful yes, but we lost a lot on utility. Our battleships are fast and sturdy, but they have limited amount of ammo. Our dreadnoughts are fleets in of themselves. Each one of our Mark Two dreadnoughts alone could lay waste to a fleet the size and capabilities of the one that attacked Nuva thirty years ago. But only if it managed to force that fleet to fight, the Mark Two’s are too slow. We need a class of ship that can move fast and force the enemy to fight, to keep them occupied until our dreadnoughts arrive.” He waved a hand in a Nel placating gesture and cut off Laura before she even had a chance to interrupt.
“Yes, I know that is the job of our battleships, and they are fully capable of fulfilling that role against enemies that are on the technological level of the Sowir or Nelus. But do you believe that they could do the same against a Ra’a’zani fleet? And I am talking about the ships of the same class as the one that almost destroyed the second fleet, not a fleet that included their bigger ships, and we know that they have much larger ships.” Ritsarni looked at Laura determinedly.