Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

The battle at Cantra was devastating for the local Valorian forces and the Cathamari. The Cantra defense fleet was hit hard. Over half their destroyers were sunk at the battle. In addition, they lost all 12 battleships and all 20 heavy cruisers assigned to the fleet at the battle. Worse the Flagship the VCS Jewel of Cantra was mauled by Cathamari cruisers and sustained heavy damage. Her flight decks were destroyed and all of her engines slagged. Worse the local admiral died when a Concussion plasma round struck the CIC. Minutes later the main bridge was destroyed killing the Captain. Thankfully the Cathamari were run off minutes later by another Cathamari force but by then the damage was done. The ship was a barely functioning wreck and would require several months of refit. As for the Ophera class cruisers assigned to the fleet only one in seven of them survived the battle.

These figures grew much worse for the mercenary forces attached to the two Cathamari fleets. With both groups suffering near total loss of their ships. Of the roughly 12000 mercenary cruisers only 1 out of every nine ships survived the battle. Most of which sustained heavy damage.

The Grand Fleet of Demair was a total loss. All ships in the fleet were destroyed in the battle while his rival’s fleet despite their numerical advantage did not fare much better. Of the five thousand battle cruisers they brought only 93 of them survived the battle. The eight thousand heavy assault cruisers fared better with just under a thousand of them surviving. As for the fleet carriers all of them were destroyed. With one of the carriers even being destroyed by the Enterprise after a navigational error brought her too close to the Sol Refuge Capital ship.

Of the 80,000 destroyers attached to the fleet barely a third of them survived the battle. Leaving the fleet battered and badly damaged. Yet they were perhaps in better shape than most of the participants. Outside of the forces aligned with the Enterprise and the Krall.

The Enterprise after sinking the Throne recovered her fighters and then rejoined her escorts before making contact with local Valorian forces in an attempt to offload the survivors they had picked up from several Valorian wrecks including the Guilded Heart. Only for local forces to respond with hostility. Rather than engage the Valorians and fresh out of torpedoes the Refuge fleet departed the system resuming her previous course before the whole detour leading to Cantra. As for the Teketh she departed on her own heading back for Krall space.

Following the events at Cantra numerous political groups in the Confederation began to take notice of the Enterprise and relations between the Valorians and the Sol Refuge which were already rocky became decidedly hostile. Mere weeks after the battle hunter fleets would be contracted and sent out by various groups in the Confederation to locate and engage the Enterprise. Albeit with some differing goals. Some groups perceived the Enterprise as a threat and wanted her destroyed. While others wanted to capture the ship.

Valorian-Krall relations also saw a noticeable shift. The previously friendly relations the two powers possessed turned decidedly rocky. Especially in light of the actions of the Teketh at Cantra which were largely perceived to be a violation of interstellar laws and treaties. Cantra was a neutral port, afterall. Some belated complaints were also sent to the Cathamari but few parties were actually interested in pursuing the matter with the Cathamari given the lack of a Cathamari government.

In turn, the Krall accused the Valorians of interfering with Cathamari succession politics and defended the actions of the Teketh as necessary to maintain the current balance of power. Both sides began military build-ups along their borders. While the Valorian military budget ballooned for the first time in centuries. Something that surprised many in the Valorian military given the government's usual annual habit of slashing the military budget.

Captain’s Log April 12th 002 SDE:

We are currently stopped in deep space while we convene a meeting to discuss the fate of the Valorian survivors we collected during the battle at the Cantra system. Seeing as this meeting will concern them, I have invited representatives to attend the meeting. I left who those representatives will be up to them. Something that feels a bit odd for me. I haven’t seen an actual election of any sort in many years. Not since before the last world war.

Thankfully the Valorians seem familiar with the process and were able to select several representatives without issue. Something that was likely made easier on ships with a clear and intact chain of command. In which case the captain or next highest officer of rank was selected to represent the crew. In cases where the command crew wasn’t intact, it was typically less clear. Still they managed to select someone for those crews as well. So we will be able to have our meeting on schedule. After that, we will have to assemble a general briefing to the fleet in regard to their choice. Of course, that isn’t the only issue we will have to discuss. There is also the matter of our supplies. We are fine on basics but we expended our entire supply of torpedoes, and most of our defense missiles in the battle. Our fighter supplies are doing better and we can transfer warheads from the Coto and the Umikaze but we still have to do something about the shortage. Not only that but if that throne is any indication our current torpedoes may not be sufficient against future threats.

Countryman slipped around the corner. Just ahead was the door to the conference room they were using. It was a multipurpose room that had recently been set up for this meeting. The usual room on deck one would be a little cramped given the number of people they were going to be hosting.

Standing outside the room was a familiar face. “Ah miss Reia. I had heard you had come aboard.”

She sighed, “Yeah I did.”

“Something wrong?”

She slumped a little, “Aside from losing my ship and having no idea what the future holds? Perfectly fine.”

Countryman shifted, “Wounds heal. Ships can be replaced, lives can’t.” he glanced up at the ceiling, “Not that words will mean much to you now. It is not every day we are faced with the wound of losing a ship.”

She frowned, “Wait? Have you lost your ship before?”

Countryman nodded, “My first command was the MFS Nebula. First of her class, she was a test bed for a number of older technologies. Including Polarized Hull plating and Pulse Wave Engine technology. Only four hundred meters long and armed solely with laser cannons. She had three banks of ship-to-ship light laser cannons mounted in dual turrets and eight banks of ultra-light point defense cannons.

“Everything was going fine until a fateful day over seventy years ago. To be specific it was late October in the year 89 CSD. By that point in time, the Second Colonial War had been raging for eight years almost nine. We were conducting an extended drive test of the series four Laser Pulse Wave Engine out in the belt when we were accosted by Lunar cruisers. Luna and my benefactor Mars were at war and those cruisers didn’t much care what we were doing.”

Reia blinked, “2nd Colonial War?”

“Our people were a bit late to unification. After a disaster struck our homeworld forcing Earth to turn attention inward, the colonies were left largely to themselves. Naturally, they ended up fighting several wars with each other over the course of a century. Three major wars, numerous minor skirmishes and various other military engagements. None of which is relevant to the story.”

“I guess not,” she replied.

“Anyway, on that day we were accosted by three Lunar cruisers. Valiant class to be specific. I know that doesn’t mean much to you of course. The Valiants were reliable ships back then but today they are quite obsolete. They featured a Titanium-Aluminum hull that was both cheaper and lighter than a pure Titanium hull. This helped make her surprisingly agile in battle. Her main drive was a phased ion drive that allowed her a top speed of .2 C. Her weapons were a hopelessly obsolete mix of railguns, lasers, missiles and torpedoes.

“I remember the day clearly. We were in the middle of maneuvers in the belt and had just come around an asteroid when the cruisers moving in formation appeared on sensors. Unfortunately, they also detected my own small science cruiser. They immediately moved to intercept. I ordered a change in course to avoid them and informed them that were on a scientific mission. They didn’t care.

“My ship the Nebula was faster though. At first we were gradually building distance. The occasional asteroid may have slowed us a little but nothing that would have prevented a clean escape. My opponents recognized that and started firing their long-range missiles at my ship. None of them dealt any significant damage as I had decent point defenses and a good targeting computer. They had enough however to force evasive maneuvers to avoid hits. Allowing them to close to effective combat ranges. That was when they opened up with their forward laser batteries.

“They quickly scored several glancing hits on my rear armor. I ordered fire returned with my aft cannons. I only had two turrets that could fire aft and they mounted light laser cannons. Thankfully they were quite accurate. My gunnery officer scored several light hits on their forward plating in rapid succession. None of these initial exchanges did any real damage. For several hours we exchanged ineffective laser fire with each other and they fired the occasional torpedo volley at me.

“It wasn’t until nearly midnight ship’s time that things changed. By that time they had closed to railgun range. They had opened fire and I had begun maneuvering to avoid the heavy projectiles. My reinforced armor used a polarization matrix meant to repel heavy laser fire not railgun rounds. It was made of a sturdy military-grade titanium alloy that could resist anti-ship railgun rounds, but I didn’t want to test that. My evasive maneuvers also brought more of my main guns to bear. My gunnery officer managed to score a few penetrating hits on the lead cruiser. The first of the battle, but it wasn’t long before they scored a few penetrating hits of their own with their railgun rounds. What followed was a bit of a slugging match, where my greater agility and the lower accuracy of their guns proved to be deciding factors. After three hours of fighting, my ship the Nebula had taken heavy damage. 72 hull breaches, the port nacelle had been destroyed, we had lost life support on six decks. Main power was gone and we were running on auxiliary power. In addition half of our turrets were offline or destroyed.

“As for the three cruisers, they were all largely intact but they had taken damage to their weapons and engines. I had focused on taking out railgun turrets and thrusters. They were also out of missiles. Given their damage, I was able to escape while they were still making repairs. We later linked up with the battleship MFS Resolve and her escorts. We were taken under tow after that and escorted back to port. Unfortunately, my ship didn’t quite make the journey. During the trip we were engaged by two Lunar Battleships in an engagement that lasted several days. During the battle, my ship was hit by stray railgun rounds. There was an explosion in engineering, followed by out-of-control fires. After damage control attempts failed, we were forced to abandon ship. She went down on November 17th, 89 CSD but thankfully most of the crew escaped. I spent the rest of the trip back in a spare bunk on the Resolve.”

“I see. So how did you deal with losing your old ship?

“Well for years after the event I kept thinking back to that moment. Wondering what I could have done differently.”

“From the sound of it not much.”

“You would be right. Anyway it is about time we head inside the meeting will start soon.”

She nodded, “Yeah I think we have been talking too long.”

Stepping into the room he was immediately greeted by Williams. Who was her typical disagreeable self. She gave him a look, “It was bad enough that you let aliens onboard once but doing it again? We can’t trust them!”

Countryman sighed, “So you are going to discriminate againt people in need, people we can help just because they are not of the same species as us? Have you thought about how that might sound?”

She scoffed, “Aliens can’t be trusted. We should have left them adrift and YOU should have had them spaced!”

Reia gave the woman a look and Countryman just shook his head. “Try to be civil or YOU will be the one spaced, but don’t worry I’ll give you a blanket.”

Williams sputtered and Countryman walked off. Reia followed a frown on her face. “What was that about?”

He sighed, “That was Williams a constant thorn in my side. I’d suggest you steer clear of her, she’s rather... Well, I think you already have an idea.”

She nodded, “Yeah I think I do. Anyone else like her on this ship?

“Unfortunately yes, but they are a minority.” he paused, “Still they might try and cause trouble.”

“I see.”

“Anyway,” he started as he observed Neira entering the room and heading for them, “Would you like to start the meeting or should I?”

She blinked, “Me? Why me?”

“Well the topic largely concerns your people, I figured it would better if you started it.”

Reia glanced up at the ceiling, “Something about our fate given the hostile response of the Cantra defenders.”

“I could have destroyed them and just landed on the surface to aid your disembark, but that didn’t seem right. Unfortunately, that leaves me with few options. We could try again at a different world. I could leave you on some uninhabited planet or moon, or even more scummy leave you all floating in escape pods.”

Noting his tone on the last one she nodded, “scummy indeed. Glad to see you are disinclined to do that.”

“It wouldn’t be right and if I do leave you on some planet or moon. I will leave with supplies and infrastructure.”

“You know there is also the option of staying aboard.”

Countryman chuckled, “There is. I’d put anyone who does to work though.”

She smiled, “I figured you would.”

Not long after that the meeting began.