Third Decade
2654
Goddard Colony
At the corner of the frontier, in the Goddard System, a terran colony had existed, technically outside of the boundaries of Confed, for more than a century. The founding of Goddard Colony, on Goddard II. For the first twenty years of the war, this corner of the Epsilon Sector had seen little in the way of the war, aside from occasional Kilrathi fleet incursions. That all changed in 2654. Goddard sat at a junction for serval jump points, including the one to Epsilon Prime, later administration area for the sector. Danger to the Goddard System was learned in February of 2654, when Confed Marines, escorted by the TCS Wolfhound raided a Kilrathi research colony on Warhammer XII, learning of a new weapon to be tested on Goddard. By the time the Tiger’s Claw reached the system, Goddard Colony was flattened, as if a giant hammer slammed down upon the colony, killing all 250,000 colonists.
Operation: Thor’s Hammer
From the raid on Warhammer XII, Confed learned of the Kilrathi battleships Sivar. This was no ordinary battleship. Its standard armament was only slightly better than the new Fralthras. But its main weapon was what could best be described as a Graviton Cannon. What this weapon did was magnify local gravitational fields, crushing its target. Thus the shape of Goddard Colony. More over, the Sivarcould not use its graviton gun against ships, but rather only against targets that could not maneuver, such as stations, fortresses, habitats and entire planets. The development of this weapon also consumed a great deal of resources, which partially explains the Kilrathi apparent weakness in the past couple of years.
Tiger’s Claw pursued the Sivar, and after several thwarted attacks on the ship, switched tactics. Something as large as the Sivar could not easily scoop fuel from conveniently located gas giants. Instead, it (like the Terran Arsenal Ships) had to rely upon tankers. Tiger’s Claw swept through the Midgard System, as well as the Jotunheim and Bifrost Systems. In Midgard, Marines on board one of the carrier’s escorts managed to capture an in-tact Dralthi. Though Confed had the aid of Kilrathi defectors over the years, they had few opportunities to capture anything of the Kilrathi’s in working order.
The Sivar was prevented again from resupply when the Tiger’s Claw destroyed a supply depot in the Valgard System, but was able to escape (albeit low on fuel) as the Tiger’s Claw had to fighter its way past Kilrathi destroyers and frigates. The Sivar was finally caught orbiting a gas giant in the Vigrid System. Rapiers and Raptors off the Tiger’s Claw (a great deal of the Scimitars were destroyed in Valgard) caught the warship in low orbit, attempting to refuel by use of an old gas mining station. Two wings of fighters, using the planet as cover, swept in from prograde as well as retrograde, catching the ship between it. The Sivar was destroyed while attempting to break orbit. With its engines destroyed, the ship fell from orbit and into the gas planet.
As a result of the loss of the Sivar, Gilkarg nar Kilrah, the man in charge of the project, was executed. Thus died the last son of the Kilrathi Emperor. Taking his place was the Imperial grandson, Thrakhath nar Kilrah as Crown Prince and heir designated.
The New Concordia
In 2654, the first three of the new Confederation-class fleet carriers came on line. The first was, of course, the TCS Confederation. A month after that, the Congress was launched, and one after that came the new TCS Concordia. These three new ships brought Confed’s total frontline carrier strength to 18, counting the five new Gettysburg-class fast carriers. With five carriers stationed at Munro at any given time, Confed believed that it had a 13:9 advantage in carrier strength. One problem with these numbers was that general Kilrathi design changed little, so that made positive identification on the ships difficult.
These new carriers brought with them new fighters. The Ferret (point-defense), Rapier II (escort and interceptor, slightly smaller and faster than the original Rapiers), Sabers (space-superiority, much larger than Rapiers it is replacing, and capable of carrying an anti-ship missile) and Broadswords (bombers almost big enough to be small corvettes). Three of these fighters were intended to completely replace the Hornets, Scimitars and Raptors by 2656. The new Concordia conducted a successful shakedown cruise during a tour of duty in Munro, where it launched its own raid on Munro III.
Increased Traffic
During Operation: Thor’s Hammer, the Tiger’s Claw discovered an increase in traffic in the Epsilon Sector. The Kilrathi had gone a long way in the past twenty years in building up the infrastructure. Several worlds that were rumored to have Terran colonies, such as Bifrost, Midgard and Asgard, were discovered to be utterly void of Terrans. There was some evidence that humans once lived in these systems, but if they had, then the Kilrathi exterminated them from these systems, and others that lead into the unprotected Enigma Sector.
Admiral Turner attempted to convince the General Staff that this could only mean the Kilrathi were going to hit the Enigma Sector, and try to outflank Confederation defenses that were built up in detail in the Vega Sector. However, Admiral Banbridge, now head of the Joint-Chiefs saw no evidence of troop movement. There was a great deal of building of stations and depots, as well as colonization of formerly Terran pioneer worlds. The fact that the Sivar was in the sector did not factor into the equation.
By the middle of the year, Confed Intel discovered a spacefaring (albeit only basic interplanetary) civilization that called itself the Firekka. The Firekkans were known to have outposts on the nearest planet to their homeworld, as well as orbital habitats. Little else was known about them, for Confed seldom had any interest in first-contact situations, and humanity had its own history of conquering aliens (the Wu more than a thousand years ago). Under normal circumstances, Confed would have labeled the system off-limits (for what good that would do on the frontier, which saw its natural leader as the Landreich). Given the system’s strategical location between two front lines, Confed had little choice but to send an embassy and introduce itself in 2655, as well as warn them about and protect them from the Kilrathi.
2655
Defection
Through small Prides and lone males have defected to the Confederation (or perhaps more accurately, away from the Empire) over the course of the war, never has a high born Kilrathi done so. That is until Ralgha nar Hhallas, only surviving king of the Hhallas Pride, was placed in command of the Fralthi-class Cruiser Ras Nik’hra. His plan to defect goes back two years, to the massacre of his Pride by the Imperial Pride. He survived by being in the services of a rival Pride in the Council of Eight. Ralgha was an able commander, and under his command, the Ras Nik’hra had won several victories, including against the cruise Petrograd.
The ship reached the Firekka System days before any other Kilrathi ship. Already in the system were the TCS Tiger’s Claw and the cruiser Austin. After a failed mutiny attempt by parts of his crew, Ralgha transmits a request to the Confed ships for asylum. This marks the first time Confed had its hands upon an intact and fully functional Fralthi, as well as its wing of Dralthi fighters. Nearly half of the ship’s crew was killed during the mutiny, including all those against it. A surprising number of Kilrathi spacemen were indifferent to the defection, with a majority having familiar connections with minor Prides that the Eight have exploited. In truth, there were very few minor Prides to have ever escaped exploitation.
A second mutiny almost started when Confed Marines attempted to remove the Kilrathi from the ship. While they were willing to fight against larger Prides of their own species, they assumed they would be doing so from their own ship. The thought of ending up in an internment camp caused more than one Kilrathi to commit ritual suicide rather than submit. Ralgha was thoroughly debriefed and interrogated by Intel, where he revealed Kilrathi plans for a Way of Sivar ceremony on Firekka.
Firekka
The bird-like people of Firekka were in no place to fight a full scale Kilrathi invasion, which hit the system in September of 2655. As was expected, what little “defenses” the Firekka had in space were swept aside by the five carrier task forces that entered the system. With what they threw at Firekka, the Kilrathi could have conquered the rest of the Epsilon Sector. Instead, these warrior would be part of the ceremony, which involved mass slaughter of the hapless natives. Tiger’s Claw fought as hard as it could, with its fighters destroying several Kilrathi transports. The prohibition against being killed by the enemy caused a serious lap in escorts. Confed Intel estimated nearly ninety thousand Kilrathi were killed in space.
In the end, outnumbered five-to-one, the Tiger’s Claw was forced to retreat from the system. Confed had spent three months trying to equip the Firekka. Their similar size to human made many Confederation Army vehicles easily adapted. Confed tanks and artillery operated by Firekka greeted the Kilrathi invasion force. Small arms were more difficult to adapt, given the different hand structures. The Kilrathi succeeded in capturing five of the planet’s major cities, but lack of a proper spaceport (by Kilrathi or Confed standards) made the landing of soldiers difficult. Old Scimitars, recently retired by Confed (and many bought up by the Landreich and other frontier communities) were piloted well by Firekka pilots, shooting down dozens of troop transports.
Only the rules of the Way of Sivar, which called for the mass killing to be done by claw and teeth, prevented the Kilrathi from simply bombing the planet. Thus, Kilrathi attempts to conquer the planet were slowed. After two months of brutal guerilla warfare, as well as massacring of civilians, Confed returned to the system in force. The Tiger’s Claw was accompanied by the Raj, Waterloo, Gettysburgand Confederation, as well as the battleship Half-moon along with ten cruisers and twice as many destroyers. Confed attacks failed to destroy any of the Kilrathi carriers, but forced them away from Firekka. Instead of losing valuable divisions on the planet, the Emperor ordered the planet abandoned as not to divert forces from Operation: Unseen Death.
Operations in the Enigma Sector
Kilrathi presence in the Enigma Sector was minimal at the start of 2655. Only the uninhabited system of K’tithrak Mang, where the Kilrathi had built a large starbase and other in depth defenses. Much of the fleet that retreated from Firekka escorted the battered legions to Mang Station. Several million Kilrathi soldiers were already garrisoned on Mang V and the moons of Mang VI, and fleet forces have massed for attacks across the Sector. By the middle of the year, they had already moved into several other systems outside of Confed control.
The first move of the Kilrathi was to invade the Repleetah System. Repleetah II was but a simply research colony, home to various orbiting telescopes and sensor arrays at the edge of Confederation space. Beyond it was the Landreich, and beyond that the unknown. The scientists on the planet were far from helpless. When the Kilrathi began to land on the planet, they responded with nuclear charges mounted on surface-to-space rockets. Before the research colony was overran and its population wiped out, researched managed to send out a distress signal.
Though Repleetah was of minimal strategic importance, Confed responded immediately by sending in half-a-million men to battle the Kilrathi. Over the course of the next eight years, forces in Repleetah would peak at 12 million Terrans and 15 million Kilrathi, with horrible weapons ranging from Terran combat drones to Kilrathi drill tanks. By then, neither side needed the planet, but neither side was willing to give it up. Repleetah soon became synonymous with stubbornness and futility. Before the battle’s end, both sides would sink to depths of savagery that humanity had not seen in millennia.
2656
Unseen Death
The Sivar was not the only secret weapon the Kilrathi had been working on during the decade. Early in 2656, the Tiger’s Claw ventured into the corner of the Enigma Sector to investigate Mang Station, and perhaps even destroy it. However, the Kilrathi’s new weapon struck, destroying the Tiger’s Claw and most of its patrolling fighters. Only one survivor was recovered, a Lieutenant Commander Christopher Blair. Some in Confed, such as now Admiral Tolwyn, believed him to be a Mandarin, but this was never proven. Instead, he was banished to in-system patrols in a backwater system (until the war visited that system).
The new weapon, what the Kilrathi call Unseen Death, struck across both the Enigma and Vega Sectors. The Kilrathi’s first target were the three tiresome arsenal ships. The Ragnarok, Epoch andLast Judgement were all destroyed within days of each other. Other losses included lone ships and small patrols, such as the carrier Avenger, Kipling and battleship Ho Chi Minh were destroyed, along with their destroyer and frigate escorts. The attacks were all the same; a distant contact with a Kilrathi cruiser or carrier, and hours later, Confed ships abruptly exploded. Supply and troop convoys, with minimal protection, were lost to the last ship, taking tens of thousands to their death.
A general panic spread across the Enigma Sector as word of these stealth attacks became public knowledge. Commerce ground to a halt as shipping companies refused to launch anything. There was a greater panic along the frontier as millions of civilians tried to leave their worlds, but nobody would take to space with these invisible attackers on the loose. As it turned out, their fears were justified. Behind each of these stealthy strikes came a Kilrathi task force.
Invasion of the Enigma Sector
After years of fighting in the Vega Sector, but 2652, the Kilrathi High Command decided the sector too difficult of a route to Earth. They also noticed the great bulk of Confed’s strength was in the Sector. After several retreats, Confed ships were pulled further from the Sol Sector. As it turned out, the reason for Kilrathi retreats became clear in March of 2656, when the Kilrathi struck in force at Bradbury and Telamon, with a fleet of five carriers each. The reason Confed did not see as many ships at Cairo or Venice as they should have, is because the Kilrathi were preparing a massive flanking attack, with TCN several weeks, if not months, away.
Both systems fell with little resistance, and the Kilrathi wasted no time in fortifying them. The next system to fall was Cabrea, and it put up a stiffer resistance. Confed reacted immediately by ordering half of its Vega Sector fleet to the Enigma Sector. Older ships, such as the three remaining Vanguards, were pulled off escort duty and rushed towards the front. There was some serious talk about putting the old Concordias back into front-line service. Several new ships were quickly launched from ships yards at Mercury and other core worlds, manned with any personnel available regardless of the experience.
Ships from the Epsilon Sector, those that survived Unseen Death, were the first to do battle with the Kilrathi. Concordia and Gettysburg gave the Kilrathi a good fight at Cabrea, before Kilrathi numbers forced them to retreat to Niffleheim. The invasion was not nearly as disastrous as the invasion of the Vega Sector, at the start of the war, but losses were high. Kilrathi advances were slowed because Confed had been at war for more than twenty years. Any hope for the invasion of Enigma Sector to be a shining success as the victories in 2634-9 were quickly dashed by the arrival of van Oranje’s fleet in December at Novaya Kiev.
2657
The Epee Project
Early in the year, part of the Unseen Death threat was positively identified by Confed Intel. A new anti-ship missile, code-named Skippers, were part of this new threat, though not the whole story. She anti-ship missiles have a level of stealth beyond anything Confed developed. The missiles will actually cloak themselves, using a gravitational field to bend light around them, to elude detection. The code-name came from the fact that the skippers must de-cloak in order to regain lock. The advantage to bending light is it remains invisible; the disadvantage is that the missile can not see where it is going.
To combat the skippers, a new light fighter was put into design. The F-54 Epee is more maneuverable than the P-64 Ferrets, as well as packed with more sensitive sensors. Officially, the Epee was classified as a light fighter. In reality, it was designed solely to detect and destroy cloaked objects. If the Kilrathi can apply these cloaking devices to anti-ship missiles, than they can do the same thing with mines as well as fighters. Unknown at the time of the project’s inception, the Kilrathi had already deployed a limited number of fighters with cloaking technology. All of the Strakha fighters were constructed at an assembly plant at the Kilrah Pride’s shipyards, orbiting Kilrah. Due to navigational problems while cloaked, the production of these stealthy fighters has always been limited, as the scope of their mission parameters.
Destruction at Novaya Kiev
Admiral van Oranje arrived with his fleet of five carriers, three battleships and eight cruisers, as well as other, smaller ships, at Novaya Kiev early in the year, after a several month journey through several systems from the Vega Sector. His crew was tired and demoralized at the sudden turn of events. Unseen Death started to tip the balance of the war back in the Kilrathi’s favor. The Skippers were already a known threat by the time of van Oranje’s arrival. All Ferrets and Rapiers were on constant patrol, and a dozen frigates swept space with a full-spectrum sweep.
A Kilrathi task force, less than half the size of van Oranje’s, jumped into the system from Ghorah Khar, a recently colonized system. Van Oranje ordered an immediate launch of all Sabers andBroadswords to destroy the Kilrathi carriers. The two Kilrathi carriers turned out to be the decoys. Flanking around both sides of the carriers, on long arcs across the system, were one Fralthra each. These cruisers carried a flight of Strakhas as well as Skippers. The cruisers themselves were too large to cloak, but managed to slip into firing range undetected. The first indication that two large cruisers were approaching the fleet is when the sensors on the Eagle’s Talon, van Oranje’s flagship, detected them.
Four Confed cruisers and two battleships moved to intercept these two Kilrathi cruisers, with a battleship and pair of cruisers targeting each ship. It appeared to be an easy kill. However, the Strakhawas still unknown to Confed, and the fighters carried modified IR missiles (each carrying an annihilation warhead instead of the standard fusion warhead). The fighters struck fast enough to kill the cruisersVesta and Majesty outright, and damaged the rest of the ships. While they were focused on anti-spacecraft combat, the Kilrathi launched a spread of Skippers. The cruisers Salisbury and Praetor were destroyed, along with the battleship King George V. Charles Vreeland managed to limp away from the battle and escape the system.
The Kilrathi cruisers closed in on van Oranje’s main force. In an almost suicidal move, both cruisers attacked at their cruising speed, meaning they could not maneuver or evade. Instead, they swept in at 5 PSL, and launched two spreads of Skippers before passing out of range. A majority of the missiles were killed by the patrolling fighters and pickets. However, a number of them broke through and hit their targets. Admiral van Oranje was killed when the Eagle’s Talon exploded. The other carriers were damaged, but still functioning. The TCS Mons and Congress took on the Eagle’s Talon’s fighters and was set to rearm them.
The Kilrathi carriers launched a more conventional attack upon the battered fleet near the Heaven’s Gate jump point. After suffering such damage from the stealth attacks, the fleet began to fall back. There was some hope that reinforcements would jump in, but not before the Kilrathi fighters hit. Ferrets and Rapiers held off many of the fighters, and the heavier Sabers were launched as well. Four destroyers and the cruiser Lunapolis were destroyed and Mons had its flight deck destroyed, forcing surviving fighters to divert to the Congress. With such a bloody mess at their hands, Confed was forced to yield the system to the Kilrathi.
For the most part, the Kilrathi ignored the settlements in the system and set up constructing a supply depot in the system,. Kiev Station would serve as a forward base for the Kilrathi, to resupply its ships as well as its crew. Kilrathi ships jumped into the adjacent Talbot System, and captured it without much of a fight. The Terran fighters in the system were destroyed to the last, as were two corvettes. The three million Terrans living upon Talbot VII were put to work in constructing garrisons and fleet repair facilities for the Kilrathi. Part of the reason the system fell so swiftly, despite its weak garrison, was that the planetary defense network was knocked out. It was disabled by a cell of Mandarins operating on the planet.
Though the massacre at Novaya Kiev did much to hurt Confed, it was far from knocking them out of the fight. After twenty years of war, the shipyards across the Sol Sector were able to produce capital ships faster than the Kilrathi could destroy them. Confed would entrench itself at both Enigma and Heaven’s Gate, focusing its war effort on keeping the Kilrathi from reaching any closer to the Sol Sector. Parts of the Enigma Sector would have to be abandoned while Confed shortened its defensive lines and prepared for its own counterattack.
2658
Fall of Rigel
Rigel was one of the few stars outside of the Sol Sector that had its absolute location known. It is a blue giant that forms one corner of the constellation Orion. Being a blue giant, there were no planets capable of supporting life in the Rigel System, but there were a few planets worth mining, as well as ship repair and fabrications facilities in the system. The Kilrathi fell upon the system on their road towards encircling Enigma itself. Confed aimed to defend the fleet facilities, but with the battle continuing in Repleetah, and other fleet actions planned, only three carriers were available to defend the system.
The Kilrathi hit in force with four carriers, along with six cruisers. One of the cruisers was a Strakha equipped Fralthra. The stealth fighters swept in but were thwarted by two squadrons of Epeesrushed into service. The cloaked fighters escaped unscathed, with the Epees trailing them to 0.5 AU distance from the fleet. Instead, the Kilrathi would have to rely on a more conventional attack. Their bombers, new Paktahns. These bombers could carry a pair of anti-ship missiles. Some carried conventional missiles to cover the few Skippers that two of the bombers carried. All four of the Skippers hit as Confed defenses focused on the enemies they could see. None of the carriers were destroyed, but a lone destroyed did stray into the path of one Skipper, breaking in half upon impact.
The carrier Raj suffered significant damage, enough to take it out of the war for three years. The other two carriers were forced to pick up Raj’s fighters and act as both fleet defense and defense for the fleet yards in the system. A second Kilrathi attack came the following day, using the same tactic of hiding Skippers within a conventional attack. Again, no carriers were lost, but the cruiser Ceres took a hit, knocking out half of its propulsion. The Kilrathi fleet began to close within gun range. Realizing his position untenable, Admiral Vander ordered the fleet yards to be blown and personnel to evacuated. The Terran fleet withdrew from the wreckage only an hour ahead of the Kilrathi arrival.
Drones of Repleetah
Entering the third year of the battle, over ten million Confed soldiers battled with a nearly equal number of Kilrathi across several fronts, each reminiscent of the trenches of the Great War, fought nearly three thousand years before. Neither side would yield this system, despite its relative unimportance or the cost so far paid. After three years, both sides have lost more than a million men, and both sides were desperate for any way to break the deadlock.
Confed unleashed its largest concentration of combat drones to date; over ten thousand of them scattered across the planet. Dozens of giant drones operated as units, concentrating fire on a hundred Kilrathi strong points. Confederation forces advanced hundreds of kilometers along the front lines of Repleetah, with the drones cutting swaths through the Kilrathi. Half of the drones were eventually destroyed by Kilrathi armor, but not before the Kilrathi were on the run.
Kilrathi commanders were desperate to prevent their own lines from collapsing and sought a means to blunt Confed’s attack. Their weapon of choice was far more insidious. The first indication of this new weapon was when hundreds of Confed soldiers went down without even a shot fired. The weapon was quickly identified as chemical in nature, a neuro-toxin. Confed response immediately with the cheapest chemical weapon they could put into instant use; chlorine. New chemical weapons were soon employed by both sides, and combat environmental suits became a requirement to survive the continuing war on Repleetah.
Bioships of Sheldon
The Kilrathi incursion was not defeated by Confed, but rather a relic from a long dead civilization. The civilization that once spread across the Sheldon System, millions of years ago, used organic technology to create living ships. They did not build ships, but grew them, and eventually moved on to breeding them. When the civilization collapsed, for whatever means, the bioships continued to survive in space. They thrived and began to evolve to make uses of whatever resources they could capture. Competition between ships drove evolution, as it drove an arms race. When the Kilrathi attacked one of the bioships, it responded in kind. Its whole herd fell upon the Kilrathi task force, built around a lone carrier and cruiser, consuming each of the ships. This was one enemy the Kilrathi could not spare the forces to exterminate at the moment, and the system was declared off-limits, protecting Enigma’s flank.
Ghorah Khar
One of Confed’s attacks for the year took it into the Ghorah Khar System. It was a young Kilrathi colony, but a fast growing one. The Imperial Pride controlled the planet and relocated Prides with technical expertise to the planet. Cloaking devices required extremely rare materials for vital components, a rare material that allows for focusing gravity to bend light. Ghorah Khar has the material on its surface in sufficient quantities to justify the expense of colonizing the world. When Confed Intel learned of this material, they went to launch an immediate attack.
In command of the strike was one of the youngest admirals, Admiral Tolwyn, who used the Concordia as his flag. Concordia along with TCS Bishop, escorted by three cruisers and seven destroyers, hit the system in force. Broadswords bombed the planet, sealing the known mines while Sabers destroyed several freighters loaded with the mineral. The amount destroyed or otherwise scattered across space was estimated to have allowed the Kilrathi to build over a thousand Skippers. Secondary targets of the raid included transfer stations in orbit of Ghorah Khar as well as tankers that scooped the resident gas giants for fuel. Tolwyn exited the system before the Kilrathi Navy could respond.
The Kilrah Pride returned to the planet quickly and set up restoring the mines. The Emperor’s total disregard to the colonists’ health and safety served to alienate thousands of previously loyal Kilrathi, including the three largest Prides, each vying for eventual position as planetary Pride. Not trusting slaves at such a vital resource, the Kilrah Pride pressed many of the colonists into remedial and forced labor to keep the mineral flowing from the mines.
2659
Battle of Pembroke
The Pembroke System was of vital importance to the Confederation for it sat as a nexus linking the Vega and Enigma Sectors. Loss of the system would not only split the sectors and add weeks to months on a journey between fronts, but would also put the Kilrathi within striking distance of the Sol Sector. Admiral Turner concentrated five carriers and four battleships, along with fifty other capital ships, around Pembroke Station (home to over 100,000 people) upon learning the Kilrathi planned to move against the system during the middle of 2659.
The Kilrathi appeared in the system in June and moved on Pembroke Station. The station had over a hundred Epees patrolling within one A.U. of it, on constant scan for any stealth attacks. As expected, the Kilrathi did deploy a number of Skippers in with their conventional missiles. The Kilrathi brought in four carriers of their own, and launched an immediate attack on Turner’s fleet. The first wave of Kilrathi fighters suffered losses and retreated. To Turner, the Kilrathi gave up a little too easy, and he suspected a trap. Instead of ordering a pursuit, he reigned in all his fighters, including the lumberingBroadswords. Epees detected a number of possible cloaked targets approaching, but the concentration of Terran fighters forced the Kilrathi to call off their own stealth attack.
A second Kilrathi wave came in, this time fighters sweeping in front of corvette. Corvettes were small ships, but still far larger than the largest fighters, and carried a number of anti-ship missiles. TheBroadswords concentrated on them, expending their own anti-ship missiles in taking them down. Corvettes were considered a waste of ASMs, and using one was overkill. However, the corvettes probably carried Skippers, as they did. All corvettes fired their loads before three were destroyed and the other five escaped. Most missiles were shot down, but three struck the carrier Java Sea amidship, breaking it in half. Five destroyers were also destroyed in the attack, along with a dozen Confed corvettes. Most of these smaller ships were destroyed by Kilrathi fighters while covering the larger ships.
A third wave was less successful, but did manage to destroy the battleship Endurance, but at a heavy loss in fighters. The Kilrathi lost more fighters than they expected, possibly because they expected to only be facing Pembroke Station. While Turner’s fighters were protecting his fleet, the station’s fighters, two hundred Rapiers, Sabers and Broadswords, swept an arc around Pembroke V, to attack the Kilrathi on their right flank. With most of their own fighters engaging Confed forces, the Kilrathi fleet was in a fight for its life. One of their own carriers was destroyed outright, with another heavily damaged. Three Fralthi and a Fralthra were also destroyed, along with seven destroyers. The losses were high enough, that once their own fighters were recovered, the Kilrathi withdrew from the system, seeking an easier target.
Conquest of Niven
After abandoning designs on Pembroke, the same Kilrathi fleet jumped into the Niven System, via Rigel. Niven was lightly defended, by its own station as well as a couple of fortresses. The fortresses were overwhelmed by the Kilrathi within a day of jumping into the system. Despite being damaged, and down a carrier (broke off from the fleet in Rigel), the Kilrathi fleet re-entered combat faster than anticipated. Confed had yet to rush forces into the Niven System to counter a likely move, that was predicted to be months away. The Kilrathi Admiral was not about to return home with an outright failure on his record.
Terran populations in the Niven System were light, and its proximity to the Enigma System prompted it to have some defenses. The colony on Niven III had but a few hundred thousand people scattered across its surface. The Kilrathi landed unopposed on the planet, in one of its unpopulated deserts, and went about constructing their own base upon the planet. Terrans were rounded up and pressed in unskilled labor as Prides were brought in for the more specialized work. The Kilrathi began their own massing of forces for the planned push into the Enigma System.
To secure the system, and provide themselves with some secrecy, the Kilrathi eventually moved on Niven Station, which orbited the star at the Niven II-Niven L1 point. This was close to the jump point leading into the Enigma System, and must be under Kilrathi control in order to give them surprise in the upcoming campaign. The station was captured after a week of fighting, and only partially in tact. Life support systems self-destructed, and Confed personnel attempted to blow the station. They failed, but did destroy the flight decks on the station, which were filled with outdated Raptors and Hornets, most of the production of new fighters having already been allocated to the Vega Sector. What few survivors captured were killed by the Kilrathi in frustration, and some say they were also eaten by the conquerors.
Raid on H’hral V’krass
V’krass Shipyards, in the H’hral V’Krass System, within the Vukar Tag Sector, and several jumps behind Kilrathi lines, were the prime target of Tolwyn and his strike force in 2659. After spending half the year in transit from the Enigma Sector, a strike force built around the carriers Concordia, Gettysburg and Raj arrived in the lightly defended system. The shipyards were owned by the Lushkag Pride, one of the Eight, and destroying them would not only weaken Kilrathi production, but was hoped make their government a little more unstable.
The shipyards were small, and mostly given over to the production of destroyers, with secondary facilities for landing ships, with anti-ship missile production facilities. Destroying the shipyards was easy. Tolwyn had his Broadswords concentrate all their missile fire on the shipyard’s own anti-ship missile production facilities. Since anti-ship missiles used anti-matter instead of hydrogen for its warhead, all the attack had to do was disable one of the containment fields within just one of the warheads. Being so deep within their own territory, in a previously uncharted sector (from Confed’s perspective) there was little shielding around the shipyard.
The attacks blew apart the shipyards. Had they been on a planet or moon, it would have left a crater more than a hundred kilometers in diameter. However, given the asymmetry of Kilrathi design, anything larger than a corvette must be built in micro-gravity (space or a small asteroid). Only a few invasion craft were under construction at the time, all of which were destroyed. However, given the centralization of Kilrathi war industries, one-third of their destroyer production had just been eliminated. Tolwyn paid for his attack, not in the H’hral V’krass System, but rather in the several systems he had to pass through in order to reach Confed lines. In each system, the Kilrathi attacked his fleet, but with most of the Kilrathi Navy either defending Munro or fighting in the Enigma Sector, little damage was done to his fleet.
2660
Battle of Enigma
The biggest battle of the year took place in the strategically vital Enigma System. A dozen jump points lead from across the Sector into Enigma. Enigma also offered almost unopposed movement into the Sol Sector. Just why so many jump points were linked to Enigma is not certain, though the heart of the system might offer a clue. The star Enigma was a B-type star, with little in the way of planets orbiting it– or rather the center of the system. Enigma itself orbited Enigma X-1, a five solar mass black hole. After its former star went supernova, the planets in the system were all but wiped out and blown into interstellar space. What little material that remained was rich in heavy metals, and comprised mostly asteroids and planetoids. The largest body in the system was little bigger (in terms of volume) Luna.
Enigma Junction, located five AU from Enigma X-1, was the administrative center of the sector. It was far larger than any station, and was home to over 100,000 personnel. Due to navigational hazards across the system, most of the traffic between jump points must pass within a few million kilometers of Enigma Junction. The Kilrathi planned to take the Junction by attacking the system from both Niven and Gwynedd. To meet them, Admiral Turner was given seven carriers (most of the carriers in the Sector) and hundreds of fighters. Each of the Kilrathi fleets numbered three carriers.
The Kilrathi’s first move was unexpected. A day ahead of their fleets, a Confed Corvette jumped into the system. It was damaged, including communications. Turner sensed something odd about the corvette. Though it was damaged, there appeared to be nothing wrong with its propulsion. He ordered the battleship Half-moon to intercept the corvette and escort it in. When Half-moon reached the corvette, it detected no emissions aside from the engines. The battleship attempted to dock with the corvette, and board it. When the hull was breached, both battleship and corvette vanished in a bright flash. The corvette was an old corvette the Kilrathi had captured years ago, used it some time as a commerce raider, and packed it with several grams of anti-matter. The plan was to fly it close to Enigma Junction, then blow it. Half-moon’s attempt at boarding set off an anti-tamper alarm.
Fighters were scrambled and sent on a sweep of all the jump points leading into Kilrathi space. The Kilrathi knew the ship exploded, and believed it had completed its mission. Thus, they jumped into the system unprepared for immediate combat. The fleet jumping in from Niven jumped into a patrol of Rapiers and Broadswords. In twenty minutes of combat, one Kilrathi carrier was destroyed and the other two disabled. The second Kilrathi fleet jumped into the system unopposed, and took a dangerous trajectory within a single A.U. of Enigma X-1, and used the black hole to cover their own approach. Confed had not anticipated an attack from the direction of the singularity.
The Kilrathi scored a number of hits on Congress and Concordia, and destroyed the Bengal-class carrier Beacontree as well as crippled the Confederation-class carrier Emperor. The Emperorlater succumbed to internal explosions, but not before its remaining fighters were launched. Despite the surprise that half the Kilrathi invasion force had gained, the loss of the other half of the force prevented the Kilrathi from following up on their attack. The strike force did not turn for a second pass, but made for the Niven jump point and the aid of the damaged ships. Along with two carriers and a battleship, Confed lost three cruisers and four destroyers.
The Kilrathi force assembled at the Niven jump point but did not retreat. Nor did it advance. Concerned that the Kilrathi might be waiting for reinforcements, Turner ordered a general attack on the Kilrathi. Not just by fighters and bombers, but by a number of cruisers as well. The Battle for the Jump Point cost Confed another two cruisers, and 35% of its fighters, for the Kilrathi detected its approach well in advance. Despite the losses, the Kilrathi decided to yield the system. The Kilrathi were not waiting for reinforcements, but were in fact in conference, attempting to reformulate their plans for the system. Anti-ship missiles from Sabers and Broadswords struck the carrier on which the conference was held, killing several high ranking officers. Thus, without central command, the Kilrathi were forced to retreat.
Phased Transit Cannon
Since 2657, Confed had been working on a new weapon, in reality a prototype for a future, and far more powerful weapon. The prototype was called the Phased Transit Cannon. The PTC concentrated a great deal of energy into a single beam. It would be like a large annihilation warhead exploding into a narrow beam instead of omni-directional. The PTC was designed to punch through shields and strike at the ship itself. The weapon, when first tested, managed to punch through the shields of a drone, and vaporize the drone with a single shot. R&D insisted that it could take out something as large as a Fralthra with a single shot.
There was a catch; the PTC required a large amount of power. It could only be fired after a lengthy charge, which any Kilrathi ship with descent sensors would detect. Several PTCs were integrated into the new Dreadnaught-class battleship design. While the Congress and Concordia were back in dock for repairs, each had a single PTC installed on their bow. They would have to aim the whole ship, but if the crew could pull it off, both carriers would have more than enough fire power to hold their own in a ship-to-ship engagement.
2661
Battle of the Tanhausen Nebula
In an attempt to stem the loss of systems in the Enigma Sector, Confed launched a daring strike behind enemy lines in the Epsilon Sector. The Trafalgar System had much in common with its oceanic namesake on Earth. It was a bottleneck of traffic for the Kilrathi, and cutting the line here would add weeks on to any resupply mission. Even a single day could alter the course of a battle. Banbridge sent Tolwyn with the Concordia and its years long sidekick the Gettysburg into the system, escorted by two cruisers and five destroyers. Losses in the Enigma Sector Campaign allowed for little in the way of offensive strikes, not while the Kilrathi were threatening to kick down the back door to Earth.
Tolwyn successfully slipped past Kilrathi patrols and sentries in the Telamon System, entering the Trafalgar System with no difficulty. The system was a young one, not more than a hundred million years old, that still resided within the light-years wide nebula that spawned it. Trafalgar’s age, being the youngest star on the jump point network, gives a minimal age estimate to the network’s existence. Because all known jump points start in one system and end in another, and the statistical fact that virtually all should end in the middle of nowhere, lead many to believe jump points to be artificial in nature.
The Kilrathi had a large supply depot and communication relay center located in the thick dust of the system. Approaching through a nebula was both a boon and a curse. A curse because ships easily stirred up the dust and left a trail. A boon because the dust obscured reliable sensors. The Kilrathi knew something was approaching, but the depot commander assumed it was his own side’s ships. The first hint that these were Confed ships was when the first of the Kilrathi cargo ships exploded in dock.
Battle is too strong of a term to describe the action in Trafalgar in 2661. For over a week, Tolwyn and his two carriers had free reign of the system. The supply depot was destroyed, not only cutting supplies to parts of the Enigma Sector, but also eliminated the means by which Kilrathi could relay messages between jump points. Without that, messages would take hours to days longer to reach Kilrah from the front as they were re-routed through other systems. As soon as the station was destroyed, Tolwyn ambushed several Kilrathi convoys headed towards the front, carrying anything from ammunition to replacement personnel. This “battle” forced the Kilrathi to recall three of their own carriers to patrol the system, but by the time they had arrived, Confed was long gone.
The Forgotten Battle
By the middle of the year, both Confed and the Kilrathi had withdrawn all fleet support for the ongoing war upon Repleetah. Ground support from orbit was no more, and supply convoys were growing less frequent. Supplies were still being shipped in, but reinforcements became sporadic, with the Kilrathi adding only two hundred thousand during the year. The soldiers, for the most part, were now on their own. War industries appeared upon the planet on both sides of the front as the warring factions strove to augment their meager supplies with homegrown ammunition and weapons.
The planet, after years of warfare, was no longer worth anything. It was once a marginally habitable planet, but now it was little more than a wasteland, with fall out from fission weapons (that were used for area denial), as well as dust from earlier planetary bombardments, and toxins from the unrestricted chemical warfare. In the words of a Chaplin of the old Catholic Church, humanity had finally discovered Hell. That being said, the few Confed soldiers transferred to Repleetah wondered just who up the chain of command they offended to get stationed on such a brutal world.
2662
Heaven’s Gate
With attempts to take Enigma itself thwarted (on more than one occasion), in 2662, the Kilrathi attempted to bypass Enigma altogether. By taking the Heaven’s Gate System, the Kilrathi would have only to jump to Callimachus and be able to hit the Sol Sector from there, with Sol itself just being two jumps past the Ella System. The Kilrathi struck the system with complete surprise, overwhelming the destroyer picket and storming Gates’ Station with the minimal loss to themselves. With only a pair of carriers and four cruisers, the Kilrathi took control of the space around the planets of Heaven’s Gate.
Confed reacted as fast as it could, sending the Waterloo, Fredericksburg and Resolution into the system only a week after the Station had fell. At the time, the Kilrathi were preparing to invade to ocean world of Paradise, with its tropical beaches and fertile agricultural land. The Kilrathi cared for neither, of course, and merely wanted the only habitable planet in the system as a staging area for a planned invasion of the Sol Sector. The war had taken its toll on both sides, and Confed was finally starting to feel the loss of ships. An engagement like this only a decade before would have included twice as many capital ships.
The Confed fleet struck at the Kilrathi carriers while they were resupplying near Gates’ Station. With their flight decks full of cargo shuttles, they were not able to launch fighters. Escorting cruisers launched their fighters, a squadron each, to help thwart Confed’s attack, but Rapiers and new Tomahawks kept them busy while Broadswords closed in on the carrier, and destroyed both targets. With their striking ability destroyed, the remaining Kilrathi ships broke in confusion. Without a strong, central commander, individual captains began to look after their own interests. A few ships stayed with Gates’ Station to defend the holdings, but more broke and ran. One cruiser even charged straight for the Terran Fleet, hoping to get within Skipper range. That cruiser made for great target practice for a squadron ofSabers.
The Kilrathi ships around Gates’ Station also never made it anywhere near the Terran fleet, as fighters made short work of them. Confed did move its fleet into weapons’ range to bombard the station. The Kilrathi had moved fast to reinforce it with more shields and point-defense weapons. Confed lost a destroyer to the station’s defenses. Fighting to retake the station was fierce, and virtually the entire station’s civilian population were killed in the process, mostly by hungry Kilrathi soldiers. Out of roughly seven thousand Kilrathi, only sixty-one were taken into captivity, and most of these were incapacitated. Nearly thirty years of war, and the Kilrathi still fought as viciously as they did at McAuliffe.
Dreadnaught
With the PTC proven reliable, a new class of battleships, the Dreadnaught-class, were put into production at shipyards on the other side of the Confederation in respect to Kilrah. With several PTC turrets, the new battleships were expected to have a firepower almost equivalent to the old arsenal ships, but without their vulnerability. Even while the PTCs were recharging, Dreadnaught would have plenty of other armaments, including improved grasers and rapid-reload missile launchers. The new battleships would also carry a squadron of fighters in each of its two flight decks. The class of warships was originally intended to be launched by 2663, but a series of technical problems continue to push the release date back further and further.
Gilgamish
Over the decades of war, Confed lost hundreds of destroyers in various actions, ranging from fleet battles to small raids. The Gilgamish-class destroyers, the first ones launched in 2662, were an improvement over the previous designs. Not only were they larger, and hosted heavier shields, but they also came with their own flight deck. The Gilgamishes could hold a squadron of Ferrets, Epees, Stilettoes or the new Arrows that were preparing to make their debut, or a half squadron of Sabers. Virtually all future captains would opt for the squadron of point-defense fighters to protect his ship against Kilrathi missiles and fighter attacks. These destroyers were designed to operate alone, striking deep into Kilrathi territory, as well as in fleet actions.
2663
Revolution
After years of running the mines on Ghorah Khar ruthlessly, and as well as keeping their claws upon the throats of the colonists, a spark finally hit the Kilrathi world of Ghorah Khar. One of the three largest Prides upon the planet, with support of virtually all the minor Prides, lead an attack against upon the garrison. There were three major Prides upon the planet, and not wanting to risk either getting to strong, scions from the Kilrah Pride took over all three Prides. Only a month before the rebellion began, the M’krah Pride was taken over by a pair of veterans from Repleetah, after they successfully defeated the previous three Kings (which happened to be Imperial Cousins) and laid claim to the Pride. Without having anyone from Kilrah looking over their shoulders, the Pride females organized a rebellion.
The garrison defending the largest of the mines was overran before they realized what was happening. Imperial soldiers were accustomed to fighting aliens and Kilrathi males. When a hundred thousands angry Pride females descended upon them, they hesitated, moving to defend themselves only after it was too late. Junior officers upon Kilrathi warship in the system launched their own coups, deciding to side with the Ghorah Khar rebels. Their motivation was not widely known, for Kilrathi will turn upon their own kind if they see an advantage to their own blood line. It is entirely possible these officers hoped to claim a Pride of their own.
As soon as the other two major Prides were defeated, and taken over by local males, the M’krah Pride declared itself the Ghorah Khar Pride, and Ghorah Khar declared its independence from the Empire. Normally, a rebellious planet would be ignored if a greater threat existed, or simply blasted off the face of the planet. However, Ghorah Khar was one of the few places known were a certain crystal vital for cloaking devices could be mined in large quantities. Envoys from Ghorah Khar reached for Confed lines, bringing a message to the Confederation. For the first time, an entire planet was willing to defect. The only thing worse than losing the mines would be losing them to Confed.
Retreat
Due to the rebellion on Ghorah Khar, and mutiny in its defending ships, Kilrathi forces in the Novaya Kiev System packed up and headed back to Ghorah Khar, effectively abandoning the system. When the TCS Wolfhound, on duty in the Enigma Sector between 2661-64, entered the system to raid the Kilrathi, it discovered it devoid of enemies. The Kilrathi did not even bother to destroy everything in sight while they retreated. Confed assembled a rapid response force, with a landing party of only ten thousand Marines, and entered the system. True to Wolfhound’s report, the system was abandoned. Similar reports across the Sector claimed Kilrathi forces were thinning on the front line as the Kilrathi moved back to secure their rear.
The Ghorah Khar rebellion not only deprived the Kilrathi of the ability to produce cloaking devices in large quantities, but also pulled off forces that were pressing in on Confed. The fighting in Ghorah Khar was fierce, and the rebels gained a victory when the crew of an old Snakier rose up and killed their senior officers, all scions from one or another of the Eight Prides. It was a slight boon, since the newerBrantkara-class carriers, much larger than the old Snakiers. A number of Kilrathi pilots switched sides during one engagement, causing chaos in the Ghorah Khar System. Seeing a chance the Kilrathi might recapture the system, Confed rushed its own forces into Novaya Kiev and massed for a fight.
Last Survivors of Repleetah
With both sides pulling out forces due to shifting balances of power, the last of the Repleetah veterans to ever escape the planet were pulled out in later 2663. The Kilrathi pulled out 200,000 soldiers while Confed moved 300,000 of their own. There were still four million total soldiers left on the planet, and rapidly spiraling into savagery. Over the next year, virtually all of the four million soldiers, regardless of species, would be dead either by enemy fire or a degraded environment.