The forces aranged around the UES Revenge were taking heavy fire from the advancing Kyreikon forces on their side, but they managed to prevent any further losses for now, while destroying an enemy destroyer. Sadly, that meant the boarders on that destroyer, up to that point fairly successful, died with it. But it was clear that it was only a matter of time until the escorts of the revenge began dropping.

On the other side of the earth, a brutal battle had begun. The United Earth ships were heavier, and more prone to risk taking, which meant that they attempted to close the range. After the initial engagement, most ships in the front on both sides were damaged, and the Kyreikon had lost the sabotaged battleship, one destroyer and a light cruiser. On the other hand, the UEN had lost two destroyers as well as a light cruiser.

Thanks to the loss of the enemies battleship, the initial engagement had thus been in the favour of the UE, but that loss was very much based on luck. Still, it meant that the battlegroup formed around the Terra now were equal in battleships, which was a huge plus.

Meanwhile, another transport fell, while one of the destroyers escorting the transports blew itself up, instead of being taken by the humans.

The situation was becoming tense, no one was quite sure which ships were under whom’s control. Although only transports had been taken until now, fear began to spread in the Kyreikon escort crews that a warship could fall, or already had fallen and no one had realised it.

This was not a particularly far fetched statement either. The Kyreikon were only aware of one transport in enemy hand, while there where in fact two. And another warship was close to falling to the UE marines.

The UES Revenge was in trouble. The enemy had three battleships, and a number of heavy cruisers. And that were just the ships identified currently. In fact, not a single enemy destroyer seemed to have survived until now. Her companions were fighting well, but against capital or near capital ships, destroyers simply did not cut it.

Already had six of them fallen, in exchange for a single light cruiser of the Kyreikon.

Which meant, although the UE would not find out until after the battle, that the UES Revenge was currently fighting with six destroyer, two light cruisers, and a single heavy cruiser against three light cruisers, four heavy cruisers and two battleships. It did not look good for her.

On the other side of the earth, the battle went far better for the UE. In exchange for five destroyers, two light cruisers and a heavy cruiser, one light cruiser and three heavy cruisers had fallen. One enemy battleship had fallen out of the enemies formation and was slowly retreating.

Later it would be discovered that the Kyreikon fleet had let important maintenance slip, which meant that not a single ship was actually capable of going into FTL. Not that it would have mattered all that much, for the FTL in Terras universe required being far away from heavy bodies of mass. One of the transport escorts was slowly repairing its FTL drive, planning to flee and bring message of the Terran tactics to the high command. Thanks to a few errors, that escort managed to completely miss how and when the boarders had appeared, even though it actually had been boarded. That destroyer would be a source for issues for both sides in the conflict to come.

The UES Revenge managed to take out one of the enemy battleships, but lost four of the remaining destroyers in exchange. Also, battle damage was beginning to mount. It made the situation a bit better, but it did not manage to make it good.

But the other side of the battle went well. Thanks to a series of undeniably lucky hits, the four remaining enemy ships on that side were wiped out, although it did not happen without losses for the UEN.

The last remaining destroyer of that battlegroup fell, as well as four light cruisers, thanks to the battleship that managed to close the range. It paid for that act, but not before dishing out massive amount of damage.

The Battlegroup around the UES Terra reformed itself, planning to help the beleaguered UES Revenge. But it was found the the Therion had been damaged to much, which resulted in her retreat.

While that was going on, the UES Revenge lost more of its compatriots. In the end, only the heavy cruiser, a single destroyer and one of the light cruisers remained, although that was not achieved without cost for the Kyreikon. Two light cruisers were removed from the kyreikon order of battle.

The fleeing kyreikon destroyer managed to repair its drive, which meant it only needed to reach the point were it could go FTL to retreat.

The other ships of its former squadron, still protecting the transports, just lost a light cruiser to the humans. Not that they realised it.

The destroyer, which had been disabled a while back finally capitulated to the humans. Admittedly, it had been mostly in the hands of them for a while now, but considering that both parts of its ammunition and its reactor threatened to blew up, nobody could be bothered to actually formally capitulate, or demand such a thing.

The engine of the retreating enemy battleship fell apart, so that it was now floating in space. It would come relatively close to the transports and their protective detail, because the battleship had originally planned to join forces with them, to escape if possible, or to cover the retreat of those other ships if not. It now lacked the mobility to make that possible.

The UES Revenge was weathering the storm. The destroyer had already been destroyed, and the light cruiser was nearing destruction. In exchange an enemy light cruiser had fallen, although that would not have been possible without internal sabotage, thanks to the UE marines.

It would end soon.

One way or another.

Lucas Tarson was praying. He hoped that the Terra and its squadron had managed their task and would come in time. He did not want to die.

The Revenge was dying. But then the wonder happened. A second UE fleet, lead by the Terra was falling upon the enemies uncovered back. It quickly became a massacre, but not before the last remaining ship, beside the Revenge, died. The heavy cruiser UES Amazon would be remembered by all that served on the Revenge.

The rest of the battle was over quickly, although not without further losses. The Terra lost one of its accompanying light cruisers.

Lucas Tarson survived.

After that was done, the Revenge began to retreat to the Gate, while the Terra secured the convoys. On the route there, they managed to take the damaged battleship of the enemy. The remaining escorts capitulated without an exchange of fire being necessary.

The FTL method possible in Terra’s universe is interesting. It is similar to what old science fiction called hyperspace travel, moving into a different plane of being, into a hyperspace, in which different laws of physics existed. Most of them were similar enough, but the important part is, that the hyperspace was technically smaller than the normal universe, in fact by several magnitudes. No exact value for that can be given, for every time a ship goes into Hyperspace, it goes into a unique “layer” of it, depending on location, drive, real universe speed and a number of other factors. While you can somewhat guess your speed, this naturally makes longer journeys very difficult, and keeping a fleet in formation is nearly impossible.

One needs special, exotic materials to built a hyperdrive. They can not be found in nature, well not beyond what has been introduced by different cultures, but are surprisingly easy to manufacture as soon as you have access to zero g environments.