Solace: Joyeuse station

Joyeuse sat over the frozen world of Solace, a star in the sky nights sky, ever gleaming and unchanging. Joyeuse was the system's guardian, her knight in shining armor standing unyielding at the gate, her champion who kept her safe from pirates, raiders, and orbital disasters and right now she was fighting for her life.

"Twenty four incoming unidentified contacts Sir, approximately four cruiser sized ships, fifteen frigate or destroyer sized contacts, and five corvette sized signatures." Reported sensor technician Liam Hall as the powerful radar, thermal, and lidar scanned over the void.

"They're spreading out sir, looks like some of them are moving to engage the merchies." ST Hall reported.

Captain Willard Grant was relatively new to his job, he had been placed out here, almost on the edge of union space, to gain some experience in the art of command, he'd never been in combat, not even with pirates or raiders. All Grant had ever done for the navy before now was push papers in large office buildings, or organize logistical convoys, the most violent thing he had ever done was punch a schoolyard bully almost thirty years ago. Captain Grant was not a particularly violent man, he had joined for the commission, for the free schooling, and because his father had thought it would be good for him to learn some discipline. His impulsive cry of "Shoot it!" Had surprised just about everyone on the bridge, including himself.

Looking out at the fleet of enemy vessels he wanted to run, he wanted to hide. The people below him though, they needed him, they needed his station, they needed its guns, its missiles, its drones. He was frozen with indecision.

"Captain Grant." Whispered a voice in his ear.

He started in surprise when he heard the little voice whisper to him through his earpiece, eyes flickering around the command deck.

"Relax Captain... breathe, that's it slowly, in and out. Don't be afraid now Captain, even I had to start somewhere after all."

It clicked in his mind, the stations AI- of course that was who was talking to him.

"Charlemagne?" he asked straightening up as he placed his hands behind his back, taking up the position of at-ease. It made him appear more relaxed, and had the added side benefit of hiding his trembling hands from the bridge crew.

"Yes Captain, how may I be of assistance?" The station's AI asked over the intercom.

"Can you give me a targeting vector for the incoming enemy ships, and force measurement comparison?" Grant's voice was cool, calm, collected. He absentmindedly wondered how he had managed to keep his voice from quaking in front of his command staff.

"Certainly Captain Grant." The AI replied. Then his earpiece whispered to him again, "that's it. You're doing a good job so far Captain, just remain calm, remember your training, and everything's going to be just fine."

Above the bridge, a list of in system assets flickered to life in a comparison grid.

"Four corvettes and the station against... that...?" Grant's heart seemed to skip a beat.

"Not just any corvette's sir, they're those new Models B.A.E., Boeing, and Lock-Mart were bragging about." The AI replied. "I've seen the schematics, they're nasty little buggers. Hundred meters long, they're sleek, fast, and they pack a nasty punch with those main guns of theirs." Charmaine's voice was calming as the AI focused on keeping the captain from having a panic attack.

"Right... right, can we send the corvettes to intercept those ships heading for the merchant craft?" Grant asked. "they'll need cover in order to escape."

"Right away Captain." He wasn't a bad man, Charlemagne reflected. Inexperienced? yes. scared well who wouldn't be? Still, he had potential, all the AI needed to do was give him a little push in the right direction.

Ruk Command Cruiser Kas'oh

"Open the communications relay." Growled Battlemaster Thad Mas.

"As you wish battlemaster" Communications technician Joh Corba Replied, activating the required systems.

A large bridge filled with strange pink things filled his vision, no natural weaponry, nothing intimidating on them... ah well didn't matter, they would join or die like all the rest. He opened his jaws to speak as a a small squadron of his formation moved out of formation to capture several ships that appeared to be some form of freighters.

Then, six of his ships suffered simultaneous impacts from some form of heavy kinetic weaponry. Cruisers Saiko and Fasah, Destroyers Hamba and Guiken, and the frigate Fatung were all struck within one tenth of a second by Joyeuse's main weapons systems.

They'd not even waited for him to declare his ultimatum, they'd just opened fire on his fleet!

Thad Mas was about to voice his outrage when the transmission cut off and the damage control teams aboard Kas'oh reported repeated multiple low caliber kinetic weapons impacts upon the hull from secondary battery fire. Battlemaster Mas looked at the structural integrity indicator and had to keep his carapace from locking up, desperately willing the shield generators to charge faster he stared at the integrity meter drop in disbelief.

Joyeuse station was considered to be a "medium grade" combat station, built for dealing with large pirate raids or small to medium military incursions. She was not meant to be a substitute for an entire military battlegroup. Despite this, Joyeuse was not lacking in the either the offensive or defensive armaments department. Her primary battery consisted of sixteen twin turreted fifteen inch gauss cannons, with a secondary made of almost sixty single barreled five inch gun turrets, these kinetic weapons were backed by almost one hundred and twenty missile tubes, half of these weapons could be brought to bear upon any direction at any time due to her cylindrical design finally there were her half dozen drone bays, each of which could hold almost thirty automated fighters. This mix of combined armaments made Joyeuse a very dangerous fortification to venture near to. Furthermore unlike Columbus, Joyeuse did not have a glass jaw, she was was equipped with a duet of electrostatic field generator systems which were coupled with meters thick armor and hundreds of fifty millimetre point defense cannons.

Pitted against her and her escort of K class corvettes were the lead elements of the 400th Ruk expeditionary fleet lead by Battle master Thad Mas, which was currently in the process of being horrifically mauled by Joyuse's primary battery.

"Cruiser Saiko reports half a dozen internal fires and a sudden spike in radiation levels on decks four through six, half her weapons batteries have been stripped off and her shield generator room has suffered severe damage, Cruiser Fasah reports that they have suffered a glancing hit that has exposed every starboard compartment upon deck three to vacuum, Destroyer Hamba is not responding to hails and destroyer Guiken is reporting results of what appears to be an over penetration through the command bridge, while frigate Fatung reports that her engines have been crippled." Reported the tactical officer aboard the the command cruiser.

"They're striking us with kinetic weapons... no known race uses those, although Battlemaster Thars Krast reported contact with an odd new species with a homeworld nearby that used them recently... Hue-mans I think they're called..." The Battlemaster mused,

"Voidmaster, send Frigate Vastur back to the hub system to report our finding. It seems that Battlemaster Krast was mistaken, we didn't discover their homeworld after all."

"As you say Battlemaster." the voidmaster responded

"this fortification... if the reports his voidmaster gave us are true, it will be exceedingly difficult to kill conventionally... let us try something else instead voidmaster. Prepare the marines, we shall attempt to board." Battlemaster Thad Mass stated clacking his jaws.

Solace: Joyeuse station

"Sir, they've managed to breach our shielding, damage control crews report the total destruction of hanger bay four and heavy damage on decks one one through three." Charlemagne reported. "Furthermore, they're not slowing down, they appear to intend on either ramming or boarding us captain."

"All of them Charlemagne ?" the station's commander asked slightly paling.

"Yes sir, all of them." The AI replied.

Captain Grant nervously drummed his fingers on the steel tabletop before stopping and looking up at the battle screen.

"Charlemagne, where are those corvettes...?"

The AI showed him, and Captain grant smiled, "If those Corvettes are as nasty as BAE made them out to be, we might just get out of this after all..."

The K class corvette was the bastard offspring of a joint venture between BAE, Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing, sleek and efficient she was comparatively lightly armored and shielded compared to other union designs. Each K class Corvette was a hundred meter long angular teardrop, her rear third taken up by massively over sized engines and reactors, with the front two thirds making up her living spaces and other vitals. What really made the K class corvette dangerous was her two hundred millimetre gauss cannon, normally such a weapon was dangerous, but not particularly devastating. Her gift from the engineers at Boeing, the original pioneers of magnetic weapons technology, had been this weapon's system.

It was an axial eight inch guass cannon that reached all the way along her length until it reached her engine compartment. Fed by a rotary auto loader and powered by twelve massive capacitors which were themselves fed by a dedicated reactor, a K class could fire up to twelve two hundred millimetre slugs with a similar power to a light cruiser if given enough time to charge. Of course, being a human design she did have some secondary weaponry, a quartet of one hundred and twenty five millimetre guass cannon turrets and ten missile tubes, as well as a small point defense network rounded her off. However everyone agreed really that the main show was her main gun, and the speed and maneuverability she had obtained specifically to be able to maneuver that weapon into the best possible position to inflict maximum damage.

All four of these corvettes had been blatantly ignored by the enemy fleet, which had outright passed them by, leaving the innocuous corvettes facing the enemy's rear. That mistake was one that that they would come to badly regret when, as one they took aim at the enemy fleet's engine clusters.

Ruk command cruiser: Kas'oh

"we have closed to one thousand kilometers with the station sir, preparing to-"

The ship shuddered as she was struck behind by a rapid discharge of eight two hundred milimeter shells in her engine cluster, each eight inch shell smashed through the vulnerable engines and penetrated her hull spreading out across each of the ships nine decks, in one case even shearing though a deck for almost a hundred meters before the projectile came to a stop, the second shell smashed through decks seven, eight, and nine before smashing against the exterior hull armor and ricocheting off of it. Lacking the penetrating power to go through her armor twice, the shell began bouncing through deck nine, turning it into an abattoir as spalling and fragmentation hurtled through the decking at thousands of meters per second, other shells had a similar effect, some ignited fires, others smashed into reactor walls, all of them were devastating, and all of them had a secondary effect that horrified both Battlemaster and his Voidmaster. Seven of his ships had lost power, and they were on course to enter the planet's gravity well.

"No..." Battlemaster whispered.

The cruiser Mashi, as well as destroyers Jongo, Vaska, Thanas, and frigates Lusan, Fogaus, and Xenath slowly drifted into the planet's gravity well... and the ravenous world's gravity lazily seemed to reach up and drag the warships and their screaming crews down to her surface.

"Away boarders." The Battlemaster snarled. "These Humans are going to PAY for what they've done to my ships."

Chanthem system: Galatine station

Gawain looked over the encoded message he was currently in the process of decrypting.

Its contents really were quite fascinating... it flicked its back to the raw data that it had received from Commodore Samada on the new enemy that they had encountered. Their ships appeared to be quite vulnerable compared to their human counterparts, as was evidenced by the enemy's battleship being destroyed in single combat with Vigil, but their weapons... now those were interesting.

The ability to destroy a Terran Union frigate in a single strike was shocking, Union ships were designed to simply not die, their armor and shielding gave them superb defense, but the battleship had done something outright unheard of, it had nearly destroyed Veracity in a single hit. Those weapons bore looking into, something should be done about them really... the AI looked through its old files on planetary reentry and began to run them through one of its processing stacks, this would take a while, but it was fairly certain that this was processing power well spent. Now, back to that encrypted message, my oh my this was interesting indeed... Gawain almost trembled with anticipation. If this was true, and the messenger was correct... things would finally stop being so boring around here. People would die true, but Gawain was not made to be a mediator or trade negotiator, first and foremost, they were a soldier. he ached for the time when he could fulfill his true function again, and soon, perhaps they would be able to. Gawain thought about the past as he began to once again download and run ancient cyber warfare programming and combat algorithms. Gawain, knight of batch round table soon would stand ready again.