[Starhawk]

2416.4 The Galactic West and the Manti Barrier
Admiral Lord Timothy Fredricks, commander of the 4th fleet sat laxly in his chair in the flag briefing room as he read the newest dispatches from Naval Intelligence, he scowled spitefully as he read about the victories of the 1st and 3rd fleets against the Phong, Fornax had fallen and the Phong sector forces decimated so swiftly that at first the Admiralty didn’t even believe it, Ross and Babcock were on the fast track to promotion, and so was any captain who earned a reputation under their command. And here he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere with the “4th fleet” guarding the border against the NSE, who were supposedly allies to boot!
“Captain to the bridge, unknown GFG footprint!” Fredricks quickly tossed the reports aside and raced for the door from the briefing room to the bridge.
“What is it Tactical?” He asked briskly as he stepped onto the bridge at a pace that was a little faster then he would have preferred for appearances sake.
“Sir, I have two, zero GFG footprints of unknown origin, I can tell you they are likely human but nothing else at the moment.”
“Hm, Take us closer helm.” Fredricks looked over at his Executive officer, who was bristling with excitement, it was her first tour aboard ship as an exec after she replaced his previous exec, who was transferred to command a ship of his own.

The 4th fleet closed on the unknown fleet for two days before they finally entered ID range of the unknown starships, they were obviously warships, they were long spindly ships with two hammer headed ends , the hulls were pure white but shown blue in the glow of the warp point they had just emerged from.
“Sir, I am reading a dozen destroyers, several light cruisers and cruisers, 5 battleships and a carrier.” The tactical officer looked nervously back at Admiral Fredricks, that fleet could easily defeat his own, the only hope he could have was to attempt contact, but if the unknowns did not want peaceful relations this would be a very short contact indeed.
“Com get me a signal to those ships.” Fredricks had to force himself to stay cool and collected, those ships out there could destroy his pathetic little assortment of ships and open up the entire region to attack before any reinforcements could arrive from Icara.
“Sir they’re hailing us.” The com officer tabbed a few controls and a voice came over the ship’s speakers.

“I repeat this is Admiral Sanjumi of the Manti Star Kingdom 2nd fleet, please identify yourselves.” The man speaking had an accent that Fredricks didn’t recognize, but he was just glad they were willing to talk.

“This is Admiral Lord Fredricks of the Icaran Empire 4th fleet, you have entered restricted space Admiral Sanjumi, please state your purpose in this region.” Fredricks swallowed hard as the endless seconds ticked by without response.

“I’m sorry to violate your space Admiral, we are simply exploring, we are not here to start any trouble.” The other man sounded confident, he too knew how a battle between the two fleets would turn out and he didn’t even need to be as polite as he was choosing to be, hell an Icaran Admiral would have just entered engagement range and unleashed a broadside on the inferior fleet that stood before them.
“Well Admiral now that we have encountered each other, may I send an Ambassador over?” Fredricks tried again to sound as if nothing major was happening, but his eyes never left the tactical screen on his command chair, the Manti fleet was still moving, but not towards any planets in system, at least not yet.

“Certainly Admiral Fredricks we’d be honored to welcome one of your ambassadors over to my flagship.” Fredricks could almost feel the man’s smile as his voice came over the speakers.

“Well then I’ll have an ambassador sent to you within two days, please stay where you are until that time, thank you.” Fredricks said as politely as he could manage and then cut the com circuit to the Manti flagship and had his com officer open a new com to Mandow base to have an Ambassador dispatched.

After less then a month of negotiations it was found out that the Manti Star Kingdom was a powerful nation to the galactic West of Icara, it was at war with at least one other nation and seemingly winning, their military was powerful and had many battlecruiser and battleship style warships in their frontier fleets, coupled with their advanced phased poloron cannons which were at least two generations beyond the Icaran Version even a single Manti frontier fleet could decimate one of the four Icaran fleets.
These facts weren’t ignored when Praetor Leonidas personally signed the non-aggression pact with the Manti’s, who thankfully while interested in growth were not militaristically expansionistic.

However as long as the Manti Star Kingdom existed Icara would forever have a barrier to the Galactic west which would prevent their military conquest of that region.