[Starhawk]

2420.7 Plans within Plans
The massive Admiralty building looked ominous and dreary on the snowy and wet winter day on Icara, and even more ominous because the lawn of the massive fortress like building buzzed with dozens of Flag officers attaché’s and nobles, all of whom were slowly making their way inside. A 500 man Marine security force surrounded the perimeter and dozens of anti-sniper teams were stationed on the local rooftops.

It took hours for the crowd outside to finally make their way inside the admiralty building, and then another hour for them to make it inside the sprawling holochamber in the center of the Admiralty building, once they had all been seated the lights dimmed and a massive holographic sphere glowed to life, the sphere was a 3d representation of the Icaran Empire and the various border systems belonging to other Empires.
The sphere rippled and a close up of the two Phong “frontline systems” speared.
“Ladies and gentlemen the Cortina and Munjumb star systems, our current front lines against the Phong Federation.” The booming voice of Grand Admiral Hallice echoed across the vast chamber.
“Currently the Phong are losing this war, and badly. The military command has begun discussing the possibilities of expanding our military operations against another race, but thus far that plan has been disregarded, until now.” The Admiral tabbed a key, Munjumb IX filled the screen, on the southern part of it’s only continent a massive red circle expanded outward, the entire chamber went dead silent as every eye in the room focused on the holosphere.

“This is the reason we are all here, the image you see here is the representation of a compressed nuclear bomb which was detonated in a factory block on this world, over a thousand Phong workers and over eighty of our own engineers and marines were killed in the bLast.” Hallice paused and the map zoomed out again focusing on Cortina and Munjumb.
“We believe that the Neo Star Empire is behind the bombing, as well as the now ten missing merchantmen along our borders. The 4th fleet is in the perfect position to strike against the Neo-Stars but before the military acts we need you all to know the potential risks, that is why Commodore Lady Liza Adair is here, she is a former Rebel Alliance officer, fortunately she decided to join the Icaran Navy after the Alliance was absorbed and has proven herself adept at information gathering on many occasions.” Hallice bowed and stepped aside, allowing the younger woman to step up to the podium.

“Ladies and Gentlemen.” she said formally, greeting the officers and nobles in the room “As Hallice has stated a strike against the Neo Star Empire is a very risky proposal, the Neo Stars have various warships stationed throughout our space, if we can not destroy these ships when we strike against the Neo Star Empire then we face the risk that they will attack outlying worlds, millions could die.” the room was silent, deathly so as the information sank in.
“More risk lies in the fact that we believe the have intelligence officers in our territories, my people are tracking them down now, but there is the risk that we may miss a few and they could possibly do a great deal of damage before we neutralize them.” Gasps went up in the room as people began to realize the possible threat that the Neo Stars represented.
“Then what possible good would it do us to strike them first?” Someone shouted, every head turned to Adair but she did not flinch.
“There are many benefits to this, one being that we will gain more worlds with HUMAN populations, two: we will satisfy the Manti Kingdom who have been applying political pressure on us for our current campaign against the Phong and three: it will give us a stronger foothold in the galactic West which we do need at the moment.” She tabbed a control and the holosphere changed focus to the 6-11 star system and the base of the 4th fleet.
“The opening battle would begin here, the 4th fleet would have to strike at the primary military base that the Neo-Stars have in that region.” “Ladies and gentlemen I’m afraid the primary battle plans are classified all we need is your agreement, then we will bring this to the Praetor so he can either authorize it or shut us down, I will now take question before we decide however.”

The argument raged for hours, several Admirals demanded more information before they attacked, others wanted to strike within the next month still others were unsure of what should be done. But finally the argument boiled down the “Do we strike or wait to be attacked?” and no one was willing to wait for the Neos to strike first, the vote was passed and it was agreed that the Neo Star would be struck first.

When the proposal was brought before Praetor Leonidas a day later he whole heartedly agreed to the launching of a new war effort against the Neo-Star Empire and dispatched Messages for the 4th fleet to mobilize for battle.

Meanwhile the war against the Phong proceeded quickly as two more worlds in the Cortina system fell to the 3rd fleet, Ross and his people were racking up the kills in space as well as another seven Phong warships were destroyed during the advance.