[Starhawk]

The New Year:
The admiralty building loomed like an ancient fortress in Icara city, it’s ancient looking stone construction lent it a look of authority and majesty that was second only to that of the mini-city that was the Praetorian Palace within the empire. A large formation of soldiers and tanks wearing the symbol of the “Praetor’s Own” oversized regiment ringed the admiralty in as much a show of authority as an actual security force, for any Icaran knew that wherever the Praetor went his elite oversized regiment assigned units to go with him, and today the showing was impressive as 1,000 soldiers and 100 tanks blocked all possible entrances to the building they surrounded, their glittering red, gold and black armor of the elite shining brilliantly in the Icaran sun.
Inside the building another 50 “Praetorians“ stood watch beside their regular army comrades to ensure that absolutely nothing could harm their Praetor while he met with some of the military‘s most prominent officers..

The massive holotank displayed the entire Empire, but two systems in particular flashed a golden hue as Grand Admiral Tanya Bright highlighted the home system and another system near the fringe where there had once been a border warp point to Sol Coalition space. The other officers present included Commandant of the Marines Patrick Harris, Star Admiral Tyson Babcock, Commodore Liza Adair, and General of the Army Lucas Bradly, the Praetor sat quietly with his chief advisor Countess Brandenburg Percilla Torry next to him, unfortunately Ambassador Lord Michael Branch, the leader of the so called “Peace Movement“ sat watching as well. As the systems on the map began to glow and Tanya Bright cleared her throat all eyes in the gigantic room focused on her.
“Praetor, lords ladies, colleagues these are the locations of our two major fleet formations, the 5th fleet under Rear Admiral Patrick Raley and the Home Fleet under Star Admiral Tyson Babcock as you can see the 5th fleet would take about a year to reach home system from it’s current location, unless we open a warp point to it and bring the entire fleet home.” Bright let that thought sink in for a moment before she began speaking again.
“Star Admiral Babcock and I have spoken in depth about the deployment of our forces and their effect on the plans for the Andermanian crusade and we’ve come up with an idea, As his Majesty and My Lordships know when we open the warp point from home system to the targeted enemy system we will not be able to close that warp point again for years due to the spatial disturbances that would be caused by such an action, since the amount of power required to generate such a long distance warp point is tremendous to begin with.” Her slow confident soprano echoed in the empty hall as she highlighted and focused the map onto a single star system, Lacerta the former Rebel Alliance capital system.
“What Babcock and I propose is that instead of us using a single deployment position and committing our entire mobile fleet to one point-specifically home system- we order 5th fleet and Shaman Squadron to rendezvous in Lacerta, where there is already a warp point ship waiting, if we can do this that will put 13 ships of the line together, and with your permission Praetor we were going to detach one of the army regiments from home fleet and instead give it to 5th fleet so that we can….” her sentence was cut off as a far less calm, and far less polite voice boomed over hers.
“That is preposterous! What you suggest is deploying the vast bulk of our military away from the entire Empire and sending them all on some wild goose chase into Anderman space, well My Lady” the title came out bitterly and Bright noticed with some odd amusement that the Marine Commandant tensed visibly as if he was about to pound the man who just spoke into a puddle of slime. “What if they get wise and realize we don’t have any ships left defending our space? Hmmm? What if they dispatch a fleet to attack us we’d be leaving a door wide open to the two most important systems in this empire!” Branch nearly spat his last sentence, but he remained staring at the Grand Admiral defiantly; the “ambassador” and his followers had started popping up about two I-years after the Phong crusades had ended claiming that “God had chosen them to bring peace to the Empire at last.”
And since then have been becoming more and more of a pain in the ***. Bright thought as she saw the rude nasty little man standing, practically demanding she play his game like so many other officers-unfortunately her predecessor among them- would have done, but she simply refused and stood perfectly relaxed as she stared at Branch, watching as his face further reddened.
“Well aren’t you going to say something!” he practically shouted, every eye in the room was now on him and he knew it but what he didn’t seem to ever comprehend was the disgust in those eyes.
“Actually my Lord, I was going to say before I was distracted that this two pronged offensive will ultimately prove safer for us, as it will give our front line forces 2 places to fall back to should there be any unforeseen problems, and it will also give us the ability to put 2 entire branches of our empire’s military production to work and get said units on the lines where the fighting is far faster then if we just used home system and attempted to route every ship here. As my lord may not know but that can take up quite a lot of time.” The Grand Admiral kept her voice calm and cold, as if she were addressing an impatient child rather then a Lord.
“Well there you have it Grand Admiral.” Branch’s voice grew venomous and quiet as if he had just won some sort of victory, he paused a moment to savor the feeling and then turned to the Praetor “My Praetor, as the Admiral has just pointed out, launching an Attack from just the Home System would indeed be too dangerous, but as she also just said we would be opening two of our three major regions of our empire open to invasion, and not just one system my lord but several would likely pay the ultimate price before any reinforcements could be drawn back home, and what if…God forbid of course….something accidentally happened and our warp points were sealed off, our poor military personnel would be trapped on the other side for decades before we could even reopen those warp points, it is my belief we should just remain happy with what we have and not leave to engage others and bring unimportant people‘s into our empire.” The Ambassador bowed politely and returned to his seat, an arrogant smirk on his face, but after a moment Praetor Leonidas simply nodded curtly and turned to face the Grand Admiral again.
“As you were saying My Lady.” he said softly, ignoring the sudden white rage that crossed Branch’s face.
“Well my Lord the ambassador’s arguments would have been valid if it were not for the fact that we will not be sending the warp ships through with the fleet as we first intended, instead we will deploy them to two reserve fall back systems in the event that we absolutely must seal the warp points in Home System and Lacerta, so no matter what we will be able to bring our military forces back home should the need arise.” her smile was outwardly nothing but polite but anyone who knew her realized that it was also a predatory smile, one of satisfaction as she knew one of her enemies had just fallen into his own snare.
“Very well Grand Admiral, but I must ask, what kind of forces are we talking about here? And how do you plan on keeping pace with the Anderman being that they outnumber us 2 or 3 to 1? Especially since we will in fact need additional ships as our operations grow broader, not to mention protecting home system and Lacerta.” The Praetor said softly making sure not to give any hint of giving ground to Branch as Lord only knew how far that man could run with it.
“Well Highness right now we have 97 ships of the line in home fleet plus 6 additional super dreadnoughts coming in under designation Delta an Epsilon groups, we also have 4 army regiments totaling 16,000 ground troops and 1600 tanks stationed with Home Fleet, with permission I would divert 1 regiment to 5th fleet, putting 5th fleet’s strength at 13 ships of the line, 4,000 ground troops, and 400 tanks.” She paused a moment and shrugged “To be honest Highness this operation will take up most of our military strength, but I would also like to recall Hallice carrier group from their assaults behind enemy lines, and of course the Five Swords and bring them in to protect Lacerta and Home System respectively, and when the Nimitz carriers are complete I will assign them to assist Hallice and the Five Swords.” Tanya bright paused once more and allowed the situation to sink in.
“Grand Admiral, that will indeed be a problem in the long term if we can not bring our ship tonnage up, and more importantly localize those forces were we require.” Commodore Liza Adair of NavInt spoke up this time, her tone was soft and respectful as she glared at the holotank. “The way I see it our shipyards with adequate work forces are too few and far between and that will become a major problem for us as our crusade expands.” she frowned again and was more then a bit surprised to see Tanya’s eyes twinkle.
“Commodore you have addressed the one problem I was hoping someone would, thank you, and you are correct presently our shipyards with any quality in manpower and more importantly numbers of workers are too few and far between and though that is changing it will still take far too long for enough of our shipyards to go into full capacity to affect the outcome of our present operation, not to mention travel times between our major yards. Fortunately Tyson Babcock and Bureau of Design were able to come up with something to help us there. Tyson?” She smiled as the younger man rose from his chair and placed a chip into the information feed of the holotank.
“Thank you Grand Admiral.” He said politely as the screen behind him lit with the schematics of a massive space station.
“Highness, Lords, Ladies, Mister Branch, I give you the HMSS Lexington, she is 36 kilometers long, 10 wide, and 3.9 high, and her purpose is to increase our production capacity while simultaneously increasing our stationary defenses, in short she is a heavily armed orbital shipyard and unlike planetary yards she can produce even a super dreadnought in four months, no matter what type of world she orbits or how large it’s populace, the way she is able to do this is because she will not have to worry about boosting the ship from a grav well or the atmosphere she is working in, unlike planetary yards which obviously do.” Tyson Babcock smiled broadly as he observed the stunned expressions on his colleagues faces, and the fuming expression on Branch’s.
“They also are heavily armed with the latest shield grids, point defenses, and I-Laser cannons which will no doubt provide heavy fire support should enemy ships breach our system.”
“How soon can you have them on-line Star Admiral, and when will the first ships be completed?” Liza Adair asked, obviously excited by the prospect of a new way to catch up in numbers to the Anderman and Mantis.
“Well Commodore we can have the first several yards on-line in eight months, most of the others in nine, and the very slowest in a year, the first super dreadnoughts will roll of the lines in twelve months, and as more yards become operational more ships will come off the lines.” Tyson’s smile changed into a grin as he saw the Intelligence officer’s expression turn positively glowing.
“And just how much MONEY is this going to cost the tax payers?! And how much valuable resources?” Branch spoke up again, trying to sound calmer this time but his anger was still apparent.
“Well mister Branch, the initial construction costs will be rather high, at 3.2 trillion Icaran Crowns, and as for resources we haven’t quite compiled that data yet, however we do know that our economy can easily handle both the cost in credits and in resources, our hardest problem will be getting enough trained yard dogs willing to work in orbital conditions.”
“Well then Grand Admiral Bright, Star Admiral Babcock let’s get down to it, put the drafts on my desk by lunchtime today and I will have them approved so you can begin construction immediately, I will also authorize your military plans.” The Praetor said in a surprisingly friendly tone as he rose from his seat and walked up to shake the military officer’s hands in turn, his guards staying just behind him the whole time.
“Thank you Highness, I’m sure we can get the personnel issue worked and initial deployment strategies by then.” Grand Admiral Bright said as she smiled and shook her Praetor’s hand firmly.

An hour Later Liza Adair briefed Praetor Leonidas in private of a top secret NavInt discovery, several Anderman soldiers had been captured alive from the 4 super dreadnoughts that had been found and destroyed by Icaran patrols and something most disturbing had turned up in their physicals, it appeared that the Anderman genetically enhanced their military forces, though for what purpose Icaran scientists still hadn’t discovered.
Even though this discovery was top secret Count 6-11 (Kevin Richards) a powerful man tied to the “Peace Movement” had somehow gotten word of it, and immediately turned the resources of his company “Delta Corp” to the training of a private army, and fleet with which he could launch his own personal assault into the Anderman territories and capture a world or two as laboratories.