[Starhawk]

2429.5 The Anderman Crusade (C-Day +4):
Wa’Tor system
It was hard to believe it had only been four days since they opened the warp points back home, leading o the enemy systems of Wa’Tor and Zerrzinbroduch, for Star Admiral Tyson Babcock, commander 1st fleet the first three days had flown by so quickly that it was just a blur of memory, his fleet had slammed into Wa’Tor VI like a Spartan Kraken through a herd of Osalynxes, the defenses had fallen in under an hour and the army regiment took out the planetary defense militia in a single well coordinated strike.
Now the 1st fleet was closing in on it’s second target, Wa’Tor IV the second target on his three planet list for the opening stages of the crusade, the three worlds closest to the warp point were selected not only because of their proximity to the warp point but because it was believed that the system’s governor was on one of them.
“Admiral sir, I’m reading two starships in orbit of target planet.” Tactical Office Manroe’s voice cut into Babcock’s thoughts suddenly, and gave himself a mental shake.
“Say again tactical?” Captain Susevni said as he took a step forward to stand beside his resident tac officer.
“Sir I am reading two unidentified starships in orbit of planet Wa’Tor IV, I don’t recognize their power signatures or their configuration.”
“Admiral Babcock I’m getting a com signal from one of those ships.” The com officer looked up from her station and frowned.
“Put it through.” Babcock fixed his tunic collar and rose calmly from his command chair.
The main screen rippled from the view of the planet ahead to be replaced by the image of a man wearing the uniform of an unknown navy, the man’s face was like cut granite, a deep frown and ice blue eyes completed the intimidating appearance.
“I am Captain Tamerlane Smythe of the ECANS Vulture, I demand in the name of the Earth Corps Alliance that you turn your fleet around and leave this system, failure to comply will result in hostile actions.” The man’s voice was calm and cold, startling Babcock with such a foolish demand two ships against 97 ships of the line, but if that captain was willing to make such a demand could a fleet be hidden somewhere?
Babcock managed to keep his expression completely blank as he looked at the man on his screen.
“Captain, I’ve never even heard of the so called Earth Corps Alliance, nor do I care what you want or believe, there are two of your ships battleships against my dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts, you don’t stand a chance, now get out of our way.” The Icaran Admiral’s tone was subdued and almost respectful. Captain Smythe kept his own expression perfectly blank as he stared back at Babcock, those piercing blue eyes scanning the other man.
“Don’t you think for one moment Icaran that I will yield to you, I’ve studied history, we all have, we know what you were like when you ruled most of Earth, and we’ll be damned before we let you rule over any more worlds then those you have already subjugated.” This time Smythe’s voice held a deep resentment, and Babcock’s curiosity turned to anger, whoever these Earth Corps people were they obviously descended from a nation that Icara had conquered back in the days of old Earth and obviously that hatred had lasted for 400 years, but for a man who commanded two inferior ships to take on almost a hundred enemy ships was either very brave or very stupid, either way it was somewhat frightening.
“Birds in the air!” the shout cut through the air like a knife and barely a split second later the alarms started howling in response to the threat.
“Sir counter missiles responding!” The tac officer whirled around to face Babcock as the holo-tank lit to show a spread of dozens of tiny missiles closing the gap, unlike the incoming enemy missiles the counter missiles the Icarans were launching carried no warheads, but instead relied on inertial force to tear the enemy missiles apart and thus were much smaller then their targets.
As the two lines of dots converged on one another Babcock took a deep breath, those missiles couldn’t much hurt a warship but they could easily kill the troop ship the were closing in on if any of them got through, the two lines that represented the missiles and counter missiles became one for a brief instant on screen and in an instant winked out, Babcock watched his the main screen as several brilliant flashes lit space.
“Fleet, permission to retaliate, open fire!”
“Fleet, this is flag, loose weapons I repeat loose weapons.”
Babcock turned back to face the master plot as a single super dreadnought broke formation with the rest of the fleet and close the range with the two enemy ships, as the Superior‘s scopes zoomed in on the Despoiler closed the range with the two enemy battleships and turned her guns to face the enemy in a broadside, in a split second her port shields dropped and the entire portside arsenal was brought to bare on her targets, the green beams tore into the enemy’s shields and armor like they were nothing, and a split second after that two balls of expanding fire and wreckage were all that remained of two battleships and 4,000 lives.
Wa’Tor IV fell just as quickly, though they put up quite a tougher fight then the two ECA ships in space had, and 40 soldiers of the 1st Icaran regiment would never return home because of it.
Wa’Tor X fell the very next day, however 80 soldiers of the 1st Brandenburg paid the price for their victory, as 100 enemy regulars had joined the fight with their Planetary Militia comrades.

Meanwhile, in the Zerrzinbroduch system:
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley and his fleet had destroyed Zerrzinbroduch VI in their first assault against the enemy system in revenge for the 500 soldiers of the 1st Germania that had been killed when their transport was hit by planetary Weapons systems and even now her skies burned with fire a symbol of Icaran wrath and might to the other worlds of Zerrzinbroduch, including the world that the fleet was currently approaching, designated Z 5 by the command staff of the 2nd fleet, her defenses were far more impressive then VI’s had been which meant that they were being far more careful on this approach, keeping the Patton far to the back of their formation.
“Admiral, we are entering enemy weapons range, in 35 seconds and our own in 60.” Commodore Timothy Marks frowned as he read the report, he was in command of the 4th Dreadnought division, the only dreadnought division presently within the 2nd fleet, Raley had the dreadnought division closing range with the enemy, while the SD division of the 2nd fleet protected the Transport.
“Admiral we are…..” The screen suddenly filled with static, cutting the commodore off mid-sentence.
“Dear lord in heaven!” The whisper sounded almost like a curse as the ship’s scopes suddenly focused in on the Raven as massive purple beams lashed out at her shields, within moments the shields flared out of existence and 5 beams raked across her hull, tearing out gouges of armor, and shields, a 6th beam raked across her unprotected shell, shattering weapons batteries along her with solar grav sail, the scopes zoomed further and Raley felt a twitch of nausea as he saw bodies sucked into the void.
God hopefully they were suited up. Raley thought a silent prayer as he turned to the master plot and saw the other 5 ships of the 4th DD close in to their own weapons range, the five mighty warships unleashed a devastating broadside and wiped the weapons platforms that had injured Raven from the surface with ease.
“Send in the ground troops, and deploy SAR teams to recover whatever personnel were spaced when Raven was hit.”
“Aye Admiral.” The com officer began relaying orders with the quiet professionalism that the Empire demanded from all it’s armed forces.

Three hours later:
Rear Admiral Patrick Raley sat in his day cabin, drinking a cup of coffee as he read various reports from his department heads, trying to ignore the quiet discomfort in his heart as he waited for the casualty lists to come in, the admittance alert buzzed softly and Raley forced himself to sit calmly.
“Come in.” he kept his voice level as he looked up from the flexi pad with the latest engineering reports on it.
Captain Susan Lap walked in slowly, holding the flexi pad in her hand almost as if it was a frail piece of ancient glass, she paused and braced to attention, the look in her eyes made Raley’s gut tense even further.
“What is it Susan?” he was surprised to hear that his voice was level, he had almost expected it to sound as upset as he felt.
“Sir, we have the casualty lists, we have 300 dead from Raven, that brings our total up to 800 so far, and sir…..one of those killed was Captain Martin Fielding.” Her voice cracked as the name forced it’s self from her lips.
Raley knew that Fielding and Lap had gone to the academy together, that they had served together on the destroyer Enterprise and the battle cruiser Midwinter and that they had both received their first commands, him with Raven and her the Terror only three weeks from one another.
“I’m so sorry Susan.” he stood and placed a consoling hand on the younger woman’s shoulder, as he took the casualty list from her.
“Thank you sir, um, I have to go back on watch to oversee the deployment of those work control parties that are going to oversee the construction of that new Shipyard station.” Raley nodded gently and watched her turn around and leave, they had all realized that there would be losses on this crusade, just as there had been on the Phong, Xiati crusades yet Raley despised the fact that he had lost so many to achieve so little, and wondered how many more lives he would lose before the crusade came to an end.