[Starhawk]

2440.1 Born in Fire
The 6th fleet had been formed little more than a month ago when Admiral Chester Hancock received his orders to ship out to the Asterion system and intercept the Sol Coalition’s 10th fleet which had been sited by an Icaran spy.

And now after traveling through an artificially created warp point and then having said warp point sealed again the 6th fleet was entering combat range with the veteran crews of the Sol Coalition’s 10th fleet which consisted of destroyers, cruisers and super dreadnoughts with varying levels of technology.

“Admiral enemy fleet advancing at high gee, enemy destroyers are leading their formation.” Spacer Martin Hargrove’s cold soprano voice sounded surprisingly confident for a boy of 16 who was going into his first battle

Hancock felt his own anxiety gnawing at him and tried to force himself to stop thinking about the fact that he was on a ship with an untested crew, for that matter he was in an untested fleet and found his only comfort in the knowledge that the enemy fleet though battle hardened veterans were on mainly outdated ships with only a small core group of modern Super Dreadnoughts.

The first shots were traded between the vanguard of the Icaran fleet and the Sol destroyer formation with surprising swiftness as the destroyers raced into the ranks of the Icaran fleet at full speed trying to avoid the Icaran fire. Unfortunately for most of the destroyers their evasive patterns did them little good as Icaran guns tore through their shields and hull as if they were not even there, in a single volley five of the eight destroyers had been vaporized.

“Admiral enemy destroyers are virtually gone, but….hold on….” Hargrove didn’t get the chance to finish his statement as a blinding flash filled the bridge monitors; the purpose of the destroyers’ suicidal charge quickly became apparent as Sol Super dreadnoughts having used their smaller destroyer comrades as a shield from Icaran fire now brought their guns to bare on the first Icaran warships with lethal effect.

As the screens cleared Hancock suppressed a wince as he saw a cloud of debris drifting away from what had once been the HMS Herodotus; a three kilometer long warship and six thousand human beings had vanished in a ball of fire and even to a veteran like Hancock was astonished at how fast such a powerful and magnificent starship with a crew the size of a small town could just vanish in a matter of seconds as I-Laser weaponry shredded them.

The Herodotus was unfortunately not alone, the Tangu was adrift after powerful beams raked her from stem to stern, and the Sullivans, or rather the third of it that was left burned furiously as plasma fires consumed the remaining wreckage and bodies.

Though the speed of the Sol SDs had come as a shock the Icaran navy’s discipline won out and in short order the massive Icaran warships were firing back into the enemy capital ships.

“Holy God!” the helms woman screamed as she slammed the control yoke of the flagship forward and down and slammed on emergency thrust to avoid colliding with an enemy Super Dreadnought that had just blown apart the HMS TigerClaw and had come charging straight at the Fortitude as if to ram.

“All batteries, open fire, take that son of a ***** out of my sky.” Hancock shouted as he saw green beams lance out from the enemy warship as it raced forward, only two shots struck upon the Icaran’s shields and Hancock muttered a brief prayer of thanks.

The Fortitude’s own gunners had achieved lock on the Sol SD and as it swung around to fire at them again both ships unleashed their full armaments at almost the same instant, and for a moment time seemed to freeze.
Beams from both ships passed each other by meters and two beams collided with one another creating an amazing light show as energy streams arced away from the collision of almost unimaginable amounts of energy.
Icaran beams danced across the shields of the Solar SD for several seconds before contacting the metal hull with a force that actually tore clean through from as beams entered through the port side and exited through the starboard.
There was no material in the universe that could hold up to 2 terawatts of power for very long and the Sol Coalition had chosen not to put reactive armor on their warships, and even now the folly of that decision was apparent as two kilometers of ship simply seemed to start coming apart as the I-lasers tore through bulkheads. There was no massive explosion from the Sol warship; it simply broke apart in a series of small fiery chunks, one of which probably contained its primary reactor which had some how not gone critical as the ship was destroyed.

“Alright let’s pick out another target people we aren’t done yet.” Hancock barked as his some of his crew stared in aw at the still glowing wreckage. A Sol cruiser was next to fall to the Fortitude as it tried to get under another Super dreadnought and fire at it’s unarmed underbelly.

The battle lasted barely twenty minutes as Icaran and Sol Coalition forces both fought fiercely, and though the 6th fleet emerged victorious from its first battle, it had paid dearly for that victory, leaving eight Icaran super dreadnoughts destroyed and two crippled hulks, a total of 57,900 Icarans died in the twenty minute battle and though 38 enemy ships were destroyed only 5 were of equivalent class to the Icaran warships lost.

6th Fleet under Admiral Chester Hancock engages 38 enemy ships
Icaran Losses:
HMS Prince Consort (SD) (98% Destroyed- 5,900 dead)
HMS Tangu (SD) (77% destroyed 3,200 dead)
HMS Herodotus (SD) (Destroyed – 6,100 dead)
HMS Sullivans (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
HMS Junaeu (SD) (Destroyed -6,100 dead)
HMS Lightning (SD) (Destroyed – 6,100 dead)
HMS TigerClaw (SD) (Destroyed -6,100 dead)
HMS Agitator (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
HMS Tsun-Tsu (SD) (Destroyed- 6,100 dead)
HMS Italia (SD) (Destroyed 6,100 dead)
Icaran Dead: 57,900
Total Anderman Crusade Losses: 632,307

2440.4 Change in the Balance
Three months after the battle of Asterion the entire Anderman alliance was thrown into upheaval as pre arranged forces under Mantisoran control seized government officials, and vital centers of commerce, defense and communication bringing the Anderman Federation, the Empire of Man and the Sol Coalition to their knees in a matter of hours.

Thanks to Mantisoran economic efforts and public relations operations the bulk of the Alliance worlds fell under Mantisoran control without a shot being fired as the people saw the Mantisorans as heroes come to save them from an ever growing state of economic collapse and sense of fear as whole worlds were abandoned by their former governments in order to protect the “more important” worlds of their respective nations.

Two weeks into the month of Pájaro in the year 2440.4 a new nation was born as the last political holdouts of the alliance “disappeared” or were otherwise forced into recognizing the Mantisoran crown as the only legitimate government in the former Alliance controlled space, from this change in political, economic and military power the Mantis United Kingdom was forged, a nation with nearly a thousand ships under it’s control and several hundred more planets then the Icaran Empire.

The new threat posed by this nation caused even the staunchest of Icaran expansionists to pause and rethink the new balance of power in the Galaxy, the Anderman, Empire of Man, and Sol coalition had all ceased to exist and from their chaotic political infighting came a strong government with an economic might greater than that of Icara and with As Mantisoran Admirals took over the fleets and Mantisoran Generals took over the armies of the former alliance, a new corps of deadly efficient and disciplined officers took the reigns of a once disunited and in some cases down right incompetent military and from it they would create a war machine to rival the power and discipline of the Icaran Royal Forces.