[Starhawk]

The Gathering Storm
“Oh what evils man is capable of when he believes he is right, even the greatest of men can drown in the blood of their self righteous slaughters.” Aeiptus circa IY 20 after the fall of Sparta to the Icaran Empire.

Chapter One:

It had taken time to mobilize the first fleet, recall all shore leave, repair and refit the warships as necessary, ensure the ships were in good shape to fight and dozens of other tasks required before a battlefleet can leave for the front lines. Star Admiral Lord William Ross had been very grateful for the months of busy work that the preparations required of him, it allowed him to think about anything but the upcoming mission; he had been a part of purification operations before, but always against Xenos, fowl creatures barely worthy of the term “sentient” but this time he would be a part of the slaughter of over two billion human beings, mutants yes, abominations to God yes but still human.
“Admiral, all commands report ready status.” Commander Evans’ voice jolted William back to the present and he looked around the large command deck of his battlemoon, Commander Evans stood by the comns section and was looking back at his Admiral expectantly.
“Give the word, all commands prepare for warp, when the warpship opens the point, divisions one through five are to take point the rest of the fleet will follow fifteen seconds later.” William folded his hands together and forced himself to keep composure, he wasn’t scared about going to battle, he had been in so many battles and in such smaller and weaker ships then this that the prospect of death in battle had become almost common place….he was more worried about how history would see his people for what they were about to do, he had over 1,340,000 good men and women under his command and he felt sick at the thought of them some day being considered butchers and murders.
“Admiral……” Rukia said softly enough so that only William could hear her “I know what’s got you bothered sir, but don’t beat yourself up over it.” She smiled faintly at her suffering Admiral but he continued to stare at the command screen ahead; watching as the artificial warp point was beginning to form.
“Rukia….Lin and I want children.” William finally said, almost mournfully “How will they look at their father when they hear he murdered billions?” William kept his expression calm and blank out of decades of self discipline but his eyes showed the pain and fear his expression didn’t.
“Sir, they will look at you like any child looks at their father, with love and understanding…..your a good man William….”she paused as if in surprise that she used his first name in “public” “Please don’t let this kill you sir, your too young and have too long to live to keep tormenting yourself.” She laid her hand on his shoulder for the briefest of moments before turning her seat to face the navigation and astrogation section.
“Astrogation what’s the status of the warp point?” She said crisply, trying not to look as if anything was wrong.
“Ma’am warp point will stabilize in five minutes, divisions 1-5 are advancing in wedge formation and the rest of the fleet is tied in and following us.” Captain Bradley, commander of the Astro/Nav section replied in her typical nasal voice that tended to grate on Rukia’s ears.
“Thank you Captain, alright order the two flag monitors to form up with the Crusade and have their SD escorts take up position around them, I want maximum free-fire coverage possible when we get through that warp point.” Rukia as commodore was in the day-to-day command of fleet operations, and the “real” commander of the battlemoon Holy Crusade out of centuries of naval tradition she would give the pre-battle orders to form up the squadrons as best she saw fit as long as the fleet Admiral had no objections or corrections to make, and William and Rukia had gone over formation and tactics planning for the past several weeks so both of them knew exactly how they wanted things to go.
“Rukia……” William spoke softly but this time he seemed to not be as melancholy “Thank you……now do me a favor.” William’s voice seemed to finally marshal its usual crisp confident tone.
“Yes sir?” Rukia said as she turned to face William.
“Don’t tell Lin any of this okay.” He looked around and managed a small hint of a grin.
“Tell her what sir?” Rukia said with a conspiratorial grin and an unashamed wink.

As the warp point finally stabilized the beautiful flash made up of almost unreal colors was visible for over five AU in every direction, and the 1st fleet looked almost angelic for a moment as the sleek super dreadnoughts, bulky flag monitors, and moon sized flagship were bathed in the heavenly light which danced across the silver hulls like an aurora across a pond, it was at that moment the speakers of every ship in the fleet came to life and Priest of the Path Lorn Doggit began to speak in a rumbling bass voice.
“To all the brave soldiers of the Empire in the first fleet, you go now to do dark deeds, as all war is dark but know this, God knows that through darkness can come light, that night always proceeds the dawn and that you his brave children do this out of faith and to protect your fellow man…..and so he will watch over you through these trials as he has watched over the Empire for millennia.” The Priest paused a moment and when he began speaking again every Icaran that was a follower of the path bowed their head, “Divine creator in who’s image we are made, who’s breath gives us life, who’s words give us strength, and who’s love shields the Empire we ask your forgiveness for these brave men and women who are about to go to war and cleanse your universe of a fowl mutation of man.” The Priest then spoke in the ancient language of Icara; the Icaran prayer of absolution was something everyone had heard, especially those in the military but somehow this time it meant more to those listening and some of the soldiers even shed a tear or two as the prayer came to an end.
A moment later Chief Rabbi Abraham Rosenburg spoke a Hebrew prayer and the Jewish members of the fleet, some 10,000 in all bowed their heads and prayed with him, not many Icarans understood Hebrew as Jews made up less then one percent of the Empire and Judaism it’s self had barely been granted legal status when the Empire first absorbed Hebron and New Bethlehem but because of their loyal contributions to the Empire, including the three million Jews that had volunteered for the armed forces or Federal Security the Icaran government had decided to allow the Rabbi’s to pray with their people before battle out of respect.

The prayers ended and the disciplined crews of the Icaran Royal Navy returned to their stations without another word, moments later the first units of the 1st fleet moved through the warp point into the Tammuz-An star system and though they couldn’t know it at the time by this single operation they were plunging Icara into one of the largest bloodiest wars in human history.

Chapter Two

The bizarre thing about warp travel is that while it is instantaneous and has none of the pesky time dilation issues that a conventional FTL drive would impose it does have a strange effect when it comes to distance, when a ship passed through a warp point, whatever speed it entered at it exited at, however the faster a ship entered the further it was “thrown” out of the warp point which had been a big problem before the invention of the GFG as this sudden increase in thrust would turn a crew into chunky bits of goo; it also meant that while blockading a warp point was theoretically possible it was very difficult to do with automated devices such as drones and satellites as computers never seemed to be able to grasp the logic defying properties of a warp jump. For decades this had made warp point battles bloody affairs as both the fleet exiting the warp point and the fleet blockading the warp point would suffer a moment of “jump shock” as both sides computers tried to calculate where the fleet had exited into real space. For decades it had been considered nearly suicidal for a fleet to attempt to break a warp point blockade unless they had far greater numbers or technology on their side, so the Icarans had developed the tactic of sending advance divisions through a warp point several seconds before the main fleet, as the enemy fleet locked onto these advance divisions it would provide the Main fleet with the time to lock on and engage the enemy. This tactic however was often bloody and resulted in severe losses for the advance divisions; with the development of the technology that made opening and closing warp points nearly at will possible the Icarans had gained an extreme tactical edge over their enemies as they could totally bypass a blockade fleet and emerge in an enemy system from a totally unexpected point.
Unfortunately for the Empire the Psykers of the Citizen Federation were somehow able to ‘feel’ changes in the warp space and even before the 1st Fleet had emerged from the warp point which had opened above the Tammuz-An VI colony there were 67 Federal warships waiting for the lead divisions, with dozens more Federal warships moving in from throughout the system.

It was barely five seconds after the main fleet warp jump had been made when Admiral Ross along with several other members of the bridge crew gasped as the battlemoon’s shields deflected the floating wreckage of the HMS Dortmunder which had perished only seconds after it had made the warp jump with the advance divisions.
“Repeat this is Saladin to main fleet, it was an ambush Federal warships and land bases opened up on us before we even recovered from jump shock, enemy fleet is closing………” the comns went dead as a vast green beam from the colony’s surface cut through the Saladin’s midline like a knife through cloth, the beam simply vaporized whatever it hit and in less then a second the three kilometers of battlesteel and 6,000 lives of the HMS Saladin simply ceased to exist as the GFGs malfunctioned and the ship vanished in what looked like a miniature warp point.
The Icaran fleet had lost three super dreadnoughts before anyone even knew what was happening but thanks to the discipline of the Royal navy and the shock to the Federal Forces of seeing a battlemoon up close and personal for the first time the 1st fleet was able to reform it’s lines, and green beams began at last to lance out at Federal warships.
An enemy destroyer squadron that was making a run on the superdreadnought [/i]Able[/i] were the first enemy ships that a battlemoon had fired upon in an actual battle, all three destroyers simply vanished as the huge battlemoon fired it’s secondary batteries, it’s spinal guns had locked onto and utterly destroyed 2 enemy battleships at the same time.

The Icaran fleet’s disciplined fire and superior firepower didn’t even seem to make the Federal Forces pause as they valiantly attacked the Icaran warships on nearly suicidal charges, one enemy superdreadnought after losing it’s main armament to the Icaran Superdreadnought, Majestic accelerated to nearly 1,500 gee’s killing it’s own crew instantly but giving it enough velocity to make it impossible to avoid by any Icaran warship, as the huge enemy ship began baring down on the Majestic the Captain of the severely damaged Nemo made a valiant choice and accelerated her own warship into position where it struck the enemy warship amidships, the two vessels seemed to simply freeze for an instant before explosions slowly began tearing the vast warships hulls apart.
As the battle raged however the sacrifice the Nemo had made to save the Majestic proved in vein as two enemy superdreadnoughts cut the Icaran warship off from its division and traded broadsides with her until her shields and armor finally gave out destroying her with all hands.
The Holy Crusade and it’s flag monitor escorts had continued to slaughter the enemies capital ships while the bulk of the fleet attempted to disable the planetary weapons platforms and destroy whatever Federal ships tried to attack them. In the end Icaran numbers, discipline and gunnery proved too much for the brave soldiers of the Federal Forces who had stood before the Icaran fleet.
“Admiral damage and casualty lists are still coming in, rescue crews are already working to recover escape pods from Starrider and Jackal, there are no escape pods from the Federal Forces sir.” Rukia’s voice was cold and calm as it always seemed to be, but William could tell from her tone that her adrenaline levels were still a little high.
“Target planet is mostly inhospitable sir, only the poles are cool enough for human inhabitants and we detect that both poles have large cities and habitation centers, estimated planetary population is six million.” Commodore Ericka Deville of the 18th SD division had begun giving her report as soon as Rukia had finished hers, the 18th SD division had been the one to finally destroy the planet’s weapon platforms, and took detailed scans of the world as they had.
“Do you want my squadron to bombard the planet sir?” Deville asked quietly with a tone that almost pleaded for William to choose someone else, and of course he could not let himself allow one of his subordinates to do something he would not do.
“No Commodore, this battlemoon will take up position for a polar kill, pull your division back to a blockade position in case they attempt to launch any ships.” William frowned but felt somewhat better when he saw the Commodore visibly relax and heard her unintentionally sigh in relief.
“Sir…..a Polar kill?” Captain Bradley asked from her station, a “polar kill” operation was only a theory that no Imperial warship had ever put into practice as it would totally ruin a planet for inhabitation, not to mention the sheer amount of firepower it would take was mostly beyond the capabilities of anything short of a Battlemoon.
“Yes Captain, now inform all commands.” William snapped, somewhat more harshly then he had intended.
“Aye sir.” Was the simple reply and William noticed that everyone on the bridge seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking in his direction, not out of disgust but out of some odd sense of pseudo-fear.

The battlemoon moved into a position directly above the Planet’s North Pole and turned to aim it’s vast arsenal at the planet’s surface, a single seventy meter diameter spinal gun locked directly onto the center of the colonial city beneath the vast Icaran warship.
“Admiral we are being hailed from enemy colony, they are broadcasting their surrender.” Commander Sho said from his station in Communications.
“Guns, do we have lock?” William said hoarsely.
“Aye…….spinal gun eight locked.” The gunnery Captain replied in an almost whisper.
“Polar kill,…….fire.” William forced himself to sit back down calmly, even though his legs almost collapsed on him.

The single vast spinal gun glowed with full power, a split second later a seventy meter diameter green beam lanced out and almost before you could blink the beam struck the center of the North Polar city, the explosion and fireball that followed would have engulfed North and South America if it had been Terra, but even that devastation only covered the true damage that was being done as the beam continued through the surface of the planet, atomizing the soil, rock, bedrock, and then the very magma within it’s path as it continued to pass through the planet, a minute later the beam emerged in the center of the South Polar city and the explosion while less dramatic then that of the northern pole was enough to totally destroy the city and it’s three million inhabitants…..the beam finally stopped but the damage had been done and parts of the planet began to implode as the planet began caving in on the vast “hole” that had been made by the passage of the beam.
The entire Icaran fleet seemed to fall silent for a moment and Star Admiral William Ross could only manage to utter “God forgive us.” Before he heard Rukia’s calm voice asking for the list of the next targets and for battlegroups to be formed for the operation that would finish the destruction of the rest of the colonies and warships in this system.

Casualties:
6 Million Federation Colonists are killed
HMS Dortmunder (SD) Destroyed (6,100 dead)
HMS Farragot (SD) Destroyed (6,100 dead)
HMS Jackal (DN) Destroyed (5,800 dead)
HMS Saladin (SD) Destroyed (6,100 dead)
HMS Nemo (SD) Destroyed (6,100 dead)
HMS Majestic (SD) Destroyed (6,100 dead)
HMS Starrider (SD) Rendered a hulk (5,000 dead)
Total Icaran losses: 41,300
Total Federation Ships lost: 67