Ascent to Greatness: A Junior Officer's Tale

[Azatol]

Chapter 10 – Glory and Envy


To: Toltayan Fleet


All missile based ships are hereby declared as obsolete and to be scrapped. As we are transitioning to peace time, excess naval personnel will be honorably discharged by seniority and request.

The fleet will be transitioning to a larger base hull size, named the cruiser. New construction will match old so that the fleet remains the same size it was after scrapping missile ships, but is transitioned to the latest vessels.

A special program for retiring naval crew would put them in civillian colony vessels. Colonization efforts are being refocused to provide room for growth. Current priorities are for good research planets, because currently there is a vast surplus of raw materials.

The fleet will stand down for the next year to provide leave for all crew members. Orders for reasignment will be processed after all retirements and requests have been filed.

***

“The pace of progress the King’s researchers are giving us is so quick that we don’t know what to teach. The equipment used in the next generation of ships will be so far beyond what we have now that its hard to give anyone training in anything beyond the core basics. For instance, a breakthrough in propulsion is imminent that will totally change the face of the engine room and require a new set of experts to run its exotic systems.

In terms of ship design, shielding becomes more important with each improvement in its design. The Aya is on iteration 4, and its initial design is only 6 months old. Its shield coverage improved 50 percent, sensor equipment has advanced in leaps in bounds, as have ECM packages. Point defense is becomming brutally efficient, asking the question of how much is needed for everyday fleet purposes. It’s a tough question dependent on how stupid the enemy is. Missiles are obsolete against modern point defense, but its hard to justify lots of point defense without missile threats. In turn if point defense is minimized missiles become an easy victory route. We’ve ran several iterations of that dance through the fleet simulator.

But enough about the struggles of running the academy, what’s your next position?” the Weaponry college dean asked me over lunch. I knew that things we changing rapidly, but he had a bigger picture of that change.

“Probably Cannonry Operations Chief, in charge of all the main cannons, on the Aya. The Aya is going to be the best staffed vessel in space, it has a bunch of new positions, like specific weapon combined operations commands. So another commander will run the engine destroyers, and a third the point defense. Someone will run the shield systems, and another will run the sensors and ECM.

Its not an active sort of position, after all, whose going to dare to attack our homeworld, but it is prestigious. The king is making the place a home away from home, and a statement of his power, who wouldn’t want to serve onboard? Plus the starbase is going to always be state of the art, the king has commited to that. Like you said, they are on iteration 4 already.”

“I’ve heard the pricetag is 34 billion credits.”

“The King hasn’t said anything about it, but his coffers aren’t empty these days, by any means.”

***

The shuttle was orbitting the newly completed Aya, which was already into its first retrofitting to improve the shield and sensor systems.

Aya’s cannons seemed as big as a frigate all by themselves, I thought to myself. The starbase was fixed in position relative to the planet so that all nine cannons could be mounted outwardly where they would be able to hit anything approaching the planet.

The giant engine destroyer had a lot of power cables that seemed to lead inside, forming a scaffolding of cables. It seems the weapon was power hungry, but engine destroyers had never been used in combat.

Point defense was stacked in three groups, all facing outwards. The station had a limited amount of manuevering thrust, but its mass would make it hard to turn. Facing the admittedly unlikely threat of an internal rebellion, the starbase would be helpless until it could be turned 180 degrees. The nine cannons firing together could hit with a combined energy of 2.2 gigatons.

***

To: All Military Personnel


Introducing the Visiru battle cruiser. It has 50% more firepower than previous designs, with 6 large cannons, 200 megatons rated shielding, and the standard ecm/sensor packages that have featured on all recently designed vessels. The vessel has three point defense cannons and additional fuel and ammo storage.

***

Serving in the military during peacetime is a matter of routine and bureacracy. With no immediate threats and peace with both our neighbors the fleet was slowly rebuilt with better ships, but the frontier held the excitement of the times as colonies were established further and further from homeworld, extending the reach of the kingdom. Most of the colonists had already colonized another world before them, as sending people all the way from the homeworld to the fringes of space was too difficult.

Technological advancement was the King’s tune in many areas, and although some planets were still set up for mining and harvesting resources, many others became academic colonies, and still others became warehousing colonies.

***

We were running test fire combat engagements, and using just targetting solutions, the Aya was able to demonstrate it could destroy two and a half cruisers in one salvo of its guns. The damaged third vessel was immobilized by the engine destroyer as well.

The fleet was still closing in as the Aya continued to rain death upon them. It’s second volley destroyed three ships as they tried to get in range against its superior cannons. The battle cruisers could survive an extra hit over the other vessels, but the shielding on all the fleet vessels was not able to make any dent in the Aya’s firepower.

Finally two Vizirus and a Sighisora got in range, and all their firepower combined was not able to surpass the Aya’s shield rating. The Aya wiped out the rest of the engagement, and smashed all expectations of its performance. The Admiral thought his fleet would surely best it, but the Aya had defeated the fleet without even running through its shielding.

The King was quite happy onboard, to hear his starbase was so powerful. The Admiral was angry and hoped to improve his fleet, in case he had to face an enemy with such a starbase.

***

Every ship in the fleet was being retrofitted for the new Contra-terrene engine technology. The new engines would significantly increase acceleration rates and manuevering.

Meanwhile new colonies were opening up, even for residents on homeworld, scientists had invented a system to make ice colonies habitable and liveable, which would open up a number of colonies in the home system, and throughout the empire.

***

This journal has been archived for efficient storage, as it has not been accessed in over six months.

***

It was a sudden blow, I had taken a liking to the rather soft position onboard the Aya, where drills were run once a month and even the officers enjoyed the finest meals in the kingdom, plenty of free time and comraderie with fellow officers.

One might say I lost some of my military sensibilities, getting casual about things that I never should have. Then, on 2414::03::07, the Piundon Empire and the Kithra Consortium jointly declared war against us, citing the fact that we were too mighty and they feared us. To my thinking, that fear should have silenced their desire for war, but nonetheless it was war time.

In the several years since peace had broken out, colonization continued, and sensor technology was developed to an incredible pinnacle, although the Tirgoviste battleship had not yet been redesigned with the latest improvements.

The King wanted us to go after the Piundon first, since they were close by. Hopefully, the might of the fleet could quickly end that war, but there was no certainty. Many officers had retired during peacetime, and so when war broke out, my name was selected to captain one of the older generation Vizirus, specifically Viziru 001. So I transferred from the Aya, and assessed the Viziru’s capabilities. It was far more powerful than any vessel of the previous war, but substantially weaker than the Tirgoviste.

As Captain Dorn, I boarded the Viziru on the 14th, just 7 days after war had been declared.

“Captain on deck!” the bridge commander shouted as I entered.

This was actually my first time on any bridge. A main display showed tactical elements while other bridge crew had smaller displays and control systems. The bridge could fit five including the captain, but I knew much of the combat would be handled by the weaponry teams elsewhere.

Propulsion was controlled here, and also at engineering if needed.

Bridge commander Jeff was my second in command, in charge of the bridge and the ship whenever I wasn’t on duty. He had already served with the crew of the Viziru it seemed.

“Fleet orders have us leaving orbit in thirty minutes sir. Engine test is currently being performed. Anti-matter containment is steady. Ever served on a contra-terrene vessel sir?” he said.

“I’ve been on the Aya since the end of the Amon’krie war, so no.”

“Ship hums a bit different than the old ion drives. And these days the engine room is the highest security area. Anti-matter is not available to the general public, and one mistake in handling the containers means tearing the ship apart in an instant. Expose one quart of anti-matter to air, create an explosion equal to 15 volleys of the Aya’s main cannons.”

“I’ll try to remember that. What do we know about the Piundon?”

“Fleet says almost nothing, they’ve sent over a few scientists, but they’ve been rather tight lipped. I recommend we prepare for anything, as far as enemy capabilities go.”

“Thank you commander, finalize that engine test and we’ll leave orbit.”

***

“What was it like on the Aya sir? Such a prestigious station, and the way the fleet lost in battle testing to the Aya, you couldn’t have planned a better way to make the King happy. Those cannons are unbelievable, the test system declared this vessel dead in the water after two hits.”

“Luckily I can almost guarantee we won’t be facing anything like the Aya. The Amon’krie, for instance, have no sense of monumental shipwrighting projects such as the Aya. The Aya’s glory didn’t just go to its namesake, but also to the guild for constructing it. If only we could have an Aya with engines, then we’d be unstoppable.”

“And slow, very slow, but with the range on those cannons, nothing could stop us,” he said.

“Coming up on the Lundra wormhole, all hands to battle stations, we don’t know what could be facing us on the far side.”

“Aye, sir. All hands to battle stations,” Jeff transmitted on comm to the crew.

The sensors chief counted off time to wormhole entry, “15 seconds.”

“Nothing on scanners but three colonies sir,” the chief said.

“Fleet orders incoming: proceed to fourth planet for Marine insertion.”

“Set course to Lundra IV” I said.

***

I almost wished for a worthy opponent as we swept across system in what was basically the same drill as the end of the Amon’krie world, hop from island to island facing small missile silos at best, and capture the planet. I hoped that our fleet could test its strength against a real enemy fleet rather than the single ships the Amon’krie had sent against us, that would allow us to demonstrate our power.

***

“Piundon light cruiser inbound, prepare all weapon systems,” I said as the Piundon ship approached.

“Fleet orders: break formation and close in on the enemy craft, weapons free,” Jeff said, reading off the incoming orders.

“Fleet message: Viziru 003 is in range, heavily damaged the enemy vessel.”

“Close in for the kill,” I shouted.

“Aye sir.”

“Ready all cannons for firing on my mark.”


“4000 kilometers and closing,”

“Fire!”

“Shots are away...six shots – six hits, confirmed kill for us. Congratulations captain... New fleet orders: proceed to Quornor III for Marine insertion.”

***

To: All Military Personnel


Introducing the Oravita Dreadnought. Weighing in at 1.0 megatons, the Oravita is equipped with a new type of weaponry. Using the exotic polaran particle, the phased polaran beam is a particle stream that heavily damages the target. The nature of the particle’s phasing means that it is unaffected by all known shielding technology.

The Oravita equips 10 heavy phased polaran beams, as well as 900 points of shielding, and the most sophisticated ECM and sensor equipment in the fleet. The Oravita will begin construction immediately.

***

To: All Military Personnel


The four battleships of the Reserve fleet took out 3 destroyers, a frigate, a satellite cluster and a space station controlled by the Kithra consortium yesterday. Unfortunately, the fifty divisions planned for the invasion of the Kithra homeworld were overwhelmed by an estimated 80 divisions of Kithra militia. Recruiting has been stepped up on the Amon’krie homeworld to conquer the Kithra.