Orion Federation

Part Six

In year 413 the first wave of formal conflict with the gas bags begins. There are dozens of confrontations in dozens of separate shared systems. The vast majority of the confrontations end without combat. However, in our Fortress System of Tefnut, we attack the Gas-bag colony, destroy its space defenders and then bomb the colony out of existence. Knowing that the numbers are VERY much against us, we are desperately searching for a way out of this war, or at least a way to find outside support to take away some of the pressure that their awesome fleet can bring to bear.

Hoping to aid us in freeing up some of our armadas, Ambassador Williams again offers peace to the Gamro Empire. We are sure that the crystals do not like us very much, hell we already absorbed a majority of their empire, but perhaps they will see an armistice as time to be free of fighting and time to rebuild their fleet. While this could pose more problems for us in the future, we will have to deal with that later.

In 414 Admiral Greer formalizes a grand strategy that will give us our greatest chance of victory. We will put up a token defense in key star systems hoping to delay their main fleet from taking too many of our frontier worlds. While we are lightly defending the frontier, we will be attacking Gas-bag worlds in systems that we share and happen to be located closer to our core. The hope is that if we can take/destroy more worlds than we lose then perhaps the war will end before we are annihilated.

In keeping with this plan we attack the gas bag world of Pavone I and destroy its defenders. The our fleet bombs the world doing a great deal of damage. Auarhciniala launch an attack against Tefnut, but they are summarily repulsed. Dozens of other systems see confrontations, but thankfully no battles as our forces in most systems are more or less equally matched.

The next year, we bomb the colony of Pavone I out of existence, and attack the world of Merkent III. Defeating the defenders of the Merkent system we storm Merkent III on our frontier and capture the colony! Our sensors in Tefnut detect a VERY large fleet heading in. If we lose Tefnut, then our empire will be cut in half! Admiral Greer orders our fleet their to hold their ground and defend to the last. Enemy forces on our frontier are also massing in the neighboring systems of Ibis and Joseki. Hoping to hold Joseki as a chke point we pull our forces out of Ibis to Joseki in order to increase our garrison fleet there. We are hopelessly outnumbered in both systems.

The year is 416 and a fleet nearly double the size of our garrison force has just entered the Tefnut syststem. Not wanting any of the invader to be able to get beyond this choke point Admiral Greer order our fleet to intercept the interlopers. There is a very large and vicious battle, but we destroy ten armadas of invading ships. In the end, we lost 58 ships while the gas bags lost a staggering 136. We have achieved a major victory, but given the relative strength of each of our fleets, I am afraid that it is but a pyric victory. A few more battles like this and we will lose the war.

We bomb the colony of Waage II and they bomb and destroy our colony of Ibis I. Wanting to maximize our use of current technology Admiral Greer orders a complete redesign of the entire fleet. Some congressmen are angry about being bypassed in the decision to redesign, but knowing that the survival of our people is at stake they decide to not make a big deal out of it. After redesigning the fleet, Greer pulls the remaining ships from our reserve in a reinforced reconnaissance armada and assigns it to the Tefnut system.

The very next year, in 417 there is another large battle for control of the Tefnut system as the remaining armadas from the gas bag fleet are intercepted. Once again our fleet is victorious, this time much more decisively so. We lose 3 ships while the gas bags lose 80! Our people rejoice at the news and broadcasters everywhere state with more victories like this we should be able to achieve total victory. Hearing those reports of course is enough to make Admiral Greer want to laugh or cry, he is not sure which…

There are a number of other battles the same year. In the Waage system, we attack Waage II. The space battle is very nasty with the system defenses causing terrible damage to our fleet. We win, but we also lose 12 ships in the fighting. We then bomb the colony of Waage II once again. We lose battles at Colmar and Girtab while in the Merkant system the battle results in a draw.

In year 418 we notice a large concentration of enemy ships building in our shared system of Joseki. If we lose this system then we will lose the entire frontier! We attack and win once more in the Waage system. We lose battles in Phlegyas, Indactyl and Merkent. Muru III is attack but we are able to bring the battle to a draw. Indactyl II is lost to enemy bombardment. We have inflicted some losses, but thus far the war is not going well for us. We will need a miracle if we are to survive much less win. The vast number of enemy ships facing us is just too much. Without some relief, they will thin our defenses to the breaking point and we will lose.

In 419 that miracle arrives! The Auarhciniala actually ask us for a cease fire! Admiral Williams is so stunned with he offer that it actually took him FIVE FULL SECONDS to consider the offer before accepting the offer!

With the end of the gas bag war our people rejoice. WE lost a few worlds, but strategically the gas bags lost more. So perhaps, this is why they have offered peace. They have over 1,000 ships in the Joseki system versus our 175 so if they had chosen to fight we do not believe we could have won. We prayed for a miracle and low and behold it has come!