UGT: 7th Ruan 280 a.G.A. / 8:51 a.m.
RRA Iron Howl, above Karesh-Ti, Karesh-Ti’Varn system(yellow dwarf), Inner-Noran sector, Ruidan Raider Association, Milky Way
Admiral Kaèl-Vèynar stood rigid on the Bridge of the RRA Battlecruiser Iron Howl, his eyes fixed on the tactical display that dominated the forward wall. Around him, his officers moved with clipped precision, voices low, hands quick over controls. No one questioned his silence, they had seen enough Admirals fall these past weeks to know that words, more than weapons, could decide who lived and who died. Admiral Kaèl’s stillness was its own command.
Out beyond the armored viewports, Karesh-Ti'Varn burned. The system had become a graveyard of broken hulls and drifting fire, the light of dying ships sparkling like false stars. Icons flickered and vanished on the Bridge’s main display, each one another vessel lost, another captain silenced. The fleet was bleeding because of that damned Federation, but it was not yet finished! He would not allow it to be!
The memories pressed against him nonetheless, as sharp and suffocating as the smoke of a battlefield. He had not chosen to lead what remained of the Association’s forces around Karesh-Ti. No, leadership had been thrust upon him, first by arrogance, then by death, and finally by necessity. It had begun months earlier, with the message that shattered their unity. The Grand Admiral, Xiè-S?thú, the iron fist who had ruled the sector with absolute authority, was dead. Ambushed and destroyed in his reckless dive into Federation space for some 'incredible opportunity' as he'd put it. For days the news had been doubted, dismissed as another Federation lie. But confirmation arrived, undeniable, from the one Corvette that survived the massacre. They'd shown how the Federation's new secret Super Battleship had ripped apart the Association fleet. And it had shown that, truly, the man who had bound them all together was gone.
What followed was worse than any enemy attack. Rivalry that had once smoldered beneath the surface burst into open flames. Admirals who had bowed to Xiè’s will began to posture, each declaring themselves the rightful successor. Arguments poisoned every council, orders contradicted one another, and maneuvers were made not against their enemies, but against rivals within their own ranks. Kaèl had watched it unfold with cold disgust. The Inner-Noran sector should have withstood Federation assault for years. Instead, they'd fallen in weeks, undone not by superior force but by the rot of ambition in their own ranks. The SHF advanced almost unopposed, their push through the sector little more than a march past scattered, leaderless resistance. Kaèl had tried to hold his own corner of order amid the chaos, gathering what ships he could at Karesh-Ti, the vital crossroads of the southern lines. He had spoken little in the war councils, and that silence had earned him few allies, but at least it kept his fleet intact while others squandered theirs in fruitless duels of pride.
When only the Karesh-Ti'Varn and its two Association-controlled neighbor systems remained, the last eleven Admirals in the sector finally managed to work together for a rough plan. But then came the strike that changed everything. The relay towers, carefully spread across the system, their arrays linked to form the detection web that had given the Association its sight in hyperspace, were cut down in a single, precise blow. Their vision was stolen in an instant. For the first time, Kaèl had felt true unease at the situation, a chill that ran deeper than any quarrel with his peers. To be blind was to be vulnerable. And vulnerable they were. They'd all believed that an imminent attack from their until now neutral but Federation-friendly neighbors, the Republic of Aerondel, was about to happen. But instead, only hours later, an SHF fleet arrived. And not from the directions they had guarded. It was just a small but formidable fleet, but it came in full force through the southern hyperlane, the one every single Admiral had believed secure. And at its heart, like some nightmare pulled into reality, came that Super Battleship. The FSF Aurora, should their intelligence be right.
Even now, days later, Kaèl struggled to reconcile what he had seen. The ship was not merely large, it was monstrous, a warship of such scale and firepower that it seemed impossible for the Federation to have built another one directly under their noses unnoticed. Its first strikes had torn holes through Association lines as if they were nothing. Cruisers broke apart in single beams, destroyers gutted before they could fire. There had been no proper resistance to that behemoth. There was nothing known about the ship, its clearly superior and unseen technology, or even just the crew. Their spies came up blank. The FSF Aurora was one big unexpected and terrifying mystery. Because if the Federation had hidden one such ship successfully, what told them they hadn't done the same with others as well?
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The Admirals had panicked. Some screamed for retreat, others demanded reckless charges against the FSF Aurora itself, and still others insisted it was a trick, a myth draped in Federation lies. Kaèl had held his tongue, watching the cacophony unravel. Then fate had silenced it for him. One after another the disorganized defense of the Karesh-Ti'Varn system fell to the Federation. The Association's numbers meant nothing with how fractured they were internally. In the end, only he and Admiral Sèron-Dhal remained to defend Karesh-Ti from the Federation. The third Admiral still alive, Admiral of the forces at the eastern hyperlane, ignored their pleas for help. Admiral Sèron-Dhal had fallen just minute ago as the FSF Aurora had suddenly jumped into the heart of their fleet as if it was nothing. Kael remembered the flash vividly, the flare of Sèron’s Battlecruiser breaking apart under the FSF Aurora’s fury. In that instant, the power struggle was ended. The others were dead, disgraced, or too far away from the battle for Karesh-Ti to matter. Only Kaèl remained. Only he could defend the capital planet of the Inner-Noran sector. And if he failed... well, there would be no hope for the forces of the eastern hyperlane either. He had not sought this role, but the burden was his. And with it came clarity in the Association lines. Orders ceased to contradict. Fleets fell into line. What ships remained were bound by necessity to his will. The chaos that had undone them was, for the first time in weeks, gone. All that remained was the enemy before them, the vast, terrible enemy, and Kaèl’s resolve to face it.
With him assuming full command of the Karesh-Ti defense fleet, the time to turn this battle around had come! The FSF Aurora was destruction embodied, yes, but it oftentimes held back in engagements. The Federation seemed to have their own small power struggles, it seemed. And that gave him hope. It meant they believed the Association was broken enough to not matter anymore, its fleets little more than prey to be worn down. He would prove them wrong and use that tardiness to wipe them out! Their upgrades, held back until now, kept secret in anticipation of some grand counterstrike, were at last unleashed. Staggered hypershields on his Battlecruiser and the Cruisers, and the new long-range laser the engineers had sworn would level the field. Deployed too late, perhaps, but deployed at last. His tactic was simple, brutal, and necessary: hold the SHF in the jaws of Karesh-Ti’s defenses, bleed them against fortified positions, force the Aurora to commit itself in close where even its monstrous strength could be harried and swarmed. It was not elegant, but it was the only path left. Causalities would be ridiculously high, and he had no doubt the Admiral of the eastern hyperlane would assume control of what remained instantly after. But so be it, as it would mean victory of the Association, and that was all that mattered to Admiral Kaèl.
And still, the doubt gnawed at him and his fleet. He could see the fear in the eyes of his younger Captains, hear the edge of despair in their voices even as they confirmed orders. They had seen too much death, too much betrayal by their own leaders. He could not afford to share their weakness. Kael straightened and his thoughts hardened. He had been forced into this place by the failures of others, by the arrogance of leaders who had squandered everything. But he was no longer bound by them. The fleet was his, the defense was his, the choice was his. The Inner-Noran sector might already be scarred beyond repair. The Federation might believe it theirs. The FSF Aurora might be a monster no single ship could match. But Kaèl-Veynar was not yet beaten, and while he stood, Karesh-Ti would not fall without a price. He would fight, not for the Association’s squabbling Grand Admirals and clans, not for the memory of a dead Grand Admiral, but for the fleet that remained and the soldiers who still looked to him for command. For them, he would carry the weight. This battle? It had just begun. Because now he would show the Federation just why the Association was the second strongest nation in this entire damn galaxy!
