Gates opened a tear in space. Well, some of them opened a tear inside of Kyreikon ships. This time, they could not bet on their ability to get most of the boarding crews into the enemy ships. Mostly because most of their intel was a few days out of date in the best case. Still, most came at least close to the ships. And that was more than enough to pace antimatter mines and to then retreat. Those who ended up inside of enemy ships were honestly worse of, because they could hurt themselves easier or actually get caught by enemy troops.

Most of the ships in orbit of the Kyreikon sector capital Andraskon went up in flames, a mere 42 seconds before a whole battle fleet of United Earths origin decided to say hello.

The scattered remnants of the Kyreikon defense fleet were no match for the United Earths Navy ships that wanted to take the orbitals of Andraskon. After a short period of heavy fighting, in which the UEN did take losses, the last remnants of the Kyreikon fleet were either destroyed, had capitulated or had managed to flee.

It was a resounding victory for the UE, and would be heralded as such.

Meanwhile, over Canios, the situation was more problematic for the UE. While, unless the unknowns suddenly brought in significant reinforcements or proved themselves to be significantly more advanced, it was fairly clear that the UEN would win the initial battle, the UE really did not want to fight another war. Especially because that battle could mean further civilian casualties, which would be unfortunate for the current political leaders of said regime.

Which meant that communication was the way to go. If the aliens proved hostile, even after every conceivable communication attempt had been made, the political carriers of those same leaders might have better chances at survival. Especially because they had a reputation as warmongers.

And that in turn meant that the UEN was currently, with help of some scientists from multiple local universities, building a dictionary to speak with the aliens.

Which, considering the less than stellar cooperation of the aliens, went not exactly well. The aliens have at least someone in their hierarchy who wants war. Not everyone of them wants war, that is certain, but it is unknown how those two factions are stacking up to each other. And how the issue would be solved.

It took 3 hours, but they finally had at least a name. The unknowns called themselves Jedraston. Figuring that out was progress, of a sort, but the situation was still in flux. And thy still had no idea why the Jedraston could not simply sit down and get to work not escalating the situation.

The UE was not happy about that behaviour. But they also could not do anything about it, unless they wanted to shoot first. At least the invasion of Andraskon went well, which was something that could be used to distract from the issues above Canios.

That the evacuation of Canios happened at the same time, and there were no issues reported there, was something else the politicians liked. Although they did their best to prevent it from being noticed by the newcomers, because no-one knew how it might affect the negotiations. It might have a positive impact, because it proved some very interesting capability, or because it removed potential hostages the enemy could have used, which in turn could damage their plans. Or it could backfire horribly, because it might be taken as a sign of weakness. The UE just did not have enough information to decide either way.

But, while the negotiations were slow going and unstable, they were at least advancing. Passive instruments to try and hack some of their communication were employed. The hope was to get information that could either be used to get a peaceful result for the negotiations or to help those wishing for a peaceful result on the other side.

The UE was in an Interesting situation on the 7185-04-01. On one hand, the Jedraston fleet near the orbit of Canios, on he other hand, the attack on the Kyreikon sector capital of Andraskon, codenamed Operation Outreach.

At this point, Operation Outreach looked like a complete success, and admittedly, it was. Still, the beginnings of the disaster it would become were already visible, at least for those who knew where too look. It would still come as a surprise for those tasked with preventing such an occurrence.

The Jedraston situation was more complicated. Mostly because of the political situation in the Jedraston Federation (JF).

The JF was close to a civil war. One side of the conflict was for peaceful, diplomatic expansion of the multi species federation, lead and founded by the Jedraston. The fact that it was a multispecies federation would not come to light until after the situation had been solved.

The other side was for violent expansion, in fact, it also wanted to remove rights from those already part of the federation. Sadly, the Jedraston were not just in the majority inside the federation, but also had a monopoly on the military. Admittedly, the expansionists would quickly run into problems if they carried out their plan, considering that the economy was based around the rights and freedoms granted to he other species, but racists sadly seem to rarely bother with such details, at least if those are in the way of their “conclusions”.

Now, the expansionists wanted a war to push through emergency legislation. But, and here was why the fleet did not immediately attack when our fleet came, the war needed to be defensive. Interestingly enough, through a number of very strange loopholes, “accidentally” firing at a populated world would not be seen as initiating the conflict, unless military starships or starbases of the other side were visibly in the system. Which meant that the initial plan was shot to hell as soon as the UE battle fleet decided to make an appearance. It also meant that a single ship would have sufficed to get the same result…