Admiral Schwimmer was unhappy. While Andraskon was now firmly in his hand, and civil unrest was at a minimum, the captured FTL detection network was giving them some issues. Namely the fact that a major fleet was on the way, while he was slowly being stripped of ships, thanks to the political shenanigans back home.

Thanks to captured records they could surmise that it was likely a combination of three different fleets, the 245th Fast Frontier Fleet, the 9th Battle-Fleet and the 24th Territorial Defense Fleet. In total, if that intelligence was correct and those three formations were at nominal strength, that was a force of 18 battleships, 33 heavy cruisers, 55 light cruisers, and 95 destroyers as well as a number of transports was moving toward his command consisting, currently at least, and he had some hopes at getting at least a few more ships, out of 3 battleships, 9 heavy cruisers, 20 light cruisers and 40 destroyers.

The second battle of Andraskon, which would happen in a month, was not looking good right now. With this new intelligence however, he was pretty sure that he could stop the slow bleeding of ships he was suffering by the recall orders of high command and the United Earths political masters. With a bit of luck he could also reverse it, although he was not thinking that he would gain many heavy units back. Another thing, which he could gain, were the resources to build some fixed defences. Because of standard Kyreikon doctrine to not come out of Hyperspace at a fixed point if the target system could be in enemy hands, it would be very difficult to hit that fleet with something like that. But not impossibly so, especially if he was not trying to hit the enemy fleet as it came out of Hyper, but instead when battle was joined. Because he could choose the battlefield.

Thaddeus Schwimmer leaned back in his chair as he was thinking how to formulate his call for help, as well as what resources he wanted that could be put into it as well. The UE’s resources were nigh infinite, and it had a clear doctrine of: “if we do not need it, fine, who cares about it, as long as it can be safely repurposed or dismantled afterwards, but not having something you need, which you could have built, was the greatest sin an officer could commit.”. Which meant that, even though he had already spoken to his subordinates and included their advice, he was thinking about more he could add in. It was unlikely that he could get everything, simply because of missing logistical capacity, but having more ideas to include would not hurt, and maybe high command would find the necessary transport somewhere. And some more capital ships to send. He really wanted those capitals, especially because those were the ships he would most likely not get.

After some more deliberation, changing the wording a bit, and adding some more of his own ideas, as well as some last minute ideas of his subordinates, he sent the message of to Terra. It would be carried by courier, through a universe with quicker FTL. They had set up a small Gate, through which small vehicles barely fit, but which also made the cost very bearable.

That Gate was unlikely to be a major source of resources, but it was a important communication circuit, which might just get more important soon, considering that there were some promising experimental FTL communicators in other universes, which would be quicker than the current courier system.

As the message reached Terra a mere 4 hours latter, pandemonium broke out. The high command was in panic, were to find the ships transport the necessary resources, as well as defend the world? But that was a question for the future, so the high command began building up the requested stores. Even if none of it would be send in the end, it could not hurt to get ready to do it.

The UE parliament was also panicking slightly. It now needed to decide quickly, and it was never designed to decide quickly. It could, in an emergency, but emergencies were designed to be short events with clearly defined borders. Which a war was decidedly not. It was one of the reasons why the earlier happenings on Andraskon were so difficult for the Parliament to get over. It was not designed to allow something like that at all. It was also one of the reasons why the problematic doctrine even existed. Bombardment of civilians went directly agains the UE charter, against there most important laws, were it got its legitimacy from. Admittedly, it was not the only reason, or actually the true reason, it mostly had been cultural oversight, although that cultural oversight stemmed from education highly influenced by the law in question.

A post war Kyreikon publication, analysing UE culture as well as the implications of it for the war:

The UE was an industrial Juggernaut. Even now, it is difficult to visualise, to understand what that meant for its citizens as well as their tactical and strategic options.

Lord Admiral Tirion once said, late into the war: “To break the UE’s industry requires to starve it of resources. To starve it of resources requires to defeat the UE. Which makes defeating it more than a small challenge, considering that the UE thinks that material casualties are completely irrelevant and the only type of casualty that actually matters are losses in human life. And the only fucking reason why they think that is that they are missing the political will to continue the fight in the face of avoidable casualties. And, considering that they could retreat into a completely different universe, all casualties they take are avoidable. My lord, if you want to win this war, kill their soldiers. Do not, whatever you do, kill their civilians, because they might actually find the political will they are missing somewhere.”

As you can see, Lord Admiral Tirion was quite annoyed at that point. But the points he made are mostly true. To kill the UE’s industrial might you need to be capable of reaching it. Which means developing their Gate technology. Now, the UE was not completely ignoring material casualties. The biggest archilles heel of the UE’s war machine was, funnily enough, its logistics. Because while starships and their crews needed to be built from the ground up, the same was not the case for their logistical arm. With one slight issue: UE logistics depended on the Gate infrastructure, which meant those needed to be completely restructured…