Merchant Freighter Marui

Tannhauser System

Sensor Technician Second Grade Emlin loved this part of his shift, because at this time of the day he was almost always alone on the small bridge, if one could call it that, of the 20 kiloton bulk freighter Marui. His station was the sensor and nav station right in front of the command chair, which was currently occupied by a barely 20 years old Merchant Navy midshipman named Arin, who looked, annoyingly, a lot more motivated than Emlin felt. Emlin usually spent his watches sleeping. The computer would wake him anyway if something unusual happened and he didn't see the point in staring at his unchanging screen for hours on end.

But with the young and motivated officer in training sleeping was sadly out of the question, so he busied himself with flipping through the different menus on the screens in front of him. Not that any of them showed anything interesting. They were still quite far away from the inhabited planets after all and the only other ships around were all flying to or from the planets and stations deeper in the system. Which meant that they all were on quite predictable and crowded routes and also meant that humans, like him, usually didn't have very much to do. Especially in a system like Tannhaus, with its patrol ships, its stable imperial government and the 13th Frontier Fleets main base. With its 230 million inhabitants it was one of the most densely populated systems on what could be called the frontier and what many spacers liked to think of as the boundary between civilization and wilderness. Not exactly prime hunting grounds for pirates and other malicious actors.

He suppressed a bored sigh to avoid catching the wrath of the fresh officer and started his routine of flipping through all available scans and overlays from the beginning. Again.

He was about to excuse himself to the small kitchen, located right behind the bridge, to grab a fresh coffee and a bite to eat, when the screens he had been staring at for the last hours suddenly populated with contacts.

"What the..? Uhm, Arin, did Outer System Control mention anything about a returning task group or convoy?"

Midshipman Arin looked up from her screen surprised at the sudden end of the silence that had permeated the bridge for the last hours.

"What? No, I don't think so, but I could look through the logs." Her forehead creased. "What's going on, Emlin?"

"I've got something like 100 ships coming out of slipspace far inward of the civilian fall-back areas. They are right behind us."

"WHAT?" Arin jumped up from her seat, moved the half step over to Emlins station and leant over his left shoulder to look at the screen. "Any idea who these guys are?"

"Well they can't be navy, their drive signatures don't make any sense, see?" He pointed at an analysis on the left screen. "And..," he swallowed hard. "Merchants sure as hell don't fly around in giant fleets," she finished his sentence. "I'll wake the captain. You send an update to Terminus Station and OSC. Attach our scans and your analysis, they'll know what to do."

—

Tannhauser Terminus Fleet Base

OSC

Fleet Admiral Prenus Calerian walked through the door to the Outer System Control Center like he had no worries in the world, even though his heart was threatening to jump out of his chest and his brain was still busy shaking off the fog from the sober-up pill he had just taken.

He cursed himself for attending the Duke of Tannhauser's ball last night. He hated such affairs with a passion, but as deputy commander of the 13th Frontier Fleet he couldn't always find a suitable excuse to avoid attending. Maybe he should get a new adjutant, his current one seemed to be running out of ideas. He chuckled silently and cursed himself immediately as pain shot through his head like daggers. He really shouldn't make it a habit to pass the time on such occasions by drinking like a young spacer with the other flag officers.

"Report," he barked over the bustle in the OSC center. A young lieutenant jumped up from the command station and stepped to the side, while Calerian sat down.

"Aye, Admiral. Our grav scan network detected a large number of ships falling into the system significantly systemward of the spineward slip lane. We are getting first reports from freighters we have nearby, they are being analyzed as we speak."

The Admiral frowned and replied after a minute: "Any results yet? I imagine it's not an unscheduled convoy or you wouldn't have woken me.”

The lieutenant nodded as he took a smart tab from one of the aides flitting around the room. "We believe they are warships, Sir. 148 of them to be precise." He pointed at the large wall-filling screen at the front of the control center that was just beginning to update with the new contacts and the information they had so far. "Sensors show that they are proceeding similar to what one of our Battler Groups would do when entering a hostile system."

While they were staring at the screen intently the red dots representing the unknown ships slowly accelerated towards them.

"We are losing grav signatures from some of our ships in the vicinity of the unknown group," a technician at one of the stations said and highlighted seven grav signatures that had disappeared.

"Well, I guess that settles it," Admiral Calerian said."Doesn't like it's a friendly visit." His eyes raced over the readiness reports on the screen attached to the left armrest of his command chair.

"Get the 1301st, 1304th and 1305th destroyer squadrons to spin up their drives and get in screening positions out towards our new friends. And recall all navy personnel from leave." They wouldn't even come close to stopping the attackers, if their ships and crews were only half as capable as his, as he had only around 30 ships in the system at the moment. Even the entire fleet only had 80. He kept that disconcerting thought to himself though. He estimated that they had about 3 hours before the attackers reached Terminus station, his personnel on shore leave would probably take almost as long to get to it from the planet.

"And order the evacuation of the civilian part of the station. All civilian ships docked to Terminus are to shove off asap and make for the slip lane towards the center of imperial space!"

—

Terminus Station

Western Terminal Docking Arm

Torvan had just been on his way back to the shuttle, owned by the company he worked for, when all the screens on Terminus Stations promenade deck started broadcasting the TNN, one of the largest news networks in the system.

Normally the promenade deck, an area around the outer side of the station which was usually oriented towards the planet, was filled with hundreds or even thousands of people dining or shopping at the various establishments offering their services along its inner side or walking to the passenger liners docked to it.

Now Torvan was standing in a crowd of people who had congregated around one of the news broadcasts.

"…30 civilian ships have been lost to the unknown attackers so far. The governor's office has ordered all military personnel to report to their stations immediately…"

Torvan grabbed the suitcase he was carrying harder and continued on towards his destination. He had quite some trouble getting through to his gate as the deck was filled with people running around in shock and trying to get off the station as fast as possible. Throngs of people standing around info screens just staring at them, many of their faces glistening with tears, caught in the horror of what was happening. Uniformed soldiers and station personnel trying to make their way through the masses to get to their ships and stations, all the while miserably failing at imposing some resemblance of order.

Torvan continued towards the gate his shuttle had docked to. On the opposite side of his shuttle a destroyer had docked and its docking arm was now crowded with soldiers trying to get on their ship. The deck next to the destroyer was darkened as its massive 300m long shape blocked out the sun that would normally shine into the promenade deck this time of the rotation.

Right as he reached the entrance to his gate he made a sharp left turn and walked towards the marines stationed at the gate that led to the destroyer's gangway. One of them stepped forward as he saw the man that called himself Torvan coming.

"Sir! Stop where you are. This is a military vessel." He visibly tensed the grip on his carbine as Torvan closed with him.

"It will only take a second."

The soldiers' confused look disappeared in the sudden brightness as Torvans suitcase erupted with a thundering explosion that immediately killed Torvan and hundreds of people around him. Most didn't actually die through the explosion, but were sucked out through the shattering windows and thrown against the destroyer outside together with debris from umbilicals docking arms and the promenade deck. While the bulkheads around the damaged area of the station slammed shut to protect the rest of it occupants the struck destroyers reactors cut out and it slowly lumbered towards the adjacent part of the station, badly damaging itself, a frigate that had been in the process of shoving off and the stations docking arms in the vicinity.

—

OSC Center

"What the hell was that?" Fleet Admiral Calerian demanded as he held onto the armrest of his seat. He and, judging from their faces and the sudden silence, everyone else in the control center could feel the station shaking and rumbling under their feet.

A few seconds later a flustered technician spoke up from his station.

"There has been an explosion on the western terminal arm. Reports are still coming, but it looks like we lost at least one destroyer and one frigate. There has also been significant damage to the western terminal arm."

Calerian drew in a long breath and looked off into the distance for a few seconds.

"Comms? Order all warships to shove off immediately. I don't care if their crews are complete or not. And allow them to go to main engines as close to the station as necessary. Anyone who doesn't make it to their ship, or any other navy ship, is to return to the planet and dig in with the planetary defense forces. We have to get the ships aways from the station or we may lose them all, this can't have been a coincidence." The communications officer just stared at him blankly. "Do it. Now. The collateral damage can't be helped."

Calerian turned to the adjunct standing next to him. "Get my shuttle ready. I will be going to my flag ship immediately to lead the fleet."

"Aye, sir. One shuttle to HMS Victorious." The man began frantically talking into his com unit.

As Calderian got up from his seat and marched out of the room the officer of the watch started barking orders and the room descended into controlled chaos as everyone got to work.

—

Ships leaving Terminus Station usually did so by using only their repulsors and their maneuvering thrusters, in order to prevent their main drives from damaging the station.

Now the remaining warships began to spin up their reactors and start their main drives to get away from the stations as fast as possible without caring too much about collateral damage to the station and civilian ships.

It only escalated the panic on the station as large umbilicals, gangways, docking arms and smaller vessels were ripped off and thrown against the station.