EliteCommander

The Cradle

For the Rothian captains, it was certainly an improvement that they now had orders, at least. The plan that the Tindrel had did make some sense, even if it was unconventional by Rothian standards. They just needed to find a way to pressure some of the enemy ships out into the open. The Outreman ships were moving around the outside of one of the clusters, though the Rothian ships had more options than simply following them. At the very least, having so few ships meant that the Rothian cruisers could move deeper into the cluster while maintaining a somewhat close formation.

With the Outremans moving around the outside to block escape in those directions, the Rothian cruisers could move straight forward some distance to try to force some of the hostiles in front of them out into the freight channel. The channel was directly behind the nearby enemies’ position, and the captains quickly came up with a plan to “encourage” them out into it. The cruisers’ weapons had the power to penetrate the asteroids entirely, while their enemy did not. As such, the cruisers positioned themselves in cover behind close asteroids while firing through them to the enemy position on the other side. From there, only torpedoes could maneuver around the obstacles to strike the Rothian ships, and with the Rothians positioning their fighters and support ships purely defensively to screen against them, very few could actually get through. While the asteroid field provided strong cover against the planetoid, they were nothing but a disadvantage against the Rothian ships. At close range, at least.

For the hostile vessels, there were two courses of action. They could advance on the Rothian position to get clear shots, or retreat out into the freight channel. Should they advance, they would have to move relatively slowly in order to maneuver around the asteroids, during which time the Rothian cruisers would have free reign to barrage them from cover, taking more and more damage the closer they came. As with any energy-based projectiles, the fusion cannons were more powerful at closer ranges, since they would lose coherence the longer they traveled. Should the enemy move out into the channel, however, the opposite would be true. As powerful as they were, shooting through the asteroids did drastically reduce the effective range of the Rothian weapons. Should they fall back, the cruisers’ weapons would start to deal much less damage, and the Rothians would have to leave the asteroids in order to face them on more even “ground”. Since the Outremans were effectively blocking retreat from any other angle, the choice was obvious for them to move out into the freight channel.

The entire time, the planetoid had been taking constant fire from other hostile groups spread across the field, but that fire began to suspiciously diminish seemingly all at once. Aside from the groups closer to the Rothians and Outremans, nearly all of the rest of the enemy fleet had moved into cover. A sensor sweep revealed that most of the enemy fleet was now powering warp drives. Charging a warp drive required substantial amounts of energy, so for vessels without dedicated FTL power systems like the Tindrel planetoid possessed, jumping beyond lightspeed imparted a substantial energy tax onto the rest of the ship’s systems. They had to remain stationary, while shields and weapons were usually hampered in their effectiveness. The same was true for their enemy, but the majority of their ships were currently at long range with hard cover behind the asteroids. They had no real way to exploit the vulnerability in time. Most of the enemy fleet was about to suddenly reposition somewhere soon, so the allied battle group had to decide quickly how they were going to prepare.

The Cradle

The enemy battleship had a respectable amount of firepower on its own, but without support, there was no way it could get through even a single ship’s shields before its own were depleted by the focus fire of multiple capital ships converging on it. The third Rothian cruiser joined the Valkyrie and the other Human ships in overwhelming their foe. With all of their fire combined, it did not take more than another barrage to tear the battleship to pieces. The enemy carrier, meanwhile, had found no safety behind the asteroid it had gone to for cover. It launched as many strike craft as it could as quickly as possible, but the carrier’s fate was sealed by volleys of superheated plasma from the first two Rothian cruisers. Fighters and bombers could be dangerous even to capital ships when utilized properly, but the enemy fighters that had been launched so far had no ship support nearby. Rather than throw them pointlessly at the allied battle group, the enemy instead gave the order for their fighters to disengage and retreat back through the asteroid field to their own lines so they could still utilize them later in the fight. Rothian fighters pursued them some distance and destroyed a portion of them, but they too did not want to push their fighters too far beyond the support of their motherships.

The initial strike had been undeniably effective, but the majority of the hostile fleet still remained. The planetoid had built up incredible momentum and was unquestionably effective in close quarters, but the enemy was quick to adapt. The Tindrel’s current targets were at long range, so they had much more time to evade than the initial group. Rather than move together, however, any ship within the planetoid’s projected path scattered in all directions, often weaving between asteroids to make a direct pursuit path more difficult. It was unlikely that any individual ship could escape the Tindrel, but with intelligent maneuvering, the enemy could guarantee that the massive planetoid could only chase, at most, a single ship at a time. All the while, every other ship in the fleet was unpressured and free to engage at long range. The pelting of ranged weapons fire was a constant against the planetoid’s shields, and it was far from efficient for them to have to chase down every hostile ship individually.

While they had secured a position within the asteroid field, there was a question of what to do next for the rest of the battle group. The Tindrel were taking plenty of initiative to act with their own ships, but beyond being told to “attack”, there had been no orders for the rest of them. The Rothian cruisers formed up, positioned their strike craft defensively to intercept incoming munitions, and returned fire. They certainly had the range to engage any ship in the asteroid field, but there was still no coherent direction for allied forces. They did not know what targets the Tindrel would engage next, and therefore which targets would be most effective to focus fire, nor how to position tactically to take advantage of whatever they were going to do next. There were certainly protocols the Rothian captains could follow to quickly establish a firm chain of command to begin giving those orders, but that was not the purpose of this exercise. The Tindrel commander was not incapacitated; therefore, they needed to try to follow their direction. One of the Rothian captains opened the fleet’s comm channel to request those orders.

---

“Well, if we do everything right, the Morgrawalai will never know we were here.” Marae remarked, though her voice trailed off as she started to focus more on the console in front of her, and the data that was pouring in.

Vreta watched the screens as well, though with less of a focused eye than the scientists analyzing the data. “Hopefully so. We just need to be prepared if things don’t quite go to plan. If this object is buried as deep as the Navigator was, it will take a whole excavation team to extract it. Of course, if it isn’t, then the natives may have already discovered it. About how ‘primitive’ are these primitives? I know they are pre-spaceflight, but are they at the point of using livestock, wagons, and iron swords, or are we talking cars, biplanes, and gunpowder?”

The Cradle

The orders given by the Tindrel commander were quite basic. Simply advance forward and attack at close range. Rothian vessels tended to prefer keeping range on their intended targets, as it allowed them to best utilize the heavily armored frontal crest present on most capital ships. Being in close quarters allowed hostiles to more easily position themselves to bypass it. Their ships were not specifically vulnerable at other angles, but it meant they could not as effectively use one of their main defensive advantages. Still, one could not deny the effectiveness of this initial strike.

Naturally, the hostile capital ships in the Tindrel’s path powered engines to maximum acceleration to avoid the massive asteroid’s path. The carrier had been positioned in the back, protected by its battleships, so it was able to get clear first. The battleships would have been able to follow suit in time, were it not for one last-moment adjustment from the Tindrel capital ship. For most ships, engaging a warp drive was not something one could do easily in combat. It required remaining stationary for any significant jump, as well as imparting a significant power drain on the ship. For the planetoid ship, however, there was more than enough space to build in dedicated power systems for their FTL drive, and it did not need to remain stationary to perform a relatively short jump. The planetoid performed a short jump, just a few miles in one direction, but it was enough to put the battleships right in its path. With the planetoid’s unstoppable momentum, it was far too late for them to respond. The asteroid smashed straight into the rear battleship, broadside. While it was a simple approach to combat, almost primitive in nature, the planetoid most certainly had the mass to make it work. The crushing force burst the battleship’s shields and smashed it into unrecognizable pieces. The second battleship had been closer to escaping, but it was not quite enough. Its stern was struck by the planetoid, shearing its rear half from the ship and sending the remainder into an uncontrolled spiral.

For the purposes of the simulation, the enemy was not programmed to have any forewarning of allied tactics or capabilities. They were unknown to the enemy, just as the enemy was unknown to them. However, the AI mediating the scenario was to ensure that the enemy could learn and adapt efficiently. Admiral Matir, in particular, had insisted that their foe be intelligent and capable. The Tindrel had carried out a shocking and effective first strike; only two capital ships remained in the immediate area, and they were heavily outmatched by the allied forces focused upon them. However, this battle was far from over. They were still outnumbered overall by the enemy in the asteroid field, and they were adjusting quickly to the Tindrel’s approach. Hostile ships were remaining at long range and spreading out even farther from each other, as well as moving closer to asteroids to use them for cover, making ramming more difficult. The dense asteroid field could make it difficult for the enemy to get overlapping fields of fire to be able to focus on smaller capital ships, but the planetoid was so large that nearly every ship could get a firing line on at least some part of it, no matter where they were.

The enemy carrier managed to move behind a nearby asteroid, but two of the Rothian cruisers bore down upon it to try to eliminate the nearest threats as quickly as possible. They could track its position through sensors even without line of sight, so they did not bother to try to move around the asteroid. While there was a fair amount of it, the carrier’s cover was only rock. The power of the cruisers’ weapons allowed them to shoot straight through the small asteroid, rapidly draining their target’s shields regardless of cover. There was a single other battleship in close range firing on everything nearby, but it likely would not take long for the rest of the battle group to overwhelm it. The real test would be how the Tindrel could react to being outnumbered and surrounded, as they were now.

---

“Starting wide-spectrum signal scan.” Marae remarked as she gave the command, though at the moment, it was mostly Nirann who was guiding the process. He did not have a body present in the lab, as he was currently linked into the ship itself so he could better operate the sensor suite. He could remove the intermediate step of a user interface and operate their ship’s hardware as if by thought.

Marae turned away from her console and back towards the others. “This could take a while. It’s doubtful that the signal we find, if we find one, is going to be identical to the Navigator’s. We’re probably going to get a lot of false positives, especially with an intelligent population on the planet, so we’re going to have to keep adjusting the parameters as we go. Nirann can help single out likely signals, though.”

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

For a moment, it looked like Saras might have some response to Fendros, some justification or excuse to keep working. However, after a few moments of thought, he simply bowed his head slightly. “Of course, Champion. I will…allow others to take over. Your people are ready to hear from you. We have made sure the Rueful Axe is secure as well. It seems to be drained of the power Molag Bal infused it with, but it is otherwise undamaged. If you would like to have the weapon that slew a god for your address, I can have it brought to you. Either way…your people are ready to hear from you.”

In the crowd, all of Tamriel’s lycan clans were represented. Leaders, civilians, warriors, widows, everyone whom Fendros was now responsible for. With the time that had passed, there were no doubt some who may have surmised Meesei’s fate. She had not been seen since the end of the battle, after all. Still, this assembly would be the first official word of what had transpired in the battle’s end. It would be the first time the story of Vile’s downfall could be told, and the first outright declaration of their victory over him. It would be their first word from a new Champion, and for many, it could mark the beginning of a new era, for good or ill, for Tamriel’s lycan clans. How they remembered it would be up to Fendros.

Ahnasha lightly took Fendros’ hand. “Do you think you know what you’re going to say? If you need any help…” Her voice trailed off.

The Cradle

Among the Tindrel’s battle group, the Rothians had just three capital-class ships, along with some smaller support vessels. All were cruisers, which were the main ship of the line for the Rothian navy. They were general purpose ships without particular specializations, but in keeping with Rothian naval doctrine, still exceptionally capable, high quality vessels. All Rothian ships had to be fitted with the most recent upgrades in order to be approved for service so that they could continue to utilize their technological edge. Such measures were necessary, as it was generally expected that their ships would be outnumbered in any given engagement.

On the approach, the cruisers launched their fighters and positioned themselves in the formation to be able to intercept incoming fire. Both capital ships and fighters utilized lasers in point defense roles. They were short range, low energy, and not suited to deal with armored vessels, but torpedoes could not outmaneuver a lightspeed beam. The Rothian cruisers were among the first to be able to open fire, as their fusion cannons had greater range than most other energy-based weapons. Strictly speaking, the projectiles themselves were also composed primarily of superheated plasma, but they were high enough every to maintain sufficient coherence for a longer period of time, and therefore, over a longer range.

One of the Rothian cruisers positioned itself to trade blows with the enemy carrier. Rather than allow the plasma beam to potentially damage any allied vessels, it accelerated to intercept. It positioned the front crest, by far the most heavily armored portion of the ship, to take the brunt of the hit. The shields flared, glowing almost as brightly as the beam itself, but for the first hit, it left no effect on the hull. The ship returned fire with all forward batteries focused on the carrier, sending out a barrage of blinding white energy projectiles. Though for the other species in the fleet, there was something notable about the ship’s weapons. All weapons fire from both sides was, of course, simulated, but the power output they would register from the cruiser’s fusion cannons were higher than their intelligence reports would suggest a Rothian cruiser should be capable of.

While all of the ship captains in the battle group were expected to be able to act on their own initiative moment to moment, their overall strategy was meant to be driven by the Tindrel commander in the core ship. All Rothian captains would follow their orders and defer to the Tindrel’s instructions, once given.

The Cradle

“Did you think this was going to be easy?” Admiral Matir answered. Being that they did not age, it was always hard to tell just by appearance how old any given Rothian was. As long as they were an adult, a Rothian looked about the same at a hundred years of age as they did at a thousand. Of course, the personnel files that the others no doubt had would identify Matir as one of their most experienced naval officers, but even without that, the firm confidence he had with every word he spoke gave him a commanding presence.

“We know nothing of our adversary. Should you be wrong about the primary target, then the secondary objectives shall fail, and the civilians we are sworn to protect at each shall perish. We will complete all stated objectives, and we will do so with the resources we have available. Complete your objectives quickly and efficiently, then regroup on my position for the final attack on our primary target. If your ships are truly strong and your crews capable, then show me what you can do. You have your orders.”

---

Vreta shrugged, tilting his head towards Freyr. “Well, I’ve given my speeches. I don’t have much else to do but watch at this point. I have to admit, I am a bit excited for what we might find, though. If we find another one of these objects here, on another species’ homeworld, then I guess that is pretty strong evidence in favor of the life-seeder hypothesis.”

Crossing his arms, Vreta paused for just a few moments. “Have you wondered how many places this might have happened? How much life is really native to the Milky Way? Maybe there is another one of these on Earth?”

The Cradle

Once they had their scan of the system, and the orders that followed, it only took a quick jump for the various fleets to converge on their rally point. The moment they dropped out of FTL, Admiral Matir’s orders were delivered by his ship’s computer to every single other ship in the fleet. Each vessel was assigned to one of the battle groups supporting five separate “core ships”, including his own heavy carrier, the Tindrel’s asteroid, the Qalian-Vosh supercarrier, and two Rothian battleships. Every battle group contained ships from every species’ fleet, distributed about as evenly as possible. They were assigned according to their capabilities such that each battle group would have all necessary roles filled appropriately. Outremer’s fleet in particular had an abundance of specialized ships that could fill in for weaknesses that any particular battle group might have possessed. On paper, every team had the capabilities to be an effective fighting force. All that remained to be seen was if they could execute properly on that potential.

As the fleets were arranging themselves into formation, the Admiral began to assign the battle groups to their objectives. The large enemy craft was a primary objective, though it would not be their first to assault. The large craft could require more resources than a single battle group to defeat, and the smaller objectives were more pressing. The Tindrel’s battle group was assigned to assist with the distress calls near the factory complex, while the Qalian-Vosh’s supercarrier was designated to facilitate the evacuation of the space station. Of the two battle groups led by Rothian battleships, one, which also contained the supercarrier OSC Cataphract, was assigned to stave off an ongoing attack on a simulated settlement on one of the moons of a gas giant, while the other battle group was to position itself roughly equally between all of the other objectives and remain momentarily on standby. The enemy was going to react, so they needed at least one battle group available to adjust to the enemy’s response and provide reinforcements where needed.

The final battle group was the one commanded by the Admiral himself. The Rothian AI facilitating this simulation was, for the most part, operating independently to keep the fleets from knowing what was coming next. However, it had been given instructions to carry out one scenario according to plan. As an inhabited planet, one objective was to keep Psi-Helios itself protected. The Admiral’s battle group, which included the Barbarossa, was to position near the planet and keep it protected from an encroaching enemy attack. All the while, the Magnificent Horizon, the exploration ship being used by the science team, would be scanning the planet ostensibly for “survivors”.

The Cradle

It was not long after Admiral Matir had confirmation back from the rest of the officers that the exercise was scheduled to begin. With nothing meaningful to delay them, Matir gave the word to commence. As per the simulated scenario, each species’ fleet would be arriving in a separate part of the system. Part of the challenge would involve making contact with one another, identifying a rendezvous point, and gathering into formation. A meeting point was specifically not planned ahead of time to force them to make such decisions quickly, in the moment. A Rothian AI had given each ship a program to run for the duration of the exercise and would be directing the actions of their simulated foe. Artificial ships would appear on sensors, weapons fire would be simulated from both sides, and they would even appear on view screens. An FTL connection between all participating vessels would ensure that the simulated vessels were synchronized accurately between different ships, no matter where they might be in the system. Additionally, all battle groups would also have designated observer ships present. They would appear on sensors, but were clearly marked as non-participants. Their sensors would be unaffected by the simulation, so they would essentially be “lookouts” to watch for any actual threats that could disrupt the exercise.

---

Arrival in the Psi-Helios system for the Rothian fleet brought them dead into the middle of empty space, which, granted, was far and away the most likely outcome for a random jump. The vast emptiness of space, even within a star system, made arrival near any sort of celestial body exceptionally rare. Regardless, the exercise had begun, and the Admiral stuck to established protocol. Immediately, he ordered a wide-range FTL scan of the system to identify the current location of all known celestial bodies, as well as to start locating allied and hostile ships. Based on the locations of their known objectives, the ship computer began marking off potential sites for strategic rally points. Within a few minutes, Matir had made his decision: a location roughly equidistant from each marked objective within an asteroid belt.

For the purposes of this exercise, the fleets had established an encrypted FTL comm channel to allow them to communicate across the system. “Marking rally point now. Move immediately to asteroid designated PH-238-02. Coordinates following.” The Admiral ordered.

---

Whilst the Sacred Band and Void Company both were preparing for the possibility of battle, the science team was getting ready to begin their scans as quickly and efficiently as possible. While much of the process was automated, the process was likely going to require adjustments on the go, based on what they detected. The Object, if it was there, would be difficult to detect, and they would need to be able to identify the smallest anomalies to be able to refine their parameters to eventually locate it.

Ideally, there would be no need at all for anyone to visit the surface in person, though they needed to be prepared for any possibility. Vreta would have much preferred there to be no need to bring anything resembling a soldier to the planet, but he understood that, in the current circumstances, why they might be necessary. Still, bringing them would be a last resort. For the science team, at least, they would not be gearing up like soldiers, regardless. For many species, personal shielding devices were something of a rarity, but to the Rothians, they were more available. Vreta, at the moment, was already wearing his shield belt, and they had secured enough personal shield devices to outfit an entire field team. In the event that it was necessary, they would have their own personal protection that would at least make them seem not quite so threatening.

Void Company was arming up across from the Sacred Band. Among them, Mar’Ghel, the sniper, had already mostly prepared herself before they had even arrived, so she stood, leaned back against the wall, watching the others. The particle rifle resting at her side had a length over half of her rather imposing height. Her helmet was not deployed, so one could see her slightly inquisitive expression as she looked over the Humans. Out of everything about her, it was her eyes in particular that could draw attention. In casual circumstances, there was a filter applied over her cornea that made them appear perfectly normal. Now that they were potentially about to be deployed, though, one could see that her eyes were wholly artificial. Both appeared to have multiple pupils of varying sizes, each of which could move and focus independently. At the moment, many of those pupils were focused on her counterpart in the Sacred Band.

The Cradle

For the vast majority of those participating in these exercises, they were unaware of their true purpose. For most crew or even ship captains, such knowledge was irrelevant and would merely serve to place greater risk to operational security. Among the Rothian navy, only the Admiral and a select few others were aware of their true objective on Psi-Helios. However, he was well-aware of these exercises’ importance in maintaining plausible deniability, so they needed to be taken seriously. For all intents and purposes, these exercises were exactly why they were here.

Being that the scenario would call for them to split into multiple teams, they had to decide how they would divide said teams according to the distribution of forces each navy had brought. The simplest would be to have each separate tackle an objective, but that would also accomplish very little. The purpose of these exercises was to test how they could coordinate with different military doctrines. They needed to make attempts to combine their forces to identify any conflicts or inefficiencies that could arise.

The plan that Admiral Matir had forwarded to the other fleets involved creating battle groups centered around “core” ships. The most capable individual vessels they had available would form the backbone of the battle groups’ formations and tactics. For the five objectives they needed to accomplish, the overall fleet would be divided into five groups. The Qalian-Vosh’s supercarrier, the Tindrel’s weaponized asteroid, and the Rothians’ heavy carrier would be core ships for three battle groups. Outremer did not have any ships that could serve as core ships for this exercise. Even the Barbarossa could not match the firepower of a specialized Rothian battleship, hence why the remaining two battle groups would each utilize a Rothian battleship as core ships. However, the advantage that Outremer had brought to the table related to the sheer size of their fleet relative to the others. Outremer’s navy was massive, and even for just an exercise, they had brought far more ships of cruiser-class and above with different specializations, along with numerous support ships. Given the significant variations in each navy’s doctrines, Outremer’s adaptability was key to this strategy. They needed to be able to round out each group’s strengths and weaknesses to ensure the enemy would not have any glaring flaws to exploit. Every battle group would contain vessels from every species, but the core ships would dictate the tactics for their respective objectives.

Once sufficient time had been given for each fleet to review the proposal, Admiral Matir opened a channel to each fleet’s ranking officers. “The exercise shall be commencing in one standard hour. Requesting confirmation that all parties have reviewed and understood the operational orders for the exercise. I am also requesting any formal objections or tactical input be delivered prior to the start of the exercise.”

The Cradle

For the combined fleets, their gathering was deep in space, far from any settled planets. They had alerted both Earth’s government and any nearby planets that this exercise would be taking place, though it was still a rather substantial collection of military force. Keeping a respectful distance from settled worlds was simply courtesy to avoid causing any unease among the civilian population.

For this exercise, the Rothian navy had deployed the 2nd Carrier Group from the Fleet of Vigilance. Compared to the rest, the Rothians had barely half as many ships participating, though that was to be expected for Rothian military doctrine. For their capital ships, the Rothian navy emphasized the highest quality possible in their vessels. On a galactic stage, technology was generally the Rothians’ greatest advantage, so they formed their military and its tactics to leverage that advantage to its greatest extent. For centuries, their ships had been built to modular designs with the intention of facilitating simple and relatively easy upgrades to integrate new developments into existing ships. Though some ships had bore the same names, and even some of the same crew, for centuries, there were none that had not, over time, been essentially rebuilt completely and retrofitted to modern standards. Smaller craft, like strikecraft and drones, tended to be automated and much more numerous.

Among the 2nd Carrier Group, the majority of capital ships were cruiser class, similar in size to the Barbarossa, with some being specialized as battleships that sacrificed carrier space for greater firepower. The flagship of the battle group, the Valiant, was a heavy carrier, about fifty percent larger than a cruiser. The Admiral, Matir’Setla, commanded from the carrier. On his order, his plan for formations and maneuvering tactics had been sent ahead to the other gathered fleets as they awaited the scheduled start of the exercise.