13 November 4005
Many veterans of the Legion Navy considered the Ars Magica-class survey frigate Ardent Knight to be the first in her class, despite being the third-commissioned ship of the class. In large part, this was due to her unique fame not only as the discoverer of the first jump point but also as the first to bravely go where none had gone before. It was ironic, then, that she would become the first of her class to cross another kind of frontier entirely.
At 10:58 Duratus Galactic time on 13 November, sensor operators aboard Ardent Knight were shocked to discover a pair of new, yet strangely familiar, contacts appearing on her RF scanner display. While the contacts were of an alien ship class not yet encountered, the active sensor signatures being detected were unmistakably similar to those of the Mongolican battle stations discovered two and a half years ago. While similar, the sensor signatures were not identical to those aboard the Genghis and Khan, and Captain Eupheme Nikon initially held out hope that the similarities were purely coincidental. However, the computers and sensor technicians aboard Ardent Knight could offer no better explanation for the idiosyncratic waveforms being detected, and the Captain was reluctantly forced to accept the reality of her situation. Designating these contacts Ogadei, Captain Nikon transmitted her sensor logs to Warden 6 at the entry jump point, which would relay them back to Duratus, and set about determining how Ardent Knight should meet her fate. The two Ogadei-class ships were traveling at 5,033 km/s, more than three times the top speed of Ardent Knight, and were already less than 50 million km from the frigate which in turn was over 75 million km from her entry point. Escape was out of the question, therefore Ardent Knight’s final mission would be to disguise the location of her entry point and to lead the enemy away from Warden 6, which lacked self-jump capability to make its own escape. With this established, Captain Nikon ordered her crew to plot a course for a nearby comet, on a trajectory away from both the enemy ships and Warden 6.
Twenty-two minutes later, three groups of four small contacts each appeared on the thermal scanners of Ardent Knight, inbound at 34,566 km/s. Clearly these were missiles, but of a different type from those encountered in Mongolica. Ten seconds later, three more salvos appeared, followed by a seventh ten seconds after that. This limited onslaught was small comfort to the doomed crew of Ardent Knight. Despite the futility of doing so, Captain Nikon ordered all hands to brace for impact.
R.I.P.
At 11:22:40 the first wave of missiles slammed into Ardent Knight, instantly shredding her into a small cloud of space junk. Of the 145 brave men and women on board, 109 perished instantly; the three dozen who escaped would be left to an uncertain, and quite probably worse, fate.
The Legion high command was not made up of men and women beholden to sentiment, and on receiving word of the events in Eta Cassiopeiae their first concern was to determine the intent and capabilities of this new - potentially Mongolican - threat. This would pose some difficulty, as the Legion could not spare a large fleet element to reconnoiter the enemy position due to ongoing tensions with the Republic of Belaire. In the end, Frigate Squadron 3 would be sent, closely followed by the newly-commissioned Gatekeeper 7 which would be responsible for rescuing Warden 6 if the latter vessel had not yet been detected and reduced to atoms. The frigate squadron would hopefully be able to at least manage a token point defense against the enemy missiles while making a swift escape if spotted, although with only nine 102 mm defense batteries across four ships even this would be a great deal to ask. The frigate squadron would require eighteen days to reach Eta Cassiopeiae, and Gatekeeper 7 a full month; understandably, the crew of Warden 6 was not optimistic about their odds of survival. To make matters worse, the homing signals from the life pods of Ardent Knight went silent shortly after midnight on 15 November - an ominous portent.
Early on 1 December, Frigate Squadron 3 transited into Eta Cassiopeiae, immediately resolving on their powerful RF array a massive active sensor based on a new ship class, designated Kublai, detecting five contacts of that type in total - all in orbit around the second planet of the near component star. For the moment, Commander Agon Reza aboard the frigate Bad Omen ordered the squadron to hold position at the jump point. Sensor technicians estimated the range of the enemy sensor as more than 120 million km, with a resolution easily able to resolve the Bellerophon-class frigates. While the frigates could likely count on speed to help them escape detection, Commander Reza preferred to wait until Warden 6 was safely evacuated before commencing reconnaissance operations. In the meantime, a communication was sent back to the Legion high command on Duratus requesting that a jump cruiser be detached and sent to Eta Cassiopeiae, in order to deploy its R-56 reconnaissance fighter if an opportunity presented itself. To meet this request, First Fleet detached its light jump cruiser Grand Cross to the system.
A bit more than an hour later, a sixth Kublai contact was detected, approximately thirty million km from the planet and moving at 7,568 km/s along a heading towards the jump point. Commander Reza was disturbed by this development, but not unduly worried, though he did order Warden 6 to evacuate to a position some 135 million km stellar-south of the jump point, just in case. Even so, it seemed improbable at best for his squadron to have been spotted. This assessment was called into question, however, as the Kublai continued to approach, pulsing its active sensor roughly once every ten minutes. Finally, after forty minutes of this charade, it became apparent that Frigate Squadron 3 had in fact been made out, as another pair of Kublais appeared at 147 million km on the same direct course. Commander Reza resolved to remain on the jump point as long as possible, partly to gather intelligence before evacuating from the system but also to give Warden 6 as much time as possible to bravely run away.
Fifteen minutes later, a ninth Kublai pulsed its own active sensor, followed by a tenth after another fifteen minutes; clearly the alien ships were slowly revealing their strength in an attempt to intimidate the Legion scouting force. Twenty additional minutes passed, and just as Commander Reza began to think he had a full accounting of the enemy force, a new contact pulsed its actives. Designated Yuan, this contact was located all the way back at the alien planet; presumably, it was checking for any Legion stealth ships which might have evaded the Kublai squadron. Eighty seconds later, two new Kublai contacts were detected by the frigates’ RF arrays, and a mildly-annoyed Commander Reza grudgingly resumed his counting. As the Kublais continued to approach, still more new Kublai contacts made themselves known; by 08:30, Frigate Squadron 3 had tallied a total of 18 Kublais in addition to yet another class of contacts operating the same type of active sensor, a pair of Timurads.
By now, the Mongolican squadrons were exhibiting an unusual behavior, as several Kublais appeared to be retreating back toward their planetary base, with one of the Kublais holding position at 116 million km just inside the presumed range of the large active sensor it carried. The Timurad pair appeared to be continuing to advance towards the frigates, suggesting that these were heavier warships while the Kublais were light frigates or scouts not equipped with heavy weapons. As the Timurads continued to advance, another pair pulsed their sensors and appeared on the RF arrays of Frigate Squadron 3, repeating the same intimidation tactics as the Kublais. Commander Agon Reza was by now thoroughly annoyed.
Few starship captains enjoy playing the sort of sensor games that the Mongolicans had apparently made a core component of their combat doctrine.
Fortunately—by some tenuous definitions, at least—for Commander Reza, the Timurads were similarly uninterested in playing games. As they barreled towards the frigate squadron, infrared arrays detected their engine exhaust, giving a displacement reading of around 26,700 tons each for the Timurads. Following this encounter, the size of these vessels would spawn several dozen schemes within the halls of the Legion high command based around somehow leading the Belaire and Mongolican battlecruisers to fight each other, all of which would be roundly rejected. In the present moment, however, Commander Reza was content to place such harebrained schemes far out of mind, instead waiting for the moment at which the Mongolican attack force would cross into his own active sensor range, allowing his technicians to finally get a good look at their foes. His anticipation was only heightened when the squadron’s thermal arrays resolved two additional 17,800-ton contacts at 104 million km, designated Hazara and unlike their comrades not running any active sensors which the Bellerophons could detect at that distance.
Finally, at 11:34 the Mongolican attack force had approached within active sensor range of Frigate Squadron 3. Commander Reza ordered the squadron to activate their sensor arrays, eager to see what the enemy was made of. Immediately, two additional classes of contacts were discovered, designated Aimak (8.874 tons) and Zanabazar (8,846 tons). Notably, none of the earlier Ogadei contacts were spotted, despite the fact that these were known to the Legion to be missile-armed warships after the ill-fated encounter of Ardent Knight. It was possible that these ships were smaller combatants, which the long-range arrays of the frigates could not resolve at this distance. Thus, Commander Reza decided to continue holding his position - also hoping to give Warden 6 more precious time to make her escape.
Finally, at 12:27, a wave of enemy missiles were spotted on the squadron’s thermal arrays, consisting of four salvos with fourteen missiles each. As a single salvo already contained more missiles than the frigate squadron had guns, Commander Reza wisely discerned that it was, at last, time to go. After holding position for three more minutes to collect accurate sensor data on the missiles, Frigate Squadron 3 quickly disappeared through the jump point, leaving the Mongolican missiles to self-destruct uselessly less than a million km from their targets. Warden 6 was now on its own for the foreseeable future.
Based on the speeds observed during the reconnaissance operation, Commander Reza estimated that the Mongolican attack fleet would be able to make the jump point in less than five hours, and as they had surely seen his squadron make its transit there could be no doubt about its location even if the aliens had somehow not surveyed their own system. Therefore, if the Mongolicans chose to pursue his squadron through the jump point, nothing could be done to stop them. On the other hand, if the aliens lacked jump capability, this would be valuable intelligence to bring home to the Legion high command, which would then rest assured that the Monglicans, though powerful, would not pose an offensive threat which would detract from efforts to deal with the Belaire situation. Thus, in the best interests of the mission Commander Reza elected to have his squadron remain on the opposite side of the jump point, monitoring it for any Mongolican incursion. By midnight, no Mongolican vessel had yet traversed the jump point, and Commander Reza could breathe a bit more easily as he transmitted his final report of the day to the Legion high command. The fate of Warden 6, however, would remain unknown for some time yet.
Shipbuilding
1x Charybdis class Destroyer: Chimera
1x Gatekeeper class Traffic Monitor
Systems Discovered
IRAS 21500+5903: FS Amalgam of the Void, 21 December 4005