The Majestic class battleships Illustrious and Victorious joined the Royal Navy in October 1896. With fourteen battleships now in service, including four of the larger Majestics, the Admiralty decided to halt further battleship construction for the moment. The Falcon class raiders were being handled by lighter units, so more cruisers would be constructed instead.
The ruins of an alien outpost on the first planet of the Carthage system had been discovered in early 1896, along with massive deposits of Duranium, Corundium and Boronide. Over the course of the year, a colony of 500,000 was set up and various ground forces had been moved to the planet, including the 3rd Infantry Division, a regiment of the Royal Artillery, a regiment of the Royal Engineers and two Xenoarchaeology expedition. The light cruiser HMS Pomone was on station close to the star, from where her active sensors could monitor the entire orbit of the planet.
On Christmas Eve 1896, eight 930-ton ships of a new alien race appeared in orbit over the Carthage colony, emerging from the deep Aether. HMS Pomone left her picket position and moved toward the colony. The Royal Artillery regiment on the surface held its fire until the intent of the alien ships could be established. When HMS Pomone was three million kilometres from Carthage I, two of the ships, designated as Piranha class, engaged their active sensors. Five seconds later, each ship launched three size-11 missiles, which headed directly for the light cruiser at over 50,000 km/s, then moved out of orbit at 8600 km/s. Commander Marcus Talbot, captain of HMS Pomone, ordered all forces in the system to treat the aliens as hostile. Given their speed and the speed of their missiles, these new aliens were plainly more advanced than the Nyxians.
The 1st Royal Artillery regiment opened fire with six 10” lasers, six 8” lasers and twenty-four quick-firing 4” railguns. Half of the alien ships were instantly blown to pieces and their missile salvos vanished from sensors. Two more were damaged ten seconds later by a second volley from the 8” lasers, but the railguns were out of range. Three more missiles disappeared, leaving nine to close rapidly on HMS Pomone. After a further ten seconds, the 10” and 8” fired again, destroying the remaining ships. With her sensors now clear of alien contacts, HMS Pomone moved into orbit of the planet.
Early in January 1987, a new ship type, HMS Hermes, was delivered to the Royal Navy. She was designated as an ‘escort carrier’. With the growing size of known space, and consequently the increasing distance of new colonies, it was growing increasingly difficult from a logistical perspective to deploy short-ranged destroyers for colony protection. The Hermes was intended to solve that problem. Her hangar bay had sufficient capacity to hold two destroyers, while her magazines could hold up to three reloads for those destroyers, or a mixture of Daedalus and larger capital missiles. She used the same engines as the Apollo class light cruisers, giving her greater range and more efficient fuel consumption than other warships. Her first mission was to deliver a pair of destroyers to the Marlborough colony in Blenheim.
In late March 1897, a survey of the ruins on Carthage I was completed. Twenty-one sites were identified as having potential for recovery of installations or other artifacts. Over the course of the next six months, two Research facilities, a ground forces construction complex and several factories and mines were recovered from the ruins. With the primary sites exhausted, attention turned to analysing the smaller artifacts scattered around the area in an effort to glean any potential technical data.
Exploration continued, with the number of known systems reaching fifty-four by August 1898. Terraforming of Vulcan’s Forge had reduced the Colonial Office rating to 2.0, which meant two hundred units of infrastructure were required per million colonists. Due to the environmental conditions, there was no point in further terraforming effort as the temperature could not be reduced to the point where water would condense. The population had reached thirty-three million. Two hundred and fifty automated mines were in operation on the surface, along with two hundred manned mining complexes. The other major colonies, Port Sirius and Port Boreas had populations of twenty-six and seventeen million respectively, with two hundred financial centres in operation at the former.
With the terraforming over completed at Vulcan’s Forge, the six tugs of the Heracles class began moving the twenty-three Eden class terraforming stations to new locations. One was moved to Europa, a moon of Jupiter, where a colony of three million had been recently established to act as a base for warships to protect the fuel harvesters in orbit of the gas giant. Ten ground-based terraforming installations were also in operation at the new colony. Six Edens would be split between new colony sites in the Albion and Pompeii systems, both of which were being established to stimulate the creation of civilian mining operations. The chosen colony sites were both small gas giant moons, 1800 km and 1600 km in diameter respectively, due to the relative ease of terraforming small bodies. Albion was one jump outward from Victoria, home to Vulcan’s Forge, while Pompeii was three jumps outward from Albion.
The remainder would be moved to Carthage. A colony of one point four million, named New Carthage, had been established on the site of the alien ruin. With thirty-five million tons of accessibility 1.0 Duranium, accessible deposits of Corundium and Boronide and minimal deposits of the other eight Trans-Newtonian minerals, it would be a significant mining site for the Empire. While the overall deposits were not as impressive as Vulcan’s Forge, or even Marlborough in the Blenheim system, it had the only large, accessible deposit of Boronide and the highest accessibility of Duranium, plus it was possible to terraform New Carthage into an ideal, habitable world.
On August 24th 1898, the Nyxian Falcon class raider that was captured by the Royal Marines completed repairs and was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Ambuscade. As the original Nyxian designers intended, she would be used for stealthy raiding missions. While disassembly was considered, in order to use the components to boost ongoing research, the Admiralty decided that having their own cloaked ship was the better option.
Six weeks later, a tracking station at the recently established colony in Albion, known as Port Albion, detected thermal emissions from an alien ship moving at 4711 km/s. The contact, designated as Bobcat 001, was from a previously unknown alien race. The Nyxians and the alien race in Carthage, named the Automata after recovery of the wrecks revealed the remains of mechanical crew members with no sign of organic life, were both hostile, so there was great concern at the Admiralty that this new race would pose a threat to the half a million settlers at the Albion colony, plus the three terraforming stations in orbit. The tug Heracles was also in the system towing a fourth station to the colony. In addition to the immediate danger, the alien ship was only one jump from Victoria, with the crucial colony of Vulcan’s Forge, and two jumps from Sol.
There were no warships in the Albion system, although the light cruiser HMS Phoebe was already en route to the colony to act as guard ship and would arrive in forty hours. A regiment of Royal Artillery was based at the colony itself. Two battleships and two heavy cruisers were ordered to break Earth orbit and proceed to Albion in case the new race did prove to be hostile. There was also the question of how the ship had arrived in the system. Albion had four jump points, leading to Victoria, Proxima, Bellerophon and Medea. All but Medea led back to Earth. Victoria connected directly to Sol, Proxima connected to Alpha Centauri, which was adjacent to Sol, while a ship entering Bellerophon could reach Sol via Thebes and Lalande. All four jump points had buoys on at least one side, so it was possible this was another race like the Nyxians, who used an alternative form of interstellar travel, or there was a previously dormant jump point in Albion. After two hours of closing on the colony, the alien ship engaged its active sensors, then reversed course and began heading toward the outer system. Contact was lost in the same area in which it was first established.
A week later, a second Bobcat appeared in the same location as the first ship, which suggested there was an unknown jump point in that area. The light cruiser HMS Phoebe was in orbit of Port Albion, with shields raised and active sensors engaged. Bobcat 002 initially followed the same pattern as its sister ship, moving to within ninety million kilometres of the colony before reversing course. Instead of moving back of range, it began a series of manoeuvres between ninety and a hundred million kilometres. HMS Phoebe broke orbit in an attempt to move within sensor range.
The Bobcat held the range open at eighty-five million kilometres, but did not use its superior speed to increase that range. Unlike its sister ship it kept its active sensors on, which enabled the planet-based tracking station to maintain contact. Eventually, HMS Phoebe ceased her pursuit and held position. The alien stopped moving away, so it appeared they were prepared to talk. Commander Peter Richardson, captain of HMS Phoebe, hailed the alien ship and it responded. While neither side could understand the other, communication attempts were underway. Full communication was established on November 19th 1898. The aliens identified themselves as the Vaelor Hegemony. They were humanoid but wore blue and grey armour with opaque face shields, so their true nature could not be determined.
A month later, a third Bobcat appeared, moving past the area where HMS Phoebe and Bobcat 002 had held station for many weeks and heading into the inner system. It reversed course at ninety million kilometres and moved back out toward HMS Phoebe. As it did so, Bobcat 002 moved away into the outer system and disappeared from sensors. HMS Hermes was at the colony, carrying the Havock class destroyers HMS Banshee and HMS Dragon. She launched Dragon, which headed for Bobcat 003. When the Vaelor ship detected its approach, it attempted to move away, but Dragon had a speed of 6000 km/s and was able to close the range. The Bobcat was finally acquired on active sensors. It was 11,408 tons.
The Bobcat continue to move away from the inner system, with HMS Dragon in pursuit, in a completely different direction to previous ships. Unfortunately, the destroyer had limited fuel and had to turn back after two billion kilometres. A few days later, Bobcat 003 briefly reappeared in the same general area as the previous contacts. In mid-January, the light cruiser HMS Thetis, on assignment to the Hydrographic Officer and conducting a resurvey of Albion, discovered a previously unknown jump point seven hundred million kilometres from the star, in the same direction from which the Bobcats first appeared. HMS Thetis moved to the new jump point, emplaced a sensor buoy and then transited.
Ten ships of the Vaelor Hegemony were stationed on the far side of the jump point; a 43,000-ton Serval with commercial engines, two Jaguars of 22,900 tons, four Leopards of 22,600 tons and three Puma class ships of 11,500 tons. Only moments after transit, the Leopards each opened fire with nineteen 8” lasers and a single 10” laser. HMS Thetis was blown to pieces. The Vaelor willingness to establish communication and the behaviour of the Bobcats had led the Admiralty to assume they were not hostile. Based on the deadly ambush, it was now apparent that the Hegemony had been gaining intelligence rather than establishing friendly relations. The alien system, with five planets, fifty moons and over two hundred asteroids orbiting a red dwarf, was named Thetis, so that the betrayal would never be forgotten.
The battleships HMS Royal Sovereign and HMS Empress of India and the heavy cruisers HMS Europa and HMS Niobe, all of which were in orbit of Port Albion, were ordered to the Albion – Thetis jump point. A matching squadron was dispatched from Earth as reinforcements. A few days after the jump point defence squadron arrived on station, Bobcat 002 transited into Albion from Thetis and was immediately destroyed by HMS Empress of India. The other two known Bobcats jumped into Albion in early February 1899, with similar results.
Over the next twelve months, the Empire focused on the construction of a major base at Port Albion. The number of terraforming stations was increased to ten, which allowed rapid terraforming of the small moon. By early 1900, Port Albion had a breathable atmosphere, a human-tolerable temperature and small lakes beginning to form. The Colonial Office Rating was 1.50 and that would continue to fall as water vapour condensed out of the atmosphere. Sufficient infrastructure was shipped to the base to accommodate a population of twelve million, which in turn provided a workforce for maintenance facilities that supported 200,000 tons of military shipping. A research facility was delivered to Port Albion to handle the disassembly of any recovered components, along with a naval headquarters to deal with any prisoner interrogation locally. The Hegemony sent though two more Bobcats during that period, both of which were quickly eliminated.
During 1900, the British Empire suffered a significant Duranium shortage due to the deteriorating accessibility of the deposit on Earth. Approximately five hundred manned and automated mines were in operation at Vulcan’s Forge, but more than three times that number remained on Earth. Vulcan’s Forge could not be improved beyond a Colonial Office rating of 2.0, so due to the need for infrastructure to support any population increase and service sector growth reducing the percentage of the population available for mining, the population stabilised at around forty-seven million, with further growth led by the private sector.
Imperial focus shifted from the build up in Albion to the terraforming of New Carthage, site of the alien ruin. While the planet was almost as large as Earth, and therefore much harder to terraform than Port Albion, it already had extensive oceans, a substantial nitrogen atmosphere and a surface temperature of sixty degrees. The addition of oxygen to the atmosphere made it breathable by January 1901, so the twenty Eden class terraformers in orbit began to add Frigusium to lower the temperature. As the planet was tide-locked, the Colonial Office rating dropped to 0.2 once the colonists could breathe the atmosphere. A massive transport operation began in February 1901 to move colonists and mines to the planet to exploit the thirty-five million tons of accessibility 1.0 Duranium. Until that was complete, or at least well underway, the Empire was severely restricted economically.
There was no appetite for offensive operations against the Vaelor Hegemony until the economic situation could be stabilised, while the Vaelor sent only three ships into Albion during 1900; two 8000-ton Lynx class ships and a commercial-engined Ocelot of 17,700 tons. The Hegemony strategy seemed to be to sacrifice low-cost ships to gain intelligence on the Royal Navy defenders. Maintaining a substantial defensive force on the Albion – Thetis jump point was a logistical strain, particularly for low endurance battleships and especially when the Royal Navy had began to accumulate considerable defensive responsibilities for the Empire’s growing number of colonies. The jump point defence force was reduced initially to four heavy cruisers, with a pair of battleships in support at Port Albion. With the minimal Hegemony activity and only twelve heavy cruisers available in total, that defence force was reduced to two heavy cruisers by early 1901.
Two Diadem class heavy cruisers had joined the Fleet in November 1898, but no battleships had been constructed since 1896 and no new Pelorus class light cruisers or Havock class destroyers since 1890. Four Apollos had been constructed since 1890, with one lost to hostile action. Due to the economic crisis that had been growing in the late 19th century, culminating in the Duranium shortage in 1900, the shipbuilding effort had concentrated on transport capacity, terraformers and fuel harvesters. Ion engine technology became available in late 1900, although it would take some time to develop new engines and new warship designs. Even then, no significant new shipbuilding, or even the retooling of shipyards, could begin until the Duranium crisis was resolved.
Royal Navy February 1901
4x Majestic class Battleship: Illustrious, Magnificent, Majestic, Victorious
10x Royal Sovereign class Battleship: Centurion, Empress of India, Hood, Ramillies, Renown, Repulse, Resolution, Revenge, Royal Oak, Royal Sovereign
12x Diadem class Heavy Cruiser: Aboukir, Amphitrite, Andromeda, Argonaut, Ariadne, Bacchante, Cressy, Diadem, Europa, Euryalus, Niobe, Spartiate
1x Hermes class Escort Carrier: Hermes
12x Pelorus class Light Cruiser: Pandora, Pearl, Pegasus, Pelorus, Perseus, Phoebe, Pioneer, Pomone, Prometheus, Proserpine, Psyche, Pyramus
11x Apollo class Light Cruiser: Aeolus, Andromache, Apollo, Intrepid, Latona, Naiad, Scylla, Sirius, Spartan, Terpsichore, Tribune
1x Falcon class Raider: Ambuscade
8x River class Marine Transport: Avon, Clyde, Mersey, Severn, Tay, Thames, Trent, Tyne
24x Havock class Destroyer: Ardent, Banshee, Boxer, Bruiser, Charger, Conflict, Contest, Daring, Dasher, Decoy, Dragon, Ferret, Hardy, Hasty, Haughty, Havock, Hornet, Janus, Lightning, Lynx, Porcupine, Salmon, Snapper, Wizard