Sorry this late answer: I have strong flu in the last days and didn’t even turned on the PC.
No, my boarding ships have no sensors: to gain high speed, they have just engine, some fuel and troops bay.
And I didn’t remember I need someone around with active sensors on to detect the enemy ship.
Now, I’m sending that someone. 
The UN security council declared global martial law after a massive explosion at Harwell nuclear research campus. Scientists predict twelve years remain until the aftermath of that event will cause our sun to detonate in a pre-nova explosion which will liquify and evaporate all bodies in the solar system.
Consequently the UNSC directorate council have prioritised the discovery and colonisation of new worlds and an exodus from Earth is underway.
In an unexpected turn of events, an enigmatic race who call themselves the Gandle Ott Theocracy reappeared in Barnard’s Star, a designated research system one jump from Sol, which also provides access to a colony world in 84 Cancri. Previously detected on the fringes of UNSC space, the Ott withdrew from improving diplomatic relations in the midst of their bitter war against the Kingdom of Rewa, a trading partner with the UNSC.
While the UNSC have neutral relations with the Ott, all diplomatic efforts have failed to improve trust between the two states since their withdrawal. It was surprising then that while the UNSC was considering colonising Barnard’s Star I with defences, population and establishing a mission to decode the information present in an alien language in a dormant construct on the planet viewed as a colony of Earth, that an Ott ship should appear in the system.
An extraordinarily fast scout ship was spotted jumping in and observed moving between various bodies by deep space tracking systems already present on Barnard III as part of a mining expedition. UNSC strategic analysts predicted it was inevitable they would became aware of the dormant construct and the UNSC council decided to expedite colonisation of Barnard I.
Tensions were high as the scout ship surveyed Barnard I which was already garrisoned with a ship bearing weaponry potentially able to disable the scout even if the ships of Earth were not able to match its speed in deep space manoevures. The legal counsel of the British delegation prevailed and a fateful decision was made not to start a war while higher priorities took precedence and hopes of a diplomatic entente remained possible.
Academics, under the aegis of the UNSC, decoded the language of the construct and took control of it just as two large and slow Ott ships approached the planet and unloaded ground forces. It would be fair to say panic ensued in the UNSC headquarters on Earth. An initial estimate of tonnage put the Ott forces at ten thousand tons but their composition was unknown. Their size appeared to diminish and UNSC analysts construed they had taken a defensive position.
There ensued an elaborate game of bluff as the UNSC military police force, STO group, engineering corps and xenoarchology expedition were instructed to hold their ground and dig in, in the assumption that the Ott knew as little about UNSC forces composition as UNSC knew about theirs. Fortunately for the UNSC the tonnage of their lightly armed forces significantly exceeded that of the Ott at around sixty five thousand tonnes which they gambled was sufficient to deter hostile action from the Ott forces. The massacre of Beta Telescopii however was still fresh in the minds of the directorate, who knew well a xenoarcheology expedition could not withstand the attack of even an automated military force, whatever its size.
All Space Marine forces training at the bootcamp on Earth and reservists who had previously seen action onboard hostile ships, captured in security operations against a poorly understood piratical enemy, were mobilised and brought to take positions on the front line at Barnards I, bolstering the forces to over seventy thousand tons.
The resulting tense stand off left the UNSC wanting more powerful forces to meet, greet and defeat any potential Ott insurgency so research resources were diverted from the task of improving colonisation technology to the development of ground and space forces capable of defeating the dangerously fast moving, impressively powerful and shielded Ott Armada, which had been spied patrolling the Ott system of Psi Ceti by the UNSC diplomatic station positioned at the jump point to YZ Ceti, which contained a jump point leading directly to Barnard’s Star. It would take all UNSC forces combined to defeat them. The only good news was that they were slower than the Ott scout and more importantly slower than the UNSC fast attack craft developed to seek and destroy piratical interlopers.
Meanwhile the colonisation of Barnard I proceeds apace, population currently stands at just over two million colonists and work proceeds to increase the size of the colony and exploit the 70% advantage in construction and production research which the no longer dormant construct on Barnard I is estimated to provide. Improvements to ground and space firepower and armour are being researched and should bear fruit in the near future. Equipment design is proceeding in anticipation of their future availability, to bolster defences at Barnard’s Star I.
The UN navy is about to undergo it’s first 10 year fleet review, holding design reviews and making a development plan for the period of 1980-1990. On the docket are the following items:
After the tragic loss of a science vessel to ground-based weapons in a Hipparcos catalogue system in the vicinity of Orion, Empress Alysun IV has approved the full force of the Blood Autocracy to deal with the threat.
Armoured Cruiser Norway arrived at the system (now designated “Draknor” as that seems to be what the enemy forces call it in the few communications we’ve been able to intercept) and approached the planet with shields up until it started taking fire. Norway kept at around the maximum range of the ground-based weapons, almost never being hit, and began firing Mk.IV Anti-missile missiles at the sources of the fire. They must have been fortified and heavily armoured, as the AMMs could not destroy the weapon sites even with direct hits. Norway switched to using Mk.V torpedoes with 25 times the explosive yield and eventually whittled down the planetary return fire to nothing.
Upon approaching low orbit around the planet, Norway was struck by a large volume of low damage hits on her shield, apparently from point defence weapons that for some reason did not engage any of the earlier torpedoes. Neither did they engage the following torpedoes, which eventually wiped out all point defence weapons as well. For her work, the captain was awarded several Commendations Green, usually reserved for the army.
With such significant armour, a ground assault against these aliens will be difficult to the point of pointlessness. Larger ground vehicles with higher calibre weapons must be developed. Blood Baroness Innogen Rend has revived her Super-Heavy Vehicle program, and restarted development on the Mammoth, Overlord, Devastator, and Apocalypse tanks.
30th April
“Earlier today, contact was momentarily lost with the Scyphi, which had jumped out of the X-241-2 system through an unexplored jump point.
Initial fears of Orz attack were quickly dispelled when the ship re-established contact, explaining that she had emerged only twenty million kilometres from the primary star in the system.
This star, one of two in the system, is the largest and brightest we have encountered so far, almost twice the size of Lambda-A, and 10% brighter.
Emergency environmental systems in the Scyphi prevented any serious injuries or deaths, but several of the crew were diagnosed with permanent eye damage after a medical examination in the ship’s sickbay.
Once the situation was under control, the crew were able to make an observation of the rest of the system, finding a single planet and asteroid belt in orbit of the secondary star.
This is the fourth system discovered by the Scyphi, who is now en-route to the single planet in the system, which will take her approximately six days.”
2nd May
“Welcome dear viewers. Today we have with us professor Cuitlaxaochitzin, lead propulsion scientist. Can I call you Cuitla?”
“Off course, glad to be here Xoco.”
“Thank you. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Cuitla here is the one responsible for finalizing the understanding of Nuclear Gas-Core engines, and was heavily involved in the design of the new Reeunk engines used for our destroyers.
Cuitla, the question I am asked most is this; Why are the new engines not more powerful than the last generation?”
“A fair question, and the reason is of a strategic nature, not a tactical one.
You see, our earlier destroyers, all the way back to the original Marauders, already were able to surpass the Orz Nemesis in raw speed. However, this speed advantage came at a cost of fuel efficiency and strategic range, limiting the ability of these ships to respond to Orz incursions.
When we achieved thrust by nuclear gas core, we were able to dial down the overclocking we did on the earlier engines, turning them from fuel-guzzlers into, well, they still use a lot of fuel, but we’ve doubled the range of the ships using them.”
“Is that the only advantage?”
“No, they are also more stable, and easier to operate. I mean, easier to keep running.”
“Cuitla, we’ve been fighting the Orz for decades, longer than I’ve been alive. Will this give us an edge over them?”
“I know how you feel Xoco, but I’m afraid this is only one of many steps we need. As I said, the strategic value of the increased range and endurance of our destroyers helps a lot, just like every advance we made in sensors and electronic warfare.
But we still need that one extra push in either weapons range, or rocket reliability. Once we have that, we’ll be able to take down a Nemesis without relying on luck.”
“I understand. One last question, if I may. Some people tell me they are concerned about using the Orz technology. Isn’t it dangerous to reverse-engineer their devices?”
“Not at all. We are not taking parts of their ships and bolting them to ours.
Every component we salvage is disassembled and examined, so that we could learn how they operate. And there is nothing magical or mystical about their ships, they work just like ours do.
In fact, aside from their method of travel between systems, they are only ahead of us in armour and engine technology.”
“Hold on, they have even more advanced engines? I though we used theirs to create our own gas core. And shouldn’t that make their ships faster than ours?”
“You might think that. But to answer your last question first, the Orz seem to prefer, or require, their engines to be efficient. Certainly a lower engine output also lowers their emissions, though that didn’t help them against our sensors.
And yes, they have more advanced engines. We are still learning how they work, and the nuclear gas-core is a stepping-stone towards even more advanced designs.”
“Alright, that’s all the time we had. Thank you for being here with us Cuitla.”
“My pleasure Xoco, pleasure being here.”
6th May
“We have just received word that the Scyphi has reached the single planet in the newly discovered X-275-1 system.
It appears to be a small, airless world a little too close to her sun for comfort, but the explorers assured us that she can be terraformed.
The asteroid belt contains 129 bodies of significant size, as well as the usual spread of small rocks.
Part of the belt is in the habitable zone of the sun, though obviously all asteroids are barren, and too small to be terraformed.
Largest of the asteroids is number 64, which is 890 kilometres in diameter, with a projected population capacity of 88 million.”
