[b]DRACONIAN[/b] --- [u][b]New Condia[/b][/u] Taking in the increasingly large numbers of new, unknown starships merging with the enemies, the Draconians rapidly reconsidered their tactics. They were heavily outnumbered now, more than 3 or 4 to 1, and knew it. The enemy fleet did next to nothing to hide themselves- while appearing a bit less advanced than them, numbers alone would give them victory. So the Draconians did the only logical thing. When they had warped in, the signature was so great that they practically left a giant arrow pointing straight from their origin. Knowing full well that they could not attack this force, nor that all other fleets were currently out of instant communications range, they again, went on the offensive. They slowed down, fired as many railgun rounds as possible, launching all the ballistic inactive missiles they could, all of it silent, near-undetectable, and then they did what one might say they would never did: They all slowed, and began disappearing. They all shut down active sensors, making it harder to be detected, harder to trace, harder to detect where they were going, and they warped away. They warped to a system farther away from Eternal Union/ Terran space, a barren, desolate, empty system, and they regrouped. For all appearances, they had abandoned the fight. They had completely left. And so they joined together again, and after letting their drives cool, they warped again. [b][u]Epsilon Indi, Terran Space[/b][/u] Over a hundred and fifty Draconian ships teleported into the outermost reaches of the unknown space. They knew it was risky, going to a possibly heavily defended system, but found little to be worried about. All military ships, it seemed, had left with the fleet, and none had been left behind. The system didn't appear to sport very many defensive platforms or satellites, not that they could tell by passive sensors, but for once the Draconians decided to proceed under stealth. They shut down mostly everything, fired off drones that, too, were passive, slowly scanning the system with neigh-undetectable clusters of communications and detection equipment the size of a bus. A hundred and twenty remained at the edge of the system, slowly spreading out, with the three Battleship-Xes moving to outlying asteroids. A Cirrus-class Lightship checked each asteroid before allowing the Battleship-Xes to come close, a Sleipnir passing by the third and disabling any communications equipment or beams from the small asteroid mining operation while several fighters flew out and moved to quietly destroy the miners. They would watch, horrified, as a ship big enough to be seen by the naked eye approached, and then another one appear much closer, a much smaller ship. They would watch with even more horror as they realized they couldn't get into contact with anyone, and shortly afterwards, the miners and their equipment were all scrap, floating slowly away into space. Not before, however, they were secured by the fighters, and a shuttle moved into range, and launched Draconian spec ops. They wiped out the defenders, except three, which they took prisoner. There was no chance of a real fight- elite, trained operatives with heavy, space-proof suits against a bunch of miners. To their disappointment, the commander of the group had destroyed the consoles, including navigation. However, they tore it apart even more, searching for the embedded systems underneath the flooring of the small bridge. Finding what they wanted, they left, returned to their shuttle, and returned to their ship. Then, the Novas slowly approached, grinding up chunks of the asteroids to replenish their railgun ammunition stocks. Some distance away, a small fleet of thirty ships, 10 Novas, 15 Nimrods, 3 Sleipnirs, and 2 Cirruses moved closer into the system, sweeping for enemies with passive sensors at full. None dared to open up any active sensors- with a fleet as large as six hundred, it's unlikely they have any more ships, but it's also likely that they could have more if they spared so many. A contingent of two of the Battleship-Xes, and 60 ships broke off, and headed farther into Deep Space. When they were sure they were out of range, they vanished, heading towards a new target. [b][u]Sol System[/b][/u] Too far away for even Pluto to detect, the contingent of 60 Draconians warships exited their warp, again being as stealthy as possible. This time, the four accompanying Cirrus Lightships were immediately ordered ahead, with full stealth. They vanished, from visual and everything, completely unable to even be contacted with the best communications, and the ever-so-slight ripples left by them vanished as they left. They glided through the solar system on the lowest of systems, scanning everything as best as they could. They arrived by starcharts- the language was unreadable, but star charts are pretty hard to differ. With a bit of tinkering, a bit of analysis, and a bit of comparing, they had matched the Terrans to the Draconians', and arrived at what was presumed to be the central most system- the home. They would sorely regret coming to the aid of New Condia. The other enemies had been fine- it would have been an honorable battle, with almost equal odds. But with the massive reinforcements, lessons must be learned. They were teachers... and soldiers, but they were sorely meant for such odds. ((This means that you can decide whether they are detected or not. Though, due to the entire passive-active sensors and the stealthiness, detecting them in BOTH systems would be insanely unlikely. Choose which one- Epsilon Indi, or Sol System. Either way, you'd be hard pressed to disengage from battle, and head back to two different systems. ))