[b][i]Faira”Karte, Research and development[/i][/b]

The day has come for the big demonstration. Astra and co. have been slaving over this in any free moment of their time. [I]If this can not punch through a Lucifers shielding, nothing ever will and we need to copy the Ring fast, because jump nodes are going to fall. Might want to sic RnD on it in either case. At least we need to figure out how to get the Hammerhead to get it moving.[/i] Astra thought, as the cannon jury-rigged to the side of the station on Artorias’ orbit was pointed at the testing target. The targets were towed about ten kilometers in front of the station and Singularity and Halcyon docks that rested to each side of it.

“As you know, the test will be twofold - the targets are the latest we developed in armor and shielding, and we will be testing them against our current generation arms as well as captured Terran and Vasudan cannons.” Astra repeated the briefing material, the short version.

The freighters hauling the captured cannons lined up. “Targets at full power, shields raised.” a technician reported, and Astra gave the order to fire. The green and yellow blobs belched by the alien cannons splashed harmlessly on the shield.

“Shield strength down .05%. That’s half of what the current generation takes. Drop the shield, proceed with the armor test.” Astra noted.

The next plasma blobs were intercepted shortly before impact by a jet of coolant, distorting it and cooling it down a little. The shot then passed through a grate of electrodes and was partially neutralized. “Shot reading as 60% less efficient as current generation armor. Continue firing until something gives.”

It took four more shots for the grates to overheat and get blown off, and then the mark II crystalline armor derived from the Hammerhead came to play, the one meter thick sheet taking ten more shots before the cannons melted through. “Looks like the Terran version is doing slightly better. Now well move to our current generation arms.”

The kinetic weaponry fared little better, efficiency scaling up with caliber. The only exception was the RHVC, which had enough speed to pass the shield unimpeded and unlike the older HYVEL, it was also fast enough to beat the CIWS targeting systems. Faira fighter-based weaponry was easily defeated by the shield, and did not have enough power to damage the active armor.

The P-5 managed slightly better than the Terran equivalent, taking quarter less shots to punch through. In beam mode, the active armor proved to be far less effective. The same repeated with the P-15, only it was adequately quicker in dispatching the target.

“Now comes the fun part.” Astra said, linking into the Halcyons fire control system. One of the forward facing mothers of all railguns belched its projectile, aimed at one of the three larger targets. Passing through its shield it lost a third of its mass to ablation, but it burrowed 80% through the five meters thick sheet of armor. “This doesn't look like a lot, but take into account that the Halcyon will have four of these and with quite a high rate of fire. Any ship that presents its broadside will be disabled within a minute, because even without penetrating hits, the armor will lose the necessary integrity to transmit the push from the engines.”

Next up in the line was the new 10m fusion beam. In essence, it was the same beam weapon previously used on the Faira ship, but with a different firing chamber and an order of magnitude more powerful containment field for the beam. “Please note that in the current state,the F-10 requires a specially trained psychokinetic to fire at full range of fifteen kliks. Unassisted, the range drops to four, but even then, the effect can not be denied.” Astra said and gave the order. The cannon mounted to the station came to life and spewed a jet of still fusing atoms that continued through the target and beyond. “As you see, at the present time, we have yet to come up with a countermeasure, but we believe this will be of great aid against the ancient vessels up to and most likely including the Lucifer class. The power demands are somewhat limiting though, and we will likely only be able to mount two single barrel cannons on a destroyer. Mounting them on a frigate would be possible, at the expense of having the same power issues as the old Comet class, unless we manage to increase the yield of the reactors. The Singularity will be able to mount three pieces.” the admiral delivered.

Finally, she tapped into the firing controls of the Singularity. The P-100”s dish lit up, a cloud of plasma as large as the ship was wide gathering in front of it, until after half a minute the mass was converted into a beam that blown the final target away, completely obliterating it. “Needless to say, if this ship can not pierce the Lucifer's shields, nothing we can build in the next fifty years will. With that in mind, with your permission, I would like to put my research team on studying the Ring.” Astra finished, turning to the Admirals present.

With the Vasudan weaponry scoring dead last, there was surely a story to be made by the NNN.

As the Halcyon’s 16m bow coilgun bit into the target, Zorea couldn’t help but smile, almost like a child about to be given a new toy. With decent ammo capacity for its size, lot of storage space and multiple on-board fabricators, a carefully calculated rate of fire could keep up the bombardment for a while.

“The problem is if something jumps behind the ships, but there’s no such thing as ‘perfect’ design now, is it?”

“That is a problem to solve by the team designing the individual ships, but as for the superdestroyers - they are meant to be on the attack. Also, they are not fleetships, so adequate frigate and corvette escort has to be provided, alongside a fighter screen. The Strike fleet has all necessary assets in place, only needing a reorganization once the Singularity is deployed. The Halcyon I am not sure about, given that it is a project that stretches before the Confederation.” Astra noted.

“Only a little restructuring will be required. These days, I only stay on the Ira because I have nowhere else to sleep. I wanted to use this time to return home for a few weeks, but with hostile Vasudans there,” he pointed to one side of the room, then to the other, “and neutral Terrans there, I stayed just in case. Funny thing, rear admiral, when the dynamic duo found the Hammerhead, admiral Lira and I asked you about the Strike Fleet’s personnel and you mentioned that you would take Narix crew to the Singularity and train them for the Halcyon. Now, it seems I’ll be training you some people for the Singularity.” he laughed. He’d already decided what positions he would like to be filled by at least one Faira shift, namely occupations where the ship’s size played a role like helm, TCs, gunnery chief and chief engineer plus other miscellaneous crew.

“Much appreciated, Admiral. Although the Singularity will be a bit easier on the crew than the average destroyer with me at the helm, the follow up class will need a crew to operate it. To finish the demonstration, we expect it should be possible to upgrade most ships to the armor specification you have seen by removing the top layer of the present armor and letting the crystalline coat grow on top. The active parts of the armor can be installed as applique on the existing hull without the need of major stay in the shipyard, so we believe this would be best done in two phases - first install the active armor on all ships, and then start applying the new material layer ship by ship. Compared to Ancient vessels, we best start with frigates, as it would allow them to stand up to Demons on their own before a destroyer arrives. If we are still dealing with the Vasudans at that point, then we estimate corvettes will be the most effective ship class due to the large area that we will need to engage in. The upgraded weapon suites would best be deployed on entire new classes of ships, I”m afraid. While some of the older destroyers can be outfitted with the F-10, we run the risk of blowing the power grid just like on the Curious, and I do not need to stress the necessity of none of our hardware falling into Vasudan hands.” Astra finished.

“The Explorer will provide you with any crew requirements you will have, Admiral Zorea. Vanguard fleet will be upgraded to Strike fleet numbers in the future, and I would like to take my crew with me when the next superdestroyer rolls off the assembly line. In the meantime, I”ll train a new crew for the Explorer. No time for it like now.” Cygnus offered.

“Very well, I’ll get you the list within the next two days, thank you.”

[b][i]Antares, 8th January 2335 Terran, 18 months after the launch of Mace wing[/i][/b]

For the past several months, the Terran plan, known as Operation Thresher, has been gaining momentum as several groups of ships, lead by the GTD Normandy and GTD Aeneas, were gathering and taking on vast quantities of supplies all throughout Antares. Now the time has come to bring the fleets together. The dice have been cast as the two Orions arrived within a minute of eachother, soon joined by Fenris and Leviathan-class cruisers and even more freighters. The mood aboard the ships was good, morale bolstered by the events that transpired in the past few months. Although the Eisenhower was in a shipyard being rebuilt almost from the ground up, the Zods managed to piss off not one, but two alien species. Granted, they haven’t done anything since the first engagements, aside from publicly executing Battlemaster HaDo by a firing squad and transmitting it live across the galaxy in Terran standard and Vasudan translations, but knowing they were no longer alone returned the life into many Terrans throughout the GTA. Even the loss of contact with Riviera station at Ross 128 three days ago, attributed to a malfunctioning relay station, couldn’t sour their day. With their heads held high, the Fleet plunged into Subspace, eager to tear into the heart of the PVE.

Only the highest echelons were aware of the Confederate operation and the true reason for the disappearance of some waste material from project Tsunami. What none of the men and women of the strike force knew was that the CNCR Ardor rang alarm bells throughout the entire Vasudan hierarchy, from pilots and crew of the ships that witnessed the event through the convoluted mess of the Vasudan nobility all the way to the Parliament. The Vasudan side of the nodes was now guarded more than ever, with most blockading ships several kilometers from the node, leaving only a few cruisers close to the nodes.

[b][i]Orbit of Opportunity II[/i][/b]

It’s been eleven years since the Mining rights to opportunity-I and Opportunity-II were signed off to the Narix Republic while the Faira took the asteroid mining operations. Since then, many valuable resources were discovered and since the completion of the Opportunity station seven years ago, Narix corporations flooded into the system, dividing up the dwarf planets among themselves and extracting the valuable minerals and ore.

For Argo Natanis, this was the opportunity of a lifetime, as his current contract ended due to the completion of habitation module ‘K’ of the New Frontier station, his small moving company was hired to move cargo between the Opportunity station and eight mining outposts in the Artorias belt. This was just another regular trip he and his co-pilot would spend leaning back in their chairs and letting the autopilot do most of the work. Load the cargo, jump to Naris, cool the drives, jump to the given outpost, dock, unload the cargo, return, dock, repeat.

Argo was just programming the navigation computer with the Naris-Opportunity jump beacon when a jump point of massive proportions formed some two thousand meters ahead of them on a near perpendicular course. The surprise was made complete when the Halcyon emerged at a 20 degree angle and in a slight starboard roll.

Aboard the superdestroyer, Commodore Langara was trying to explain their current predicament to Admiral Zorea.

“The subspace motivators have what, Tarvis?”

“Melted, admiral.” the chief engineer repeated. “So have many of the heat exchangers. We have lost all subspace capability and seven main drives. It appears the dual-stage heat sinks will require a redesign. The drives produced more heat than the heat exchangers could manage, overheating the motivators and in some cases damaging their respective sublight engines.”

“And the remaining nine will get us back to the yard in… four days. I suggest you divide your skeleton crew into shifts and start cutting apart the busted engines as soon as they stop glowing. I’ll alert the assembly that our shakedown run sadly fulfilled its role.”

“Sir? I am looking at one of the exchangers that is not a molten slag, and there is coolant everywhere. It looks like the piping broke. We’ll collect debris and try to jigsaw it back together to see where the failure originated. Can you spare some transports and combat oracles to collect what fell off and give us some hangar space to put it all in?” Casei asked, already outside and on the task, while the Narix DC crews had to wait for the IR radiation to drop a bit. “Sorry we didn’t see it, it looks like the coolant was under so much pressure it went straight to gas. It was over in half a minute.” She added, her tone adequately morose. This was the Worst failure since the Curious.

“I’ve notified the marine commander, he’s sorting the oracles. Use the free storage bays for the reconstruction. Dropships are being prepared. Chins up, everyone. Better it happened now than when we jump to Deneb.”

“Admiral!” the communications officer called, “High ups mentioned something about rear admiral Astra being able to jump us back to the yard. We can dock manually from there.”

“Which would speed up the repairs by a few days. Then the engineers help with the modifications while the rest of us get more accustomed to our new home. Before the shipwrights design this hitch out, we may even get a few days of leave.”

[b][i]Sirius[/i][/b]

“Oho! Ladies, look sharp! The Zods just started moving massive numbers out of the system!” Silver called up, her antennae downright tingling with how much traffic was headed for the node. “Counting two Typhons and at least four older destroyers heading out.”

“Their fleetnet says they are headed for Vasuda. The Terran invasion must have started. I guess that means it is time?” Shadow perked up, flexing her fingers.

“It would seem so.” Rock got up from the chess board. “Let’s ruin someone’s day! Veeeery carefully.”

Already in the cockpit, Shadow laughed. “With two years of recon I know every bolt on those docks. You work on getting us home, allow me to break stuff. I hope you downloaded your books and music, we’re going in cold. Silver, verify this gravity maneuver?”

“Physics check out. This will launch us at the yards at five thousand kliks per second, are you sure you can aim at that speed?” The leader noted.

“It’s the speed needed to beat the reaction time of the defenses. I’ll be launching three bombs almost immediately after we leave the sphere of influence aiming by RCS course corrections. Then we’ll adjust our own heading to fly just out of the blast zone - The RHVCs should allow us to engage any fighters that will try to shoot the bombs down with reasonable lead. The last bomb, assuming these three reach the target, is for getting us home in case the Halcyon isn’t fast enough. Any word from them?” the mad bomber explained.

“Good thing you know every bolt, now you can make sure you rearrange them all!” Pyxis laughed. “Nary a peep from them, I assume they’ll only let us know hours prior to deployment. Meanwhile, we’ll watch for cargo, inconvenient cruisers or other food for the cannons.”

“And fighters, and hope another battlegroup doesn’t jump us by accident. What’s along the escape trajectory? The node, or do we return here?”

“Or do we jump ourselves away as soon as the bombs hit?”

“I believe we should attempt to drift cold as long as we are not detected before we jump. First place you look for a bomber is around the ground zero, not five kilometers further every second. Remember, the Zods don’t know about the Muons and what they can do, they will look for conventional bombers. As soon as we’re clear, we head towards the Halcyon, so node it is. Worst case scenario we”ll have to fight for fifteen minutes and then break a blockade.” Silver highlighted the general idea, “Then again, in the original plan the yards should have been dust twelve months ago, so expect anything.” she snorted, turning her bomber on.

“I’m not a fan of the ‘fight for fifteen minutes’ part, can you believe it? Though I’m sure some of love the prospect.” Pyxis muttered, taking her bomber outside. “Farewell, chunk of rock in the middle of nowhere.” she waited for Silver to take off, ready to follow.

[b][i]Sirius Imperial Shipyard[/i][/b]

The bombs were launched, and Silver was tracking their progress carefully. So far they were on course, both bombs and  bombers. Hopefully, with only needing to activate the engines for the course correction far away from here, their approach was undetected. Thirty minutes to go.

“Foreman! Early warning has detected three small asteroids heading for the station! They are too fast to intercept effectively with the stations defenses!” A vasudan technician warned.

“How large and where will they hit?” The foreman asked.

“They are the roughly fifty centimeters in diameter, and headed towards the control station, the PVD Hammer construction and the supply depot! No visual! Impact in under five minutes!”

“Sound the Evacuation! Inform the garrison!”

“There is no one that can intercept or launch enough fighters in time!”

“This is Shipmaster KhuFu. Pray for our souls in the afterlife. PVC Aves, signing off.”

Shadow was listening to them panic on the public channel with glee, right until the Shipmaster spoke. “Nooo, no you sand eating BASTARD! Don’t you dare!” she shrieked as the cruiser jumped in the path of the bombs and promptly went up in flames. “

“Well, so much for that plan. This is a shipyard, there has to be some way to refuel and rearm the ships. There’s a freight depot on the other side of the station. Reckon we can get a scan of some of it, see if they have some spare warheads or a fuel dump in place?”

“Wait! Wait for it!” Shadow shouted, watching the quarters the cruiser split into drift towards the shipyard that was now scrambling everything that flown to evacuate.

Not a bit of it. The hundreds of tons of cruiser debris plowed through, slowly, but surely. “Well, I am not going to complain. The shipyard is fucked, that is the biggest metal harmonica I have ever seen.” the bomber pilot snarked, seeing the pylons of the dock break and impact into each other. The control station now featured one of the Aten”s arms stuck pointy side in, also out of commission. The only target still usable was the supply depot. “Shame most of the people inside are going to live rather than burn up. What about the depot?”

“Forget it. The entire node blockade just jumped, likely to mount a rescue. We won't get a better chance to reach Vega. Keep the bomb for what's on the other side and let”s go.” Silver noted, giving Rock the jump location.

“The entire blockade?” Pyxis almost found it hard to believe. “Either they are dumber than expected, or we were wrong and our gods love us.”

“Hah! That's a thought. Or maybe the Vasudan gods love us more. Or maybe two destroyers are holding the other side of the node and will splash us like flies. In either case, looks like they noticed the bombs but not us, maybe an asteroid collision avoidance notified them, and we were not on collision course. In any case,let's not push our luck and get out of here, shall we?” Silver suggestordered and the four bombers jumped away.

[B][i]Vega, CFFG Independence[/i][/b]

“What do you mean, the Halcyon isn’t coming, ma’am? Those four are going to be hunted like animals once they make their move, if they aren’t already! We promised them a pickup!” Commander Mirai exclaimed, not at all happy with the news Rear Admiral Astra called over with.

“Calm down, commander. I agree with the sentiment, but the Assembly won’t let me commit the Warrior even if I am not on it. I asked. Not without knowing what is on the other side, and Mace is the only group that ever went there. Fortunately, they said nothing of the other ships, likely assuming we won’t be mad enough to send those. But answer me this: If you had an Ardor blow up in your face, what would be your reaction?” Astra asked, having Linsis, Mirai and Auraxis patched in to the conversation.

“Mine the node approaches. At the cost of sounding like a Vasudan: the Warrior, or any ship for that matter, is a lot of materials and many crew, whereas Mace wing are only four pilots and four bombers.” Auraxis chimed in, “We’ve picked them because of anyone available, they stood the greatest chance of not only completing their mission, but living to tell the tale. They went there voluntarily and aware the risks. And as much as I hate to say this, we don’t even what their situation is. Should the worst come to pass, is risking a ship, or several ships and their crews, worth discovering Muon debris?”

“That depends on what you consider an acceptable risk.” Mirai chimed in. If only to get a look at the Vasudan reaction to the Ardor. Give the Halcyon some intelligence for when it finally deploys. Two frigates, all power to jump drives and shields, wakejump in, let the oracles have a look, pick up Mace if we can, wakejump out.” the Faira noted, using her hands as models for the frigates absentmindedly.

“That could work, though If a cruiser bomb just blew up in my face so hard it blew the sand out from between my teeth, I’d definitely shore up the defenses, especially at the node where three different species can come from. We could find ourselves staring down four Typhons ahead and two of the older ones in our backs, alongside the aforementioned minefield.” Linsis scratched his chin, ignoring the Vasudan cruisers that would be present in such a hypothetical blockade. “But given how many lives their efforts will save in the long run, we owe them at least an extraction. If we’re going through with this, the crew of the Crossbow volunteers.”

“I suppose it all depends on whether they could identify the explosion and an antimatter bomb. You can not defend against that in any way but to space out your defenses. In either case, the frigates can, in worst case secanrio, jump back before the Vasudans even aim their guns, and we’ll at least have an image of how the other side of the node looks like.” Astra nodded.

“If the Crossbow wants to go, Independence will as well go recover it’s crew.” Mirai agreed.

[B][i]Deneb[/i][/b]

“Uuuuuh, problem, no Halcyon!” Shadow grunted as they emerged on the other side of the node. “Buggers sure got spooked by the Ardor though, look at them fanned around. Can we thread the needle between their firing spheres?”

“No. Wouldn’t matter, they noticed us, incoming fighters fifteen kliks ahead, launching from one of the typhons. We can not blaze through the fighter screen either, fanned out like this, even the Zod drives can nanojump. I don't want to become a smear on an Aten’s hull like our bombs. Looks like we'll have to punch through! Form up, Mace!” Silver ordered, plotting the course and starting a warm up cycle on the guns.

“No Halcyon, but no Narix debris either. At least some good, or not completely bad news.”

“And here I was, thinking mounting extra shields was wasted effort.” Rock rubbed her hand stogether. “Hey, ugly yellow bastards, have you seen a superdestroyer by chance?” she armed the laser guided missiles, assigning them to the four turrets closest to them to punch a hole, set her turret free on the fighters, herself targeting one of them, waiting for them to get just a [i]little[/i] closer…

Several Vasudan fighters fell apart with no apparent reason far beyond the range of Vasudan fighter weaponry. As the Vasudans raced to close the distance to avoid being picked off like range targets, one of the specs sensors identified as an unidentified heavy bomber lit up with the trails of dumbfire rocket engines. The Vasudans scattered, avoiding the rocket barrage without problems. But when they returned to formation, the bombers were past them.

“It worked once, but I’ve only got 18 rockets left and another group is launching from the typhon.”

“We need to dispose of the destroyer, every other ship is too far for intercept, but we can’t fight off 120 pieces of strikecraft! Silver, permission to do something insane?” Shadow asked, already setting her bomber up.

“Wait! Incoming form our side!” Silver shouted.

A mindspace vortex opened at the end of the node and spat the two frigates into normal space. “Full reverse!” Mirai ordered, just in case there were any bombs present. “Mace wing, are you there, please respond! Oracles, get a lay of the land quickly!”

“Jump prep complete, standing by for jump.” the Crossbow reported. “We’ve got four destroyers, at least thirty deployed fighters and it looks like more are on their way.” It took the Vasudans a few moments shake off the surprise to do something about the two pocket destroyers in their front yard.

“Crazy bastards, what are they thinking?” Pyxis asked no one in particular at the sight of the two frigates. “Not that I’m complaining. Full burn to the closest frigate and hope they open in time?”

“The frigates won’t last that long. Get ready to scuttle your bombers.” Silver ordered, “Shadow, whatever you want to do, do it quickly. Independence, we are NO-GO for landing. Can the Marine jumpers bring aboard just us? We’ll time delay the bomber’s self destruct charges.”

“Master of Arms says you are GO fo combat extraction, activate your disaster beacons and we’ll jump you on board.” Mirai replied, having confirmed with her subordinate.

“Not yet!” Shadow said, pulling up near Pyxis who was closest to her. The cover of her ejection pod blown upwards and the mad bastard jumped onto the other bomber, maglocking herself on. “For the love of us both, don’t let your shield drop!” Shadow laughed over the comms, guiding her bomber remotely on full burn. The shield of her bomber took a beating form the escorting fighter wings, but with 5% remaining, Shadow got close enough and let the RHVC loose on the Typhon’s fighter bay doors, blasting an opening and guiding the bomber in, before promptly activating the last fusion bomb. On the outside, the bomb would have probably dropped the destroyer solid 20% hull integrity. On the inside and in a fighter bay, it made the typhon explode like a watermelon. “Ready for extraction!”

Somewhere on the Crossbow, Virgo was proud of her sister. Pyxis did as asked, having already been on an approach vector to the Independence, steered slightly off course and funneled as much power to the shields as they would allow. Once the deed was done, she turned the bomber so the top was facing the frigates and opened the hatch. “Hello! Sixteen seconds.” she waved at Shadow and launched herself away from the bomber, activating her distress beacon. In less than half a minute, her ‘Engineer’ ceased to exist. Now it was up to the marine jumpers. She did not at all like the idea of orbiting Deneb just in her suit, wondering who would find her first.

Four hops later, Mace wing appeared on the bridge, Silver spotting a new gouge in one plate of her suit when a vasudan laser grazed her, but all were alive and in one piece. “Crossbow, now!” Mirai shouted as she watched the Independence’s shield flicker and collapse under the bombardment. Moments later, the ships were on their way back to Vega, the Independence groaning ominously where some of the shots landed. Only when the rattling stopped did Mirai allow herself a breath to cool down. “Both ships all stations, report!”

“The Zods took objection to one of our turrets.” Someone reported.

“All is in order. What about our unsung heroes?” Linsis wanted to know, having been too occupied with the typhon and some of its more persistent pilots. Shame those bombers couldn’t have been brought aboard, they would’ve made nice in a museum. “Also, this marks the destruction of a second typhon class, both at the hands of the NFC.”

“Third, actually.” Taurus said in a ‘business as usual’ tone, having overheard the transmission.

“On top of an extra Aten, one station and one destroyer sized shipyard. Sadly the Zods are not new to self sacrifice and we were unable to destroy the nearby cargo depot. Full loss of strikecraft, no pilot losses. Not that I mind, Commanders, you were a starsend, but we were expecting someone else.” Silver reported.

“We’ll debrief once we’re safely in Vega, or in Transfer undergoing repairs. Well done, Mace. Go get some rest before CFN and NCN start bothering you,” Mirai smiled.

“Oh dear, I heard about Narix reporters from someone from the CFCR Durable. I’m gonna go and hide.” Pyxis shook her head.

[B][i]Narix Confederate Newscast[/i][/b]

[u][i]First Confederate scouts to Vasudan systems have returned[/i][/u]
A daring operation came to a dramatic end as four Faira pilots, inserted into Deneb two years ago, returned home in the evening hours of 8th / I. Despite the setbacks to the extraction plan, the Strike Fleet quickly adapted. The CFFG Independence and CFFG Crossbow jumped to Deneb and retrieved the four yet unnamed pilots, confirming the destruction of Vasudan Sirius shipyards and two Typhon-class destroyers! We will bring you further details as they are revealed.

[u][i]Deployment of the CNSD Halcyon delayed[/i][/u]
The Halcyon suffered an undisclosed engine-related failure during its trial runs in Naris. The spokesman for Silaris Yards stated the repairs will be complete before the end of the month.

[u][i]Unraveling the Ring’s mysteries[/i][/u]
A large science convoy arrived at the RI Ring early this morning. The Inventor Fleet has declared its study and understanding their top priority within the confines of their budget.

[B][i]Confederate Fleetnet News[/i][/b]

[u][i]Operation Thresher declared a failure[/i][/u]
Only a few hours after launch, the terrans have declared Operation Thresher a failure, having lost one entire fleet during an attempt to breach the blockade, with no Vasudan ship losses. With the Terrans failing to keep up the pressure until the Halcyon is ready and the early extraction of our black operations bomber wing, the invasion has been put on hold, new date pending.

[u][i]New front?[/i][/u]
The Terrans have, in no certain terms, notified us of one of their systems’ hub installations going dark for longer time than it would take to bring backups online in case of a comm relay failure. Whether this is a Vasudan attack through a newly discovered node or something else is yet to be confirmed.

[u][i]Fleetwide Vasudan database update[/i][/u]
With the Mace wing having actively engaged Vasudan targets, the database have been updated with both ship weak points, applicable strategies and behavioral patterns of both vasudan strikecraft and ships. All military personnel are required to review the new content within five days.