Clash Above Apura V

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            Khenka Szetschu changed after the events at Genos Prime. While I would never say that my predecessor was one of kindness or one that had complete control of her emotions, the altercation with the humans… changed her. While Szetschu was quite the adept tactician on her own, in her early days she was always one that knew when to take the advice of others. This was before she was empress, however, and while her ascension to the throne made her all the more boastful, something about our defeat at the hand of the humans made her snap. She grew more prone to anger, frequently letting loose streams of vitriol and outrage in the war room of the imperial palace, and her ego only seem to magnify as our battles with the humans went on. No longer did she listen to her many advisors, no longer did she even take the council of the troops she threw at the humans. Instead, my predecessor abused her mandate as empress to continue to throw our forces at the humans in an attempt to crush them before they could gain any ground she feared they would take. I say fear, but if there was any such an emotion that Szetschu did not feel it was fear, and perhaps that is why she lost.

            The humans rose to meet her relentless onslaught of forces, clashing across the many systems on the Empire’s border, and for a while we were at a standstill. But, as I have mentioned before, a human’s stamina is something to fear. For months our forces clashed, and while the Empire was no stranger to prolonged conflict, the humans were in a league of their own. Perhaps it was the difference in tactics, striking at the flanks of our fleets and quickly Jumping away before they could take any serious damage as opposed to our tactics of overwhelming strength. I could not have been that, however, for the Coalition had tried the same tactics against us, and while they had won some small victories, they never managed to make any ground against the might of our forces. No, the difference between the rest of the Coalition and the humans was that the humans meshed their subversive actions with the right amount of force to make their attacks crippling instead of a nuisance. However, my predecessor was convinced that if she could draw the human fleets into an all out conflict we would come out victorious. At the time, I was of the same mind. Then came the clash above Apura V.

Apura V was the largest military outpost of the Empire near the border of the humans. It serves as a launching point for our forces, and a place where resources, troops, and ships were gathered and then distributed to our forces on the border. It was the only reason the Humans could not push past the border, and for some time they did not even bother to attack it. No, instead they thinned the ranks of our fleet from the outside in, cutting down and whittling away at the fleets furthest away from the planet, and at time appearing close to the planet itself if just to drop a single shot from their rail cannons into our ships. Their movements were a contradiction, chaotic yet almost machine like at the same time. There was no pattern except in their method of execution, but even with that figured out there was no way to find out when they would strike. So one day, when the largest human fleet we’d ever seen appeared in front of Apura V, there was both elation and, for the first time, caution as we rose to meet our foe.

It was my first instance of combat with the Humans, and the thing that struck me the most was the size of their ships. They were not small, but their size never reached the magnitude and bulk that the Empire ships had. No, they were, for the most part, no larger than one of our Assault Carriers. There were a few that met the size of our Capital ships, dotted throughout their formation in what we could assume where their leaders directed order. Beyond that, however, there were no Dreadnoughts, no hulking Battlecruisers, not even the slightest hint of a ship that could match our size and magnificence. A captain at the time, I scoffed at the sight. They looked more like small bugs around a hive than any formidable fighting force. Then, they fired their first shots.

It must be said that the difference between human engineering and the rest of the galaxy was a matter of purpose. The weapons and armor of most of the Galaxy were built to around the ship itself, supplements to the main craft. The Humans, however, followed a different philosophy. Their ships were built to fit around their weapons, meaning the usual gap in the front of human space ships served as the barrels to their large rail cannons. If anything, the size of their ships downplayed the size of their munitions, for when the first volley of shots fell upon our fleets the amount of explosions in the night sky could have been mistaken for the stars themselves. At that point, we had only managed to develop small counter measures against the humans’ weapons, a simple calibrations of shields and improvised armor plating on crucial parts of the ship, but never, till that point, had we sustained prolonged fire from their weapons, and the results showed.

One by one our ships fell, with only the sheer amount of numbers we had consolidated on Apira serving as our boon in battle. For every ship they had we had ten, but our weapons were woefully mismatched. As a captain I had assumed that if we could only get closer to their ships then the odds would quickly turn. We had managed to close in, but that is not what happened. I would not learn of this until much later, but the design of human ships are such that they emphasized mobility and survivability. Their core systems were spread throughout the ship, with back ups located elsewhere, so that whenever one of their major systems fell they could still keep fighting until they won or until the last of them stopped breathing. This explained their narrow shapes, for as they face towards us we could only see the barrel of their weapons and very little else. So, as we closed in upon their ships, we were initially shocked as ships that looked to be out of commission continued to fire upon us. Yes, we had the numbers, but compared to their near immortal ships they cut through ours like they were made of plastic.

Still, even the mightiest of beasts fall if struck enough times, and slowly the human fleet started to lose ground. Szetschu, present at the back of the fleet in the Ashaton, pressed the attack and started to move all ships forward to crush the humans. The majority of our forces were now locked in combat with the human fleet in space, and after a while the humans started to scatter. We thought they were fleeing at first, but soon they started to separate into smaller squadrons, each led by the five remaining Capital Ships. Then their tactics changed. Instead of facing our forces head on, two of the squadrons flew some ways away and started to fire at us from a distance. The other three kept fleeing, and my predecessor, eager to crush the humans now, focused on the two squadrons. What she did not realize, however, was that the three remaining squadrons had instead flanked us from three directions. One of the two frontal squadrons were obliterated by the time they got into position, but then the other three began to fire.

There is a certain philosophy to the Empire’s tactics, and that is to overwhelm the enemy quickly and decisively before they have a chance to react. For most of our time, that method worked, for there were few enemies out there that could withstand the might of our fleets for that long before they were forced into a hopeless retreat. Were I to appraise Szetschu’s tactics from the traditional perspective, there would be nothing wrong to her methods for she certainly had force on her side. Even with the four squadrons surrounding her, by pure numbers she had the advantage, she should have had no problems dealing with them. But, these were not our normal enemies. Surrounded, the fire from the Empire’s fleet began to spread between these four squadrons, which, in hindsight, lessened the amount of pressure that was being focused on a single squadron, allowing the human fleets to maneuver past many of our volleys since they were no longer being overwhelmed by sheer fire power. That being, said, however, I am not sure if we would have won if we concentrated fire on one squadron at a time, for soon the planet of Apura V started to fire upon our own ships.

In her eagerness to crush the human fleet, Szetschu left the Apura V with minimal defenses. She had consolidated our forces in space, leaving the base itself, with its planetary plasma turrets, with a near skeleton crew that was not enough to defend itself from the hidden human squadron that appeared before it. It is common history now, but during the battle in space it appears that the human fleet had withheld one of its squadrons from Jumping into the planet's vicinity until the battle had drawn out most of the Empire’s fleet. When this happened, the squadron that was held back Jumped to a destination that was far off from the battle, and had commenced an attack on the planet itself. A suicidal charge, for even with a skeleton crew the planetary defenses should have been enough to wipe out the squadron before it could manage to do any serious damage. That is, if these opponents were anyone else but the humans. The assault of Apura V was one of air and land. While the ships were in the air drawing the fire of the base's defenses, a number of human squads commenced a ground assault on the base, which, under a skeleton crew, could not manage to hold off the human troops for long. The base’s crew were either eliminated or captured, and soon Apura V fell to human hands. The Empress did not know this, however, for she was still engaged with the larger human fleet in space.

During the time that the human fleet split into differing parts, the humans on the planet, through coercion of the base crew or a reprogramming of our systems, I do not know, aimed the plasma turrets on the planet at the Empire’s fleet. Given the distance of our fleet from the planet, such attacks should have been a relatively effortless thing to dodge, but due to the intensity of the conflict with the humans, they did not notice the first volley until it had already landed. When the first wave of plasma bolts stuck the fleet I informed my predecessor that Apura V had fallen and that we must spread out, a sentiment that she reluctantly agreed with. However, given the positioning of the rest of the human’s fleet, as well as the now revealed hidden squadron joining the fray, the humans had in fact set up a near containment zone around our fleet. We could not escape from any one point for the fire from the human fleets would then focus and cut us down when we could not move, nor could we scatter in all directions for then our coordination amongst the fleet would be disrupted, only hampering our effectiveness in battle and leave us at the mercy of the split, but focused might of the human fleets and Apura V.

No, there was no other option left to Khenka Szetschu other than to order the emergency Jump of the fleet. A move that scattered the remnants of the offensive force and would take weeks to consolidate once again. My ship had barely survived the ordeal, and by the time the battle had ended the Empire had lost three fourths of their offensive fleet and the military base of Apura V. The humans had taken their first planet.

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