Aftermath and Strategic Planning

All ships in the Tau Ceti battle group survived the encounter with the Spider class alien craft. Although some systems where damaged. Damage control was initiated to repair engines first as the fleet heads towards the Sol jump point.

Meanwhile on Earth plans to get maintenance and fuel craft to the fleet are put into action as well as ships to restock the depleted missile supplies. Research also continues to improve the missile tech.

Contact is lost with the Spider craft which is also retreating either for reinforcements or to repair I will shortly find out which.

1st February 2057

The Tau Ceti battle group reach the Sol jump point and remain on high alert scanning for any hostile contacts. The sensor range around the jump point is 336 million kms.

The following design is created as a missile resupply ship:

Cerberus Missile Resupply class Cruiser 16150 tons 613 Crew 1875.2 BP TCS 323 TH 660 EM 0
2043 km/s Armour 8-56 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 2086% IFR: 29% Maint Capacity 1073 MSP Max Repair 30 MSP Est Time: 1.36 Years
Magazine 3400

Ion Engine E8 Military (11) Power 60 Fuel Use 80% Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 7.0 billion km (39 days at full power)

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

A military jump tender that can get ships in and out is now required.

8th February 2057

At 11:01 three hostile contacts are detected approaching the Tau Ceti battle group stationed by the Sol jump point. Two are Marshal and Anubis with a tonnage of 24,000 as encountered before the third is designated Feng Huang and has a tonnage of16,000 tons. The battle group is put on red alert there is now way of knowing if the fleet has been detected. We only have 83 ASM's left and 605 AMM's so defense will be our best policy. All three alien ships are closing at 5624 km/s.

At 19:57 all three alien contacts are 162m km from the battle group current ASM range is 70.5m km the target decision will need to made soon but from the limited intelligence gained the choice of target is not clear. At 23:18 the alien active sensor is detected at a range of 88.2m km the fleet is still not within missile range. So far no hostile launches have been detected.

The Marshall class craft breaks away from the main fleet at 23:23 which may mean it's the eyes of the other craft. Too bad it's out of range.

9th February 2057

A hostile missile contact is picked up and targeted by the three AMM ships salvo size is 20 with a thermal signature of 5. At 00:10 one of the Broadsword ASM craft is hit by 20 size 5 missile. The craft is not destroyed but numerous systems are in need of repair. Another size 20 salvo is also detected. The AMM missiles where not effective at all. The second salvo is reduced to 8 missiles but this is still enough to destroy the crippled Broadsword 129 life pods are detected. The second Broadsword is hit by 6 missiles but manages to survive. We are now out of ASM's so defence and the hope they run out of missiles is all we have left.

They keep sending salvo after salvo and the fleet defends valiently but finally 13 missiles hit one of the Sunstrike sensor craft luckily the armor absorbs the impact. We finally run out of AMM missiles at 00:17 and can only wait for the end. The missile salvos end at 00:20 and all other craft manage to survive. Orders are given to pick-up any survivors and repairs are started.