Campaign Title

2626.018:
The Pilgrim War

The Beginning

With the invention of the Akwende Drive by the Terran Confederation, non-Pilgrims were suddenly able to explore space once more. Benefitting from wealth and resources accrued over the last hundred years, Confed was able to spread its reach far and wide into the Hawking and Gemini Sectors. Alarmed at this new incursion into space, the Pilgrim Alliance protested strongly against Confed interstellar travel, claiming that it violated the Luna Treaty of 2462. The Confederation refused to accede, replying that the Luna Treaty in fact only prohibited sloship travel by Hopper (Morvan) Drive, as well as encroachments into Pilgrim space in the Vega Sector, both of which the Confederation had not broken. Thus Confed exploratory missions continued, to the annoyance of the Pilgrim Alliance.

Then in 2615, a militant faction gained political and religious control of the Pilgrim Alliance, and the Pilgrim leadership decided that Terrans had to be contained in the Sol System once and for all. The Pilgrims had always viewed themselves as the only ones chosen by divinity to roam the stars, and considered the Terrans to be outcasts. Thus Terrans venturing past Pluto's orbit was blasphemous at best, and diabolic at worst. In addition, Terran exploration meant that the Pilgrims now had to share a territory they saw to be their manifest destiny to begin with, and this was just not acceptable. The Terran Confederation had to be stopped by any means necessary.

The Battle Of Titan

As a result, the Pilgrims launched a battle fleet to attack the Port of Titan on 2625.244, then the only port where jump-capable ships were being constructed and launched. The Pilgrims had expected to quickly destroy the port, and thus eliminate Confed's source of exploratory vessels, and then go on to Earth to force submission from a primitive and unprepared foe. Instead, the Pilgrim battle fleet was shocked to discover that the Terran Confederation was in fact lean, mean, and quite ready to rumble. The Battle of Titan was thus underway, and after three days of intense battle, the Pilgrim forces were forced to retreat, with the Titan station still intact.

Believing they had proved to the Pilgrims that they were not to be trifled with, the Terran Confederation offered to renew negotiations with the Pilgrim Alliance. But this offer was ignored, and over the few months the Pilgrim Alliance continued fighting a guerrilla action against the Confederation, attacking colony worlds and disrupting shipping.

Declaration Of War

Then on 2626.017, a Confederation military outpost in the Celeste System, as well as the mining colony below, was attacked and destroyed by Pilgrim forces. Tired of the continued aggression, the Terran Confederation officially declared war on the Pilgrim Alliance on 2626.018 .

In the following months, while the Pilgrims continued on a hit-and-run campaign against Confederation territories, the Confederation adopted a defensive posture, strenuously defending all Confed colonies, but making little effort to liberate any captured ones. With mass executions and enforced slave labour taking place on Pilgrim-occupied worlds, the decision must have been a tough one. But it was necessary, as Confed had something else in mind.

The First Grand Fleet

Confed's strategy took form on Confederation Day, 2627, with the launching of the First Grand Fleet, the result of more than a year of concerted wartime production. Confed decided that it would concentrate its resources on a single decisive strike against the Pilgrim Alliance government seated in the Beacon System, rather than engage in a long and drawn out battle across dozens of systems. And within a few months, the First Grand Fleet acquitted itself admirably. In an awesome display of might, the powerful fleet broke through the Alliance defences, capturing the Centauris, Sirius, Cygnus, Frase, and Bradshaw Systems in five short months of battle. With the Pilgrim fleet in disarray, the next stop for the First Grand Fleet was Beacon.

The Siege Of Peron

With their primary system coming under threat, and their devastating losses at the hands of the Confederation, the Pilgrim Alliance decided to make a final stand to defend the agricultural colony of Peron in the Luyten System, one jump away from Beacon. Then the First Grand Fleet of the Terran Confederation jumped into Luyten.

Above the Peron colony, the two fleets battled. For seven long months, each side launched offensive and counter-offensive in the hopes of gaining some kind of advantage over another, of making even a crack in the other's defences. And after seven long months of intense and bloody fighting, the battle remained in stalemate.

And then the Terran Confederation got a much-needed reprieve. On 2628.288, the surviving ships of the First Grand Fleet was joined by the Second Grand Fleet, an armada half again as large as the First's original size. The Pilgrim Forces could not stand up to the new fleet's combined might, and were defeated after two weeks.

The Cygnus Treaty

With the capture of the Luyten System, there was nothing to stop the Confederation joint fleet from jumping to Beacon. On 2628.359, the Confed fleet arrived in the Beacon System, and were contacted by the Alliance leadership with an offer of surrender. The Alliance would dissolve their government and cease all military action. In return, the Confederation would guarantee the safety of all Pilgrim civilians, and allow non-military Pilgrim worlds certain limited rights to autonomous rule, including McDaniel's World, the religious centre of the Pilgrims. After six weeks of negotiations, the Treaty of Cygnus was signed on 2629.049. From that point on, the Pilgrim Alliance officially ceased to exist.

Systems Trek: Sol, Celeste, Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri, Sirius, Cygnus, Frase, Bradshaw, Luyten, Beacon

2634.235:
The Battle Of McAuliffe

The Kilrathi have a word, "Jak-tu", which means "spring and leap", to strike from concealment, killing with a single blow a large but unsuspecting enemy.

Five years after the destruction of the TCS Iason, the Kilrathi were still a mystery wrapped in an enigma -- while the Terran Confederation was freely hurling all forms of transmissions out into space, stray broadcasts from the Kilrathi Empire were nearly zero; despite a number of skirmishes and minor engagements along the outer frontier of Confed space, intelligence on the Kilrathi remained slim. With Kilrathi attacks becoming bolder, the Terran Confederation could no longer ignore this thorn in its side, and a declaration of war seemed more and more imminent; nevertheless, despite the now apparent necessity of the declaration, it was considered a highly unpopular option at the time -- the Terran Confederation had just come out of the Pilgrim War, and didn't need to be in another one. In the end, partisan politics during an election year led to a compromise: Plan Orange Five -- measured limited response, in proportion to the perceived immediate threat along the frontier, primarily focused in the (then) Facin Sector.

Frustrated by the inactiveness of the Confederation government, Admiral Spencer Banbridge of Confed High Command sent a covert mission consisting of Commander Winston Turner, First Lieutenant Vance Richards, and Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Tolwyn, into Kilrathi space to gather intelligence. What scant information could be gathered from previous intelligence operations, remote probes, and Varni refugees indicated that the Kilrathi Empire was most likely preparing themselves for a massive attack on the Confederation, and the mission's goal was to get the evidence. Working undercover as trading merchants, Commander Turner and his team journeyed to a trading barge on the edge of Kilrathi space, Gar's Emporium. A seedy smuggler's den located in Black Hole System 229, the Confed team were taken to Gar's Emporium by Maximilian Hans Kruger, in his ship the Lazarus.

A month later, Commander Turner's team had still not uncovered any full-proof evidence of a Kilrathi invasion plan. Then the information they were after practically fell in their laps, inexplicably given to them by a Kilrathi. Pursued by Imperial counter-intelligence teams, and blocked off by a Kilrathi strike force, the Confed team and their pilot barely managed to make their way to the Hell Hole in the Landreich System. From there they flew to McAuliffe with all possible speed, to warn the Confederation of the impending attack.

Meanwhile, Admiral Banbridge had been doing his best to convince the Confederation government to put the fleet on alert, to no avail. Dismissing the scant evidence the admiral had as rumour at best, the government continued with their policy of frontier defence and limited action in the Facin Sector. Finally, Rear Admiral Joshua Speedwell, head of Confed Fleet Intelligence, was able to give Admiral Banbridge some good news: definite proof of some kind of Kilrathi attack on McAuliffe, code-named Target Vikyah. The data was decrypted by Lieutenant Ches M. Penney, a cryptologist posted at Listening Post Epsilon, from a partial Kilrathi burst signal. But what little that was decoded did not disclose the size of the incoming attack fleet; based on the typical Kilrathi fleet size, Admiral Banbridge sent a counter-offensive with twice its strength, in the form of Task Force Twenty-One, led by Rear Admiral Dayan on the carrier TCS Ark Royal. Travelling at top speed, Admiral Dayan's force would reach McAuliffe about the same time as the Kilrathi fleet, on 2634.235 -- Confederation Day.

The date was 2634.234, Confederation Day Eve, and Commander Turner was not a a happy man. Communications were down at McAuliffe, most of the base personnel and ships' crews were on leave, getting drunk for the holidays, and all the officers were on retreat. Thankfully, after raising some ruckus, Commander Turner was finally able to contact Admiral Nagomo, McAuliffe Base Commander, and Admiral Frederick Long, Seventh Fleet Commander, and appraise them of the impending crisis. As the sun rose on McAuliffe, a period of complete pandemonium ensued as personnel were hastily recalled to their posts, drunk or otherwise. Meanwhile, the Kilrathi fleet had just jumped in, with their carriers launching fighters and bombers to attack the base. While the station struggled to bring order to chaos and mobilise the fleet, Commander Turner, Lieutenant Richards, and Commodore Tolwyn flew to the TCS Concordia, where Commander Turner took command, taking the Concordia out of dock, and launching her fighters to meet the incoming attack.

The Kilrathi fighters were upon McAuliffe. Somehow, McAuliffe Base had managed to launch fighters against the attackers, but it was too little, too late. The Kilrathi bombers, with speed and surprise on their side, were able to reach the base, where they played their ace in the hole: new shield-penetrating torpedoes that punched through the vaunted base shielding of McAuliffe, destroying both the base, and the orbital space station Alexandria above it. In its final explosive throes, the destruction of the Alexandria took with it many of the capital ships docked at it; other ships were able to escape, only to be set upon by the Kilrathi fighters. The initial Kilrathi assault was a resounding success, and the rest of the Kilrathi fleet was fast approaching.

Meanwhile, the Kilrathi had struck elsewhere. Along with their primary attack on McAuliffe, smaller Kilrathi task forces were sweeping through the Yarni Sector and the Landreich, as well as a number of other penetrations along the frontier. With the Confederation fleet all but obliterated, there seemed little to stop the Kilrathi fleet from driving all the way to Earth.

As the TCS Concordia prepared to face the incoming Kilrathi fleet, it was given a small reprieve with the arrival of Admiral Dayan's task force. After rendezvousing with her, Commander Turner turned the small Confed force around, back to McAuliffe and the Kilrathi fleet. The Third Marine Division on McAuliffe had survived, and were keeping the Kilrathi troops at bay; if the Confed force could hit the Kilrathi hard and fast enough, perhaps it could soften the Kilrathi fleet up sufficiently to give the marines a chance. Incredibly, the gamble worked. Though the Confederation task force suffered horrific casualties, they still managed to take out a large number of the Imperial ground troops, two carriers, and a few capital ships. More importantly, the counter-strike was apparently enough to convince the Kilrathi to retreat and regroup. The Concordia was destroyed during the last minutes of the battle, but the Kilrathi offensive had been broken. They left McAuliffe, Yarni, and the Landreich, seemingly on the eve of their victory. The Terran Confederation had lost, but somehow, it had also won.

Systems Trek: McAuliffe, Eddings (?)

2654.074:
The Charybdis Ambush Engagement

The Charybdis Ambush Engagement was a battle that lasted a mere 52 hours, but very nearly ended the war with the Kilrathi Empire victorious. It began in the Ulysses Corridor, 700 light years from Earth, at Pegasus Station.

It was March 15^th, 2654, 9am TCST. Things were relatively quiet on board Pegasus Station, Confed's Fleet Headquarters for Vega Sector, when every alarm on the station suddenly sounded, accompanied by the approach of a Kilrathi strike force. Somehow the Kilrathi fighters had succeeded in getting to the station undetected, and quickly launched their attack. In a few short minutes, the station was completely destroyed, as were the cruisers and destroyers docked at the station. However during the battle, commanding officer Admiral William Wilson managed to send out a distress beacon.

Twelve hours later, news of the Kilrathi attack on Pegasus reached Vice-Admiral Tolwyn on board the TCS Concordia, flagship of the Concordia Battle Group. The message transmitted by Admiral Wilson could not have been more grim -- a Kilrathi boarding party had managed to steal the station's NAVCOM AI. With it an Imperial battle group would be able to properly jump the Charybdis Quasar, 40 hours away, to arrive in Sol System, right at Earth's doorstep. On the other hand, the scattered Confederation fleet would need at least 42 hours to regroup and return to Earth. Tolwyn needed some intelligence ASAP, and the TCS Tiger's Claw, on assignment in the Enyo System, was the key. As a communications drone would take too long, Tolwyn enlisted the help of Second Lieutenant Christopher Blair, en route with Second Lieutenant Todd Marshall to the Tiger's Claw for their first assignment. Privateer James Taggart's Diligent had become a military courier, and his apparent milk run had suddenly gotten a whole lot more interesting.

By jumping the Scylla gravitational anomaly, the Diligent managed to arrive in the Enyo System in record time, where it quickly rendezvoused with the Tiger's Claw to deliver all three of its precious cargo. On receiving his new orders, Captain Lawrence Sansky took the Tiger's Claw to a nearby pulsar. With Privateer Taggart's help, the Tiger's Claw jumped the pulsar to arrive in the Ulysses Corridor, right around Pegasus Station's former position, and just ahead of the fast-approaching Imperial battle group.

A reconnaissance wing was immediately launched from the Tiger's Claw to scout out the asteroid field where Pegasus Station used to be. While on patrol, Lieutenant Blair and Captain Jeannette Devereaux ran into a Kilrathi ConCom, apparently running point for the battle group. Upon the patrol's return, Captain Sansky ordered a strike to take out the ConCom, in the hopes that its loss would slow down the fleet. As it turned out, the Kilrathi had expected this move, and substituted the ConCom ship for two decoy Dorkir transports. Their plan was to lure the Tiger's Claw's fighters away, leaving the carrier vulnerable to attack. Fortunately, James Taggart saw through the ruse, and managed to convince Captain Devereaux to bring the fighter wing back to the Tiger's Claw by revealing himself as a Confed Intelligence operative. Devereaux's wing reached the carrier in time to defend her against an attack by two destroyers and a dreadnought -- James "Paladin" Taggart himself personally executed the bombing run that destroyed the dreadnought, its explosive demise taking the two escort destroyers with it. Unfortunately First Lieutenant Rosalind Forbes was killed during the attack.

The brutal assault had left the Tiger's Claw badly damaged, and with the rest of the Imperial battle group approaching, Commander Paul Gerald gave orders for the carrier to take cover on the moon of a nearby planet. A decoy was sent out, which successfully diverted the entire group. All except a single destroyer, which set about methodically bombing all of the moon's craters in the hopes of drawing out the Tiger's Claw. The Tiger's Claw managed to remain undetected, however it was running low on power, and the Kilrathi battle group was only four hours away from the Charybdis jump point.

Then salvation arrived for the Tiger's Claw in the form of another Kilrathi ship. A plan is quickly formulated to hijack the Kilrathi ship and steal its fuel cells. As it turns out, the ship in question was the very ConCom ship Devereaux and Blair had discovered on their patrol earlier. The ConCom was successfully boarded, and its fuel cells were quickly brought back to the Tiger's Claw. The hijacking of the ConCom also turned up an unexpected boon, in the form of Pegasus' stolen NAVCOM AI, detailing the Kilrathi battle group's exact jump arrival coordinates in the Sol System.

With time running out, Lieutenant Blair was ordered to jump to Sol and get the Kilrathi's arrival coordinates to the Confederation fleet that would hopefully have arrived in Sol. Shortly after, the Tiger's Claw came under attack again from a cruiser and a destroyer, keeping her very busy while the rest of the group went on to the Sol System. In a climactic battle that pitted capital ship against capital ship in head-to-head combat, the Tiger's Claw managed to destroy the cruiser; with its escort gone, the destroyer beat a prudent retreat.

Meanwhile, a Snakeir had detected Lieutenant Blair's jump at Charybdis, and immediately gave chase through the jump point. Upon arriving in the Sol System, Blair found himself alone with a Snakeir close behind in hot pursuit. (Unbeknownst to him, the Concordia Battle Group had just arrived in the system, an accomplishment that broke every jump record in the books. However Tolwyn could not come to his aid without the fleet ending up in a bad position when the Kilrathi Battle Group jumped in, and so continued towards the coordinates that Blair had transmitted upon his arrival in Sol.) In a daring and ingenious tactic, Lieutenant Blair succeeded in luring the Snakeir in towards Scylla, where the massive ship got trapped in Scylla's awesome gravitational field and was destroyed; Blair himself just barely managed to get out of Scylla's pull in his fighter.

And suddenly the crisis was pretty much over. With the Kilrathi arrival coordinates, the Confederation fleet positioned themselves for the perfect ambush -- as each Kilrathi ship arrived through the jump point, they were systematically destroyed by the Concordia Battle Group. And Earth was safe once more.

Systems Trek: Enyo, Charybdis (Tartarus), Sol

2654.077:
The Conquest of Olympus

While the TCS Concordia was destroying the Kilrathi battle group around the general vicinity of Jupiter, another plot was set in motion to threaten the Terran Confederation, the culmination of more than a decade of planning and technological development. Armed with the most advanced hopper drive ever built, Captain Amity Driftmaiden Aristee hijacked her own ship, the supercruiser TCS Olympus, to spearhead a military campaign that would see the Terran Confederation destroyed and the Pilgrim people reclaiming their manifest destiny in the stars.

Though strategic personnel transfers already gave the TCS Olympus a predominantly Pilgrim crew, the ship was nevertheless not at full strength. This Captain Aristee rectified by attacking Mylon III (Mylon System) and Lethe (Tartarus System), enabling her to gain additional personnel -- including the fighter pilot William Santyana, and liberate other Pilgrims from the Confederation. When news of the attack on Mylon III reached the Confederation, the TCS Tiger's Claw was dispatched along with other ships to intercept the Olympus at Lethe. Also pursuing the Olympus was the KIS Shak'Ar'Roc Battle Group, to avenge the destruction of its task force.

At the battle at Lethe, Captain Aristee demonstrated some of her ship's destructive power. Despite being outnumbered by Confederation forces, Captain Aristee was nevertheless able to jump out of the engagement, in the process leaving behind a devastating singularity that killed a number of Confederation pilots. It was apparent that the Olympus' hopper drive was capable of generating singularities anywhere, regardless of the presence of other nearby gravitational bodies. In addition, it also allowed the PAS Olympus to travel further than existing hopper drives with each jump. Further intelligence gathered revealed that the hopper drive was capable of generating much larger gravity wells as well, and that ultimately Captain Aristee planned to use it to generate a planet-sized gravity well that would destroy Earth itself. While exceedingly dangerous, such a powerful weapon was nevertheless valuable enough that Vice Admiral Tolwyn was ordered by Space Marshal Gregarov to capture the Olympus and to recover any technology deemed valuable to the Confederation.

With help from Major James Taggart, the Tiger's Claw was able to track the Olympus to McDaniel's World (McDaniel's World System), where it was presumed Captain Aristee had gone to obtain official blessing for her campaign from the Pilgrim Protur, Carver Tsu II. Another engagement ensued, and the Olympus again engaged her hopper drive to jump out. However during the battle, Major Taggart and Second Lieutenant Christopher Blair managed to fly aboard the Olympus on the Dilligent, in the hopes of negotiating with Captain Aristee to end her rampage. Second Lieutenant Todd Marshall was also able to tractor his damaged Rapier to the Olympus to jump out with her, after which he was taken prisoner.

Meanwhile, the Terran Confederation was coming under heavy pressure from both Pilgrim and non-Pilgrim citizens to bring an end to a racial conflict that was threatening to tear the Confederation apart. In an effort to force an engagement with the Olympus, Vice Admiral Tolwyn and Commodore Richard Bellegarde issued an ultimatum to Captain Aristee. A blockade of all Pilgrim enclaves and colonies was set up, after which they would be destroyed and the citizens imprisoned, unless Captain Aristee surrendered within two months. Shortly after receiving news of Tolwyn's ultimatum, Captain Aristee was engaged once again by the Shak'Ar'Roc Battle Group, which had finally caught up to the Olympus. With her hopper drive offline for repairs, Captain Aristee enlisted the help of extrakinetics among her crew to stop the two Kilrathi attacks. The success of Captain Aristee's offensive allowed her to destroy all but one of the KIS Shak'Ar'Roc's escorts and escape once again, with the KIS Shak'Ar'Roc in bitter pursuit.

On 2654.128, after almost two weeks, the PAS Olympus was finally able to jump, amidst a last-ditch assault from the KIS Shak'Ar'Roc, even as Taggart, Blair, Marshall, and Santyana were recaptured during a failed attempt to sabotage the hopper drive. Arriving within minutes of Earth, Captain Aristee began to initiate the final planet-destroying gravity well. But Major Taggart was able to sabotage the hopper drive, so that the well would instead destroy the Olympus. With the supercruiser's destruction all but imminent, Blair and Marshall managed to escape in the Dilligent. But as the gravity well began to consume the supercruiser, a last surprise unfolded as with a flare of light, the PAS Olympus jumped the gravity well and vanished.

Systems Trek: Mylon, Tartarus, Lafayette, Tamayo, McDaniel's World, Aloysius (Ardai), Sol

2654.110:
The Vega Campaign
Beginning in the Enyo System, the TCS Tiger's Claw was assigned to the Vega Sector to engage Kilrathi forces, and wrest control of the sector from them. By this time, the Tiger's Claw already had a near-legendary reputation, and here too she did not disappoint. Through her, Confed quickly gained control of the Enyo System, and under the incredible skill of her pilots, the Tiger's Claw went on to take McAuliffe, Gimle, Dakota, and Kurasawa Systems. With each new system conquered, the Kilrathi fleet in the sector was further reduced, even as Confederation victories in other parts of the sector made the Kilrathi's hold on Vega all the more tenuous. By tracking Kilrathi communications and ship movements, the location of the Kilrathi High Command for the Vega Sector was finally discovered. On 2654.140, in the Venice System, Major Blair and Captain St. John successfully destroyed the Starbase, effectively ending the Kilrathi presence in the sector. With their main base of operations a cloud of debris, the remaining Kilrathi forces quickly fell into disarray, and were forced to retreat from Vega, with the Tiger's Claw in pursuit. The Terran Confederation had Vega.

Systems Trek: Enyo, McAuliffe, Gimle, Dakota, Kurasawa, Venice

The TCS Tiger's Claw eliminating the remaining Kilrathi forces in Vega

2654.140:
Operation Thor's Hammer

FROM: CONFEDHICOM -- ADM. DEKE STOVER
TO:
TCS TIGER'S CLAW -- COL. PETER HALCYON

YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO DIVERT FROM YOUR CURRENT POSITION IN VEGA SECTOR TO THE GODDARD SYSTEM, DENEB SECTOR TO PROVIDE SUPPORT FOR COLONY ON GODDARD II. FURTHER ORDERS TO FOLLOW ON ARRIVAL AT COLONY. ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO ADDRESS MISSION AS "OPERATION THOR'S HAMMER".

Communications with Goddard Colony, on Goddard II, were lost, and the TCS Tiger's Claw and her crew were sent to investigate. After a day's travel, they arrived in the Goddard System to find that the entire colony was completely decimated -- every building was levelled, and there were no survivors. It was soon discovered that a Kilrathi superweapon was responsible for the colony's destruction. The Kilrathi had used the colony as a test for their new dreadnought weapon, code-named Sivar , after the Kilrathi God of War. In a desperate bid to destroy the KIS Sivar and prevent future catastrophes, the Tiger's Claw tracked the Kilrathi fleet back into Kilrathi space, taking out the fleet ship by ship, while playing cat-and-mouse in enemy territory. By cutting off its lines of supply, and its escort capital ships and fighters, the Sivar was slowly run down, and finally cornered by the Tiger's Claw. Thirty-six days after Operation Thor's Hammer began, Lieutenant Colonel Blair and Captain Khumalo fired the shots that destroyed the Sivar Dreadnought.

Systems Trek: Goddard, Border Zone, Midgard, Jotunheim, BiFrost, Valgard, Vigrid

The Goddard Colony, destroyed by the Sivar superweapon

2654.176:
The Firekkan Crusade

FROM: VICE ADMIRAL TOLWYN, CONFEDHICOM
TO:
TCS TIGER'S CLAW

YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO DEFEND FIREKKA SYSTEM IN ANTARES SECTOR AGAINST APPROACHING KILRATHI BATTLE FLEETS. REMAIN IN-SYSTEM FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE; REINFORCEMENTS UNAVAILABLE.

TOP PRIORITY: SAFETY OF CONFEDERATION DIPLOMATS AND FIREKKA ALLIES.

After a period of negotations, the bird-like Firekkans agreed to join the Terran Confederation in 2654; and the TCS Tiger's Claw was assigned to the Diplomatic Corps, as part of the envoy that would attend the official signing of the treaty between the Terran Confederation and the Firekkan Planetary Alliance. But the ink was barely dried on the treaty before an unusually large number of Kilrathi ships were detected in the area. What was initially considered random encounters and coincidence soon became surprise as more capital ships jumped in, and then alarm as practically all of the Kilrathi fleet began jumping into Firekkan space, giving up many Kilrathi positions in the Vega Sector as a result. Even the Kilrathi Kilrathi Guard, the elite Drakhai, were coming to Firekka -- a lot of fuss for what seemed to be a fairly backwater system.

As if things could not get any more interesting, on 2654.188, the TCS Austin suddenly received a message from the captain of a Kilrathi Fralthi, expressing his wish to defect to Confed. Along with this, the captain was also willing to surrender his cruiser, the KIS Ras'Nik'hra, and its fighter complement of 20 Dralthi Mark II's to Confed. The Fralthi was escorted to the Tiger's Claw, and her captain, Lord Ralgha nar Hhallas, was taken into custody for questioning. Lord Ralgha proved to be genuine, and provided, among other things, information about an important Kilrathi religious ceremony, the Sivar-Eshrad. It was to be held in the Firekka System, and almost every Kilrathi warrior would be attending.

As more Kilrathi ships arrived in the system, the Tiger's Claw and the Austin found themselves in an increasingly desperate situation, with no reinforcements immediately forthcoming. In light of this, Colonel Halcyon was advised of a tactic to withdraw from the system, while hurting the Kilrathi fleets as much as possible along the way, in the hopes of softening up the Kilrathi forces enough so that the Firekkans could defend against them, or at least keep them at bay long enough to evacuate their people. The Tiger's Claw also took advantage of her newly acquired Dralthi Mk II's to send out covert scouts to gather data on the Kilrathi forces. These spy missions managed to gather valuable information on the Kilrathi Snakeir Carrier and the experimental Hhriss fighter. Along with the strategic retreat, Confed also attempted to disrupt the Sivar-Eshrad ceremony by assassinating the High Priestess of Sivar. The two-pronged gamble worked:
The ceremony was disrupted, with Prince Thrakhath deeming the Firekkan System unworthy of the ceremony, and the Kilrathi left Firekka on 2654.220 .

Systems Trek: Firekka, Corsair, Firekka, Corsair, Charon

Kilrathi forces in retreat from Firekka

2656.315:
The Enigma Campaign

This is probably the longest campaign undertaken by Confed during the Terran-Kilrathi War. It began in 2656 when the TCS Tiger's Claw, fresh from its resounding victory in the Vega Sector, attempted to repeat its success by striking the Kilrathi Sector Command in the Enigma Sector, at K'Tithrak Mang. But enroute to the space station, the Tiger's Claw was destroyed, with all hands aboard. The only survivor was Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Blair, who claimed that some kind of invisible Kilrathi fighter was responsible. However, as his flight recorder could not be found, his story could not be corroborated, and the military courts found Blair guilty of negligence. He was transferred to In-Systems Security, and the fight for Enigma continued without him. During the next ten years, with the successful rebellion on Ghorah Khar, the Kilrathi and Confederation forces would continue to vie for control of the Sector, with neither side gaining any advantage.

By 2667.112, the tide of the Enigma Campaign was shifting against the Confederation. Thus far, Confed had been able to maintain control of Olympus Station in the Ghorah Khar System, but the Kilrathi advance was beginning to gain momentum. Captain Blair was suddenly thrust right back into the thick of the campaign when he and Captain Norwood aided the TCS Concordia during an attack in the Gwynedd System. Despite reservations from her commander Admiral Tolwyn, Captain Blair continued to fly aboard the Concordia, and single-handedly took the fight back to the Kilrathi. From Gwynedd, the Concordia traded blows with Kilrathi forces in the Niven, Ghorah Khar, Novaya Kiev, Heaven's Gate, and Tesla Systems. During this time, the efforts of the Concordia's crew were being sabotaged by a Mandarin; this Kilrathi sympathiser blew up the Concordia's flight deck to aid a Kilrathi attack, gave the Kilrathi information about Confed fleet movements, and murdered a communications technician. When the Concordia entered the Enigma System, it was almost ambushed by a Kilrathi fleet and forced to double jump to escape. Following this risky manoeuvre, Colonel Devereaux hid her ship in the Enigma System's asteroid belt while repairs could be effected. When a Kilrathi strike force was detected in the system, Colonel Devereaux and Captain Blair were able to track a Ralatha just as it jumped away: from the tracking data, intelligence experts were able to pinpoint the location of K'Tithrak Mang, the Kilrathi Sector Command for the Enigma Sector. Fully repaired, the TCS Concordia jumped into the K'Tithrak Mang System, intent on accomplishing a mission begun more than ten years ago.

With the space station almost in sight, patrols were launched to clear the way for the final attack on K'Tithrak Mang. It was during one such patrol in an asteroid field that Captain Blair and Major Colson ran into two wings of Strakha fighters. After ten years of being branded a traitor, Captain Blair had the evidence he needed to prove the existence of these fighters. Shortly after his patrol, Captain Blair found himself facing his past again, this time to capture Major Colson, who had finally revealed himself as the Mandarin on the Concordia. After a tense dogfight, Colonel Blair was able to destory Major Colson's fighter, and tractor him in before he could rendezvous with an approaching Kilrathi strike force. After Major Colson was brought back and put under house arrest, the Concordia prepared to attack K'Tithrak Mang. Captain Blair was sent out on a final sweep of the system, but instead flew a solo mission to the space station. After battling through two wings of fighters, as well as a duel with Prince Thrakhath himself, Captain Blair locked K'Tithrak Mang in his sights, and fired. The mission that the TCS Tiger's Claw had begun in 2656 was finally complete, and the Terran Confederation had Enigma.

Systems Trek: Gwynedd, Niven, Ghorah Khar, Novaya Kiev, Heaven's Gate, Tesla, Enigma, K'Tithrak Mang

2667.150 (approx):
The Ghorah Khar Rebellion

Following Confed's triumphant success in securing the Enigma Sector by destroying K'Tithrak Mang, the TCS Concordia embarked on clean-up missions, eliminating the remaining Kilrathi forces in Enigma. But as one threat was dealt with, another crisis appeared. Three more colonies in the Kilrathi Empire had revolted against imperial rule -- N'Tanya, K'arakh, and Shariha -- a development that could have serious political repercussions for the Emperor of Kilrah. To counter this, a fleet was sent to retake Ghorah Khar: if the first colony that rebelled could be brought back under the control of the Empire, it could force the other colonies to reconsider their rebellious actions, and bring them back in line. This meant that Ghorah Khar, and Olympus Station in orbit above it, was suddenly again in great danger. But before the Concordia could respond to this new strike force, Admiral Tolwyn was informed of a mutiny, by the crew of the TCS Gettysburg, which was stationed at N'Tanya. He was ordered to take the Concordia to the Rigel System to deal with the situation, one which was made more volatile by the fact that at that time, the Gettysburg pilots were testing Confed's prototype Crossbow bomber, now in the possession of the mutineers.

Meanwhile, the commander of the TCS Gettysburg, Commodore Cain, was captured, along with the rest of his men, and brought back to Olympus Station; the mutineers had apparently allowed them to escape back to Confed. It was learned that the mutiny was actually sparked off when the Gettysburg pilots refused Commodore Cain's illegal order to destroy a Kilrathi civilian transport carrying Kilrah Loyalist refugees fleeing from the rebellion on N'Tanya. One of the mutineers, Lieutenant Jason Bondarevsky, surrendered to Admiral Tolwyn, and revealed that the mutineers were in control of both the TCS Gettysburg and the Rigel Supply Depot. But while the crew on the Gettysburg were anxious to return to Confed, those on the depot had turned pirate and were using the depot as their new base of operations. Colonel Blair volunteered to fly a solo mission to the Gettysburg; there he informed Lieutenant Colonel Poelma and his crew that they had been given a full pardon, and could return to Confed. During this time, news reached the Gettysburg that a civilian transport was en route to the Rigel supply depot, apparently unaware that the station had been taken by pirates. As the transport would surely be attacked, and possibly destroyed, by the pirates, destruction of the supply depot was the only way to prevent civilian casualties. Colonel Blair had no other choice but to lead a strike mission to Rigel, and destroy the supply depot. This was truly a terrible moment in the war, when a fighter was forced to kill his own fallen comrades.

With the mutiny resolved, Colonel Blair teamed up with Colonel James Taggart, of Special Operations, Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas, and Major Edmond, communications specialist, and headed to the Ghorah Khar colony in the Bonnie Heather. Flying their new Crossbow fighters, Colonel Blair and Colonel nar Hhallas were able to organise the Ghorah Khar resistance, and make a number of successful covert strikes against Kilrathi forces, including laying a trap for the Kilrathi carrier groups. While on a mission, Colonel Blair encountered a group of Kilrathi fighters fighting with each other; one of the pilots had just ejected, and after tractoring the pilot in, Colonel Blair destroyed the remiaining fighters. Little did he know that the pilot was none other than Prince Thrakhath himself -- apparently, his cousin Khasra had attempted to assassinate him by ambushing him in space. Unfortunately, before Colonel Taggart could bring the Prince back to Confed High Command, Prince Thrakhath escaped from the Bonnie Heather in a stolen Crossbow fighter. Colonel Blair, out on patrol at the time, gave chase, but was unable to get to Prince Thrakhath before the Prince reached the jump point and jumped to safety; meanwhile, Colonel Blair was greeted by seven Gothri fighters, including one flown by Khasra. Though the fight was terrific, Colonel Blair was able to vanquish his attackers and return to the Bonnie Heather. They then jumped back to Olympus Station, which was just about at the end of its rope after fighting three carrier groups, and there were still two more on the way. Exchanging his Crossbow for a Sabre, Colonel Blair and Colonel nar Hhallas flew out to meet the two Fralthras and their escorts. Joined by Lieutenant Bondarevsky and his wingman, the four Confed pilots managed to vanquish these two powerful ships, thus saving Olympus Station and Ghorah Khar.

Systems Trek: Pembroke, Rigel, Ghorah Khar

2667.183 (approx):
The Morningstar Project
While the Confederation had been triumphant in the Enigma Sector, and in the Ghorah Khar System, the Kilrathi had managed to strike back, destroying most of the Confederation Sixth Battle Fleet and taking control of the Deneb Sector. The TCS Concordia was immediately sent to the Deneb Sector, where Admiral Tolwyn was ordered to fight a delaying action, and hold on to what little foothold Confed had left in Deneb, until additional reinforcements could be sent to retake the sector. Meanwhile, on board the cruiser TCS Centurion, Major Colson was charged with treason, and sentenced to death by a military tribunal. In what might be poetic irony, Colonel Blair was assigned the mission to escort the TCS Alcatraz, the transport that would take Major Colson to his execution. But just as Colonel Blair was rendezvousing with the Alcatraz, it was hijacked by Mandarins, and while a wing of Jalkehis kept Colonel Blair very busy with survival, the Mandarins, and Major Colson, escaped.

While the Concordia was engaging Kilrathi forces in the Deneb Sector, she became host for the Wild Eagles Squadron, headed by Major Todd Marshall, and assigned with test-piloting the prototype Morningstar fighter, Confed's latest development in fighter ships. Armed with superior weaponry and defenses, the Morningstar seemed to be just what the Concordia would need to maintain her tenuous hold on Deneb, and maybe even make it stronger. However, before the Morningstars could be put into active service, one of the fighters was stolen by one of the Wild Eagles, Captain Maria Grimaldi, really a Mandarin agent. To cover her escape, Captain Grimaldi blew up the Concordia's flight deck, killing Captain Markham Colt, another Wild Eagle, in the process. Suddenly Major Marshall no longer had a squadron to command, and needed a new assignment. This he found in Colonel Taggart's covert mission to hunt down Ayers Rock, the Mandarin Society's secret base. In light of recent events on board the Concordia, as well as a number of attacks on Confed ships by Mandarin forces, the Mandarins were a threat to the war effort that could no longer be ignored. When a Kilrathi transport, the KIS Gamal Gan, was captured in the Canewdon System, Colonel Taggart quickly commandeered it for use by Special Operations, rechristening it the TCS Grimalkin. In an effort to break up the Mandarin movement once and for all, Colonel Blair, Major Marshall, and Captain Jeffrey Burkheimer (formerly of the Wild Eagles Squadron) joined Colonel Taggart in the Special Operations Division, and left in two Morningstars and the TCS Grimalkin for the Ayers System, and Ayers Rock; the location of the Mandarin's base was finally known, thanks to a Spec Ops undercover agent codenamed Scorpion, who had managed to infiltrate the Society of Mandarins.

On arrival in the Ayers System, Colonel Taggart's team succeeded in destroying Ayer's Rock. For Colonel Blair, the assault also brought him face to face with his nemesis, Major Colson. This time duelling in Morningstars, the two pilots once more engaged in single combat. In the end, Colonel Blair again proved to be the better pilot; unfortunately for Major Colson, the explosion of his Morningstar fighter also ignited its Mace missile, and though he ejected, Major Zach "Jazz" Colson was killed in the resultant nuclear explosion.

Meanwhile, the TCS Concordia was fighting for her life against overwhelming Kilrathi forces. Through skill and sheer luck, Admiral Tolwyn somehow managed to keep the Concordia fighting. But in the end the Concordia was but a lone warrior in a battle already lost. Shortly after Colonel Taggart's team joined the Concordia in the Ayers System, the TCS Concordia was ordered to retreat from the Deneb Sector. The Kilrathi fleet had succeeded in destroying the remnants of the Sixth Battle Fleet, and no other Confed reinforcements would be forthcoming. The Kilrathi had Deneb.

Systems Trek: Canewdon, Ayers

The TCS Concordia retreating from the Deneb Sector

2668.037 (approx):
Operation Back Lash

The planet of Vukar Tag, in the Vukar Tag System, Vukar Tag Sector, was a barren ball of rock at the edge of Kilrathi territory. No strategic or commercial value, one moon orbiting it, it was for all intents and purposes an insignificant dustball. And it was being guarded by a cruiser, an orbital station, and at least one wing of fighters. To say that Confed Intelligence was curious as to the value of the planet to the Kilrathi was an understatement. To obtain the orbital photographs that would help them uncover Vukar Tag's secrets, the TCS Johnny Greene, a Venture corvette under command of Captain Mac Harcourt, together with Mission Specialist Lieutenant Commander Ramona Chekhova, was sent to investigate.

Since the fall of the Deneb Sector, the war had been turning against the Terran Confederation, which had lost half their carriers in the previous year alone. No new carriers would come on line for at least another year, while the Kilrathi would be churning out additional forces. Something was needed to balance the scales, and the data brought back by the TCS Johnny Greene was the key. Analysis of the photographs taken by Commander Chekhova revealed that Vukar Tag was in fact the residence of the mother of the Emperor of the Kilrathi Empire -- the Dowager Empress Graknala. From this vital piece of information emerged Operation Back Lash. If Confed could take the planet, the Imperial family would have no choice but to reply with swift and deadly force to retake it, or risk losing face in the eyes of the other Royal clans. The Emperor would send nothing less than the Imperial Guard, the Drakhai, in a strike force that would consist of up to ten carriers. And while the Imperial forces were deployed for a ground assault against the Confederation Marines, Confed's own force of four carriers would jump into the system, with the advantage of surprise on their side, and take out the Kilrathi fleet.

However, ingenious though the plan was, it was destined for catastrophe. Four carriers against ten of the Empire's best, even with the element of surprise, was nothing short of suicidal. But if it were seven carriers instead of ten, if the Kilrathi could somehow be forced to split their fleet before reaching Vukar Tag, the Confederation might stand a chance. A new plan emerged. With practically the entire Kilrathi Guard enroute to Vukar Tag, Kilrah itself would be relatively undefended, and what better way to force the Kilrathi to send back part of their fleet than a strike against Kilrah? Using newly discovered jumppoints, a single carrier and two corvettes for escort would be sent to Kilrah. Their sole purpose was to make sure the Kilrathi knew they were coming, make their way to the Kilrah System for a quick strike, and then get out as fast as they could.

And so it was done. One of the new CVE class Escort Carriers, the TCS Tarawa under the command of Commodore Thaddeus O'Brian, was sent to the Vukar Tag System, together with the Marine First Commando Battalion (commanded by Colonel Jim Merritt) and the escort carrier TCS Sevastopol; Lieutenant Commander Jason Bondarevsky served as Wing Commander. After the Tarawa captured Vukar Tag, she was immediately ordered to Kilrah; accompanying her were the destroyer TCS Intrepid, commanded by Captain Grierson, and the corvette TCS Kagimasha, commanded by Captain Teng. As for the Marines on Vukar Tag, they dug in deep, and waited.

They did not have long to wait. The Kilrathi fleet, including seven carriers of the Imperial Guard, soon jumped into the Vukar Tag System, where they quickly deployed for a ground assault, committing their fighters to the defence of the troop transports. Right on cue, the TCS Concordia, the TCS Trafalgar, the TCS Wolfhound, and the TCS Gettysburg, jumped in and commenced attack on the undefended Imperial carriers. Even though the Trafalgar was destroyed and the Gettysburg heavily damaged, the Confederation fleet was able to destroy five Kilrathi carriers and cripple the other two. Shortly after the retreat of the Kilrathi fleet, the Confed Marines completely destroyed the palace and its guardian installation in a textbook five-hour operation. Vukar Tag would later become the site of a Confederation base dedicated to Commander Chekhova, who was awarded a post-humous Purple Heart and the TCN Inter-Congressional Medal Of Honour.

Meanwhile, it seemed as if things for the Tarawa might not be too bad...at least at first. On the way to Kilrah, the small strike force encountered little resistance; and when they arrived in the Kilrah System, there was only two squadrons of fighters and three corvettes to meet them. Taking advantage of the relative lack of enemy presence, Tarawa's strike force attacked the Kilrathi construction yards located on Trak'mar, the second moon of Kilrah. They succeeded in destroying six carriers under construction, as well as their construction facilities and personnel, before the other three carriers from the Imperial Guard arrived. A desperate race ensued, as Tarawa and her escorts fled the system, with the three carriers in hot pursuit. Before finally reaching the (then) Jugara System, the Kagimasha and the Intrepid would fall. But the TCS Tarawa herself managed to survive, to become the first Confederation ship ever to reach Kilrah.

Systems Trek 1: Vukar Tag
Systems Trek 2: Kilrah, Vuwarg, ???, Baragh, Jugara

2668.305 (approx):
The Battle Of Earth

Following the success of Operation Back Lash, the Confederation hit on a new two-pronged strategy, aimed at weakening the Kilrathi fleet despite the shortage of combat ships. Two raids led by the escort carriers TCS Enigma and TCS Khorsan succeed in destroying three carriers under construction, as well as the construction yards and personnel, and manage to strike hard at Kilrathi transports and support vessels. Suddenly the Kilrathi Empire found itself in a quandary, with its carriers needing to return all the way to Kilrah for supplies, and with no new carriers coming on line for almost another year, during which a quarter of its existing carriers would need to be taken off the front lines for repair and maintenance. Meanwhile, the Confederation would be bringing another four carriers on line, allowing its forces to roughly equal the Empire's for the first time in the war. Given another year or so, the Confederation might even win the war. The Empire did have an ace up their sleeve: Project Hari, a fleet of twelve new Hakaga-class carriers being secretly constructed on the far side of Kilrathi space, in what used to be the Hari Empire; however, some time was needed before a viable strike force could be assembled from these new ships. A plan was thus conceived to buy the Kilrathi more time, while stopping the Confederation offensive and weakening its forces as well. The Kilrathi contacted the Confederation Foreign Minister Rhonda Jamison and negotiated an armistice, with plans to eventually create a peace between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi Empire.

Suddenly the Terran-Kilrathi War seemed to be over, to the relief of many in the Confederation. But many in the Confederation military were reluctant to believe that the Kilrathi would be interested in peace; the Firekkans and the colony worlds outright ignored the armistice. For some time now, Confed Intelligence had been trying to prove the existence of a secret Kilrathi project to construct a new fleet -- the armistice seemed the perfect ruse to buy the Kilrathi time -- and with the situation now more dire than before, as the Confederation began to dismantle and decommission its fleet, Admiral Banbridge assigned Admiral Tolwyn to a secret mission to sneak into Kilrathi space and obtain definitive proof of the Kilrathi fleet's existence.

As part of his mission, Admiral Tolwyn deliberately perpetrated a court-martial offence and was dishonourably discharged. In his new life as a civilian, he acted as middleman for a private contractor who wished to purchase a number of decommissioned ships, plus some people to crew them, which could be reconfigured as civilian transports. In this way, a number of former Confed officers, including Captain Jason Bondarevsky, Captain Ian St. John, Colonel James Taggart, Major Etienne Montclair, and former Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, became volunteers in the Landreich Free Corps; and the Free Corps also added five new escort carriers, Tarawa, Normandy, Iwo, Crete, and Wake, to its fleet.

While three of the carriers deployed in forward patrol, Tarawa and Normandy were used for the real covert mission into Kilrathi space. A "D 3S 5" (Deep Space Surveillance System 5) was installed on Tarawa's flight deck -- designed to gather and decode all forms of signals from the Empire at a range of about six hundred light years and ten jump points -- with the Normandy acting as escort. Along with them, James Taggart acted as point for the operation, taking out sensor drones and clearing the way for the carriers in the Bannockburn, a light smuggler craft on which Confed had managed to install a stealth device obtained from a Strakha fighter; Ian St. John accompanied Taggart on the Bannockburn, acting as pilot for a strapped-on jump-capable Ferret to protect Bannockburn if need be.

After twenty days of listening eight jump points inside Kilrathi space, Vance Richards, head of the signal intelligence team on Tarawa, reported a breakthrough. The D 3S 5 had detected a signal aimed straight into former Hari space, and Richards was confident of breaking it entirely in five or six days. By then he wanted to be able to receive clear signals from both sources, and that meant going in deeper. While Tarawa did just that, Bannockburn again carrying out forward reconnaissance, with orders to track the source of the Hari signal down and get some visual data if possible, Tolwyn headed back to Landreich with his nephew Kevin, to feed the Kilrathi false information and aid Richards in breaking their code.

Some time later, Bannockburn hit the mother lode, jumping into the exact system where the Hari fleet was being constructed. After collecting all the information he could, Taggart made a run for it, with Kilrathi forces in hot pursuit, and fully alerted to their presence and stealth capability. After rendezvousing with the Tarawa, the three ships fled Kilrathi space, with the Tarawa barely making it to Landreich. Unfortunately, Normandy was lost and Captain Ian St. John killed, and Bannockburn also had to be sacrificed as a decoy to make good Tarawa's escape. The information obtained by Taggart was quickly transmitted to Admiral Banbridge, after which the Tarawa joined the other three escort carriers to defend the Landreich against the Kilrathi attack they now knew was coming.

Meanwhile, disaster struck at the very heart of the Terran Confederation. The Kilrathi ambassador to the Confederation, Ambassador Vak'ga, committed a suicide bombing that killed Confed's Chiefs of Staff and support personnel, including Admiral Spencer Wayne Banbridge. This tragedy and the information transmitted from the Tarawa finally convinced President Harold Rodham that the armistice was a fraud. He immediately reinstated Tolwyn to Admiral, and placed him in charge of the Third Fleet, with General Duke Grecko as the new head of the Joint Chiefs. After authorising a full mobilisation of the fleet, President Rodham resigned, leaving his former Vice-President Dave Quinson to head the Confederation. With less than a month before the Kilrathi fleet was expected to arrive, Admiral Tolwyn and General Grecko attempted to activate as much of the fleet as they could.

By the time the Kilrathi fleet had arrived, Confed had managed to mobilise three carriers: the TCS Concordia, the TCS Moskva, and the TCS Verdun, with the TCS Saratoga and the TCS Leyte Gulf on the way. To buy the Confederation some time for the Saratoga and Leyte Gulf to join the fleet, Admiral Tolwyn took his three-carrier force to the Warsaw System to meet the Kilrathi offensive.

Meanwhile, the Battle of Landreich had begun: four escort carriers and eighty-seven fighters against three Kilrathi fleet carriers, eighteen escort ships, and over three hundred fighters. But incredibly, General Kruger was able to beat the Kilrathi strike force back. Pretending to retreat from the Hell Hole System, Kruger had immediately jumped the fleet back in, catching the Kilrathi carriers with little defense, the carriers having just collected their fighters in preparation to jump in pursuit. In less than six minutes, the Landreich forces had succeeded in destroying one carrier and crippling another, and forcing the Kilrathi to retreat, in exchange for one escort carrier lost.

In the Warsaw System, three Confederation fleet carriers faced off with four of the Empire's old-style carriers and five Hakaga-class carriers. In a gesture of good-will, Baron Jukaga requested that Admiral Tolwyn surrender the fleet. There could be only one answer to such a request. As a result, Prince Thrakhath ordered the planet of Warsaw irradiated with Strontium-clad nuclear warheads, completely annihilating the population and rendering the planet uninhabitable, as an example of what was to come.

In the Sirius System, Admiral Tolwyn attempted to make a final stand against the Imperial fleet. Despite his best efforts, he succeeded only in destroying one old-style carrier and hitting two of the Hakaga ones; on the other hand, Moskva and Verdun were both lost to the offensive, with the Concordia and Leyte Gulf getting hit as well, and more than half his fighters destroyed. With the Kilrathi force still moving relentlessly forward, Tolwyn had no choice but to retreat once again, into the Sol System. Meanwhile, Prince Thrakhath ordered his cruiser squadron to irradiate the two planets of Gilead and Sirius Prime.

In the Sol System, the Confederation prepared to make its very last stand. Everyone knew that the fate of all mankind would be decided here. By cutting some corners, General Grecko was able to bring the TCS Lexington and the TCS Ark Royal on line. Together with the other carriers, they brought the Confederation fleet's carrier strength to five. Then the Kilrathi fleet jumped in, four Hakaga carriers and one old-style carrier -- the other Hakaga carrier, fairly damaged, had been sent back, with two old-style carriers as escort. Given the strength of the Hakaga carriers to external attack, Tolwyn reluctantly agreed to a desperate plan formulated by General Grecko. Using volunteer civilian craft as a smoke screen, Marine landing craft were deployed to attempt landings on the Kilrathi capital ships, and blow them up from within. Before the battle was over, many thousands of soldiers and civilians would die. But the plan worked. The Kilrathi, overcome by sheer bloodlust, randomly struck at any target, military or otherwise, allowing Confederation Marines to land on all four Hakaga carriers, as well as some cruisers and destroyers. The result was the destruction of three Hakaga carriers, with the fourth succeeding in repelling the boarding craft. In order to protect the carriers, Tolwyn ordered the 3^rd Destroyer Group, commanded by Commodore Michael Polowski, to attack the last Hakaga carrier. Though all but one of the destroyers were lost, the carrier was sufficiently crippled to force the Kilrathi to retreat.

But the danger was far from over. A cruiser squadron had broken off from the main fleet, and was even then heading straight for Earth. Then a small Landreich strike force jumped in and entered the fray, succeeding in destroying the cruisers. Unfortunately it was not before they had managed to destroy the construction yards on Luna, as well as launch antimatter warheads at Earth itself. Thankfully the cruisers had not been able to launch their radiation warheads and completely annihilate Earth. Though it had stood at the twilight of its existence, miraculously, the Terran Confederation had won.

Systems Trek 1: Unknown systems in Kilrathi space
Systems Trek 2: Hell Hole, Landreich
Systems Trek 3: Warsaw, Sirius, Sol

2669.012:
The Mission To Kilrah

One of Confed's black projects during the war, this covert operation entailed sending a single carrier deep into the heart of the Kilrah Sector. Its mission: to engage and destroy any and all Kilrathi forces and installations it encounters, and to eventually locate and eliminate the planet Kilrah. Thus briefed by Sector Fleet Admiral Price Hancock, the unnamed commander and his carrier later departed Goddard Transfer Station on 2669.018. On the way, it would stop at Outpost ES-341 in the Enigma Sector for final refueling; then, it would jump into Kilrah space, never to return until its mission was complete.

Other than this, little else is known about this mission. In order to sustain its crew throughout the duration of its mission, the carrier, rumoured to be the TCS Lexington, was specially equipped with self-sufficient oxygen planetariums, water-producing modules, and greenhouse gardens. Along with this, it had equipment that made it capable of mining planets for resources, constructing shipyards to build additional fighters and transports, and constructing planetary defence fortresses. Due to the extraordinary nature of this project, the 18 fighters and transports that accompanied this carrier, and the weapons that the fighters used, were of an experimental design, utilising many of Confed's latest technology to enhance their attack capability, while keeping them easy to build. In addition to the Lexington's crew was also a Special Operations team to make a total complement of 62 people.

To date, there has been no communication from the carrier, and it has been designated Missing In Action.

Systems Trek: Unknown

2669.221:
The Victory Campaign

Thirty-five years of war. Thirty-five years of combat, and still the Terran-Kilrathi War dragged on. Inevitably, it had taken its toll on both sides, exhausting the Terran Confederation and the Empire of Kilrah in unending stalemate. The Missions to Kilrah and Terra only showed how desperate the war had become. But by the second half of 2669, the Kilrathi were once again gaining the upper hand. They always had more resources dedicated to warfare than the Confederation, and despite being beaten back, did not suffer the same crippling losses, due both to battle and disarmament, that the Confederation had before and during the Battle Of Earth. It may have taken thirty-five years, but the Kilrathi seemed to be finally proving themselves the superior species.

Confed needed a hero, needed one badly, and its wish would be answered once again in the form of Colonel Christopher Blair. With the destruction of the TCS Concordia, Colonel Blair was transferred to the TCS Victoy (commanded by Captain William Eisen), at the time on patrol in the Orsini System. As the Victory's new Commander Fighter Group (CFG), Colonel Blair quickly proved his skill in a series of defensive missions that strengthened Confed's hold on that region of space.

After its sojourn in the Orsini System, the Victory jumped into the Tamayo System, where she acquired a prototype of Confed's newest fighter, the Excalibur; the test-pilot, First Lieutenant Jace Dillon, also joined the Victory's flight roster as a fighter pilot. Things seemed to be going well for pilots of the Victory, until they reached the Locanda System, where Confed Intelligence confirmed the unthinkable: the Empire was testing a new biological weapon in the system, a pandemic capable of wiping out the population of an entire planet. And their target was Locanda IV.

Fortunately for the citizens of Locanda IV, the Kilrathi destroyer was eliminated, and its deadly payload prevented from reaching the planet. With Colonel Blair's flight group scoring further successes in the Ariel and Caliban Systems, the Victory was ready to go on the offensive. In the Torgo System, Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn came aboard the Victory to lead the operation that would finally win the war for the Confederation. The key to this ambitious plan was the Behemoth, a top-secret weapons platform with enough power to destroy an entire planet. After a successful test on a Kilrathi base in the Loki System, Admiral Tolwyn planned to take the Behemoth all the way to Kilrah. Unfortunately the weapon was destroyed by Kilrathi forces, and the Victory was forced to retreat. The destruction of the Behemoth was not the only surprise from the Kilrathi, however. Immediately after the Behemoth's fiery end, a recording was transmitted to Colonel Blair, courtesy of Prince Thrakhath. The recording was of the public execution of Colonel Jeannette Devereaux, who was apprehended while on a covert operation in the Kilrah System. A bitter parting gift for Colonel Blair's departure from the system.

And so the much-vaunted Confederation offense seemed to have gone up in smoke in a matter of minutes. Soon after, the crew of the Victory suffered yet another blow. Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas revealed himself as a Kilrathi sleeper agent, murdering Lieutenant Laurel Buckley on the Victory's flight deck before fleeing for Kilrathi space in a stolen Thunderbolt VII. It was later revealed that he had provided information that was instrumental in the Kilrathi's successful attack on the Behemoth.

Then the Victory was suddenly placed on another assignment, this time with Colonel James Taggart on board. After a string of victories gave the Confederation a hold in the Freya and Hyperion Systems, Colonel Taggart finally revealed his own plan for winning the war, based on intelligence gathered by Colonel Devereaux's Special Operations team. Once again, the complete destruction of Kilrah was the final goal -- Confed Intelligence had long since ascertained that only the complete annihilation of Kilrah could force the Empire to concede defeat -- however the method could not have been more different. Instead of a superweapon like the Behemoth, a single fighter would sneak into Kilrathi space, and deliver a single bomb into a Kilrah fault line. A resonance device, the Temblor Bomb was designed to set up a series of resonant tectonic harmonics within the planet itself that would literally shake Kilrah apart from the inside. In addition, the timing of this operation could not have been more fortuitous, with a large part of the Kilrathi fleet amassed around Kilrah in preparation for a final offensive all the way to Earth. It was truly Humanity's last hope for victory and survival, and Colonel Blair was to fly the mission.

Thanks to Covert Operations, two resupply depots had been set up in the Kilrah System, hidden in the system's two asteroid fields. A single wing of four Excaliburs, armed with Confed's first working cloaking device, were sent to Kilrah. Led by Colonel Blair, Major Marshall, Lieutenant Chang, and Lieutenant Peters first made stops at each depot to resupply and refuel, and then embarked on the final leg to the Kilrathi home planet.

By the time Colonel Blair reached Kilrah, he was the only fighter left. But before he could fly down to the planet's surface, he had to overcome two more obstacles. Colonel Ralgha nar Hhallas, still flying his stolen Thunderbolt was one; the other was Prince Thrakhath. With their deaths, there was nothing to stop Colonel Blair from flying down to the planet. By following a long and winding canyon, Colonel Blair was able to sneak past Kilrah's planetary defense forces, and reach a wide open valley where the fault line was located. Taking careful aim, Colonel Blair fired the shot that was heard throughout the galaxy.

The resulting cataclysm was nothing short of spectacular, a titanic release of explosive energy that blew Kilrah apart and destroyed practically all of the orbitting fleet. Only a single Kilrathi dreadnought survived, to tractor in Colonel Blair's crippled fighter. On board the dreadnought, Colonel Blair came face to face with Shintahr Melek, who gave him the startling news: the Kilrathi were surrendering to him, and to the Terran Confederation. Although it was a few months yet before the it was finalised, the Torgo Treaty was signed during a ceremony on board the TCS Victory by Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn and Shintahr Melek.

The Terran-Kilrathi War was finally over.

Systems Trek: Orsini, Tamayo, Locanda, Blackmane, Ariel, Caliban, Torgo, Loki, Alcor, Freya, Hyperion, Kilrah

The destruction of Kilrah

2670.275:
The Baka Kar Insurrection

It was 2669.315, Confederation Standard Time. While the TCS Victory was in the midst of battle in the Vega Sector, a Kilrathi raiding squadron consisting of a supercarrier and four escorts was sent to attack the Landreich System, in revenge for the Landreich's aiding the Confederation in the Battle Of Earth. Though the Kilrathi attack was poorly conceived and had little strategy, the sheer firepower of the supercarrier alone meant the strike force was not easily repulsed. After an extended hit-and-run and pursuit, the supercarrier KIS Karga and its remaining destroyer escort KIS Frawqirg were finally cornered in the Vaku System by the Confederation cruisers TCS Juneau and TCS Dover. During this final showdown, the TCS Dover was destroyed; twenty-five minutes later, the TCS Juneau finally met her demise, but not before scoring a last critical hit on the Karga's shields. With the Karga's shields down, his crew no longer had any protection from the radiation of the Vaku System's brown dwarf primary, and would be killed within a few minutes. With practically all primary systems down, the Kilrathi decided to commit Zu'kara. Meanwhile, those members of the TCS Juneau's crew who had managed to escape the Juneau's destruction, plus some survivors from the two Kilrathi vessels, were able reach a nearby moon, where they prepared to wait for a rescue.

Almost a year later, the Terran-Kilrathi War was finally over, and the Torgo Treaty had been officially ratified. But already forces were threatening to shatter the fragile peace just created. Wanting to avoid imposing a harsh peace settlement on the Kilrathi, and wrought with not a small amount of guilt over killing a planet of civilians by destroying Kilrah, the Terran Confederation was determined to be amicable, even accomodating, to the Kilrathi people. Thus the terms of the Torgo Treaty were not too strictly enforced, and the Confederation's attitude toward the Kilrathi became extremely relaxed. However, what many in the government failed to realise was that the Kilrathi had lost their political, religious, and cultural centre, and as a people, they no longer had any direction. Since the Terran Confederation had not provided the Kilrathi with anything constructive to replace what they had lost, conditions were ripe for warlords to once more make bids for power, and return the Kilrathi to their feuding days of old. The result was a collection of petty clan-run states and personal fiefdoms. Chief among them was the Baka Kar province, governed by Ukar dai Ragark lak Haka. Extremely ambitious and angry at the Kiranka clan's mismanagement of the Terran-Kilrathi War, Lord Ragark wanted nothing less than the complete eradication of the Terran Confederation, with himself on the Imperial throne.

In the months following the Imperial surrender at Torgo, the Landreich began to see an increasing number of raids and attacks on their assets. While some were ordinary acts of piracy and privateering, a significant number had been perpetrated by Kilrathi, in particular those loyal to Ukar dai Ragark. After some persuasion by Admiral Vance Richards, Commodore (ret.) Jason Bondarevsky agreed to join the Free Republic of Landreich Navy, presumably to participate in a mission of some kind. Along with Commodore Bondarevsky, Admiral Richards also succeeded in securing the services of a recently fallen Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, Lieutenant Janet McCullough, Commander Kevin Tolwyn, who joined the FRLN at his uncle's request, and Captain Etienne Montclair.

With everyone finally assembled, President Max Kruger unveiled his master plan: the salvage of a Kilrathi supercarrier, originally presumed destroyed after a failed attack on the Landreich System. Instead, a frontier scout had stumbled onto the KIS Karga floating dead in space while surveying the Vaku System, and President Kruger hoped to be able to add the supercarrier to the Landreich's fleet. All intelligence pointed to the Kilrathi warlord Ukar dai Ragark amassing a fleet, in preparation for an assault on the Landreich, before going on to wage war against the Terran Confederation and Earth. Thus the supreme firepower of the supercarrier could possibly be the key to the Landreich's survival, as well as help prevent a second Terran-Kilrathi War. The Karga salvage team was quickly assembled, and left Landreich for the Vaku System to begin Project Goliath, the salvage of the KIS Karga.

During the initial survey of the Karga, the Goliath team made contact with a motley crew of humans and Kilrathi, the sole survivors of the Battle of Vaku. The two sides had apparently spent the last year on the Nargrast moon, pooling their efforts in order to survive long enough to be rescued. The survivors consisted of crewmen from the TCS Juneau and the KIS Frawqirg, and the Cadre of the KIS Karga, including Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak, the heir to the Kilrathi Imperial throne. Almost immediately following their arrival, the Nargrast survivors foreshadowed their usefulness to the Goliath team when they informed the team of the Karga's dormant self-destruct system -- the system had been activated by the ship's captain during the final minutes of the Battle of Vaku, but it had never completed its task due to computer failure. This information provided just moments before the salvage team was about to bring the Karga's computer system back online possibly saved the entire team from an explosive demise.

With this new development, Admiral Richards almost abandoned the project right then and there. However, Admiral Tolwyn went over Richards' head to obtain a presidential order from Kruger authorising Project Goliath's continuance. Puzzled and disturbed by Tolwyn's uncharacteristic actions, Captain Bondarevsky confronted the Admiral, demanding an explanation. After some persuasion, Tolwyn finally agreed, and revealed to both Bondarevsky and Richards a conspiracy that was as fantastic as it was frightening -- a network of highly-placed Confed military members who called themselves the Belisarius Group. Angry and frustrated at the civilian government's mismanagement of the Terran-Kilrathi War, a number of military members had come together with the intent of taking over the Confederation government. As Confed continued to take losses during the war, the Belisarius Group hoped to build up enough public sentiment against the government to legitimise a military coup that would give them full control of the Confederation government. It was only with the incredible success of the Victory Campaign that the Belisarius Group was thwarted in their planned takeover. However they remained unfazed, and refocused their efforts on inciting a war between the Landreich and the ambitious warlord Ragark, while making sure the Confederation offered no support whatsoever to the frontier. In this way, when Ragark finally conquered the Landreich, the ensuing public hysteria would allow the Belisarius Group to blame the civilian government for its continued ineptitude in handling the Kilrathi, and take over control. This was why Admiral Tolwyn had rushed so hard to complete the Behemoth, which explains why it was so easily destroyed -- Tolwyn had not known about Colonel Taggart's Temblor Bomb project, and needed to end the war as soon as possible, before Belisarius could make their move. And why the Landreich now needed the Karga in its fleet, if it were to have any hope of standing up to Ragark's forces when the Kilrathi warlord launched his attack. Thus Project Goliath needed to succeed, no matter the cost.

With this stunning revelation, Admiral Richards had little choice but to go on with Project Goliath. Once again the Nargrast survivors came in useful, helping to extract the computer's command codes so that the self-destruct system could be disabled. With this obstacle overcome, the real work of the Karga's salvage could finally begin.

Three months later, the salvage team had managed to make the KIS Karga somewhat operational, with most crucial systems on line, though there was still a tremendous amount of work to be done. It was around this time that the Belisarius Group found out about the salvage operation, and ordered an attack on the supercarrier. The attack was organised by Zachary Manfeld, head of a coalition of merchants and ship captains knwon as the Guild. Fortunately the Karga team had just got the ship's shields on line, so that the supercarrier was able to defend itself long enough for Captain Bondarevsky's fighters to repulse the Guild attack. Unfortunately the Tender FRLS Sindri was destroyed during the attack.

While an agent of the Belisarius Group, Zachary Manfeld was in fact solely looking out for the Guild's interests -- not to mention his profit margin -- which just happened to coincide roughly with the Belisarius' objectives, at least at the present time. Alarmed by the losses incurred during the failed attack on the Karga, and afraid of Landreich reprisals, Manfeld decided to take a cloaked scoutship to Baka Kar to tell Ragark about the Karga, all without approval from the Belisarius Group. He hoped that Ragark would then launch an attack that would keep the Landreich occupied, and divert attention away from the Guild. All seemed to be going smoothly until Manfeld reached the Baka Kar System and stumbled onto a terrifying secret. Apparently President Kruger was not the only one working on an ace in the hole, and Ragark too had just added a new ship to his growing fleet: a Dreadnought. Suddenly the Landreich's ability to hold its own was no longer an issue; even the strength of the Karga in the face of the dreadnought was superfluous. And when Ragark smashed his way through the Landreich, the very survival of the Guild would be at stake, never mind the Guild's profits. Manfeld quickly turned about and raced back to the Landreich, with Kilrathi forces in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, President Kruger was facing increasing opposition from the Landreich government, led by industrialist Daniel Galbraith and his Loyal Opposition party. With opinions already against Kruger's ever-increasing spending on military projects, Kruger was losing support within the council, and was facing the very real prospect of losing his office. As retribution for Manfeld's betrayal, the Belisarius Group informed Galbraith of a so-called pirate base in the Hellhole System, in reality the Guild's headquarters, presumably where the main instigators of the past attacks were operating from. With the Council clamouring for reprisals, Kruger had no choice but to send the FRLS Independence to attack the base.

After leaving Baka Kar, Manfeld had managed to keep one step ahead of his Kilrathi pursuers. After two days, Manfeld was finally at the Hellhole jump point. As he jumped into Hellhole, he never expected that he would arrive right in the middle of an attack on his Guild base, led by the FRLS Independence. Moments later, the Kilrathi group jumped in. Detecting both the Guild and Landreich forces, the Kilrathi opened fire on the humans, all while attempting to destroy Manfeld's stealth scout. Quickly both human groups buried their differences and teamed up to defend Manfeld's ship, the Guildsmen to defend their leader, the Landreichers to protect anything the Kilrathi were so intent on destroying. The battle was incredible, and the human forces were badly outnumbered, but they were able to heavily damage one of the two Kilrathi carriers, and when reinforcements arrived, the Kilrathi chose to beat a prudent retreat.

In the following days, events in the Landreich took a turn for the worse. Fearing that the Landreich might strike at his dreadnought, the KIS Vorghath, while it was in drydock, Ragark ordered a massive attack against the Landreich system of Ilios, a threat that President Kruger could not possibly ignore. At the same time, attacking the Vorghath while it was in drydock might be the only opportunity to put it out of commission; facing it in combat was suicide. There was only one solution to this dilemma: the KIS Karga, newly rechristened the FRLS Mjollnir, had to be sent to the Baka Kar System to disable, and possibly destroy, the Vorghath, while the rest of the Landreich fleet went to meet Ragark's strike force in Ilios.

Ironically enough, the FRLS Mjollnir, notwithstanding its capabilities, was the one Landreich ship that could get into Baka Kar and attack the Vorghath, masquerading as the KIS Karga with the help of Lord Murragh and some of the other Kilrathi survivors. Using the element of surprise to good advantage, the Mjollnir and its squadrons of Kilrathi and Confederation fighters were able to strike hard at the Vorghath, while Admiral Richards led the destroyers FRLS Durendal and FRLS Caliburn in the cruiser FRLS Xenophon to occupy the other Kilrathi forces in the system.

Meanwhile, President Kruger was on board the FRLS Independence, waiting for a Kilrathi strike fleet to attack the Ilios System. A decoded abort order finally told them that Ragark had withdrawn his attack, and was probably headed back to Baka Kar to defend the system. With this new development, Kruger immediately ordered the fleet to Baka Kar to aid the Mjollnir.

In the Baka Kar System, things seemed to be going prett all right. After an extended strike, Mjollnir's crew had finally penetrated the Vorghath's armour to hit a critical point. With the dreadnought critically damaged, Admiral Tolwyn finally gave the signal to leave the Baka Kar System. Then Ragark's fleet jumped in, catching Admiral Richards and his ships completely off guard. Faced with no other option, Admiral Richards decided to take on Lord Ragark. Ten minutes later, the FRLS Xenophon was destroyed with all hands.

With no cover left and only distance on their side, the Mjollnir attempted to make a run for the jump point. All her crew could do was hope the Kilrathi ships would not be able to reach them before they reached the jump point. It was thus extremely fortunate that the FRLS Independence chose this moment to jump in with the rest of the Landreich fleet. Shortly after, Lord Ragark offered a ceasefire.

Systems Trek 1: Landreich, Oecumene, Vaku
Systems Trek 2: Vaku, Oecumene, Hellhole, Vordran, Baka Kar
Systems Trek 3: Baka Kar, Dharkyll, Khrovat, Preesg, Gorkhos, Vordran, Baka Kar
Systems Trek 4: Ilios, Ghorkhos, Vordran, Baka Kar

2672:
The Border Worlds Conflict The Border Worlds Conflict was a relatively small skirmish on the frontier of Confederation space. It lasted exactly two weeks, and was remarkable only because of the people involved and the horrors it revealed. And also because, had things turned out differently, it could have become a pivotal moment in the history of the Terran Confederation.

The year was 2672, three years after Colonel Christopher Blair fired the Temblor Bomb and destroyed Kilrah, bringing to an end, at long last, the Terran-Kilrathi War. But the Confederation was still having a hard time adjusting to peace. With military reductions and thousands of soldiers entering civilian life, jobs were scarce, and times were tough. Piracy was on the rise, especially on the frontier. And there was an increasing number of reports of unwarranted attacks on civilian ships by forces belonging to the Union Of Border Worlds. Interestingly enough, the Border Worlds also claimed to be the victims of similar unwarranted attacks. After months of unprovoked violence, with tensions mounting between the Confederation and the Border Worlds, the senators were calling out for blood. It was at a meeting of the Confederation Assembly that Assembly Master James Taggart assigned to Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, the Commander of the Strategic Readiness Agency, the task of discovering the true nature of the situation at the frontier. Admiral Tolwyn would report back to the Assembly in two weeks, at which time the Assembly would decide as to the appropriate course of action to take.

To aid him in his investigations, Admiral Tolwyn enlisted the help of his old associate, Colonel (retired) Christopher Blair. After three years of farming on Nephele II, Blair found himself unexpectedly yearning for the chance to fly a fighter again, and jumped at Admiral Tolwyn's offer to join the crew of the TCS Lexington. Commanded by Captain William Eisen, the Lexington's mission was two-fold: to patrol the frontier and put down any pirate and raider activity; and to discover if the attacks were merely random, or part of a larger design that was possibly leading to a human civil war.

At first, things were going fairly well, with Colonel Blair being reunited with his old comrades Major Todd Marshall and First Lieutenant Winston Chang. But gradually, there was a shift in the situation on board the TCS Lexington. The missions became more aggressive, with the rescue of Dr. Brody, a Bioconvergence chemist, from Tyr VII, an operation to retake a Spacelab in the Masa System, and then a strike against a Border Worlds convoy to enforce the Confederation's newly created space edict; Captain Eisen received new orders, and was replaced by Captain Hugh Paulsen as the captain of the Lexington; And a mysterious pilot, known only as Seether, arrived on the TCS Lexington, a cold-blooded murderer who soon made it apparent that he was the real person in charge of the Lexington, and Captain Paulsen. Suddenly, Colonel Blair was ordered to fly a mission to capture Captain Eisen, who had apparently obtained classified Confederation information, and was attempting to defect to the Union Of Border Worlds in a stolen shuttle. And Major Marshall was the shuttle's pilot. When First Lieutenant Chang chose to defect as well, Colonel Blair had no choice but to shoot him down. However, Captain Eisen was able to escape during the ensuing battle. Colonel Blair would later find out that Lieutenant Chang had ejected and survived, only to be killed in a later mission for the Border Worlds.

Nevertheless, the Lexington had succeeded in locating the Border Worlds carrier, and proceeded to give chase. When the carrier was finally pinned down, Colonel Blair was ordered to take the carrier out while the Lexington positioned herself in front of the jump point. During the battle, Captain Eisen gave Colonel Blair a second opportunity to defect to the Border Worlds, which Captain Eisen claimed were the real victims in this fight. This time, Colonel Blair agreed to defect -- he was joined by Second Lieutenant Troy Carter -- and immediately turned his attention to the TCS Lexington. With the help of Border Worlds pilots, Colonel Blair succeeded in destroying the Lexington, allowing the Border Worlds carrier, the BWS Intrepid, to flee to the Orestes System.

On board the BWS Intrepid, Colonel Blair was once again reunited with his old shipmates. There, Captain Eisen revealed the truth of the Border Worlds Conflict: apparently an unknown third party within Confed was deliberately attacking both Border Worlds and Confederation forces, increasing tensions in an effort to incite a war between the Terran Confederation and the Union Of Border Worlds. With less than a week before the Confed Assembly was scheduled to vote on the Border Worlds situation, a decision that was almost certain to go to war, Captain Eisen left the Intrepid with what information he had gathered, in the hopes of convincing his contacts in Confed of the conspiracy, and placed Colonel Blair in command of the Intrepid, along with her newly acquired marine contingent, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Dekker. Colonel Blair was to liaise with Vice-Admiral Eugene Wilford, the commander of the Border Worlds fleet.

Shortly after, Colonel Blair was sent to the Peleus System, to investigate what seemed to be a complete loss of communications with the system. Upon arrival, the Intrepid's crew were shocked to discover that in fact some kind of jamming weapon was being used to black out most of the system, a weapon that was not only capable of blocking out comm systems, but disable scanners, radars, and shields as well. After flying a series of missions literally blind, Colonel Blair was able to track the jamming to its source: an unknown transport armed with a cloaking device that made it virtually undetectable. Only its flight path provided by a captured mercenary pilot allowed Colonel Blair to follow the transport and destroy it.

Surprisingly, a shuttle was detected attempting to flee the system shortly after the jammer transport was destroyed. Its single passenger was none other than Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. Admiral Tolwyn also had his suspicions about some kind of conspiracy within Confed, and had come to the Peleus System to investigate personally. Seeing no reason to hold him on the Intrepid, Colonel Blair released him from custody.

Next was an operation in the Circe System, to aid the legitimate Border Worlds government in a civil war against mercenaries who were being backed by elements within Confed. During this operation, the Intrepid received its first piece of fortune, in the form of a captured Black Lance transport carrying Dragon fighters. Shortly after, the Intrepid received a distress signal from a colony in the Telamon System. When Colonel Blair and Colonel Dekker flew to the colony to investigate, they discovered that the colony had been ravaged by some kind of biological weapon. Made up of microscopic nanobots which had been spread by a wing of Dragons, this weapon had been designed to kill any person who did not fit a pre-determined genetic profile programmed into the nanobots. And the results were nothing short of gruesome. The face of the enemy had been revealed to be even more brutal than the Kilrathi, and the face was human.

The Border Worlds Union had finally hit paydirt. Various triangulations and calculations had led Vice-Admiral Wilford to the conclusion that the forces responsible for the attacks could be based in the Axius System. With the Intrepid holding station in the Callimachus System, Colonel Blair piloted a lone Dragon into the Axius System, where he discovered a starbase, the headquarters for a group which called themselves the Black Lance. Seether was among them, but not as their leader. That person was revealed to be none other than Admiral Tolwyn himself. Stunned by this revelation, Colonel Blair fought his way through wings of Dragons to get this vital piece of information back to the Intrepid. With the Confederation Assembly voting in only a few days' time, the Intrepid lost no time in making its way back to Earth in an attempt to stop the imminent declaration of war.

The BWS Intrepid had succeeded in sneaking past the Superbase in the Ella System, when it inadvertently bumped into Admiral Tolwyn's flagship, the TCS Vesuvius. Surprisingly, Admiral Tolwyn aborted the jump to the Sol System, and instead ordered the super-carrier to turn around and engage the Intrepid. The crew of the Intrepid suddenly found themselves in the fight of their lives, and although they fought valiantly, they would surely have failed, had it not been for the sudden appearance of the TCS Mount St. Helens, courtesy of Captain William Eisen. Together, the two carriers chased the Vesuvius into the Sol System, where she was finally destroyed by Colonel Blair, with the help of a Flash-Pak.

Unfortunately, Admiral Tolwyn had been able to escape in a shuttle during the battle, and was even then on his way to the Confederation Assembly meeting, to accept his promotion to Space Marshal, and to present the case against the Union Of Border Worlds that would guarantee war. The Mount St. Helens, taken out of space dock prematurely, had been too heavily damaged in the battle, and it was left to Colonel Blair to fly to the Assembly meeting and stop the vote of war. On his way to Earth, Colonel Blair once again met up with Seether, who challenged him to a final duel in space combat. The battle was intense, but in the end, Colonel Blair succeeded in killing Seether. Colonel Blair flew on to Earth, to the Hall of the Great Assembly of the Terran Confederation in Washington D.C.

When Colonel Blair entered the Great Hall, Space Marshal Tolwyn had just finished his report on the Border Worlds situation. What ensued was the stuff of history, as the Assembly bore witness to the fall of one of the Terran Confederation's greatest heroes. In a taut verbal battle between Colonel Blair and Space Marshal Tolwyn, Colonel Blair exposed the truth about the Black Lance, the bio-weapons deployed on Telamon, the genetically-enhanced pilot Seether, and revealed Space Marshal Tolwyn for the megalomaniac he had become. Amidst the thunderous applause following the Confederation Assembly's vote of "No" to war, Space Marshal Geoffrey Tolwyn was taken into custody. He was tried for his crimes against Humanity, and sentenced to death.

Systems Trek: Nephele, Sol, Hellespont, Tyr, Masa, Silenos, Orestes, Pasqual, Orestes, Peleus, Circe, Telamon, Callimachus, Axius, Callimachus, Ella, Sol

2681.018:
The Kilrah Campaign

Excerpt from REPORT ON UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY TARGET
as compiled by TERRAN CONFEDERATION INTELLIGENCE ASSETS

2681.018

1441 -- Confed Astronomical Station K-105 picks up unidentified energy surge near Kilrah Prime. Surge is identified as an equipment malfunction or the reflection of a solar flare.

2022 -- TOBY drones from the (TCS) Devereaux destroyed while exploring Kilrah Prime.

2025 -- Devereaux destroyed.

2215 (est) -- Sivarist monastic outpost on asteroid K-14G destroyed.

2351 -- Astronomical Station K-105 destroyed. Fighters scrambled from Surveillance Outposts Bravo and Delta to recon and respond.

2681.019

0022 -- Recon group from Outposts Bravo and Delta jump to site of K-105. They have not reestablished contact.

0144 -- Kilrathi colony on Kilrah 6 attacked.

0158 -- Last known signal from Kilrah 6.

0215 (est) -- Previously unknown Kilrathi smuggler/insurgent base on Kilrah 7.4 destroyed.

0330-0338 -- Surveillance Outposts Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta attacked.

0415 (est) -- All Surveillance Outposts presumed destroyed. Kilrah system presumed fully in enemy control.

1700 -- First of seven recon missions dispatched into Kilrah system from Tal'q Naval Station. It does not return as scheduled, all contact lost.

1900 -- Tal'q sends FLASH message to Terra, goes to full alert status.

2132 -- Major Leeward Washington discovers remains of smuggler's base on Kilrah 7.4 during the 7th recon attempt from Tal'q.

2310 -- Major Washington completes recon of Kilrah 7.4, returns to Tal'q with photos and possible enemy artifact. His is the only recon mission of seven to return as scheduled, others presumed lost. Recon missions terminated pending analysis of known data.

2345 -- Strike group, lead by Corvette TCS Brack, dispatched from Tal'q to Kilrah 6.

2681.020

0337 -- Last transmission from TCS Brack.

0730 -- Initial TCIA report on incident compiled and dispatched.

When First Lieutenant Lance Casey and First Lieutenant Max Garrett joined the flight roster of the TCS Midway, they thought they were starting a simple shakedown cruise of the Confederation's newest carrier. Little did they know that soon after they came aboard, the Midway was placed on alert status, and sent to the H'rekkah System, in response to a Kilrathi distress signal. A most bizarre sight greeted the Midway upon her arrival -- a Fralthi II cruiser and escorts completely destroyed by an unknown force, the Kilrathi crew almost ritualistically dissected. And that was when a flight of unknown fighters flew in and started shooting.

The TCS Midway had in fact made contact with a new alien race, unlike any the Confederation had previously encountered. Though the Midway pilots did not know it, this alien race, codenamed the "Nephilim" by Confed, had been responsible for a series of swift and brutal attacks on Confederation and Kilrathi colonies and ships in the Kilrah System; they were now rapidly expanding their sphere of influence throughout the Kilrah Sector. As the closest ship on hand, it was up to the TCS Midway to make sure that the Nephilim did not get any further. After another encounter with a Nephilim fighter group, the Midway had enough intelligence to send back to Confed, via the relay station in the H'hrass System.

Despite strong resistance, the Midway succeeded in reaching the H'hrass station. Things took a sudden twist when Commodore Christopher Blair, who was overseeing the repairs to the station, was kidnapped by a Nephilim Warlord. Worse, the Nephilim was jamming all communications and sensors, effectively cutting the Midway off and keeping her from warning the Confederation about the Nephilim. After a fierce battle, the Nephilim resistance was neutralised, and the H'hrass station was repaired. But Commodore Blair was nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, the source of the communications jamming was pinpointed as coming from the T'lan Meth System, near the planet of E'loy.

After the jammer was discovered and neutralised, further reconnaissance revealed that there was a large Nephilim fleet massing in the system, in preparation for an attack on the TCS Midway. With Confed reinforcements unavailable, the Midway had no choice but to seek help from Kilrathi pilots belonging to the Sivaristic T'Agg A'Bren Clan. Despite reservations among the Confederation pilots, the Kilrathi-Confederation alliance proved wise, and the Nephilim fleet was quickly dispatched. Intelligence gathered by the Midway's Science Division revealed that a large number of prisoners were being held by the Nephilim on Dula 7, a former Kilrathi Starbase, including a number of E'loy Kilrathi, as well as Commodore Blair. A rescue mission was mounted to liberate the station. Naturally things were more difficult than previously anticipated -- the Nephilim had already evacuated the base, after setting it to self-destruct. Fortunately the prisoners were rescued from the base before its fiery demise.

During an attack on one of the fleet's main capital ships, Science Officer Lieutenant Commander Aurora Finley managed to download the data from the ship's computer. Among the data was what appeared to be the Nephilim's master plan: The Nephilim had apparently entered Galactic Quadrant Alpha through an artificially induced wormhole of some kind; possibly they had taken advantage of some sort of spacial anomaly inherent in the Kilrah System. In any case, the fleet that was now in the Kilrah Sector was no more than an advance force sent to defend the Kilrah System while the energy array for the wormhole was being constructed. Once completed, the array would be able to stabilise the wormhole permanently, allowing more ships to come through.

After taking all the hits, the TCS Midway was finally ready to go on the offensive in the G'mar System. Thanks to superb flying by First Lieutenant Casey, an attack on a Nephilim strike force allowed the Midway to obtain a heavy-duty piece of Nephilim technology -- the primary plasma weapon used by a Nephilim Kraken, the same one that obliterated the Kilrathi fleet in the H'rekkah System. Quickly jury-rigging the plasma gun to the TCS Midway's weapon systems, the gun was put to good use to eliminate a Nephilim carrier group. And the path was now cleared to Kilrah. Unfortunately due to incompatibilities between Confed and Nephilim technologies, the plasma weapon was no longer usable. The Nephilim wormhole, and the fleet supporting it, would have to be taken out the old-fashioned way.

Jumping into the Kilrah System seemed to be the only easy thing about the mission. One Nephilim strike force later, dispatched courtesy of Lieutenant Casey and his Wolfpack squadron, the TCS Midway was ready to destroy the Nephilim wormhole. The plan could not have been trickier. Since the wormhole was being generated by seven towers, a marine contingent had to penetrate the wormhole structure and lower the shields on each tower, after which Lieutenant Casey would destroy it. At first everything proceeded without a hitch. Six tower shields were disabled, and six towers were destroyed. But before they could reach the last tower, the marines were cornered by Nephilim troops and unable to complete their mission. With a Nephilim dreadnought on its way through the wormhole, time was running out. It was thus left to Commodore Blair, with Major Todd Marshall and First Lieutenant Garrett as escort, to take a second landing craft into the seventh tower in a last ditch attempt to disable its shields. His mission was successful, and Lieutenant Casey was able to destroy the tower moments later. As the Confederation fighters fled from the scene, the wormhole slowly collapsed upon itself, annihilating the surrounding Nephilim fighters, as well as a Tiamat that was just emerging from the gate, to finally explode in a spectacular fireball.

Unfortunately, Commodore Blair was not able to escape the wormhole in time. Amidst the astounding victory of Confed's first encounter and triumph over the Nephilim, the Terran Confederation also mourned its greatest hero.

Systems Trek: H'rekkah, G'Wriss, H'hrass, T'lan Meth, G'mar, Hrissith, Kilrah

2681.063:
The Proxima Incursion The Terran Confederation was awash with celebration: The first of Confed's new Megacarriers, the TCS Midway, had acquitted itself brilliantly in the Kilrah Campaign, and on 2681.056, Confed launched the first of its new heavy cruisers, the TCS Cerberus. Though the Terran Confederation's first encounter with the mysterious Nephilim was a victory, the Nephilim still managed to inflict heavy damage on many of the colonies on the Confederation-Kilrathi border. With the Nephilim threat over, the Confederation focused its resources on rebuilding its border, as well as dealing with any Nephilim stragglers or pirates who might take advantage of the area's weakened defences. As part of this defence, the TCS Cerberus was assigned to a classified shakedown patrol of Sol Sector. Joining the Cerberus' flight roster, on temporary assignment to Black Ops, were key pilots who fought in the Kilrah Campaign: First Lieutenant Lance Casey, First Lieutenant Max Garrett, First Lieutenant Jean Talvert, First Lieutenant Terence O'Hearn, and Major Karl Bowen.

It was during a patrol of the Courage System that the TCS Cerberus encountered a Nephilim force disproportionate with a straggling Nephilim presence. One narrowly-averted ambush later, it became increasingly clear that another Nephilim invasion was underway, this time right in the heart of Sol Sector. The Cerberus was quickly pressed into service to protect Ella Superbase and a number of Confederation convoys, while striking at various Nephilim assets. Upon entering the Cygnus System, the Cerberus discovered the wreckage of the Ana Maria Albergetti, a luxury liner that suffered a brutal attack by Nephilim forces. The battle was now taken up a notch, with the Nephilim hitting civilian as well as military targets. Meanwhile, Confed had also discovered a nasty side effect to human exposure to Nephilim organic technology -- a necrotic disease that could completely disintegrate a human body in a matter of hours. With the Cerberus working in tandem with other Confederation forces, including the TCS Midway, Confed began making headway against the Nephilim. News of a Nephilim blockade sent the TCS Cerberus to the Luyten and Krieger Systems, where she successfully engaged Nephilim carrier groups and convoys, and destroyed a comm facility. All these strikes cleared the way for the Cerberus to enter the Proxima System.

In the Proxima System, Confed Intelligence had learned the existence of another Nephilim wormhole, generated by an accretion device. According to Intel's Science Division, the wormhole was powered by the energy of the system's binary stars, and thus would remain open until the stars' energy was depleted. In addition, this also meant that the wormhole could not be destroyed, as this would lead to dangerous long-term effects in Proxima. Instead, it was up to the TCS Cerberus to eliminate the Nephilim command ship controlling the accretion device. After taking care of the supporting carrier group of course. This carrier group included a Hydra and two Leviathans, which were promptly dispatched, before the Tiamat flagship itself was destroyed. The accretion device itself was left intact, a gateway into the domain of the Nephilim, and a constant reminder of the Nephilim threat.

Systems Trek: Courage, Ella, Talos, Cygnus, Luyten, Krieger, Proxima