The Age of Titans: A Chronicle of the Sirian Civil War *Updated 6/18*

<i>“Those who think that we fight for nothing are fools. They think that we fight on and on, to no ends. Their foolishness is a veil too thick to see through, because we fight for every single free human being, and their future.” </i> -Chancellor DSQrn <i>Speech to Reichstag </i> Captain Frank Brown stood on the bridge of the BHG Warship Hawkeye. He surveyed the starscape of Magellan for what could be the last time. Magellan was his home and birthplace. He had been born on and grown up on Freeport 4, in the system, and had joined the BHG at age 19, after a group of Lane Hackers killed his parents. Since then, he had risen through the ranks of the BHG quickly, until he had been appointed to the envied position of captain of one of the brand-new warships. The ship was amazing, and with the incredible super fuel, it seemed unstoppable. Over eighty other identical ships surrounded him, and they were all headed for the Leeds system. The Hispanics had a strong presence there, and the Axis meant to make its first offensive count, by attacking this center of the Hispanic military. There would be a large enemy fleet waiting for them, but there were other fleets from Rheinland, Liberty, and Bretonia there to help in the offensive. He was convinced that they would win. The plan was fairly simple. The houses would meet on the dark side of Leeds and prepare to use the bioweapon, which was a massive weapon that would kill off all life in the system, and effectively destroy all Hispanics in the system. The BHG forces, however, would charge the enemy defense force head on, and hold them off until the houses were done. Next, the houses would join the fight, and hopefully rout the enemy. Then, they would fire the bioweapon, and the fleet would jump out of the system. However, he would have a different mission. Instead of joining the BHG fleet in attacking the enemy, he would move towards a large defense platform in orbit of Leeds, called Massif Station, and deploy fighters and torpedo bombers to attack it. They would be cloaked the whole way, and they would uncloak right in front of the station, launch missiles and torpedoes at the station, and the recloak and return to the Hawkeye, which would be cloaked about 3k from the station. Their mission was probably the most important of all, since if they failed, the station could unleash torrents of fire upon the rest of the BHG fleet, and the fleet wouldn’t last long at all. The console in front of him turned green, which meant he had the all-clear to jump. He activated the jump rifter, which created a temporary jump hole directly in front of the ship. The ship lurched forward, and entered the hole. Space swirled around it, and the ship made the short jump between the systems in a few short moments. The ship popped out of the hole on the other side, which was close to Planet Leeds. The rest of the fleet had already arrived, and they were heading for the light side of the planet, to engage the Hispanics. Captain Brown had a short time to accomplish his goal, and he had to move quickly. He powered up his engines, did a systems check, and had his pilots readied. The ship got under way, and it moved towards the light side of the planet, and their target: Massif Station. He hit a large switch on his command console, and with a loud hiss and crackle, the ship cloaked. Upon a check, he found that everything was ready to go. Just then, the ship made it to the light side of Leeds. A huge Hispanic fleet was on guard near the docking ring, and it didn’t appear that they had picked up the main BHG fleet on their scanners yet. Nearby, even closer to the planet, the huge Massif Station floated in orbit, bristling with hundreds of deadly lasers and torpedo launchers, waiting for a chance to prove its worth against an enemy capital ship like the Hawkeye. Brown ordered the five squadrons of fighters and bombers to launch. Each was equipped with its own cloak, and they would remain cloaked until they were so close to Massif that their volleys of torpedoes couldn’t miss. Brown powered down the engines, and turned the ship’s side towards the station. He knew that the fighters were launching, and that their mission would be accomplished within a few minutes. There was no way that they could fail. The foolish Hispanics would never know what hit them.

<i>“This battle is not for us, nor Bretonia, nor the Axis as a whole. It is for all those in Sirius who do not want to live under the oppression and tyranny of the Hispanic Alliance! It is for them that we must fight today!” </i> -ww2jacob <i>Speech to troops before attack at Leeds </i> Captain Valencia still stood, looking out at the system of Leeds. This time, however, he was in the command center of Massif Station. After the anomalies had been detected, there had been no other reported activity in that area. None of the scouts he had near there were due back for another hour, so he had some time to relax. The system seemed so peaceful, almost oddly so. Normally, he would have been suspicious, but he was still new to the place, and he thought that it was just that he had not gotten used to the new system yet. As he was contemplating this, the alarms went haywire all over the place. Men started running around, yelling, and Valencia froze for a second. Then, his aide, who was running the sensor systems, ran up to him. “Sir! We just picked up a set of contacts on our long-range scanners! It is huge, at least a hundred large ships, and it is closing rapidly! Do I have your permission to notify the fleet?” “What? Who is it? Are you sure that it is not a friendly force? Well, notify the fleet, and do it now!” “Aye aye, sir!” the aide knew that the questions that Valencia had asked were rhetorical, so he didn’t bother to speculate. Valencia’s head was spinning. Could it be the Axis? If so, that meant he had to get the station up and ready to fire! Just as he was about to run off to the firing control center, his aide came back. “Sir, I sent the message. And I picked up a few oddities near the station. It seems to be engine trails, and they are heading right for the station. But, as you can see,” and he gestured out the window in front of Valencia, “there is nothing out there.” Both men turned to look out the window, when there was suddenly a small flash of light in front of the window. Then another, and another. Where the lights had been, there were now Bounty Hunter ships. They were obviously BHG, but they were types that neither man had ever seen before. Fixed on the spot, the two men stared out the window at the ships that were rapidly approaching the station. All of a sudden, the ships fired, and dozens of strange torpedoes shot out of the ships and raced towards the station. There was no time for the men to react as the torpedoes hit the side of the station. With a huge flash, the station went up in flames, and it was destroyed with all hands lost, including Captain Jose Valencia.