Chapter I: The 8th Battle of the Corridor

I

    April 1th of the year 178, leaning on his chair gazing through his ship the magnificent sea of the stars was Admiral Karl Odenwitz, nearly falling asleep to the soothing calm and twinkling light of the scenery almost as if he had forgotten the situation he was in, on his way alongside his partner Vice Admiral Skye Hyde to a ferocious battle which if gone wrong could mark the end of his nation and the rise of Minerva as the new capital of the galaxy for nearly 15,000 ships would have been destroyed. There is where the problem for the Vice Admiral was, he had around 7,500 ships while Hyde had around 5,000 ships but the enemy would probably have at least a fleet of nearly 25,000 ships, Karl had always desired to be a solider who protected the rights of the people and as such he worked diligently both on duty and out of it in order for peace to be kept for he believed that the military of a democracy only had such purpose for it was the most powerful weapon a democracy had in civilian control and if it were to have a purpose other than protect the citizens then a coup would most likely be instated he also had been gifted with a fantastic talent for fleet battles and was given some of the best subordinates a commander could ask for however he had only concern if “that” man was commanding the enemy fleet. “Our chances of victory are small in terms of numbers however in terms of personnel we certainly have an advantage, that is of course if he is not on the enemy fleet” thought the Admiral.

 

 

 The flagship of Karl’s enemy revealed that his concerns had been justified; the flagship was named “The Pilgrimage” which was the ship of Admiral Siegfried Stein who at the time was conducting a meeting with his subordinates Vice Admiral Tyler Carey conducting 3,500 ships, Rear Admirals Johanness Laidler, Jakob Thomas and Joshua Landon each of them with 1,500 ships and joining up with Stein’s fleet of 20,000 was Admiral Erick Stralder bringing the total fleet to 32,000 ships double the strength of  Vice Admiral Karl and his fleet. With all his subordinates sitting on the rectangular table, SIegfried Stein stood up showing the lustre of his porcelain like skin, the radiance of his golden hair reminiscent of an autocratic ruler of legend. “We completely outnumber the enemy by over 15,000 ships. We must attempt to use our size to our advantage while also using the corridor to our advantage, first we will send a reconnaisance ship which will lure the enemy close the corridor’s exit…

there a fleet of  just 7,000 ships shall make a fake retreat drawing them closer to us while I doubt the main commander of the fleet will take the bait I am sure one of his subordinates will be tempted at the sight of the enemy being pushed back and as such the commander will find himself having to come get him, once practically at the door of our territory we shall send a fleet of 15,500 ships to begin attacking the enemy and after 2-5 hours we will slowly begin to retreat out of the corridor and let the second fleet which will be stationed just outside the corridor in to fight against the enemy keeping them in constant battle while we rest, we shall do this until the enemy has been exhausted to the point that they will have no will to fight while also having no time for sleeping, eating as well as practically keeping them in a state of constant panic until we can gain the victory for our just cause of bringing back the long lost ideals of founder. I will be in command the first fleet battle while Admiral Stalder shall command the second fleet battle.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     While the two men were planning, thinking and strategizing on the fleets of each commander there were thousands of men who depended on them, no matter how talented each individual soldier could be for even a fleet with nothing but the best of the best would be destroyed if the commander gave one wrong order, here is where the soldiers on both side were alike even if they fought for the opposite side they would mostly likely be linked by their way of death, shot down by each other even though they both fight for what is technically the same nation even when they could be treating each other as brothers they decided to kill one another for their ideals to live on, but were they really fighting for their hopes and dreams? Could it be they were just fighting for the ideals of others? Fighting for the revolutionary and not for the revolution, the “Legitimate” Confederation fighting for their founder or at least what is left of their founder’s ideals and the “New” Confederation fighting for the ideals of their revolutionary leader Dr. Ivan Bromka who he himself based his ideals on Michael McGuiness in the end this is something that many historians would later point out as to how ludicrous this war was for they were fighting for the same ideals and for the exact same revolutionary but they just could not find a way to work together with each other instead they simply fought.

 

 

    Not only that but the reason this battle had been set to happen is one most historians in the future would look down upon as being selfish and impudent as the expedition had been launched due to the council’s extraordinary loss of support on the recent times which made the highly corrupt but democratic high council feared that they might’ve become the first council to be impeached and that if they fell the “New” Confederation would use the chance to attack their legitimate country and win the war. This was show of the decaying state in the Confederation’s democracy but it would still be nearly 2 years before the decay became too much and for the nation to need “Salvation”

 

 

 

 

II

 

     April 2nd at the 03:42 hours was the day that Karl’s fleet entered the corridor to Minerva’s star zone just an hour later this fleet would encounter the reconnaissance ships that had been sent by Stein, while the people around them wished to follow the ships the Admiral and Vice Admiral in charge of the operation both agreed that this must be a trap in order to lure them into enemy territory and ambush them cutting off their escape route. They decided to just continue sailing through the sea of the stars looking for the enemy fleet, while most commanders at this time would have taken to making a plan in which they would perhaps lure the enemy or take a certain formation before changing into another at an specific point of the battle, Karl did not instead opting to simply constructing a set of 5 formation which the fleet may change to during the battle, future historians would later point our his lack of planning as a major oversight by an otherwise perfect Admiral although such historians would also point out that due to this lack of planning he was able to be more flexible against the enemy and being able to respond to whatever tactic they might have decided to take

 

   At the 14:54 hours the 6,000 strong ship sent by Stein encountered the main Confederation fleet and began shooting at it while retreating in what seemed as disarray, Rear Admiral Skye Hyde took over control for this small scrimmage and ordered her ships to fire and advance slowly however a fleet of 700 ships controlled by Commodore Edgar Miller decided to go against the orders of the Rear Admiral opting to quickly go after the left flank of the opposing fleet, at this the Rear Admiral asked her subordinates to order the Commodore to stop.

 

 

 

 

 

     The man of course didn’t stop and as such Admiral Karl ordered Vice Admiral Hyde to go get the incompetent officer back per due to personnel shortages the military still needed a man like him, as such reluctantly the Vice Admiral followed with her 5,800 ships but as soon as they reached their allies 7,000 opposing ships appeared and joined up with the small fleet of 6,000 and began firing at the fleet half their size. Knowing very well the danger of the situation the Vice Admiral ordered for three consecutive concentrated shots on the middle of the opposing fleet then at the left flank and then at the right flank, the reason for this was simple. No real reason at all she wanted to make the opposing fleet think she was not taking them as important and it proved to be a success when 300 ships came running out of the enemy formation and straight into the fire of her ships.

 

   The Vice Admiral would continue to bait the enemy and little by little the casualties of the enemy grew all the while she had only lost 200 ships against the enemy who had lost 1,200 ships to this petty little trick however it seemed that she had exhausted the amount of incompetent officers on the enemy side as no one took her bait anymore but that was no reason to worry anymore as her reinforcements had come, Admiral Karl with 8,500 ships and now with her own fleet they would have a fleet strong enough to battle the enemy. The skirmish was over and a true battle was about to begin.

 

As both fleets raged in heavy fire against each other, they both knew that if any of their fleets were to be defeated it would be disastrous for either side. One was low on resources while the other had sent their most talented man to the fight, the battle quickly became one of artillery and came in the favour of Admiral Karl, his soldiers began to become ecstatic after the enemy started losing ship after ship and began retreating.

 

 

 

     The Vice Admiral was as ecstatic as the soldiers but her superior officer thought differently and as a precaution asked the fleet to retreat however as soon as the order was given thousands of light beams showered his fleet a brand new fleet had entered, and they were sinking ship after ship the Admiral ordered the Vice Admiral to take a small fleet of 2,200 ships and position itself at the end of the corridor. The Admiral then ordered all his troops to retreat while not letting up the attack.

 

Admiral Stalder seeing this retreat saw an opportunity to make a name of himself and take the position of Fleet Admiral and as such he ordered all his troops to pursue the escaping fleet however at this time he himself was supposed to retreat and let Stein’s fleet take control of the battle. The news of his pursue infuriated Stein who realized that even the brightest of plans could be ruined by one incompetent general. The young blond Admiral immediately ordered his troops to begin their march towards the entering the corridor however that would take around 2 hours and he had worries about the Admiral hanging on until then.

 

     “Everyone take the formation of an O and keep the Stein fleet on the middle of our barrage, they will lose a lot of ships however the Vice Admiral will be waiting to pick up the pieces then. Now hasten up we only have a limited amount of time to do this operation” this were the words of the Admiral before his fleet opened up using all the space of the corridor as they began to rain down the light beams on the enemy Admiral, ship after ship after ship, thousands of human lives had been lost in just that one hour in which the Admiral’s fleet reached an incredible speed completely out speeding Odenwitz fleet and reaching the end of the corridor however out of the 13,500 ships he had started with, only 4,300 remained after the battles it had gone though but at last he had reached the promised land with his flagship at the front he finally saw the light from the galaxy which had gone against his fatherland, light which pierced through his ship and subsequently through almost all of his fleet. Admiral Erick Stalder had lost the battle and out of his fleet only 200 ships remained and they were allowed passage to meet with Stein’s fleet one of the men in this ship was a man called Michael Levine who hoped to one day take revenge one day upon the man who killed his superior.

 

 

 

  The battle had gone by at a unimaginable pace, neither Siegfried nor Karl expected the battle to escalate so quickly some later historians would even claim that had the battle continued at the pace it had then it surely would have become the shortest battle in the war’s history yet at the same would have been one of the most damaging ones. Knowing well how the battle would play out Siegfried ordered all his troops for a momentary retreat as well as 2 hours of R&R so they could let their minds refresh following such a chaotic sight, having said such thing the Admiral called Rear Admiral Thomas “Admiral Stalder acted upon selfishness and arrogance when facing the enemy, I would like to believe you are more competent than that man” the Rear Admiral simply nodded and once the 2 hours of rest had passed he used his 3,200 ships to provoke the enemy to once again come after them and get trapped in their assault.

 

 

  This of course did not work as Admiral Odenwitz could see straight through this plan however he thought that using the same strategy on the exact same battle would be an out of the ordinary move by Admiral Stein whom he thought of as the cream of the crop of warfare at the time and often found himself wishing for him to had been born on his side of the galaxy. As he was thinking about what the enemy’s plan was one of the men working on the flagship informed him that several lone ships had begun deploying below them and using the very bottom of the corridor in an attempt to get to their rear. “So? They are only lone ships simply blast them away” this order however could not be completed per the narrowness of the corridor made it impossible as the enemy ships were now using up most of the bottom of the corridor and they themselves were already using up all the other space it made the corridor impossible to navigate through unless some of their ships went backwards and shot them while exiting but being vulnerable towards getting attacked by other ships of going forward to attack the main fleet before they can fully pass through but be vulnerable to an attack from true main fleet. In the end the safer thing to do at the moment was doing nothing after all even if they did pass the fleet was too small to even make it past the first planet on their territory.

 

   At least that is what the Admiral believed however Vice Admiral Hyde came up with a plan and without even consulting her superior she told her fleet to back down until they are near their own entrance to the corridor while also not attacking any of the enemy ships  that had been passing from below. When Jakob Thomas saw this movement he thought of an opportunity to strike against the enemy and as such ordered al his ships to begin firing, of course at the action of being fired at Odenwitz had no choice but order to fire right back at them however even without Admiral Hyde the fleet led by Odenwitz was at an important numerical advantage, however Jakob Thomas ordered his fleet to push forward and pass right through the spaces in the enemy formation, this was a case in which a smaller fleet had an advantage as it was quite known in this war due to the narrowness of the only corridor which separated the two Confederations, once they had passed through the enemy.

   

  The fleet joined with the ships they had sent before to now total 4,900 ships and began attacking at the rear of the enemy as it slowly tried to manoeuvre their way into a position to fire however as this was happening Rear Admiral Skye ordered her own fleet to fire giving her allies time to turn and making Thomas have to fight a two front battle but at the same Admiral Stein had already moved his fleet and it approached Odenwitz main fleet which caused him to reach and leave Hyde to battle against the enemy at the rear, this was a solid idea if it hadn’t been for Thomas order to once again push forward through the enemy fleet and while this left his fleet vulnerable for a bit eventually Stein’s plan came to fruition as Hyde was pushed back by Rear Admiral Thomas all the while Stein’s fleet was right in front of Odenwitz main fleet, it was simple. Odenwitz had been completely enveloped by the enemy.

 

III

 Ships sinking everywhere they could see and inside this ships were soldiers on their final breaths crawling across the damaged ship among the smoke and the fire while others desperately attempt to put their organs back in their place while coughing blood until their body finally collapsed as they thought of their family, widows, kids young, old and even not yet born. A thousands human lives gone in just an hour as the Odenwitz fleet attempted their best to remain together and find a way to get through the enemy. However the morale of the fleet had faded, the sight of so many fallen comrades had gotten to their head and with their commander just as speechless as they were after being fooled by the enemy, the fleet stood motionless upon the enemy attack already down to 8,000 ships.

 

   “Keep firing! Do not spare any ship! If we destroy this fleet then the traitors that destroyed the democratic ideals of our founder will realize that their end is near” this are the reported words of Rear Admiral Jakob Thomas who thanks to Stein’s plan succeeding had already been assured a promotion to Vice Admiral upon his return to Minerva. The New Confederation’s fleet had high spirits, the enemy had been all but beaten. It could very well be the start for the end of the war.

 

        Suddenly however Rear Admiral Hyde rose up from her seat and commanded all her ships to move upwards towards the Thomas fleet, although their subordinates did not know why their commander wanted to do such a thing the complied and began going up on the narrow corridor leaving the rest of the fleet fighting by themselves against the much larger opponent, Hyde’s subordinates were worried at the possibility that their commander might be trying to leave the rest to die in the vastness of space, eventually however as their upwards trajectory continued the ships commanded by Thomas began to get push to the top of the corridor until some entered areas of space that could not be transited due to the electromagnetic waves on the area and the ships one by began sunk to this untimely waves until the entirety of the Hyde fleet was behind the Thomas fleet.

 

     “Now turn around and fire the Thomas fleet with all the fire power we have left, we must create a path for our allies to pass through so we may retreat and we can also inflict some critical casualties to the enemy….” Hyde spoke with fierce tone of voice until the last sentence that had a slight hint of remorse as the soldiers began working diligently to destroy the enemy, when holes began to appear in the enemy formation the 8th fleet started to emerge from them at a pace reminiscent of that of men running to save their lives until finally most of the fleet had passed and the Hyde fleet took the rear to shoot at the enemy as they retreated.  The New Confederation’s fleet had been caught off guard at the thought of the enemy running away and Jakob Thomas asked his superior for the chance to pursue them however he was met by a negative reaction by the superior who simply said that enough damage had been done and that due to the loss in morale after letting the enemy escape when they seemed all but defeated the fleet would not be able to pursue the enemy in the necessary fashion

 

   

 Having finished communicated the Rear Admiral, Stein looked up on his seat into the shining stars pondering about how this battle looked to them and also wondering what would happen next. His promotion to Fleet Admiral was all but assured but he began wondering what was it that he really wanted, “Is this all I can strive for? Being the greatest military officer of a democratic country? Is that really all that I can have with my abilities?” in the end however it would be quite some time before any of his ambitions began seeking a way out of his body and began entering the world considered reality. Stein then however began to think about something else, about his sister Sabina and how he finally would be able to see her once more.

 

    Sieg had a close relationship to his sister, she had always taken care of him since he was a small child per their mother died when they were both still young and eventually their father died on the war, while this normally would have meant that both kids would be relocated to a new family since Sabina was just one year away from being legally considered an adult the government decided to leave Sieg on the care of his sister however this only lasted for 5 years as when Sieg turned 18 he was required to go on his mandatory military service having to leave his sister behind to battle on a heavily futile war. In the end however Sieg just wanted to go back home with his sister but  he had never been able to for all his time in service due to the appointments he was given and his skill as such appointments which made him quickly rise up in rank until he had now become one of the youngest Admirals in the history of the galaxy and the youngest one in the history of the Confederation and now with his promotion to Fleet Admiral he sure would be able to see her once more, at his promotion ceremony, at his home until he would have to leave again to command the force fighting for democracy, and while Sieg wanting to keep thinking about the happiness of meeting his sister all he could think about was something he never had thought about before, he began questioning himself over and over with the simple question “Why am I fighting for this force?”

   

 

     As the future Fleet Admiral was lost in thought someone else also due for promotion had lost herself on thought, the now to be Admiral Skye Hyde was questioning herself similarly to Stein wondering why she was in the military at all, as far as she could remember she joined to help her Fiancé on his dream and at the same time it was decent enough paying job but she just could not quite put her finger on why she really joined, there surely must have been some other reason as to why she as someone who never had any military training and had always despised war was fighting on the front lines as a revered hero of the Original Confederation’s militia.

 

   She began to ponder that if she was only fighting out of loyalty to one man then she would be defeating the purpose of democracy for a military of a democratic nation should fight to protect the right’s of the nation and not fight to protect one man and for the ideals of that man, if she was indeed just fighting for Admiral Odenwitz then, was she really a democratic solder or was she just encouraging her husband of 2 years to instigate a coup d’état against democracy. “No, that shouldn’t be it there surely must be another reason I fight maybe out of a sense of duty? Pride? Well if I do not know at this time then I surely will be able to know when it is time for me to know” as she finished her last lines of thought once of her subordinates Lt Jg. Lin Shui came up to her and gave her a message sent from the enemy Admiral which read:

 

You have fought bravely to save your fleet from annihilation and to protect the ideals you believe in. I shall look forward to next time we meet Vice Admiral Hyde.

 

- Admiral Siegfried Stein

 

With that note both fleets exited the corridor after the 8th battle between the two nations. It was a quick one only having lasted a day and a half yet the Old Confederation left with 5,700 ships out of 15,000 and the new Confederation left with 12,500 ships out of 30,000 it was a tactical victory for the new Confederation and a strategic victory for the old confederation but the blood had just started to shed.