Elinor
The debris field was too close together for a standard battle. Elinor confirmed that several remains of vessels had belonged to what intelligence knew was Lord Karth fleet. It took them a while to put the peieces of the battle together as best they could, but everything pointed to the fact that the ships had torn themselves apart. If the fleet had been attacked by an outside force, it’s biggest threat, and loses had been from within.
Task Force Alpha had spent less then half a day at the debris field before forward scouts for the task force found more debris, and were able to plot a course whatever ships had gone that way had taken. There were no survivors that the task force could find, but based on the course of the debris trail it seemed the fleet were heading for Karthmere, and the scout vessel which had found Prince Osmund had said that the System-lord had survived the encounter, and was heading back to secure his homeworld from the Fabian Order.
The Crown Prince had given the order to secure the Jump Gates as they passed through them, and left a rear guard behind while forward scouts continued further towards the Karthmere System while the rest of the task force came behind in the middle.
Whispers of the Ansgar mutinies spread through the task force. Only on a much wider scale. That had involved only twenty ships, and from what they had gathered, there were at least ninety destroyed vessels out behind them.
The task force was off the Fabian Gateway Network by the time they found Lord Karth, and the remains of his fleet as they limped home. Elinor was amazed at the damaged of the few surviving ships. They had found whole, badly ruined starships abandoned along the way, and the number of ships destroyed or disabled jumped to a hundred. When the ‘Skreap’ arrived to the tattered fleet, thirty two starship venting air, water, plasma, and anything else that would vent limped slowly.
“Hail the them,” Crown Prince Osmund said. “Tell them we are friendly, and that we will render any aid we can.”
Lord Karth came over the comms, and greeted the crown prince grimly, blood, and fresh wounds days old still unhealed on his face. “I am glad you are alive, Prince Osmund, but we need to get to Karthmere before the attack.”
