Terra's High Orbit.
It wasn't long after the Aschen announcement, that the first waves of their strike began against Imperium targets all around Terra's orbit.
There was silence in the velvety blackness of space, but that silence was quickly broken by about a dozen contacts, dozens that quickly turned to hundreds of contacts, hundreds of contacts that in an instant turned into millions of contacts, millions of individual weapons signatures from the multiple-independently targeted warheads of hundreds of Thunderbolt Missile systems flickered into the space above the planet.
Each individual warhead, not counting the decoys carried a mixture of several different kinds of strategic weapons, they were predominately naquadah enhanced nuclear fusion warheads, each with a yield in excess of 10.5 Teratons of TNT, easily capable of cracking a planet's crust, overwhelming void shields with multiple impacts; and vaporizing even the most robust Imperium warship.
Missile impacts from these warheads culminated into blinding flashes of light in Wing City's sky, thousands of them, each as intense as the last, overwhelming sensor systems, and even likely overwhelming people's eyes.
The second variety were tricobalt weapons, each high-yield tricobalt warhead packed a spatial rending tear that threatened to consume nearby ships, tearing them in two, and drawing them into subspace, the warp, or alternate dimensions as the spatial tears generated by tricobalt detonations grew like a gaping maw, only to snap shut.
The third variety were thalaron warheads, of which shields, and starship hulls did nothing to protect against, entire swathes spanning hundreds of thousands of kilometers in breadth would be sterilized in a bath of green light, and in what could be described as an instant, those inside their ships would likely be unlucky enough to suffer a quick, and painful death as their organic flesh was attacked at the subatomic level.
The initial salvo lasted roughly fifteen minutes, and encompassed the entire area facing the origin of the attack, ships, space stations, fighter formations, all wouldn't be spared the sudden onslaught that came from FTL, and what happened next would give the remnants cause to either step back in awe, or run in fear.
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Command Carrier Pax Infernal
"All hands, jump complete!" The XO Called out amid the cacophony of the CIC, while Admiral Nagala clasped the railing of the Command Carrier's console firmly, teeth grit in anticipation in the coming battle.
"All frag cannons target the remains of their defense stations, I want aegis fields mark two nine seven carom one one nine!" She called out, as the massive ship shuddered from the spatial flux of it's FTL jump.
The Pax Infernal was one of thousands of Aschen warships that began jumping in roughly 200,000 kilometers from Imperial positions, and those that survived the strategic missile bombardment would likely find themselves facing a determined foe.
Brilliant Aegis barriers shimmered to life, as Aegis, Gemino, and Hera class cruisers moved into position, throwing up ecm, chaff, and thick energy barriers to protect the jumping fleet.
Four Command Carriers, and seven Reverence IIs jumped into the fray, taking in a wide arc formation amidst the thousands of Aschen vessels that began to move into combat formation.
"All ships, this is Admiral Clegg, follow Admiral Nagala's lead and keep up the tempo... Reverences will provide long range support and target the stragglers, stay clear of the thunderbolts!"
"Second salvo inbound! All combat vessels prepare to break!"
Five minutes after the Aschen fleet jumped in, another several hundred more contacts flickered in, similar to the last ones, the thunderbolt missiles acquired their targets, and began their burn towards that likely remained of the Imperial fleet.
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Groundside...
As violence erupted in orbit, Tech Con was working quickly, taking advantage of their relative anonymity in regards to Imperium activities, fortifying their position and using the flashes of the Aschen missile attack as cover to scramble Apollo fighters, Condor VTOLs, and heavy attack craft to meet the Imperium on the ground.
Mercenaries prepared their weapons, and climbed into their vehicles while security chief Henderson surveyed a large projection of the city before her.
"This ought to be interesting..." She muttered.
