The Libertonian expansion
"Señor! We have received news from the Outcast situation in the Cortez system…" said optio1 Muñoz
"Report it to me, what is it?" replied centurion Allende
Muñoz sat down in front of the centurion and interlocked its fingers on the table. Allende looked at him while noticing a smile on the face of his subordinate and patiently waited for the upcoming good news.
"As you have already noticed I bring some good news for us…" Muñoz said, continuing "Liberty finalized colonization of planet Curacao and claimed the Cortez system as Liberty territory, and now that the Rogues and the Hackers were expelled the Outcasts lost all of their influence in there… So they will probably move some of their pilots to invade the system and maybe even build a base there, so that may be our chance to invade the Tau region with might!"
Allende smiled but kept quiet, he just limited to listening the information.
In truth few Liberty Rogues dare to enter the Cortez after Liberty's arrival, Orbital Spa & Cruise left Curacao and placed luxury liner Jamaica planetside in order for libertonian authorities safely colonize the planet. The battleship LNS Yukon traveled from California to Cortez so that the Liberty Navy could patrol the system in an effective way, the bretonian Queen ordered the withdrawal of the Bretonia Armed Forces relinquishing control of half of the system. Bretonia could not afford a war of nerves with Liberty at that point, and the presence of the Yukon, a battleship as outdated as one could be, was still more than a valid reason for not raising tensions with the libertonians.
The construction of the Cardomethadone Facility in the Cortez system made it a target for Outcasts because Cryer Pharmaceuticals' cardomethadone was about to be deployed into the market to replace and treat cardamine addiction. That's why the Liberty Navy commanded this process with the upmost importance and rigor, the Liberty Rogues and the Lane Hackers are known allies of the Outcasts and are also known to harbor them in their bases while preparing raids so obviously their expulsion of the system and chartering of all jump holes was priority number one.
"What about the Magellan system?" asked centurion Allende
"In the Magellan things are different… The Navy is in trouble with the IMG, and Bretonia Armed Forces still patrol half of the system…" replied Muñoz
"What about the Outcasts presence?"
"I couldn't find out, that Junker asshole wouldn't tell me… But he confirmed that the Hackers still operate in the area and that Mactan Base is still there…"
The Magellan system is roughly controlled by the Independent Miners Guild (IMG) based on Freeport 4 between two ice clouds: the Wendell Cloud and an outcropping of The Barrier. When Liberty started to colonize Curacao and allowed Cryer to build the Cardomethadone Facility, they started to warn the IMG that Liberty wanted the Magellan system and that those miners would have one of three choices: leave the system, keep working for the IMG but pay a tax to Liberty and obey libertonian law or join a Liberty corporation. The IMG miners based in Freeport 4 obviously refused and dared to challenge Liberty, remembering what the GMG did to Rheinland 300 years ago.
What happened next was astonishing because Liberty did what Rheinland did with the GMG, use the military. Since the LNS Yukon was on duty in the Cortez the Navy had no battleships available so three cruisers left the Norfolk Shipyard: the LNC Washington, the LNC Utah II and the LNC Anchorage, and headed to the Magellan expecting an easy run. What they didn't know was that the IMG had prepared a blockade near the jump gate to the California system, the cruisers managed to break through the blockade fairly easily and headed through the Wendell Cloud to Freeport 4 when they were ambushed by several IMG fighter wings helped by Lane Hackers' fighters. The result was the utter destruction of LNC Utah II, the LNC Washington was badly damaged and the LNC Anchorage had to retreat to the jump gate where it stayed to protect it. Commerce from Liberty in that system came to a standstill, which only damaged Bretonia's already delicate economy, and tensions rose between the Navy and the IMG with both factions fighting each other. Mining in the Wendell Cloud was suspended and only fighters wandered in it.
Liberty deployed plan B instead. Using the old Magellan jump gate near the abandoned Research Station Ithaca deep inside The Badlands in the New York system they started to send fighter wings to the Magellan's outcropping of The Barrier, on the bretonian side of the system. What the Liberty Navy sent there were the all new state of the art Sherman fighters, which were more powerful versions of the Firebird fighters that were steadily replacing the old aging Defender. Besides the new fighters, the Navy sent the repaired LNC Washington and the new cruiser LNC Little Italy, the forces concentrated behind the old jump gate and prepared for an all-out assault on the Hacker's Mactan Base which hid inside the outcropping. An unsuspicious Bretonia Armed Forces patrol detected the Liberty ships and hailed them asking for ID and intentions, the Navy respected the traffic laws and complied giving the info the bretonians wanted. What they didn't expect was that the Lane Hackers were listening to them and armed themselves against the attack; they also hailed the IMG patrols in the area and devised a plan of counter-attack.
The plan was simple: a wing of IMG fighters carrying torpedoes would attack the California jump gate and destroy the cruiser guarding it, the LNC Anchorage. This would be enough for the Navy to anticipate its attack on Mactan, its forces would run into a torpedo rain and a counter-attack from the Hackers, the final blow would be struck by four wings of IMG fighters that would attack the Navy forces from behind crushing them in the middle.
"And? I assume that the Hackers plan worked…" the centurion asked
"Unfortunately for us, yes señor… The Liberty Navy failed to conquer the system and the IMG still wanders there allowing the Hackers to wander freely, although there is no evidence of any Outcast activity." answered optio Muñoz, continuing "What happened, according to that Junker, was that the Anchorage was destroyed without even noticing the enemy ships, the Navy fleet was defeated and, when trying to escape back through the jump gate it exploded. The IMG had her rigged with explosives or something so the only libertonian ship that made it back to New York was the LNC Little Italy…"
Liberty was, at this point, a nation in decline. Despite several explorations the libertonian explorers failed to discover uncharted jump holes that would lead to systems waiting to be discovered and colonized. Other than California's ice fields, Planet Pittsburgh was the only raw material source inside Liberty space and its boron mines were almost mined out by Deep Space Engineering. Since Galileo and Kepler systems have no valuable raw materials Liberty was not interested in them; Hudson and Bering were already being explored by Rheinland corporations in an effort to try and lift the economy back on its feet and an invasion by Liberty would result in a tension rise with Rheinland. Magellan and Cortez were the obvious choices for expansion, but the complete failure in the Magellan eclipsed the apparent success in the Cortez and, furthermore, proved that Liberty wasn't invincible. The free trade driven economy was stalled and libertonian society was being rot from the inside, small companies were being bought by the big ones, like Ageira and DSE, and unemployment was on the rise again. Xenos were rapidly increasing in numbers and their attacks became more and more frequent, quickly the Xenos turned into political driven criminals, bound to overthrow the Liberty government and replace it with a more dictatorial one with direct action on the economy, instead of a mere quasi-anarchist group. They infiltrated every Liberty system, except the restricted and well defended Alaska, pounding the Liberty Rogues to near extinction inside Liberty space, pushing them to the Independent systems, and started to construct their own ships: the Black Widow and the Red Widow fighters.
In that moment the door opens and a man of kusarian appearance enters.
"Ah, mr. Kamata! Please, get in…" said the centurion.
1 Second in command to the centurion
