Category:Battles of the Border Worlds Conflict

2672: The Border Worlds Conflict

Systems Involved: Nephele, Sol, Hellespont, Tyr, Masa, Silenos, Orestes, Pasqual, Orestes, Peleus, Circe, Telamon, Callimachus, Axius, Callimachus, Ella, Sol

The Border Worlds Conflict was a relatively small skirmish on the frontier of Confederation space. It lasted exactly two weeks, and was remarkable only because of the people involved and the horrors it revealed. And also because, had things turned out differently, it could have become a pivotal moment in the history of the Terran Confederation.

The year was 2672, three years after Colonel Christopher Blair fired the Temblor Bomb and destroyed Kilrah, bringing to an end, at long last, the Terran-Kilrathi War. But the Confederation was still having a hard time adjusting to peace. With military reductions and thousands of soldiers entering civilian life, jobs were scarce, and times were tough. Piracy was on the rise, especially on the frontier. And there was an increasing number of reports of unwarranted attacks on civilian ships by forces belonging to the Union Of Border Worlds. Interestingly enough, the Border Worlds also claimed to be the victims of similar unwarranted attacks. After months of unprovoked violence, with tensions mounting between the Confederation and the Border Worlds, the senators were calling out for blood. It was at a meeting of the Confederation Assembly that Assembly Master James Taggart assigned to Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, the Commander of the Strategic Readiness Agency, the task of discovering the true nature of the situation at the frontier. Admiral Tolwyn would report back to the Assembly in two weeks, at which time the Assembly would decide as to the appropriate course of action to take.

To aid him in his investigations, Admiral Tolwyn enlisted the help of his old associate, Colonel (retired) Christopher Blair. After three years of farming on Nephele II, Blair found himself unexpectedly yearning for the chance to fly a fighter again, and jumped at Admiral Tolwyn's offer to join the crew of the TCS Lexington. Commanded by Captain William Eisen, the Lexington's mission was two-fold: to patrol the frontier and put down any pirate and raider activity; and to discover if the attacks were merely random, or part of a larger design that was possibly leading to a human civil war.

At first, things were going fairly well, with Colonel Blair being reunited with his old comrades Major Todd Marshall and First Lieutenant Winston Chang. But gradually, there was a shift in the situation on board the TCS Lexington. The missions became more aggressive, with the rescue of Dr. Brody, a Bioconvergence chemist, from Tyr VII, an operation to retake a Spacelab in the Masa System, and then a strike against a Border Worlds convoy to enforce the Confederation's newly created space edict; Captain Eisen received new orders, and was replaced by Captain Hugh Paulsen as the captain of the Lexington; And a mysterious pilot, known only as Seether, arrived on the TCS Lexington, a cold-blooded murderer who soon made it apparent that he was the real person in charge of the Lexington, and Captain Paulsen. Suddenly, Colonel Blair was ordered to fly a mission to capture Captain Eisen, who had apparently obtained classified Confederation information, and was attempting to defect to the Union Of Border Worlds in a stolen shuttle. And Major Marshall was the shuttle's pilot. When First Lieutenant Chang chose to defect as well, Colonel Blair had no choice but to shoot him down. However, Captain Eisen was able to escape during the ensuing battle. Colonel Blair would later find out that Lieutenant Chang had ejected and survived, only to be killed in a later mission for the Border Worlds.

Nevertheless, the Lexington had succeeded in locating the Border Worlds carrier, and proceeded to give chase. When the carrier was finally pinned down, Colonel Blair was ordered to take the carrier out while the Lexington positioned herself in front of the jump point. During the battle, Captain Eisen gave Colonel Blair a second opportunity to defect to the Border Worlds, which Captain Eisen claimed were the real victims in this fight. This time, Colonel Blair agreed to defect -- he was joined by Second Lieutenant Troy Carter -- and immediately turned his attention to the TCS Lexington. With the help of Border Worlds pilots, Colonel Blair succeeded in destroying the Lexington, allowing the Border Worlds carrier, the BWS Intrepid, to flee to the Orestes System.

On board the BWS Intrepid, Colonel Blair was once again reunited with his old shipmates. There, Captain Eisen revealed the truth of the Border Worlds Conflict: apparently an unknown third party within Confed was deliberately attacking both Border Worlds and Confederation forces, increasing tensions in an effort to incite a war between the Terran Confederation and the Union Of Border Worlds. With less than a week before the Confed Assembly was scheduled to vote on the Border Worlds situation, a decision that was almost certain to go to war, Captain Eisen left the Intrepid with what information he had gathered, in the hopes of convincing his contacts in Confed of the conspiracy, and placed Colonel Blair in command of the Intrepid, along with her newly acquired marine contingent, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Dekker. Colonel Blair was to liaise with Vice-Admiral Eugene Wilford, the commander of the Border Worlds fleet.

Shortly after, Colonel Blair was sent to the Peleus System, to investigate what seemed to be a complete loss of communications with the system. Upon arrival, the Intrepid's crew were shocked to discover that in fact some kind of jamming weapon was being used to black out most of the system, a weapon that was not only capable of blocking out comm systems, but disable scanners, radars, and shields as well. After flying a series of missions literally blind, Colonel Blair was able to track the jamming to its source: an unknown transport armed with a cloaking device that made it virtually undetectable. Only its flight path provided by a captured mercenary pilot allowed Colonel Blair to follow the transport and destroy it.

Surprisingly, a shuttle was detected attempting to flee the system shortly after the jammer transport was destroyed. Its single passenger was none other than Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. Admiral Tolwyn also had his suspicions about some kind of conspiracy within Confed, and had come to the Peleus System to investigate personally. Seeing no reason to hold him on the Intrepid, Colonel Blair released him from custody.

Next was an operation in the Circe System, to aid the legitimate Border Worlds government in a civil war against mercenaries who were being backed by elements within Confed. During this operation, the Intrepid received its first piece of fortune, in the form of a captured Black Lance transport carrying Dragon fighters. Shortly after, the Intrepid received a distress signal from a colony in the Telamon System. When Colonel Blair and Colonel Dekker flew to the colony to investigate, they discovered that the colony had been ravaged by some kind of biological weapon. Made up of microscopic nanobots which had been spread by a wing of Dragons, this weapon had been designed to kill any person who did not fit a pre-determined genetic profile programmed into the nanobots. And the results were nothing short of gruesome. The face of the enemy had been revealed to be even more brutal than the Kilrathi, and the face was human.

The Border Worlds Union had finally hit paydirt. Various triangulations and calculations had led Vice-Admiral Wilford to the conclusion that the forces responsible for the attacks could be based in the Axius System. With the Intrepid holding station in the Callimachus System, Colonel Blair piloted a lone Dragon into the Axius System, where he discovered a starbase, the headquarters for a group which called themselves the Black Lance. Seether was among them, but not as their leader. That person was revealed to be none other than Admiral Tolwyn himself. Stunned by this revelation, Colonel Blair fought his way through wings of Dragons to get this vital piece of information back to the Intrepid. With the Confederation Assembly voting in only a few days' time, the Intrepid lost no time in making its way back to Earth in an attempt to stop the imminent declaration of war.

The BWS Intrepid had succeeded in sneaking past the Superbase in the Ella System, when it inadvertently bumped into Admiral Tolwyn's flagship, the TCS Vesuvius. Surprisingly, Admiral Tolwyn aborted the jump to the Sol System, and instead ordered the super-carrier to turn around and engage the Intrepid. The crew of the Intrepid suddenly found themselves in the fight of their lives, and although they fought valiantly, they would surely have failed, had it not been for the sudden appearance of the TCS Mount St. Helens, courtesy of Captain William Eisen. Together, the two carriers chased the Vesuvius into the Sol System, where she was finally destroyed by Colonel Blair, with the help of a Flash-Pak.

Unfortunately, Admiral Tolwyn had been able to escape in a shuttle during the battle, and was even then on his way to the Confederation Assembly meeting, to accept his promotion to Space Marshal, and to present the case against the Union Of Border Worlds that would guarantee war. The Mount St. Helens, taken out of space dock prematurely, had been too heavily damaged in the battle, and it was left to Colonel Blair to fly to the Assembly meeting and stop the vote of war. On his way to Earth, Colonel Blair once again met up with Seether, who challenged him to a final duel in space combat. The battle was intense, but in the end, Colonel Blair succeeded in killing Seether. Colonel Blair flew on to Earth, to the Hall of the Great Assembly of the Terran Confederation in Washington D.C.

When Colonel Blair entered the Great Hall, Space Marshal Tolwyn had just finished his report on the Border Worlds situation. What ensued was the stuff of history, as the Assembly bore witness to the fall of one of the Terran Confederation's greatest heroes. In a taut verbal battle between Colonel Blair and Space Marshal Tolwyn, Colonel Blair exposed the truth about the Black Lance, the bio-weapons deployed on Telamon, the genetically-enhanced pilot Seether, and revealed Space Marshal Tolwyn for the megalomaniac he had become. Amidst the thunderous applause following the Confederation Assembly's vote of "No" to war, Space Marshal Geoffrey Tolwyn was taken into custody. He was tried for his crimes against Humanity, and sentenced to death.