04:20, September 7, 2298 (standard military calender)

LOCATION 235029843, 4000 LIGHTYEARS FROM THE GALACTIC CENTER

UEC HEAVY BATTLE CARRIER – 798 "SPIRIT OF ENDURANCE"

Barnes walked to his private observation deck to meet Kellen and part of the science department. The entire attack teams along with the engineering, and science department, has been creating a plan to take down the weapon. When they first determined the only way to save the UEC is going after them alone, he needed all the help he could get, and they gave it to him. They created a Tactical Operations Committee, a usual emergency group. Together they informed him of any information they gathered, tactical systems, electrical grid, weapons, propulsion of an enemy ship. Together, they would create the perfect plan of engagement to stop the ESU from deploying their weapon ship.

His chief tactical officer had informed him that if they took out the weapon and the entire chain of command in the system that they positively identified, it could be a crippling blow to them. Crushvild, was a former MACO Special Operations Agent, he would gather information from the ESU, and give them to MACO, who helped devise plans with the ESU. Along with the weapon alone doing massive amounts of damage, they found out that they had several staging areas, and MOC's (Military Operation Centers), along with spatial mines, and hundreds of enemy ships. A suicide run. Along with just the enemy's they would surely face, they also had special anomalies, in the Delphic Expanse, the laws of space-time are different, the weapon should theoretically not work in their normal plane, but somehow it does.

Barnes walked into his private observation deck – now the Tactical Operations Center. The entire team was waiting.

"What do we have?"

"Sir, 've have identified several special anomalies between here and the next staging area. Once we enter the spatial area our FTL will not be operational until we exit this area." His Spatial Cartographer walked up to the Command Terminal and turned on the holographic projector. "It will disrupt our Hyper-Light Field, any attempt to jump with either fail or end in disaster. Most ESU ships are insulated with DurmoChromatic Hull plating, to shield against the anomalies, they would be fine to jump."

"Tactical."

"The staging area, is small, nothing more than a few converted freighters, and a old Battle Cruiser, named the IMC – Prometheus."

"IMC, that was defunct before the Spirits time, about 100 years ago, they decommissioned her and offed her to one of the outer colonies to become a museum ship. I'm sure the Prometheus, was one of the first ships to bring peace to the United Earth Colonies – before we were a coalition. It was during the Inner Colony Wars."

"It shouldn't pose a threat Commander, their weapons can't punch a hole in our armour, and their systems are not strategically placed to prevent disabled systems." The holographic projector swapped to the ships schematics, old Battle Cruisers were all available to the public, they had dozens of them Mothballed, and retrofitted to serve as cargo ships, and museums. The main reason his father joined the UEC Military Corps was when he walked on board the original ship to bear the name Spirit of Endurance¸ that ship was built as a military vessel compared to his, which was retrofitted from a cargo-carrier.

If the ESU had some old destroyers they would be no match against his, unless they went under serious overhauls, and the entire computer system, and old hydraulic systems would have been gutted, it would not even have been the original ship. His own when it was retrofitted for the first time when it was converted into the ship it was today, they replaced the old NACS (Network Adaptable Computer System) with the more modern NACC (Network Adaptable Computer Core) which was about 3000 times faster than the old one respectively, and placed a full armaments of weapons, rebuilt the super structure, and gutted the original FTL drive which was the Mark II Hyper-Light-Drive with the Mark III which was its limits, and retrofitted the salt-injected-nuclear-core with fusion reactors. It would have been better if they still had the older systems even though they were outdated, the ESU would have no idea what was coming, all the original systems were classified before the last retrofit, before he took command.

"So we have all the information on that ship, can we just shoot them out of the sky, or are we going to have to blow them to high heavens?"

"Out of the sky, a few pot shots from our torpedoes should cripple them or destroy them, the flak turrets can take out the rest of them." Barnes nodded, and then their science officers moved onto their part of the plan.

"When you approached us with the idea commander, I think we found a way to force our FTL drive onboard the ship. A assault crew can take a Saber, and plant the FTL near their generators and activate it. Without a ship connected to it, it should overload, and jump, but take half the ship with it, including their weapon generators, it will probably cause a cascade failure onboard."

"Sounds like a plan, but for whoever goes onboard it will be a suicide mission."

"All but one must stay behind to detonate the drive."

"That's still one life, is there a way to do it remotely?"

"No, their hull will block out all wireless signals, it needs be detonated manually."

"Whoever does it will get a medal."

"And probably a school named after them."

"Or they will just be the forgotten hero of all wars." Barnes looked at the projected data analysis the computer put together. The FTL's redundant systems that help prevent explosion should be deactivated to blow it up. He toyed with the idea in war school, how to make a ship look like it blew up using the trans light coils, use it to create a dispersal field hiding it from sensors, and blowing it up. When most ships are destroyed its usually their entire support structure giving out, which then creates a cascade failure throughout the ship, often a electrical failure which goes to the ships engines, and the FTL drive, blowing it up in a extremely powerful explosion. On Mars the first FTL drive blew up and took out a entire colony – that was uninhabited, no one knows if it was deliberate or not. 30 years later they colonized their first planet, and had a interstellar space program. It wasn't long until they discovered the expanse in 2100. Then the wars, the UEC was created, and it was downhill from there when the war broke out 60 years ago, in 2224.