Eagle Has Landed

At a frantic pace, the colony ship was readied for the worst possible scenario. This ship designed for peaceful colonization was transformed into a battle ship. Workers reinforced the hull to make the ship more combat worthy. These humans had not developed any shielding technology, so the hull would have to take the brunt of any attack.

The converted colony ship would only be marginally maneuverable. Thus, there was a need for very quick and agile fighter craft to protect the battleship. Thus, each of the escape pods was fitted with the best propulsion system that they had. However, this system would pale in comparison to most of the systems that are in use on most commonwealth ships. It would be an uphill climb for these Nimrovs.

Each escape pod was refitted with more sophisticated guidance equipment. The Nimrov's old conventional missiles were redesigned to work in space. At least, that was the hope. There wouldn't be time to give them any significant battery of tests. Also, because of the years of peace, the number of missiles was greatly limited. Hence, since any tests would diminish the supply, they did very few tests and hoped that there missile technology would work. The human scientists weren't concerned because in theory, the missiles should work flawlessly. These fighter craft wouldn't have any other weapons besides these missiles. They didn't have any energy weapons and they didn't have any small arms of any kind. The small gun technology they had required an oxygen environment to work, and there would be no time to develop any other type of weapon. They were a one trick pony, and they were hoping that they wouldn't have to use it. They would be in trouble if an overwhelming Izanian force showed up.

There was an over abundance of pilot volunteers. They took as many as they could fit aboard their ships bound for Nimrov 4. They got several briefings on the way to this space station. They got as much training on route as they could. They had simulators and they discussed tactics. They weren't going to have much time in the actual fighter crafts. But these fighters were very simply designed, and there weren't complicated systems that could go wrong. That was one thing that they had on their side, simplicity.

Batteries of computer guided particle beams were constructed in various locations of the Nimrov 4 or Martian surface. They wanted to be able to fire in all possible directions. Thus, they had to put these particle beam batteries even in locations that did not have any inhabitants. Some of the most inhospitable places on the surface of Nimrov 4 had to be prepared to hold one of these defensive beam weapons.

This planet has a few orbiting satellites. They wanted to put weapons on each of these orbiting bodies, but there just wasn't going to be enough time. But they did manage to construct an unmanned particle beam weapon upon one moon they called Phobos. If the Izanian fleet got past the battleship, these high-energy weapons should slow them down a bit. They had to, they didn't have any other defenses.

The earthlings didn't know what was coming at them. They didn't know if it were one ship or one hundred. They didn't know what type of technology they were going to face. They didn't know if all of their preparations were going to mean anything. They worried that human population could cease to exist, and there was nothing that they could do to stop it. What were they going to do, give up? No they kept on preparing and readying themselves to put up a big fight.

The colony on one of the gas giants in this system would be the test of the Izanian intentions. It would take these Nimrovs a long time to get to the Ganymede colony. Time was something that they didn't have in abundance. Thus, if the Izanians were hostile, these men and women preparing Ganymede for colonization would be left out to dry.

However, in the preparation, Earth created a continuous communication link between Ganymede and their Martian colony. If that link were broken, then the humans would know that the Izanian had hostile intent. They could continue to prepare for the worst. They could lose the fear that their actions would appear hostile to a friendly species, and cause a war unnecessarily.

Since we all know the Izanians, we know that their intentions are obviously destructive. However, these humans had not yet translated the message. They still worked on it, but it was a daunting task with not enough reference information. So they had to prepare for the worst. When communication with the outer colony was lost, these humans knew that the Izanian were not on a mission of peace. It was war!

The Izanian ship made quick work of the colonial preparation team on Ganymede. They launched some of their ground assault ships from their main battleship and quickly destroyed the work that took months to create. Once destruction was complete, the ships rejoined the battleship that had barely slowed down.

Preparations for the upcoming meeting continued until the officers were convinced that any further preparation would be a waste of time. They readied the ships and plotted an intercept course with the Izanian battle cruiser.

This Izanian battle cruiser was immense. Its technology was vastly superior to anything the Nimrovs had. Unlike the human battleship the Izanian craft had a vast array of particle beam weapon stations on board. The Izanian cruiser was obviously designed to take out an entire solar system without help from any other ship. It had a large weapon array designed for planetary destruction. It had several fighter crafts. It was 3 times the size of the meager Nimrov ship. The humans had a daunting task ahead of them.