Battle of Achilles

**Battle of Achilles**, also known as the **Hermes Battle** was fought on the 13th of August, 1980, beyond Jupiter's orbit by the Hermes I expedition group. An American-lead group of six spaceships suffered total communication and cohesion breakdown, resulting in annihilation of five ships.

### Prelude

During the Hermes program to colonize the outer solar system, the United States dispatched Hermes I, a collection of six spaceships to land and refuel at Titan.

Due to the crew largely having no prior experience of the psychological effect of long-form space travel, tensions broke out during the flagship Red Tides, and Iron Will, which resulted in reduced communication between the two vessels. During the following 3 years, Hermes I has split into two cliques

Red Tides clique

* Red Tides (203 souls)
* Olympic (51 souls)
* Newton (19 souls)

Iron Will clique

* Iron Will (45 souls)
* Voyager (12 souls)

Undecided

* Einstein (38 souls)

Verbal threats pertaining to the boarding of each clique has been made by Red Tides and Iron Will prior to open conflict.

### Armament

The United States equipped Red Tides, Iron Will and Olympic with Class-3 "Deployer" Anti-debris missiles, which original purpose was to destroy obsticles in the journey towards Titan. Spaceship Voyager carried the armament of Deployer missiles, however it did not have the capability to arm and launch them, as it was used as a storage ship.

### Battle

Due to lack of effective tracking technologies, it is not clear which spaceship fired first. However the first confirmed hit occoured on the Olympic, which was destroyed by Iron Will. All of Olympic's communication eqiupment was immediately destroyed.

Spaceships Voyager and Red Tides activated their emergency broadcast signals after the attack, shortly followed by Einstein.

49 seconds after communication loss occoured on Olympic, Voyager lost connection to earth, due to a missile strike from Red Tides. Reports indicate that Iron Will was also struck during the initial counterattack, however was not immediately disabled.

Newton lost communication link with Earth 1 minute 23 seconds after the initial attack. Iron Will launched attacks against Newton and Einstein. Einstein was observed to have had a deceleration event during the time Newton was struck, leading to speculation that Iron Will's attack only disabled the ship's engine or thruster compartment.

> The only confirmed direct broadcast was sent from the Einstein to Mission Control Center, which included the following.
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> *"They've gone all mad, It's over. All of us have been doomed by the prospe-"*
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> Einstein was destroyed before the full message was recieved. There is heavy speculation on the final message of Einstein.
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Shortly after, Einstein lost their broadcasting capabilities 1 minute and 37 seconds after Olympic. Due to the short delay, it is most probable that Red Skies launched a pre-emptive strike against Einstein, due to the rumors of secret Deployer missiles being stored on the ship, which was a widespread belief in Red Tides' clique.

2 minutes and 41 seconds after initial attack, Red Tides ceased broadcasting after a third wave of Iron Will's missiles. Datapoints show that the communication shutdown was caused by the total disintegration of Red Tides.

19 minutes and 30 seconds after Olympic was struck, Iron Will ceased broadcasting. The ship was previously observed moving towards Newton, in an apperant attempt to dock. No further course adjustment were made after communications shutdown, leading to theories that the main core of the Iron Will failed due to the previous strike by Red Tides. It is unknown if the crew of Iron Will could have survived, however the United States government declared the servicemen Killed-In-Action shortly after the Battle. There is heavy speculation regarding the possible survival of Iron Will.