Prelude
The year is 21 AR. This has been the best single year so far for the Aurean Alliance in its history, with Weasel being brought back from exile on Arturia, King Arturius joining the Aurean Alliance, and the seizure of the key Tatian stronghold of Vigam. The Aurean Alliance now controls the entire easternmost quarter of the galaxy, but most importantly, the Tatian capital of Aurea is now open.
Aurea was once the seat of the benevolent Aurean Empire, which the Aurean Alliance seeks to restore. However, twenty-one years ago, the Tatians seized control of the planet in a coup and made it their capital. Now, the Aurean Alliance is assembling their starfleet at Fort Rachias on their newly acquired world of Vigam.
Meanwhile, the Tatians have devised a plan to make a comeback and destroy the pesky Aurean Alliance once and for all. They have split their starfleet into two groups: the larger group, commanded by Tate himself, will be defending Aurea, while the second group will launch a surprise attack on Ishga, the nearly undefended Aurean Alliance capital. The group sent to defend Aurea contained the lion's share of the Tatian Starfleet's power, with 5 of its 7 dreadnoughts, hundreds of cruisers, frigates, and corvettes, thousands of fighters, and its flagship--the Godbreaker--being present at the battle.
On Vigam, the Aurean Alliance Starfleet had finished assembling what ships it could spare. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the Ishga Starfleet was tied down fighting on the northern front, meaning that only the only ships the Ishga Starfleet could contribute to the offensive were a few frigates patrolling near the area. Altogether, they had just over two hundred cruisers and frigates, a slightly larger number of corvettes, and under a thousand fighters. The Aurean Flagship, the Liberator, was finalizing major repairs after it barely survived a Tatian attack on Gol Gaetha a few months earlier, and would not be available for another four days. Taftenkhamun, along with Weasel and his friends, would lead the attack from their trademark ship, the Pa-Ankh.
Taftenkhamun decided it would be best to just wait four days and attack once the Liberator was ready. This decision proved to be beneficial for the Aurean Alliance, as one day after the attack was originally scheduled to take place, Ishga intelligence intercepted and decoded a transmission containing Tate's plans to attack Ishga. They warned Michael, the Ishga King, of the impending attack, who decided to move some of the Ishga Starfleet away from the northern front to defend Ishga, knowing that any planets lost there could be regained later.
Three days later, the Liberator was finally ready for battle, and the Aurean Alliance Starfleet set out for Aurea. Within a few minutes, they dropped out of lightspeed in front of the Tatian Fleet.