[Terminus] Halctis Frontier Conflict Escalates

Halctis Frontier Conflict Escalates

Tayseri Times

Anpyros Prime, HELVOST - Private military corporations such as the Blue Suns, Eclipse, Blood Pack, and Elanus Risk Control constitute a multi-billion credit industry that stretches across virtually all of known space. As of approximately three standard weeks ago, this now includes a line of battle stations and naval bases known as the Vasod Line.

Stretching the length of the Halctis Frontier, the Line is a centuries-old masterwork of engineering and infrastructure that divided the Old Kingdom of Terminus Warlord Alstius Caro in 1550 CE. After the collapse of the Kingdom in 1811 CE, the Line fell into disrepair, with individual stations changing hands or stripped to the superstructure by opportunistic salvagers.

In 2175 CE the burgeoning Pan-Helvost Consortium acquired the remnants of the Line installations and began restoring and repairing the stations, intent on using them to secure their Galactic East border against incursion. After the Crucible Event, however, the destruction of the relay network left the stations with a skeleton crew, their garrisons stripped to help restore order.

In their absence, a coalition of privateers has taken residence, forcibly evicting Consortium forces. With their fleets months away via traditional FTL, the Pan-Helvost Chancellorate has put their resources to use, hiring Myrmidon Security Services’ Second, Third, Fourth battlegroups and associate marine detachments.

Paramilitary forces under the command of Rear Admiral Tiama Esarak have waged an increasingly intense drone war over the past three days, sending waves of unmanned craft against station defenses while conducting hit and run attacks on ships attempting to enter or leave Vasod space. However, as of yesterday, 2300 hours local time, the crisis has deepened as neighboring nation Desalos Bastion accused Myrmidon of conducting an unprovoked strike on the military city-state of Tacilica.

The Desalos High Council, calling this a “cowardly and opportunistic attack on an unaffiliated party,” has pledged to seek redress from corporate forces and sponsors, though officials acknowledge that, proverbially speaking, they don’t have a leg to stand on.

“Comm buoys were severed prior to the attack and, going off what we have been able to recover, virtually every hardened military node in the colony was bombed, raided, stripped clean, then mass-driven into the mantle. So yes, we can point fingers and speculate all we like but the fact of the matter is we have no concrete proof either way,” stated Councilor Valia T’Kevo, Chairwoman of the Lower Council in a press conference today. “A ‘hot’ war with the Consortium at this juncture serves nobody.”

Meanwhile, Myrmidon officials state that while they were conducting operations in the region, their target was a largely uninhabited world on the edges of Desalos space which served as a staging point for Line interests. Operational records made public by the Admiral’s office seem to verify this claim.

Consortium representatives have declined to comment on the situation, merely stating that they have found the organization’s overall service to be “satisfactory in the extreme.”