Epilogue

Lieutenant-Colonel Wilhelm Koenig sat his teacup down and looked out his office window at his flotilla of 21 Archerfish-class PC's. That was all that were here at the School, of course; around Confederacy space were other flotillas, kicking Sa'arm butt and finally having an impact on the speed of their advance. They hadn't stopped them, at least not yet, for that might take over a hundred more Archerfish along with hundreds of thousands more Marines, many more carriers, more cruisers, more destroyers and more corvettes. It might also take weapons and warships as yet undesigned. But they were having an impact.

One impact was the forcing of Sa'arm worlds to spend more of their scarce resources providing themselves with enhanced protection. Reports were coming back both from PC's and from regular fleets of encountering systems where Liber Class fighters and Lima Class attack fighters were beginning to be seen in greater numbers, supported by Lares Class carriers — the fighters being strictly intra-system ships, and the Lares little better than a barge. He considered it a good trade off, although he doubted that the Sa'arm would necessarily agree: Every scrap of resources spent protecting their investments in their hive spheres was that much less they could invest in the massive ships.