Frontier Recovery Mission
The Frontier Recovery Mission is the military expedition that King Covian Warpine led personally from Lukyr Prime to the Gamma Eona system to settle the Empire's secret frontier war against the Aeonites. It is the "distant colony war" that explains Covian's roughly three-year absence from Lukyr Prime during the events of IWUKE, and the campaign for which Emmanuel Eyadsa served as Acting Commander of the Royal Brigade.
Overview
The mission departed Lukyr Prime around 8041, travelling at near-light speed toward Gamma Eona — roughly 1.8 light-years distant — and took some three years in transit. Covian brought the bulk of the Royal Brigade with him, leaving only a fraction behind under First Commander Lord Carnick, who stayed to watch over the Empire. The King's brother Qyvin Warpine reportedly called him insane for the decision and accused him of leaving the Empire defenceless.
The expedition's flagship is the Lightstinger-class capital ship Guiding Light, and the fleet numbered at least several thousand vessels. Its stated original objective was to catch the Aeonites off guard and secure a decisive victory in the long-running frontier struggle.
The Frontier War
By the time the mission launched, Lukyrian forces had already been fighting the Aeonites at Gamma Eona unsuccessfully for years (see the Frontier Strategic Report (8041)). The Aeonites are an alien people whose homeworld is Gamma Eona Primus; the war's true origins are hidden behind Imperial propaganda that recasts it as a colonial resource war — a fabricated history in which Lukyrian settlers founded the world in 7728 and revolted in 7913 (see The Complete History of the Frontier Worlds - 8012 Edition). The entire conflict, and the existence of the aliens themselves, is deliberately kept secret from the general Lukyrian populace.
The Rift Displacement
Mid-voyage the fleet was swept up by an unknown spatial anomaly — referred to as a "Rift" — which displaced it from normal space, accelerated it to extreme speed, and carried it to an unrecognised region before it returned to its original course. The crew had no prior knowledge of such phenomena. (Only the displacement and return are canon; the region reached and everything encountered there are non-canon crossover material — see CT Chapter 3.) Covian's engineers reportedly began preparing the destruction of Gamma Eona Primus during or after this episode.
Arrival at Gamma Eona
The fleet reached Gamma Eona on roughly 17 November 8044. It found Gamma Eona Primus thriving — thousands of cities, no visible enemy fleet, base, blockade, or infrastructure — but ringed by the wreckage of tens of thousands of Lukyrian warships, a debris field many times larger than the fleet Covian had brought. Confronted with the scale of Lukyrian losses, Covian abandoned the original plan and resolved to destroy the planet entirely, judging the original objective too lenient. The operation was already underway as the chapter closed.
Open Questions
- How does the mission conclude, and does the fleet return to Lukyr Prime?
- What method are Covian's engineers using to destroy an entire inhabited world?
- How were tens of thousands of Lukyrian ships destroyed if the Aeonites field no visible navy?