The TCS Port Broughton (CVX-10) was the last of the Flight IIA Midway-class Heavy Carriers. She entered service in 2686 and was immediately rushed to the front lines, Her service history reads like a list of the Nephilim War’s bloodiest battles: McAuliffe, B’shriss, Silenos, Sirius, Fiddler’s Green, Reid and a dozen others.

Port Broughton was second only to the fabled Midway herself in terms of wartime achievements. When the Confederation began regular raids into Nephilim fluid-space the Port Broughton was one of the first ships modified to fight effectively across the barrier. When the Sirius wormhole was destroyed in the middle of her seventh raid she was reported overdue and presumed lost — only to emerge from Charybdis eighteen months later.

Despite years of hard fighting the proud ship was never retired to a secondary theater. She met her end in TCSN service while leading a desperate last delaying action. Her captain’s gamble paid off, slowing the Nephilim encroachment long enough for the combined 18th Fleet to arrive from Yelkin II to fortify Firekka. Crippled and unable to continue the fight the commodore ordered her scuttled. The final log entry records:

Final Log Entry: We have won, but at a terrible cost. As I record this, Port Broughton is burning in space and 450 of my crew are dead. The Tiamat battlegroups threatening Firekka have been eliminated… but intell misjudged the insects again. Their new cruisers had the range and capacity to do serious damage… and my carrier is a write-off. With general orders to withdraw to Proxima, I have ordered her scuttled and transferred my flag to the Krakatoa. She was a proud ship, and history will not forget what she did here. Long Live the Confederation,

Commodore C. Strevell, TCSN
Corsair System — 2694.170

The carrier, gutted by alien torpedoes and her own scuttling charges, was recovered by human militia and used in their own desperate defense of the quadrant four years later. For a time it formed the center of a seven system alliance known as the “New Confederation”. Like the political alliances it came to represent, the carrier fell into disrepair without support from the core worlds. Regardless, it remains one of the most important ships in the Epsilon Sector…