It was a nearly perfect storm.

5 May 06

Victories are never complete until the enemy is crushed (and driven and lamentations, etc.). I still had some crushing to do. Mon El was officially neutral, but my fleet held the space. The repair fleet had arrived to patch things up. The colonists had arrived to claim the planet for the empire. As soon as they were sent down, I got the message, 'Enemy Armada detected.' Sixty ships inbound to Mon El.

What are my options? I could abandon the planet and colonists, but besides being cowardly, I would have to take it again probably with even more defenses. I could try to intercept the fleet in deep space. If I did that, I'd need almost all my forces leaving Mon El essentially undefended. The Liir have other planets close by. Another, smaller fleet could take the planet and leave me in a bind even if I defeated the armada. No, the only real option is to defend the planet. I can get another couple cruisers there and hope for the best.

The colony is too small to start producing ships. That means no defense platforms. Small platforms wouldn't stop the armada, but they could keep break away ships engaged to keep the colony alive. Without them, even victory in the large battle will come with the price of at least the colony. With a grim determination, I give the orders to build the replacement colony ships. The Empire will fight until Mon El is gripped firmly in our claws.

The defense fleet has a small screen of destroyers, eight combat cruisers and three dreadnoughts. Due to command limits, the last dreadnought, several combat cruisers and some repair cruisers will be kept in reserve. We haven't seen any Liir dreadnoughts, but they hadn't seen any of ours until we attacked Mon El. If they don't have dreads, we stand a slim chance. If multiple dreads are in their fleet, we might have to fight a delaying action, hope to take out one dread and abandon the system. If there's just one dread or none, we'll fight to the last soldier.

As the alert sounds, we get our first good look at the enemy. No dreads! Morale soars in the fleet. It looks like around twenty cruisers and the remainder destroyers. There are more variants out there than you can shake a stick at. Some we've never seen before. The heavens will burn over Mon El this day.

We give full power to engines as we break away from the planet hoping to keep combat out of weapons range of the surface. Our first ranged weapons fire as soon as the enemy appears on the sensors. A couple destroyers on both sides disappear in the first salvo. Our ranks our spreading due to the difference in speed. Our dreads can't keep up, but they have plenty of long range weapons to keep them in the fight.

We take out two Liir cruisers as we form up in our defensive formation at tactical point alpha. Unfortunately, even as the second cruiser breaks out our last destroyer goes down. It's up to the cruisers and our dreads. Suddenly four Liir reinforcement destroyers come burning it at high speed. We try to keep them all targeted to prevent them from breaking our lines. Three burn, but one breaks through. I send an armored cruiser in pursuit but the speed difference is too great. The small planetary colony dies under the guns of a single destroyer. The Liir will pay for that.

Even the sight of the destroyer burning brings no satisfaction as there still a long battle to be fought. The pursuit cruiser swings back around and into position again. Our concentrated fire takes out three more cruisers. Our dreads are doing fine, but a couple of cruisers are taking a beating. I move them back to long range. Eventually both sides move out of weapons range as we regroup for the next day's fighting. Our repair cruisers spend long hours trying to undo the harm of the day's battle, but their best efforts are not enough. We're still battered as we head into battle again. The Liir lost twenty ships including eight cruisers this day. We lost five destroyers and a cruiser.

Without a colony to defend, we stay closer to the planet to rejoin the battle. We'll let them wade through the barrage of our long range weapons the entire approach. Their destroyers start popping like so many fireworks as they approach. That's not even counting the dreadnought fire since they're focused on cruisers. Damage and destroyed ships are ruining the Liir lines. The reinforcements are coming in haphazardly. Without overlapping lines and focused fire, our gunners are doing more damage more steadily than theirs.

There's a Liir cruiser down, then another and another. My cruisers are taking a beating, but they don't fall and the dreads stand strong. What's this? Their reinforcement cruisers are turning around. Their mighty armada is running. Full power to engines. They will not all escape this battle. Two more Liir cruisers explode as I give chase. Ships start popping off my screen as their teleport engines engage, but one cruisers sits there without engines. You'll have to be our final sacrifice today. It seems every weapon available hits it at once and the cruiser briefly glows like a new sun. When the light fades, there is nothing left. We take tally again. Amazingly we lost no ships to twenty-two of theirs destroyed. Some are barely limping to the repair cruisers but they live.

I'm sorry. I lost myself there and was reliving the battle. Please forgive an old warrior. We tracked their retreat and projected their course. The remnants were headed to Mintarr. The fleet that would deal with them was being constructed even during the battle. It would be ready to launch soon after. But that is another story.

One last thing. During the second part of the battle, some have read too much into the incident at Deneb. Yes, an exploration fleet was attacked there. The details have not yet been declassified, but reports of strange creatures or Liir secret weapons are unfounded. Our fleet was victorious. That should be enough for any citizen of the empire. This 'secret' image is almost certainly a forgery:



Jason