Strangely there was no comfort even in victory.

19 Aug 06

The problem with a reinforcing command ship arriving is that you don't always start off the battle with your best ships. It took some rapid rearranging to get the new battle group formed up and ready. Fortunately, the defenses had been severely depleted. Still, with an active gate there, I had expected more reinforcements. Perhaps I've impacted the Hiver economy more than I know. Or perhaps he has most of his spare ships tied up in long interstellar journeys like the force closing in on Rychopre.

Given my concerns, I had actually launched half of the third wave right after launching the second. I didn't want to risk losing the battle at Rozokor. With that in mind, the primary goal for the regrouped fleet was to fight through the front lines and then go after the gate ship. Then they could clear out any remaining ships. Finally all guns would turn on the planet and the satellites.

The new group tore through the first batch of destroyers. That left only two cruisers between me and the gate ship. With the new assault cruisers, I finally had the edge in firepower. The combination of torpedoes from them and the torpedo boats made quick work of the first cruiser. That left three of the cruisers to engage the remaining Hiver cruiser while the rest of the fleet locked on to the gate ship.

With the still intact rings of defenses, the planet was a dangerous fighting ground. However the gate represented too much of a risk not to remove it. The remaining cruiser went down quickly so soon all weapons were locked on the destroyer sized gate ship. Even though my ships were taking a pounding from the defenses, they didn't have to weather it for long. The entire fleet relaxed a bit as the gate ship exploded.

The command ship with its shields and a plasma cruiser were detailed to take on the satellites. The remaining ships took up close orbit and started pounding the planet. By the time we had to pull back, the population had been reduced by sixty percent and about a third of the satellites had been taken out. We had only lost the plasma cruiser.

The damaged planet was only able to produce an additional three destroyers to help their defense while my fleet was strengthened by the arrival of some of the planetary barrage cruisers. The more space combat oriented ships were swapped out and the final cleansing of the planet began. The new destroyers were quickly swept away. Then the planet was attacked. The beam weapons made short work of the population. Then it was just a matter of clearing out the satellites. We would have claimed the planet for our colonies, but alas it was still beyond the abilities of our terraforming technology.

Meanwhile the Rychopre defenses had been built up and the defense fleet modernized. The Hivers actually arrived earlier than estimated. Their attack was swift and fierce but they had no cruiser support. The initial attack took place close enough to the planet to bring the defenses full into play. The combined firepower was pretty, but only one side was dying. It wasn't the Liir.

We had to give the Hivers credit. Those ships were tough. It took so long to chew through their assault ships that we couldn't round up all their support vessels after we had won. That meant we'd have to wait a moment to destroy the gate ship. Even so they did not have the firepower to withstand us then. Though the gate ship was the last to go, it was still an easy victory.

Upon considering it our elders pointed out that had come from across the great rift. That meant that it wasn't using their best technology and that the Hivers had spread further than we had known. The battles had been won, but war kept getting more interesting. Soon we will get a response from the Humans regarding our offer of non aggression. We will see what the universe has in store for us.

Jason