Astyanax has a good time
In common with other officers from the Inevitable (and, indeed the rest of the fleet), I am granted some shore leave - well, what passes for it on a Battle Station on the Klingon Border. The orders go out in quite large batches, which confirms my suspicion that our long-awaited ship refits will take place while most of the crews are not present, to preserve secrecy.
However, when I return nothing seems to have been done to the Inevitable at all, and even some sneaky use of my privileges as First Officer to make a quick scan of the other vessels reveals nothing out of the ordinary. I don't have more time to ponder, though, as the alarms wail - the Klingons are coming.
This will be my second proper fleet engagement. The crippled Knight from our little Destroyer flotilla has not yet been repaired, so it is replaced by a Lancer from the very few reserves we have in this area. We are deployed at the extreme left of our feet's defensive formation, although overall the force is quite tight. The Klingons, on the other hand, are much more spread out than us, adopting a sort of skirmish formation, if one can rightly use that term of space ships. Immediately to our front is the Klingon flagship, a D7C Command Cruiser, with an F5S Scout Frigate trailing. Even further to our port side is a wing of D7 Battlecruisers.
Our part of the battle turns out to be the most exciting. For some reason, probably their orders, the D7 wing doesn't engage as quickly as they normally would, and that gives us an opportunity. Our flotilla heads straight for the D7C, led by the Lancer and its fighters. The enemy vessel destroys the four fighters and mangles the lancer's front shield, but her captain coolly angles in on his front port No.6, which is fresh and initiates a full Fusion and Phaser overrun! Our two Knight Destroyers close in fast to help.
As Weapons Officer on the Inevitable, I am ordered to concentrate entirely on the scout ship. I choose a combination of overloaded direct-fire Hellbores, together with our ships entire complement of Phaser-2s and Gatlings as the helm takes us in on a proper overrun assault. These are normally the tactics of a fusion ship, but we have a real chance to do some serious grief, and overloaded Hellbores at this range carry huge amounts of power. I do not miss.
There is a satisfying double explosion as both Klingons go up. This is, though, our own weakest moment; out of all weapons, we are a sitting target for the D7 Wing. However, the Klingons choose to disengage instead.
Reviewing the videos afterwards, I realise that elsewhere, the Klingons had deployed a full D5 War Cruiser squadron, and they were engaged by our three Cuirassiers, presumably with the intent for a follow-up by the three Dragoon Heavy Cruisers. Our frigates lost out, of course, with two crippled and the third heavily damaged, but the Klingon fleet left before anything else happened - probably they had reached the damage threshold their fleet wanted to take on its first attempt at the station. Taking out their command ship and scout probably helped.
I also notice that our fighters have changed; they are tougher and faster, and now all have gatling phasers. I even see some of them hang back a bit in the replay and pepper the enemy with hellbore shots. So that is what the high command has been doing; instead of refitting our ships, like everyone else, they have uprated our fighters! It also explains the lack of change I noticed earlier; the Knight Destroyer carries no fighters, so I didn't get the chance to see any up close before the battle itself.
The second engagement at the station is no less exciting. We are positioned at the same location as before, only this time our flotilla commander reverses the formation to a V-shape. Our two Knights are the front prongs, with us on the right; the Lancer is at the rear. This only seems fair, since it was the one who took all the grief on the way in last time.
Off to our front left is a D5 War Squadron, probably the exact same vessels that mangled our Frigates in the previous engagement. I am curious to see how they fight; their presence signifies that the Klingons are starting to move more of their modern production to our front. This may be good in a strategic sense, though, because it probably means that they are no longer sending any fresh reinforcements to the Kzinti Front which is, after all, why we joined in this damned war.
At our front right is a D7 Wing, with another D7C lurking behind them, in prime position to lend fire support without getting too close to the action itself. This makes me think it is the only command vessel they have left - we did a good job in destroying the other one then. Similarly, on this occasion their fleet has no Scout, so it looks as though our ship nailed the only one they had. I am, though, not too worried about the presence of all of these cruisers, because the D7s are heading straight towards the Battle Station, which is supported by our Liege Dreadnought and Lord Bishop Command Cruiser. I also notice that our fleet admiral has combined all of their fighters together into a single combat group: that is a lot of Stinger-IIs. I manage a glimpse of our far right, which is where our Dragoon Cruisers are deployed, but then things get too busy for me to think about anything other than our own little corner of the battle.
Our flotilla advances, keeping our options open as to which of the cruiser squadrons to engage: the D5s to our left, or the D7s to our right. I watch as the D7 wing almost completely annihilates our main fighter group, but this leaves the enemy Battlecruisers with very little power. We overtake the Lancer's fighters and roar into a point-black assault on their right flank, taking some hits from waist phasers and disruptors on the way in. The combination severely dents the front shields on both of our Knight Destroyers, but fortunately there are no internals. The Inevitable and the other Knight are ordered to concentrate on the centre Klingon D7, while the Lancer unleashes onto the rightmost one, which is closest to us. Our firepower is just too much for the Klingon ships: the Lancer wreaks heavy damage to the cruiser just by itself and that Klingon warps out. The one facing us, though, does not survive our assault.
This is when we are ourselves at our weakest, and this time the enemy cruisers do close to engage: the D5 Squadron mows down the Lancer's fighters and then concentrates its fire on the Lancer itself, and she in turn is forced to leave with heavy damage. Almost simultaneously I see a flash off to our far starboard side - it looks as though our Dragoons have exterminated a Frigate; I don't think our cruisers even bothered to use their phasers. At this point, the Klingons leave.
We all know they are going to take another pass - our sensors indicate they still have a large number of ships in reserve. We, on the other hand, are slowly being whittled down. We will probably stick around for one more engagement, but we cannot afford to risk our ships for much longer than that. Their own sensors are probably telling them that we have almost nothing left in support.
I am now take part in my third battle in a row at this Station. We take up our usual position, but this time the third ship in our little flotilla is a Crusader Frigate Leader. Our command ships are quite unusual, in that they carry both Hellbore and Fusions, but even so it is clear that we are starting to feel the damage overall in this campaign.
The Klingons have excellent Disruptor and Phaser power, and they use their manoeuvrability to keep mostly out of effective range of our new fighters, and mow them down. Our flotilla encounters the D5 War Cruiser Squadron and we pay they price: the Inevitable is crippled in the exchange, and our partner Knight Destroyer is heavily damaged. However, this lays the Klingon ships open to retribution, and it comes in the form of our Liege Dreadnought and Lord Bishop Command Cruiser. They simply overrun the Klingon War Cruiser squadron, which ceases to exist. The damage inflicted by ourselves and the fighters weakened the D5s enough for this to happen - standard Hydran fleet tactics.
The aftermath is a bit of an anti-climax as the Klingons leave again. Our battered fleet is no longer in any condition to put up a cogent defence without risking our heavier vessels, and we are under orders not to do this. So we evacuate the base personnel and blow the station with charges. There is plenty of space in the empty hangar bays of the larger ships to accommodate the staff of the base in temporary accommodation. There is a change in my own circumstances too: the Captain of the Inevitable died when the D5 squadron turned upon us. This now makes me the commanding officer of a Hellbore Destroyer.
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