Killboard Feed
The ongoing sage of Space and Freedom
What price loyalty?
It’s quite the question really. We have told the story of Space and Freedom II, where the fate of 38,000 freed Matari slaves hung in the balance for the precious hours that the Star Fraction and allied fleets held back enormous numbers of Providence-aligned Slavers and their creatures. We fought like demons and heroes and hurled our cruiser fleets at ridiculous odds to win the time needed for the evacuation and ultimately we were successful in this.
Space and Freedom II fell, but the 38,000 were spared and the image of CVA invulnerability was punctured forever. Those 370 Providence slaves and creatures in their ranks upon ranks of Battleships and Carriers and Dreadnaughts in wide array were humiliated that day and the wounds of that carnage remain in their psyche. The Star Fraction and our allies in the Matari freedom movement showed we were unafraid, unbowed, unrepentant, and when the representative of the CVA declared that all who stood with us would become KOS to Providence the laughter that met the pronouncement warmed my heart.
So in the wake of the battle we raised another tower we named Space and Freedom III, its shields projected and guns anchoring even before the last CVA serf had left the field and all who had stood with us vowing to return for the next fight, and the next until the will of the Providence imperials was broken and Kamela became a graveyard for their dark ambition.
We knew they would return.
What we didn’t know is they would turn one of our own to traitor and strike like thieves in the night through the agency of a once-trusted comrade who abandoned all name and reputation in a deed of black villainy almost unheard of even in the ranks of the despoiled aristocracy of Providence.
I wish I had a great tale of the fight of Space and Freedom III but I’m afraid there isn’t one. This proud monument to the sacrifice of 50,000 freespacers of the Star Fraction and 10,000 of our stalwart allied crews didn’t fall to battle and siege. There were no hero deeds done that night. No bold stratagem or reckless bravado. Instead the tower was simply stolen in the night by agents of a free captain we’d trusted with everything for a paltry purse of silver from the holders of Providence.
Sev3rance were not slow to take advantage of course, almost immediately they placed their own agents and covert spies into Kamela. Our traitor had hit us directly at the most vulnerable point for Space and Freedom III was the mooring tower for our Erebus Class Titan and this theft just the smaller part of a grand extravaganza of thievery and destruction to be enacted upon the Star Fraction in repayment for whatever bizarre motives and payment weighted the coward’s purse.
Poor planning began to unravel the plot however, the traitor hadn’t realized that his own accomplices lacked the ability to anchor replacement towers on the spot of the stolen tower and panicking now, botched the job of further thefts while revealing further agents implicated in the dirty business. Sev3rance alliance for their part were also unable to fully exploit the advantage given them and added no substance to their blockade fleet, preferring instead to skirmish with bombers in an attempt to prey on Free Captains surprised by the disappearance of our staging tower.
Desperate Times
We had to replace the tower and we had to do it quickly.
It was very important that we controlled the site of our Titan bridge staging area and if we lost initiative there was a significant chance that our traitor might make good on threats to make this “the worst weekend in history” for the Star Fraction.
So began a swirling complex series of skirmishes with Sev3rance and their rapid warfare expert recruits in Genos corporation while we attempted to replace and online the tower with Space and Freedom IV (which we all hoped would have a more heroic history and story than its unfortunately tea-leafed predecessor).
Problem for the Fraction was the complexity of anchoring, raising the shield, equipping the guns and transiting fuelling with an increasingly hostile local count and rumours reaching us of an emergency Sev3rance call to action to take out the new tower.
We were joined by allies of the TLF and ROSS and united our battleship group while trying our hardest to online the first guns but time was not on our side. Sev3rance struck and struck hard. They brought a significant battleship fleet backed by many logistics vessels and though we considered the outnumbered engagement, ultimately decided to concentrate on simply fuelling the tower and preparing for the inevitable reinforcement battle that would follow.
Our traitor had delivered a significant blow to our interests in Kamela System: Space and Freedom III had been removed alongside Cassini II (the TLF staging tower part owned by SF and ROSS) and now had provided a chance at the replacement tower by giving intel directly to the Providence holders.
We told our friends and allies to wait. The true battle would be in the days to come. The reckoning would be at the battle of Space and Freedom IV.
Preparations
So here we were. Back in Kamela again, facing down the Providence bloc and all their creatures and supporters to defend a hastily-assembled replacement tower with a jury-rigged defence grid and collection of 21 medium artillery cannons. We’d been spared the inconvenience of repairing these fixed emplacements by virtue of the timing of the Sev3rance assault on the first pass.
Instead we simply deployed and brought them online praising the functionality of hardcoded matari fire-control circuits that didn’t require networking to the reinforced tower. Guns were primed and armed. Our gun crews rehearsed their fire procedures and a number of capsule-pilot master gunners were brought into the organization to oversee volley-firing from the emplaced weaponry.
Elsewhere we contacted our allies. This was not going to be a battle with cruisers this time. We’d already faced down and destroyed one Sev3rance battleship fleet the week before in Dital, and we’d learned that our SOL standard heavy warship group was superior to the Providence levy build 1 for 1 so there was a high degree of confidence in a direct showdown this time. We told our allies to prepare heavy ships and laid our plan of defence. This time the Black Plan would also be in theatre, partially as a gesture of full mockery to the works of our traitor (who doubtless still had designs on killing the titan) but also to make use of the immense tactical benefit from the Gallente Titan’s armour harmonics boosting – in a fight of this scale the massive increase in armour belts across either our own SOL group would make a huge difference in the confrontation.
The question of the CVA was obviously still on our minds. But this was not the CVA of two months ago that were about to project 100 capital ships with impunity with a 270 ship support fleet. Battles with Against All Authorities had obviously eroded the capacity for Providence to project power and our internal sources amongst the holders hinted that many of the Capital ships lost in the disastrous defence of D-G System in Paxton space had still not been replaced by the Providence levy.
Better yet there was infighting amongst the holders, Cold Steel and Sev3rance had declared their intention to “look to their own defence” and leave the remote holders to their fate – this obviously reduced the willingness of other entities loyal to the CVA to come to their aid in turn.
All this intelligence came to the conclusion that there wouldn’t be another “grand fleet” of 370 ships to destroy Space and Freedom IV in a single pass. But the question was: what could they do?
As if by karmic repayment the answer came to us from an informer in Sev3rance. Sweet irony perhaps he claimed (with no verifiable proof obviously) to be working for GENOS. Sev3rance had declared a formal CTA (Call to arms) to destroy the tower so the attack was definitely on:
***
This of course changed pretty much nothing. Our plan was simple. Assemble a superior battleship formation with SOL grade hulls as the centrepiece backed by a logistics flotilla and warp ourselves into the centre of the enemy formation while they were tackling the emplaced batteries at Space and Freedom IV. This time we had a fair degree of confidence we had what it took to win the battle. But as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy and Sev3rance still had surprises for us.
The Reckoning
This had been a hard week for the Fraction. Betrayal and theft always leaves a bad feeling in the mouth. Our enemies had been hard at work with propaganda. We’d suffered some unnecessary minor combat losses, the replacement work on the towers had drained our personnel a bit – we had suspicions yet that the traitors “masterpiece plan” might not be fully revealed. We’d come under concentrated combat database record attack the night before. Our voice communications had been briefly compromised. It’s fair to say nerves were on edge.
The total fiscal loss from theft at totalled around 1.5b maximum which wasn’t much, but it was a slap in the face for the Free Captains and the Star Fraction and we were eager to show that however much our enemies attack us with snide manipulation, lies and base slander on the Summit, none of them were capable of matching us blow for blow in space. But we were quite literally expecting nearly anything to happen when the fighting began and excitement was building by the hour.
Muster time came round and damn we were impressive. 55 Free Captains in alliance, 55 in fleet. A significant SOL battlegroup, Guardian support, close in escorts and a full complement of tower gunners and all of them fleeted with the Black Plan and boosted by the armour harmonics systems in Kamela system. Word reached us that the Ushra’khan were in position in fast sniper cruisers, that TLF and ROSS were preparing a heavy battle-ground of their own and various SF capital assets were dusted off “just in case”. We felt confident and ready.
Then strangeness yawned, special irregularities in Kamela, troubles with the Stargates, Concord warning messages on ship systems. Were we under electronic attack? Had our traitor struck again and disabled our command and control systems? Fortunately it seemed Sev3rance were no better off and their own staging plans were delayed alongside ours as techs worked furiously to reboot systems and purge the instability from our neural tactics nets as wing commanders and squadron leaders struggled to keep order in the chaos.
Then finally we got the message from our covert ships in KBP “they are on the move, inbound and 2 jumps out”.
This is always the most nerve-wracking time. You think about what more you could have done to prepare. What more you could yet do. Is there anything you’ve forgotten? Anything that will come to bite you in the next desperate minutes of fighting – it’s horrible really, butterflies in the stomach never go away.
Post-humanity be damned, every time I go into battle with my comrades at arms I feel like I’m strapping on a sword and plunging into a wild melee without form or substance. I might be immortal in my ancestry but this body could die in seconds, even in this time of science, even in this time of reason, we put our lives in the hands of the infinite and simply hope for the best.
It went like clockwork initially. Sev3rance moved into Kamela. Their numbers were good but not overwhelming. Star Fraction had as many ships on the field as Sev3rance themselves. Cold Steel and other holders were themselves outnumbered by our TLF and ROSS allies though there were still delays in the form-up there. Ushra’khan took positions with their fast gang and set their eyes on a duel with Genos who had come with a “nano-group” built around a pair of Machariel battleships, 2 scimitars and some assorted anti-tackle. The attack arrived (as it always does) with a huge group of Providence warships warping to good range of the emplaced gun cluster and beginning to attack the tower firepower. This time we had covert probes in the water and were able to drop our battle group immediately into position on the target vessels.
Tower gunners chose their targets and our SOL’s followed as best they good and the immediate exchange of firepower was intense. Battleships exploded on both sides and we removed several Providence logistics ships also. Ushra’khan were having more trouble with Genos though and quickly losing many of their tacklers. We leant into the fighting and Sev3rance and allies began to improve their mutual repping coverage and the killing slowed down a little. Our ships were definitely better than theirs in terms of armour belt, effective firepower and general deployment but we were having trouble overcoming the logistics. Then cynosaural fields blossomed and four Providence bloc carriers jumped through the void in a explosion of subspace static and at least three of them engaged triage mode in a direct trumping of our short range firepower. This was bad.
Fortunately our fleet commander was very sharp and ordered alignment for warp out and a full disengage, before we were seriously caught by multiple warp disruptors. Our tower guns kept firing through and probing for weaknesses but with the addition of the triage carriers in the Providence force it was looking difficult.
We counted the cost of the initial clash and it seemed we’d lost 7 battleships to their 8 + several logistics ships. We were marginally ahead on the count but it wasn’t decisive. On the plus point our TLF/ROSS allies were now fully formed up and ready to join us in another push and promising reports from the tower showed the artillery batteries actually making progress against the tank of one of the triage carriers there.
It’s a moment of decision. Does the commander commit or decide to fight another day. We had no idea else Sev3rance had up their sleeve in terms of capital assets to deploy, for all we knew maybe they had another dozen. We tried our own contacts of course for contingency coverage and the cupboard was bare.
So its attack or withdraw.
We attacked.
First target was a triaged Carrier which fell with admirable speed from our combined tower gunnery and battleship group now fully united with the heroic matari warriors of TLF and ROSS. Next took an Archon that managed to leave triage and even so we blew it to pieces under the combined mutual repair of the entire enemy fleet. This was a huge morale boost, our forces redoubled their efforts against the enemy and ship after ship was now exploding under Freespacer guns while our augmented defence systems were lasting under the withering firepower of the slavers.
Everything was turning in our favour suddenly.
The death count on the Providence side was terrible. They lost a third carrier almost as an afterthought to our combined fusillades and though the tower had lost around a third of its guns in the initial fighting it was now playing a serious factor in our march towards full space superiority.
To their credit I will say that Sev3rance fought hard. Very hard. They must have been encouraged by our initial disengage after fairly even casualties and I think they overestimated the factor their triage carriers would play. But as I said, they fought like men possessed. Most forces will break at a certain point in the battle, 50% casualties or so. But Sev3rance didn’t begin to flee until they were down to their last 10 battleships. We had wiped out their fleet near totally. The only survivors of any note were the Genos “nano-ships” who had burned out away from the Tower and opted to stay well away from our SOL group for the entire fighting.
The field was rich with enemy loot: we’d killed (in total)
39 battleships, 9 battlecruisers, 5 logistics ships, a pair of heavy assault cruisers and 3 carriers.
For the loss on the Star Fraction group of 14 battleships, 3 cruisers and a destroyer.
Loss of ships for our allies in the fighting were relatively minor.
It was something of a staggering victory really and it was a day of firsts for us. This was the largest single Star Fraction battleship group that we have ever mustered. It was the first time we’d ever combined the mobile force with a fully-manned 21 gun Matari deathstar. It was the largest single fleet victory we have achieved over Providence forces and to put this in full perspective: we caused more damage to enemies in one hour of fighting than we caused to Kimotoro Directive alliance in the 4 weeks it took to drive them to extinction. “The worst weekend in history” indeed. It had turned into one of our best ever.
I couldn’t be more proud of the alliance than I am now. Free Captains came together and worked with talent and daring. Our fleet commanders and liaisons were superb. Our covert scouting was exquisite and our tower gunner’s sublime.
It was a joy and a privilege to be a Free Captain today and see how far we have come from the dark days and schisms and feuds of the past. Today we brought force of arms and idealism united to strike a huge blow against the benighted regime of Sev3rance and though I must again salute the bravery of our opponents today it will not do to leave without a footnote to the frustration our traitor must feel to be reading these words and knowing the calibre of men and women left behind on the cursed road to dark and lonely exile.
Our betrayer wanted to cause “symbolic damage” or otherwise produce a spectacular attack on Star Fraction pride and capability this weekend. Neither was achieved. Instead we have seen the alliance work together tirelessly to replace the damage, to prepare for this great fight and to rise to the challenge of burying the 1.5b loss in a field of wrecked enemy ships and full triumph for freespace and Matari Freedom.
We were supported by true allies. True friends and comrades-at-arms, we love and trust those that stood with us and we in turn will stand with them. We have forged friendships on the battlefield and lasting strife that will endure. No tattle-tale of petty sneak-thieves can undo the legend and accomplishment of brave free fighters and matari champions this day.
The Battle of Space and Freedom IV has been finally won.
The deaths of our heroes avenged, the memory of their sacrifice made eternal. I give thanks to have such friends and comrades as I know now. You are the best of pilots this Star Cluster has even known and I am proud to be in your company.
The Future
As ever uncertain, who knows if Sev3rance will return again? It is a certainly a hard blow to their pride following the full call to arms and their leader’s vow to destroy Space and Freedom. It is a difficult thing for a holder power to stomach the reality that it is faced down and defeated not once but twice in so many weeks in fixed tower assaults.
Today they were outnumbered. We had the odds in our favour ultimately. Our allies cared more about this fight than theirs did. Whether this will damage Sev3rance morale or enflame it remains to be seen.
But this day Space and Freedom lives still and in the wake of the theft and sabotage and malicious slanders it has been good to wash away the bile of jealous traitors in the fresh pumping blood of CVA holders and their attendant servile sub-creatures.
My toast to all that fought this day! Long live the fighters!
What price loyalty?
It’s quite the question really. We have told the story of Space and Freedom II, where the fate of 38,000 freed Matari slaves hung in the balance for the precious hours that the Star Fraction and allied fleets held back enormous numbers of Providence-aligned Slavers and their creatures. We fought like demons and heroes and hurled our cruiser fleets at ridiculous odds to win the time needed for the evacuation and ultimately we were successful in this.
Space and Freedom II fell, but the 38,000 were spared and the image of CVA invulnerability was punctured forever. Those 370 Providence slaves and creatures in their ranks upon ranks of Battleships and Carriers and Dreadnaughts in wide array were humiliated that day and the wounds of that carnage remain in their psyche. The Star Fraction and our allies in the Matari freedom movement showed we were unafraid, unbowed, unrepentant, and when the representative of the CVA declared that all who stood with us would become KOS to Providence the laughter that met the pronouncement warmed my heart.
So in the wake of the battle we raised another tower we named Space and Freedom III, its shields projected and guns anchoring even before the last CVA serf had left the field and all who had stood with us vowing to return for the next fight, and the next until the will of the Providence imperials was broken and Kamela became a graveyard for their dark ambition.
We knew they would return.
What we didn’t know is they would turn one of our own to traitor and strike like thieves in the night through the agency of a once-trusted comrade who abandoned all name and reputation in a deed of black villainy almost unheard of even in the ranks of the despoiled aristocracy of Providence.
I wish I had a great tale of the fight of Space and Freedom III but I’m afraid there isn’t one. This proud monument to the sacrifice of 50,000 freespacers of the Star Fraction and 10,000 of our stalwart allied crews didn’t fall to battle and siege. There were no hero deeds done that night. No bold stratagem or reckless bravado. Instead the tower was simply stolen in the night by agents of a free captain we’d trusted with everything for a paltry purse of silver from the holders of Providence.
Sev3rance were not slow to take advantage of course, almost immediately they placed their own agents and covert spies into Kamela. Our traitor had hit us directly at the most vulnerable point for Space and Freedom III was the mooring tower for our Erebus Class Titan and this theft just the smaller part of a grand extravaganza of thievery and destruction to be enacted upon the Star Fraction in repayment for whatever bizarre motives and payment weighted the coward’s purse.
Poor planning began to unravel the plot however, the traitor hadn’t realized that his own accomplices lacked the ability to anchor replacement towers on the spot of the stolen tower and panicking now, botched the job of further thefts while revealing further agents implicated in the dirty business. Sev3rance alliance for their part were also unable to fully exploit the advantage given them and added no substance to their blockade fleet, preferring instead to skirmish with bombers in an attempt to prey on Free Captains surprised by the disappearance of our staging tower.
Desperate Times
We had to replace the tower and we had to do it quickly.
It was very important that we controlled the site of our Titan bridge staging area and if we lost initiative there was a significant chance that our traitor might make good on threats to make this “the worst weekend in history” for the Star Fraction.
So began a swirling complex series of skirmishes with Sev3rance and their rapid warfare expert recruits in Genos corporation while we attempted to replace and online the tower with Space and Freedom IV (which we all hoped would have a more heroic history and story than its unfortunately tea-leafed predecessor).
Problem for the Fraction was the complexity of anchoring, raising the shield, equipping the guns and transiting fuelling with an increasingly hostile local count and rumours reaching us of an emergency Sev3rance call to action to take out the new tower.
We were joined by allies of the TLF and ROSS and united our battleship group while trying our hardest to online the first guns but time was not on our side. Sev3rance struck and struck hard. They brought a significant battleship fleet backed by many logistics vessels and though we considered the outnumbered engagement, ultimately decided to concentrate on simply fuelling the tower and preparing for the inevitable reinforcement battle that would follow.
Our traitor had delivered a significant blow to our interests in Kamela System: Space and Freedom III had been removed alongside Cassini II (the TLF staging tower part owned by SF and ROSS) and now had provided a chance at the replacement tower by giving intel directly to the Providence holders.
We told our friends and allies to wait. The true battle would be in the days to come. The reckoning would be at the battle of Space and Freedom IV.
Preparations
So here we were. Back in Kamela again, facing down the Providence bloc and all their creatures and supporters to defend a hastily-assembled replacement tower with a jury-rigged defence grid and collection of 21 medium artillery cannons. We’d been spared the inconvenience of repairing these fixed emplacements by virtue of the timing of the Sev3rance assault on the first pass.
Instead we simply deployed and brought them online praising the functionality of hardcoded matari fire-control circuits that didn’t require networking to the reinforced tower. Guns were primed and armed. Our gun crews rehearsed their fire procedures and a number of capsule-pilot master gunners were brought into the organization to oversee volley-firing from the emplaced weaponry.
Elsewhere we contacted our allies. This was not going to be a battle with cruisers this time. We’d already faced down and destroyed one Sev3rance battleship fleet the week before in Dital, and we’d learned that our SOL standard heavy warship group was superior to the Providence levy build 1 for 1 so there was a high degree of confidence in a direct showdown this time. We told our allies to prepare heavy ships and laid our plan of defence. This time the Black Plan would also be in theatre, partially as a gesture of full mockery to the works of our traitor (who doubtless still had designs on killing the titan) but also to make use of the immense tactical benefit from the Gallente Titan’s armour harmonics boosting – in a fight of this scale the massive increase in armour belts across either our own SOL group would make a huge difference in the confrontation.
The question of the CVA was obviously still on our minds. But this was not the CVA of two months ago that were about to project 100 capital ships with impunity with a 270 ship support fleet. Battles with Against All Authorities had obviously eroded the capacity for Providence to project power and our internal sources amongst the holders hinted that many of the Capital ships lost in the disastrous defence of D-G System in Paxton space had still not been replaced by the Providence levy.
Better yet there was infighting amongst the holders, Cold Steel and Sev3rance had declared their intention to “look to their own defence” and leave the remote holders to their fate – this obviously reduced the willingness of other entities loyal to the CVA to come to their aid in turn.
All this intelligence came to the conclusion that there wouldn’t be another “grand fleet” of 370 ships to destroy Space and Freedom IV in a single pass. But the question was: what could they do?
As if by karmic repayment the answer came to us from an informer in Sev3rance. Sweet irony perhaps he claimed (with no verifiable proof obviously) to be working for GENOS. Sev3rance had declared a formal CTA (Call to arms) to destroy the tower so the attack was definitely on:
Quote:Operation Tomorrow Saturday 20.02.10
From: FDXMadcat
Sent: 2010.02.19 18:04
To: Sev3rance, Dany Danger, evilPHish, Aralis
Hi People,
A StarFraction Large Tower will come out of RF tomorrow, Saturday 20.02.10 at 14:00 Eve Time.
The tower is located in Kamela at Planet 9, moon 1. We WILL kill it. The tower is armed with 21 Medium Art
Batterys.
You WILL bring the following ships:
(logistical details, ventrillo, ship loadouts etc etc redacted)
This is ofc a CTA, everyone (EVERYONE) whos there, join the fleet and fight!
Regards Madcat
***
This of course changed pretty much nothing. Our plan was simple. Assemble a superior battleship formation with SOL grade hulls as the centrepiece backed by a logistics flotilla and warp ourselves into the centre of the enemy formation while they were tackling the emplaced batteries at Space and Freedom IV. This time we had a fair degree of confidence we had what it took to win the battle. But as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy and Sev3rance still had surprises for us.
The Reckoning
This had been a hard week for the Fraction. Betrayal and theft always leaves a bad feeling in the mouth. Our enemies had been hard at work with propaganda. We’d suffered some unnecessary minor combat losses, the replacement work on the towers had drained our personnel a bit – we had suspicions yet that the traitors “masterpiece plan” might not be fully revealed. We’d come under concentrated combat database record attack the night before. Our voice communications had been briefly compromised. It’s fair to say nerves were on edge.
The total fiscal loss from theft at totalled around 1.5b maximum which wasn’t much, but it was a slap in the face for the Free Captains and the Star Fraction and we were eager to show that however much our enemies attack us with snide manipulation, lies and base slander on the Summit, none of them were capable of matching us blow for blow in space. But we were quite literally expecting nearly anything to happen when the fighting began and excitement was building by the hour.
Muster time came round and damn we were impressive. 55 Free Captains in alliance, 55 in fleet. A significant SOL battlegroup, Guardian support, close in escorts and a full complement of tower gunners and all of them fleeted with the Black Plan and boosted by the armour harmonics systems in Kamela system. Word reached us that the Ushra’khan were in position in fast sniper cruisers, that TLF and ROSS were preparing a heavy battle-ground of their own and various SF capital assets were dusted off “just in case”. We felt confident and ready.
Then strangeness yawned, special irregularities in Kamela, troubles with the Stargates, Concord warning messages on ship systems. Were we under electronic attack? Had our traitor struck again and disabled our command and control systems? Fortunately it seemed Sev3rance were no better off and their own staging plans were delayed alongside ours as techs worked furiously to reboot systems and purge the instability from our neural tactics nets as wing commanders and squadron leaders struggled to keep order in the chaos.
Then finally we got the message from our covert ships in KBP “they are on the move, inbound and 2 jumps out”.
This is always the most nerve-wracking time. You think about what more you could have done to prepare. What more you could yet do. Is there anything you’ve forgotten? Anything that will come to bite you in the next desperate minutes of fighting – it’s horrible really, butterflies in the stomach never go away.
Post-humanity be damned, every time I go into battle with my comrades at arms I feel like I’m strapping on a sword and plunging into a wild melee without form or substance. I might be immortal in my ancestry but this body could die in seconds, even in this time of science, even in this time of reason, we put our lives in the hands of the infinite and simply hope for the best.
It went like clockwork initially. Sev3rance moved into Kamela. Their numbers were good but not overwhelming. Star Fraction had as many ships on the field as Sev3rance themselves. Cold Steel and other holders were themselves outnumbered by our TLF and ROSS allies though there were still delays in the form-up there. Ushra’khan took positions with their fast gang and set their eyes on a duel with Genos who had come with a “nano-group” built around a pair of Machariel battleships, 2 scimitars and some assorted anti-tackle. The attack arrived (as it always does) with a huge group of Providence warships warping to good range of the emplaced gun cluster and beginning to attack the tower firepower. This time we had covert probes in the water and were able to drop our battle group immediately into position on the target vessels.
Tower gunners chose their targets and our SOL’s followed as best they good and the immediate exchange of firepower was intense. Battleships exploded on both sides and we removed several Providence logistics ships also. Ushra’khan were having more trouble with Genos though and quickly losing many of their tacklers. We leant into the fighting and Sev3rance and allies began to improve their mutual repping coverage and the killing slowed down a little. Our ships were definitely better than theirs in terms of armour belt, effective firepower and general deployment but we were having trouble overcoming the logistics. Then cynosaural fields blossomed and four Providence bloc carriers jumped through the void in a explosion of subspace static and at least three of them engaged triage mode in a direct trumping of our short range firepower. This was bad.
Fortunately our fleet commander was very sharp and ordered alignment for warp out and a full disengage, before we were seriously caught by multiple warp disruptors. Our tower guns kept firing through and probing for weaknesses but with the addition of the triage carriers in the Providence force it was looking difficult.
We counted the cost of the initial clash and it seemed we’d lost 7 battleships to their 8 + several logistics ships. We were marginally ahead on the count but it wasn’t decisive. On the plus point our TLF/ROSS allies were now fully formed up and ready to join us in another push and promising reports from the tower showed the artillery batteries actually making progress against the tank of one of the triage carriers there.
It’s a moment of decision. Does the commander commit or decide to fight another day. We had no idea else Sev3rance had up their sleeve in terms of capital assets to deploy, for all we knew maybe they had another dozen. We tried our own contacts of course for contingency coverage and the cupboard was bare.
So its attack or withdraw.
We attacked.
First target was a triaged Carrier which fell with admirable speed from our combined tower gunnery and battleship group now fully united with the heroic matari warriors of TLF and ROSS. Next took an Archon that managed to leave triage and even so we blew it to pieces under the combined mutual repair of the entire enemy fleet. This was a huge morale boost, our forces redoubled their efforts against the enemy and ship after ship was now exploding under Freespacer guns while our augmented defence systems were lasting under the withering firepower of the slavers.
Everything was turning in our favour suddenly.
The death count on the Providence side was terrible. They lost a third carrier almost as an afterthought to our combined fusillades and though the tower had lost around a third of its guns in the initial fighting it was now playing a serious factor in our march towards full space superiority.
To their credit I will say that Sev3rance fought hard. Very hard. They must have been encouraged by our initial disengage after fairly even casualties and I think they overestimated the factor their triage carriers would play. But as I said, they fought like men possessed. Most forces will break at a certain point in the battle, 50% casualties or so. But Sev3rance didn’t begin to flee until they were down to their last 10 battleships. We had wiped out their fleet near totally. The only survivors of any note were the Genos “nano-ships” who had burned out away from the Tower and opted to stay well away from our SOL group for the entire fighting.
The field was rich with enemy loot: we’d killed (in total)
39 battleships, 9 battlecruisers, 5 logistics ships, a pair of heavy assault cruisers and 3 carriers.
For the loss on the Star Fraction group of 14 battleships, 3 cruisers and a destroyer.
Loss of ships for our allies in the fighting were relatively minor.
It was something of a staggering victory really and it was a day of firsts for us. This was the largest single Star Fraction battleship group that we have ever mustered. It was the first time we’d ever combined the mobile force with a fully-manned 21 gun Matari deathstar. It was the largest single fleet victory we have achieved over Providence forces and to put this in full perspective: we caused more damage to enemies in one hour of fighting than we caused to Kimotoro Directive alliance in the 4 weeks it took to drive them to extinction. “The worst weekend in history” indeed. It had turned into one of our best ever.
I couldn’t be more proud of the alliance than I am now. Free Captains came together and worked with talent and daring. Our fleet commanders and liaisons were superb. Our covert scouting was exquisite and our tower gunner’s sublime.
It was a joy and a privilege to be a Free Captain today and see how far we have come from the dark days and schisms and feuds of the past. Today we brought force of arms and idealism united to strike a huge blow against the benighted regime of Sev3rance and though I must again salute the bravery of our opponents today it will not do to leave without a footnote to the frustration our traitor must feel to be reading these words and knowing the calibre of men and women left behind on the cursed road to dark and lonely exile.
Our betrayer wanted to cause “symbolic damage” or otherwise produce a spectacular attack on Star Fraction pride and capability this weekend. Neither was achieved. Instead we have seen the alliance work together tirelessly to replace the damage, to prepare for this great fight and to rise to the challenge of burying the 1.5b loss in a field of wrecked enemy ships and full triumph for freespace and Matari Freedom.
We were supported by true allies. True friends and comrades-at-arms, we love and trust those that stood with us and we in turn will stand with them. We have forged friendships on the battlefield and lasting strife that will endure. No tattle-tale of petty sneak-thieves can undo the legend and accomplishment of brave free fighters and matari champions this day.
The Battle of Space and Freedom IV has been finally won.
The deaths of our heroes avenged, the memory of their sacrifice made eternal. I give thanks to have such friends and comrades as I know now. You are the best of pilots this Star Cluster has even known and I am proud to be in your company.
The Future
As ever uncertain, who knows if Sev3rance will return again? It is a certainly a hard blow to their pride following the full call to arms and their leader’s vow to destroy Space and Freedom. It is a difficult thing for a holder power to stomach the reality that it is faced down and defeated not once but twice in so many weeks in fixed tower assaults.
Today they were outnumbered. We had the odds in our favour ultimately. Our allies cared more about this fight than theirs did. Whether this will damage Sev3rance morale or enflame it remains to be seen.
But this day Space and Freedom lives still and in the wake of the theft and sabotage and malicious slanders it has been good to wash away the bile of jealous traitors in the fresh pumping blood of CVA holders and their attendant servile sub-creatures.
My toast to all that fought this day! Long live the fighters!
