December 2, 2067, 17:04 hours, outside Rowan's Outpost, Bridge of the Sparta
As both Dreadnoughts fired on the speedy wolves, Rear Admiral Williams watched two Sea Wolves take the hard hitting Siege Missiles straight to their starboard sides. For an FF, it isn't so bad of a hit, but for a Sea Wolf, that was a like a critical hit, a crippling blow against their light armour. Flames erupted from the vessels as the missiles hit tearing massive chunks out of the small destroyers, the Wolves own missiles tried to return fire sending out another salvo of missiles as they retreated just barely escaping the Draconian mortar fire.
Williams was speechless. In the space of seconds, two of his Sea Wolves were already critically damaged and couldn't continue to fire, one fifth of his flanking force effectively eliminated. It was fortunate the Wolf's missiles didn't ignite under the siege missile hits, if the fire had reached them his vessels would have been torn to pieces by their own ammunition in a disastrous explosion. But the damage done still made Patrick furious, slamming his fist on his command chair's armrest, a look of hatred that could of been birthed from the pits of hell itself, he shouted to his helmsman.
"Ensign! Ramming speed! Target the Dreadnoughts! Fire all weapons!" growled the Rear Admiral. Marcus Pace didn't even question the Rear Admiral's suddenly foul temper as he revved up the Sparta's engines and she slowly picked up speed. Quickly the Sparta pulled a lead on his other ships.
"Sir, the Argos is hailing us, asking if the fleet should follow your lead?" said Hastings hesitantly. Williams quickly spun his chair around to face her before he answered.
"Yes. I want those Dreadnoughts blown straight out of the water. We have lost some of our best men to those Draconian monsters and so help me, as the commanding officer of this task force, I will not stand for these losses. And I certainly will not allow any more lives to perish," answered Williams as he turned his chair back around and stared intently at the Dreadnoughts taking and dealing punishment. A loud boom erupted overhead as mortars shot from the tubes on the Floating Fortress and arced straight towards the Draconian vessels.
December 2, 2067, 17:06 hours, outside Rowan's Outpost, Bridge of Dreadnought Alpha
"Sir, the Floating Fortresses have picked up speed. They seem to be on a collision course with our ships," said the Tactical officer before their weapons spewed fire into the sky, "Mortars also incoming."
"Shoot down as many as possible and get ready for some heavy combat. make sure the Rockets are fuelled and ready to fire and our cannons are loaded," said Serka as both Dreadnoughts opened fire on the mortars with their Anti Mortar guns, clawing a few out of the sky, it wasn't enough the shells broke through his defences and began to explode either with direct hits or close proximity strikes. Without their Compound Armour, the ships would of been completely destroyed by the splash damage from multiple mortar hits. Unfortunately even with the Compound Armour they didn't get away completely unscathed, as several of the massive ship's turrets were smashed into broken heaps of metal.
"Both Siege Missiles turrets, and our Siege Mortars are destroyed sir. Our sister ship reports a similar loss in fire-power," said Admiral Serka's Tactical officer. As the titans crept closer and closer the mighty vessels were bombarded by missile and mortar fire. Serka ordered all his remaining weapons to continue to fire, three more of the Forsaken Wolves took strikes from Seige Missile fire crippling the vessels. Now the Dreadnought's closer weapons were in range of the Fortresses closing on them. "All personnel, brace for immediate impact!" Serka shouted realizing the suicidal charge his enemy was on.
December 2, 2067, 17:10 hours, outside Rowan's Outpost, Bridge of the Sparta
The Sparta and her escorts all took heavy hits and the three more Sea Wolves limping away made Rear Admiral Williams rage boil over, "Order the remaining Wolves to retreat immediately," he growled as the bridge rocked from several powerful Rockets smashing into the Sparta's hull tearing into the ship's depleted uranium armour.
"Hull breached Rear Admiral. Decks One through Five are reporting major fires burning, Damage control teams have been mobilized, Primary Weapons Control report Hailstorm Turret A is destroyed, Shockwave Mortars 1 and 3 are offline damaged but not destroyed. Siege Mortar Turret severely damaged, probably non fictional. Communications disrupted however our sister ships look almost as badly damaged," said Sergio.
"Impact with the Dreadnoughts in ten second sir," said Marcus as the Sparta was now so close to his enemy that he could see all of the damage he has inflicted on the Draconian vessel. It was a miracle either fleet was still able to move, much less continue fighting. The Fortress' Arrowhead shaped hull ploughed into the port side of the Dreadnought, metal screeched and tore as the vessels impacted, the Sparta's entire hull twisting under the impact, the heavily damaged Dreadnought was opened to the sea by the impact and begun to take on water. Alongside her sister the Argos smashed into the other Dreadnought tearing into the other vessel, both Fortress and Dreadnoughts were locked together their metal twisted together into completely immobile.
Somehow Williams hair brained idea had worked "Order the rest of the fleet to fire on the Dreadnoughts now," he ordered knowing that the Sparta and Argoes would take damage from the fire as well, there was little chance that his Fortresses could avoid damage from the incoming splash damage. Such tactics were par for the course with this officer in command most of the citizens of the Delphi Outpost believed Patrick was downright crazy for utilizing such brutal tactics to win fights. But in his mind, anything goes in war, Even if it meant being in the middle of a bombardment under fire from their own weapons.
December 2, 2067, 17:14 hours, outside Rowan's Outpost, Bridge of Dreadnought Alpha
"Hull breaches on decks 6-10 sir, we're taking on water Bravo reports they are also taking on water," said Admiral Serka's Tactical officer. The Dreadnought was still alive, but the Fortress that just rammed into them had immobilized them making the Dreadnought a sitting duck now water was rushing about the vessels, and worse news was coming.
"Sir, we are being surrounded by the enemy fleet. Incoming ordinance!" the Radar operator shouted her suit amplifying her warning throughout the command deck her fear obvious to everyone it sickened Serka that his people had fallen so far to allow fear to overtake them. Stalking across the command deck in purposeful strides he pulled the officer from her station throwing her to the deck, Serka had a fearful physical presence it was one of the reasons he'd been given command of the Dreadnoughts.
"Is there no end to the Forsaken people's madness? Does my opponent know he's putting his own life and his people's lives in danger?" Serka screamed anger erupting As he hurriedly turned around back to his chair, he saw the unmistakable flashes of weapons fire and knew this was the end. He walked calmly back to his chair sitting down "everyone, abandon ship! Let our brother and sisters know of this battle and of its outcome," said Admiral Serka. As his bridge slowly emptied he sat looking straight ahead at the incoming missiles and mortars coming to tear apart his ship. "Looks like the better commander won this fight. Now let's you win this war," he said as his world went up in flames.
December 2, 2067, 17:20 hours, outside Rowan's Outpost, Bridge of the Sparta
The bridge crew of the Sparta watched as the Dreadnought they had rammed into began to burn and tear itself to pieces under multiple impacts as the Goliath's armour was overwhelmed and crushed under the weapons fire. Unfortunately their view of the destruction was not completely safe the massive splash damage from the mortar fire and the explosion of the dreadnought tore into the Sparta's hull the massive Fortress was rocked heavily with more systems destroyed or disabled. Unlike the first Dreadnought the second vessel which was locked with the Argos began to take on massive amounts of water, slowly the ship slid off the Fortress and begun to slip under the waves. It was over. "No other enemy contacts sir, the seas are safe for now," reported Hastings as the Rear Admiral calmed down a little and looked around at his battered bridge and his crew how many had he lost? How many more of the injured would perish? Mission accomplished but at a frightful cost.
"Communications, Patch a message to Rowan. We need to help with the searching of survivors and discuss rebuilding and assess damage on both her base and our fleet. Send a salvage crew to comb through the wreckage. We need samples of their armour for research purposes, Have our operational Wolves recover our crippled ships and rendezvous here, we're not moving for a while."
December 2, 2067, 22:53 hours, Rowan's Island Outpost
Hours went by as the search for survivors among the wreckage of what was once a proud Forsaken Outpost continued well into the night. The entire island was turned into an impromptu hospital treating anything from minor wounds to near death injuries. Hundreds had been lost and the damage that was done would take months to fully rebuild. As Rowan and Patrick eventually found out, the vast majority of Rowan's her fleet could be salvaged from the shallow depths of her island waters, for now however she only had 5 surviving vessels that were mostly unscratched. Two of them were her own Fortresses, Patrick informed Rowan of a similar disaster happening to her husbands island and what was going on within the Forsaken Seas as Rowan preferred to keep to herself.
"Sorry I couldn't help out any more Captain, but my own ships took a heavy beating and need repairs. I also have to file a casualty report to Admiral Alalcomenous and perform burial ceremonies for the fallen," said Rear Admiral Patrick as he and Rowan oversaw the continued rebuilding of her world.
"It's quite alight. My people have faced similar catastrophes before and survived, we are used to our world being torn down. We will do so again, at least the crates you did give us will help us with our reconstruction efforts," answered Rowan. Though her base was in shambles, homes can be rebuilt, it's the lives that are lost that can't be replaced easily. Good thing her people didn't suffer complete annihilation.
"The world is changing Captain, we have to adapt or we will all perish. If there was a time when Darwinism would be most accepted, it would be in times like this," Williams commented, "I have done preliminary research on a sample of armour that my salvage teams recovered and found out some interesting things about it."
"Really?" asked Rowan quizzically.
"Indeed, it seems the Draconians have found a way to combine the effects of Layered Armour, Reactive Armour, and Ablative Armour to create a kind of Compound Armour that provides defence against all kinds of surface weapons. Combine it with their Zynthonite armour and they are able to walk through nearly any base with their best ships. If we can reverse engineer this technology, we can gain a significant edge against them in this war," answered Williams just as he noticed an Ensign stop right beside them. Apparently he had something urgent to report, "Ensign, can I help you?"
"Yes, a message was just patched through. it came from Senator Michaels island. You need to hear it sir," answered the Ensign as he hurried back to the ship.
"Can I use your CIC for this Captain?" asked Williams to Rowan. He knew something was going on and it was going to be big. Bigger than this entire sector.
"Come with me Rear Admiral," Rowan answered as she led him towards her bunker Headquarters, which now serves as her office until reconstruction efforts are complete.
December 2, 2067, 22:58 hours, Rowan's Island Outpost Command
Recovery efforts had all but finished as people gathered to listen to the message from Michaels Island from the highest ranked member of Rowan's staff to the youngest survivor everyone was gathered around the room listening "Ladies and Gentlemen of Sector 73, for years the Draconians have been a menace to cause us problems and cause us pain. We have survived as Pirates of the High Seas, praying on each other and any Draconian sorry to stray into our weapons fire." The voice said Williams recognized it as the Captain of Michaels Island he had a charismatic manner by him that easily matched his Island's military which although small had been shown to be powerful "today I call for everyone to raise their arms and join us in saying NO LONGER! We are all citizens of this world, we all deserve the chance to live our lives in peace and to be free of the tyrannical Draconian Imperial Empire and their allies. Anyone that stands against us helps them. Today our forces gather at Bob Epps base on the border with Sector 72, any forces that wish to join us are welcome. Together we will sail to Sector 1, a United Expeditionary Fleet, one force dedicated to the freedom of the Forsaken peoples." The Captain said "Standing together as one people with one voice we can survive the Draconians and bring a new age for the people of this world. We will wait three weeks for your forces to join us then we sail, soon our enemies will hear our voice or face our weapons." Without another word the communication silenced and slowly a murmur spread throughout the room, Rowan and Williams just looked at each other realizing that throughout the sector people would likely be thinking and doing the same thing wondering what this new plan and charge would bring them.
"I think the road has been laid Admiral." Rowan said quietly as if a path had been drawn out across the sea, she quietly wondered if it led to peace or to oblivion.
"But not for us Captain" Williams said "neither your people nor mine are in any shape to continue, now our friends and our family must continue this fight." He said finally realizing himself that the Sparta nor her sisters would be able to make any long journeys or engage in more battle for many weeks. "My people will follow Admiral Alalcomenous order's and remain on station and help your people recover, if the UEF fails perhaps we will need to become a core for a new resistance."
"I thank you for the offer Admiral, your people are very welcome to stay as long as they feel they are needed." Rowan said quietly she knew her son and husband would be involved in the fighting, she silently prayed for their safety before returning to her own people's needs, it would be a busy few weeks for everyone.