Chapter 7

= place: Rok'gadrak system, November 16, 2179 =

The start of Operation Phenix went very badly for the 4th fleet. Although she was the first to reach her destination and attacked the 26th fleet in the Rok'gadrak system, his opponent proved to have an extremely effective commander. With 350 ships, he used 100 as living shields, filling them with human slaves and positioning them at the front. Due to the fact that they were transport ships, they had no meaningful firepower and were not effective in combat. If it had filled all its ships with slaves, the System Alliance fleet would have had no choice but to attack anyway. But now they had a choice. Limit attack or risk the death of civilians. This forced the 4th fleet commander to split his frigates, which he had unusually large for an SA fleet. 78 form 4th fleet + 27 from SDF, into squadrons of 3, and start hit-and-run attacks. Although the tactic proved to be effective, with continuous raids destroying 30 ships and damaging 40 more, and only 2 ships with civilians were damaged, it lost 5 ships itself and 20 more were damaged. And most importantly, he was running out of energy, torpedoes, and rockets.

The enemy simply had to endure him, which would undermine the psychic effects of Operation Phoenix and allow a dangerous wedge on their front.

At the same time, his fleet did not have any aircraft carriers, and one Enterprise-class escort carrier would not have allowed him to gain a space advantage, as Hegemony Fleet Commander ordered to keep his own fighters close to the ships, which gave them cover from GARDIAN system and effectively made any fighter attack by the System Alliance fighters suicidal.

When the SA fleet tried to approach the Hegemony fleet and attack from a different direction, the Hegemony simply moved its civilian wall to cover itself. When he tried to split in two and attack from different directions, the enemy set up human shields on one side and concentrated fire on the other, which only led to unnecessary losses.

Eventually, with all the resources nearing depleted, the 4th Fleet Commander decided to put everything on one card. He ordered the frigates to be divided into two equal groups and assigned all fighters, which left him no reserves. The groups then moved from two directions, while all the heavier ships held their position in front of the enemy fleet. In order not to be hit by immediate fire from the Batarian forces, the groups had to travel a long distance from the Hegemony fleet.

And then the Batarians struck.

Leaving their wall, the civilians they had placed on the flanks charged into the center of the SA fleet, which was now completely exposed. The heavier ships now had no fighter escorts, which allowed the Batarians to send their own fighters to bombard the SA fleet. Ships on the flanks immediately noticed the enormous danger in which they found the center, but because of civilian ships, they could not fire. Fortunately, dividing them into two groups and the speed with which they attacked the Humans, meant that many ships didn't have human shields and quickly came under fire. At the same time, however, the middle began to suffer huge losses and was on the verge of a collapse.

The admiral made his final decision and ordered his heavy cruiser to be loaded with the Super Shock Gun and ordered its evacuation. People rushed to the emergency caps, except for Admiral and AI, who were targeting the very center of the Batarian formation.

Noticing what the human fleet was planning, the Hegemony fleet concentrated fire on the flagship. But it was too late and the ship fired its highly overloaded cannon, which destroyed it and a good number of Batarian ships. The flagship of the Batarian fleet was hit in the bridge and the admiral of the 26th fleet was killed. Having lost their flagship, the Batarian ships panicked, while the human ships on the flanks kept on course for the Batarian fleet between them and fired on all the guns and missiles they had left. The command structure and training of System Alliance officers were simply better than the Hegemony, which, combined with the shock of Batarians from begin hit by the superweapon, made the Humans recover much faster from losing their commander and inflicted catastrophic losses on the Hegemony.

The broken Hegemony fleet fired at ships with civilians to escape, trying not to destroy them, but to damage them. This tactic allowed 90 fully operational and 60 damaged Hegemony ships to escape, while all the rest were left to their fate. An additional 12 out of 100 ships with civilians were destroyed.

On the other hand, the Alliance System lost 36 ships with 30 more damage. The worst part, however, was that most of them were heavier ships. This, coupled with the loss of the admiral, effectively eliminated the 4th fleet from combat for several months.

= place: Feg'kogan system, November 16, 2179 =

In this system, the 5th fleet under the command of the newly promoted Admiral Hackett attacked the 25th and 13th fleets of the Hegemony. As all the pirate/terminus ships went to their bases and the 25th fleet did not suffer any serious losses, combined with the 13th fleet they had about 210 ships, in comparison to 150 ships under Hackett's command.

Upon arriving at the system, he found the Hegemony fleet behind the asteroid belt. Hackett quickly ordered the fleet to stand in a position where it could freely bomb the Hegemony fleet with its artillery cruisers. He noticed that some ships moved under the belt, while others, including most of the cruisers, accepted the challenge and an artillery duel soon began.

The distance between the two fleets was over 20,000 km, so he couldn't use his Shock Cannons, but the firepower of his artillery cruisers was similar to that of dreadnoughts, albeit slower and less protected, and allowed him to gain an advantage over the Hegemon ships by destroying 20 ships at a price 6 of his own. When part of the Batarian fleet noticed that they were losing, they also strayed from the line of fire of the SA fleet.

For the next half an hour, nothing happened, and Hackett used that time to reorganize the fleet. He placed the frigates ahead in loose groups of 5, followed by destroyers on the flanks and cruisers in the center, mixing SDF ships and fleet ships. It was possible only thanks to combined exercises of SA and SDF fleets. The Batarians, on the other hand, made an attempt to attack and set off all they had right on the ships of the Humans.

Two groups on either side, each led by a dreadnought, quickly engaged the frigate line, which quickly began to retreat while still causing casualties to the Batarian fleet, which had received severe damage from energy and missile weaponry. In fact, the SA frigates retreated so quickly that the commander of the 13th fleet start thinking, that this is a trap and ordered his fleet to slow down, while the 25th continued at full speed. Hackett, seeing this, ordered the artillery cruisers to concentrate fire on the 25th fleet, and the rest of the ships to assume the Crane formation.

Developed by one of the greatest admirals in history, Admiral Yi Sun-sin, it was deployed again by Admiral Hackett in space combat. The cruiser, being the 'beak' of the bird, drove a wedge into the Hegemony fleets, the destroyers as part of the 'wings' lined up against the Hegemony fleets, while the ends of the 'wings' were frigates, that start flanking the Hegemony fleets.

Seeing the hopeless situation in which the 25th fleet found itself, and how humans were encircling them, the commander of the 13th fleet ordered a retreat. As the 13th fleet slowed down before attacking SA forces, they managed to slip away and headed towards the relay. Hackett sent the frigates from his 'wing' after them to increase the losses of the Hegemony but ordered the destroyers to complete the lap, which allowed him to concentrate his forces on finishing the 25th fleet. In combat, his dreadnought stepped forward from the beak and now fly into the center of the Hegemony fleet, aiming at the Batarian dreadnought. While the Hegemony dreadnought was 50% larger than the Alliance counterpart, this was mainly due to needing as it was the only way for its main armament to match other dreadnoughts.

As the battle raged around and the 13th fleet continued its retreat, the two dreadnoughts reached the Broadside Exchange at a distance of only 10 km.

The Batarian dreadnought seemed to have the upper hand, putting 90 guns out of 83 human dreadnought guns on the starboard. But as it happens, the devil is in the details. The Batarian Ship had already suffered damage before, and while many of its MassEffect guns were larger than the human MassEffect guns, the 5 large Shock Cannons gave Kilimanjaro a huge advantage. As the MassEffect gunmen began to bounce off the shields of both ships, the Shock Cannons, although their power dropped through the kinetic barriers, continued to burn large holes in the Batarian dreadnought. At one point, the Shock Cannons had to destroy the kinetic barrier generator, as these failed, and suddenly dozens of hits from MassEffect guns, instead of bouncing off the barrier, began to punch dozens of holes in the ship's armor. A few seconds later, both ships completely crossed themselves, and they could no longer fire at each other. Although Kilimanjaro's shields dropped significantly, he didn't get a single hit, while the right side of Batarian's dreadnought was completely devastated.

Upon completion of the exchange, Hackett received a message from the 25th Fleet Commander, Admiral Pragar Grom'gaposa, proposing unconditional surrender. Hackett saw that the Batarian ships were ceasing fire and ordered his fleet to do the same, after which boarding operations began. A few minutes later he received a message from the forces he sent in pursuit of the 13th Hegemony Fleet, informing him that she was fleeing and of the casualties inflicted.

Overall, the battle was a great success for the System Alliance forces. They successfully annihilated one fleet and inflicted heavy losses on the other, losing only a few ships themselves. In total, they lost 15 ships and 20 more damaged compared to the 100 destroyed, 33 captured, and 27 damaged Hegemony ships.

= place: Gaf'poba system, November 16, 2179 =

The 6th System Alliance fleet, another fleet with second category ships attacked the 4th Hegemony fleet in this system. The first things humans saw on the nesters were fighters and Batarian corvettes rushing on them. The human admiral ordered all interceptors to be fired immediately to counter the Batarian fighters and corvettes while keeping the bombers in reserve. Since Batarian Admiral knew about the range of the energy weapons, he ordered to maintain a distance of 15,000 km from the human fleet.

After a few minutes of artillery fire from MassEffect cannons, both sides lost 3 ships and a few more damaged. However, human fighters managed to gain a space advantage, which made it possible to send the bombers without any resistance. Whether it was by underestimating SA energy shields or overestimating GARDIAN systems, Batarian Admiral noticed the destruction of his fighter squadrons only after SA bombers began attacking with Javelin torpedoes and plasma warhead missiles.

And that was too late. The Batarians tried to tighten their formation so as not to be picked up individually by bomber attacks, but then the SA fleet also launched an attack. The admiral ordered a swift retreat of his forces, putting the battle and the system into the hands of the SA.

Overall, it was the smallest battle of Operation Phoenix. The SA lost only 5 ships and 11 more were damaged, while the Batarians lost 31 ships, and 26 more were damaged. It should be noted, however, that the 4th Batarian Fleet was supported by 30 pirate ships, half of which were corvettes that were destroyed by fighters, so the 4th Fleet itself was still relatively intact and posed a threat.

= place: Beggahan system, November 16, 2179 =

The 7th fleet, which consisted of third category ships, along with 30 SDF ships entered the system and quickly established the position of the Batarian fleet. This one was smaller than command assumed, with only 160 warships scattered throughout the system. Above the 2nd planet that could support life, there was a group of 30 defense platforms and a little over 60 ships, but all of them were inactive. Additionally, they tracked down some 40 corvettes, but these were too small to pose any threat.

As soon as the human admiral was aware of the situation, he ordered half of the fighters to take off, a total of 120 from the SDF escort carrier and 200 from the third category carrier. As soon as they were in the air, or rather space, he ordered them to attack the isolated Hegemony ships in the system while the fleet took a straight course straight for the planet. The commander of the 18th Hegemony fleet reacted quite slowly, and by the time his fighters moved to intercept the SA fighters, they had already destroyed 30 ships. When they got into combat, they turned out to be much weaker than their human counterparts and suffered losses three times greater than SA fighters, although they managed to save a few ships.

Ultimately, only 130 warships and corvettes managed to regroup over the planet with many ships destroyed, disabled or escaped from combat to the nearest relay.

After the first wave of attacks wiped out a third of the Hegemony ships from the system, the Admiral of the 7th Fleet ordered his fleet to the position behind the moon, sending the second half of the fighters out and taking the first one for retooling. The human commander ordered a simultaneous attack by fighters and warships, which could be calculated down to the second with the help of AI, and this allowed to catch the entire Hegemon fleet in check.

If the Hegemonni Commander orders a loose formation, the fighters can deal massive damage by focusing fire on individual ships. On the other hand, keeping the fleet in a compact formation allowed for much better fire from GARDIAN systems, but exposed itself to greater damage from SA warships. In addition, thanks to the use of mainly AI-guided missiles, the fighters could easily launch their payload from a safe distance.

Eventually, the commander of the Hegemony forces decided to loosen the formation.

Seeing the choice of the Hegemony commander, Admiral Alliance decided to slow down his approach, giving the fighters more time to weaken the Hegemony fleet first. Indeed, many Hegemony ships fell after the entire squadron had concentrated all fire on one target. However, the platforms had the worst, as they didn't have an extensive GARDIAN system, they quickly fell. The Hegemony Fleet tried to counterattack by firing MassEffect guns at a distant SA fleet, but this wasn't particularly effective.

The commander of the 18th Hegemony fleet decided, after seeing the losses he received compared to the minuscule losses of the SA, to order surrender. Not everyone obeyed his orders and a group of 20 Hegemony ships tried to charge the SA but were quickly wiped out by energy and missile weapons, in exchange for 2 SA ships destroyed and 4 more damaged. Another group of 32 ships tried to escape, but the previously re-armed fighters were quickly launched and most of the ships of this group were destroyed as well.

Ultimately, the SA fleet lost 8 ships destroyed and 10 more damaged, and about 30% of fighters and 15% of pilots. This is almost nothing compared to the losses of the Hegemony, which amounted to almost all ships in the system being destroyed or taken over by the SA, including all previously unactivated ships. Only 43 managed to withdraw.

About an hour later, a convoy of 600 transport ships arrived with 70 escort ships, and troops quickly landed on the planet. Some local Hegemony commanders surrendered, others tried to fight. Despite having more than 5 million soldiers on the surface, the vast majority of the population above a billion were low-caste or even slaves who not only didn't help the Hegemon troops but sometimes even actively interfered with them. Additionally, most of the Hegemony commanders were convinced of their superiority, while the troops were rather poorly equipped and trained, serving mainly to ensure that the slaves didn't even think of killing their master. This, coupled with the continuous raids on the supply lines by fighters and the bombardment of larger assemblies of orbit forces, resulted in all the Hegemony troops that decided to fight to be killed or surrender in just one week.

= place: Dopmaba system, November 16, 2179 =

160 SA ships belonging to the 9th Fleet and SDF entered the system. The 9th consisted of Second Category ships with carrier and dreadnought. Opposite her was the 8th Hegemony Fleet, which was terribly unprepared but with a dozen defensive platforms above Garden world.

The admiral of the 9th Fleet ordered the first wave of 300 fighters to take off and launch an attack on defense platforms. Since it was the middle world of the Hegemony, the platforms had a decent GARDIAN system that managed to destroy some 50 fighters and damage many others, but the fighter missiles destroyed most of the defense platforms. At the same time, it was known that the Hegemony commander would quickly send for reinforcements, so time was not on the SA's side. Fortunately, prior recognition of the Stealth Fregat and information obtained from many other sources, mostly from the Geths, made it possible to calculate the most likely location from which reinforcements would arrive. Therefore, the admiral of the 9th Fleet ordered the SDF, which accounted for a third of her current number, to take a position around this relay.

Meanwhile, the 8th Hegemony fleet, thanks to the fact that the fighters focused on the platforms, could almost ungainly gather over the planet whose orbital cannons on the surface had not yet been touched and could inflict heavy losses on SA forces. In addition, there was a large number of corvettes in the system, which gave him a total of 150 ships.

Not wanting to hit the planet, the commander of the 9th fleet ordered the appropriate position and the start of an artillery duel, while ordering the second wave of fighters to start and send them around the planet to the rear of the Hegemony forces. In artillery combat, he kept an extreme distance of 30,000 km, which meant that only the energy shields/kinetic barriers on both sides fell a bit, but the ships weren't destroyed or damaged. However, it did succeed in driving Hegemony attention, and when a force of 300 SA fighters attacked from the rear, it was extremely effective.

SA pilots spared no ammunition and immediately fired their entire load to increase the effect.

The effect was devastating, eliminating a large chunk of the Hegemony fleet. The commander of the 8th fleet panicked and ordered a retreat to the relay. But just when it was thought that an easy victory had been achieved, the reinforcements of the Hegemony arrived.

2 dreadnoughts, 30 cruisers, and 75 frigates. But the real problem was that they came from a different relay than expected. And while the destroyed Hegemony fleet fled to the relay that was guarded by SDF, the newly arrived Hegemony fleet also decided to move to that relay, but with the help of a short FTL jump. This managed to catch the SDF unprepared as they planned to crossfire and split into two groups if the fleet arrived via this relay. Now that put them in the perfect position to be shattered piece by piece. The commander of the SDF group ordered a quick retreat but suffered heavy losses anyway, and the newly duplicated Batarian fleet, having been so successful, gathered their 160 operational ships and launched their spindle formation charges on the main part of the 9th fleet.

The Admiral of the 9th Fleet responded by lining up his fleet in a circle formation against the Hegemony's fleet. When the initial attack of the Hegemony destroyed 3 ships, the rest of the center began to retreat while the flanks began to spread at a greater distance from each other. Seeing the SA ships retreating, the Batarian commander again failed to notice that he was leading the fleet perfectly through the frigate and destroyer wheel as it was on dreadnoughts, aircraft carriers and cruisers.

By the time he realized it, it was too late and the Human ships began to burn holes in the hulls of the Batarian ships with their energy weapons. The Batarian commander ordered an immediate retreat, while SA cruisers began their charge, and the flanks began to draw closer. After a brief chase, the Hegemony ships started through the relay.

In the space battle, the SA lost a total of 33 ships and 20 more damage. In contrast, the Batarians lost 90 ships destroyed, 22 captured and 43 damaged, and the system. This made the battle in the Dopmaba system another victory for the SA.

Shortly thereafter, more than 1,400 transport ships passed through the relay with only 90 escort ships. Unfortunately, the ground commander here was much more stubborn than in Beggahan, which made the conquest of this planet, which had far more populations and soldiers, more difficult. But in the end, it only took 3 weeks to completely take the planet, although many more SA divisions had to come.

= place: Torfan, November 16, 2179 =

The 8th fleet entered the entire lineup via the relay, and quickly start moving away from it. 110 Third Category ships and 250 SDF ships entered and immediately began firing at any pirate ships in range as scanners identified more pirate and hegemony ships. The admiral immediately ordered all first wave fighters to take off, which consisted of 1,440 fighters and bombers of various classes. Thanks to the AI, it was possible to flawlessly coordinate this huge wave of attack and allocate it to the appropriate targets. SDF fighters were divided into 70 groups of 12 each and quickly dispatched to destroy all pirate ships and Hegemons away from the main ship grouping on Torfan, while 600 fighters from the main fleet went to attack the main ship grouping around Torfan.

The first wave massacred the pirates and the Hegemony fleet, catching them completely unprepared, thanks in large part to the Rayonrs Raiders who launched a disinformation campaign on Torfan. Many pirate ships were caught and hit by plasma warhead missiles and Javelin Torpedo, destroying them or excluding them from combat. The second number decided to flee to the nearest relay or the vicinity of the Torfan. The Navy fighters did a little worse. This was largely due to the large cluster of ships leading to the overlapping of the GARDIAN systems. But not all grouped ships were able to activate their point defense network in time, which led to a defensive gap through which fighter missiles hit multiple ships.

After the first wave of attacks ended and the fighters began returning to the carriers, the admiral of the 8th Fleet ordered a second wave attack, again 1,440 fighters and bombers to attack the fleet around Torfan. However, the Pirate/Hegemony forces managed to assemble 540 combat-ready ships and prepared to attack the SA fleet in an attempt to overwhelm it with their numerical superiority.

To slow down their attack and to take advantage of the much weaker coordination of Hegemony and pirate ships, the SA commander ordered the deployment of 90 frigates and 30 destroyers in 30 groups of 3 frigates and a destroyer each to harass the enemy group of ships with hit-and-run attacks. At the same time, he ordered to prepare a short FTL jump in case the pirate/Hegemony forces got too close.

As expected, the attacks of the deployed groups, although costing a dozen or so ships, proved extremely effective against the mob of ships, either destroying them or dragging them away from the main group, allowing them to be destroyed by fighters. As the pirate/Hegemony fleet approached the SA main fleet and opened fire, it quickly recoiled from them with previously prepared FTL.

Seeing this and taking more losses from constant hit-and-run attacks, and looking at information on scanners that showed a re-armed first wave of fighters heading to attack their ships, they panicked and began fleeing anywhere but not to System Alliance ships. When the first few ships began to flee, the admiral ordered them not to chase them so that the rest could follow. And in fact, more ships from the fleet began to flee, until finally there weren't even a few ships that wanted to continue the fight. Immediately, the admiral ordered to launch attacks on the broken pirate/hegemony stacks by fighters and securing the relays leading to the System Alliance territories by warships. The chase resulted in the destruction or immobilization of a few dozens of ships.

Then the System Alliance commander ordered the marines to land on Torfan and take it over as a supply base. At the same time, many slaves who saw the defeat of the pirates and the Hegemons over Torfan started an uprising that quickly turned into the mass murder of all former masters. Playing on this fear, the SA Marines managed to capture all the slave hunters and Hegemony soldiers on the planet almost without any problems, additionally taking over the local Ezzo mine and many supply warehouses.

Ultimately, the 8th fleet lost 16% of fighters and 10% of pilots, and 25 ships destroyed and 34 damaged, compared to 245 destroyed, 120 seized and 198 damaged Hegemony and pirate ships, and the loss of Torfan and the release of approximately 200,000 slaves by the SA.

= place: Arcturus station, November 17, 2179 =

Summing up Operation Phoenix as a significant tactical and strategic victory is the correct answer, but unfortunately, as SA commanders note, it was not without its downsides for the armed forces.

Hegemony and cooperating pirates suffered the destruction of over 700 ships, taking over more than 200 ships and damaging almost 350 ships, were compared to 122 destroyed and 125 damaged ships of the SA and SDF fleet.

Despite this, it was not possible to eliminate all fleets at the border. In addition, the 4th fleet, due to heavy losses, especially in heavier ships, was unsuitable for offensive operations. The 5th fleet, after 2 hard battles, and heaving to worry about the 13th Hegemony fleet was also unable to start another offensive action for some time. The 7th and 9th fleets had to stay in the recently seized systems due to the need for support in ground operations. In the end, only the 6th and 8th fleets could start another offensive, but due to the need to secure the systems and distribute forces to protect the newly conquered territories, they would move alone and could be defeated in detiles.

= place: Khar'shan, November 17, 2179 =

The Hegemony commanders were furious at such huge losses and, what is worse, the defeat of such a lesser race. So she ordered an immediate counterattack, but many of their fleets were not ready yet, and pirates and mercenaries were much less inclined to stick their necks to the Hegemony, especially after such losses. Luckily for the Batarians, and unfortunately for everyone else, one admiral suggested an attack through the neutral colonies in the traverse. The reasoning was that they would allow them to bypass the main front lines and attack the SA from the rear without getting into a fight with the Geths. Additionally, it would force the smaller SA forces to stretch even more and would strengthen the morale with easy victories over the small defense forces that these colonies had. At the same time, it would allow them all to be taken over after the victorious war with the Humans.

The plan was approved by the Batarian High Command and 2 Fleets, plus 100 Mothball Fleet ships and as many pirates as they would like to join, but after such a defeat, only 23 ships applied. In total, they gathered some 340 ships. In addition, ships transporting land forces and corvettes for their escort. The attack was scheduled for November 23 of the human calendar.

Most of the Hegemony leadership was so confident of being better than humans that they didn't consider the possibility of a human Mothball Fleet in the Sol system preparing for deployment.

The hegemony believed that the only way humans could build such a fleet so quickly in such a short space of time was to have every military ship they had ever built in active service. If mankind were only taken MassEffect technology, it would be true, but thanks to the technology obtained from a crashed ship on Mars and the size of their ships, and the shipbuilding infrastructure beneath the Earth's surface, built during the Second Inner Planet War, it was a terrible mistake that would cost them dearly.