I smile as i stare out into the void from the bridge of the Retribution, my flagship; this battle will be over soon. The Armali fleet is good, its hit and run strikes did heavy damage to my fleet, but it was found; the core of the Armali fleet, including its Dreadnoughts, were found 13 minutes ago by a Scout Frigate. It will take another 15 minutes until that Frigate's light reaches the fleet, so this strike will be a surprise.
5 Dreadnoughts, and 270 warships go into FTL towards the Armali fleet, the rest of the 13th fleet remained to protect the non-combatant ships and those too damaged to fight. It takes only a moment for the fleet to drop out of FTL only 25,000 km away from the Armali fleet, 15,000 off, not bad; could have been worse. I ordered for the fleet to get to around 10,000 km so my Light Cruisers could engage immediately, but ordered for the pilots to make the VIs go conservative for the drop out time; if we dropped out at close range or, even worse, past them with our ships in the wrong direction, we would have been slaughtered.
Before the Armali fleet can react, my 5 Dreadnoughts and 24 remaining Heavy Cruisers fire. Thud, Thud, Thud, one by one I hear the MACs of my ship fire off; each MAC shooting a 2 ton round at a large fraction of the speed of light once every 2 seconds. At this range, while the Heavy Cruiser rounds are still avoidable with luck, and the Light Cruiser rounds don't even have a chance, the Dreadnought rounds take less than 3 seconds before they reach their targets.
I smile as the Armali fleet turns to face us; just as planned. As all the ships have engage, the Dreadnoughts and Heavy Cruisers firing, the Light Cruisers trying to get into range, and the Frigates and Destroyers trying to close into close range, I say "Order the Dreadnoughts to focus fire on the Light of Armali." my captains dutifully obey and begin to strike the enemy flagship.
The Light of Armali is the only reason this fight between 3 Dreadnoughts and 5 is considered fair. 9 million tons of half milenia old warship; the Armali once held the title of largest Dreadnought in existence. Its thin, 3 kilometer hull hold one of the longest MACs in existence. It is a ship made based on a old Asari Dreadnought design principle; long Dreadnoughts capable of outranging anything, and with thrusters juting out at the sides; capable of moving the ship both forwards and backwards. There was a reason this type of Dreadnought fell out of favor, however; new advances in precision FTL made the usual drift for short range FTL go from hundreds of thousands of kilometers into tens of thousands; making things like I am doing possible. The long Dreadnought designs were incapable of rapid turning; attempting to turn too fast ripping the ships to pieces. because of this, the Dreadnought was still had not brought its guns to bear on my fleet.
Every two seconds 15 Dreadnought rounds are launched toward the Super Dreadnought. It's powerful barriers and rapid evasion due to its engine design and thin silhouette allowing it to last for a long time, but, eventually, it is hit multiple times and is destroyed; the Admiral of the Armali fleet going down with it.
In the time it took to take down the Armali the Tomorrows Bounty and Huntress manage to destroy 2 of my Dreadnoughts; leaving the Glorious and Courageous hulks in space. Alongside them, the fleet has lost 9 Heavy Cruisers and countless smaller ships. Our 194 remaining ships close in on the significantly more diminished Armali fleet; ready to wipe them out until…
"War Game end; priority one message received from the Council; High Admiral Siso Quirinus report for communication." A monotone VI voice says through the ship's speakers.
I sigh, so close to victory, but the Council is more important. The illusions' of combat fade around me: the view screens remove their false data, showing fleets without casualties, the speakers of the ships and our helmets stop fooling the crews into hearing the sounds of war, our simulation suits stop their augmented reality, and falsified physical stimuli.
With the War Game over I head to my office to receive the call.
[I really liked this scene, but my view on fleet compositions and FTL jumps/ tactics changed so I'm going to have to scrape or change this scene, either way this version of the scene is dead ]