Dramatic SFB: General War Operations - Hydran/Jindarian Colony #707

[Matt]

In sector #707 is a planet ripe for colonization. Garden green and full 
of harvestable ores. One which the Hydrans had staked a claim as their 
own. But we of the Colonial Commission had decided it was not to be theirs.

They had caught wind of our mobilization. A Paladin dreadnaught with 
three Hunter firgates and a Buffalo Scout war destroyer were dispatched 
to ensure the Caravan tug could safely deposit the seed to their colony. 
We had merely sent an asteroid cruiser, our asteroid tug, and a 
metal-hulled scout. We should have sent more, but a caravan in poverty 
was the only one nearby.


Both forces had arrived in the environs of the planet nearly 
simultaneously. The entire Hydran fleet stayed in formation until close 
to the planet and then the tug dropped off to swing around the planet to 
perform it's operation unmolested. Meanwhile, the rest of the Hydran 
fleet barrelled in towards the Jindarian caravan so as to get into an 
overrun position soonest.

The Jindarian ships were caught somewhat unprepared, in that both 
asteroids needed to finalize the arming of their big guns. The tug was 
extremely power-starved, so used a tractor beam to keep cohesion with 
the cruiser. The scout intended to stay behind the asteroids, so plotted 
much less than maximum speed. As the range closed to roughly 200 
thousand kilometers, the tug let go of the cruiser and the cruiser 
performed a planned downshift. A squadron of heavy bombers left the 
surface of the cruiser and began keeping pace with the bigger ships. As 
the range continued to dwindle down to moderately-long range, the 
bombers cleared their guns and then "tapped" the opposing scout for 
moderate internal damage - erasing it's forward shield, hitting four 
power, several control spaces, and nothing of particularly importance. 
That ended the first minute of the engagement.


Following that, the Jindarians very quickly slowed to a halt at about 
100 thousand kilometers from the planet. The Hydrans continued a 
headlong plunge towards the waiting Jindarians, hoping to get close 
before the inevitable fire of their huge guns. The Jindarians held their 
fire. Weapons from the Stinger-2s of the dreadnaught barked at the 
cruiser from 60 thousand kilometers, knocking out most of a single armor 
belt. Their target raised shields from reserve power so that the obvious 
follow-up hellbores would instead be focused on a fresh armor belt.

However, the hellbores did not come. As the Hydran force entered 50 
thousand kilometers, the cruiser beamed out a mine in the path of the 
Hydrans. The dreadnaught began recovering stingers and obligingly turned 
aside, hoping to hook around the Jindarian mine and continue to plunge 
into range. Instead, the Jindarians began their strikes.

Targeting a starboard-side shield of the Paladin, she was struck by a 
rail gun and phaser from the tug. The shield held until a bomber 
unloaded it's light rail guns into the same shield a moment later and 
she took a small handful of internals. For the next 5 seconds, she took 
internals after internals after internals from the bombers as she 
struggled to turn around the mine and get the shield out of arc. The 
final blow was a pair of warp rail guns at close range from the 
asteroids. When the dust cleared, the Paladin was uncontrolled and was 
missing half her power, but her heavy weapons were surprisingly intact.

The Hydrans had placed a mine adjacent to the stopped Jindarians. It was 
an obvious target for the dreadnaught to set off, and thus try to knock 
out the entire bomber squadron. The bombers turned their attention from 
the bleeding dreadnaught and began crippling the remaining stingers. The 
Stinger-Hs were able to unload into the cruiser just as they were 
crippled by the bombers, scoring the only internal on the Jindarians for 
the battle.

Then the Hydrans closed to 30 thousand kilometers and it started with 
the dreadnaught again. She was anchored by the cruiser and bereft of her 
reserve power, the dreadnaught was caught. She pushed against the 
cruiser, separating it from the bombers and the tug, setting off the 
Hydran mine with the bulk of the cruiser, and damaging 3 bombers before 
they could empty their tubes and be recovered. However the bombers were 
not dead, despite the mine. They weren't even degraded. They scored 
light hits on an approaching Hunter, missing with 250% more rail guns 
than normal and thus failed to gut the charging frigate.


The battle became a free-for-all at that point. The Hydran frigates got 
to pistol-range to the tug and both asteroids attempted to grab them. 
The cruiser had two ships caught in tractor beams, one being the 
floundering dreadnaught, and the tug attempted but failed to grab 
another frigate. Random phasers lashed out and the Hydrans found a 
hidden mine of the Jindarians. That one had cost the Jindarians a bomber 
and crippled the unrecovered two. The Hydrans had half a squadron on the 
dreadnaught, but all of their specialty fighters were crippled and 
trying to make their death mean something. The frigates were either too 
damaged to hurt anything, or else had their fire control systems to 
fixated on a large dangerous rock to be worthwhile against the fleet's 
real target. The last pair of warp rail guns fired at the base that the 
Hydran tug was carefully and (it thought) safely preparing for 
atmospheric operations. Two rocks went through the base's hull and out 
the other side, making the prefab module largely uninhabitable.


The two sides had transitioned into the closing arguments of the 
conflict. The Jindarian cruiser couldn't arm it's rail guns and hold the 
Paladin, so it let both of it's captive ships go. The Hydran's weapons 
were all empty (as the Jindarian's as well), but the Hydrans had two 
ships that were nearly wrecks while the Jindarians had merely lost half 
their bomber firepower. Rather than give chase to a dreadnaught who's 
command structure had been smeared across the bulkhead, the Jindarian 
decided to shepherd the tug in case the two healthy frigates decided to 
get scrappy. In a couple of minutes, the Jindarian rail guns would be 
re-armed and they would finish turning the Hydran base into a collander. 
One Hydran frigate was a wreck and would not survive to leave the area. 
Once again, the Dreadnaught couldn't be killed outright and had just 
enough power left to get out of reach of the cruiser. The Hydran scout 
was far enough from the fight and lightly damaged, so could leave at 
it's leisure. Two Hunters could leave or not, but they would do so 
against a fleet that had nearly killed a dreadnaught despite their 
support. The Hydrans decided to leave while they still could.


The Jindarian's colononial commission has planted another industrial base.