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

[Majead Farsi]

Nice write up Matt! Thanks

On Sat, 29 May 2021 at 07:13, Matt via SFBdrama <sfbdrama at lists.mattnet.org>
wrote:

> 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.
>
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