Week 4 - The Frightened Fleet at Cepheus

The briefing had been exactly that, brief,
“A Warmonger Cult Fleet has been spotted deep within Fort Lendill space. It appears to be surveying the defenses. The fleet consists of five Banking Guild Heavy Frigates with a crew of Warmonger's Dead Spacers, 250 Bio-Organic Gunpod Starfighters, and ten Mirror Ship Starfighter/bombers. Their command structure is unknown. We believe they have a CO, commanding officer, which we have labeled Captain X. We also believe they have a female XO, or second in command, which we have labeled Leftenant V,” transmitted Seneschal Dalion MacKaye, Captain of the Dreadnaught UOU 211 to his Emissary, Nev 88, and the assembled crew. Then the transmission came in across the uplink. Within 1.25 seconds they knew of the approach of a deadly weapon sent by Prime of Unity himself. Actually it had only taken .05 seconds, the rest had been tactical downloads of the Purifiers projected route.

-CODED WARNING TO THE EEF, FT. LENDIL, TRILAT AND IRON REPUBLIC COMMANDERS-
Warmonger fleet detected. Purification immanent. All allied forces wait for the all-clear before entering this battle space. All-Clear in T-minus 5 minutes.

The Purifier jumped into orbit just within range of the suspected location of the Warmonger Cult fleet. There was an asteroid belt on the edge of Cepheus Gamma 2 and it was obvious from the scans that a fleet was hidden inside.

At one minute in, the interdictor satellite cloud had cut off the enemy fleet’s ability to shadow jump away or communicate to any of their allies. A few Bio Organic Gunpods used their demonic cannons to pelt the side of the Purifier as the systems on the Purifier switched into combat modes. The armor of the purifier was scored and ripped by the Gunpods’ strafing run. Then the bays on all sides of the Purifiers opened revealing the screamer swarms. The Gunpods were quickly surrounded and when the screamers passed through there was nothing left.

Within two minutes of arrival, the Purifier had begun filling the space around the asteroids with hundreds of screamer mekanoids. The swarms of screamers would go after ships, pilots even each other. The majority of the Warmonger Cult fleet was crewed by Dead Spacers. The Screamers bites had little effect on the necromantically altered soldiers, but the Screamers loved the taste of the Bio Organic Gunpods defending the fleet. Their undead pilots were left drifting in the asteroid field.

By three minutes in, the Warmonger Cult fleet was trying to respond to the Purifier’s attack. The Frigates were moving out of positions in the asteroid belt to try and target the Purifier with their Domebusters. Their shots were diverted away by the ship’s reality distorting field, and all missed. The Oblivion matrix targeted the bridge of the lead cult Frigate. It hit and killed off the entire command crew. Unlike the I.R. frigate, the Banking Guild model did not have a backup bridge near the rear of the vessel. So the Frigate drifted into the asteroid belt exploding and its explosion revealed a K’ias Ziggurat Starship, one of the annihilation-based vessels used as command craft by the Warmonger Cult.

A Unity Dreadnaught covered in Chill Shields to prevent assault by the Screamers, jumped to the edge of the asteroid belt, outside the Interdictor network. It kept its speed high, grapple-hooking the Ziggurat as it leapt across the space battle. It wrenched the Zigguarant to a prepared site for assault. The crew of Dead Spacers would have been a challenge for the Unity Praetorians, but their leader surrendered instead. It was the XO of this Warmonger Cult fleet, Leftenant Viv’aye’ahn of Giz’han.

Meanwhile back at the asteroid belt, it had reached five minutes and the Warmonger Cult fleet was broken. The starfighters were all gone. The Frigates were dead in space, their engines and bridges destroyed. The fleet at Cepheus at been destroyed within 4.25771 minutes.

Once the threats of the fleet were destroyed the cloud of interdictors and screamers returned to the Purifier and it jumped away. Its Beacon City escort confirmed its safe shutdown upon arrival at a Unity system. A collective breath of relief was released by all involved in the operation.

When the other faction ships arrived at Cepheus they learned that their prey had already been wiped out by the Purifier. Seeing the devastation wrought by the Purifier, Field Marshall Strykker of the EEF was quoted as saying, “If that massacre had been on nearly any fleet other than the Warmonger Cult, I’d consider it a warcrime.”

The Unity began a respectful but thorough interrogation of Viv’aye’ahn.
What they learned they shared with their allies. Viv’aye’ahn had stolen her CO’s fleet. Apparently the Warmonger had stopped speaking to them. The entire crew had had a crisis of faith. Since she had never met her CO in person, and took her orders by commcrystal, she could not give any details regarding the person who is still being labeled in EEF files as Captain X, until his true identity is discovered.
Viv’aye’ahn had heard that Fort Lendill had given her cousins Mor’aye’ahn and Lil’aye’ahn planets to inhabit. She had hoped asylum would be offered to her as well. She had sent her soldiers to a few different Fort Lendill worlds in an attempt to reach either of the K’ias without alerting the Fort Lendill government. Viv’aye’ahn knew she had failed.

When reports of Viv’aye’ahn’s capture by the Unity spread, Warmonger Cult terrorism went up 20% in Fort Lendill colonies. Could it be the missing cultists? The ones Viv’aye’ahn had sent to find her cousins…

--

All players involved in this mission gain rewards even if they arrived after the Purifier had slaughtered everyone. Good plans all around, even if they didn’t get included in the narration this time.

The Rewards for this mission are (you get all of them)

1- 50 Dead Spacer test subjects (see Space 3 update 1)

2- 100 Dead Spacer Pulse Rifles - demonic artifact weapons

3- Massacre of the Warmonger Cult without a single loss on the allied side
(+20 Morale to all players involved in this mission)



As this battle took place on Fort Lendill Territory and Fort Lendill had a Homebase Advantage, and no one from Fort Lendill came to the battle, all Fort Lendill faction members suffer:
How could we abandon our neighbors? - Received a -20 to Morale