Battle of Histirion Part 11: Aftermath

Histirion System: Carnaith Space:


As the APP fleet continued to hammer the allied forces with all the weapons at their disposal the Axiom fleet continued to provide support and heavy fire support. Targetting the large vessels of the CAE and now the Union fleets with barrages of Pions as Majora continued to manipulate space time to increase its rate of fire, scalar bursts used to clear out vast swathes of fire or strike craft as they tried to attack the APP. The Interdiction, normalisation field and other support aspects continuing to act as the anomaly was almost upon them.

That was until suddenly The Blinkers stopped. The interdiction fields and the rest suddenly fell. Pions falling silent as the continued toll of so much processing and operation had caused their internal quantum super computers to finally overheat. Dropping all non essential systems the automatic controls to withdraw immediately took over. Only Majora and the EPA fleet continued to attack. But by then the plan had changed. Powering their massive FTL units the Blinkers engaged emergency protocols. Raxis only now realising what was going on. Tried to warn the Capitol fleet but it was too late.

The 6 Blinkers immediately activated their large AOE FTL systems. Engulfing the majority of the Capitol, EPA and Axiom fleets along with some of the allied strike craft forces already on attack runs with a flash of light. Disappearing completely from the system.

The remaining Capitol vessels around 238 precisely were unaffected, suddenly outnumbered and outgunned confusion reigned but it too was too late. The anomaly engulfed them into its inky blackness. The APP fleet was gone, while the Shadowblade forces remained harassing the enemies flanks the battle was over.

Stillute's grin had quickly turned to a frown the moment the tide had turned. The ships under his command had received a message the core AI had sent out, supporting allies until the majority could jump out before getting out themselves, not without significant losses due to actually getting into the thick of combat with more designated ships for slugging it out. It wasn't exactly an equal exchange, but it really bit them when they realized that the remaining forces after the initial jump weren't generally going to jump out intact.

Back with the tower, with the smoking wreckage of the silent ones vessel crashed outside, Vigil had begun its work.
"System anomaly has been obtained, Lord Jan, Lord Glacian, beginning the relocation in 3...2...-" back at Histrion on the count of one, the anomaly which had enclosed around the system suddenly and yet simply ceased to exist, taking everything within its borders with it, planets, axiom, ships and all, leaving nothing but a void where the system had been, where not even space debris drifted.

Harkon watched the ordeal with wide eyes. First the APP fleet had merely disappeared. Flashes of light denoting the majority of their fleet as they had left the system. He was somewhat unsurprised by that notion however, he knew they couldn't of won here... And while the unknown beetle starships had left the field sooner to, judging by Carnaith reports, attack whatever was causing this... Anomaly. He was surprised to see some APP elements left behind, watching the remaining Capitol vessels get engulfed in the dark expanding sphere. With the remaining Shadowblade vessels breaking off and disengaging. He sighed loudly as the dark sphere merely vanished, leaving nothing behind. To all intents and purposes, Histirion had been won.

The crew cheered around him and he gave out a smile "Well done boys and girls, shame we were too late for the real action this time. We did what we could. Hopefully next stop we can kick some more APP ass" The crew giving a cheer in reply. And as the first casualty reports from the allied fleet started coming in, he grimaced. They may have beaten the APP here... and driven them away... But the losses he was seeing... It had been a somewhat lesser victory.

The A group, exposed to hostile fire for the entire span of the battle, was in shambles. It would be near impossible to tell the difference between signatures of active ships and wreckage if it weren't for energy readings... solaris leaked out of hulls, electricity sparked off of EMACCS weaponry, and radiation from reactors posed a threat to any unprotected craft. Those ships that had stayed intact were regrouping, and working on pressing in on those ships that had been left behind, crippling or destroying any that were too slow to escape before pulling out. Afterwards, the Carnaithian ships all began to tow those ships that were salvageable and regroup around Jaseron's emancipator, Raztae and Selic being moved onboard... Raztae had been injured, and was moved to the medical bay, having to be sedated after he went into a rage hearing the Union personnel cheer on comms after being in the battle for such a short time. It was like this around much of the Carnaithian fleet, a somber scene on every ship, prayers being given by those who were religious and craft being designated as hospital ships after the fighting stopped, very few actually celebrating after the initial pull-out by the APP. Though it had been a pyrrhic victory, if you could call it a victory, the data gleaned from the battle was already being analyzed by CIGO liaisons, likely to be used to increase against APP joint fleet structure.

Among group A, and to a lesser Extent the Tenebrean units and flotillas that had intigrated and augmented into Group B. The Scene was a similar one. Group As units, having put themselves in flanking positions, had taken heavy losses throughout the battle. ships ranging from frigate to aldebaran battleship had been crippled or wrecked by the APP fleet. the remains of sometimes entire or large portions of formations and groups drifting and intermingling with the wreckage of the carnaithian ships, releasing luminous clouds of the Gas-like state of their Versus cores energy.
In total, early estimations by Tenebrean Entities and the logistics crew that intigrated with them at their consols throughout the regrouping fleet units gave back estimations of more then a third of their augmenting forces having been lost in the battle. A rough total of 147 of the 400 ships that had entered the system either destroyed or crippled to the point where self maneuvering was near impossible.  
Supporting formations of the pyramid arrangement, layering their shielding and convering their fire on targets painted by the Deployed drone formations. likewise continued their assault on the remaining APP units as they pulled out before pulling back not long after the carnaithian ships did. maintaining fire on some of the slower ships until the barrage sometimes tore vessels nearly in half

The surviving ships then joined in the beginnings of the recovery efforts. drones moving to seal off crippled ships hulls with spare plating and tow excape shuttles to larger ships and carrier hangers. a carrier centered flotilla moving towards the cmancipator from the rear of the formations to serve as additional centers of operation and to carry what damaged ships they could within thier massive hangers.
Novello had sat down in his chair at the projection monolith as the last of the app units moved out. letting out a sigh and bringing a hand to rub at the sides of his jaw with a thumb and forefinger. the tenebrean gesture of exasperation and waryness. the Tenebrean admiral and the avian-like projection of the ships entity scowling at the sound of the union crews cheering before he reached out to close the comm-link channel. not willing to listen to sounds of celebration at the time.

“Carnaithain command..” he said, opening a link to the carnaithain fleet within the A group. “Whos still in charge?” he asked.

The tone throughout the Tenebrean fleet somewhat mirrored the carnaithain fleets. some crew and some logistics teams cheered within their command centers within their ships. But the majority were somber and silent. Thousands had died, many missing. some speaking prayers of thanks in the codex to the Tenebrean war god for seeing them through the battle and to watch over their lost brothers and their allies on whatever journeys awaited them in the next worlds. the battles victory had been bittersweet.

Likewise. logistics and TMI teams were moving to beam recordings and begin reports of the APP fleets tactics and observed or scanned maneuvers back to the intel centers to build on the profiles of the enemy fleets and their individual tactics, maybe add to profiles of commanders if any could be identified.

As the Tower of Sigal casted it's effect. Sensors across the board temperarly got whited out, save for the Super Tach Telescope that had been monitering the conflict. The fact the DHR elements were the farthest out, still in intercept manuvers in approach. The probability was that very little captial ship losses were perhaps taken. Though, the strike craft count was a bit high, and many were perhaps teleported out before being able to leave the -impact zone-.

---- Sigal Tower Activated. Enemy anomaly, gone. Enemy main force, gone. Calculating allied loss totals. ----

It was then the Super Tach would release it's view of the system, and begin a day long area zeroing process to the next front of importance to aide allied command operations.

The ships would continue moving forward as before never stopping. Though collectively trying to figure out what was going on. Only the captians were briefed on that part of the plan after all. They all kept their mouths shut and ordered area sweep scans.

The Command ship would give the order to charge for a straggler group of ships nearest to allied units. A Re enforce my destination request was then given to allied command, leaving it up to them what they sent in assistance. The SS Bismark would be with the two carrier task forces, and the siege cannon ships all loaded tri nova shells and zeroed in on the target group, and fired. The shells bursting into three RCS capable devices each.

All six Seige cannon ships loaded aswell a full spread of skipshot torpedos each of their two forward tubes. They all fire six times two times six. Every one veering off to a different direction before deploying their naccelles. They glow bright and they blink out of existance, only to re apear near an enemy ship at full speed intending to try and impact detonate with delay fuse.
This however would be amplified as the orion refits would load all four tubes each with six skip shots. Fireing six, times four, times 20. The barrage intending to overlay the same targeted area the siege cannon ships fired at.

--- FTL Jamming has ceased. Hyper Drive is now usable. ---

New waves of fresh starfighters and heavy shuttles deploy from all carriers, and activate their star fighter jump drives to close the distance before combating enemy air units, or large missiles. Of these would aswell include Omni Falcons that sported star fighter / shuttle grade omni arrays that the carnaith refits were sporting.

As the last of the Shadowblade ships took fire from the DHR as they left the system it was clear the battle was at last over. The Allied fleets consolidating to scry wrecks for survivors and pick up any who had managed to get to the escape pods, repair vessels beginning to either get to work or salvage what they could of the wrecks. However the wreckage, albeit most of it, was gone. Caught in the wake of the Vigil system just like the entirety of the system. The massive open space now left by Histirions disappearance was a cold one, and as the allies went about tallying casualties. Histirion finally appeared at its destination.



Pyndar System: Capitol mining system:

Pyndar had never truly been important, an uninhabitable system with 4 worlds, 3 gas giants all tapped for element mining while the fourth world was a ferrous planet, small but covered in rare minerals and metals. This also had a mining contingent on the world, the orbital foundries processing the materials to then ship out of system to be used in the empires war effort. Nobody truly came to Pyndar unless they were stationed here, the systems lonely white dwarf star shone lazily in the sky, leaving all the planets in the system in a continuous pall of pale lit darkness.

That was until the workers looked up into the heavens, and saw something completely different. With a blinding flash of light, Histirion was dumped into the system. The entire Pyndar system instantly felt the effects, eerie green nebula like disturbances ripped through the system, the star now replaced seemingly with a strange glowing purple and pink cube, surrounded by belts of light and orbited by a second star. The White dwarf star merely being engulfed into the anomalies sentient mass. More planets appeared in the system too. Each taking up their original orbits causing the other worlds to react to the gravitational change within hours. Each one being pulled into either a closer orbit of whatever had replaced the star. One of the gas giants collided into the orbit of Histirions second sun, the planet engulfed by the stars raging mass as the workers on the orbital mines tried desperately to escape. Another collision followed suit, the ferrous world soon collided with the Iron seer, both planets cracking from the world breaking impact, scattering debris throughout the system, which would perhaps one day form an asteroid field. The orbits of the other two gas giants were too erratically changed, One became locked to Mlo, the two gas giants dancing together in binary orbits like a world and its moon, ever slowly coming closer to one day collide. While the other Pyndar gas giant was flung out of the system, the planet speeding off into deep space.

Of the people who had inhabited Pyndar, only very few survived. Those that did were subsequently picked up by the 232 Capitol warships that had appeared on the edge of the system, along with a massive cloud of debris from both APP and Allied vessels, however mostly APP. Pyndar was effectively no more and the Histirion anomaly, and Shifting Mirrors herself were now located deep within Capitol territory.

Celefra System: Capital world

“An interesting ploy… This… Vigil system” Inara mused.

“Indeed ma’am, Pyndar was effectively destroyed, and part of the fleet relocated” Came the reply from one of the Grand Commisars.

“What of the rest?”

“Rectoforium my Empress, they were teleported with the rest of the Axiom fleet. They have taken casualties but from our reports the allies came off worse, and took heavy losses. An interesting outcome and turn of events it would seem” He replied.

“Quite. This new system the allies have may prove to be a serious problem… We will have to find out more but It seems that Shifting Mirrors is now with us, quite a defensible position… What of the Shadowblade and Silent One fleets?” Inara asked looking up from her large desk, the room was large and dark. It was night on Celefra and she had been woken for this particular news.

“Shadowblade have managed to retreat from the system, they were not close enough to be brought out with other means. As for the Silent Ones they left the system earlier in the battle and no other communications were received since”

“I see… I can say these results are satisfactory, not quite what I envisioned but definitely workable. Now I want you to contact the heads of state for the following factions immediately” Inara nodded sliding a dataslate across the table.

“A meeting ma’am?”

“Yes, it’s about time we made the APP official, and got some more joiners”



(The final part of the Battle of Histirion, damn that was a good fight, and probably the most awesome battle in Ancerious so far XD done between:

Hope you enjoyed it!)