Fwurg

[Lady-Fleet Admiral Lythia Nethorius]

Lady-Fleet Admiral Lythia Nethorius was less then pleased by the sudden retreat of the Praetorians. Luckily she was quick to adjust, though a few words unsuited for polite company were uttered. She opened a channel to the Kiyohime no Kiba, contacting her second in command, Lady-Admiral Natsume Kruga.

"Kruga, I'll leave mopping everything up to you." With that Lythia took a back seat to the rest of the battle. That said she would closely monitor the woman. Kruga had show great strategic and tactical awareness during the battle. Though Lythia would never admit it, Krugas awareness had been better then her own. Lythia had overestimated the enemy, Kruga had not. Combined with the fact Kruga was a natural leader, it wasn't hard for Lythia to know which way the wind was blowing.

Lady-Admiral Kruga ordered the ACN First Fleet to split into their standard battle groups. The battle groups each started on their own tasks as part of a mop-up operation.

Several groups set pursuit courses on the fleeing vessels of the Slave Rebelion Fleet. Others started to tear through the vessels still fighting back. A few groups started capturing life-pods and the rest surrounded vessels that had surrendered and ordered them to shut down all their systems, giving them thirty seconds to comply. If they complied they would be given five minutes to abandon ship, before the ACN destroyed the vessels. If they refused they were simply destroyed.

((Combat, round 6: Capture life-pods and destroying remaining vessels of Slave Rebellion Fleet 7
Attack: 6 / 6 / 6 - Standarad Formation
Defence: 5 / 5 / 5 - Standard Formation

• Union Intelligence Report (+1/+1/+1 to attack)
• Offensive Advantage (Collapse enemy flank) (+1/+1/+1 to attack)

))

[Chriz]

((OOC: in the fleet battle rules it is saying: "Battle ends when the threat is neutralized. This can be when all opponents are destroyed or incapacitated, or when they have retreated. Normally, fleets can only retreat through the Disengage/Retreat manoeuvre."

Since the slave rebellion fleet is incapacitated the battle is over.

I know the Praetorians are not great when it comes to the combination of timing and communication. They are just very practical. This is just my style I guess.))

[Mercury]

((OOC: In regards to the combat being over: I was under the impression you deliberately wanted to destroy the Slave Rebellion fleet, rather than merely disable it. Since that requires some additional levels of damage, I did not close the combat.

However, thinking deeper on it, I can see how four weeks of "I continue to fire at the remnant fleet" is not very interesting to roleplay. For that reason, I am going to make the following suggestion:

I have the plans on how the various Union fleets involved will clean up - I'll post how the Slave Rebellion reacts, in the understanding that the Union is now establishing control of the situation. We'll go out of combat mode, and enter roleplay mode. I'll presume the Praetorians have left the situation and the Veolians fleets and the ACA fleet remain.))

[Chriz]

((OOC: Agreed.))

[Veolian Commonwealth]

((OOC: Excellent solution.))

[Mercury]

With the Slave Rebellion Fleet defeated, and the Praetorians withdrawing, the mop-up stage of the operation began.

The Union fleets effectively moved to prevent the enemy vessels from escaping - no more than a hand full managed to make their escape. Those few ships that did were too small and too few to have any significant impact. Without proper registration with the Union, they'd be caught as soon as they'd try to land on a Union world, and Slave Rebellion territory was very, very far away so most likely they'd join with local pirate forces. Them being so few, regular piracy patrol would clean them up and make sure nothing bad could happen.

The larger ships evacuated their crew before self-destructing or were destroyed by Union fire, though many of the smaller ones were captured by the Union fleets intact. Intact was a relative term - most of these ships weren't even legal for civilian use, let alone military use. The fact that they were flying at all, let alone fighting, was nothing short of a testament to the ingenuity of the Slave Rebellion engineers.

Once the threat had been neutralized and everything that was left in terms of ships and lifepods was herded into manageable chunks, the Union started taking prisoners. This was actually a bit of a problem, as there were a lot of them, but with the combined three fleets - and a bit of squeezing - the prisoners were secured in a manner that ensured no uprisings could be effective.

With that, the battle was over.

((OOC: This ends the battle. I believe a story page should be made for the war, rather than this individual battle, perhaps with a paragraph / section on this battle in particular. Do you guys agree this is a good plan?))

[Veolian Commonwealth]

((OOC: I have made a start with a Slave Rebellion Incursion story page.))

[Veolian Commonwealth]

((OOC: Seeing how no one posted or changed the story page for a month, I take it everyone is happy with it.))