BBC News: Gallic War Crimes Rampage

[Thunderer]

LEEDS SYSTEM - Apparently the Gauls too read our news. Only a few hours after our highly critical report about their spectacular failure to destroy a small freelancer base in Leeds, their fleet appeared right in front of it. It contained at least eight battleships, all of which were very angry. Our lads were outnumbered and they were getting surrounded, but the station's ring of defenses kept the Gauls at bay. The defenders meanwhile harassed them with fire from the inside, which caused damage on all of the enemy ships, sometimes critical, and on all of their morale, completely devastating. They promptly "retreated" again.

Another wave of theirs returned, this time completely made up of bombers. Our Libertonian allies could only afford to send us one carrier, and that was the Gallic Navy's main target. It appeared to suffer from fire control malfunction, so they could not intercept enemy torpedoes with flak fire. They were sadly defenseless while under continuous torpedoing from the Gallic bombers that always kept a safe distance, avoiding any honourable battle by all costs. The carrier was finally disabled, and now the Gauls targeted the HMS Ocean, an obsolete battleship restored into service this year. They only had one functional flak to counter the continuous waves of torpedoes, and their fate was the same. It was when they attacked the HMS Indomitable, a relatively new carrier of ours, that their attacks stopped being effective at all, except at wasting valuable ammunition, as all the Indomitable's systems were working properly.

Unfortunately, the Gallic Navy had a few more sly tricks up their sleeve. They managed to spare some undamaged battlecruisers, which were rather rare after yesterday's defeat of theirs. Their weaponry combined with the bombers' was too much for the Indomitable's countermeasures to handle, but the crew remained on their positions for as long as the ship was able to fire. Their demise left the HMS Elephant, Admiral McIntire's ship, exposed to heavy fire. In fact, almost the heaviest in the whole battle, as the enemy appeared to be very uncomfortable with the Admiral's successes. The fleet commander remained calm, and evacuated the ship after the crew, as he intended to command more battles, and hopefully avenge. His daring escape was covered by our last remaining ship, the HMS Sovereign. By this time the Gallic Navy managed to spare another eight battleships, which, along with the bombers, began to bombard the Sovereign, from a safe distance of course. Or so they thought. But, to their great ordeal, the Sovereign was armed specifically for long range battles and her countermeasure systems were always kept ready. This allowed our lads to not only keep a whole fleet at bay alone for a very long time, but also to damage every battleship of theirs, at least two of which critically. But after three defeats, the Gallic commanders had it enough, and they forced a battleship from their reserve fleet to sacrifice itself for victory, and ram the Sovereign. With their crew likely kept in the dark so their courage would not falter as it tends to, they advanced, through a wall of platform fire and taking repeated hits from the Sovereign, but missed their target. Nevertheless, for our great misfortune, it is reported that just before their forward cannon was disabled, they fired a shot which hit the Sovereign's engine, causing an automatic safety-shutdown of her core, which rendered the ship effectively disabled. Her crew could only watch as the Gallic battleships closed in to the station and violently vented their rage in retaliation for all their failures, on the hopeless, harmless, defenseless tiny structure, until it ceased showing signs of life. All aboard, including civilians -- among them women and children -- are presumed dead. The remaining defenders, no more than two gunboats from Liberty and Crayter, with nothing to lose, charged the attackers valiantly and managed to draw a battlecruiser into the base defense grid, thus destroying it. They too were, however, eventually silenced.

Nevertheless, this "victory", as the Gallic Navy calls it, cost them dearly. It has taken them at least six battlecruisers and no less than nineteen battleships: our lads managed to scupper five battlecruisers and damage one, to destroy three battleships and damage the remaining sixteen, at least five of which critically. It can be said, with a realistic perspective, that if the Gallic Navy wins one battle more, they will lose the war. The courts on New London are already preparing enough seats to trial every Gallic war criminal that falls into their hands after the war.

The Sovereign's last stand

---

---

Bretonian Treaty Database Bretonian Armed Forces Recruitment Center
Bretonian Charter of Interstellar Law Bretonian Secrets Act