Good Morning, Omicron.

[Nika]

20.02.827 A.S. 23:39 SST

Being temporarily reassigned from training new recruits at ██████, I had been given the job of organising a search party and given a larger support base than this type of mission would normally entail. Can’t say I miss the frontline, but duty is duty.

Having received the task of finding the ‘lost dreadnought’, I assembled people assigned under my command into three squads: Saber, Shamshir and Scimitar, each assigned a different star system to patrol for any signs of the Liberty ship. Exclusively heavy duty equipment, Anubis fighters and Sekhmet bombers distributed evenly to account for the nature of this target. I was specifically in charge of Phase 1 of the operation. Mission objective: locate and gather more information about Incomparable for larger task force to address mission statement later. Initial search pattern would cover Zeta, Delta and Kappa. Rho was struck down as a possibility due to heavy Core presence in-system, meaning Incomparable would in most likelihood be captured, destroyed or in league with Core.

I studied data provided by the LSF. Crew of the HMS Incomparable would never consent to be sent to Liberty alive, they seemed to have already fought tooth and nail to prevent this from happening in the first place. If they surrender on condition to join with The Order, it will be against our code of conduct to hand over recruits to anyone outside of our own military court. Unconditional surrender is unlikely to be accepted and deemed suspicious. I reminded Admiral Solandros that discontent is to be expected and that I do remember the sedition of 818. I voiced these musings to the Admiralty but their orders were to proceed with the plan for the time being. Normally it would be █████████, ████ or ███████ to deal with anything Liberty hardware related but due to their past ties to Liberty, I decided against risking a potential mutiny and requested specifically Cretan pilots. Here’s hope they will not blabber their mouths after a drink or two. Command begrudgingly agreed to arrange necessary transfers on such a short notice.

Phase 2 would imply more coherent force backed by at least one capital ship to deploy and act based on our intelligence. Complications with the mission were to be expected. Assuming the ship would be found in a timely manner, boarding and taking crew into custody would likely not be accepted. Alternative would be costly forced entry - far too big of a price tag measured in marines lives and that assumes they wouldn’t choose the nuclear option in the end. Command of Phase 2 would be given to another high ranked officer.

Squadron that struck the gold was the Saber team, which this report will focus on entirely.

Deployed from ██████, the Saber team split further into two elements: Foxtrot and Epsilon. Both took different vectors into territories less frequented: deeper asteroid fields, nebulae. Every fugitive would have done the same if they had any knowledge of this part of space. Foxtrot would eventually continue to search above the plane, with the Epsilon wing sweeping below. Fortunately no Core and only minimal Nomad presence had been spotted, which was no match for our heavy fighters initially.

First signs of combat were spotted deep into the nebula, approximately 30 to 40k below the plane by elements of Epsilon. As soon as it became clear that HMS Incomparable was the origin of this incident, all elements would be recalled to home in the position. Only Shamsir arrived sufficiently early to make any impact. The few Nomad bombers were not a threat to our fighter craft and were quickly destroyed, or routed.

The observations on the spot were as follows: HMS Incomparable was in a bad shape. Its escorts - assuming it had any left - were nowhere to be found and are assumed to be missing or lost. Some of the escape pods were already launched and beyond our reach. Comm officer was requested to bring Squadron Leader up to date with damage control. HMS Incomparable lost jump capability, though this could have been made repairable. Commander ██████ immediately transmitted intel back to base. We dispatched small transport that could undertake field repairs, with further fighter escort. Reserves available at my disposal were rapidly shrinking. Any further reinforcement could jeopardise the defence perimeter of ██████. The Nomads focused entirely on removing us from the sector, piling Mind Nodes on us. I recalled transport back home and asked Commander ██████ to re-evaluate the situation. Victory was deemed unattainable. Henceforth I authorised our bombers to abandon risky attack runs and simply scuttle HMS Incomparable and prevent its capture as well as spare its crew a worse fate. Dreadnought was given short notice warning in any case before Nova’s could penetrate the hull. If any further escape pods made it out, they are likely going ‘galactic south’ to Delta. Sekhmets made a dash to ██████, covered by fighters. Nomads gave up pursuit once close to ██████.

Total losses:
1 Anubis lost, pilot ejected and was recovered safely
1 Anubis damaged, deemed salvageable
1 Sekhmet heavily damaged and subsequently scrapped
1 Liberty dreadnought - scuttled

The following morning - Akabatian time - I had been requested to attend a staff meeting with Admiral Solandros, Golanski and Star Warrant Officer ███████ of the would-be repair crew. It was brought to my attention that no Wild ships were detected in the area that day, making capture of the ship unlikely. I argued my case that it could have been held in reserve or Incomparable itself was to be pinned long enough for one to make its way from Delta. Furthermore, whatever was left of fugitives lost their primary means of conducting combat operations. It was decided that my decision to recall engineers was ultimately correct as too many unknowns were in play: Engineers would not be able to complete drive repairs in time and likely would be captured or perish with HMS Incomparable, assuming they would be able to dock with the Dreadnought. Also, with all due respect, Star Warrant Officer ███████ is not a soldier in the traditional sense and would likely be utilised as another poker chip in negotiations with The Order in a miracle scenario where my pilots regained space superiority.

It seems my stay on ██████ is not done yet. In the next day, we will resume with S&R operations, find pieces of the wreckage and if possible: haul wreckage to Order space and consolidate remains for further decommission or transfer to Liberty space - whichever Command will deem fit. Ship is to be believed split into at least two segments, with its wrecked engine section being tagged by a transmitter. If the transmitter survived catastrophic decompression, we should find it easily anywhere within sector 7/8 A/B.

This will be all for today. Colonel ████ signing off.

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Peace, being the distant dream it is, comes inevitably, and goes hand in hand with justice.
Cursed be the war.

Heroes never die! @Vitoniz30 @Connor