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Personal account of The Battle For Levo, Part Two, from Telarno Huaskiaa, Antigan Interceptor Pilot, and Jordan Samaos, Captain of the USS Sydney.
TH:
Well, we had been stationed as part of the defensive force over Levo for the last week, with a group of Dylarian warship allies. We were expecting a Terran or Chilezian attack at any moment, and so we were very afraid and sleeping just enough to stay on Red Alert.
JS: We'd just left spacedock over Centauri II, and were forming up on our subspace vectors, making preperations for battle. We were afraid, all right. Downright frightened. We'd heard stories of Antigan bravery and tactics in battle, of how fleets that looked tiny nd battered and basically insignifitant would rise togther as one and totally obliterate an entire force in just moments. WQe were expecting to not return from Levo, really.
TH: So, we sat in orbit and watched as a huge Terran fleet suddenly appeared just a hundred kilcks out from our positions. By the time that we'd launched the last fighters from our bays, they were almost on top of us. It was truely frightening, because the numbers of opposing fighters were huge. Most of the Antigan pilots that I was with at the time spent the first few manuvers dodging around all the incoming warheads launched by the fighters and medium attack craft. Those missles were known to outrun a Terran fighter by exactly twice it's speed, so we knew exactly how long we had before we would be joined in battle. It was truely scary for us, because at the opening movements, there were so many missles flying at you that all of space seemed to glow with a toushand bright points of light that accelerated towards you, and you just feared it and waited for it to end.
The numbers of pilots that died in the first few minutes of combat was simply atrocious. I don't think I'd fought in such a bloody battle untill that day.
JS: We came out of subspace too late. That was the problem, and I think that could be attributed to our heavy losses. Only a hundred klicks from the Antigan and Dylarian warships, we had to form our battle lines and deploy all our fighters while rushing foward at full speed and prepping our missle tubes so that the opposing forces would not be able to seize the initiative from us. It was simply horrific.
TH: So, I got my first Gunboat kill at this battle. After our first few manuvers, it came down to a lot of dodging and flying around and mostly trying to not get shot, while taking targets of oppurtunity as they came. I think that the mix of Dylarian and Antigan fighters coming at them confused them; They were only expecting Antigan warships and fighters to be protecting an Antigan border colony.
Anyway, back to the Gunboat. I had just levelled out and was checking out for possible targets to move at, when a Gunboar and a patrol boat coming blasting at my front. I pull hard relative left to escape, to run almost straight into two more fighters. It was a trap! A trap stolen from our tacticians, no less. Instead of pulling down or relative left like they wanted me to, I dropped right again back onto the path of the first two craft and opened fire, killing one and then the other veered away, not wanting to get caught in the explosion from his partner. The other two were close on my tail now, and my wingman, Wes, came up from relative down and killed them. They'd been so focused on me that they hadn't noticied Wes looping around to get them. Kinda sad, really, that their tunnel vision was so poor.
JS: So, my Frigate was just reaching firing range of the nearest Dylarian warship, the DLS Divergence, a line ship. I'll assume you don't know much about the Mk IV revision of the Terran Frigate, but it's a true jerk to deal with in battle. Four foward-facing swivel proton accelators, and 3 rear facing ones. Two on each flank that swivel to target incoming fighters, in addition to four warhead launchers. The warhead launchers are usually configured with two for missles, since they can hit fighters or small craft effectively, one for heavy fusion torpedos, for attacking larger ships and formations of slower-moving fighters, and a heavy rocket cannon for clearing space and attacking medium to large enemy craft. That's the standard, and that's what we had aboard the Syndey, but that's definitly not the only thing that gets used.
Anyway, we had this silly little line ship trying to hold us back with it's fairly minimal weaponry, and so we totally opened up on it. A pair of missles, the four foward batteries, and the rocket launcher all opened up on it, and we had gutted most of the craft in the first few volleys of fire. It started turning slowly to bring it's remaining craft to bear and fire on us a few times, as we pounded it into nonexistance.
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it comes down to this your kiss your fist and your strain - Nine Inch Nails, "Sin"