Several hundred thoughts flooded Lucerne's mind, their voices clashing in a battle of logic. Corise licked his lips. This is not good. Particularly since I don't know exactly what we're up against. What is a battleship? Ask a freighter captain, and he'll point at a medium cruiser, ask an experienced Admiral, and he'll point at 12 km long Executor-class Star Dreadnaught. And it's worse for battlecruisers. This isn't enough information to make a decision. There's a significant difference between a Trade Federation pocket battleship and a SSD, and a Vengeance-class Battlecruiser and a Kaloth-class Battlecruiser. Compounding this is this is not my turf. I'd rather not lose any more people than I have to, but if this does turn out to wipe out the Iensis, many peoples' lives will be so much better off, and that will be good for the Confederation despite the loss of life. And so it is a matter of weighing the two against each other based on more specific information. The Kashan man hesitated.

"Do you have any specifics on the Iensis forces coming? Such as the classes of their warships?"

Lavality lowered the mic on her headset and accessed the base's main computer system via a wireless link. As she downloaded the data she began to see stuff that she had assumed she'd never see before.

"Rear Admiral; according to their base's computer.. they have two of our old Iteron class battleships," she said and accessed the old RnD files on the Iteron and transmitted them. "The Iteron is basically a floating weapons platform, while it's weapons are considered outdated by our standards, it is still very deadly to starfighters and bombers. It lacks the armor and shields of today's ships, and thus it was mothballed due to it being easy to take out.. or rather.. I was 'told' it was mothballed," she scowled and glared at the wall almost as if she could see her bridge officers beyond it. "It was originally created as a means of punching through the pirates large fighter squadrons, but after it was introduced the pirates quickly realized it's weakness."

As Lavality scanned the data she shook her head. "Seem's they also have two Kaloth-class battlecruisers in the fleet, according to the data, they've recently been refitted with improved shield generators. It also seem's they rely more on a large group of lancers for fighter escorts. Seem's most of their fleet consists of old imperial craft," she said and sighed. "For their cruisers they use the Bayonet and Carrack, and for fighters they don't say but I'm assuming imperial as well but for all we know they could be using the ones we saw here," she said and then transmitted that data to the Rear Admiral.

"The Cynax will need at least fifteen more minutes before we can undergo another combat operation; those slugs took out our number one engine but we can operate on the other five," Lavality said and turned in her chair. "I plan on assaulting this fleet Rear Admiral, I can use the MAC guns on this ship to level most of their lancers, this will give you an opening for your starfighters," she said. "However, that's my plan, if you have one of your own I'm all ears," she said and awaited his response.

Corise waved his hand in the air in a gesture of indifference.

"The Lancers do not trouble me; they will find that is particularly hard to kill what they cannot effectively target, and moreover, my starfighters are quite capable of destroying a troublesome Lancer, or simply avoiding via the virtue of superior speed and maneuverability.

No, Grand-Admiral, what troubles me is what I do not know, what I have not experienced: the Iteron battleships. Large weapons, when they are not on our side, serve as the enemy's most potent weapons, not only in terms of destructive force, but in terms of morale. A large, heavily armed ship inspires confidence on its possessors' side, and fear in its enemies. This, along with the fact that it seems most logical that the Iensis admiral will be onboard the battleship, leads me to suggest that we designate the battleships as our tertiary targets-"

He felt a quick tap on his shoulder. Frowning, he turned about to face a black-suited lieutenant, who in turn handed him a datapad. Lieutenant Minmatar knows better than to interrupt like this when the call is important. He glanced at the datapad's contents. The Ark Royal is inbound? That will be Godsend. I guess that's important enough for me. He set the datapad down on his armrest.

"My apologies, Grand Admiral," stated the Kashan man, "but I have just recieved news that one of my fleet carriers will be arriving within a matter of minutes. I think it's presence will be enough to significantly bolster our starfighter presence to possibly influence our plans. We may well want to have our main ships destroy the Lancers in our first attack while our starfighters engage theirs, and the Hellhound and Royal's assault wing will each target one of the Iterons. From what I understand, I doubt the Iterons will have much luck stopping strafing and torpedo runs on their own..."

"Good plan Admiral," Lavality said. Her attention suddenly shifted slightly when her display came online and a message appeared. She read the message and then smiled, she was glad to get word of the new Korleon's MK 2's being sent to the front lines. They'll be arriving via hyperdrive ringsm which means they should be jumping into this area soon, she thought with a faint grin.

"We still have some time Admiral to prepare our forces; we know the general direction that the pirate fleet is coming come. I'll send some of my units ahead to start setting up the ambush," she said and glanced out the window. Beyond it she barely saw the shimering effect given off by one of her shadow corvette's as it passed slowly by the command ship.

The blonde-haired man sagely nodded.

"Naturally," concurred Corise, "and positioning can be key to many battles, especially when utilizing the surroundings to our advantage. But we are in a unique situation here in an asteriod belt. The terrain is chaotic, no set positions can be maintained without chance that a rock will smash into our ships. A weapon that targets both friend and foe alike. Because of this hostility, I've already taken the liberty of moving my thinner-skinned vessels out of the belt. I think, that this is going to be a slugfest."

Lucerne noticed a bright flash of light blossom through the upper left viewpoint. As the radiance faded, a stark white hull plowed through the space. The Ark Royal. He squinted his eyes. Did he already deploy his fighters? Can't be. That would be quite the fatigue, and stealth fighters are rather difficult to see, especially from this distance. The Rear-Admiral shook the thought away, eying the waiting holo of the Serendivius admiral.

"It would appear that the Ark Royal has arrived on time," noted the Kashan man, glancing at his chrono, "and if you want to make any positioning movements, we had better move them soon. According to my chrono, we have 5 minutes until the pirates arrive."

Several kilometers from the asteriod belt eight ships appeared out of hyperspace; moving on a parrralel course to the asteriod belt. As they slowed down their hyperspace rings jettisoned from their hull, moving slowly backwards toward where their jump in point had been.

The might Korleon MK 2's used their forward momemtum to move toward the asteriod belt; when they were just a short distance from the nearest asteriod their reverse thrusters engaged to stop the ship.

Near each of the Korleon's, a shadow class vessel remained cloaked and ran continious scans of the area. The on board sensor officers pegged Conferate ships as allies, while the asteriods were marked as potential hazards, but also as useful decoys.

On her flagship Lavality smiled. "Seem's my own reinforcements have arrived," she said to Corise. Had hands danced across a keyboard as she sent movement orders to all her captains.

A short distance from the Confederate fleet, around where Lavality was estimating the pirate fleet would jump in, her Crescent class ships were lining their MAC's for an accurate angle on any ship that happened to jump in, while remaining cloaked to hide their positions, but also being out of the line of fire of the Confederate ships.

Not far from the Crescents, three shadow class corvette's took up a position just above the Crescents, then sent predicted targetting coordinates to the Korleon Mk 2's, which were being moved to an asteriod that was mostly above the asteriod belt.

As the capital ships moved into position, her Reten cloaked fighters also took their own positions within the asteriod belt. "I'm sending you a system map of where my ships will be positioned, this is just in case any of them are in your line of fire," she said as she transfered the data to the admiral.

She glanced out the window; the stars began to roll by as her flagship did an about face, aiming all it's MAC gun's toward where the general direction that the pirates were inbound from.

The Revanche indomitably floated amongst the tumultuous rocks of the asteriod belt. Occasionally, a bright, emerald flare would errupt from the battelship's blisters to incinerate a wayward asteriod intent on crashing into the flagship. Across the belt, other thicker-skinned Confederation warships fanned out from the Revanche to form an asymmetric, but stout, line. Just out of the belt lay the Ark Royal and the other lightly armored vessels of the fleet, such as the captured gunships. Various Contegorian starfighters soared across the belt, continually twisting and banking about to navigate through the dense field of rocks.

On the bridge of the Revanche, on every other Confederate vessel, crewmen silently manned their stations, frequently glancing at their chronos; awaiting the impending return of the pirates. Fastidious servicemen ran diagnostics of their stations, or in the case of the gunners, their weapon. the nervous conscience of men before battle. Making a quick tour of the areas immediately around the Revanche's CIC, Rear-Admiral Lucerne felt that his men, though anxious, were adequately prepared for anything the Iensis could throw at them. He finally settled into his command chair as the first of the pirate ships arrived in-system. The bridge burst into a flurry of activity as Confederates exchanged information and orders.

"I have eight unknown tracks from Fire Control Sector Three, probably Iensis..."

"Sir, Tachyon crewmembers have acknowledged, and are preparing to fire on the Iteron battleships..."

"No, no, no, no, I said Red Group, not Green group, right..."

A concerto of war; hidden underneath the chaotic melody, the experienced listener heard the ordered beats of disciplined men, of weapons firing, of ships recieving, of heroism, of tradegy. It was a song that many an officer had become accustomed to over the millenia, some more than others, but Corise knew one thing: it was a song he had too often listened to.

A whirl reverberated through the Korleon's hull as their reactors came online; the firing chambers heated up, and finally eight pin points of light appeared in space around an asteriod. As the light's dimmed, eight shiny cylinders appeared in space, their trajectory away from the Korleons.

Space was quiet; no one could hear the eight anti-capital ship based hardened steel rounds each equiped with a small emp detonator. Suddenly two of the rounds penetrated a pirate frigate, punching it's hull. Second's later the frigate's reactor blossumed as one of the projectiles peirced the reactor core, causing it to explode.

Fire's rippled across the frigate before a massive bang sent peices of the ship outward; debris crashed against the shields of nighboring ships.

Two more frigate's exploded as their reactors were also hit by the Serendivus's opening shot. The remaining four projectiles curved slightly, as if guided by an unseen hand, before promptly impacting against one of the Iteron's engine cores: resulting in it is lossing engine power and drifting, it began to lag behind it's cousin as it's engines flared several times, it's navigator attempting to regain control.

Ahead of the pirate fleet, the Crescent frigates also fired their own MAC guns, but these weren't equiped with anti-capital based projectiles, but instead they fired a shell with several sonic mines encased inside. As the shell made it's journey toward the pirate fleet, enemy fighters spewed forth from two carriers, making a bee-line toward the firing location of the first wave of projectiles.

Suddenly several bangs occuried in space; sonic waves rippled as their parents shell's exploded outward, sending the sonic mines in various directions before exploding in a blanket that destroyed almost every pirate fighter.

The Crescents came about and started toward the asteriod belt. For Lavality, she was impressed, her men had performed as expected, but she knew the battle was far from over.

Luminous beams converged to slam into the Iteron-class Battleship. The piratical ship's shields flared brightly from dark red to blinding white. Under attack from the high-powered tachyon cannons off the Revanche, the Iensis flagship started to roll, presenting its undamaged shields to bow of the Confederation flagship. A cascade of emerald and sapphire bolts slammed into the Iteron as the Revanche edged close enough to enter standard weapons firing range. On either side of the Star Defender, two Nebula-class Star Destroyers orientated their bows towards the Iensis ship. Seconds later, each Confederate Nebula was pouring in more emerald fire. Again, pirate ship's shields brightly flared under the intense fire. Sparks flared across the entire length of the Iteron. Gouts of fire errupted from the pirate ship as turbolaser fire penetrated through the armor.

Across the asteriod belt, Confederate and Serendivius fought the pirate forces in a fierce battle, with the allied forces driving back or destroying hte pirate ship. Superior technology, superior training, superior discipline was winning the day for the lightside. Wings of stealth fighters, both Serendivius and Confederate, harried the bewildered pirates to defeat.

The battle began to draw to a close; pirate frigates and cruisers hung lazily in space, their hulls broken and battered.

Projectiles flew through space, bisecting one of only three remaining pirate ships. The carrier shuddered as the shell exited through the back of the ship, silencing it's engines and severing vital power systems, the carrier listed to port before it's running lights flared, then died out.

The last pirate carrier came to a stop before sending out a 'we surrender' communique to both the Confederate and Serendivus fleets. The carrier's running lights dimmed, it's weapons went offline and it's shields flared before disappearing, showing that the captain meant what he said.

In the asteriod belt; Seredivus and Confederate fighters dove and over asteriods, pirates following them in a vain attempt to take out their targets. However, the superior flying of the Confed and Seren fighters made any pirates who attempted to match their skill only crash into an asteriod.

After minutes of fighting within the asteriod field the last pirate fighter was destroyed; all that remained were their corvettes that had begun to shut down and emite a 'surrender' signal.

The Iensis Flagship was aflame, fire poured out of almost every section of the ship. It's weapons disabled, it's engines dead, it's shield generator destroyed. The ship was slowly being torn apart due to the damage it had sustained.

Lavality watched as the last remaining Iteron was pummeled by her ships MAC guns, shearing it in path right down the middle and exposing the interior to vacuum. "Order our ships to cease fire," she said to her communications officer who nodded and relayed the orders.

"Send a message to the Confederate flagship, inform them that we are holding fire on the pirate flagship. The leader of the Iensis is their's to take into custody," Lavality said, folding her arms over her chest. Her communications officer nodded before relaying the message.