Battle of Merdan

The Battle of Merdan was a defensive conflict fought between the forces of Admiral Marik Laras and the bulk of G-Confed forces on the orbit of the G-Confed's temporary homeworld of Merdan.

Background

Admirals Marik Laras and Garl Gaston were a pair of patriotic, hardcore military officers of the Gigerdi Federation's armed forces. After the Secession War and its somewhat unfavorable outcome to the Gigerdi Federation, some officers in the military wished to forcibly remove the Gigerdi Confederation from existence. Kyle Gigerdi had caused much grief and even personal humiliation for the official armed forces, and thus many felt that the only way to remove this little nuisance was to cut it out of the way completely. Admirals Garl Gaston and Marik Laras were probably two of the most prominent supporters of this particular plan.

The admirals formulated a clear two-point plan for the downfall of Kyle's regime. The newly-appointed emperor of their own government, Mad Gigerdi, would also have a part in the plan as a scapegoat and framed warmongerer. The admirals also planned a diversionary attack against the Hemmoians in order to frame their own emperor of their attacks. It did not take long for the admirals with their diverse networks of spies to uncover the new and secret homeworld of the G-Confed located in the small desert planet of Merdan.

The admirals then ordered several battle groups of ships with them under false orders of a training exercise. Laras took command of the fleet bound for Merdan, and Gaston was ordered to perform the diversionary attack against the Hemmoians.

Sneak Attack

Admiral Laras gathered an armada of close to a hundred vessels, and jumped well clear of the planet of Merdan. Laras, however, underestimated the early warning systems and hidden listening posts on the nearby planets - and thus the G-Confed command & control crews in Merdan received word of an armada of vessels slowly approaching the main planet. The sensor operators did not know the identity of the vessels yet, however. The command staff on Merdan immediately made a conclusion: a force of that size couldn't have been friendly - thus an evacuation was ordered to take place immediately. What made the situation worse for the defenders was, that the biggest fleets were away from system under the command of Kyle Gigerdi, who was engaged in hunting down the pirates who had attacked the Mining station A71. It was up to five capital ships and a a few dozen smaller craft to defend and successfully evacuate the G-Confed's temporary homeworld of Merdan in record time.

The G-Confed's two most high-ranked officers in Merdan at the time, Admiral Ewi Karbe and General Quinor Randel took charge of the defence and evacuation. General Randel formed a defensive ring around the large population compound, since a planetary invasion was expected from the enemy. The objective of this ground invasion was to capture as many of the G-Confed's high-ranking officers and Kyle Gigerdi himself, who wasn't on site at the moment, though. Admiral Karbe was tasked with the evacuation and orbital defence of Merdan. The problem was, however, that he had only five starships against about a hundred. The GCS Intrepid, GCS Bannockburn, GCS New Gigerdia, GCS Protector and the GCS Onomastikon were the only ships in orbit at the time. The GCS Hope, a massive population transport and colony ship was also present on the surface of the planet - but it was quickly lifted off to join the five other starships. Admiral Karbe's plan called for all of the six ships to move to the dark side of the third planet's moon. The small fleet could stay in hiding there, and harass the up-coming attacks with their fighters.

As the small G-Confed forces moved to the relative safety of Merdan's moon, Admiral Laras' forces reached the orbit of Merdan. After a short orbital bobmbardment, they initiated a planetary invasion via dropships and troop transports. The defenders on the ground begun their desperate stand in an effort to buy time. The forces of Major Tui Wemash, Laras' ground forces commander, managed to establish a bridgehead into the surface of Merdan.

A Desperate Struggle

The unprepared G-Confed forces fell fairly quickly due to orbital bombardments and the use of long-range artillery and mechanised forces.

Meanwhile the fleet hiding on the dark side of Merdan's moon prepared another plan of defense. Admiral Karbe and his staff knew, that the sun would rise in a matter of hours, and then the invading forces would be able to see their positions. Several transports still needed protection and an escort out of the system, and it fell on Karbe's staff to figure out a way to protect the fleeing transports coming from Merdan's surface and also be able to escape themselves. Karbe gathered all available wing commanders for a mission briefing: all of the fighters would be launched to create a barrier between the fleeing G-Confed vessels and Laras' armada. However, given that Laras and his forces were very close to the surface of Merdan - and thus the moon - casulties could be extensive when the order to flee would be given. Thus the fighters would be launched first to distract Laras' forces, and then move the small fleet along with its transports out of the moon's shadow at full speed.

The fighter screen gathered together, and started to emerge from the other side of the moon. Laras' armada had taken up positions around Merdan's orbit, but they quickly understood the name of the game - and sent over a dozen capital ships to meet the attackers. Soon afterwards a battle erupted between the G-Confed fighter screens and Laras' forces. It did not take long for Laras' forces to understand, however, that they were indeed now fighting official forces from the Gigerdi Confederation. Some captains and commanders in the armada called of their attacks and started to question Laras' orders - but some continued despite it.

The G-Confed's fighter screen fought bravely amidst the growing confusion of the Gigerdi Federation's forces. They even managed to destroy one cruiser, the GFS Shielder. The rest of the G-Confed's capital ships then moved away from the system and managed to warp away completely with the fighter screens. Admiral Laras was furious - not just only because half of his armada had just broken up and openly questioned his orders - but also because he believed that the escaped enemy vessels probably housed Kyle Gigerdi and the rest of the higher ups. Laras ordered an immediate pursuit of the enemy forces based on their warp trails and coordinates.

What Laras did not know, however, was that the G-Confed had sent distress calls to the rest of the their fleets. A priority message had also reached the GCS Lexinton, the carrier which Kyle Gigerdi was currently in command of after pursuing a small group of raiders.

Matters Complicate

Kyle Gigerdi had returned to the Peace Station with the carrier GCS Lexinton after catching the pirates. He was just about to head back to Merdan as he received the distress calls. Naturally the message upset him, and without further knowledge of the current situation, he aggressively confronted Mad Gigerdi, who also served as an ambassador aboard the station.

After rationalizing the situation for awhile, Kyle and Mad understood that a third party of some sort was responsible for the attacks. It did not take long for Mad Gigerdi to understand, that the pair of suspicious admirals from his government - who had also recently visited the Peace Station - had also now illegally taken up arms against the Gigerdi Confederation. Mad Gigerdi was appalled. At that precise moment the Hemmoian ambassador on the station, Klet Otoe, also informed the two Gigerdians of attacks by Gigerdian craft in Hemmoian territories. A diplomatic crisis had begun.

The diplomatic council aboard the Peace Station gathered to an emergency meeting, in which the two Gigerdian delegates were made the centers of attention. As the ambassadors tried to explain the situation to the angry Hemmoian delegate, they also promised to join forces in order to catch the admirals. The Gigerdians then also promised the Hemmoian government freedom to do whatever they wanted to stop the forces of admiral Garl Gaston from wrecking further havoc. The Gigerdians then left the station with a quickly scrambled armada of ships. The armada's destination was the small Hermunda system located in the Alpha Quadrant. It was officially neutral space at the time, and thus the fleeing G-Confed forces figured it as an excellent gathering and regrouping point.

The Turn of The Tide

As Kyle and Mad travelled across space aboard the GCS Lexinton, they were informed of a stray ship from Laras' armada near their route in the Genatha system. Kyle and Mad ordered the Lexinton out of warp immediately, and confronted the vessel, GFS Arxon. Mad convinced the ship to lay down its arms and join the unified armada instead.

Kyle's and Mad's armada reached Hermunda several hours late of schedule. The G-Confed armada from Merdan had already arrived, and thus all knew that Laras wouldn't be too far behind with forces of his own. Mad Gigerdi quickly returned to one of the Gigerdi Federation's cruisers, the GFS Tander, to command the battle in conjuction with Kyle.

As Laras along with his ships arrived, he was immediately welcomed with several salvoes of torpedoes aimed directly at the bridge of his command vessel, the GFS Fosubius. The unified Gigerdian vessels, for some reason, did not even offer Laras' forces a chance of surrender - but blindly opened fire against the first vessels emerging from warp. Fighter squadrons then proceeded to surround Laras' vessels, and then hit the life support-, and weapon systems on the ships. The capital ships of the unified armada completely overwhelmed the vessels on Laras' armada, since they certainly had not anticipated resistance of this magnitude. Laras' command ship, the GFS Fosubius, was quickly destroyed - sending a clear message to the rest of the vessels following him. The rest of the vessels in the armada then proceeded to quickly surrender and lay dow their arms.

Kyle learned later on that the first torpedo hits fired from the unified armada had hit their target precisely: the bridge of the Fosubius had taken a direct hit - killing admiral Laras well before the battle's end. Messages also originated from Hemmoian space about the fate of admiral Gaston's invasion attempts: the Hemmoian counterattack had killed the other insane admiral, and forced the rest of the ships following him to surrender and turn back to GF space.

The Aftermath

The Gigerdi Confederation was quite probably the greatest sufferer from this conflict: they had lost a small amount of their personnel, a temporary command world and the initial attack had forced them to pack up their bags and put the bulk of their armadas on the move again. Kyle, however, decided to return to the Peace Station and continue his ambassadorial duties like nothing major had happened. Mad Gigerdi followed suit.

The Hemmoian government, the second target of the attacks, lost something less concrete, however: the trust towards the official Gigerdian government due to the identities of the attackers. This helped the Gigerdi Confederation to further strengthen and reinforce their ties with the Hemmoians - a move which would be instrumental in winning the Timocracy War later on.

The loss of Merdan also led to the discovery of Gigerdii 2 as the new resident control world for the G-Confed shortly after the attacks.