Notes:

* This story is being done in segments over time on spacebattles . com (under same name) so what's gonna happen is I'll be doing segments over there and then the full chapter here when I finish it.

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The Rise and Fall of the Rihannsu Star Empire

[Selok N'tarra] [2246] [Confederate Educational Directorate]

[Rator III] [Confederacy of Planets]

...as such by the 2nd battle of Kundal Itar the Imperial Fleet had been forced into a defensive and reactive stance against the Federation's newly formed Starfleet. And while the Rihannsu Imperial forces still retained significant portions of their gains from their initial pushes under the D'deredix Offensive it had become evident that these remaining holdings were of limited strategic benefit. Most were smaller Orion clan colonies and these did little to decrease the upsurge in slaver attacks on fringe Imperial colonies brought upon by the attack on the slave holding species. Indeed what was worse at this stage was that the initial success of the offensive had been sufficient to scare the divided and factional Orions to unite under one banner for the first time in centuries, uniting behind the dreaded Federation Warlord Archer and his increasingly victorious and feared fleet.

Unsurprisingly, and unfortunately, the nature of internal imperial politics and factionalism proved to be detrimental to the formation of a disciplined and logical response to these military reversals. When D'deredix had failed in his great offensive he suffered a fatal 'accident' along with several of his primary supporters in the following cycle. And this was repeated with his initial successor of House s'Meihan and his cabal did even last one standard solar cycle as the constant string of defeats suffered lead to their rapid demise, most likely at the hands of the Tal Shiar owing to his successor's known links to that Order. Of course owing to this ascension to power just prior 2nd Kundal Itar, and the subsequent defeat and retreat there, Melloc of House s'Lhoell and his supporters pressed for the Imperial fleet to launch fresh offensives to help firm up their rise to power by a series of swift victories. Indeed to achieve they brought forward a secret weapon developed by the Tal Shiar and enhanced by information taken from the Vulkhansu Intelligence and Military Directorates on its former allies, now enemies, system security.

In truth this was to be a flawed strategy, as was expressed with muted concern by several in the Imperial Fleet such as Admiral Valdore, and from Admiral T'Vron himself. Primarily due to it utilising what was a significant strategic asset in a short term tactical manner, at a time when the Empire would be unable to capitalise with any significant success due to lacking a sufficient strategic reserve to do so. It was argued by several with the military that such a reserve would be available once the new starship construction above Romulus and Remus, as well as the restarted Vulkansu builds, would be available and that it was better to absorb the Federation offensives. Which were primarily of Human, Orion and Andorian construction, and were as they knew likely to be completely unaffected by the Raptor's Wings device, and once these attacks had been defeated the fleet could return on the offensive and crush the Starfleet reserve forces before they had time adjust to their intrusion. Of course this course of action would have been very unpalatable to the Rihannsu population itself, and more importantly to the larger Houses in the Senate as they would have to suffer further slaver attacks as well as the Starfleet 'Predator' system raids from the feared Omega squads.

Due to these factors then the Imperial Fleet began to re-orientate and prepare for a major offensive again with what forces could be raised from the reserves in the interior of the empire and from the frontier with the Klingon Empire. Indeed several of the small fleets of the largest Imperial Houses as well as that of the Tal Shiar itself were committed to the planned offensive as a measure that was hoped would be sufficient to tilt the balance towards a war winning victory. Another factor behind this involvement was the allure of being allocated the conquered territory of the campaign, which was seen as a method to expand these Houses power within the Imperial Senate in the future when the nascent Federation was supposed to be overcome. Considering the primary objectives of the offensive included the highly industrialised systems of Tellar and Coridan the underlying appeal of this is easily understood. From a military point of view it was deemed that a direct assault on the most powerful of the former Coalition of Planets worlds would cause a significant portion of the other species to either sue for peace or leave the Federation in fear. And from this position the Empire would be able to rapidly rebuild its strength while both cutting the supplies to the Orions and opening up invasion routes towards Sol and Andoria.

Owing to the continuous raid and counter raid nature of the Imperial-Federation at this stage the Federation Starfleet and brutal battle hardened warriors quickly became aware of this concentration of Imperial forces and the likelihood of an offensive. Indeed it was apparent, that through the cruel powers of human psi masters most likely, that Starfleet had largely correctly guessed the targets of the Imperial fleet for the operation. This can be seen by the relatively weak response to the spooling offensives launched from Vulcan towards the captured colony of Senlik III and from the frontier towards Ferengi space. What was not apparent to them was the capacity of the Tal Shiar through Raptor's Wings to subvert older Coalition system security and gain partial control of these vessels. Due to this the first battles of the offensive, both minor and large-scale, were significant victories for the Imperial Fleet as they smashed aside the concentrated Starfleet forces in their path that mostly consisted of Tellarite and Bolarian builds. Many of which found their own weapons turned upon their allies or their vessels simply rendered inert before being destroyed.

The most successful engagement coming at the Tellarite mining colony of Pykolos IV where what had been the Tellarite Third Fleet was destroyed utterly and the gateway through the defence fleets to Tellar Prime itself opened. In fact in the days following this defeat Starfleet in that sector retreated before the Imperial advance, only offering battle where vessels were only of Human, Andorian and Orion manufacture or with Tellarite vessels with a human cybernetic meld user onboard. This capacity to overturn the subversion had been unforeseen by the Tal Shiar as historical files now show, the half-human, half-machine abominations created by the former human X-Com directly interfacing with Starfleet vessel mainframes and overturning the corrupted software, or bypassing the affected hardware inserts. Still despite this it was judged a mild set back and the offensive was still judged as to be a major success very shortly. At least till it dropped out of warp approaching Tellar Prime and ran head long into Starfleets 1st Fleet from Earth and the Tellarite Home Fleet, with every former Coalition vessel having a human cyber officer aboard...

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Historical Documentaries: A History of the Federation Wars

An Interview with Starfleet Admiral L'geshura Lesha (retired)

The backdrop of the Battle of Tellar running behind them brought back memories to the recently retired Kolari Admiral as she watched the arrival of the aging Novas and mighty Severajinn battleships. All around her and the interviewer, a friendly enough Bolarian female, the brutal swirling of the battle raged in all the fury that she remembered. Indeed a small smile came to her lips as she watched one of the flying armoured bricks, as the Severajinns were called like their smaller brothers the Novas, smashed through a Romulan cruiser analogue with a flare of green shields as the smaller vessel was reduced to floating debris. You could always count on Humans and Andorians to considering ramming a perfectly valid design necessity and battle tactic in the age of warp drives, phase disrupters and shields emitters.

"You have to remember I wasn't supposed to be at Tellar, along with many of the other reserve force starships..." she replied to the interviewers polite query "...when the Romulans began advancing towards Tellar Prime Starfleet was forced to scramble any nearby reserves to fill the gap after the losses in the weeks prior. Their ability to compromise former Coalition starships, and most of the Tellar sector was former Collie vessels you have to understand, was a real problem and threw the Admiralty for a loop"

"But it was fixed prior to the battle?"

With a click of her fighters and flick of her hand she brought up a section of the battle where a large force of the Tellarite Home Fleet slugged it out with the vanguard of the Romulan advance. A bit dramatic she knew, her neuro-command links had done the work, but the old pirate part of her still loved playing to the audience and odd flair of the dramatic. The indicated Tellarite ships moved in orderly formation, but the icons popping up around the various starships showed a degrading in combat performance over the optimum of the various designs.

"Fixed is too strong a word in truth. The problem persisted for several months in fact before the various hardware and software issues were resolved but the simple brute forcing of a resolution with human meld induced cyber officers worked well enough. As we can see here the various Tellarite Home Fleet are suffering performance issues over optimal...but they work.

There in formation, maintaining solid fire and movement. Supported by the extensive systems pre-war defence batteries and stations the Romulans were unable to push them back significantly. Caustaltes were heavy, on both sides mind you, but once the full battleship squadron of 1st Fleet were deployed the Romulans were beaten. Even if it took them some time to realise it"

She replied motioning to a another scene where two dozen battleships advanced behind a drone and destroyer screen into the buckling Romulan centre spewing out a mixture of disrupter fire, plasma torpedoes and kinetic rounds. The Romulan counter fire was equally as heavy but they, unlike their Vulcan cousins, did not have starship in that combat bracket to match even the older Novas let alone their massive brothers.

"And were involved in this stage of the battle Admiral?"

"Hah No, I was only just a Captain back then. One step up from a Clan Leader really..." she answered with a bark of laughter "...and my ship, the USS Phatasm was a brand spanking new Shadow Class. No way were the Admiralty going to try and use their brand new raiders and scouts as cruisers and risk getting them shot up in a stand up fight. Now we were brought in later"

"The Shadow Class were the first Starfleet vessels to utilise cloaking technology were they not?" came the next question as Lesha sped up the time frame and brought up an area further out from Tellar Prime as the enemy were falling into a rout after the destruction of their flagship and other primary sun-leaders. It took an effort to hold back a rant that her Phastasm was not only defined by having a copy cloaking device. The Shadow class had been much more than that after all.

"Indeed they were, but the Shadows were much more than a cloaked vessel" she answered calmly as fleeing and damaged Romulan starships moved away at their maximum warp "they were an evolution of several vessels, the Terran Wraith, the Cordinate Malaar trade vessel and our own Kolari designed Interceptor. They were already in design and prototype stage when Starfleet first captured a cloaking capable starship. And by then they were quite simply the stealthiest vessels in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants with a combination of hologrids, sensor scattering, heat sinks as well as being the fastest starship Starfleet, or the Pact before it had ever built. And then we added in a copied version of the Romulan's own cloaking device to those protypes and suddenly we had the favourite starship class of both Kolari and Ferengi till the later Mirage class came along"

The half dozen Romulan starships were moving a rough formation before them as she finished speaking, all showing signs of battle damage that forced them to drop back to sub-light intermittently as they retreated. It was during one of those slowdowns that she'd caught them. And as she watched the blackness of space near the enemy distorted and her Phantasm rippled into existence from seemingly nothing along with the USS Dreamweaver. Though they were still incredibly difficult see and track despite the drop in cloak, painted the traditional Starfleet hull starlight-black. Combined with their hologrids and rotating sensor scattering arrays on the ring section, the Romulans only began to react just as her starship let loose a volley of Andorian photon torpedoes and lashed out with the heavy plasma disruptors. And the three nearest enemy birds of prey died, two immediately and the third moments later with another damaged, as the USS Dreamweaver followed up her strike with their own. Mission achieved both of them reactivated their cloaks and accelerated away at maximum warp as they surviving Romulans did the same. Beyond their damaged colleague who'd been captured several hours later drifting by Starfleet forces.

"Of course the cloak itself was a damned power-hog as well as being very particular how he was used. You'd get it up for an hour max and then have to spend another damned five getting it reset and clear the heat sinks. So in general we only used it on attack runs like this, unlike what people seem to think nowadays. Kni...the Romulan's could maintain it longer off course, but it was their tech in the first place. Still Tellar Prime broke the back of their offensive power and was the last offensive they mounted proper into Federation itself"

"Considering the extent of defeat the Romulans suffered why didn't Starfleet launch its own offensive in the wake battle?"

Lesha sighed clicking her fingers and the holo-suite accelerated out and brought up a map of the then much smaller Federation at the time of Unification. Areas around the fringes of its began to blink in various shades of colour, ranging from angry Red around Tellar and Kolari space, as well as in smaller quantities in other sectors. Other areas such as the Xindi sector and the various pirate regions glowed in an orange colour.

"We won yes, but at a cost. And a high cost at that. We had problems all along the frontiers of the then brand new Federation, as well as rebuilding fleets to defend the various homeworlds of the founding members. We had the Enolian War raging, the battle of Tellar allowed if you recall a successful Enolian counter-attack that cost us two systems. Pirates were still a major problem, despite the lull post Operation Copenhagen and the Xindi were beaten but the mysterious and advanced Sphere Builders were not. People like to imagine the vast production power of the Federation 'United and Strong' as they say but it takes time to ramp up that production as we found with all the losses"

Clicking her fingers dramatically again the stars flew towards them and suddenly they there were standing in a remote mining system at the fringes of Federation space. Under the command of her then commander Admiral Archer's 6th Fleet to which she had returned post-Tellar. Oh how she remember the bloody months that followed this stupidity. In front of them a convoy of Federation, really ex-Coalition, hauliers moved in slow formation away from the mining platforms escorted by a mildly damaged NX-03 and two old Tellarite Goolturs. Suddenly a dozen more vessels dropped out of warp, weapons blazing into the convoy as the escorts turned to engage.

She sighed "And then of course there was the Klingon problem..."

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Starfleet 6th Fleet HQ

Kinjer System, Beta Quadrant
Combat Date 2155.0715

Admiral Jonathan Archer rubbed his forehead tiredly for a moment before focusing back on the holo-sphere in front him showing the operation area of his increasingly besieged 6th Fleet. After the Romulan surge and defeat at Tellar he'd again found his planned reinforcements being allocated to the 3rd and 5th Fleets holding the Vulcan-Romulan border region. With a glanced as his Kolari subordinate entered the meeting room he did accept he had gotten back the crews assigned for training on the brand new Shadow –class light cruisers as well as those new vessels. And while they would be a help they wouldn't make up for the planned battleship and heavy cruiser squadrons he'd been promised and the fact his combat operations had to factor in yet another threat.

"I hear you were having fun over Tellar Captain? I send you away on a shakedown run and you come back with combat medals" he greeted Captain Lesha as Shran snored in amused annoyance at the whole thing.

"Oh you know how much the knife-ears love me Admiral, why I can't even take a vacation without them stalking me like the creepy bastards they are" she replied deadpan as she saluted then glancing at the holo-globe after his at ease. Ironically enough amongst the Kolari it was the former (or moreso still) Orion Syndicate members of the species that had shown the quickest adaption to Starfleet, former X-Com and Imperial Guard, discipline and training.

"Unfortunately their creepy disposition as you say has cost us our reinforcement schedule, and you've arrived back just in time for our crisis of the month"

Shran rolled his eyes "Since you've arrived on the scene pink skin it's been nothing but crisis's of the month, I'll admit you keep solving them but 6th Fleet seems to attract all the trouble like shargats to an alzash; from the Romulan-knife ears to invisible bio-warfare using...things, and now the Klingons"

"As Captain Shran so...eloquently...stated we're now facing what looks like a significant movement of significant movement of Klingon forces into territory bestriding as well as attacks on our shipping" he began after smiling at the usual bemusement of his senior commander. In truth 6th Fleet for whatever reason seemed to pick up all the worst situations in truth, and the past few months of his command had been fire fighting various problems as the arose. After the successful counter offensives against the Romulans of late he'd been sure the sector was quietening down. Sadly it was not to be it seemed.

"Now in the past few months it's been largely presented as the result of rogue elements involving smaller force numbers, and in truth it had declined significantly in comparison to the situation vis-a-vie the Coalition forces prior to our convoying and increased protection of shipping. And we've been willing to accept that as the impairment to shipping has been relatively minor and clashes had decreased to a minimum. Several days ago the situation changed"

He told them bringing up the footage of the attack on convoy 456-BH-3 and sensor readings from the surrounding systems. A bright red icon appeared over one nearby and a line came away from it bring up data on system indicating the presence of an industrialised spaceflight but pre-warp species and various scans of the various stellar bodies.

"The attack on convoy-456-BH-3 and its escorts is a major escalation and involved at least a battlecruiser and two heavy cruisers from the merchantmen that managed to escape to Kolari territory. The USS S'khar , USS Golunta and USS Heldgara were destroyed attempting to interdict the raid. There were no usual demands for 'contraband checks' or 'searching for insurgents' from the Klingons, they came in firing with no warning this time"

"It's pretty far forward for their ships to operating in those numbers, and very close to our official territorial borders" Lesha queried motioning at the location of the engagement as a side icon appeared showing the combat instance from the merchants perspective, the escorts had gotten in their blows but had been badly outgunned and there had only been one result possible at that stage.

And she was correct in her observation, the Klingons were operating at the extreme range from the own borders, and the engagement was significantly closer to Federation territory than they'd ever tried before. Both he himself and the Admiralty felt this was a deliberate challenge to Starfleet and must be answered forcefully as he replied to his subordinate.

"Which leads us into our second observed fact; a force of unknown size moved into system 783-45-XF just days prior to the attack on the convoy, with what were observed to be mining operation vessel and resupply units. From scout reports it's apparent the Klingons intend to utilise the system as a forward base for operations against our merchant shipping as well as staking territorial claims close to our territory for likely future expansion. The system itself is occupied by a pre-warp civilization with a surprising level of space capacity for its technological level, we had stealth drones in place monitoring them and it's how we began aware so quickly of the attack on them. This pre-existent tech base, and future slave labour, is likely the reason for the choice as a FOB by the Klingons, as well as a significant level of useful minerals within the asteroid belts of the system"

The Gashin'garti species who lived there were likely finding their lives become miserable right now he thought. Hardly the most pleasant way to be introduced to the galaxy as humanity had found. And they were an interesting species being at roughly at a late eteen seventies level of technology and being involved in a situation similar to the Cold War Earth had experience. But they'd also colonised their moon as well as sent expeditions to the planets nearest to them in the ten planet system, as well as built a pretty extensive space infrastructure. Not that it would be any use against shielded klingon vessels using disruptor weapons, but it was still impressive in its way for what were described in one report as 'cute cat-girls' by the then X-Com xenologist studying the matriarchal species.

"I'm assuming High Command want the Klingons to reconsider their presence so close to our borders and that we're not the Coalition when it comes to raiding our shipping?" another of the half dozen virtual Captain's under his command queried studying the information on a Nova several systems away "though were hardly in a position with the position with Roms"

"Yes Starfleet HQ has ordered us to bring this shadow war to an end even if it leads to all out war with the Klingon Empire"

Lesha nodded her head "A forceful response with Klingons is more likely to get a positive result than rolling over for them as the Coalition, and my people before them learned. If we don't answer this we'll be at war with them regardless. This looks like one of their larger Houses making a power play considering all reports we've received in the past years on their internal situation, if we let them get away with it they'll smell weakness and attack"

"Starfleet happens to agree with you Lesha, as do I" he replied being up various Romulan systems and estimated strength along with that of 6th Fleets dispositions "but we're going to have to handle our other friends first to prevent them retaking everything we just took in our recent offensive"

With a mental command through his neuro-link he brought up a animation on the holo-globe indicating attacks on several Romulan deep positions as well as proposed positioning of various elements of 6th Fleet.

"In regards do that we need the Vulcans and their brethren to think we're about to launch a major offensive against them, so we're going to launch some raids on their supply depots and less well defended forward positions. Just as we did prior to the last offensives" another command indicated that several of the force concentrations by 6th Fleet were of heavy transports and hauliers with holo-systems and false emissions generators "and we're going to concentrate significant except they're not going to be our real forces. Instead we're going to shift them away from the Romulan front and towards the advanced Klingon forces and launch a series of operations in six standard weeks to completely destroy the Klingon forces in this sector. So in the coming weeks Lesha, and you Yog" indicated the Ferengi Captain in charge of their other scouting elements "are going to be doing as much scouting of their forces as possible, as well as helping us set traps for their raider squadron"

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Extract from: Born Midst Battle and Blood: A Story of the United Federation of Planets [Nvalnic Vos] [Botchok] [United Federation of Planets] [2213]

...occupation of Gashin Prime by forces of the Klingon Empire. In truth, though unknown at the time by Starfleet, was that this move represented less a strategy by the Empire itself than an attempt to gain internal political power by external conquest under the House of Duras in particular. The Gashin'garti homeworld then was can be seen as less of an extension of imperial power to the edge of the new Federation's space than the conquest of a primitive industrial base. This they likely hoped would allow greater interference with trade routes through raiding, and further allow conquests of pre-warp but mineral rich systems going forward. Due to this the two factors leading to Starfleet's urgent launching of Operation Cascade, the occupation of Gashin Prime and the attack on Convoy 456, were actually unrelated events from the Klingon position. Convoy 456 was launched by the House of Jourdas as a continuation of the strategy had occurred against the Coalition of Planets forces prior to Unification; the raiders failing to understand the different stance of the Federation versus that of the now defunct Coalition.

Conquering Gashin Prime though lay under the aegis of the House of Duras and was intended to be established as a mining colony. The native Gashin'garti power blocs while possessing significant space infrastructure and military presence were easily defeated in a matter of hours by the more advanced Klingon expedition after the destruction from orbit of several of each bloc's cities and the majority of their military bases. Despite this the Klingon occupation would be fiercely resisted within weeks of the initial surrender for a variety of reasons mostly linked to the occupier's policies.

Culturally the Klingon's saw the shorter feline species as barely more than beasts, their lives were viewed as disposable at best and the decision to keep several of defeated bloc's leadership as essentially pets by the Duras overlord imbued a certain fanaticism to the conquered species resistance at first. As the weeks passed it also became very apparent to the majority of the population that there was little difference in terms of survival between resistance and compliance. City populations were made homeless if useful materials were under or near them, being sent to a 'work camp' was rapidly realised as death sentence and the sheer merciless nature of the occupation served to drive the species in what even by them was seem as a hopeless and suicidal resistance. Even with their massive technological advantage this would prove problematic for the Klingons when Operation Cascade was launched by Admiral Archer against them due to significant resources were required to maintain the slave population mining the resources needed for their sector forces.

These sector forces themselves were primarily focused after this conquest on raiding trade routes and in several cases seeking out 'worthy' battle with their Federation or Romulan opponents. This led to a three-way war in the sector that the Duras led faction only loosely controlled; though there was limited emphasis on an overall strategy as these forces were more focused on internal Empire politics than on the threat of Starfleet or the Romulan Imperial Fleet. In the initial weeks then post-Gashin occupation then the sector would see a multiplicity of small scale engagement as all sides engaged in a strategy of escort, raid and counter raid. The Battle of System 724-FH-32 for example saw a Romulan convoy being raided by a Starfleet force, only to have both sides attacked by a force of Klingon heavy cruisers that resulted in a brutal melee-au-trois. This situation would repeat across a dozen systems but there was little in the way of an overall plan behind these attacks as individual Klingon captains and minor houses acted on their own initiative for glory or goals.

The brief and bloody war though would have the significant impact of delaying several major Starfleet offensives in the aftermath of the Battle of Tellar till 2157. The primary example of this being with Sixth Fleet's cancelling of Operation Farseer against the Romulans after the successes of Dynamo and Icon in favour of Operation Cascade against the Klingons. But another delayed counter offensive was Operation Shrenmak against the Enolians where Starfleet were once against forced into a defensive stance as reserves were shifted to shore up the Romulan border and replace losses after Tellar. Likewise the sudden possibility of renewed war with their old enemies placed the Romulan Empire on high alert as clashes intensified, though another factor was the significant efforts taken by Sixth Fleet to disguise their intentions with Cascade with a series of phantom fleets arrayed against their Romulan opposites.

Thus when one wishes to understand the surprising outcome of Operation Cascade one must consider these factors and the threat assessment of Starfleet. Quite simply judged the likelihood of Cascade triggering a full-scale war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire as reasonably high but the consequences of allowing such developments to continue on their borders was a much worse proposition in the long run. This was mostly due to a fear of an attack during a major offensive against the Romulans, or vis-a-versa, when both sides were seemingly exposed. Unfortunately for the Klingons Starfleet viewed the timing of the conquest of the Gashin'garti with enormous suspicion. As such while the Klingon forces saw the conquests are a mere continuation of historical actions and internal pressure the Federation instead saw this conflict as the possible start of yet another life or death struggle and planned accordingly. The warlike reputation of the Klingons served only to reinforce this belief and when Starfleet struck it was on this basis.

As such when Cascade was launched in mid-late 2156 the sheer ferocity and relentlessness of it caught the Klingon forces in the sector by complete surprise and would only confirm the title of 'Warlord' upon the human Admiral Archer to another species. In the weeks preceding the offensive then the scout ships of Sixth Fleet and the newly arrived Shadow-class vessels began carefully marking out the locations and routes of the dispersed Klingon forces and barely existent depot system. And then Archer struck, so called hunter-killer groups striking suddenly at first the most exposed Klingon fleet units but continuing inward towards the more concentrated forces around Gashin Prime. No mercy was given in these attack (though none would be asked for anyway) as the emphasis was on preventing effective coordination by the defenders; in fact it would be several critical days before the Klingon senior commander even became aware that his dispersed force was under such a serious attack.

In fact even with this knowledge coordinating an effective defence was incredibly difficult as the forces deployed were not planning on a serious engagement and many ships captain's initial refused 'cowardly' orders to withdraw and form up with rivals. Also problematic was that the other factions and Houses such as Mogh and Uktagh within the Empire were unwilling to support a deployment of the Imperial Fleet and engage in a war with the Romulans and Federation just yet. As such for the critical first few weeks of Operation Cascade the Klingon forces found themselves on the receiving end of a series of brutally one sided engagements as Sixth Fleet rolled relentlessly forward.

This was made worse on the third week when Romulan Imperial Fleet units launched their own offensive against them around the Harder System and destroying three cruisers and an older battlecruiser. As such in the run up to the Battle of Gashin Prime the defenders would suffer three of these small reversals at Harder, Jenkan-Iklan and Jurlpen before a true battle line was assembled to face the offensive in decisive battle. Of course this would prove to be a mistake as the veteran forces of Sixth Fleet under Admiral Archer engaged the totality of these forces over the Gashin'garti homeworld in a bloody showdown. Lacking support from the other Houses of the Empire or the Imperial Fleet yet unable to withdraw due to the loss of face associated with such a quick rout the Duras coalition took to the field. It was to be a one-sided slaughter as despite the suicidal courage of the Klingon captains the discipline and greater deployed firepower of Sixth Fleet simply smashed their hastily formed lines apart and liberated Gashrin Prime...

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