Mica Liao (Individual Du Shi Wang-class WarShip)

This article is about the Du Shi Wang-class WarShip. For the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, see Mica Liao.
Mica Liao
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassDu Shi Wang

History

First Succession War

The Mica Liao was a Du Shi Wang-class destroyer in service with the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces black water navy as the CCS Mica Liao. In February 2787 the Mica Liao was serving as a part of the CCAF Sarna Commonality Squadron and was one of the WarShips assigned to patrolling the borders of the Confederation. The Mica Liao was in the Second Chance system, patrolling alongside another ship from the Sarna Commonality Squadron, the Soyal-class heavy cruiser CCS Solstice when an invasion force from the Free Worlds League appeared in the system.[1]

The Free Worlds League Military task force was a part of the ten parsec-wide invasion of the Capellan and Sarna Commonalities of the Capellan Confederation declared by Captain-General Kenyon Marik as his route to capturing the important Sarna system. Assigned to the first wave of the invasion were ten assorted regiments of the Marik Militia and almost four times as many conventional and aerospace groups. The Sorunda was assigned to the task force that targeted Second Chance. The task force that had arrived at Second Chance consisted of the Nineteenth, Twentieth and Thirty-eighth Marik Militia regiments, escorted by a substantial naval group that included the Atreus-class battleship FWLS Sorunda and the League II-class destroyers FWLS Otavalo and FWLS Ospina, two squadrons of attack DropShips and three wings of aerospace fighters. Despite being outnumbered both the Mica Liao and the Solstice were at the zenith jump point when the FWLM task force arrived, and immediately began plotting an intercept jump.[1]

The two Capellan WarShips arrived just as the League task force was starting to burn for the planet, and announced their presence with a long-range mass driver shot from the Solstice that destroyed the Ospina in a single hit. The League forces came about and engaged, with the Otavalo and a squadron of attack DropShips targeting the Solstice as a priority, while the Mica Liao exchanged fire with the Sorunda. The Sorunda, more heavily armed than her opponent, raked the Mica Liao with fire from her forward batteries and then turned, adding a broadside to the damage already inflicted, whilst also launching a squadron of nuclear-armed fighters. As the Mica Liao turned to try and present a fresh set of armor to the Sorunda, she exposed her weakened side to the Sorunda's fighters, who scored at least two hits against the damaged battleship, destroying her. Heavily outgunned, the Solstice launched her own nuclear missiles, destroying a pair of DropShips - an Intruder-class attack DropShip and a Vengeance-class fighter carrier - before being crippled and then exploding under the weight of fire from the Otavalo, attack DropShips and fighter screens.[1]

Having powered through the Capellan naval defenses, the League task force moved to deploy ground forces on Second Chance. The primary defensive unit on the ground was the Twentieth Liao Lancers; mustered originally to defend Raman II, the Lancers had been rotated to Second Chance in 2785 to fill the gap left by the Third Tikonov Lancers, who had been redeployed into former Terran Hegemony space. A new command with little combat experience, half of the Lancers were on exercises on Second Chance's northern continent when the FWLM task force appeared, and word of the swift destruction of the Capellan naval forces was a heavy blow to the Lancers' morale - and that of the planetary government, who had little faith in the Lancers.[1]

The planetary government ordered the Lancers' support formations to deploy to Sevarias and Sweethaven, two major port cities; the support regiments were vehicle and infantry regiments raised locally, and the government planned to use them to cover the evacuation of high-level officials from the government and the major corporations present on the planet. The discovery that their attempts to rally to defend the planet were being blocked by the planetary government to cover their own evacuation was the last straw for many of the Lancers; by the time the League task force arrived in orbit, a third of the Lancers had already deserted. The League task force detected a number of DropShips warming up for liftoff at Sweethaven; working on the assumption that the DropShips represented a possible attack being launched, the captain of the Sorunda initiated a seven-minute orbital bombardment of the spaceport. The hellish firestorm destroyed four Union-class DropShips belonging to the Lancers, two armor companies and a regiment of infantry - and also killed both the planetary governor, Duke Maynard Stott, and the Security Minister, Haley Fernando, along with the majority of the planetary elite. When League General Matias Rosenkov called for Second Chance to surrender an hour later, Colonel Mila Palmer, commanding officer of the remaining Lancers and the senior military officer left on Second Chance, had little choice but to acquiesce.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 First Succession War, p. 53-54, "A Path to Sarna: The League-Confederation Front"

Bibliography