Battle of Relay 344
From FABT
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Date: |
6 October 1929 CE | ||||||||||||||||
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Relay 344 / Jali'skah / Hades Lair | ||||||||||||||||
Outcome: |
Tactical Geth victory
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- "The geth were practically waiting for us. We don't know how, we don't know why...but when they came through that relay, we just knew the battle was lost."
- — Captain Lenn'Naenn detailing his experience in the battle to the Admiralty Board.
The Battle of Relay 344 was a naval engagement at Relay 344 (also known as the Velka'zet relay) between a detachment of the Heavy Fleet and two squadrons of the Geth Navy, and the second of three engagements early in the Quarian-geth conflict that became known pejoratively as "Niro's Blunders". The quarian defeat at the Battle of Pahhur led to a reevaluation of quarian tactics in their conflict with the geth and, as a result, no significant actions were taken between the two powers for twenty years, leading to a brief period of peace between them, giving the geth time to build up their forces. However, a reconnaissance mission led by Captain Lenn'Naenn of three ships managed to scout the Velka'zet relay on the border of the Hades Lair cluster, and found what appeared to be a hole in the geth naval defensive net that the Migrant Fleet could exploit: a geth naval shipyard had been constructed on the former colony of Wofis inside the cluster, and if destroyed, would significantly weaken the geth's ability to deploy warships to protect the sector. Admiral Niro'Wumos believed the time ripe for a strike, and commissioned a task force of 13 Gelha-class frigates, with at least 11 Qui'tee-class fighter echelons, three fighters per echelon, in support. Captain Lenn was placed in command of the small force, with the aim being to lure the small geth defensive squadron through the relay and into a trap set by the task force. The hope was to destroy this small force, making room for Wumos to send a cruiser-led task group through the relay once the way was cleared and bombard and destroy the shipyard, or at least cripple it.
The task force arrived at Relay 344 on October 6, 1929 CE (two months after the reconnaissance mission) and Captain Lenn deployed his fleet accordingly: 5 of his frigates would advance with four fighter echelons providing protection to the relay, where it was hoped they would ambush any geth ships pouring through the relay to respond, while the rest of the task force was held in reserve. What the quarians failed to consider was that the geth had already filled this gap in the two months it took for the attack to be assembled, and after realizing what the quarians were trying to do, they responded accordingly: in a move that shocked Captain Lenn, the geth split their fleet into two squadrons, with one going through the relay and the other heading towards the quarian fleet in FTL. To combat the quarians waiting for them, they sent two empty frigates through the relay and had them enter FTL the moment they completed their jump, causing them to immediately ram two of Lenn's frigates, destroying them. The rest of the group came through and immediately micro jumped into the middle of Lenn's advance arrow formation, along with their own echelons of fighters.
The battle quickly fell apart. With geth reinforcements arriving on his left flank, and his fighters and center being overwhelmed by superior geth targeting and firepower, Lenn was forced to order a retreat. The end result was a small naval defeat, with much of Lenn's ships remaining intact, but the geth having successfully secured their flank, robbing the quarians of their chance to strike a major blow to their warfighting capability in the Hades Lair.