Grand Slaver Fleet of the Verge
From FABT
|
Active: |
3 October - 26 December 2176 CE |
|
Organization: |
|
|
Affiliation: |
 |
|
Type: |
Ad-hoc fleet |
|
Role: |
Invasion and enslavement of Elysium |
|
Size: |
404 ships |
|
Part of: |
|
|
Headquarters: |
Erszbat (assembly point) |
|
Engagements: |
|
|
Commanders: |
Regent Grand Admiral Balak Uhtero |
- "Our operation was to be grand! Our fleet numbered in the hundreds! A grand fleet for sacking the largest human colony in the cluster!"
- — Balak Uhtero to Marcus L. Shepard regarding the Grand Slaver Fleet.
The Grand Slaver Fleet of the Verge, also known as just the Grand Slaver Fleet or the Elysium invasion fleet, was an ad-hoc fleet in the Hegemony Slaver Corps. The brainchild of Balak Uhtero, an ambitious and well respected military commander in the Hegemony Armed Forces, the grand slaver fleet was an idea first touched upon by Balak during his earlier slaver raids against human colonies. In 2170 CE, following the Sack of Mindoir and hundreds of human civilians being captured and sold into slavery, Balak approached the Supreme Regent with the idea of stepping up the Slaver Corps' operations by attacking a massive human colony, with the aim of enslaving hundreds of thousands of humans and striking fear into humanity, hopefully halting their expansion into the Skyllian Verge in the process and taking all the worlds the Hegemony claimed was theirs. The Regent approved the idea, and Balak began assembling the resources for a massive fleet and army of well over 400 vessels and ten thousand troops all for the purpose of attacking a large human colony. The fleet itself consisted of only a dozen or so proper warships, and of these all of them were frigates or corvettes (with the exception of his flagship, the battlecruiser BRS Inquisitor, which was to lead the fleet) with the vast majority being converted freighters, bulk carriers, fuel tankers, seedships, wayfarers and other non-military craft converted into transports for the captured slaves and for the invading army. By early 2176 CE, preparations had been carried out in secret for the mobilization of the necessary resources to provide this massive fleet, including the necessary fuel, personnel and the ships themselves, with some of them being imported after being purchased from companies or other nations. Balak was assigned the honor of commanding the fleet, and by October 2176 CE, the fleet and its accompanying army was finally deemed to be ready and was officially activated. Balak wanted to wait until the 25th of December to make the attack, as he knew the humans would be celebrating their holiday known as Christmas, and the colony wouldn't be expecting an attack.
On 25 December 2176 CE, the grand slaver fleet jumped into the Petra system and immediately swarmed Elysium, destroying surrounding space traffic and Alliance ships to gain naval superiority before rapidly deploying their dropships and assault craft to deploy the army to the surface and begin grabbing slaves. However, Hegemony intelligence had drastically underestimated the Alliance's response to Mindoir, who had stepped up their patrols and anti-slaver contingencies in the wake of the Mindoir raid and the Alliance Second Fleet was on patrol nearby when word of the attack reached them. As the slaver army below became bogged down by unforeseen circumstances and the attack was slowed to a halt, the Alliance Second Fleet appeared behind the slaver fleet and hit it in the rear, with Kastanie Drescher's signature tactic of rushing her enemy and sowing confusion within their ranks taking the batarians completely by surprise. With far too few actual warships, the slaver fleet was torn to shreds by the superior Alliance warships, with hundreds of ships being lost. When Balak finally realized the battle was lost and retreated with what few ships he had left, 90% of the fleet was obliterated. With the fleet's destruction over Elysium, the fleet was deactivated and stripped from Slaver Corps fleet listings. What was left of the fleet was hunted down by Drescher's fleet and finished off in a skirmish in the Vetus system, with only Balak's flagship, Inquisitor, escaping.