Battle of Vedrthar

Background
Once the Omnishia had been repaired, Warmaster Moratoryan's forces were back on the move. They linked up with General Wraithbane, who had been maintaining a defensive posture since the attack on the Omnishia, and renewed the Rathakern's offensive into Diab and Delani space with renewed vigor. Wraithbane concentrated on the Delani while Moratoryan and Commander Wreav pushed through Diab space. To blunt the assault, the Diabs were forced to divert troops from Iron Gauntlet. Even still, the Rathakern persevered, with the Omnishia pushing ahead into the Vedrthar Sector. Vedrthar sat right at the doorstep of the Pact's foothold, but with Iron Gauntlet underway elsewhere, was relatively quiet. The Rathakern were quick to take advantage of the situation, and began assaulting Peacekeeper positions as they inched towards the foothold.

But by this point in the offensive, the Rathakern had begun to encounter problems of their own. Their supply lines had been stretched thin and were vulnerable to harassment. Reinforcements came gradually, but were at times intercepted before they could link with the fleets. With the Warmaster and his commanders constantly on the move, there was little time to properly repair and maintain equipment. The Omnishia itself, though still a formidable vessel, was likewise beginning to sustain damage due to frequent engagements. Some of the engineers began to call for the ship to be returned to the Rathakern's WBI holdings for repairs, but Moratoryan refused, citing potential ambushes and the fact that the Rathakern needed to attack now while the enemy was preoccupied.

Truce
The Warmaster's advance soon caught the attention of the 17th Magellan Battle Fleet under the command of Captain Bulgara, which had been stationed in the area as a rapid response force. Fearing that an attack by the Rathakern could potentially shatter the foothold, Bulgara requested reinforcements and permission to engage the threat while it was still away from the foothold. Imperial Command, its attention focused on the battles in the salient, granted Bulgara a limited number of reinforcements but ordered her to maintain position until further notice. Bulgara, unwilling to wait for the Rathakern to make the first move, disobeyed Imperial Command's orders and breached protocol by contacting local Peacekeeper forces. She proposed a ceasefire so that the two could work together to repel the Rathakern. The Peacekeepers reluctantly agreed, and the two began planning how to best tackle the threat.

Commander Wreav and his men had been acting as a vanguard for Moratoryan's forces; the commander would launch preliminary attacks that softened the defenders before the main fleets arrived. Bulgara and the Peacekeepers planned to engage Wreav's command fleet and in doing so lure the Omnishia into a trap. Some protested the operation as being too risky, but officials on both sides understood that the Omnishia and its commander needed to be eliminated before the Rathakern could be broken.

Ambush
While the bulk of Bulgara's forces maintained position and token forces contained ongoing Rathakern attacks, Magellan and Diab scouts scoured the region, searching for Commander Wreav. After a little over a week of observation, the movement of some of Wreav's forces were triangulated to a specific region of Vedrthar. A scout was sent ahead and confirmed the presence of a large concentration of Rathakern vessels. Believing it to be Wreav's command fleet, Bulgara moved in to engage. The allies had guessed correctly; Wreav, having not anticipated a large force nor having fought the Magello before, contacted the Warmaster for assistance. The Peacekeepers held back, waiting for the arrival of the Omnishia before revealing themselves. During the interlude, the Magello dealt a serious blow to Wreav, whose forces had been scattered across multiple planets, but the commander remained confident that the Omnishia would turn the tide.

When the Omnishia and its escort fleet finally arrived, the Magello shifted their attention towards the ship and pressed the attack, preventing the vessel from effectively maneuvering. The Rathakern had seemingly turned the battle back in their favor, but in truth, the Magello, though now being battered by the Warmaster's forces, were providing the Peacekeepers with targeting data. Soon, the Peacekeepers entered the fray and attacked the Omnishia with several alpha strikes, overloading the shield and piercing the ship's hull in several locations. This in turn led to a few of the Omnishia's ammunition stores exploding, causing further damage to the ship. But while the Omnishia had been seriously wounded and its crew shaken, the ship was still capable of fighting, and the Rathakern maintained numerical superiority. Moratoryan acted quickly, requesting for further reinforcements as he focused his attacks against the Magello in an effort to break out.

Though stationed in Delani space, General Wraithbane responded to the distress call by dispatching a portion of his forces to the engagement. They appeared behind one of the Peacekeeper fleets, forcing the ships to divert their attention away from the Omnishia. But before Moratoryan could exploit the distraction, Captain Bulgara's flagship, though having sustained heavy damage in doing so, carefully maneuvered itself behind the Omnishia and unloaded a salvo directly into the vessel's engines, causing a detonation that damaged the vessel's stern and rendering the ship completely immobile.

Battle on the Omnishia & Death of Warmaster Moratoryan
To the disbelief of both Bulgara and the Peacekeepers, the Omnishia continued to put up resistance, the crew making no attempt to scuttle the vessel. With their Warmaster in peril, all nearby Rathakern ships moved to form a perimeter around the Omnishia, though Wraithbane's forces were unable to advance due to the Peacekeepers. Bulgara and the rest of the Peacekeepers advanced towards the ship, fighting through the Rathakern fleet as strikecraft performed bombing runs on the Omnishia's remaining weapons systems, which soon began to fall silent under the onslaught. Commander Wreav was among the ships defending the Omnishia, but he was soon killed after his ship took multiple hits from the frontal cannons of a Diab cruiser, one of which had glanced the bridge, vaporizing Wreav and the crew. Once the Rathakern's defenses had thinned further and a path to the Omnishia had opened, Diab and Magellan soldiers were deployed into the vessel to secure the ship and eliminate Warmaster Moratoryan. The Warmaster, donning his Void Axe and a plasma hand cannon, fought the invaders alongside his men. Fighting in the ship would persist for almost two straight days due in part to the size of the ship and its vast crew even after much of it had been wounded or killed prior to the boarding operation. Outside, the allied force repelled the Rathakern from around the Omnishia, preventing any reinforcements from reaching the ship.

Near the end of the second day, Warmaster Moratoryan and what remained of his honor guard were surrounded by Diab and Magellan soldiers. The Rathakern dictator was ordered to surrender, but he instead charged headlong into the attackers, his guards following suit. Over the next five minutes, the guards were gunned down or killed in hand-to-hand combat, leaving the Warmaster on his own. He felled many of the attackers before a Diab Shock Trooper dodged a swipe of the Void Axe and plunged his bayonet into the Rathakern's arm before unleashing a point-blank burst of fire that severed Moratoryan's hand. The Warmaster raised his hand cannon, but the Diab was faster, and wrestled the gun out of his hand. The two grappled before a second soldier charged the Warmaster with his pauldron, knocking him to the ground. The Diab then grabbed Moratoryan's jaws and, after a momentary struggle, pulled them apart, shattering them and severing one of Moratoryan's carotid arteries, killing him almost instantly.

Rathakern Retreat
With both Warmaster Moratoryan and Commander Wreav dead, the Omnishia captured, and their forces having sustained irreplaceable losses, the remaining Rathakern routed, fleeing either towards their WBI foothold, General Wraithbane, or in any other direction away from Vedrthar. Thousands of Rathakern would be taken prisoner, including what remained of the Omnishia's crew, though a small few would continue to hold out before being eliminated in subsequent sweeps through the ship. An uneasy calm then fell between the Peacekeepers and Bulgara as troops on both sides began pondering their next move now that their objective had been completed. A few of Bulgara's officers pushed for an attack, but Bulgara refused; the commander had no intention of turning on an ally, even a temporary one, so quickly, and wanted to give both sides an opportunity to rest and recuperate. More importantly, the Magello had taken the brunt of the assault, and Peacekeeper troops outnumbered them by a substantial margin. Within the Omnishia, some of the Diabs and Magello had slowly begun to fraternize as they divided the spoils of the battle, tended to the wounded, and recovered bodies for burial. Rumors continue to circulate that a tiny handful of Magello soldiers used the opportunity to defect to the Peacekeepers, and that Bulgara may have been in some way complicit, but such reports remain in the realm of conspiracy. In a show of goodwill, and to prevent a possible confrontation, Bulgara allowed the Peacekeepers to claim the wreckage of the Omnishia and Warmaster Moratoryan's equipment, both of which would be brought back to Diab space for study and as trophies. Bulgara's forces, after having taken what they needed, returned to the foothold while the Peacekeepers moved to join their allies in engaging Wraithbane.

Wraithbane was notified of Moratoryan's death as Rathakern fores had begun to fall back. As well as a complete loss of the Rathakern's morale, the destruction of the Omnishia had left Wraithbane's flank completely exposed. The general ordered an immediate evacuation and for all Rathakern forces to fall back to the WBI foothold. But as Wraithbane's forces began to fall back, emboldened Delani surged across the front, scattering the Rathakern and inflicting terrible losses on the invaders. Worse yet, Peacekeeper ships from Vedrthar soon began streaming into the region. To avoid being surrounded, Wraithbane ordered his ships to depart, abandoning any troops that were still on the surface, all of whom would either die or be taken prisoner; this did little to help the general, however, as the Peacekeepers followed Wraithbane back to the WBI foothold. Both forces arrived in the area mere minutes apart, and a fight promptly broke out For several hours, Wraithbane attempted to hold his ground, but he was then contacted by General Parthen, who had been overseeing the Homeland Defense Fleet and had now been appointed as the new Warmaster in place of Moratoryan. Parthen ordered Wraithbane and his men to abandon the foothold and return to the mainland in the event of a Peacekeeper attack. The general complied, and his men made a fighting retreat away from the region.

Aftermath
Though the Rathakern had been repelled, it had come at a considerable price for the Peacekeepers. The short but intense campaign had been fought primarily with troops desperately needed on other fronts; this was most notable in the Diab foothold, where the withdrawal of troops from Iron Gauntlet contributed to the Repzork repelling the Diabs from the southern salient. Those who had not been killed or crippled were exhausted and needed time to rest and tend to their equipment, granting the Pact a temporary advantage in manpower in some regions. A few officials pushed for a front against the Rathakern, but this was unanimously rejected. Nevertheless, observers continue to monitor the outskirts of Rathakern space for signs of buildup, though they have yet to detect anything of note. Little is known of what transpired in the Rathakern mainland following their defeat, but most believe they have either given up or are building their forces back up and preparing for another opportunity to strike in the far future.

Imperial Command had learned of Bulgara's rogue actions as the Battle of Vedrthar was already underway, and decided to allow the conflict to run its course before taking action. What exactly they should do with the Captain became a matter of lenghty debate. Though she had disobeyed orders, she had eliminated what could have been a serious threat to the foothold; at the same time, a story of Warlord and Peacekeeper forces working together could potentially harm the public's perception of the war. There were also fears that some of the Magello could defect as Zinmar and Omard had. In the end, it was decided that Bulgara and her men would not be directly punished, but would be kept where the Pact could keep an eye on them. Bulgara and her men were commemorated in a public ceremony celebrating their heroic actions against the Rathakern while propaganda minimized the role of the Peacekeepers and exaggerated the threat posed by the Rathakern, implying that the two forces had no other option than to work together and that there was no fraternization. The 17th fleet was then subsequently moved from the foothold to a fortress world near Sculpterra, where they would slowly build themselves back up with diehard Warlord supporters.