ZMS Nevermore(ABS-65)

ZMS Nevermore (ABS-65) was an Ascendant-class Battleship of the Zaretian Monarchy's Navy during the Great War.

Nevermore was constructed in Cethos Fleetyard 12, alongside her sister ship, ZMS King's Wrath (ABS-66) during Year 5 of the Great War, and was completed just as the Aeverians began Operation Burning Lance.

In the course of the Nevermore's five-month career under its sole commanding officer, Rear Admiral Genzis, Nevermore conducted only one offensive operation, codenamed Suckerpunch. The Nevermore and her escorts were supposed to lead the 23rd Fleet's entry into the disputed system of Nevara and take out the Aeverian 864th Fleet's command ship, the Bastion-Class Command Carrier, AS Centaur, taking out Aeverian command in the system and allowing the Monarchy to quickly suppress the remaining defenders in the system.

Service History
Nevermore finished her shakedown trials at the Cethos Fleetyard, and was assigned to the 23rd Fleet, led by Vice Admiral Ran'ta. Her first and only operation begun in Year 7 of the Great War, alongside her escort ships, the Cruisers, ZMS Salami, ZMS Overbearing Commander and the frigates, ZMS My Button is Bigger, ZMS Incisor and ZMS Wardog were to quickly decapitate the Aeverian chain of command by destroying the Aeverian Flagship, the AS Centaur.

When Nightshade Operatives located the AS Centaur, operating near the planet of Geven, Vice Admiral Ran'ta ordered Rear Admiral Genzis to proceed with the operation. Thanks to precise coordinates obtained from the Nightshade Operatives, Nevermore and her Battlegroup managed to jump in close proximity to the Centaur and her escorts. The initial salvo from the Nevermore managed to sink the Frigates, AS Savo and AS Republic, and heavily damaged the Cruiser, AS Cadmus. Admiral Benham, seeing the disparity in firepower between his escorts and Genzis's Battlegroup, ordered the Centaur to crash jump towards the shadow of the planet Rhianne's Fall.

Genzis immediately ordered his ships to expend one of their sprint drive charges to catch up with the Centaur, opting to leave the damaged Aeverian escorts in fear that a hunter-killer team was inbound. However, this time he did not have the advantage of precise jump coordinates, and as such chose the safe option to jump about 45 minutes away from the Centaur's estimated exit point.

Upon jumping into the Shadow of Rhianne's Fall, Genzis ordered the AWACS equipped ZMS Blind Bat to jump in and jam Aeverian communications and sensors. At the same time, Task Force 73, consisting of the cruisers, AS Decantus, AS Vikrant, AS Shepeshkaf, the frigates, AS Agathon, AS Eisenhower and AS Nauticus and the AWACS equipped AS Herophilus reinforced the Centaur. Both sides would use their AWACS vessels to jam communications and sensors, leaving both sides reliant on visual sensors to identify targets, which was further hindered as the battle took place in the shadow of Rhianne's Fall.

30 minutes later, Nevermore activated her auxiliary floodlights, locating the AS Agathon and opened fire on her, scoring hits on her bridge and engines, crippling her. The Nevermore was then subjected to beam strikes from the Vikrant and Shepeshkaf, her port side torpedo magazines were penetrated, and caused a series of secondary explosions that destroyed both her port side torpedo batteries and 2 Pattern 75 Railgun turrets.

Although damaged, Nevermore managed to train her guns on the Shepeshkaf, subjecting it to a barrage of railgun shots, but her turret's muzzle flash caused the Aeverians to identify and locate her, and she, in turn, became the target of most of the Aeverian fire. Overbearing Commander, who had lost all maneuverability from a beam strike by the Eisenhower, crashed into the Nevermore's bridge, injuring Genzis himself and killing most of his bridge crew. However, as the Nevermore took most of the fire, her escorts, the Salami and Incisor to evade fire and crippled the Decantus.

However, with most of the bridge in ruins, internal communications in the Nevermore broke down, and messages from the other Monarchy Vessels were fragmented due to debris blocking direct laser communication. This caused the Nevermore's gunnery officer to misidentify the Salami as an Aeverian ship, opening fire on her. In response, the Salami returned fire on the Nevermore, opening up her frontal cannons and disabling the Nevermore's turret. Furthermore, due to extremely low visibility, the AS Shepeshkaf narrowly missed a head-on collision with the Nevermore, and as she pulled away, fired her 6 beams straight into the Pattern 127 Superheavy Railguns, completely crippling them, and set off a multitude of internal fires and secondary explosions within the Nevermore.

Genzis, eventually managed to regain control of the Nevermore, seeing most of his escort fleet in tatters, signaled all remaining vessels to withdraw. In the meantime, he ordered the Nevermore to crash jump back towards Zaretian lines.

The Nevermore would exit subspace at Geven, a far distance away from friendly Zaretian lines. Genzis wanted to make another crash jump, but engineering was on fire, and the crash jump severely damaged the reactor, making a crash jump an unsurvivable prospect. The Nevermore's damage control team attempted to contain the internal fires within the ship but did not manage to regain control of engineering when the AS Richelieu and AS Vektanis jumped in.

Despite being hopelessly outgunned and unable to flee, Genzis decided to fight, rather than surrender as demanded by the Aeverians due to standing orders to not let battleships fall into peacekeeper control. He was heard to say "We'll stand and fight, they'll sink us, and that'll be all". The last remaining Pattern 75 Railgun and torpedo battery opened fire on the Richelieu, before the combined 16 beams from both Aeverian cruisers penetrated the Nevermore, causing a reactor meltdown and exploding, causing the Nevermore to split into 6 distinct chunks.

Out of the 7232 men on board, only 14 were rescued by Aeverian marines.