Hugo's punitive expedition

Commodore Chal Hugo’s vague instructions by the senate were, well, rather vague. During his yearlong overseer in the Frankish realms, he indeed kept a watchful eye over the Frankish populace, namely in the realm’s political capital of the Gasson star zone. He did not encounter any pirate havens but had heard of one at Brenaco. Chal spent periodic time stimulating wargames with his operation officers regarding pacifying the Brenaco pirates. Since the Franks were technically not allowed to form their armada and lacked the authority to give them such, he could not assault it by his initiative.

Just as Chal Hugo would put in a request for further orders regarding the Brenaco stronghold and more reinforcements to subdue it(and possibly the decision to authorize the Franks to form a minor attachment as an auxiliary formation), local Frankish intelligence warned him by August 220 of a gathering of unidentified forces outside of Bordeaux. At first, Chal was concerned about this being a Frankish force but dismissed it at first since they were outside the political boundaries of the Domain. Chal reasoned in his reports that it would not make sense for the Franks to materialize a fleet so far south and even if they were Franks, he did not believe the Franks would rat each other out so easily.

When more sources came in they belonged to a separate entity altogether; the 217 Mafia. Which the Federation senate had little information of, Chal was even more cautious.

Frankish reconnaissance reported, upon cross-referencing analysis of the Brenaco simulations, that the Mafia pirates encountered at Valspon was nominally smaller in scale compared to the one encountered at Brenaco.

On one hand, if Hugo had to wait on Sydney—which could take several days or at worst up to weeks— he would lose his window of opportunity. If he were to attack now, he could achieve great things with the element of surprise. Due to lacking immediate communications with DeRyck, this plan only relied on whatever DeRyck might be in the Ruthenia regions.

Hugo jumped at the chance opportunity to make a name for himself. He would make a punitive expedition into Valspon and essentially “steal” DeRyck’s glory by seizing a large prize than even the Zonal campaigns. This is would become a source of debate in some historian circles on rather or not Chal should’ve asked Sydney for reinforcements first before acting.

August 13th saw Chal Hugo make his move. As he predicted, warping into the outskirts of the Valspon star zone caught Dong Che by complete surprise, as there was no early warning system in place to prevent a disaster like this. Dong Che was not a blessed admiral like his sister and thus ordered his ships to avoid combat as much as possible. At the same time, he panicky sent a courier to warp speed “as fast as the heavens” to Dong and Li Chou for assistance.

Chal’s fleet had managed to close the distance between them relatively quick and unleashed a hefty barrage on Che’s forces as he attempted to retreat into the safely of the Side docking bays.

But because the 217 Mafia’s Sides were inadequately equipped for anti-ship warfare, they quickly became overwhelmed. Dong ordered all ships to sally out and beeline for the capital Side, which was the most armed of the Clusters at Valspon. This further resulted in more losses for Che, as the panic created a disorganized rear guard by his subordinates.

Hours after the skirmish started, the courier sent by Che arrived in the Mafia’s Cluster Side capitol in the Lübeck star zone in a near state of exhaustion. Keeping himself together for his comrades’ sake, he asked to broadcast a short-range message relay through orbital satellite and inform Dong Zhui of the surprise attack on Valson. After the radio operator informed him the message was sent, he finally collapsed in a near-death state.

Dong Zhui reassured his men that this is not the end of the Mafia, and they would not be met with the same as their brethren in the 216 anti-piracy campaign.

Dong then stated that he would take some of his best men and ships and sortie to relieve the men in Valspon. Li Chou objected and presented a better plan: the radio operator did not state how many ships the enemy flotilla consisted of, but if it was able to make her brother send a distress signal then it would mean it is by no means a small invasion force. Li Chou also pointed out she has more recent experience fighting Federation forces and suggested leaving a token force at Velksland while she went to relieve her brother.

This threw Dong into a fit of rage and nearly struck at her with a dagger, but Li Chou merely sidestepped out of his blind fury and avoided the fatal strike.

“If you fear that the Federation lapdog will strike you down at your weakest; fear not, since that is reserved for me alone. It is better to let the Federation see what they want to see… do you see what I am getting at?”

Li Chou planned to set up balloon decoys resembling ships to fool the Federation naked eye. A few would have hidden antique signal jammers on them to maintain the facade. This would, at most, give her a whole day or two to do what she needed and return to Velksland.

After Dong settled down, he saw the appeal of it despite his thoughts of it being cowardly— if it was to save his men, he would go through with her plan.

When the two of them left the company, Dong pulled Li Chou by her collar and gave her a stern threat,

“Betray me and it will mean death. Even so, from beyond the grave, my men will cut you down.”

Li Chou acknowledged the threats but ignored them at heart. She discreetly formed her relief fleet in such a way that it would not alarm DeRyck and quietly left the system in the span of a few hours, in the late hours of August 13th.

Shortly before Li Chou departed, Dong secretly forwarded a message to authorities in Lübeck. Dong’s message intended to inform them if Li Chou showed any sign of seizing the capital for herself, then she was to be immediately detained and summarily executed for disloyalty. Furthermore, he dictated that in the event he was killed—rather because of her doing or not—she was to be arrested and sentenced to death with all powers transferred to his son Dong Che.

In the early hours of August 14th, Li Chou warped above Lübeck and stayed there for a brief period before continuing the rapid force march to Valspon.

Some historians speculate that Li Chou was indeed interested in initiating a coup’d'etat upon her arrival in the system. But possibly backed off the idea because of the cold welcoming Side authorities gave her due to Dong’s “anti-coup proofing”, which Li had possibly surmised that her father had indeed enacted a contingency plan. However, it's possible Li Chou merely gave her men a chance of a few hours of rest before the next series of jumps to Valspon.

During this time, Dong Che’s fleet was in a state of perpetual agony. Unable to properly fend for themselves in the Side harbors, with each sally-out yielding lesser and lesser ships returning inside—the remains of their brethren floating through space as steel and melted flesh. Dong Che feared that this waning morale would result in a mutiny against him, sooner rather than later—a common fate that often befell pirate warlords in the earlier Federation campaigns of 216-218.

On Chal’s side, his senior staff officers urged him to detach smaller attachments and forward them to both Ides and Lübeck as early warning lines. Chal, however, wanted to maintain a cohesive force, fearing if he divided his naval force too much it would allow the Mafia to successfully retaliate much easier.

When it became evident to him that the Mafia in port was indeed about to capitulate, he gave into his staff officer’s idea of sending forward detachments and ordered several squadrons to prepare warping to the Ides and Lübeck star zones. For the Lübeck force, in the forward section of battle cruisers was lieutenant commander Viktor Mazzarelli, serving as XO of the battlecruiser the MSN Yilan. His CO was commander Kenneth Buttermilch.

iktor was present at the staff meeting that had decided upon the decision to split the Federation host amid looming expectations of Che’s fleet surrendering. He was part of the camp that opposed the risky operation, much like Buttermilch. However, because Mazzarelli and Buttermilch were junior ranks their arguments were ultimately overturned since Chal was the most senior-ranked officer present. It was to be put into motion effective immediately.

As one may have guessed, this implementation came too late and too little.