First Battle at the Grave of Thoughts


 * This page is about the 23rd century battle. For other uses of the term Battle at the Grave of Thoughts, see Battle at the Grave of Thoughts (disambiguation).

The First Battle at the Grave of Thoughts was a major battle of the ISC War of Pacification. It forced the Interstellar Concordium to retreat back into its original borders. It was in this battle that the Iron Fang County regained the respect of the Lyran Star Empire at large. (Star Fleet Battles)

Planning stages
After the success of Operation Tyr, pushing back the ISC advance into Kzinti territory, the Lyrans had to figure out a way to breach the defenses on their border. They identified a key spot in their defenses whose capture would deal a crippling blow to the Pacification Army. Lyran Starfleet Intelligence reported that there were hordes of prisoners being brainwashed at the Grave of Thoughts. However, they also reported that the Grave of Thoughts was heavily defended and the Iron Fang County couldn't fight the fleet amassed there on their own and the sheer amount of prisoners being held there required a large amount of freighters to ferry away from the area.

Due to the size of the units massed there (elements of the 2nd, 4th and 5th Fleets being stationed there, for a total of 350 ships) other Lyran fleets reluctantly agreed to fight alongside the Iron Fang County as well as Hydran forces belonging to the God of Evacuation cult and a Federation force under the command of Phil Kosnett.

The battle
The Iron Fang County formed the vanguard of the combined fleet and engaged the enemy frigates in the outer shell of their formations. But, seeing that they couldn't hold off the combined ISC fleet forever, they called for reinforcements as they engaged both the starbases and the heavier ISC units, loading the freighters that could come up to their maximum evacuation capacity.

Upon discovering that there is an Orion relay station chucked in between the starbases, and that the enemy flagship is right above the relay station, Virakas ordered his close guard to perform a tactical warp action to take them closer to the enemy flagship, as well as destroying the Orion relay station. This operation, resulting in the capture of the enemy flagship, demoralized the ISC fleet, which was torn to pieces shortly thereafter.