The Battle of the Cerean Reach

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- The Battle of the Cerean Reach -


New_Starry_Deaths_Headv2.png

The Starry Death's Head, emblem of the Ossein Pirates.

Personal Lore

The Battle of the Cerean Reach was - by Galactic standards - a minor skirmish in a remote region of the Outer Rim, fought between outlaw groups and largely outside the scope of the wider Galactic conflict being fought at the time between the Sith and the Jedi.
Taking place about 10 years before the present, the battle was fought along a stretch of the eponymous Cerean Reach, an Outer Rim hyperlane, near its intersection with the Koda Spur. The combatants were the Ossein Pirates, a small fleet of ships engaged primarily in vigilante activities against the Lessers, a militarized gang which was heavily involved in slaving, hard spice running, extortion and piracy along the Koda Spur and its ancillary routes. The battle was the first and only major engagement between the assembled Ossein fleet and the Lessers' own space forces, and would prove decisive in the war between the two groups.

- The Combatants -

The Ossein Pirates -
The Ossein Pirates, also known as the Ossein Fleet, were a vigilante force created to fight the powerful criminal syndicates which operated along the Koda Spur, primarily the military-style gang known as the Lessers. Organized and lead by the former merchant turned pirate captain Krayd Hasperre, a legend even in his own lifetime, the Ossein Fleet took its name from Hasperre's ship, the Ossein, which itself was named after an ancient warrior culture which had once battled across the Outer Rim. Made up of a few dozen vessels, the fleet was mostly composed of beings who had suffered at the hands of the gangs, and who had given up on the largely impotent civil authorities to deliver appropriate justice.
Despite its rag-tag nature, the Ossein Fleet, led and honed by Captain Hasperre, was an extremely effective fighting force. The fleet specialized in lightning raids, and earned a fearsome reputation for its swift, ruthless actions against both overt mob activity and "legitimate" business owned by them. As most of the large shipping corporations in the region were controlled by the gangs to some degree, their raids had the effect of making the Ossein heroes to smaller businesses and independent operators, and a grave threat to those in power. They were characterized as dangerous, bloodthirsty pirates in most media, an image the fleet's members found they enjoyed, and which they actively cultivated.

On the day of the battle, the Ossein Pirates were in the process of massing their forces for an attack on a known mob stronghold. As such, most of their fleet was assembled to meet the ambush which came, including:
- 1 heavy cruiser.
- 2 cruisers.
- 3 frigates.
- 5 corvettes.
- 1 fleet tender.
- 1 heavy transport galleon.
- 1 ELINT/AWACS vessel.
- 10-20 light freighters.
- 20-30 pinnaces.
- 30-40 starfighters.

The Lessers -
The Lessers were a brutal, powerful organized crime syndicate which had risen to power along the Koda Spur over the course of the frequent Sith-Republic wars, which have long deprived the region of much-needed anti-piracy patrols and other law enforcement resources. In their absence, gangs flourished, and one group, the former Private Military Contractor known as the Lessers, saw an opportunity.
Inherently better organized and better trained than much of its competition, the Lessers quickly became a force to be reckoned with, swelling their assets and territory, and settling into the rackets which would become their bread and blue butter. Slaving, hard spice running, extortion and outright piracy were their specialties, and they quickly came to be one of the most powerful military organizations in the region, lawful or otherwise, operating their own private army, their own intelligence agency, and even their own fleet.
In its latter years of dominance, however, the Lessers began to face challenges. Aside from territory disputes with rival syndicates, they now faced the Ossein Fleet, a group of vigilante pirates focused entirely on the destruction of organized crime in the region, and the Lessers in particular.
On paper at least, the Lessers had an overwhelming advantage in ships, capital and manpower, but the Ossein were led by a brilliant commander, Captain Krayd Hasperre, who wielded his small but ever-growing force like a laser scalpel in the hands of an expert surgeon. Krayd's attacks were bleeding the syndicate white, and unless he could be defeated, the gang would eventually fall apart.

The Lessers attacked the Ossein Pirates with their own combat fleet, ambushing them at the pirates' rally point along the Cerean Reach. They aimed to overwhelm and destroy the Ossein in a single engagement, and accordingly committed their entire combat space fleet to the operation, including:
- 2 heavy cruisers.
- 4 cruisers.
- 8 frigates.
- 10-15 Corvettes.
- 1 fleet tender.
- 2 starfighter tenders.
- 1 ELINT/AWACS vessel.
- 100-200 starfighters.

- The Battle -

The Battle of the Cerean Reach was joined at around 0600 hours Federal District Mean Time, when scouting elements of the Lessers Combined Fleet confirmed the main Ossein Pirates fleet in a rogue asteroid field near the junction of the Koda Spur and the Cerean Reach. The Lessers' intelligence agency had gotten wind of the fleet's intention to strike a significant slave processing center, committing all of their known forces to the operation. The Lessers' intention was to catch the Ossein at their rally point, using their significant numerical advantage and superior firepower to destroy the opposing force once and for all.
The theater of operations was not ideal for the Lessers. Although they nominally had the element of surprise, the attacking fleet did not have the luxury of choosing the battlefield, engaging the Ossein on what was essentially their own turf. Besides that, after the initial confusion of ambush, the close, cover-rich environment of the asteroid field lent itself well to the signature tactics of the Ossein, although as pirates themselves, the Lessers were not unfamiliar with such fighting.
Overall, the asteroid field was a trap for both sides. Once the battle was joined, the hazards of the field claimed at least as many vessels as direct combat, and the presence of densely packed hyperspace mass shadows generated by the asteroids made retreat or even cooperative maneuvers by either side difficult.

It was for this last reason that the stood turned and fought, rather than immediately trying to withdraw and avoid a direct engagement with a superior force. After detection by scouting elements, the Lessers fleet moved into the field, catching the Ossein vessels as they attempted to scatter and take up their own ambush positions behind nearby asteroids. More swiftly than either side anticipated, the attack degenerated into a confused melee, with Ossein pinnace and starfighter squadrons engaging the far larger Lessers starfighter wing, and capital ships initiating their own slow-motion nekfights. With neither side able to effectively withdraw and reform into proper formations, the advantage was taken by neither.
Over time, the numerical superiority of the Lessers began to swing the battle in their favor. Krayd Hasperre, the leader of the Ossein, eventually did manage to get his forces into some semblance of formation, but knew that his tattered ships could not stand up to the thinned but still powerful Lessers. Accordingly, he ordered the majority of his surviving ships to make a break for open space, while his own vessel - accompanied by a handful of surviving pinnaces and starfighters - drove at the enemy fleet, hoping to cover the others' escape.

- The Outcome -

The Battle of the Cerean Reach was a relatively brief engagement, and a decisive one. Though almost equally costly for the Lessers, their fleet had badly mauled the Ossein forces, and ultimately left them leaderless. Captain Hasperre, who had been the mastermind behind his fleet's long, destructive campaign against the Lessers, went down with his ship after charging the enemy fleet, a maneuver which indeed allowed many of the surviving Ossein to escape, these being but a scant handful of ships. Though the Ossein Pirates' surviving leadership briefly attempted to hold the fleet together and rally a renewed offensive, Hasperre's death ultimately led to the slow dissolution of the faction, leaving only his protege, Triter Zonne, to publicly carry its legacy.
Rumors of the Ossein treasure galleon Yesugen, said to carry the loot of a thousand raids in her holds, have persisted for years; she was said to have survived the battle, but did not rally with the other remnants of the fleet, her captain having received standing orders from Hasperre himself to undertake another mission. Veterans of both the Ossein and the Lessers have confirmed that the ship was still largely intact when the order came to retreat, but her fate afterward remains unknown, and no trace of her has ever been found.
To sum up, however, the Ossein Pirates effectively ceased to exist after the Battle of the Cerean Reach. Though some splinter groups undoubtedly continued as pirates for a time, it is doubtful that most survived long, having to contend both with sizeable bounties on their heads posted by the sector authorities, and with the animosity of the local organized crime elements, now once again largely unchallenged in the region and eager to make an example of any surviving Ossein.

Ultimately, the battle spelled the end of the Lessers as well, although theirs would be a slower death. Although briefly commanding great respect among the other gangs for their destruction of the Ossein threat, it was quickly realized by other mobsters in the region that the Lessers were a shadow of their former might. The damage wrought by the Ossein to the Lessers' financial support network made the heavy losses the gang had sustained during the battle difficult or impossible to replace, and these losses began to show. Gradually, territory was seized by smaller gangs, and after a protracted decline, the Lessers eventually faded into obscurity, and then into nonexistence.

Although significant within the region for shifting the balance of power within the organized crime along the Koda Spur, the Battle of the Cerean Reach has little significance outside this Galactic backwater. Even so, it figures heavily in local folklore, especially among the poor and downtrodden, who view Captain Krayd Hasperre as a kind of folk hero, and the battle as his last stand, sacrificing himself for the beings under his command and taking as many of the enemy with him as he could. Accounts of the battle - first-hand or otherwise - in various embellished forms have made the rounds in cantinas along the Spur and the Cerean Reach - and the sectors they both pass through - for many years.

- Intent -

This piece of lore is intended to flesh out a significant event within the backstory of the space pirate Triter Zonne. It also serves to create a bit of interesting regional lore.
 
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Malon

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Makes for a nice bit of lore. Good to see people (you) using lore to flesh out bits of their (your) character's backstories too. Approved.
 
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