Earlier today the DDS fleet, commanded by The Orchid, launched it's attack on the Zones (Operation Endless Sorrow). The attack took place near to Zoneland and although full details have yet to emerge the DDS have said that the Zone fleet has been utterly destroyed. Only 2 ships are understood to have survived and both of them nearly crippled. The DDS lost 2 ships in battle, Quasar cruiser 1217 Hadron was rammed by a Zone fighter and Terran Sea frigate 3204 Aral Sea was destroyed when a Zone commando team planted a nuke in it's engine bay.
Four other ships received moderate to serious damage though they were all able to travel to Rathun's World on their own power. The ships are Quasar cruiser 1212 Muon, Terran Sea frigates 3211 Java Sea and 3208 Barents Sea and Isometric frigate 3111 Palaeocene. Other ships also received damage but repairable by the crews in transit, most of the fleet has already set course to intercept the Utrek in the Remedian Belt.
The Zones employed a previously unknown kind of subspace teleport technology that allowed them to send commando teams through the DDS shields, this caused some havoc including the loss of Aral Sea (above) and also the flagship Pulsar cruiser 1011 Central America's bridge was attacked and The Orchid received injuries requiring her to transfer control of the battle to Windscorpion. The Zone teleport technology was luckily highly unstable and inaccurate and it is estimated 95% of the teams either re-materialised inside solid matter or empty space. One team is thought to have re-materialised inside the plume of a Pulsar's main engine which was probably a bit painful,
After the Zone fleet was destroyed 3 Pulsars equipped for nuclear strike entered low orbit and carried out a systematic nuclear bombardment of the Zoneland surface. 68 nuclear missiles were used with a total of 544 10 megaton warheads which devastated the Zone cities and infrastructure. A number of biogenic missiles were also used set for Zone DNA. The death toll is estimated in the hundreds of millions. A DDS spokesman said that 87% of Zone cities above 100,000 inhabitants were hit by the nukes or the resulting firestorm that swept across the main continent.
More details will emerge once the smoke has cleared.
