A Sword Short (SL344)

## A Sword ShortPart of Klingon-Kzinti Front

In Y173 the Kzintis commissioned the *Shortsword*, CVD-8, which was built using a battlecruiser hull to save money and originally intended to feed fighters to other carriers. The loss of other carriers forced the *Shortsword* into the front lines, where it was re-classed as an interdiction carrier. The ship was sent on repeated deep-strike missions, ravaging Klingon and, primarily, Lyran logistical networks. Through a combination of skill, good intelligence from various bypassed and isolated listening posts in occupied Hegemony space, and simple good luck the ship survived, although it was sometimes heavily damaged.

By Y184 the frontline of the General War had returned to the Hegemony's original borders on both the Klingon and Lyran fronts. *Shortsword* continued to be used for raids on Coalition logistics, but the operations were more difficult than in the Y170s. As the raids were now directed into regions that had always been part of enemy space, intelligence was harder to gain and greater coordination was required.

While the Hegemony was trying to rebuild its own border stations, its attempts to enter Coalition space ran afoul of the Coalition border stations. In order to conduct a successful raid it was necessary to launch diversionary attacks against the nearby Coalition border stations, or at least against targets near them, to keep them from using their own assets to interfere with the *Shortsword's* movements.

Operations security meant that the *Shortsword* group would go on "radio listening silence." That is to say that before and while on an operation the *Shortsword* group would cease broadcasting messages until it made contact with an enemy force in order to minimize its chances of being detected, but it would listen for any messages from fleet command that might change its mission. This was not unusual; indeed it was typical of operations by all empires.

In Y184, however, several things conspired to cause disaster.

The *Shortsword* began Y184 operating on the Lyran front, but was then transferred to the Klingon front for an operation. Just before the transfer, the commodore of the group was promoted and transferred from command, and chose to take his command staff with him. No other commodore was available to take command of the group, much less a replacement senior staff, so command devolved to the commander of the *Shortsword* itself and the ship's officers assumed the additional duties of the flag staff. However, the *Shortsword's* commander was severely injured and transferred to a hospital freighter for treatment just before the group was tasked for the mission. Command then devolved onto the *Shortsword's* executive officer, who had himself only been assigned to the post the month before having previously commanded a medium aegis cruiser in another carrier group.

With an inexperienced {and overworked) staff led by an inexperienced group commander, things were only further confused by the new command relationship. The admiral in command of the sector where the *Shortsword* was transferred was in the habit of giving orders in the form of suggestions as a means of getting his subordinates "invested" in the orders.

As the moment for the launch of the mission came, the admiral suggested that the *Shortsword* not proceed unless the commander considered it prudent to do so. The *Shortsword* group's commander interpreted the admiral's words as a suggestion that he was too timorous for his command and motivating him to display his own aggressiveness. Unfortunately, the *Shortsword's* commander was unaware that the admiral wanted the group to not begin its operation because a series of Klingon raids elsewhere in his operational area had obliged the use of the forces gathered for diversionary operations to support the *Shortsword's* mission to counter them. The overworked and inexperienced staff of the *Shortsword* failed to recognize that the movements of the other ships in the sector were not designed to support the raid, but a reaction to enemy movements. On radio listening silence, the *Shortsword* passed into Klingon space, initially unnoticed, but this did not last.

Another nail in the shaping of the disaster was the previous deployment of a Lyran task force on the Federation-Klingon front. While this task force had been withdrawn back into Lyran space several years earlier, there were various caches of supplies to support it still in existence within the Klingon empire, cargoes left at various times by damaged freighters. These supplies (mostly spare parts) had only salvage value to the Klingons, but were of value to the Lyrans - valuable enough in the strained circumstances of the Lyran Empire that it was worth assembling a convoy to run the former supply route to pick up these caches and return them to Lyran space. One of the escorts involved in the effort was an auxiliary fast patrol ship tender. On the lookout for Orions, it spotted the *Shortsword* group.

The final tragic nail was that the Kzinti admiral on being advised that the *Shortsword* group had not been providing status updates had his staff query the ship, which required it to break radio silence, but that was no longer an issue. Informed the group had commenced its assigned operation the admiral, perhaps in horror, issued an immediate recall.

Perhaps if the *Shortsword* group had continued into Klingon space, it might have been possible to organize a supporting attack to help it get back into Hegemony controlled space. Perhaps a more experienced command group would have opted for a more roundabout return instead of simply reversing course. Certainly if the Lyrans had not been there, the group might not have been spotted early enough for Coalition forces to react to the *Shortsword* group's presence.

Confronted with converging flotillas of gunboats, the *Shortsword's* commander saw no option but to force a path through as he believed the presence of the gunboats was proof that the Admiral's recall order meant that stronger Coalition forces were converging on his group.

## Aftermath

The three coalition flotillas sustained considerable damage and loss, but succeeded in destroying the *Shortsword* and the *FKA-182*. The *Keenness* escaped the debacle.

## References

1. ↑ Various (23 May 2016). *Captain's Log 51*. Edited by Stephen V. Cole. (Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.), pp. 46–48.
2. ↑ Various (23 May 2016). *Captain's Log 51*. Edited by Stephen V. Cole. (Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.), pp. 46–48.
3. ↑ Various (23 May 2016). *Captain's Log 51*. Edited by Stephen V. Cole. (Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.), pp. 46–48.