Monitor in the Attack (SL350)

## Monitor in the AttacvkPart of Counter-Piracy Operations

Monitors were almost never involved in attacks on bases or planets, being operationally so slow that their approach would be detected in more than sufficient time for reinforcements to be sent, or for an intercepting force to engage the ship. However, as with most things, the term is "almost never."

Civil wars, especially at their start, are always confusing things with shifting or misunderstood loyalty. There are hints in the history that a Lyran monitor was in a system when a civil war broke out, remained loyal, and turned its weapons against the other forces in the system. There are some indications that this may have happened more than once, and that it may have also occurred at least once in the Romulan Empire, and perhaps the Kzinti Hegemony, in the mid-Y180s.

More common was the simple fact that, with a support pallet (the only type available prior to the mid-Y160s), a monitor was a fully capable' (if slow) ship. A monitor on its way to garrison a colony, or released from such duty and en route somewhere else, might be temporarily diverted to study something of interest (having facilities equal to most heavy cruisers) until some other hips could arrive.

Sometimes the simple fact that monitors were warships and did not necessarily follow the well travelled routes of merchant shipping to get where they needed to go was a factor. Much as any other warships, monitors often traveled the lonely wastes between star systems by themselves; i.e., there were not usually escorted. Sometimes (very rarely) such monitors might stumble across a hidden Orion base or, after Y170, an Andromedan base. As these bases often depended on not drawing attention to themselves, sometimes a request for reinforcements when a monitor's approach was detected was not made in time (or the reinforcements were simply not handy given the operations of Orions and Andromedans). Such incidents usually did not end well for the monitor if reinforcements were available, but sometimes a monitor was able to summon reinforcements (if only to help cover its retreat).

One notable incident occurred in Y155. A mining corporation found a rich strike in an asteroid field in Y153, but its three attempts over the course of two years to set up operations were attacked by Orions, forcing the repeated abandonment of the site. For its fourth attempt, the corporation managed to use its political connections to have members of the Federation Senate suggest that the Star Fleet and police forces provide additional defenses to the nascent operation.

As the convoy approached the asteroid field, the police cutters went ahead to "poke around," and discovered an Orion base station. The Orions were in the process of closing the station, having determined that the corporation would keep returning and doubtless eventually discover the base and alert Federation law enforcement. The Monitor's commander, sensing an opportunity, ordered the other Federation ships to join him in an attack before the Orions could be reinforced.

## Aftermath

The Federation small Q-ship was destroyed, but the Orion base and one of the Slavers were also destroyed. The other two Orion Slavers escaped with full cargo bays and 75% of the base's crew were saved.

## References

1. ↑ Various (13 March 2017). *Captain's Log 52*. Edited by Stephen V. Cole. (Amarillo Design Bureau, Inc.), pp. pp 45–47.