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During the modern era, the Starlit Court sent several expeditions against Dominionist hideouts and cells on and around Dachia. With Sihi mobile once again, the traitors grew bolder and operated outside of the shadow. Isolated raids against fiends such as the escaped convict Farain and notable ne'er-do-well Elenore von Bathory maintained the Courts interest in the region.
=====Second Battle of Dachia=====
In AoQ 572, the Starlit Court began a renewed offensive against their enemies the Free Dominion on Dachia and rallied forces from various Knightly Orders into an armada named Task Fleet Dachia. The target was a Dominion’s base: The Mausoleum, a buried starship from the Dachia Crisis turned fortified bunker.
In AoQ 572, Task Fleet Dachia, brought to bear a massed assault on the Dominion’s seat of power. The Dominionist presence on Dachia faced a crisis point. Initial fleet battles in the skies above the world swung heavily in favor of the attacking knights. The small dominionist fleet could not hold back landing craft and drop pods, but kept the overmatched ships busy by retreating into the void. Only a modest orbital bombardment was allocated to the invasion as tracking down the fleeing traitorous craft was considered a priority for the Court’s warships.
During the initial engagements, the defending Dominioinist ships, overmatched by the invading fleet, failed to prevent the assault forces from slipping past their lines. However, this Dominionist navy distracted the Court’s fleet long enough to deny orbital support to the ground forces of assaulting mechs and infantry.
Landing forces only faced limited contest on the short trip to the surface, but met with stiff resistance once they set boots onto the ice. The Dark Triad had set up shop in the wreck of the starship SCS Zweihander, a craft that fell during the first Dachia Crisis. They entrenched themselves in the ship and dug tunnels into the surrounding rock. From the sky the facility was hidden below a blanket of ice and snow. With defensive structures and trenches formed a fortified hedgehog around what they now called The Mausoleum, the Dominonists would challenge the attackers with all their might. Armed for their last stand the traitors threw every ounce of metal and flesh at their foe.
Once on the icy surface, the ground forces of Task Fleet Dachia met stiff resistance from the Dark Triad and their biomechs. Regardless, the inexorable forces pushed through, slowly advancing on the fortifications. The fighting defense of the Dominionists provided time to lure the assaulting Starlit Court into booby-trapped outer defenses. This gambit, however, failed to halt the advance of the Invasion. Starlit Court forces captured the base at the cost of many lives and materiel. An orbital bombardment capped off the campaign, eliminating remnants of the base.
Lances of rebel and loyalist mechs clashed, but the superior quality of Task Fleet Dachia made a slow and inexorable advance through the blinding sleet. Seeing their momentum fading, the Dominion maintained a fighting defense, biding time to sap and booby-trap their forward trenches for when the Starlit Court entered them. The loyal knights fell face first into the gambit, but the defenders failed to capitalize on the chaos they had caused. The assault force, outnumbered and outwitted, kept driving forward with superior arms and teamwork slaying more than they lost. Even the great bioforms of the Dark Triad, monstrous creatures bred for war, could not halt the Court’s progress into the base. The defending commander, Syr Duradel Crypt, held a last stand on the bridge of the buried ship, but fell with his lance in the final skirmish. After recovering intel and hostages, the Court returned to orbit and blasted the arctic base with ordinance until it was naught but a scar on the planet’s surface.
====99-Year Lease====
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