In the Raptor's Claw - Coridan - The Landings and the Withdrawal - The November Counteroffensive

Posted on Thu Dec 19th, 2024 @ 6:34pm by Colonel Josiah McEntyre

537 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: The Campaign for Coridan
Timeline: Coridan Campaign

Coridan was a mess. Anyone claiming to understand it is either lying, delusional, or trying to sell something. Probably all three. – Admiral Thy’lek Shran

November 29, 2156: a force of over fifty Coalition ships – twenty-two Andorian Khyzon-class cruisers; thirteen Vulcan D’Kyr-class cruisers; ten Starfleet ships, led by the USS Columbia and Buran and including the Intrepid-class USS Gjøa, Hōkūleʻa, and St. Roch as minesweepers; six Tellarite Pralim-class cruisers; and seven converted cargo ships carrying 400,000 troops- entered the Coridan system. This armada constituted the largest deployment of Coalition forces of the war to date, and was the largest since the temporary force deployed as the sensor net to hunt down the Romulan holoship a little over two years prior. During its transit to the system, the fleet suffered two separate attacks from the Romulan Bird of Prey Squadron Laehval, who knocked out three Vulcan and two Andorian ships before losing two of their own and being forced to retire. Even with those losses, the fleet was more than adequate to reinforce the beligered first wave of Coalition Forces under 12th MACO.

Moreover, the Romulans had set about reinforcing the ground-based defenses in the capital, and used them to pummel both the forces in space and on the defenders on the ground. Field Marshal th’Groffe chose to focus their effort on clearing out the skies over the Jorinal spaceport and Camp Lambda, where General sh’Yara’s and Colonel McEntyre's battered troops had been making their defense for the past few months.

"The Marshal had been chosen to command the Coalitions combined forces. A Veteran Commander of numerous campaigns against the Vulcans and several internal campaigns. He had the experience but getting all the races of the Coalition to work together was his biggest challange." - Dr. Jeksenri Vale, In the Raptor's Claw documentry 2403 - U.S.S. Yorktown

The marshal was now in command, but he needed to know what he and the Coalition forces were getting into. The situation on the ground was dire, and sh’Yara spared the command staff no detail. Foodstuffs and particle rifle battery packs were running low, the spaceport was subject to near constant artillery barrages – which the marshal had already seen with his own eyes – and the soldiers under her command lacked adequate winter gear for the Jorinal Canyon tundra. The Andorian soldiers could bear the temperatures with relative aplomb; the southern winters on Coridan rarely went much below negative twenty degrees Celsius, a relatively balmy temperature for most of Andoria. The Coridanite troops – let alone the humans, Tellarites, or Vulcans – would not bear up as well. Moreover, the canyon had a nasty habit of creating high winds that could shear through clothing and down to the bone. The marshal and his staff had planned for this, and informed sh’Yara that they had brought a supply of as much winter gear as they could cobble together. Te Wiata and his MACOs had already begun distributing the coats.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the counteroffensive, General Te Wiata dispatched orders to Colonel Josiah McEntyre's SOD-Alpha to reconnoiter the canyon, and map out enemy FOPs and AA positions in preparation for the planned counteroffensive.

RSS Feed