Talk:Enceladus Aerospace Fleet/@comment-27820070-20140829195755/@comment-11135771-20141022230700

Seeing the last Prometheus Sentinel on a collision course toward their ship and knowing that they have no way of stopping it, the crew of the grounded Mantis II scramble for the escape pods. The rest of the EAF ships in the vicinity open fire on the enemy ship in hopes of altering its trajectory to miss its target, but its velocity and mass are high enough that it cannot be redirected by enough to miss completely at such a relatively short distance. Escape pods fire out of the sides of the downed battlecarrier as the enemy ship hurtles toward it, the last few shooting out of their bays just moments before impact. The Sentinel plows into the disabled Mantis II, completely obliterating both vessels. Around half of the ship's crew manage to survive, including ones killed earlier in the battle.

Bridge of the EAF Blackbird, shortly after the battle

Power had been quickly restored throughout most of the EAF flagship; the hit that unpowered it had luckily not destroyed the reactor itself, but merely severed many of the wires connecting it to the ship's systems. A quick patch job by the engineers and a lot of duct tape had managed to get it reattached within minutes of the battle's conclusion, but repairing the rest of the ship would take far longer.

Fleet admiral Miranda Atkins slumped back in her command chair, utterly exhausted. She had contacted the other members of the EAF high command to request an emergency meeting here in the bridge, and they were slowly arriving one by one one they finished with more immediately pressing matters such as damage control. The meeting was taking place on the flagship's bridge not out of preference, but necessity- virtually everywhere else that meetings would normally take place was either destroyed completely or too damaged to be safe to use.

Commodore Marcus Derialt of the Defense Department was one of the first to arrive, having been in the more or less intact turret control room during the battle. Miranda called him over to give a report on the outcome of the battle, and he gave a quick salute as he walked over.

"Admiral Atkins."

"Report."

"All Prometheus ships have been destroyed. We've not yet managed to assess the full extent of the damage, but it's clear that we've taken heavy casualties, albeit less than those of the enemy. Current reports indicate that we lost nine Mantis II-class battlecarriers, fourteen Goshawk II-class light battlecruisers, eleven Condor-class transports, and over a hundred fighter craft."

Miranda sighed and covered her face with her hand.

"But we won, admiral. Our losses were terrible, but those of our enemy were far greater," Derialt said.

The admiral gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. "Pyhrric victory..." she muttered under her breath.

"What did you say?" the commodore questioned.

"King Pyhrrus of Epirus after he defeated the Roman army at Asculum," she replied. "Quoted as having said; 'Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone.' He had just defeated the Roman army by a large margin, for the third time in a row, but the Romans had a much larger military and could afford to take far more losses than the Greeks. Pretty aptly describes our current situations, I'd say."

Derialt didn't respond, not really knowing what to say. It was true, after all; although they had won this battle, Prometheus still had thousands of ships and production capability to match. Enceladus Colony had scarcely a fraction of that. If Prometheus were to attack again -and they could, at any moment-, the outcome would be much different. After a few minutes of silence he left to meet the arriving members of command, seeing as the admiral didn't appear to want to say anymore.

After the others arrived, the meeting commenced. It went on for several hours, and although there was much disagreement over exactly what should be done and how it should be done, a few things were clear. First; the EAF's fleet was all but destroyed, and would stand no chance against another attack by Prometheus. Second; they needed to devote all of their efforts to rebuilding as quickly as possible, and attempting to fix some of their weaknesses that Prometheus had exploited. Third; there was absolutely no way that they would be able to stand against Prometheus alone. They needed to start making alliances and cashing in on some of the debts they were owed, and fast.

OOC: Well, that was a long battle.