3rd Battle of Riseri

Overview
The Third Battle of Riseri is the second battle of the Vorskel-Manta War. It was fought between the Kingdom of Mesenthia and the Mantas. The Mesenthian force contained the MSF Defender, MSF Crossbow, MSF Palisade and MSF Bartizan, with Defender acting as squadron leader as no officers of flag rank were present. The force was commanded by Captain Asmorrigan Meis. Against them was a Manta flotilla containing ten fast attack destroyers, three battle frigates and a lander frigate, with the force commanded jointly by Circle Glider on DDZ-001 Vandal and Zizi on DDZ-002. The battle ended as a Manta victory when the Vorskel side retreated in the face of overwhelming force. Four transport frigates were destroyed on the surface of Lyesul by a Manta orbital bombardment, and both Palisade and Crossbow were damaged externally by laser fire. DDZ-003, DDZ-006 and DDZ-009 were damaged and LFZ-001 was destroyed by missiles.

Battle
Following first contact between the Midyans and the Mantas, during which Circle Glider mislead the Midyan fleet commander into believing the Vorskel had dropped the Volatilis spaceyards on Lyesul, the Midyans had raced off the confront the Vorskel themselves. Not wanting her ruse spoiled, Circle Glider organised all available Manta military forces into a flotilla and aimed to reach Riseri first with their faster warp drives.

A significant portion of the Manta force was made up of Volatilis-built vessels which only had Generation II warp drives, a generation behind those of the Tal'Ryth-built spacecraft. As such, only the Tal'Ryth-built component took part in the battle.

The Vorskel fleet had access to the FTL sensors of the Ith Telikos Network, which allowed it to detect the Mantas' approach. Lacking the time to evacuate their ground forces from Lyesul, they covered up the transports as best they could and dispersed, while the warships prepared to hold the Mantas off. The Manta flotilla made a tactical jump straight into combat range with the Vorskel, hoping to catch them by surprise as the light of their original arrival would not have reached the Confederation vessels for several hours. Due to their FTL sensor advantage, however, the Vorskel were able to set a trap - they launched a salvo of missiles then made their own tactical jump. The Manta fleet was surrounded by missiles at close range, and multiple spacecraft took heavy damage. LFZ-001 was destroyed by the onslaught, with multiple missiles creating hull breaches, through which a single missile passed and struck the vulnerable internal systems. Secondary explosions ripped the frigate apart.

Captain Meis ordered his force to skirt the Manta flotilla's weapons envelope at around 9,000KM, with the intent of using long-ranged weapons like their missiles and lasers. He had believed that at that range, the Vandal Mk II's spinal weapons would be ineffective. However, as the Vorskel made their pass, the destroyers opened fire in spite of the range, using their pylon-mounted dual-direction engines to maneuver themselves in the rapid manner demanded by such long range targeting. The Vandals aimed specifically at the two Palisade class destroyers, damaging surface instruments and missile launch tubes. Deciding that his force could not take on the Mantas' flotilla again and survive, Meis then commanded a retreat from the star system.

The missiles launched by the Vorskel task force, being at extreme range, had little fuel for maneuvering on final approach, and combined with the amount of closure time they were much more easily destroyed by point defense than they had been in the trap set earlier. The damage suffered by the Manta vessels in the final attack was minor, and easily fixed by self-repair systems.

Aftermath
Cruisers which had been sent from Irktara as reinforcements for the Confederation force returned to Irktara to prevent any possibility of the Mantas proceeding there to take that system, which had much higher strategic importance than Riseri.

The Mantas recaptured DDZ-005 Nemesis, with Circle Glider claiming it as her new command, as Spaceglider Commander Meela had been taken POW and removed from the Nemesis after the 2nd Battle of Riseri.

Having withdrawn all forces in the area to Irktara, the Vorskel effectively ceded control of Riseri to the Mantas.