Battle of Sadako

"Bradley, Indromil, Reeson, Hoffman; you understand what is at stake here, correct? If we lose Sadako, the Mid-rim is already in Swarm hands. Stop the Swarm at all costs, or we will lose this war. That is an Order!"

- UNSC HIGHCOM

The Battle of Sadako was a major engagement that occurred merely hours after the Battle of the Bliss in the Swarm War; where the Swarm attempted a multi-pronged attack of UCG-controlled space in a plan to completely disorient allied forces and gain a strong foothold in the centermost areas of the Milky Way Galaxy. This plan was thwarted at the Battle of Sadako, where Lord Indromil, Captain John Bradley, Commander Gerard Reeson and Vice-Admiral David Hoffman lead a force of Allegiance, Ve'nek and UNSC Naval battlegroups against an overwhelming Swarm fleet of biblical proportions. After the UCG's victory at Sadako, the Swarm siege on the Mid-rim was broken and the allies managed to push enemy fleets back into the outer rim; successfully avenging the death of Indromil's close friend, Thakan Duras, who died earlier that day defending Bliss.

Hope Rises
Captain Bradley and his friend, Lord Indromil, were deeply moved after the reports arrived from Bliss. Despite the Swarm suffering heavy casualties, the Swarm destroyed the planet; and Lord Duras as well as Admiral Boyd were killed trying to protect the planet. Arbiter Vadam and Chieftan Lubrich were still fighting valiantly on the surface of the planet, and reinforcements were nowhere nearby. Captain Bradley and Lord Indromil were prepared to mobilize to attack the Swarm at Bliss and save Vadam and Lubrich's forces, but were stopped by Allegiance high command and re-deployed to Sadako, where another massive Swarm force was spotted nearing the system with multiple vessels already exiting slipspace.

Lord Indromil and Captain Bradley were greeted with a fleet of thousands; along with Ve'nek commander Gerard Reeson and UNSC vice admiral David Hoffman. There an extremely large coalition of UNSC, Ve'nek, and Theran forces had arrived and mustered to defend Sadako at all costs. This defense fleet was more that double the size of that mustered over Bliss in the previous weeks, as ONI believed that if the UCG lost bliss to the Swarm, their invasion into the Mid-Rim quadrants would be nigh-unstoppable. All four commanders agreed to work together with the utmost efficiency, and prepare for a long, bloody engagement with the Swarm; for this may possibly be the most important battle of the entire war.

Early Battle
A small amount of Swarm vessels had already amassed in the outer edges of the system, and Commander Reeson with a large battlegroup of Ve'nek ships intercepted the enemy group and fought a short, ten minute battle against them. The surviving Swarm ships retreated into interstellar Space, and Lord Indromil in conjunction with Captain Bradley gave the order to make chase. Reeson and his battlegroup followed and open fire on the enemy vessels after regrouping their force of over seventeen thousand vessels. Six thousand Swarm ships engaged and followed Reeson's battlegroup of sixty two vessels, and the Ve'nek lured them away from the system. This was quickly followed by Vice-Admiral Hoffman, who managed to lure away and additional four thousand ships; with the remaining Swarm vessels headed directly for Sadako.

Indromil and Bradley's forces would hide on the other side of the gas giant Aegis I, on the outer edge of the system; waiting for the remaining Swarm forces to arrive. Once the seven thousand remaining enemy vessels exited slipspace, they were immediately taken by a surprise by a powerful shock and awe campaign. Thousands of heavy missiles, MAC rounds and warheads spiraled into Swarm vessels, with both Bradly and Indromil ordering their starfighters to swamp the enemy fleet. Their fighters were almost immediately engaged by the deployment of Swarm fighters from their carriers and Hive ships to try and prevent the success of Bradley's plan.

Indromil committed to exercising the Wolfpack Maneuver after enough enemy fighters were down, and committed to killing off an Swarm carrier and causing the enemy ships to lose cohesion. On this occasion, and in fact many occasions on that very same day throughout all contested allied space, the Duras Method was put into practice after seeing it's success at Bliss; and as an honor to his dear friend who had died to protect it. A large multitude of nuclear weaponry was hurled directly into the enemy fleet, obliterating over four thousand vessels almost immediately.

After Indromil and his battlegroups blew apart the enemy fleet, Captain Bradley's forces tagged in, and directly engaged the remaining vessels with intense, overwhelming firepower that ended with the remaining Swarm forces in full retreat, with the engagement only lasting twenty minutes in total. The fleet's starfighters were heavily depleted, and Reeson and Hoffman's battlegroups had suffered heavy casualties staving off the enemy advances in an attempt to lure them away. The remaining Swarm forces called for reinforcements; regrouping and beginning their second assault on Sadako. Soon enough Reeson and Hoffman's fleets would converge together with the defense force lead by Indromil and Bradley as they fell back to the high orbit of Sadako to prepare for the final brutal assault on their world. This victory lead to the mid-battle period of the conflict.

Mid-Battle
Captain Bradley had sent out a number of false transmissions of open channels, leading the Swarm to believe that the defense force was highly depleted and evacuation efforts on Sadako had only begun. This caused the Swarm to hasten their plans, and therefore put their Hive ships and Carriers directly in the front of the fleet to begin the seeding and extermination process as soon as possible. When they arrived, however, they were shocked to see that evacuation efforts were already complete; and a powerful allied force was there to greet them with weapons primed and ready to fire.

A long, bloody struggle took place between the two factions, both sides suffering heavy losses in their drawn out confrontation that lasted over two hours. Eventually after seeing that their momentum was beginning to slow, Captain Bradley ordered all allied forces to commit to a tactical retreat. Lord Indromil, Commander Reeson and Vice-Admiral Hoffing lead their forces out of the system. When Swarm forces attempted to pursue, they were stopped by HE mines previously deployed by the escaping vessels. Bradley escaped in his vessel, The Watchman, and remained on the outer rim of the system. Swarm vessels began seeding the planet, and Bradley remained in wait for several weeks, marking the end-battle period.

End-Battle
Eventually, the ship's AI detected a massive Swarm fleet of over one million vessels entering the system; believing that the Swarm were planning to use Sadako as a staging area for further incursions into allied space. This was just what Bradley had been hoping for, and as they slowly neared the center of the system, Bradley detonated a powerful thermonuclear device planted inside the system's star, causing the sun to go supernova almost immediately with the Watchman entering slipspace in the nick of time to escape. The explosion destroyed the entire solar system and the gargantuan Swarm fleet alongside it, thwarting the enemy's plans to further encroach on UCG space for many months ahead. Bradley regrouped with Lord Indromil,Vice-Admiral Hoffing and Arbiter Paskin Vadam near the remains of Chiaras, where a counterattack was launched on the Swarm occupants over Bliss in an act of revenge for the death of Admiral Boyd, Chieftan Lubrich, and Thakan Duras. The large fleet of UNSC, Allegiance and Sanghelli vessels engaged the Swarm defenders, who only numbered in the near two hundreds at the time.

The Swarm were subsequently defeated over Bliss by the allied fleet, and their revenge was complete. They did not care that there was nothing left of Bliss, only that the Swarm were killed and the system was reclaimed from their clutches.

Aftermath
The UCG was unsure how to carry out the ordeal with Captain Bradley. If they should reward him for destroying a gargantuan enemy fleet or punish him for obliterating an entire colonized solar system, so they decided to ignore the feat. However his exploits were quickly known and revered by allied troops all over allied space.

The UCG were widely successful in staving off the massive multi-pronged Swarm attack all across the Mid-rim quadrants, and had Lord Thakan Duras and Captain Bradley to thank for their victories. The Duras Method would be employed in a few more major battles before it's continuation was rendered useless by evolving Swarm tactics, but was nonetheless imperative to the survival of all sentient life in the Milky Way.