The Battle of Hangman's Pass
A micro-scale LEGO creaion by: Justin R. "Saber-Scorpion" Stebbins

(click images to enlarge)

The Battle of Hangman's Pass occurred in 334 PA, roughly a year into the war. The Yavakarese Jikoku-class frigate Winter Famine was assigned to defend a remote but important trading outpost (a Type 61 Deep Space Trade and Supply Station) known as "Hangman's Pass" from raiders. The vessel was equipped with a working prototype stealth system adapted from Achmer designs, with the intention of testing the device in the field for the first time.

Once the outpost reported activity in the incoming breach-space trade lane, Winter's Famine activated its stealth system. Although the cloaking device had been tested successfully prior to this engagement, there was a malfunction this time that disabled all other systems on the Famine. The crew had no intention of using most of these systems while in stealth anyway, since they would give away their position, but now they were not responding at all. There was no guarantee they would come online again once stealth was dropped, and dropping stealth with no systems active would leave them a sitting duck for whatever was approaching through the trade lane.

They were expecting an attacking band of raiders or pirates, but what arrived instead was the Zygbari Thoth-class frigate War Hammer. Even more alarming was where it arrived: on a near-collision course for the invisible, disabled Winter Famine. Without full use of their ship's sensors, the Yavakarese crew did not realize this until they physically saw the Hammer's imposing silhouette on approach. The enemy frigate passed less than a kilometer away from the Famine, its shields almost scraping their hull. It was a tense moment as the soldiers of Yavakaro watched the motley hull of the Hammer pass by, so close that they could make out its every detail from their viewports.

The battle commenced when the Zygbari crew, getting strange readings on their ship's sensors, decided to launch a probe to get a clearer reading. The probe struck the Famine on the hull and was destroyed. Although it caused no damage to the Yavakese ship, her captain knew they had been discovered and ordered the cloak to be dropped and the shields raised. Fate was merciful, and the ship's systems came back online as soon as it went out of stealth mode.

What followed was the closest-range space battle in history. The two friates went at it broadside, each unloading their firepower into the other's shields. The War Hammer, equipped with powerful capital-class firestorm cannons and hard-mounted rail guns launching hull-buster space-to-space bombs, had the superior firepower. But the Winter Famine, with its Aegis-type shield system adapted from Sarran technology, had the superior defense.

In the end, the battle was a stalemate, as both ships, jarred by the unexpected battle, withdrew from the field - the Famine making a rapidly-calculated jump into the Breach, and the Hammer taking yet another trade lane. Both left a little worse for wear, and the Hangman's Pass trading outpost was later siezed by the opportunistic Grimm's Mercenary Army.