Mandalay Incident

The Mandalay Incident refers to a war game during which three members of the Eighth Power(Hunter Jusenkyou, Jason Bur'I, and Cindy Kyte), working with minimal prep-time and no logistical support, stole a fully-armed, super-heavy dreadnought, the C.B.S. Dianvi, and used it to carry out a simulated attack run on the fourth planet in the nearby Mandalay System.

The mission was carried out under direct orders from Instructor Gailen, however he intentionally failed to inform any of the Crimson Blade personnel stationed at the starbase or on the Dianvi. Another ship, C.B.S. Garruk, was preparing to make a suicide-run against the Dianvi when Hunter stood down and explained his actions. Though most details of the incident were never made public, the entire incident saw wide-spread media attention. Nearly everyone involved thought it was an actual terrorist attack.

Details

The Dianvi was in stardock at a Foundation out-base, with the crew taking liberty leave during a lengthy mission. Most of the soldiers were not sleeping onboard, so despite being at nearly one-hundred-percent combat-readyness, the Dianvi had less than 120 people onboard(out of a crew of 5,000). The handful of crew members on board consisted almost entirely of security personnel, and minimal skeleton crews in main engineering and the bridge. The captain was not even on board.

The team that stole the Dianvi used a cobbled-together nuclear reactor to flood the ship with radiation, making the crew evacuate. They then took control of the ship from the bridge and carried out the mission, while other vessels in the vicintity did their best to stop them. Keeping in mind that no one outside of Gailen and the three thieves new this was just a drill. Only the Garruk was able to pursue

The team then piloted the ship ten light years to the Mandalay system where they completed a simulated attack run, targetting dozens of cities on the heavily populated planet with N2 missiles that were not actually fired. Following the Garruk's attempt to ram, Hunter Jusenkyou layed down arms and surrendered the ship back to the Crimson Blade, who briefly held him in custody while confirming his story with Gailen. Gailen was later publicly centured before the Blind Counsel, though his reprimand was effectively just for show.

Ultimately, the Gudersnipe Foundation released a statement to the effect that the team responsible were "in possession of highly-specialized knowledge of ship operations and procedures" and that no outside group should be able to replicate their success. The entire incident was largely covered up, due to the embarrassing nature of the whole event.

C.B.S. Dianvi

The Dianvi was a Salamander-class super-heavy dreadnought, twelve miles long, and equipped with twenty-seven guns, including a large, fixed-forward-facing main cannon that was among the most powerful carried by anything smaller than the Mercury-class of starship. It was also equipped with a second deck of missile banks, giving it twice as many tubes as a ship of similar size.

Mission Highlights

Hunter, Jason, and Cindy were given only two hours to prep, and not allowed access to any specialized equipment beyond what they carried at the time. In addition, and command codes the team was known to possess were temporarily stricken form the record, effectively giving them no more access than any civilian. They did not have any support from the rest of the team.

Because so few personnel were on board the Dianvi, the bulk of the ship was on a very strict security lock-down