"FIRE! Divert power from engines to the main cannon batteries" Captain Lanche yelled across the bridge of his Star Destroyer. He normally would reprimand someone for yelling but now was not the moment, Admiral Rax had brought the Empire here to tear into the Rebellion. Lanche did not much care for protocol anymore, most Imperials where just throwing everything they had at the Rebellion with reckless abandon. Admiral Rax had made it clear that this was the end for either the Empire or the rebellion, and Lanche was willing to do everything he could to decide who would end up surviving the engagement.
The ISD Destructor continued its assault on the hull of the Nebulon-B medical frigate beneath it. The Nebulon-B had attempted to go underneath the ISD in order to give support to one of the Rebel landing zones. The Nebulon-B had a CR90 escort which had soon been destroyed by the ISD and its compliment of TIE bombers. Instead of retreating, the medical frigate just kept heading to its destination while putting everything it had to the shields and engines while cutting everything from the cannons.
Rebel snubfighters had engaged the bombers and made short work of them. The X-Wings and A-Wings where keeping TIEs from getting close enough to hit the frigate, the fighters where the only offensive measure being taken by the frigate right now. Lanche knew that that was irrelevant now, the Nebulon-B would not be able to hold against the ISDs cannons much longer. The Rebel frigate was already losing altitude in an attempt to distance itself from the bombardment. It was quickly approaching the heat of the ground battle.
"Sir, a B-Wing squadron has opened fire on our cannons" One of the coms officers said as if he could scarcely believe it.
"What? How did no one inform me till now that they had broken away from the Nebulon-B? It seems this crew is becoming more and more disorderly, once this is done remind me to reprimand everyone on sensor duty. Send in TIE Interceptors to confront to B-Wings."
Blade squadron sped over the top of the Imperial warship's hull. The point-defense lasers were unable to hit them in time, the fighters unleashed their armaments into one of the ISD's heavy cannons.
"Sir Interceptors approaching" Blade 5 called out.
"3 and 7 break off and drive most of them over toward our A-Wings. They will handle them. Everyone else form up and put all power to your aft shields and engines"
The Nebulon-B had all its power diverted to shields. The ship was taking lots of the hits well but it would soon be overtaken. Lanche wondered if the captain realized just how futile his attempt to withstand the firepower of the ISD was.
Lanche could not hazard a guess as to what the Rebels thought they were doing aside from a feeble attempt to die stubbornly. Lanche had lost much of his composure in this battle, otherwise he might have been able to see what was to come.
On board the bridge of the Nebulon-B Redemption
"How close are we to the front lines?" Captain Sabburnasked a Neimoidan bridge officer.
"a mile and closing sir!"
Sabburn hesitated for a second before saying "It's time. Get everyone ready to launch escape pods and get into the GR75, contact the ground forces and tell them to strike as soon as possible as well as to launch all their fighters to attack the ISD, tell engineering to be ready on my mark, get the U-Wings ready for landing, and tell all fighters to blitz the Destructor now!". She was not certain this would work but if the Empire was going to throw everything they had into their attack then the New Republic should do the same.
"Sir all the Rebel fighters are heading right at us"
"Sir the Nebulon-Bs shields are lowering a bit and aft engines are coming to a halt, but all their power is going to the forward engines as if they want to slow down." another crewman yelled.
Lanche paused, he had no idea what the Rebel captain was up to. "Give the forward cannons more power and try to slow that ship down with the tractor beam"
"Sir a GR75 just took off along with several freighters, escape pods, and BR-23 Couriers"
Lanche began to sweat, he looked at the view-screen that projected the pov of the bow and saw the Nebulon-B turn onto its starboard while its bow faced down diagonally. The ships pouring out of the Nebulon's hanger bays which faced port side.
Lanche realized what was happening far to late, the Nebulon-B was deploying all its ships to land on the Rebellion side of the frontline while it would crash right in the middle of the ground battle. The Nebulon-Bs decent being diagonal with sublight engines keeping it diagonal while gravity drags them down but slowly enough as to avoid falling to fast thanks to the forward engines pushing back against the downward decent. The starboard shields were lowering and diverting power to the bow.
"Fire everything at their port now!" Lanche yelled.
"Sir we lost our targeting systems. Y-Wings just hit them, B-wings also just took out the tractor beam" an officer responded.
"The fighters not escorting them are attacking our cannons. They can't hit effectively and our point-defense lasers are getting nothing with no targeting sensors.
Lanche slowly walked backward into the holoprojector table. He had a mostly intact ship, with no major loss of structural integrity yet he was unable to stop a Nebulon-B cause his own oversight. He had failed Rax, he had failed his Empire.
"Sir the Nebulon-B is crashing" Lanche looked at the view-screen and saw the nebulon-B straighten out as it impacted the sand. It kicked up a massive dust cloud that encompassed the surrounding area. When it began to clear Lanche could see the ship was smoking and severely damaged, having broken in half, yet it's shields held; the starboard side was likely torn apart but the starboard of the bow seemed to be intact still. The frigate was on fire and had areas collapsed in on themselves but the vessel was still held together and was now providing new cover for the Rebel ground forces.
"Sir we could try to position ourselves to hit them now that they have no shields and limited power, we just need to get much closer. Their fighters are still on us, but we jut need to get rid of them" one of the bridge officers said hopefully.
Before Lanche could respond a massive explosion shook the ship. Lanche look out the viewport and saw Y-wings bombarding the hull of the ISD as B-wings flew right at the bridge, damaging the bridge shield generators. Lanche new the battle was lost, he threw everything he had at the Rebellion but clearly that was not enough.
"Stop those New Republic fighters from making another run"...New Republic? Lanche had refused to call them anything but the Rebellion, now finally he saw that this really was the Empire's end. being bested by what had once been just a fever dream in the minds of a few senators and freedom fighters. Lanche looked up as a Y-wing closed in on the bridge and took its shot. The Imperial Star Destroyer's bridge exploded in a fiery blaze.
"Sir the Destructor is down, we got it, the damned thing is crashing onto its own troops right now" Gold leader called out over the coms. Sabburn looked out of the view-port and saw the ISD crashing. The sky was still filled with dozens of Imperial ships and the battle on the ground was just going to get bloodier, but every member of the New Republic did not have any fear, the Imperials where to stubborn to see it but this truly was the Empire's end.