Chapter 11
Location: Orbit over Planet Harrin
The Separatist assault fleet entered the planet's orbit like a lightning bolt, quickly driving the small RVC task force out of orbit within a few minutes after a second wave of Lucrehulk Battleships jumped into place and began grinding forward. The three Venators of the Task Force 1 had to fall back and cover their Acclamators as the six CR90's and two Arquitens protected the fleet from enemy starfighter attacks. The two fleets lost nothing but position before the Republic forces withdrew after a few stiff volleys of turbolaser fire were exchanged from long range. But eventually the RVC fleet withdrew, and the Separatists decided to deploy their ground forces to secure the planet and destroy the sixty thousand troopers dug in on the ground.
Over the planet the 19th Task Group had deployed itself in full force. An armada of four hundred frigates and light destroyers surrounded a dozen Lucrehulk-Class Battleships with a mobile battle line of thirty Providence-Class Carrier-Destroyers now hovered menacingly over the planet. This fleet was Admiral Der's gamble, Harrin was the buffer between Separatist space and the strategically crucial hyperspace hub of Yag'Dhul. If she could take this planet then the Republic would have to scale back its offensive towards Sullust and deploy to face her heavy warships.
"Ground forces are ready for deployment," Admiral Der heard her tactical droid call out, "RVC ground troops are taking cover beneath local defense shields in strategically advantageous positions around the capital centered on three Prefabricated Bases."
"We won't fire on the planet, strategic analysts are saying that we risk retaliation from the RVC against populated planets if we do, launch assault craft, escort them down, stay out of their range and get those droids on the ground."
"Roger roger."
Admiral Der walked to the viewscreen of the bridge and looked down as C-9979's began to deploy from the hangars and maneuvered into formations to land on the planet. Each held a full regiment of 4,300 battle droids and over a hundred armored repulsorlift vehicles. Vulture Droids and Hyena Bombers escorted each of them towards their destination like a swarm of angry bees, ready to pounce on RVC forces that may have attempted to sortie to attack them. She knew that she was deploying two full droid armies totaling 218,000 droids in each formation. It should have been all that was needed for this mission to succeed and to deal a crushing blow against the RVC, losing sixty thousand men, a complete Volunteer Corps including elite Anaxes Knights Caridan regulars would be a devastating moral strike against the enemy. But she knew that was Drexel would know that, and feared his reprisal attack because of that.
"Are we sure that the Basilisk and the main enemy fleet is still near Yag'Dhul?" Admiral Der asked.
"Our intelligence and scouting is certain that the Basilisk has pulled back to Mechis," the large droid said calmly.
"We'll wait here for them to deploy to Yag'Dhul, and then jump them with the battleships, that dreadnought is the key," Der nodded at the soundness of her plan. She wanted to use surprise and the firepower of her dozen Lucrehulks to smash that Kuati giant and force it to withdraw and the thirty Providence-Class Destroyers of her mobile battle line to screen the battleships against the Venators that would be alongside. After Yag'Dhul and Mechis everyone now knew how deadly that dreadnought really was. It made her somewhat proud in a way, she'd previously warned the CIS Admiral Staff of the dangers just one of those monsters could truly pose to them, and now they knew she was right.
"Understood. Ground forces are on their way down."
Location: Bridge over the Axii River, Planet Harrin
"Here they come," Lieutenant Yuno said over the comms as the company stood at the ready in their fortifications on their side of the river with the shield to their backs.
"Roger that, all troopers stay down, we're in good cover use it," Wyatt and Eva's squad leader said to everyone as he walked the line beneath the thick orchard situated on a ridge thirty meters high at a bend in the river that overlooked the bridge to their left.
"Here we go again," Wyatt said to Eva who was sitting in their new foxhole right alongside him.
"Yep, this time I've got this though," the blonde responded by patting her DLT-18.
The two sat within a duracrete bunker no bigger than a foxhole with an underground sleeping chamber that they'd both added onto with confiscated cut lumber over the past week. They'd reinforced the wood with a tarp to keep water out, as it did rain a lot here, and local farmers had helped them out pile on dirt in a two-foot thick layer and then planted thick, quick-growing grasses meant for livestock feed on top and on the sides. They'd always known this was going to be their battle station, and had fortified it as best they could, reinforcing their rear entrance with thick lumber to form a kind of porch that they'd tossed a camouflage net over. Below ground their bunker had a thin tunnel about three feet wide that connected a square fireteam chamber eight feet below the ground itself where another clone of their bunker for their fireteam leader and his battle buddy was connected to the chamber. Their sleeping bags had been placed there on the ground on the duracrete floor with a couple lamps on the walls giving some light in the cold room.
The whole ridge was crossed with trenches connecting the forward fighting positions to mortar pits in the rear, the company HQ bunker, entirely underground, and these trenches had wood siding, and were covered as best as they could in the past week with fresh green feed grass disguising them from above. The company was spread thinly, each fireteam having a perfect firing angle onto the open fields below the ridge. Wyatt and Eva's bunker overlooked a major road that droid forces had to move along in order to get to the bridge and cross the river.
In this part of the region the Axii River carved into the ground, creating sheer banks on both sides. This made the bridge incredibly important, and the RVC had positioned the balance of a whole battalion with armored and artillery support on their side of the river. Delta Company was positioned to the west of the bridge, where the Axii River Road was cut from the top of the bank to protect top-heavy speeder trucks from tipping over into the river because of the powerful winds. This had proven to be a clear advantage to the RVC, who'd mined the road, ready to blow out the walls and wash enemy vehicles and droids into the river and cut them apart from a hundred and fifty meters away on high ground.
"There they are," Eva said, picking out the form of at least fifteen C-9979's dropping into the atmosphere.
"Holy…" Wyatt breathed audibly as the craft landed without being molested, "That's a lot of droids."
Location: Separatist Staging Area, Planet Harrin
"Ready?" Captain Titus asked the other Knights around him from a thick forest around the Separatist landing zone. He had a company of Knights under his command for the exclusive purpose of attacking the landing craft once they had landed.
"Always," his brother Abel said, switching on his lance's heated cone.
"Set your bikes, we need to cut through those tensor fields to snap those wings off, half of you stay low, cut apart their advance vehicles and droids."
"Bikes set!"
Titus throttled up his armored speeder bike and raised his lance, ready to charge into the fray.
"Let's ride!"
The company of eighty mounted Knights split up immediately, with half moving right and half moving left. Titus stayed on the right side, knowing that fifteen landing craft had already begun unloading their vehicles and droids. The road was quickly getting choked with enemy armored vehicles hovering along towards the bridge where a company of Clone Troopers with a few AT-TE's was waiting to defend the town on the river next to the bridge. The Knights needed to thin out the droid ranks for them to have a chance. The Knights on the right were going for the landing site, where they hoped to destroy ships as they offloaded. The Knights on the left, under Abel's command were meant to shatter the enemy's line of advance and cause their advance to halt and their columns to become jumbled up.
"Abel, wait for us to launch our assault," Kayle Titus ordered over the comms, "We'll take care of the ships, jump them from above. Second echelon make sure to gash the wing tips, we bring down the ships and we bring their repair and maintenance facilities."
"Be careful, you're gonna be surrounded by thousands of droids."
"We'll get our licks in and get out," Titus smirked as they went along a creek, hovering over the rippling water under a thick tree canopy.
The Knights soon got into position on a hill overlooking the landing site and Titus silently waved them forward. The unit zipped down at a rapid pace, aiming right at the gathering C-9979's that was starting to offload their deadly cargo. The droids didn't see the Knights coming until the Knights pulled up and burst through the forest as they went straight for the droid lines. Already there was a droid camera crew working to document some good propaganda for the Separatists.
A single B1 Battle Droid standing with a long range transmitter strapped to its back had a cable strapped to the camera another B1 was holding as it pointed its camera at a BD-3000 Luxury Droid that was acting as a frontline reporter.
"Here you can see the noble droid army of the Confederacy advancing from their landing site upon the positions of the Republic occupation. Soon our glorious flag will be flying once more over this peaceful planet," the blue and chromed droid said in her usual soothing female voice as the camera pointed at her with a column of tanks and blocks of droids marching behind her.
But then the droids began to swing into action behind her as the camera panned around and showed that there was a line of speeder bikes heading right at them coming from higher up than was normal. However on the ground another line cut aiming their lances right at the droids that were firing at them. Their thick nose armor deflected the average bolt and the AAT's were too slow. The bikes cut into the droid ranks with the camera tracing it all along, and one bike zoomed in under a C-9979's wing. The rider's lance slashed into the tip and gashed a glowing hole through the metal and caused the field to flash out and fail as an explosion. The wing then groaned and then collapsed onto the ground, crushing numerous droids and several tanks.
The camera then turned once more to get more footage, but its last images were of an Anaxes Knight coming right at it. Kayle Titus was the Knight that decided it would be just the kind of statement that would be sure to instill terror into the hearts of their enemies. He cut apart the droid and continued through and pulled up on his controls and aimed his lance into the tips of a landing craft's wings and cut through the bottom of both parallel wings and continued on underneath it as the fully loaded craft's right side snapped off and the whole ship crashed to the ground. He saw six other landing crafts collapsed with one or two wings broken off and laying lopsided on the ground. But the droids were getting the measure of the Knights now and he decided it was time to withdraw.
"Withdraw, fall back to the bridge!" Titus ordered, "Abel now!"
As he first echelon of Knights broke from the engagement the second one triggered its ambush, leaping out from the trees and cut into the armored column on the road leading towards the RVC frontline. AAT's and MTT's dropped immediately, flames and smoke climbing into the sky as the Knights wrecked the lead units and caused a pileup in behind them that now spread out into the plains that Kayle's Knights, thirty-six of them, tore through and did a bit more damage before the scattered Knights fell back across the grasslands. Casualties were light, four Knights were all that had fallen to the fire of the enemy droids.
Clone firepower kept the droid bombers away, who hadn't been close enough to effect the outcome. When the Knights entered the town the Clone company had been fortifying for the coming assault the Clone officer in charge greeted him.
"Well then, that oughta put those clankers behind schedule," the brown marked clone said to Titus, pointing to the smoke rising over the near horizon.
"We brought down at least six landing craft, the big ones. Should cut their numbers by more than they'd anticipated," Titus said as he removed his helmet and tossed his shield over his shoulder, "Captain Titus, 1st Volunteer Legion. What's the situation here?"
"Captain Ryker, 256th Legion. We have a full company and a platoon of heavy walkers in place. You volunteers have fortified the high ground and dominate the approaches."
"Troopers and armor from the 3rd Legion, the Taanab unit," Titus nodded, following the Clone Captain into the command center they had.
"Farmers," the Clone smirked, "Not expecting much then."
"That same outfit spearheaded the engagement at the crossroads, had the major hand in wiping out a whole droid division."
"Oh well they've graduated to the big boy leagues now. Another droid landing force has begun deploying further west, and will be advancing up the river towards us. You might've slowed down the closer of the two forces Captain, but there's a bigger one coming," Captain Ryker informed Titus, pointing all of this out on the map in the center of what was a cantina.
"My knights will help you hold the town. I have seventy-six of them, all excellent warriors."
"You bring blasters?"
Titus held up his SE-14R repeating blaster pistol to show he was, "We hold them against our shields, they do a good job at medium range."
"Right, hope your lads are as good on foot as you are on those bikes."
Location: Dreadnought Basilisk
"The enemy fleet has done exactly what we thought they'd do," Commander Vay informed Drexel as they looked at the reports.
"Good, let's hope the prototypes live up to their promise," Drexel stated firmly, "Commence operation."
"All ships, battle stations! Prepare starfighters for immediate launch."
"Reactors to full power, turbolaser batteries to full power."
Drexel knew this was their biggest test, he'd put the RVC fleet's back to the wall, but he'd gotten some help. It had taken some doing, but he had a secret weapon for the Separatists.
Location: Orbit around Gas Giant Farrin
Task Force 1 jumped into orbit around the blue gas giant in a stream of their red painted warships. Sixteen ships in total jumped into position, centered on the three Star Destroyers. The fleet was very much sticking its neck out, and the Separatists knew it and Admiral Der pounced on them, knowing that a full Republic task force was a worthy kill. Forty-two ships, centered on three Providence Destroyers with nine Resucant Light Destroyers and thirty Munificents headed towards them in full force. They knew what to do, engage and destroy the Republic fleet.
But the Republic forces had a trap in store. A swarm of a thousand T-42 F-Wings and Y-Wings came jumping into orbit with weapons prepared. Ion torpedoes were loosed in long range volleys from the Y-Wings before the enemy fleet could scramble its fighters. Dozens impacted, sending energy pulses across their foes' ships that cut off their engines and the fleet began to drift lazily in space as their disabled droid crews tried to recover. Then the Republic Task Force opened fire. Leading the advance the Venators and the Acclamators with their own cruisers and corvettes alongside began spewing blue turbolaser and laser bolts into the vulnerable fleet. Explosions wrecked the fleet, wiping out every ship one by one.
Having accomplished this two more Republic Task Forces, Task Forces 4 and 5, jumped in alongside, bringing up the total number of Republic ships to forty-eight. It seemed obvious to the Confederates what had just transpired, the Republic Volunteer Corps had laid one of its starfighter swarm traps, a tactic for which they were well known to have mastered. Now they were ready to launch their assault.
A much larger fleet jumped into orbit now, this one numbering over two hundred ships with the remaining twenty-seven Providence Class present and accounted-for. Their massive numerical superiority wasn't overkill, it was simply tactical prudence. In the middle of this fleet was the Battleship Kiroh the flagship of Der herself. Before them were forty-eight RVC warships, sticking out against the blue gas giant to their right flank as the Separatist fleet approached them. The RVC ships turned and began lighting their engines at full burn, running away at the flank speed of their slowest ships, the Acclamators.
"We caught them by surprise," Der said as she watched the mix of ships turn to flee.
"I calculate that they had anticipated the original sortie fleet to be all that had been facing them," her tactical droid said calmly.
"And now they need to buy time to make the jump to hyperspace," Admiral Der said in return, nodding at the sense this made, "We can cripple the RVC here and now. All ships make flank speed, cut off their escape. Battleship to maintain position at Harrin, be ready if they send the rest of their fleet to rescue them. Fire when in range!"
"Roger roger."
She heard the rumble of the big Federation battleship accelerate and push its engines to the maximum they could go. The young Admiral was chomping at the bit to get even for her own losses over the past week, and these poor RVC ships trying to keep their distance were just what she was hoping for, a sizeable chunk of the Volunteer Corps' forces for her to chew up. As her fleet gave chase she noted on her readout that the Separatist fleet was now over the original position of the RVC ships, and passed it off without much thought, amazing herself with the speed of these behemoths.
"Incoming fire!" Der heard one of her OOM droids call out from its station and looked out the window to see that the RVC ships in front of them were doing no such thing.
Then she saw blue turbolaser bolts striking her ships' flanks from the left. And then she saw it, a speckled assortment of red ships bursting from the clouds of the glowing gas giant. They were firing their full arsenals with the Venators leading the charge. And low and behold the nightmare came to pass when the massive nose of one last mammoth ship cut through the atmosphere and revealed itself in space with its thousand turbolasers firing on her ships. The Kiroh shook as the Basilisk itself targeted her ship while she watched several frigates and light destroyers explode or fracture from concentrated turbolaser volleys. With impacts sending explosions from the hulls of her tougher Carrier-Destroyers she knew this was no small affair.
"It's him! Reinforcements now!" Der ordered, "Destroyers turn and engage those Reds!"
The Providence Class ships heeled over in perfect linear formation while a large number of other ships continued on towards the initial bait fleet of "Reds" that was now coming about and firing turbolasers as swarms of starfighters came pouring from the hangar bays of the Republic ships. Red and blue turbolasers and lasers streaked at one another and smashed into fully powered frontal shields. Then her reinforcements arrived, a hundred and fifty more ships based around her main battle squadron of twelve battleships. She had expected Drexel to attempt to engage, but the flanking move was new and had crippled at least a dozen of her ships within view.
"Now we finish this Drexel."
Location: Star Destroyer Dauntless
"All fighters launch!"
Teela Abya pushed her F-Wing straight out of the hangar and zoomed out into the open space as she saw a CR90 fly directly over the Dauntless with laser cannons firing into the swarms of Vulture Droids that came flying at the RVC fleet. She fell into the formation of other fighters and bombers that was joining the massive dogfight now sweeping through the battle space.
"Engage those fighters and cut a hole to their capital ships," her squadron leader called out as Silver Squadron joined up and began engaging.
Teela locked onto a three Vulture droids and loosed three missiles which smashed into the fighters as they closed on another flight of F-Wings entering the fray from the Basilisk's launch bays. The young pilot knew her kill total would be magnified after this battle if she survived and dove into the fray, firing away and maneuvering her nimble starfighter as the squadron jumped a formation of Hyena Droid Bombers and blew them away. She looked around and saw nothing but a spreading swarm of starfighters now starting to intermingle with the bigger ships that slugged it out with others of their size or picked off fighters at their leisure, as was the case with the CR90's protecting their capital ships.
Things took a darker turn when she saw a line of explosions from a volley of turbolasers rip up an Arquitens light cruiser and CR90 next to it had one of its engines blown out. Turbolasers struck the larger ships whose shields could take the damage. Then she noticed something, the enemy's battleships had arrived and now the RVC was far more outnumbered than they had liked to be.
Location: Dreadnought Basilisk
"Enemy battleships have jumped into orbit!"
"Signal our reinforcements," Drexel nodded to his communications officer as the Basilisk shook slightly from a few harmless impacts near the bridge.
Drexel looked out towards the enemy fleet and knew what was coming. And he saw them jump in almost simultaneously and open fire with their massive armaments. Five Imperator-Class Star Destroyers entered the systems with guns blazing, right at the unprotected rears of the Separatist battleships. An almost visual stream of blue heavy turbolaser bolts from octuple turbolaser mounts on the five ships began tearing apart the rears of the enemy battleships that had left themselves open to attack from the rear. The real trap had been sprung.
Admiral Drexel had known that a dozen Separatist Battleships was simply too much for his relatively small fleet. While he knew he could out muscle most large enemy fleets with the Basilisk and his star destroyers he would need something specifically designed to slug it out with battleships. That something came in the form of the first five of the prototype Block II Imperator-Class Star Destroyers. These 1,600 meter long monsters hadn't been designed primarily as carriers the way the Venators had been, but had a much heavy turbolaser armament with the eight new prototype Octuple Barbette Turbolaser Turrets forming the backbone of the ships' long range firepower. They had the firepower of at least three Venators, meaning a single one of them could wipe the floor with as many as fifteen CIS frigates all by themselves. Yet here, there were five of them, and they were drawing first blood for their class.
"Enemy battleships are suffering heavy damage, enemy fleet has halted its advance."
Drexel watched from the window as one of the battleships detonated and blew off one of its rings in a colossal slow-motion explosion. He nodded silently as he watched his fleet engaging the Providence Class Destroyers' battle line. His Y-Wings had deployed and were now smashing the ships one by one alongside his heavier warships. Both sides were taking a pounding, he'd already lost a couple light cruisers and six corvettes had been destroyed. But the majority of the fire was directed against his bigger ships. These were taking damage, and one had already been crippled.
But the Basilisk was now showing its sheer power, and carved through three Providence-Class Destroyers trying to engage it, shattering all three as it swatted away frigates that tried their luck and lost. Swarms of Vulture Droids were being chased back to their motherships that were now trying to break off and he knew that he had won this battle, but his victory was such that the Imperators had jumped in and blocked the 19th Task Group's only escape route. They were pinned to the planet and the spreading RVC fleet that was rounding them together like cattle.
Location: Battleship Kiroh
"Status?!" Der snapped, watching the fleet dissolve in front of her as she tried to get it to escape.
"We're cut off, those Republic ships have cut off our hyperspace jump point," her navigation droid stated quickly.
"Pull the destroyers back and redeploy to face those ships, all fighters withdraw to protect the fleet," she ordered quickly but then she was thrown from where she had been by an explosion below the bridge. She struck her elbow against a control console and shattered, giving herself an electric burn and dislodged many of the decorative ceiling panels and some of the lights.
A volley of fire from the Basilisk had damaged the battleship and crippled it. Sparks and fires flashed from the damaged consoles as Admiral Der tried to gain her footing on her captain's chair. But the ship shook violently and she fell to the ground again, holding her burned arm where the tattered blue uniform held her remaining sleeve up. Her hair was disheveled and she was in a great deal of pain. The Admiral was helped to her feet by a pair of Super Battle Droids as her tactical droid stood in front of her, calm as ever.
"Admiral, you must leave the bridge, the Basilisk is targeting it directly, I calculate one more volley will destroy it."
She simply nodded as a medical droid arrived and she was tended to as the droid bridge crew continued working, directing the remaining shipboard batteries to target its enemy from the start, that damned red dreadnought.
"What happened?" she wheezed out as the two Supers entered the turbolift with her in between them.
The trip to the backup bridge, deeper into the core of the ship away from the outer hull took several minutes normally, but with her injury and what she assumed to have been a concussion thanks to the doctor droid hovering over her it took far longer. But when she did arrive she was in no shape to continue to command the fleet.
"Admiral, as your personal aid I am taking command of the fleet," her tactical droid said firmly after a scan from the medical droid told him all he needed to know about what was happening with her.
"No, I can…" she mumbled out as the ship violently shook again.
"You are unfit to continue the battle, take her to medical."
"No, it's over, we've lost."
Location: Dreadnought Basilisk
"Enemy flagship is disabled Admiral," Commander Vay stated proudly.
"When all enemy ships are destroyed or disabled send a boarding party, we'll need to gather what intelligence we can."
"Sir, the battle's over, the enemy fleet's gone, all their battleships are destroyed or disabled and all their cruisers are destroyed. The rest are retreating into hyperspace," the man stated without hesitation, marveling at the work the RVC had just done.
"Not for our pilots it's not, still a lot of Vulture Droids roaming around."
"It could have been worse Admiral, the CR90's managed to blunt their squadrons until we got them deployed. We've only lost about eight hundred fighters," the captain of the Basilisk shrugged.
"Only?" Vay snapped
"We could've lost a lot more. The enemy pulled their fighters back way too soon, it cost them," Drexel nodded as he looked out at the enemy fleet floating dead in space around them, "How many ships did this cost us?"
"We lost nine corvettes, two light cruisers, a carrier, and we might have to write off the Star Destroyer Justice, they're having trouble with her damage control. Just about every other ship in the fleet has suffered damage of some kind except for the Imperators," Vay counted out.
"Those beasts saved our asses today. I'll bet you the Republic will be placing some major orders for those ships pretty soon."
After a half hour more time of mopping up semi-disabled enemy ships and hunting down enemy starfighters the battle was over and a boarding party was indeed dispatched to the Kiroh, which had sat there rotating helplessly in space before the Republic fleet, barely intact. When the white and red armored troopers breached the airlock a handful of battle droids met them, and with a couple wounded in the subsequent firefight the RVC troopers began to search the ship. One squad worked its way towards what their schematics told them was a medical room, there they hoped that any biological crew or possibly the commander would be alive and captured. They saw a pair of B2 Super Battle Droids with a few B1's ready to defend the room so they knew they were in the money.
"Droid popper out," their squad leader called out and tossed the EMP device into the droid ranks where it went off, and the droids seized up and then dropped to the ground.
The troops then rushed the door, blowing it open without hesitation. They forcefully entered the room, and saw a trio of medical droids hovering over a cot with a blue-uniformed woman on it, a bandage around her head and left arm. She saw them and knew that there was no escaping this without dying at the hands of the enemy. In a formal act of military honor she pulled out her blaster pistol and tossed it away, shaking her head in dismay.
"May I speak to Admiral Drexel?" she asked calmly, causing the troopers to look at one another in confusion.
But their squad leader got the call from the man himself and pulled out a holotransmitter and placed it on the ground. There the full image of Admiral Cynan Drexel stood tall and proud looking at Admiral Der. His brow furrowed as he recognized her but didn't quite place the face to a name.
"I formally offer my surrender sir," Der stated firmly.
"It is accepted, Admiral."
"You might not…remember me, but you were one of my instructors at the War College a few years ago. I was the first person from my planet to be accepted there," Der mentioned as she hoped for a bit of remembrance from Drexel, a man she'd placed on a pedestal.
"I think I remember you. Cadet Der wasn't it? You were a good student," Drexel said, remembering her after hearing a bit of background to jog his memory.
"Not good enough apparently."
"I taught my cadets well, but I didn't teach you everything."
Well, I'm proud of that. How's that for the first combat experience for a true powerhouse of the Empire? I am proud to say that I got this battle done within a day, and I hope I can get a follow-on chapter done soon. There's gonna be some fallout from this. And we have a big land battle to do now don't we?
Next Chapter Preview: The siege continues with Clones and Volunteers fighting for survival.