Revan had had an excellent day until he got intel from geonosis. "So what you are telling me is that they have managed to build something we've been trying to build for years in a kriffing cave on an empty planet deep in our territory?" He practically screamed at the scientist through the comm. The scientist however was rather glad for the fact they were only connected by comm. "It seems like it my Lord but we do not believe they are capable of producing this technique in any large or meaningful quantity. We are also not too far behind them and with the pictures of the lab we can reengineer what they were trying to do. It would have helped though if the army hadn't deemed it necessary to launch seven ballistic missiles at the place." He finished. Revan sighed "this was simply a tactical decision and it was the right one the laboratory was deep behind enemy lines the squad that took the picture was the only one that was able to break through that far and they would have had time evacuate if we hadn't destroyed it right then and there." He concluded, terminating the connection after giving a few other orders. Afterwards he commed his intelligence headquarter "Do we have any new information on operation drum beat Ivy?" he asked his intelligence director. "We believe that we are getting closer Lord Revan, prominent opinion in my department is that operation drumbeat is supposed to hit soft targets such as refueling vessels and stations as well as supply ships with only light or none protection. We don't believe that they will dare to penetrate deep into our territory. We have however not been able to find out which destroyers will be put under Shan's command and that is a bit worrying to me.
"Commander Shan the cloak is engaged and we will exit hyperspace every second now" one of the soldiers said. She nodded and put her eyes on the various sensors and radars. She didn't like not being able to look outside and visually spot the enemy. "Leaving hyperspace now" the navigations officer said. "Weapon systems online" that was the weapons officer followed by the officer responsible for all the sensors. "Several contacts in the system commander, we are discern what type of ships these are." Bastila tapped into the force feeling the men on the three vessels around her. Two of the vessels were now distancing themselves from her ship to avoid any collisions and to be less deceptable for a lucky hit from any imperial warships. She extended her sight and noticed the force signatures of the crew of five civilian ships. All proud imperials but calm and relaxed right now not knowing the enemy was only a few dozen kilometers away. And then she sensed it two warships a bit further away the crew of them two calm and relaxed a bit less maybe than the civilians but still they didn't expect any attack here.
"Contacts identified commander" the sensor officer said "we have four Corellian freighter and one of unknown design in the system as well as two interdictor-class destroyers." She nodded "we will need to take out those first but I don't want the supply ships to leave. Position Mon-Calamari 4 and 7 to take out the interdictors but have MC 3 standby to open fire on the supply vessels as soon as we open fire. They are to target the unknown ship type first its most likely the fuel ship. Only laser fire on the civilian ships. Target their engines give them time to launch escape pods first then destroy them with a torpedo each." She found it almost surprising how busy everybody got sure she had been on warships and the soldiers weren't sitting around their either but here everybody seemed to have to fulfil 9 tasks to make sure the torpedos would hit their targets. "We are ready to engage Commander" she was informed a few minutes later. She nodded to give them the go ahead. The ship seemed to vibrate once, twice and then a third time as three anticapitalship-torpedos short acs-t 14 were launched alone from this destroyer. The weapons officer surveyed the path the torpedos were taking and made sure the AI in them was targeting the right ships. The engines grumbled lightly as the ship slowly navigated away from the firing point to avoid the flurry of laser fire the two destroyers sent towards them. They couldn't move to quick so the engine emissions wouldn't give them away. But it was enough that the retaliation strikes missed them. It would be the last retaliation strikes these ships would ever fire anyways.
The commanding officers had no clue how they were being attacked. Only that their sensor officers screamed something about incoming torpedos and that their automated weapon systems targeted something and fired off a bunch off shots. The first destroyer was hit by two of the three torpedos fired by MC 4. One torpedo exploded close to engines and completely destroyed them leading in fuel leaking out into space and into the vicinity of the ship. The second torpedo didn't hit its target, the bridge, but it did ignite the fuel leaking out of the ship, the result was the fuel exploding in bright orange and immediately blinding everyone on the ship who was unfortunate enough to look out of the window. While the armor of a ship of this size shouldn't even have been scratched by this the fire raced through the entire fuel cloud and back into the fuel lines delivering the highly explosive gas to the engines. This set off a chain reaction due to which the fire eventually reached the main fuel hold. From the outside the warship seemed to buckle and then tremble, then it was still for less than half a second before the fuel tank exploded ripping the ship apart completely leaving it in two halfs. The third and last torpedo aimed at this ship had the same AI system installed that its comrades also used and this AI system detected the large explosion and decided that the target was already destroyed. It anyways went for the upper half of the Interdictor which was slowly floating away from its lower body since it knew that the upper half contained the bridge. When it exploded it didn't really do much more to the ship because it was already destroyed but an AI system doesn't really care about that.
The second destroyer wasn't much luckier. All three torpedos hit, the System of the first communicated that it was going for the main reactor so the other two targeted hangar bays to prevent any fighters from escaping the doomed mother ship. The main reactor on Interdictor class ships was of cause shielded but the shields slowed the ship down because they used so much energy. It was common practice among the commanders of these ships to shut those particular shield as well as several others down because they weren't essential when not in battle and they could be raised rather quickly if any contacts entered the system, additionally this parts of the ships could take a few good hits from most weapons. All of this resulted in the immediate and violent explosion of the Second Interdictor.
One of the civilians managed to set off an SOS notification and a holo record of the incident before its system shutting down due to being hit by repeated laser fire. The crews of the civilian ships mostly managed to escape in their pods and were later picked up by an imperial taskforce who relayed the gathered information about the incident to the central command.
"I want all ships to be especially attentive until we have found out the specifics of operation drumbeats and its target. All ships should try to remain in combat readiness when they aren't far behind our lines." Revan ended his orders to his Admirals when a courier stormed in. "Flash report from the mygeeto system my Lord. Two of our warships have been attacked and seemingly destroyed a task force was sent we are waiting for them to report back." He finished. Revan blinked and looked from the courier to the admirals "Admiral Karath bring the Devastator and the fleet to battle readiness we are leaving for mygeeto as soon as possible. The rest of you have your ships in battle readiness and reinforce our front lines. Admiral Garet you will lead an assault on the rendelli system they wont be expecting an attack this soon after striking at us." The courier cleared his throat "Lord Revan the task force arrived" he said as the Devastator entered hyperspace, "They report that they have footage of the destruction of our ships. They have each been hit by at least 4 torpedoes, there have also been five civilian ships two fuel carriers and three freighters. Most of their crew escaped but they cant explain what happened either." Revan nodded "We will now more once we arrive." He tapped his comm "Admiral Karath how long till mygeeto?"
"Commander Shan we should really leave we have detected five imperial warships and more are likely coming if we open fire now…" "I know, I know" Bastila answered "I don't want to open fire again I just want to observe their reaction and besides I was told the ships are completely undetectable especially when the engine are running on such low power." The sensor officer turned around "We have several hyperspace contacts, bearing 0-9-4 seems like big ships." He paused for a moment and then turned to another screen. Bastila stepped up to the console and looked over his shoulder. "Yeah these are pretty big warships, at least four interdictors, six support vessels and two ships definitely bigger than an interdictor. One of them could very well be one of Revans new star destroyer class." Bastila looked at him confused. "Star destroyer class the sith soldiers call them like that because they are supposed to have enough firepower to melt stars. Revans flagship is one of them." Bastila nodded now worried if staying in the system was really the right idea.
While the republic destroyers observed the mighty warships from closer than any republic ship had ever gotten to one, the heavy and advanced sensors of the devastator swept the planet atmosphere and the space around the planet. One of the radar beams hit the MC 4 in the one spot that hadn't been coated correctly and bounced back to the Devastators radar station. "Sir we have an irregularity in sector nineteen the radar operator informed his superior." He however shook his head "that's just an error in the display happens sometimes. Its far too small for a ship." Revan on his command chair frowned suddenly. "I'm feeling a presence. Its weak, maybe its already gone" he said now louder in direction Admiral Karath who turned around. "Padawan Shan led this attack." He continued "and she may still be here."
"We need to jump now" Bastila suddenly said. Several men turned around confused. "He's here Revans here we need to leave immediately." The navigations officer immediately plotted a course and relayed it to the other ships. He didn't understand much of these jedi powers but he wasn't too keen on finding out what they could and couldn't do.
"Now its gone" Revan said. "This must have been a part of operation drumbeat if she was hear, notify intelligence immediately. I want them to find out where they are going next." He orderd befor leaving the bridge.