***IMPOrTANT NOTE: The Small Planet That Changed Everything: Or, just Earth in Star Wars is the prequel to this, and most of the events will not make sense if you don't read that before it. You can also read Earth Wars: A Star Wars Story, which is the original version of the story, though its writing quality and the plot diverge in a different direction.
Since the Empire tried to attack Earth, the isolated planet has been building up it's forces for the opportunity to strike back. Now it has been over a year, and with new allies and enemies, a once unknown world will thrust itself into the galactic stage. (sequel to The Small Planet That Changed Everything: Or, just Earth in Star Wars)
Hello everyone! I am finally back and this sequel is ready to start publishing! It's been a long time, but since I had school throughout the year I was busy and never able to get back into consistently writing. I never got enough put down to ensure I would have some leeway if I burned out and not be able to update regularly. (Ironically I will be going back to school in a few weeks, but I still got a fair amount of writing done already so I should be fine.
I'd like to thank everyone who has followed, favorited and read my past works so far. When I first started writing I never thought I would get the amount of attention I ended up receiving. Currently, Earth Wars a Star Wars Story has over 45,000 views, 16 reviews, 50 followers, and 43 favorites, (it has been out for about four years, so that explains the view count) with The Small Planet That Changed Everything: Or, just Earth in Star Wars having 19 reviews, 60 favorites, 63 followers. (Which has been out for a bit more than a year)
A couple of notes. This story will be a bit slower starting out, as I intend to draw it out longer than my previous stories. I'm bringing in some more characters and trying to bring more depth to the universe I have created. I also am contemplating creating content on the SW fanon wiki for this story, which would maybe give some more information on the characters and specific details on the ships Earth uses. I also intend to make this series at least a trilogy (not counting Earth Wars: A Star Wars Story as the Small Planet That Changed Everything is a rewrite of that) However, it may include a 4th book, though that really depends on what I want to do in that regard. I have ideas that would carry this series into the Sequel and beyond, though I do want to address other concepts not just in Star Wars but in other franchises as well.
If you have any questions, feel free to DM me or leave a review and I will answer it. I also hope to take criques more into account as time goes on. If anyone is willing to be a beta reader I would appreciate it as well.
So let us begin!
Earth Strikes Back! - Earth in Star Wars II
Disclaimer: Disney this is Fanfiction and I get no profit from it. Please don't sue me.
Captain Gerroius Vent of the Imperial Navy sighed as he observed operations aboard the bridge of his command. With his shift ending in a few minutes, he was anticipating some time in the rack. It wouldn't be much duller than what he was currently experiencing, and at least he could sleep.
His command was the Star Destroyer Titanius, a recently commissioned Imperial II-Class Destroyer, built rapidly to replace older vessels being lost to rebel attacks across the Empire. Around him lay several frigates and corvettes protecting a large convoy of freighters as they headed for the Garnison II, the sector headquarters.
The ship had been assigned to reinforce the sector after half of its 24 Star Destroyers and many of its smaller ships had been destroyed or were reported missing. Three had been destroyed and an additional two heavily damaged by a local group of Separatists that dated back to the days of the Clone Wars when the sector had been a Separatist Stronghold. It would take months in drydock to repair them fully, perhaps a year. The ships could always be sent back to Kuat or another Imperial world with more resources, but the shipyards were trying to keep up with mounting losses against the main rebel forces.
While losing 3 ISDs, as well as several smaller ships in such a short amount of time to rebel attacks, was alarming, seven other Star Destroyers and dozens of escorts had been either destroyed or declared missing after an ill-fated expedition into wild space. About a year ago, a long-range probe had discovered a promising star system deep in uncharted space. One of the planets was inhabited exclusively by humans and was rich in natural resources that could help fuel the Imperial war machine. Even better, the species had been fully cut off from the rest of the galaxy; barely into the information age and supposedly lacking in meaningful spaceborne defenses.
A task force was sent to bring the planet under Imperial control, and it was supposed to be an easy mission. But instead, they found a determined fleet of starships somewhat assembled out of thin air. The battle proved a defeat for the Empire, and only one shuttle barely made it's escape.
After some time, a second and much larger fleet was sent to the planet. Six Star Destroyers and several support ships was enough to quash rebellions on many worlds, and so should have proved more than adequate at defeating this small planet. Since almost all of the world's sentient life was made up by humans, it would be treated fairly and to be honest quite better than most.
But after the ships had left communications range, nothing had been heard from them. Several probes and even a few small ships had been sent to investigate their disappearance, but all of them either disappeared as well. Perhaps it was caused by this planet known as "Earth", but it seemed unlikely that they could resist six Star Destroyers at once.
Any further expedition had been called off since the sector forces could not afford to lose more ships. Vent had been initially interested in this major disappearance but had lost interest as time went on. While rumors had run wild across the highest ranking Imperial officers in the region, it had been suppressed as time went on. And of course, there were much more pressing matters, like the local rebels.
His small fleet consisted of the Titanius, the interdictor cruiser Senaili, three Nebulon B frigates, and 8 corvettes, escorting 23 freighters and transports. Gerroius was worried that he would not be able to fend off rebel attacks, considering their recent effectiveness in the area. From what he understood the local group was not affiliated with the wider Rebel Alliance and appeared to be survivors from the Separatists of the Clone Wars. While their size was not known, they appeared to have multiple large capital ships that dated back to the Clone Wars, as well as many smaller ships. They hadn't revealed much of their strength until recently when they had attacked the naval base at Garnison II. The attack had been well planned, with the ships coming out of hyperspace while many of the Imperial ones were docked at the base. While the rebels had eventually been repealed, many ships had been destroyed or damaged. Civilians on many worlds in the sector were getting close to open rebellion, and only harsh crackdowns had prevented a total breakdown of order. Hopefully, these reinforcements could help.
"Captain, we have multiple contacts exiting hyperspace. One seems to be slightly larger than us." He snapped out of his thoughts as the lead sensor officer gave his report, somewhat confused at the sudden occurrence. "They all appear to be heavily armed, and their class or type cannot be identified."
Vent's training kicked in, and he began shouting orders. Terror . "Get weapons online and raise the shields to maximum strength. And open a comm channel." he ordered, sensing that these vessels meant to challenge him. Perhaps he could talk to these people and see who they were. But regardless, it was better to be prepared.
"Scramble fighters and tell the transports to take evasive action…"
The ship shook as a concentrated stream of weapons fire impacted on its hull. Some looked to be turbolaser and ion blasts, but there were some others that he could not make out. Perhaps some type of kinetic weapon. Vent could make out a central large ship, about the same size as a Star Destroyer, along with two ships that looked about cruiser size. There were several smaller ships, about half a dozen in all, and perhaps 100 small starfighters. But most of the work was being done by the large ship and some of the fighters, as if they had been holding back something.
He wouldn't admit it, but the ship hadn't been prepared for a fight like this. Its shields had been at low strength due to maintenance on one of the main bulbs and its crew, especially the gunners, were inexperienced. While he had been warned about minor rebel attacks, this certainly wasn't anything close to one.
While the large ship kept its attention primarily on the Titanius, its ion weaponry began to target the nearly defenseless transports. Their light shielding would not hold against a sustained barrage.
"Sir, multiple Transports have been disabled." The sensor officer reported as the attacking fleet fired bolts of ionized energy at the transports, disabling many of them. The remainder desperately tried to flee, retreating behind the imposing Titanius and its escorts.
"Get every gun on that lead ship!" He demanded, his voice steadily rising.
"They're going for the interdictor sir!" Yelled the frantic sensor officer. The ion fire that had disabled many of the transports was now directed at the vulnerable ship whose main combat abilities came from its gravity well generators, which could pull ships out of hyperspace and keep them from entering it. While this was a very useful asset especially against rebel hit and run attacks, it didn't leave much room for other defenses. The ship was large, expensive, and vulnerable; if it was destroyed on his watch his career would be in jeopardy.
"Make sure nothing gets close to it!" He yelled, frantically trying to control an increasingly uncontrollable situation. One of his frigates split in half after what appeared to be a torpedo strike destroyed its vulnerable midsection, and a friendly corvette exploded after being racked with laser fire.
"Can we get contact with the Senaili?" He asked worriedly. Hopefully, some of its systems were still operational. They would need to coordinate if they were going to get out of here alive.
"They're not responding sir… Wait, that big ship is launching something at it… Some sort of boarding pod…"
Gerroius Vent's day was just about to get a lot worse if he survived it.
"I don't think I need to remind you what we need to do or what is at stake." Major Victoria Petrova of the UN Extraplanetary Marines said to the seven other soldiers in the boarding pod. She looked around at them, an unlikely bunch from around the world now fighting in a conflict that was beyond their wildest dreams.
Most of the units in the UN's military were almost exclusively populated by a certain country or ethnic group to increase unit cohesion and prevent language barriers. In fact, many of the ground-based units were just brigades reorganized from various armies of Earth, retrained and equipped for the coming war. The Navy was however less homogeneous, as it originally had been that way before the Empire had attacked but not by much. The differences in operating starships from seaborne warships were more acute, but the crews were still mostly of the same nation. The differences were mostly limited to specialized fields or in areas like Engineering where knowledge of the systems was most critical.
Now that she thought about it, the UN's "Military" was on many levels more of a federation of forces with what was now a mostly unified command structure. The core of "Oldcomers", who had been a part of the Fleet before it was revealed to the public, ensured that everyone worked together well, but the more new people entered, the less control they would have.
Hopefully, that would continue because they couldn't afford to with what was being planned.
She looked around the squad she commanded. Next to her sat Corporal Emily Taylor, an ex-MI6 agent who primarily served as an intelligence analyst and the only one of the eight (besides herself) who had known Earth's fleet before the Imperial attack. She had served in the fleet's Internal Security Department, making sure that no information about the wider galaxy of Earth's spaceborne capabilities got out to the public. With a significantly smaller need for internal security now that knowledge of the Empire was public, she now was focused on better understanding this foe and figuring out how to best defeat them.
Across were two American ex-Navy Seals, Jim and Perry Fennell. Both had a myriad of combat experiences across the globe and were certainly qualified for their positions.
There were several others, including a Chinese commando named Zhu Huang who was new to the force, Leo Virtanen, a Finnish sniper who was an expert at long-range fighting and cold weather survival. One member that Petrova found somewhat worrying was Sergeant Hans Meyer, a former member of Germany's elite KSK special operations force. It had been partially disbanded after reports of far-right sympathies and a toxic culture, and Meyer was not very open about his role in this. All she knew of his past was that he hadn't been let go but later joined the Extraplanetary Marines after its public revelation.
The last person in the squad was unconventional but interesting. Gerrund Bunt was an Imperial technician captured after the Empire's second attempt to take Earth. He had been reeducated and been allowed to join the Fleet as a technical specialist. His role as a systems administrator gave him extensive knowledge of Imperial technology and how to bypass it. Skills they would need in the upcoming mission. Many objected to the use of rehabilitated Imperials in critical and important positions, but the higher ups of the admiralty found them to be useful and many had proven incredibly successful.
Three other compact boarding pods sped out of the Revenge to collide with the Interdictor cruiser, each holding eight Marines and headed to a different destination. Pod 1 was going to the port airlock, Pod 2 was the starboard one, and Pod 3 to the engineering section of the ship. . Pod 4 was Major Petrova's and would be heading for a small utility airlock close to the ship's Bridge. They would be landing a few minutes after the rest to hopefully divert Imperials away from the Bridge and allow for the easy capturing of the ship.
A few minutes of tension passed as they waited for their pod to be deployed. While she knew it was the best for the mission, Petrova wanted to get in there as fast as possible. She didn't like what was effectively a sacrifice of other soldiers so that she would succeed. That wasn't right, it should be the opposite.
When the Pod was finally propelled towards the disabled cruiser, the Major suddenly felt a tinge of nervousness. They had trained for this mission and ones like it for months, and while each one of the men and women under her command was the best this planet had to offer, plans didn't always work. There were hundreds of things that could go wrong, and it would be her responsibility.
"If you think about everything that will go wrong, you will paralyze yourself into doing a million things at once. Then everything will go wrong." Taylor said. The ex-MI6 agent looked over at her with a clear understanding of what she was thinking. That Brit could read people like a book.
Petrova turned to everyone else. "Keep that in mind." Then she winked at Taylor, silently smirking at how she had turned the situation around.
The pod hit the ship with a thud and Bunt stepped to the front. After unlocking the airlock with an emergency bypass, they were in.
Petrova led them into the hall as the group began checking corners for Imperial personnel. Down the corridor was the turbolift they would use to get to the bridge. They just had to reach it first.
As they checked one of the hallways, a pair of Stormtroopers emerged. They had probably heard the airlock and were coming to investigate. Petrova shot one with one of the Americans getting the other. The group now hurried to reach the turbolift and to get out of the hallway.
Two hallways intersected at the turbolift, the one the squad was currently on and one in the opposite direction from the group. The one they were on ended with the entrance to the turbolift, but the other intersected them and kept ongoing. The Major halted the squad, as this corridor would leave them vulnerable while they entered the lift and was a great place for an ambush. She looked in one direction and Zhu looked in the other to find that they were not alone.
On her side, there was just the empty hall, and on Zhu's a collection of Imperial Navy personnel and Stormtroopers. They let out a barrage of fire and the two ducked out of the way just in time.
Petrova ordered Jim to return fire with his light repeating blaster, placing it in the corridor but keeping himself on the other side of the corridor. Unfortunately, there was no way of aiming the thing as he could not see around a corner, but it kept the pressure on the Imperials.
Grabbing a flashbang from her belt, she pulled the pin and threw it into the path of the Imperials. The Stormtroopers would be somewhat resistant to its effects due to their helmets, but it would still have an impact. When it exploded, the squad made its way into the corridor and fired on the Imperials. Dazed and confused, they were all massacred as the group made its way to the lift.
"Anderson, Brou, Takadawa report." She ordered over the com.
"Were pinned inside Engineering. Still alive but I don't know how long we'll last." Anderson, one of the other squad leaders reported.
"We're both advancing towards his position." Brou and Takadawa, the other leaders reported.
"I'm almost to the Bridge. Be ready to put on the portable helmets if I say so."
A few other Imperials were found and shot before they got to the bridge. Now would be the most difficult part.
Hans, now in front, tried to open the door. "They locked it."
"Was still worth a try." Standard Imperial procedure indicated that the door would not be locked unless the ship was being boarded. That indicated the Captain understood what was going on and likely had Stormtroopers and other personnel ready to fire at the door.
But, the ex-Imperial began overriding the locked door. After about a minute, he was successful as indicated by the hail of blaster fire that greeted the squad as the door opened.
Petrova sent another of her flashbangs into the bridge, stunning the Imperial crew. The squad rushed in, but they encountered more resistance than expected.
About a dozen Stormtroopers defending the bridge had positioned themselves away from the flashbang and were therefore unaffected by the blast. They rushed forwards, surprising the squad with their aggressiveness. In the brief melee, these troopers were cut down, but Perry and Zhu were shot dead with Leo heavily wounded.
The remaining bridge crew kept fighting but stood no chance. Soon only the ship's Captain remained, surrounded and defeated. He dropped his blaster pistol in surrender.
"Tell everyone on your ship to surrender." Petrova brushed the barrel of her rifle against his head. "Then you might live."
Bunt looked over the ship's systems and readied the comm to play over the ship.
The nervous Captain eyed the room. He could try and hold out until he was rescued by the rest of his men, but the ship was still disabled and the Imperial fleet was losing the battle. He didn't know who these people were, but right now he didn't want to aggravate them.
"All personnel are to stand down and surrender to…" He paused and looked at the Earthen soldiers.
"The humans of Earth. They will be treated fairly." Taylor said.
The Captain continued, a realization dawning on his face. He was scared and confused, but also intrigued. He had heard of Earth, and while most people in the Empire would not care for such a backwater world, the people of the Zoloch sector had realized something was going on. The losses of so many ships had been reported as being destroyed by rebels, and many were still listed as being in service to the Empire.
But then his Imperial instincts caught hold of him. The only reason he was surrendering was that he had no choice in the matter. Well, he did have a choice, but the choice was between death and life.
Once the Empire struck back at this rogue and the isolated planet he would return to his command or be given a new one. But as little as he wanted to admit it, there was only a small possibility of that. The local Imperial sector forces could not afford to lose more ships in expeditions to this place, especially after the most recent rebel attacks.
He shoved these thoughts away. Maybe it would take a while, but the Empire would enact justice on this delinquent world. And in the meantime, he would learn as much about the planet as possible. Part of him was secretly elated to understand how the society, customs, and technology of a world cut off from the rest of the galaxy evolved.
"We have several other shuttles worth of troops on their way here to help secure the prisoners. You included." Petrova said, moving her rifle away from him. One of the men, the burliest of them, grabbed some cuffs and fitted them on his hands, after doing a brief search for any weapons.
"What's going to happen to me?"
"That's up to Intel to decide. All I can say is that you will come out of their processes a different man. A better man."