Chapter 30

About three months later:

Garnizon I I , Zoloch Sector

On the Main Street of Dhala, the planet's capital, a group of soldiers in dress uniform paraded down the street. Tanks, I F V 's, and self-propelled artillery pieces accompanied them. The city had been rebuilt following the destruction of many of its buildings due to fighting and the Imperial orbital bombardment.

In three months buildings had been built on a scale that had not been thought possible. Housing, shops, factories, and every type of building imaginable had been built, many of which would help build arms and equipment for the war effort. The addition of a sector's worth of industrial base was starting to make its presence known, and both earth and the Free Confederacy were getting to the point that they had more ships, fighters, armored vehicles, and guns than people to man them with. The total number of dockyards the Earth and the Free Confederacy had been now almost 70, each churning out brew ships for the war effort. They were currently looking at sending them to the Alliance, though this was not yet established.

Elsewhere the sector's pirates had mostly cooperated with the plan to turn them into privateers, and those who had not reportedly had fled the system. The privateers had destroyed or captured a fair amount of imperial shipping, and had helped apply pressure to the Imperial forces in the sector.

The parade was being held to celebrate what had been a very fast reconstruction of the world, with the planet now in a far better condition than when the Empire had come. These improvements, and a desire to protect them, had led many people from the sector to join Earth or the Free Confederacy's military. Thisgavethe forces a steady stream of new recruits that would allow them to expand and meet their growing industrial capacity.

Offensive actions against the Empire had mostly taken a backseat due to how wide the front was. Earth and the Free Confederacy could simply not afford losses that would weaken their already tenuous grasp of the front line. Probe droids and drones kept an eye on the Imperial fleet movements, looking to see if there were moments to strike. They did find a few, and during the last three months, a few systems had been taken when the opportunity arose to strike. But these had always been backwater sectors, ones that the Empire didn't care much to lose.

In some ways, the successes of the past three months relied more on raids by starfighters and corvettes as opposed to decisive fleet actions. This was a tactic the Alliance commonly used, oftentimes just to destroy ships and disrupt dockyards or orbital factories but also to weaken Imperial defenses in a system. This would make taking the system easier and allow the Alliance to suffer fewer losses than they would have previously. Already two Star Destroyers had been destroyed as well as four others heavily damaged through these raids. This didn't count the many smaller ships, which were more vulnerable to strikes by fighters than the larger Star Destroyers.

Admiral Johnson and Harrington of Earth and Admiral Gorky of the Free Confederacy stood at the back of the podium they would be speaking on. Johnson was somewhat annoyed by the fact he had to give another speech and wasn't really sure why they were having a parade today.

"What are we doing this for again?" He asked.

"This planet has almost been rebuilt, and we need new recruits. This will allow us to get them with such a public display of what we have done." Harrington replied.

Johnson said nothing in response. If this would get a significant number of recruits, it would be a victory in his book. With Earth's fleet expanding so rapidly, it would need people to crew its ships. Already in the past three months, Earth's fleet had grown by about 1 / 5 to nearly 500 combat vessels, 10 times what they had started with when the Empire first attacked. The Free Confederacy had grown to nearly 300, and its growth would be less constrained by manpower like Earth's would be soon. Maybe he should start giving a few of the older ships to the privateers, who had undoubtedly proven their worth in the past three months.

While nearly 500 ships looked good on paper, he was reminded that they were spread thin across the front lines and while production of smaller ships had significantly decreased, were still made up primarily of corvettes and frigates. Earth now had nearly 30 large capital ships including captured Star Destroyers and Revenge Class Battleships, but the surrounding Imperial Sectors (excluding the Tibannas Sector where Moff Illustrious ruled) had 72 Star Destroyers and definitely more in the way of smaller ships. Earth wasn't facing the Zoloch Sector where incompetence had led half of their Star Destroyers to be destroyed by the time Earth invaded. These were powerful sectors with full-strength navies that had mostly been untouched by the rebellion.

Johnson felt a tap on his shoulder and saw Lieutenant Commander Daniel Meridian behind him. This had been the same officer who had helped coordinate the damage control efforts during the battle of Zoloch, and due to his skills at coordinating such a large effort, Johnson had promoted him and made him his personnel aide. The Lieutenant would not bother him at such an event unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Sir, I've just received reports of Imperial attacks against our forward positions near the front lines in four separate systems." He said. "There are reports of 4 attacks, each with six Star Destroyers that are going after the Donbas, Garabah, Arenal, and Kotor Systems. We currently don't know what's happening there, but each of those systems only had two heavy capital ships and their escorts. They won't be able to survive against such a force."

Johnson looked at Harrington who had been listening as well.

"Tell all ships to prepare for battle and get me a shuttle back to the Reveng P." He turned to Harrington.

"I'll get on the Warspite, we can coordinate our response from there.

"I'll go back to the Eviscerator." Admiral Gorky said. Within 15 minutes all three of them were back on their respective ships and looking at the income reports from the border systems.

"Sir we have confirmed heavy fighting in the Arenal System." Lieutenant Meridian said. "We had two Revenge's in the system, the Fuso and the Dunkerque, along with their escort groups and a Golan that we recently repaired. The Fuso has been destroyed with all hands but has taken out on and crippled two others. The commander aboard the Dunkerque is requesting orders, sir, they have been heavily damaged along with both battlegroups, though they have inflicted greater casualties on the Imperials they will be eliminated if they continue."

"Have them retreat. Does the Golan still have its evacuation shuttles intact?"

"Their commander reports they were destroyed when i's hanger exploded from heavy turbolaser attacks," Meridian said.

Johnson thought for a moment. "Then God help them." He said quietly. From what he had heard, the base was too far away from the system's habitable planet to allow escape pods to reach the place in any sort of combat situation. And time and time again, the Empire had shot down many of these defenseless pods when it's enemies were in it. The men and women might as well die fighting than die running. But he suddenly had an idea.

He opened a comm to Gorky and explained the situation. "The Free Confederacy is independent of my jurisdiction, but I would request that you take the Eviscerator and counterattack the Imperials in that system and relive the Golan Plato from," Johnson said.

"I will," Gorky said. Within minutes, a good chunk of the Free Confederacy's assets in the system jumped into hyperspace.

"What else is going on at the border sectors?" Johnson asked the Lieutenant.

"It looks like the Donbas Sector is holding, Harrington just ordered two Revenge's and their battle groups that were refueling at Zoloch Prime to reinforce the sector."

"Good," Johnson replied. That was one less thing to worry about.

"The Kotor Systems has fallen to the Empire, with half of the forces in the system destroyed and the other half retreating to Zoloch Prime." The Lieutenant said.

Suddenly the ship's sensors went haywire as contact after contact began appearing. Johnson was shocked, this wasn't any of the fleets retreating from the border systems.

Soon a picture of the incoming contacts could be seen. They were twelve Imperial Star Destroyers, with almost 50 escorts, the largest Imperial force Johnson or Harrington had ever seen.

"Tell the fleet to go to general quarters. "Johnson stammered. "Launch whatever fighters we can, and get me a line to Admiral Harrington."