SDF-3 Command Tower

The SDF-3 and the REF escort fleet following her had unfolded, nearby the planet Hoth. Admiral Hunter commanded lieutenant Anderson: "Anderson, contact the main fleet. Ask them about the Earth Reclaimation Mission." Anderson began typing on his console, and after seconds he said: "Sir… We can't reach the main REF Fleet."

Rick sighed, and asked him: "Where are we, Anderson?"

Anderson replied to Rick: "From what it seems, no-where. We're not in any system within our star charts."

Lisa looked at Rick, and both had some idea what might've happened. Lisa asked Dr. Lang: "Is it the same as last time?"

Dr. Lang nodded: "I believe ve have folded into another galaxy, due to the gravity field affecting our fold.

Lisa sighed: "Like the last time in SDF-1, in so many years ago…" She remembered the first time humans attempted to fold. They somehow managed to fold to Pluto, instead of the intended coordinates of behind the moon. This was due to the gravity wells the Zentradi had put prior to their fold.

Lisa said: "I think it'd be wise to get a star chart, and a book about how-to-do politics in this system, especially since there's ships right in front of us. Am I right, Lieutenant Anderson?"

The Lieutenant nodded in shame after being teased by Ex-Admiral/Ambassador Lisa Hayes, having realised his mistake of not spotting the fleet in front of them. Rick broke up the lieutenant's nervousness by agreeing with Lisa: "Right, it'd be wise to get a star chart and get in touch with the locals. Let's hope our main gun doesn't fire again by accident…"

Lisa nodded her head: "It'd be a disaster all over again if the Synchro Cannon on our ship misfires again… Like the main gun."

Rick then turned his attention to the bridge crew led by Lieutenant Laura: "I want a full energy reading scan on the ships and a report on their weapons."

After he said that, he turned his attention to the comm officers, led by Anderson: "Prep a first package to send over to the fleet over there, ensure them that we want no harm."

A few seconds later, Laura reported: "Their using laser or proton weapons of some sort, technology we had developed and deemed not useful. They're being powered by some sort of energy reactor, with a substance which is unknown to us. There's also some kind of shield emulating from the ships, however the shield integrity is fairly low and can be pierced without a problem with our anti-ship guns."

Rick nodded, and Lisa asked him: "So, how do you think they'll respond?"

Rick replied: "I don't know Lisa, let's just hope they aren't like all our other first contacts where we get shot the moment we attempt to communicate. But for now let's scramble all the fighters."

Rick gave out the order to scramble the Veritech fighters within the fleet.

Meanwhile back on the bridge of the Judicator

"Sir, analysis reports read those smaller ships generate at least 8x more power than us, and the larger ships generate at least 30x more!"

Admiral Durril's head was hurting, these forces were an unknown. And above all appear at Hoth, seemingly to help the Rebels. He gave out orders after sorting himself out: "Contact the ships, order them to surrender in the name of the Empire. Tell them they have violated section IXX, 24c: Helping Rebels. In case they fire back, have all fighters be ready to be launched and scrambled for an attack."

Durril hoped they would surrender, and would join the empire with their warships. Their secrets on how to produce so much energy… On a small warship would certainly be helpful to the Empire.

Shaking the admiral out of his thoughts, a bridge officer reported to the Admiral: "We've received a set of… unknown symbols and codes. It looks like a first contact package."

The Admiral replied to the officer: "Decipher it, and send ours back at them."

Both fleets above Hoth exchanged first contact packages, learning the basics of each others language.

However… Things weren't going to be so peaceful after these first few minutes.

Rick asked Dr. Lang: "Can you check this language? It seems… Very familiar."

Lisa nodded, and agreed with Rick: "I feel like I've seen it somewhere before on the expedition…"

After taking a closer look at the language and words, the Chief Scientist jumped in excitement. "Ve have stumbled upon… The disciples of Zor…"

Rick and Lisa asked simultaneously: "Disciples of Zor?"

Dr. Lang answered: "Vhat's vight. The Disciples of Zor. Legend has it Vhat they disappeared somewhere… But I never thought outside of the Milky Vay. Vhat language is definitely old Tirolian."

Rick asked the scientist: "Then can you send instruct the bridge crew on how to send a message telling them our situation right now?"

The scientist nodded, and headed over to the bridge crew. A message was soon sent from the command bridge of the SDF-3 Pioneer to the ISD Judicator.

ISD Judicator

"Admiral, we have received a message from the alien vessel."

"Play it out, bridge officer."

"Yes sir."

The bridge officer put the message on the loud speakers in the command tower, the message then started: "I'm Admiral Hunter from the Robotech Expeditionary Forces, we have no idea why we've unfolded here. We ensure you we are of no harm and will only defend ourselves, we ask for your cooperation if you can help us back to the Milky Way Galaxy."

All the officers in the control room looked at the Admiral as he said: "Send what I'm about to say to them."

The admiral spoke after the bridge officer gave him the cue to start: "We are the Galactic Empire, the government of this Galaxy. We have no idea what the Robotech Expeditionary Force is, but as implied in section 224B, A7: Interfering with Empire Military missions against foreign or internal enemies of the Empire is prohibited. We will have to request you to surrender your ships and return to Corusant with us. You have 20 seconds before we open fire."

SDF-3 Pioneer Command Tower

After hearing the message, Lisa sighed. She asked Rick: "Well… Are we going surrender?"

Rick replied to her: "As much as I don't want this to turn out like the first Robotech and second Robotech war did… it seems we have no choice. All Veritech's launch! Give Colonel Max, Lieutenant Colonel Miriya and Captain Baker their respective targets within those ships."

Seconds after Rick's orders, thousands of Veritech's scrambled out of the ship using the Shadow system.

Rick shouted: "All ships, prepare to open fire once they start firing. Start the Synchro Cannons, we have no choice but to fight back!"

The bridge officers were busy as all of them issued Rick's commands across the fleet, as protoculture energy surged through all the ships to the turrets and missiles preparing for discharge from the REF SDF-3 fleet.

"Sir it appears they aren't backing down, energy signatures dictate that their charging their weapons."

Admiral Durril sighed, he didn't want to scrap such a technologically advanced power system'd fleet. He ordered: "All fighters, launch. All units in the fleet, focus fire on main large ship within that fleet."

The 524 Tie-Fighters, carried by all the Star Destroyers launched to combat the enemy.

The Admiral questioned the bridge officer after the launch of their fighters: "Any fighters launching from their side?"

The officer replied: "Negative. Our scanners pick up nothing."

The Admiral felt suspicion something was wrong. And he was right.

The 6,500 REF Shadow fighters lined up in formation. Their fighters obviously had a technological edge on the Tie-Fighters, especially since the Ties couldn't even detect them. And, even if they did the speed the Ties were flying at were unbearably slow for the REF Fighters.

In his Veritech, Max Jenius gave out his orders: "All fighters, prepare to launch missiles on my command."

As soon as the fighters reached proximity of the enemy fleet and fighters, Max yelled in the comms: "Fire all missiles!" A load of Reflex Missiles were fired from the Shadow fighters of the REF Fleet.

Hunter looked at the progress made by the Shadow Fighters, and said to Anderson: "Tell all ships to not fire and begin barrier system. Let's test how much can we hold against their fire."

Anderson quickly contacted all of the REF Fleet ships to start the Omnidirectional Barrier system, and soon greenish yellow spheres could be seen around all of the REF Ships.

Back in the Judicator Admiral Durril was terrified. After firing an entire bombardment on the REF ships, their magical barrier had blocked everything they through at them. No known shield was able to last that long against a barrage of that caliber… Except for the massive Planetary shield generators.

All of a sudden, a bridge officer yelled: "Sir! Missiles are appearing out of nowhere! All our fighters are down, and at least 85% of that barrage of missiles is heading towards our ships!"

What? How is this possible… Those ships didn't fire anything… No… No way. Those fighters have cloaking devices we, the Galactic Empire couldn't even detect? We have the most advanced technology in the Galaxy, how could we possibly not have detected their fighters…

All of a sudden, the Admiral saw the enemy fighters. Like a swarm of wasps. It horrified him, numerous fighters in grey and black plating. Their numbers outnumbered even that of a separatist fleet of 25 ships by at least five to six times, and they were known to use swarm tactics…

The Admiral quickly yelled, without thinking: "CONCENTRATE ALL FIRE ON DEFENSE! SHOOT DOWN THOSE MISSILES!"

The bridge officers quickly tried to relay it, but even as the lasers fired, the massive amount of missiles couldn't be dealt with.

A bridge officer reported to him: "Our shields are down, and our hull is suffering heavy damage! All the other ships in the fleet have suffered major hull damage which has disabled most systems, and Rear Admiral Vontgon's ship the Oathbreaker has already been disabled!"

The Admiral shouted: "Have the ship warp away now! Go to Lothal! We need that F*cking Chiss to win this!"

The Judicator quickly warped away from the scene, leaving her allies to fend for themselves. Rear Admiral Vontgon took command of the fleet, which his very own admiral had abandoned. Vontgon ordered from his downing ship: "All ships are to evacuate all personnel into escape pods immediately!"

Thanks to Vontgon's early orders, most crews aboard the ship had survived. However, being stuck in an escape pod and seeing your own fleet be blown up by an endless barrage of missile stronger than proton torpedoes didn't make their morale stronger.

Floating in the endless reaches of space, what was formerly known as the 103rd Fleet was now a fleet of escape pods, waiting to be captured by the enemy.

SDF-3 Command Tower

Anderson: "Admiral Hunter, one enemy ship has escaped but the others have been downed. We've also sighted escape pods everywhere. A total of… 98."

Rick ordered Anderson: "Have Lieutenant Jack Baker's Vermillion Squadron take all the escape pods back. I want to ensure that we take them in one by one within the SDF-3. Have a entirely armed battalion down there, I don't want any fun business inside the ship. Ah and I almost forgot, inform all ships in the fleet to turn off their Omnidirectional Barrier systems"

Anderson gave out Rick's orders, and was yelling at his comm officers to get to work.

Rick sighed and Lisa said to him: "So this is what Breetai and the Robotech Masters must've felt when they first fought our ships. It really is a somewhat relieving feeling that we have a technological advantage."

Rick replied to Lisa: "Yeah, but I wouldn't like to be in their shoes as a invader… Let's hope we can properly make peace with this "Emperor" fellow from this "Empire"."

Rebel base Echo

Raddus: "Don't launch the transports until my command!"

Sean reported: "Massive energy readings outside of Hoth… It looks like the two fleets are engaging."

Han gave a casual reply: "My moneys on the 25 ships, well and my hopes too. Hopefully they aren't your standard Empire fellows."

Leia nodded: "Yeah, it'd definitely suck to have 25 ships to deal with instead of 15."

Two minutes passed as the rebels in Rebel Base Echo watched the battle from their scanners.

Sean reported again: "The Imperial forces… Decimated. Their fighters were all decimated… Only one ISD escaped with heavy damage to it's hull…"

Luke suddenly heard a voice in his head: "I sense a disturbance… Travel to Dagobah… Luke. Go to Yoda… Bring him back."

Luke suddenly spoke up: "Ben… Ben just told me to go to Dagobah to find Yoda."

Han laughed and said: "What… That old green fellow which was the grand master? Didn't he die in the duel against Sidious?"

Leia shook her head and said: "No, only my father, I and Obi-Wan know that Yoda travelled to a random planet in exile."

Raddus spoke: "If the Jedi Master has spoken to you, then you must go to Dagobah, Captain Skywalker your new instructions are to take your X-Wing to Dagobah."

Skywalker saluted and ran towards his X-Wing, which had already been prepared for launch to evacuate the base in Hoth.

His X-wing flew through the atmosphere as he told R2 to set in the coordinates for Dagobah.

SDF-3 Command

"Admiral, there's an unknown craft from the planet starting what seems to be a FTL system, do we use our gravity well?"

Lisa replied to the officer: "No, let him go. If he isn't hostile we don't need to engage."

Lisa's authority within the ship had almost never been questioned, despite being an retired admiral. She was respected by the crew, and everyone understood that she and her husband, Rick Hunter had around the same decisions most of the time.

Rick nodded to her order, and added in to the order: "Send several squadrons of Veritechs, led by Colonel Sterling's Delta Squadron and 3 Horizon dropships down towards the base down there, Anderson."

Anderson nodded and gave out his order to the Marines.