Empire
by Warringer
Chapter 8
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"Pegasus Control, this is JR Lead. VFA-103 requesting permission for landing."
"Roger that, JR Lead," came a female voice in response," You are cleared for landing in the Port Pylon. Be advised that the 124th Fighter Squadron of the Earth Air National Guard is currently on que for landing procedures."
Commander Richard 'Skywalker' Hunter frowned a little as he slowly nodded to himself.
"Acknowledged, Pegasus. The Jolly Rogers are moving to approach position until the landing que is cleared for us. JR Lead Out."
"Acknowledged, JR Lead. Pegasus Control out."
Slowly he nudged his F-19 Hellcat II into a slow curve, bringing the fighter around the massive bulk of the Mercury class Command Carrier, before turning to the left and the right, where the other members of his squadron had fallen into formation.
Around them space was filled with all kinds of fighters, Space Jets and other small craft that were transferred from either Earth or any IC vessel that wasn't a dedicated carrier. Like the VFA-103 'Jolly Rogers', were transfered from the Enterprise to the Pegasus for the duration of an operation no one knew anything about.
They had just completed a transfer from their old universe into this one and they were already headed to a massive operation.
His thumb slightly moved the small trackball in his side stick, scrolling through the numerous menus of the Hellcats Operating System. A click with the other thumb on a button on the second flight stick chose the advanced statistical display of the Hellcats sensory system, combined with the information that came from the tactical network.
What ever the operation was, he couldn't see any ships besides carriers, Von Brauns and Nadesicos. For a moment he wondered just what they were about to do with nearly half the carrier force of the remaining fleet.
"Hey, Skywalker," he head the voice of Lieutenant Hikari 'Jello' Ichijyo, his wingman, or rather wingwoman." We really have to wait for the Air Heads to land first?"
Hunter snorted as he glanced over to the fighter of his wingman.
"I'm rather not on the receiving end of a Gunslinger," he noted dryly." And you know what the Air Heads think of us."
"True..."
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Bernhard Meiler glanced at the large numbers of Ghostraider Pods his tug was pulling towards Pegasus, one of the carriers that hung in space not far from Asimov.
There were already several dozen pods hanging between the two pylons of the carrier and he was about to unload another dozen of Pods.
Glancing over towards other tugs, he noted that there were hundred, if not thousands of Pods being loaded and attached to the outside of any carrier and even the Nadesicos and Von Brauns.
Where ever they were about to go with this fleet. Whoever they were going to fight. They would end up being on the receiving end of one hell of a lot of missiles.
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"Captain, we have finished reloading the stores."
Captain Sergej Dubankov nodded.
"Good," he noted." Anything else?"
"The Pallas has docked with us and is supplying us with 300 additional MGM-60 and ten Pluto Pods."
Dubankov grinned. He loved to be the commander of a Von Braun. Especially at times like these. He would end up with 1800 MGM-60 and numerous Pods to fire. And his Oberth would unload her entire storage in less than five minutes in thirty salvos.
It payed to be a Russian on a Von Braun...
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"WHAT?"
Princess Leia Organa all but stared at the dynamic droid duo. Her stares switched between the gold protocol druid and the smaller blue on white astromech droid.
C-3PO seemed to fidget as he looked down upon his partner.
"What?" he repeated the Princess they had just rescued, not sure what he should take what he had just translated rather automatically without thinking about it.
A series of whistles and beeps was the response as R2-D2 turned his head to look at the Princess.
"What is 'Blue shifted'?" he asked and was once again answered by a series of tones that were binary.
3PO stopped for a moment before slowly turning towards the Princess.
"R2 says that the message was blue shifted from a vessel moving at half the speed of light so that it would end up on a Rebel Frequency."
The Princess stepped back and dropped down on the bench. Next to her Luke Skywalker who was still devastated by the death of Ben Kenobi. At the moment she didn't really care that he was listening in. He would likely end up being part of the Rebellion anyway.
"And?"
R2 responded again and for a moment 3PO looked at him and than at Leia.
"It seems that the message was encoded by Kyle Katarn," he said.
Leia frowned slightly at the mention of Katarn but nodded.
"He has found some allies for the Alliance while he and his partner were fleeing fro a Star Destroyer in Wild Space. They call themselves 'Interstellar Commonwealth' and are sending us a fleet to help destroy the Death Star."
Leia blinked and stared at the dynamic droid duo for a second time.
"Does the message say how to contact this 'Commonwealth'?"
R2 said something and 3PO looked at him for a longer time.
"Should I really say that?" he asked and got another series of beeps and whistles that sounded annoyed.
"I quote," 3PO noted after a pause a human had used to breathe in deep."Don't call us. We call you."
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Everywhere on Earth and the surrounding space all TV and holo channels switched from whatever program they were playing to a rather plain 2 dimensional screen showing the flag of the Interstellar Commonwealth.
"Ladies, Gentlemen and Gentlebeings, the President of the Interstellar Commonwealth," a voice announced using English the lingua franca of the Commonwealth.
The screen switched to show Hikaru von Bismark sitting in his office in front of the massive armored window that showed the Atlantic Ocean and part of the artificial island that was the planet bound base for the Clarke Orbital Lift. Left and right of him were the flags of the Commonwealth and the Terran Confederation.
"Ladies, Gentlemen, Gentlebeings," he began and grossed his hand in front of him as he placed them on his desk." Earth has just narrowly avoided to be destroyed by the Enemy that had destroyed all habitated worlds of the Interstellar Commonwealth. An enemy that wished to destroy everything the Interstellar Commonwealth stood for, going as far as destroying civilian ships of those who were able to flee the destruction of their homeworld.
"This planet, it's sole moon and anything within its magnetosphere had been transferred through Third Space into another reality. Giving us all a chance for a new beginning in a new world, without the constant thread of First Ones trying to prove that they are right.
"More than twenty billion sentients of all member races of the Commonwealth and a good number of our allies have been able to make the transit, most of them currently residing on Earth, the Moon, one of the thousands of Solar Trees or the more than one million civilian ships.
"Maybe one day our descendants will be able to return to our old reality and fight the Enemy. Maybe the light of the Interstellar Commonwealth will stop the war that will most likely rage in our old home for decades, centuries or even millennia. We don't know.
"But we have a new chance to build up the Commonwealth and fight for what we believe is true.
"And even if it pains me to tell you all this..."
He made a pause and looked straight into the camera and seemingly into the eyes of everyone watching.
"We will be forced to fight.
"I know that you do not want to fight anymore, but we have to. Once again we have to stand against an entire galaxy. Once again we have to fight great odds. But once again we are going to be victorious, like we have been during the Doranian War, the Third Space Invasion and the Reunification Conflict.
"We are not facing an enemy who is all but invincible like the First Ones.
"We are facing someone who is just as human... Just as failable... Just as mortal as we all are..."
Again he made a pause and closed his eyes for a moment sighing. As he opened his eyes again, he looked back at the camera and into the eyes of everyone watching.
"I have been forced to make a decision since our scientists were able to tell where we are.
"As we speak, a fleet is on its way to announce our existence to the enemy we have to face in our new home.
"But at the same time, several explorers are beginning to survey the nearby systems to find worlds that are either habitable or can be terraformed for colonization."
He paused and drew in a deep breath.
"We will prevail and we will make this universe our new home.
"A good day to you, Ladies, Gentlemen and Gentlebeings."
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Commander Hunter raised an eyebrow as he sat in one of the overfilled pilot briefing rooms of the Pegasus and looked at the three dimensional hologram of the commanding officer of the whole fleet.
He knew that things seemed to be rather desperate, if the Pentagon had ordered her to lead the fleet for whatever operation they were about to fly.
Just fifteen minutes earlier, the fleet had left Earth orbit and was moving away from the planet before entering slipstream and go towards whatever target they were to fight. They had all heard the speech the President had given and it had caused Hunter to try and find out where they had transferred to if Atlantis already knew where they were and this enemy.
Now he knew that he would get if from the woman in the hologram, dressed in the normal khaki colored uniform of a simple officer, not the uniform most were expecting on a Vice Admiral. Neither weren't most people expecting that silver colored cat sized dragon being draped over her shoulders. It was a Zataiku Kinhiryuu, one of the animals from the Shin'bi homeworlds that had found a very large... 'fanbase' one might say.
Vice Admiral Usagi Chiba, nicknamed 'Lady Harrington' or 'The Lady', stood in the holographic projection, her hands crossed on her back as he looked at the assembled fighter pilots, much like she did from similar projections everywhere in the fleet.
The Lady was an oddity in the fleet, mainly because she was a high-level born Technomage, who was a IC Navy officer with her soul. Rumors said that it all started with the 'Honor Harrington' novels and that she had earned her nicknames because of her near-obsession with them, while she was in Sandhurst.
"Ladies, Gentlemen," she began in a matter of fact tone that was typical for her and paused for a moment.
Hunter had been under her command during the time he was still a nugget on the old Serenity. Her style of command was rather down to Earth, through her near obsession with 'Honor Harrington' showed in it.
"I know that all of you are wondering where we are. And what our job is, not even two days after the Transfer."
She paused again and many murmurs were heard throughout the briefing room.
"The 'where' is easy to explain," she said and another hologram appeared next to her." We are in the Star Wars Galaxy."
The room descended into stunned silence as all stared at the other hologram, where they could see live footage from one of Clark's hangars and a damaged Star Destroyer inside of it.
"This is the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic," The Lady continued." Red Palace and her Task Force encountered while scouting out one of the gas giants in this system. She was hunting down a Lambda class shuttle with two Rebels aboard and was brought down by the Red Palace Task Force in a short, rather one sided fight. At the moment the eggheads of the TIT are going over the Tyrannic and try to find out what makes her tick."
"Which brings me to the primary objective of Operation 'Wake Up Call'."
The second hologram disappeared for a moment, while The Lady continued to speak.
"We were able to pin point the moment of our transfer to the beginning of Episode IV."
The second hologram appeared and caused gasps all around and Hunter swallowed as he stared at footage of a Real Life Death Star.
"Our primary objective," Admiral Chiba stated with a slight frown.
"But the Rebels are going to destroy it anyway..." came from somewhere in the fleet and The Lady shook her head.
"Nathan thinks that our mere existence in this universe, as well as the presumed tremor in the Force that our arrival caused, are responsible for larger changes in the time line compared to what we know."
She breathed in deep and Hunter sunk back into his seat, closing his eyes for a moment.
"That includes the possibility of the Rebels not being able to destroy the Death Star. We are going to make sure that the Death Star is going to be destroyed and not used against Earth."
This caused gasps and murmurs all around for a second time. It had hit a nerve. Hunter looked around and could see quite a few face of colonials or non-humans who were near tears as they were reminded of the demise of their homeworlds.
"I think everyone knows what to do, once we have reached Yavin IV. The squadron commanders are going to be briefed separately in twenty minutes."
She looked around again and nodded.
"Dismissed."