Empire
by Warringer
Chapter 10
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"Leaving Slipstream in 4..."
'The Lady' stood in the center of Pegasus' Command and Control like a large rock in the middle of the center of a gathering storm, looking at one of the numerous holographic projections that were floating in the large command center of the ship.
"3..."
Data of all kinds floated over the holographic projections, more than any human eye could ever hope to be able to gather. As a technomage, the pink haired Read Admiral however had a number of cybernetic implants that were currently tied into the wireless information network of the ship and helped to filter the incoming informations.
"2..."
Most of the people in the fleet had similar implants since they had gotten widely available in the early twenties of the current century. But none of these implants was as powerful as those of a full technomage. For a moment her eyes fell on the two natives of the Galaxy Far Far Away, wondering what they would think about these implants or that Earth pretty much had a good number of people available that could be called 'Jedi' by them.
"1..."
But for the moment that didn't matter. All what mattered was that they managed to take down the Death Star before it could destroy more planets.
"Normal space reentry."
Almost immediately the informations on the holographic displays changed and Usagi nodded to herself, her finger moving up to scratch Nimitz where his neck connected to his skull, getting a slight purr from him.
"Position?" she asked.
"50.000 from Yavin IV, relative speed to the moon one point seven kmsec."
Usagi nodded again.
"Okay, people, now it gets interesting. Order to the fleet. We are moving to L2 of Yavin and Yavin IV. All units into formation. The Nadesicos are moving into screening positions for maximum sensory coverage."
Around her people nodded and she crossed her arms over her chest as they began to relay her her orders. Sure she could have just given the orders and transmitted them directly through her implants and the tac net, but there was no need for that. Something like that was commonly only done during direct combat situations.
"Admiral," another technician said," We are having contact to the Ticonderoga."
She nodded.
"Open a channel to Captain Deveraux."
Only a short moment later another hologram was added to the many displays hovering in CNC. This time it showed the Canadian commander of Ticonderoga.
"Captain Deveraux," she said," I trust you everything went well?"
Deveraux frowned a little.
"Yes, sowhat," he answered." It seems that they are very insistent on using a small strike force to defeat the Death Star."
Usagi shook her head and her glance went back towards Katarn and Ors for a moment.
"Have you told them how large the fleet is?"
Deveraux nodded.
"Yes, I have, but they don't really believe me."
Usagi shook her head again.
"Than we are going to surprise them with our numbers. You will remain in close orbit around Yavin IV, Captain, make sure that nothing gets past you in the case that there are some stranglers."
Deveraux nodded at his orders.
"Wilco," her answered." When are you awaiting the ground support?"
Usagi smirked rather evilly.
"In about six hours," she said." But we managed to bring the Valkyries with us a advanced planetary defense force. Pegasus out."
Usagi could see Deveraux's eyes grow wide as she mentioned the Valkyries, who happened to be one of the most valued, feared and even worshiped BOLO company in existence. They were consisting of BBL-01 to BBL-03 units and all of them were build by Scandinavian Companies and their AIs had taken on the names and mannerisms of the Asgardian Valkyries of the Norse faith.
Usagi shook her head for a moment. Thanks to Alexander and the way he died and what he had quoted before he had died as a hero, the Norse faith had been reborn. Most of it was rather romantically tainted, but Usagi had to say that most of the Asgardians, as those of the new Norse faith were called, lived up to the recent picture of the Vikings, who weren't only warriors.
She gave a nod towards one of the technicians.
"Order the Sleipnir to prepare for landing operations at Massassi Station. And get a connection to the station, we don't want them to think that we are invaders, do we?"
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"Preemptive warfare?"
Hikaru von Bismark massaged his temples as he looked at one of his Joint Chiefs. He had just send a fleet to bolster the defense of Yavin and hopefully make sure that the Death Star was destroyed. And now the Joint Chiefs were coming with this idea.
"Yes, sir," was the reply of General Thor Gunnarson, who was the current head of military planning in the Pentagon.
Hikaru looked tiredly at the Norwegian Marine and sighed. Like in all the weeks before the Transfer and the nearly two days they were in the Star Wars galaxy now, he had gotten little sleep and the constant meeting with everyone and their dog was long since tiring him out. Ancient and Shin'bi genetics aside, it was taking its toll on the President of the Interstellar Commonwealth that was currently only consisting of a single planet.
"We never have stepped as low as fighting preemptive warfare."
Gunnarson looked him in the eyes and grit his teeth.
"We never had to resort to it because we were never going against an opponent like the Galactic Empire ruled by Palpatine."
He breathed in deep and leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes for a moment. Gunnarson was right. The Galactic Empire was vastly different to the Federation or the Union. They at least had a certain resemblance to the old European Empires of the late 19th century, down to the 'White Mens Burden'. The Empire on the other hand was reminding everyone more of the 3rd Reich of Hitler., maybe even worse. And everyone knew how that had ended.
Sure, the Empire might end in about five years and Palpatine die, at least for the first time. But during that time, the Empire was able to bring more death and destruction to the Galaxy than the Nazis ever did.
And it would all end up in an ineffective government that didn't knew how to tie their shoes and relied on the Jedi to pull them out of the sticky situations they had maneuvered themselves in.
"No," he said with a sigh and his seat swung around to face the large window of the Office. "I'm sure you already have plans for that?"
Behind him, Gunnarson nodded.
"Yes, sir. WE intend to strike a number of strategically important worlds of the Empire, raiding and destroying as many military hardware and installations as possible to force the Empire to look the other way for a while."
Hikaru swung his seat back around to face Gunnarson, leaning forward.
"Giving us and the Rebels time to further destabilize the Empire," he noted.
"Essentially yes, sir."
Gunnarson got a strange smile on his face.
"There are some plans to salvage as many Star Destroyers from their docks as possible and turn them into scrap metal, Trojan Horses or give them to the Rebels as a present. It would deny the Empire a number of their growing fleet."
Hikaru leaned back again.
"And than we have a number of Androgyns," Gunnarson continued," Who are volunteering to wage guerrilla war against the Empire on planets or large stations by building large forces of drone platforms from local materials."
Hikaru shook his head. The Androgyns were a robotic design that had become very sought after for low-cost warfare. Essentially they were mobile tank sized microbotic fabbers that could be placed on any planet and began to build large numbers of drones of any kind. They had their uses aside from warfare as they also made good factories for small colonies that were still building up. Being full fledged AIs they were fully recognized citizens of the Commonwealth.
"I think they like to see themselves as saviors of the droids, aren't they?" he wondered for a moment.
"Could be like that, sir," Gunnarson said.
They were silent for a few moments until Hikaru nodded.
"I want a full priority list of all military and infrastructural installations for your Operation 'Clay Feet'. Than we let Merlin and Nathan go over them with a fine comb."
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"Contact," the voice of a technician called out through CNC of Pegasus." Farseer is reporting contact with a large metal mass that has appeared just outside of Yavin's gravity well."
Admiral Chiba frowned as he checked her chronometer.
"Data?" she asked, more for the commanders of the Rebel Alliance that were currently on Pegasus, than for herself, who was receiving the information through her implants.
"Contact is about 160 kilometers in diameter and masses several hundred billion metric tons. Currently moving at relative zero zero six cee at bearing zero fiver two point one one niner."
"Display," she said out loud, while giving a mental order to CNCs computers.
Within moments a large tactical display had replaced the numerous other displays in the center of CNC, getting gasps from the Rebel leaders.
The display showed the gas giant of Yavin, orbited by its natural and unnatural moons, while the fleet was displayed a a larger number of small green icons on a line from Yavin to Yavin IV and beyond. Another larger symbol of an orange color was displayed nearly on the other side of the planet, with a curving orbital path being displayed for it, intercepting with Yavin IV's orbit a good distance from Yavin IV.
"Line of sight?" she asked.
"One hour, thirty minutes."
Usagi nodded and smirked a little.
"Compare it to the data of the Death Star," she ordered and looked over to General Dodonna and Princess Leia.
"One hundred percent match," was the answer and the icon changed colors to red.
Usagi breathed in deep.
"General Order to the Fleet. All hands to Battlestations. Start all fighters and prepare for long range ballistic artillery bombardment of the target."
Across the middle of CNC, she could see how Dodonna pulled out a radio to order his elite squadron of fighters to launch. It was refreshing to see how the Rebels went white as sheets.
"I want all ballistic trajectories displayed on the main screen," she continued to give her orders." And get a nice close up image of a Von Braun."
A second display appeared above the tactical display, showing the body of a Von Braun, as it fired massive reaction thrusters to slowly begin to rotate until it rolled one every twenty seconds, allowing it to fire six broadsides of sixty missiles each minute.
The cloud of missile pods all around the fleet began to reposition themselves directed by the command centers of the control ship.
On the display a very large cloud of blue trajectories began to appear, showing the path the missiles fired by the two hundred Von Brauns and the numerous pods would take, meeting with the projected path of the Death Star along the way.
Usagi crossed her arms behind her back, looking at the display with a controlled facial expression. For a moment she wondered if this was the way of warfare in the Honor-verse. The cloud of fighters that were displayed as moving away from the fleet and meeting up with the single symbol of Rouge Squadron however changed that mental image.
Her expression slowly turned into smirks as the cloud of ballistic paths grew and one by one changed to a green color.
"Order to the Fleet," she slowly said." Initiate long range ballistic saturation bombardment."
The display exploded into a multitude of yellow dots as the assorted Von Braun's and Pods fired the initial barrage, sending more than ten thousand missiles on their way towards the Death Star.
They would need about fifteen minutes to arrive and when they did they would have accelerated to a low fraction of light speed, adding kinetic energy to the energy of their warheads.
The smaller display of the Von Braun showed how the ship slowly rolled and suddenly one side erupted as missile after missile left its port missile launchers in a perfect rippled launch.
"Lets see if we can get a reaction out of the Death Star this way."