Empire
by Warringer
Chapter 11
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Commander Hunter breathed in deep and swallowed as he watched a close von Braun rolling around, each half rotation ripple launching another set of sixty missiles.
Than ten minutes after the launch of the first missiles the massive vessels slowed down, having spend all their missiles in launch after launch. If his flight computer was right, those ships had just launched a massive barrage of more than three million missiles
"JR Lead, this is Pegasus Control. You are go for attack run."
"Roger that, Pegasus Control," he answered and switched to the Squadron channel." Okay people, lets go and destroy a Death Star."
One by one his squadron acknowledged and he breathed in as he pushed the throttle forwards. Than he looked towards the massive planet that was Yavin and into the direction where the Death Star was hidden behind the massive gas giant.
He looked at his chronometer. Five minutes until the first of the missiles would be impacting on the shield but hopefully on the hull of the Death Star. As pilot of a space fighter he knew that the missiles had been going on a path that lead them extremely close to Yavin in a fly-by maneuver and with that had gained a good boost of speed.
"Wonder how the DS is going to take the missiles," someone asked over tac-net and at once it was filled with chatter.
"Silence," than came a firm female voice over the tac-net, shutting everyone up.
Hunter nodded to himself.
Yes, it was fitting for Lady Harrington to do something like this. But the silence became more and more uncomfortable, even as the Rebel X-Wings joined up with the massive wall of fighters and assorted small craft like Space Jets and attack bombers.
"Oh frack," someone suddenly uttered." Is that a pink X-Wing?"
It was followed by another, through short chatter over tac-net and Hunter had to close his eyes for a moment before looking around, trying to see that specific X-Wing.
He didn't have to look very long to spot it, even among the white X-Wings the pink fighter was sticking out like a sore thumb.
Great, since when had the crew chiefs of the Rebels allowed someone to paint their fighters and how much they had gotten payed for it. Any Chief of the Commonwealth would have straggled a pilot asking for something like that.
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Technician Andre Alfek swallowed as he looked at his screen and than up towards Tarkin and the other commanding officers of the Death Star.
The number of small objects coming towards the massive battlestation was insane. And each of them was at least twice the size of a Lambda class shuttle and coming at the station at very high speed.
For a moment he wondered if he should really tell Tarkin about these objects, but a technician next to him didn't have the time to ask himself the same question.
"Sir," the poor guy spoke up." Several thousand objects are moving to intercept us."
Alfek could see him swallow.
"It seem to be missiles, sir."
He was careful not to look very attentively at the reaction of the Great Moff as he turned around, his hands put together on his back. At the same time, he was glad that Darth Vader was not here anymore, having left the Death Star together with most of the 501st Legion a few hours before.
"Missiles?" Tarkin asked." Where do they come from."
Alfek could see his colleague swallow slightly.
"Yavin IV, sir."
Tarkin raised an eyebrow and turned back towards the massive armored window pane of the Over Bridge.
"Missiles," he once again said, but this time, it was a statement and not a question.
Silence descended over the Over Bridge, as everyone waited for his orders.
"Desperate," he stated and straightened." Activate the shields. Lets see how much the missiles strain it."
Alfek breathed in deep. He wondered how Tarkin was able to keep his cool with...
He looked back down at his console and nearly gasped. As it was his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
... more than a hundred thousand missiles, coming at them wave after wave.
Alfek doubted that he would survive this day.
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Slowly she took the large mug of coffee to her lips and took a long sip from the steaming hot black liquid inside. Her eyes were focusing on the large tactical display that was floating in the center of ICS Pathfinder, one of the numerous Nadesico class vessels that were moving around Yavin. And Pathfinder was only a lightsecond away from the Death Star, keeping a low profile even as her powerful sensory systems were taking in all information that was presented to them.
"Get me a closeby of the Death Star," Captain Aiko Harris ordered in a neutral tone as she took another sip from her mug of coffee and adjusted her wings slightly.
For a moment she looked down into the mug, noting that she would have to refill it soon. Well, being a coffee Junkie was better than being on Twinkies like her old man.
Another smaller display appeared above the tactical image, showing the Death Star in all its glory, hovering as one meter sphere above the tactical plot of the Yavin gravitational system.
The display showed how a cloud of red lines were moving towards the Death Star, intersecting with a part of the Death Stars course that it would take for ten minutes. Even if the Death Star changed course or velocity, the intersecting lines would still hit it as the missiles would be able to make last minute corrections to their course as their targeting systems were feed by Pathfinder.
"Time to impact," she ordered again, for a moment wondering if she should refill her mug now or if she should wait a while longer, not wanting to miss the more than three hundred thousand missiles hitting the moon sized battle station.
"One minute, ma'am," came the answer from one of her technicians in the bridge crew.
For a moment she looked over to him, chuckling at the rather classical image of a bespectacled nerd sitting in front of a computer. Like her old man had said, a Harris would always end up with a crew made up of nerds and geeks. The same was true for her twin brother after all. Only that she had ended up with her fathers second command after his first Monsoon, the good old USS A Highly Effective Pirate, that had rammed a Doranian Dreadnought to save the Enterprise during the Doranian War.
"Good," she answered after a moment and stepped a little closer to the tactical plot.
Through the wireframe cloud plot she could see how other members of the bridge crew, turned to look at the plot and the display of the Death Star themselves. Out of the corner of her eyes she was able to see how her Second in Command began to look very interested at the display and started to sweat ever so slightly. Considering that on a ship full of nerds he was one of the few Warsies, it was a little understandable.
"Thirty Seconds."
The first blot of more than ten thousand lines shortened more and more, very visible on the display as any of the missiles was moving with a low fraction of lighspeed.
"I want a full reading on the Death Stars shields and its energy production. And get me the top speed of the impacting missiles."
Three additional displays appeared next the Death Star, two of them showing three dimensional Fourier analysis of the shields and energy production, while the third simply showed a slowly climbing number.
Of course she didn't exactly know what the two upper displays showed, but the third display of the top speed was making her chuckle a little. Current top speed was point three lightspeed and would most likely climb to point three two or point three three in the next few seconds until impact.
"Two... One... Impact."
The first hundred thousand lines disappeared completely on the tactical display before the display that showed the Death Star bathed Command and Control in the light of thousands of detonation.
Ten thousands of high yield nuclear and gravitic warheads detonated with different effects all over the forward shield. While the nuclear warheads produced massive short lived suns, the gravitic warheads seemed to create short lived black spots, even against the bulk of the Death Star and the light of the nuclear detonations.
Harris' glance went towards the upper analysis displays to see how they presented little more than solid blocks of red, the analysis software redlining the values.
There were sounds of displeasure heard throughout CNC as the Death Star appeared to be unharmed by the massive bombardment of missiles from the first salvo.
"Zoom on the Super Laser," she ordered and the display showing the Death Star zoomed in.
Now there were several cheers heard, as the indention of the Super Lasers Focussing Array showed a number of dents and black spots, as the entire salvo had been targeted at that particular part of the Death Star. It showed that there had been a number of warheads that had managed to pass the shield and slamm into the hull of the Death Star.
But it also showed that the armor of the massive battle station was nothing to sneeze at.
"Second salvo, Impact."
Again the screen, still zoomed at the Super Laser bathed CNC in the light of ten thousands of detonations.
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The Overbridge of the Death Star shook as hundreds of missiles of various yield managed to penetrate the overly taxed shields, each of the massive salvos of missiles managing to weaken the powerful shield of the Death Star more and more.
"We lost a secondary super laser!"
Alfek swallowed, his eyes locked on the screen in front of him.
To say that this was bad, was to say that the surface of a star was a little bit warm. This was more than bad, somewhere along the lines of 'Being eaten by a Sarlacc' bad.
Lights of numerous explosions outside was shining through the large windowpanes of the Overbridge, causing a number of the crew members to panic slightly.
Alfek however remained surprisingly calm. He wasn't even near panic, through he was nervous.
"There are more missiles incoming," he stated after a moment, as the light of the detonations dimmed down. Only to be violently be ignited again.
The shields were still able to take the missiles, but once again several hundreds were coming through, detonating not too far away from the Overbridge. Each of the detonations managed to cause the massive sphere of the Death Star to vibrate like a bell, sending the entire structure into shaking movements that couldn't even be compensated by the gravity generators or inertial dampeners, as those were shaking too.
"We lost another secondary laser!"
Alfek closed his eyes to breathe in deep. He looked up again and managed to get a brief glimpse of Great Moff Tarkin's face. The calm arrogance was all but whiped away as the man tried to keep himself steady on the way from the Overbridge.
Yes, it would be a good idea if he did the same, but he knew that the Stormtroopers wouldn't allow him to dessert his post. And the Overbridge could be hit by one of the missiles any moment now, considering that most of those missiles were directed at the Super Laser and impacted below the Overbridge.
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"It is time," the voice of The Lady came over the TacNet.
Commander Hunter nodded to himself and breathed in deep. The Death Star was now in visual range and the shield of the large battle station was very visible. Large lightning like discharges were running all across the visible surface and Hunter was willing to bet that it was very close to actually collapsing.
"Lo, there do I see my father," suddenly was heard over the TacNet as one of the pilots of the Norse faith started to chant the Viking prayer that had been re-introduced by Alexander.
"Lo, there do I see my mother, my sisters and my brothers,"
More and more pilots and crew members of the small craft were falling in into the chanting.
"Lo, there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning,"
Hunter could feel how goosebumps were forming on his back. Okay, it was all but tradition that at least one pilot of a squadron would chant the prayer, but this was insane.
"Lo, they do call to me,"
He closed his eyes before starting to run the last of his checks.
"They bid me take my place on Asgard in the halls of Valhalla,"
"What the hell is that?" He suddenly heard over the short range InfoChannel that had been opened to connect the Rebel fighters to the rest of the large fleet of fighters and small craft.
"Where the brave may live forever."
"The Prayer to the Dead," Hunter said a while after the chant had stopped.
He wanted to say more, but the radio was suddenly blocked from the outside as a powerful transmission came from all around them, most likely send by the numerous Nadesicos. It stared like a normal charol, but the text was something that caused Hunter to swallow.
"Raise
thy weapons on this day
ye shall not die alone
fight and die
let valkyries fly
for they shall take thee home
i promise thee
that on this night
ye shall be by my side
asgard's halls
await with heroes
brothers that have died
for thee we wait at
asgard's gates
come join us by our side
valhalla waits so
choose thy fate
for all of us must die!"
As the transmission ended, the voice of The Lady could be heard as clear as day.
"You shall not pass."