THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE
"20 seconds to normal space Sir." Captain Natane nodded to the officer at the Helm. Lord Vader still stood completely still at the main viewport but Natane knew the black statue saw every move he made and heard every word he said. Possibly he heard every thought he had as well. You never knew with Lord Vader.
"Entering normal space Sir." the same officer said 20 seconds later and a low vibration went through the ship when the disorder outside the viewports transformed into lines and then quickly changed into the stars of normal space. In front of them the giant green sphere of the planet Warasolis appeared.
"What the...?" Commander Soraan tried to digest the much unexpected picture they were witnessing. Captain Natane on the other hand reacted with lightning speed and immediately began to shout out his orders, but he also noticed an ever so slight shift in the dark Lords posture.
"Red Alert! Raise Shields and all hands to battle stations!" The bridge crew answered just as fast and acted on pure reflex and training and the alarm klaxons were yelling out its message the second after.
"Launch Red squadron immediately and set a Phase II security perimeter around the Nemesis." Natane didn´t wait for an answer from Starfighter Operations but instead continued to hammer out his commands.
"Communications!" "Yes sir!" The communications officer answered. "Transmit a message on all channels of a no fly zone near us or we will open fire." "Aye sir!" the officer answered and started pushing buttons on the console in front of him.
"Commander Soraan," Natane continued. "I want you to personally contact the Warasoli government and find out what the Frell is going on here." "Right away sir." Soraan answered and turned to run for the holo pod by the the Security foyer.
"Commander!" The tone in the Captains voice made his first officer to freeze and turn.
"Captain!" she answered and instinctively came to attention.
"Make perfectly clear to them that if they do not answer we will interpret that as the government has been overthrown and we will restore the imperial order with whatever means we see fit." Captain Natane let an almost mean smile spread across his face. "That will make them more willing to respond."
"I understand sir." Soraan answered and dashed away.
Captain Natane then took a moment to study the planet in front of them and the veritable space battle they just stumbled in upon. The planet Warasolis was obviously under some form of attack. A small hostile "fleet" made up of a few older ships were engaged in battle with the Warasoli Security forces. Two CR70 corvettes were pounding the two Space Flight Control space stations pretty hard and four Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers were supporting two Munificent-class star frigates who were returning from the surface.
Commonly referred to as the Banking Clan frigate, in its hey days, the frigate could carry up to 150,000 battle droids for boarding or ground operations, and were capable of shielding droid starfighters within their hulls. Natane sighed and wondered what they had gotten themself tangled up with this time. He could see that this attack did not expect any heavy resistance and certainly not any imperial interference or the fleet would have been much larger and more protected. The two frigates had probably carried the main landing party and the cruisers simply guarded them against the Warasoli fighters, who did a brave job out there at the moment but the supposed Warasoli frigates were nowhere to be found and all alone against the attacking fleet the security fighters didn´t stand much of a chance.
Natane also noticed the absence of hostile droid fighters. It was only Belbullab-22 starfighters and old R-41 Starchasers out there. Due to the Warasoli fighter pilots lack of combat experience and piloting skill (a common phenomenon among planetary security forces) and inferior numbers, the attacking starfighters were more than enough to keep the defenders occupied, old fighters or not. And in the meantime, the frigates had been able to compel the troop landings on the surface and were now returning to orbit. But then he noticed the absence of escort fighters for the returning frigates. Even if no resistance was expected you always flew escort to troop landings because you just never knew what might happen down there.
He closed his eyes for a moment, sorting the pieces out. The fact that no fighter droids were launched could mean one of two things. There could of course be loads of fighter droids inside those frigates. Or, if the "cause" didn´t have much support and not the kind of financial muscles needed to buy both fighter droids and battle droids, maybe they put their money on two frigates with battle droids only, while fighter droids were a lot more expensive. The use of living fighter pilots instead of droids pointed in that direction. Natane opened his eyes again, taking in the scene one more time. If so, this was a local coup d'état and not a part of a regular invasion fleet. They wanted to take over the planet, not plunder it and so, they were moderate in their use of force. And by knowing this, he had an advantage.
"Fighter Command!" he shouted. "Yes Sir!" the answer came instantly from Major Edge at the Fighter Command Station.
"Return Ice Squadron to its previous formation. We´ll need the reconnaissance squadron intact."
"Yes Sir." the Major answered. Natane turned around and put his hands behind his back as he walked on the Command Walkway.
"And i want a pilot in every one of those TIE fighters standing by for immediate launch at my command." The clone commander nodded and began to execute his orders.
"Colonel White." "Captain!" the Clone Commander answered. "Prepare your forces for a full Nova-6 scenario." The Colonel nodded.
"Yes sir. A planetary reinstatement of imperial governance sir."
"Yes," Natane nodded "and i want every trooper and vehicle available ready to be dropped to the planet's surface once we gain space superiority. We´ll need to show off as much Imperial force here as we can possibly muster."
THE NEMESIS - HALLWAY
When the alarm went off, Shiri reacted immediately without even thinking, let the tool in her hand fall to the floor and stood up from the astromech droid she was working on. "Sorry little one, got to go." she said and dashed away to her battle station. Her goal was NK-7 ion cannon nr. 42, located on the port side. That cannon was not manned unless the situation got hot, like now.
It took her almost four minutes to get there and she dived down in her seat, strapped herself in, pulled a headset over her dark grey cap and began working the controls. Her job was to assist a Gunnery Ensign to monitor and adjust the ion cannons cooling grid to stop the cannon from overheating. That could lead to fire malfunction, or in the worst case, the whole cannon could blow up. She had gotten there first and when Gunnery Ensign Piki came rushing in she had already gotten the start-up sequence going.
"Report" he gasped when strapping himself in the seat and Shiri recited the status of their station.
"Well done Tayen." he said and began working his own controls. Then suddenly, a voice was heard in their headsets.
"Gunnery crew NK-7-42, report." it said and immediately after the different sections that made up a Borstel Galactic Defence NK-7 ion cannon reported their status and Piki contributed with "Cooling grid stable."
"Ok, NK-7-42, we are good to go, stand by." the Commanding Gunnery Officer ended and the ComLink went silent.
"So," Piki said, and leaned back in his seat. "then we just wait." Shiri nodded and listened but could neither hear nor feel the Nemesis taking any hits from hostile fire. "We don´t seem to be under attack." she said and leaned back as well.
"No," Piki answered with a shrug. "Maybe just a drill. You know, with Vader on board and all? That wouldn´t be too unlikely and besides, they said this area wasn´t hot anyway. Yes, definitely a drill." Shiri nodded and then they sat in silence for a while.
Piki then asked with a low voice. "Is it true?" "What?" she asked in return but knew what he meant. There were few who dared to ask her face to face but she was aware of the rumour flying around the ship. Even if not many knew she was directly involved it was still quite awkward.
"You, cracking the security system and Vader caught you?" Piki continued with a barely hidden curiosity in his voice. Shiri sighed and nodded.
"Yes, it´s true." Piki shook his head and chuckled.
"Druk! You must be good." She frowned and looked at him.
"What?" she asked not sure of what he meant. "
"Well, he let you live didn't he?" he said and made a gesture at her, sitting there very much alive in front of him. She didn´t come up with a clever answer so she just leaned back in her seat again. After some quiet minutes Piki looked at her again and nodded slightly.
"Respect Tayen. Respect".
THE NEMESIS – MESS HALL
Blue Squadron was eating in the mess hall wen the alarm went off. "Move!" Madaan yelled before the claxon had been heard for even a second and they all threw themselves out of their chairs so plates and glasses flew all over the place.
TIE Fighter Pilots are extremely fit, matched only by the Stormtroopers, so the run down to the ready room where their flight suites waited was done at suicidal speed. "Faster you Hutt-spawn!" Madaan urged his men when they ran down the hallway to the hangar bays with their bulky pilot helmets on. They whooshed out on the gantries of Hangar Bay 12 and sprinted on to their designated fighters and threw themself down in the pilot seats.
Madaan quickly went through pre-flight procedures and when all of Blue Squadron had reported in he felt a little calmer. Everyone was in place and ready to go so there wasn´t much to do now except to wait. And they could be hanging here for quite a while. Sometimes they had to sit for...
But then all of a sudden his tactical display came to life and started to display the squadron's preliminary and secondary targets.
Dwang! he thought. This is definitely not a drill.
"Ok, Blues, listen up and watch your tacticals." he called out on the ComLinc inside his helmet.
"Our primary objective is to escort the TIE Bombers of Gold Squadron when they make their attack run on those four heavy cruisers. The bombers will split up in four standard flights and we´ll do likewise, shadowing their set up." The tactical display of the TIE Fighters showed which fighter belonged to which flight, escorting which bombers on route to which cruiser. In all its complexity it was simple enough to follow and every pilot in Blue Squadron knew exactly where to go when they were launched.
"Gold Leader this is Blue Leader, we are ready to go and are standing by for launch." Madaan called out to the squadron leader of the TIE Bombers. It was the deep voice of Commander Bidziil that answered the call.
"Copy that Blue Lead. It´s good to have you watching´ my back Madaan."
Madaan smiled inside his helmet. Bidziil was a seasoned bomber pilot and they were good friends. "My pleasure Bidz."
He then switched to the squadron channel and said just as a reminder "Ok, Blues, stand by for launch order. And remember, the objective is to get the bombers to their targets so don´t let the enemy lead you away on any dogfighting chase, leaving the Gold's alone."
He looked at his tacticals again and noted how the blips marked as friendly were quite outnumbered when compared to the other ones marked as hostile. They sure need help he thought. Red Squadron is going to make Bantha Poodo of those Starchasers and then we make our move with the bombers. All while the Nemesis heavy guns will hammer down the two star frigates, so all in all, this shouldn´t be any problems.
But he also wondered what had changed the tactical situation. They were told no hostilities were known in the area and the locals would probably even help them on their Jedi hunt. But he quickly shook off any such questions. He was to seasoned to be surprised anymore concerning any changes in planetary politics. When the launch order came, Blue Squadron would stand behind those Bombers and watch out for enemy fighters, which were all he needed to know.
But at the same time, somewhere in the back of his mind, he still wondered how many would not make it back this time.
THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE
"Captain!" Commander Soraan shouted, making Captain Natane turn around in the general direction of the call.
"I´ve got the Warasoli Prime Administrator for you, sir." she said standing next to the Hologram Pod.
Natane nodded and when he came up to her he said "Good Work Commander." and added with a much lower voice "This shall be interesting.
Then he stepped right into the transmission and put his hands on his back. "Prime Administrator Chebanis, how nice of you to respond." he began. "This is Captain Natane of the Imperial Star Destroyer Nemesis."
The holographic image of Prime Administrator Chebanis showed a very fat man dressed in some kind of...costume, decorated with far too many feathers. On his head he wore a large, strange looking hat...or was it an animal of some kind? Chebanis bowed and was just about to return the politeness when Captain Natane spoke again.
"I couldn´t avoid to notice the conflict that seems to be enacted in the Warasoli inner space. Is it something you would care to comment?"
The Prime Administrator began nodding his head long before Captain Natane had finished speaking and now he was very keen to speak for himself. "Thank the stars you came to us. This is our most desperate hour." He put a hand on his forehead in a dramatic gesture. "The fleet you can see attacking us is clearly a part of a real Coup d'état! An attempt to overthrow the democratic government of Warasolis and to drive us all down in chaos, death and horror!"
The Prime Administrator now covered his face and made some odd noises. It took Natane some time to figure out he was pretending to weep.
"These pirates," he continued between his sobbing, "have already deployed a large amount of troops in our beloved capital and they are now," he suddenly looked up on Captain Natane. All traces of tears missing, "yes, in this very moment, as we speak in fact, they are spreading death and terror on their way to the Parliament."
Troops he said, Natane thought. Not droids. Prime Administrator Chebanis shook his head and threw his arms out in resignation.
"Our security forces are doing their best but are hopelessly inferior in both numbers and armament."
"I understand." Captain Natane answered calmly, not moving a muscle.
"So, you still are the First Administrator, leader of the official government of the planet Warasolis, correct?" he asked with the same calm voice.
Chebanis immediately took away his hands from his face and looked taken aback by the question.
"Yes." he said. Natane nodded and continued.
"And how do the Warasoli government want the Empire to act in this matter?" The last sentence was said slowly and with emphasis on every word.
"We..." Chebanis said, insecure for the first time in many years. "we want you to kill this scum."
Captain Natane nodded again and continued with patience. "So this is an official request for aid from the Warasoli government to the armed forces of the Galactic Empire, is that correct?" First Administrator Chebanis stood still as if frozen in time, unable to comprehend the question.
"Yes." he said and nodded slowly. "Yes. Just kill them. Kill all of them!"
Captain Natane nodded again and smiled. "We shall do our best. Route your tactical communications to the Nemesis so we won't shoot down the wrong ships out there."
He was about to step away from the Holo Pod when he turned back as if he just remembered something. "Ah, that´s right. I almost forgot. We are aiding Lord Vader in searching for a wanted criminal who, according to our intelligence, is supposedly located on Warasolis at this time. Can we count on your help in the search for that person?"
First Administrator Chebanis gave an exaggerated nod almost continuing to a full bow. "Lord Vader? Absolutely Captain. Whatever you may require."
Natane nodded in return. "Excellent, First Administrator. We are very thankful. Nemesis out." and the transmission was ended.
"It won´t get more official than that." he said smiling when he walked across the Security Foyer to the Communications Consoles. He punched some buttons on a panel and suddenly his voice could be heard in every corner of the mighty warship. "Attention all hands, this is the Captain."
THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42
Crewman Shiri Tayen and Ensign Piki looked at each other. "The Captain?" Shiri asked and Piki whistled.
"That´s unusual." he said and the both of them listened intensively.
TIE FIGHTER COCKPIT – BLUE LEADER
This sure isn´t any drill, Madaan thought when the Captains voice was heard in his helmet.
THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE
"We have arrived to our destination, the planet of Warasolis." Captain Natane said through the Intercom of the Nemesis. Every member of the roughly 46 000 members of the crew and Stormtroopers listened.
"But it is not the peaceful member of the Empire as we first thought. Instead, the planet is under attack. Even as we speak, destructive forces attempt to take control over the planet and overthrow the legitimate government of Warasolis and we have just received an official request from that very government to intervene. But there is even more at stake here."
He paused for a few seconds and Commander Soraan could feel the excitement rise on the bridge as the crew turned to the Captain and waited.
"Many years ago, as you all know, the Republic was attacked by similar forces, wanting nothing more than to rip the galaxy apart and throw its worlds in a black hole of chaos and terror. That time the Republic was unable to stand up against the attackers and the weak Republic with its weak leaders was thrown into the horrors of the early Clone Wars. It was only when the brave Supreme Chancellor created the Grand Army of the Republic that the wave of terror could be held back."
Natane made another short pause. "And now, we then see how it is starting all over again. New coups, new separatists." Natane raised his voice ever so slightly.
"But this time we stand prepared. This time the strong Galactic Empire with our strong Emperor is ready. The armed forces of the Empire are ready and there will not be any new chaos. Not when the Empire has arrived. Not on our watch!"
Capitan Natane raised his voice a bit more and his words flew out through every speaker in the huge spaceship and in the helmets of every Trooper and pilot.
"This time our turbo lasers, our TIE Fighters and our Stormtroopers will crush the uprising. The Galactic Empire will not stand down!"
He could hear some spontaneous cheering from the bridge crew and he raised his voice even more for the finale.
"Crew of the Nemesis! We take no prisoners today! We have a world to rescue!"
THE NEMESIS – NK-7 ION CANNON NR. 42
"Frell yes!" Shiri and Piki shouted out simultaneously. "That´s what i´m talking about!"
TIE FIGHTER – BLUE LEADER
"Blue squadron." Madaan called out. "You heard the Captain. Let's burn some holes out there!"
THE NEMESIS – MAIN BRIDGE
Captain Natane switched off the Intercom and Commander Soraan could not get a word out but just stared in awe at her Commanding Officer.
Natane, on the other hand, showed no sign of noticing this but instead called out "Star Fighter Command!"
"Aye Captain." Major Edge replied immediately.
"I hope your pilots are in their seats for it is time to let them all fly right now. I want everything with a laser flying out to attack those enemy ships. And let Ice Squadron set up a recon-grid as far out as possible. I don't want any surprises. And protect our engines."
"Yes sir!" Major Edge answered. "They are already on their way."
Natane nodded and called out again. "Weapons Control!"
"Captain!" the officer in charge answered, standing up at attention and saluting.
"Start hammering on those two heavy cruisers with everything we´ve got. I´m taking her right through their line and as i said, we don´t take any prisoners today."
"Yes sir." came the reply and the second after the muffled song of the heavy turbo laser batteries could be heard.
Suddenly, Lord Vader turned at his place by the front viewports and marched down the Command Walkway.
"Excellent Captain." he said. "I see you have the situation under control. I will personally lead the fighter attack. Relay their command communications to me."
"Yes My Lord." Natane answered with a slight bow of his neck. He felt almost relieved of the dark Lords sudden interest of the battle and that his handling of the situation was accually given some kind of approval.
But there was no time to rest. "Colonel White." he said and the Clone Commander emediately answered. "Yes Captain."
"Start warming up those AT-AT barges. I want the imperial presence on the planet to be massive after the space battle is over."
"Aye Captain." the Colonel answered and he even gave a salute before he turned and walked away towards Army Operations to prepare the ground battle.
Captain Natane walked over the Command Walkway with his hands on his back, turned his head to V-2BE and made the signal. The protocol droid hurried away to bring him a cup of caf. He stopped by the transparisteel of the main viewports, just where Lord Vader had stood only seconds ago and watched the heavy batteries and TIE Fighters of his ship bring havoc to the enemy. This was going to be a long day.