Sorry for the long wait, people! I was out on vacation. This one's a short one, but next one will be really long to compensate. Hope you enjoy!
The Republic had never been much of a strategic powerhouse. Sure, they had the credits to throw soldiers and ships at any enemy that threatened them, but their grasp of military tactics had never been the best. The only real reason the Separatists hadn't crushed them was the lacking quality of their ground forces, because the battles in space rarely went well for the Old Republic.
The New Republic could no longer afford that kind of situation, not with their severely reduced numbers and income. It was decided that the NR Navy would focus on improving its warships, instead of producing new ones. Tactics, strategies and protocols were developed to ensure that, fewer though they were, the vessels under their banner would perform to the highest standards.
Better hull alloys, redundant shielding systems, hypermatter reactors, turbolasers that could shatter moons. Supplementary weapons such as ion cannons, missile launchers, proton torpedoes and broadside flak guns. The warships were armed to the teeth, and the transports armored so that nothing short of a fleet could destroy them before delivering their cargo.
But, as the New Republic advanced its technologies, so did other powers in the galaxy…
Senior Captain Morastes Vanir should be feeling proud. He commanded a fine exploration fleet: three Venator-class Star Destroyers - one of them his flagship, the Adversary - five Arquitens-class heavy cruisers, and two retrofitted Consular-class light cruisers. At 10 ships, his fleet was larger than most with scouting purposes. He knew the other captains well, and trusted them with his life. After the Clone Wars, the worst thing that could challenge the New Republic Navy were pirates for the most part, and no pirates should ever come close to challenging his fleet.
Unfortunately, these weren't pirates, and Captain Vanir was feeling rather worried.
"Forward batteries, return fire, damn it!" -he ordered, the bridge covered in red emergency lighting. A salvo thundered out of the Adversary, quickly travelling across space and impacting on the deflectors of a sword shaped gray vessel of heavy cruiser tonnage, dubbed 'Unknown 3' on the tactical display. The warship's shields held, and then it returned fire, green turbolaser blasts reducing the Adversary's shields by about 7%, way too much for that kind of warship.
"Shields at 5%, Captain. We can't take another hit like that!" -shouted an ensign.
Vanir growled. "Pull power from point defense systems and switch up firing solutions for the bridge of that cruiser. We'll hold."
The rest of the fleet was faring worse - the largest warship, dubbed Unknown 1, was bombarding two of the Arquitens simultaneously, two of the original five already dead in space, the other one floating in rapidly cooling superheated chunks. The Consular cruisers had so far avoided most of the damage, being able to outrun the large warships and evade their turbolasers.
As his ship took another bombardment, he watched a Venator at his starboard flank go reactor-critical and explode. His gut sank - he was supposed to have pulled back much earlier, but their Hyperdrive would not engage, claiming a gravitational disturbance. Given that they were in empty space near the Unknown Regions, he was baffled as to what it could have been.
'Unknown 3' got hit by his ship's latest salvo and broke apart, unable to handle the extreme heat and kinetic forces. A small comfort, given 'Unknown 1' had just finished off the last Arquitens and was currently turning its arrow shaped prow towards his last remaining forces. 'Unknown 2', an identical design to the now destroyed 3rd bogey, unleashed a barrage on his ship, making the whole superstructure shudder and taking out the main shield generator.
"Captain, our shields are down. Backup's kicking in, but it won't hold for long under this kind of firepower!"
Before he could answer, another ensign shouted. "We have boarding craft incoming!"
Vanir sighed. As the other Destroyer was crippled and one of the Consulars was caught in a tractor beam, he knew the battle was lost. "Well...gentlemen, it's been an honor. Set the reactor to self-destruct, hand me manual control, and get to your pods. Sound the order, abandon ship!" -he ordered.
The bridge crew looked conflicted, but did as he asked. Heroics had no place here.
The boarding craft lodged onto the Adversary's hull. As soon as his forces got clear, he began venting the atmosphere in those regions were enemies were detected. He heaved a relieved sigh when the last of the escape pods launched, but the relief didn't last long. The bridge was under attack.
The Captain set the timer for self-destruct, and ensured the emergency beacon was still transmitting, and just as soon, the reinforced doors exploded towards him, and he blacked out, never noticing the new contacts arriving at their area of space.
He came to shortly, pain wracking his body. His sight was lost, apparently from shrapnel. He could still hear, though, and the last thing his ears could process was the iconic snap-hiss-hum of a lightsaber.