Tarkin's Fist IV: Blood and Durasteel

by AshlaTi

A generation has passed since the devastation of the Empire-Earth War. Now a new conflict rages, this time the battles are fought among the stars themselves. A new enemy rises to threaten both the Empire and Earth's very existence. New characters and old raise arms against one another for the very fate of the Milky Way

42. New Thyfeeria 2

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Command Bridge, FOS Assaulter, Kuat System

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The Assaulter's audicasters blared, ordering, "All TIE crew assemble in assigned ready rooms."

General Crisis, his golden arms crossed across his armored chest, sternly watched the vid feeds from the hangar deck on the bridge's FlightOps station. Hundreds of black suited pilots and gunners crowded into the briefing rooms for their final instructions. All along the hangar deck, crew released the gravity locks along the TIE racks fixed into the walls of the hangar. The great durasteel blast doors were being retracted, exposing the ray-shielded hangars to the star-filled Void beyond.

"Only half of the bombers and torpedo TIEs will make up the first assault wave. The so-called Judge Wave. The Space Force fighter escorts shall remain with the fleet and suffice for our own CAP. This will allow all of the First Order fighters to accompany the first strike on Target Alexandria." Admiral Akfar must have noticed what Crisis was watching.

"That goes against First Order doctrine. We are accustomed to packing everything into our first punch." Captain Setrauss countered with their temporary Earth commander.

"I'd normally agree, but with the whereabouts of the Imperial Fleet, especially the Ares, unknown, we must keep a ready reserve in case we come in contact with enemy capital ships. We only need to keep the Ares busy until Jethran can arrive with the Fatalizer and Mizery to engage and finish her off."

"Is that why the second wave's torpedo bombers were allowed to keep their proton weapons while the first wave is in their alternate configuration as planet-side bombers?" Crisis inquired. He didn't like the Earthling coming aboard his vessels and mucking up operational protocols any more than Setrauss did.

"What use are torpedoes against ground targets? Your forward Wing Commanders will mark priority targets and installations requiring follow up attention for the Jury Wave." Akfar explained, as if his species actually possessed a long history of space combat.

"How many waves of attacks do you suppose we will be able to get in before this Fleet Admiral Gentis shows up?" Crisis asked. Per protocol only the first three were named waves. The First Order had never required more than three waves of attacks to finish off an enemy.

"We will launch an hour out from Alexandria, so I predict a two-hour turn-around between missions. Since the latest Fulcrum report puts Gentis in the Onasi System that should leave us with a dozen bombing raids before he arrives." Akfar stated.

"Gentis or that Admiral Vertitas that hit us at Ro-loo? He's the one that sneaked in and got you back at Earth with that little raid of his." Crisis twisted his insinuation like a vibroblade.

"Quite." Akfar admitted, his expression taut with annoyance at the reminder. "Gentis hasn't come out and fought yet, preferring to sit aboard the Ares according to Fulcrum. No matter, whoever their fighting Admiral is leading the relief of New Thyfeeria, we will dispatch them in turn."

On the screen at the FlightOps station the Assaulter's pilots burst out into the hangar, running towards their waiting TIEs. The FlightOps officer announced over the PA. "All hands to launch stations."

"Turn us about onto a heading that faces Target Alexandria." Captain Setrauss ordered the sailor at the helm. At once the great ship made its last course correction as they started their attack run towards New Thyfeeria. They wouldn't be bringing the planet under the sights of their blasters. New Thyfeeria lay too close to Nal Kuat and that mysterious other world in the local system for it to be safe. From here they only had to contend with whatever the commander of New Thyfeeria's defenses could muster together to throw at them.

As exhausts spurted blue flames and the Ion engines hummed their war songs, Akfar turned to the First Order officers. "Why so glum, gentlemen? Today the Empire takes its last breath."

Flood lamps sprang up, bathing the flight deck in radiance on the screen. The FlightOps officer looked up at the command trio, "All TIEs ready, sirs."

"Commence launching." Akfar ordered.

The first TIE/fo fighter launched side by side with a TIE/sf, sped on by loud cheers from the deck crews. Eighteen more TIE/fo followed them, then the TIE/fb bombers followed by the TIE/wi Whispers. Concluding the hangar exodus were several squadrons of ten TIE/sf and the sole squadron of TIE/vn Silencers the Assaulter possessed.

Some four kilometers to the port of Assaulter, flashes of light showed that Hatred was also launching her TIEs. Within eight minutes, the entire first attack wave of 308 TIEs was space-borne, circled to tighten up their formations, and headed off toward Target Alexandria.

Each Resurgent contributed all forty of their various fighters as fighter escorts, making up over half of the initial strike force, with Commander Calatran off the Hatred in the lead. He was another Nal Kuat pilot, held back with the unused third wave, from attacking the Imperial navy yards six months ago. Calatran was hungry for victory due to that. The First Order liked its leaders hungry.

Along with the TIEs several more shapes departed from their Space Force escorts. Thirty-eight X-Wing and A-Wing fighters circled the fleet and stood by for action. While Calatran's TIEs were away on their mission, those Earthlings would be all the fighter cover the combined fleet had available. Another indication of how cocky both the Confederate and First Order officers approached the invasion of New Thyfeeria and how little they anticipated an actual attack by airspeeders upon their fleet.

Among the aircraft soaring aloft at the same time as the TIE departure were fourteen X-Wings from the Eiffel cruisers. The X-Wings split up and flew away in various directions. Crisis watched them dwindle into tiny specks until he could no longer discern their engine exhausts from the surrounding stars. "Admiral, why are we launching our scouts so late?"

"Priority was given to launching our strike squadrons, General. We already know where the enemy is at. It's not like they can hide a planet."

Crisis had his doubts in Admiral Akfar's absolute faith in Fulcrum. He wished they had a second verification as to Gentis and his fleet's location. The First Order had already been surprised with the intensity of the Kazoookians. He didn't want to suffer another surprise at the midway point of the Bloodstripe Run.

"They could have given us warning of an oncoming counterstrike if they were already in position." Setrauss whispered. Crisis was thankful the captain didn't add the customary 'scum' where the Earthling could have overheard.

"Easy, Captain." Crisis warned before turning to address to the Confederate. "We may know where their planet-side defenses are, but this system is being heavily jammed, not only from Target Alexandria but Nal Kuat and that other world in the local system. No doubt, we should prepare for any type of enemy countermeasure."

"Are we not jamming them as well? They'll have trouble locating us. I am certain." Akfar proclaimed.

"We were certainly sighted by something when we left Kafrene Outpost. Admiral Jethran sent us word that they detected Imperial transmissions. We've also been hearing faint transmissions from somewhere nearby ever since we entered the Kuat System. I suspect we've been followed, most likely by one of the TIE/WAC spy craft the Imperial Navy copied from you." Crisis said.

"There was no confirmation of those signals. So, I saw no need to waste time investigating them. The only thing we need to discover right now is when the Imperial Navy is going to make its appearance. The more we bloody Target Alexandria, the more urgent Admiral Gentis's rescue will be needed." Akfar glared at Crisis and Setrauss. "Now, gentlemen, if you don't mind, your concerns are noted, but I have a world to burn."

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New Thyfeeria, 501st Headquarters, XXhenon City

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The muggy air of New Thyfeeria began seeping into the permacrete bunker as soon as the environmental systems were turned off. All power in the Vratix capital was being switched over to the defensive turrets, along with the sensors, jammers and comm gear by General Hasa's own orders. Nothing could be wasted, he believed. His troopers had already been pushed back from over two dozen pivotal planets and nearly a hundred minor ones that the Confederates had felt like invading for reasons that were mostly a mystery to Hasa. It seemed as if President Harris intended on swallowing the entire galaxy before he was done.

"Tick, tock . . . watch and wait . . . wait and watch . . . tick, tock." Moff Tanax said watching the long-range sensor module. She towered over the trooper manning the station. "Is all war like this, General?"

Hasa smirked. New Thyferria waited. New Thyfeeria watched. "Hurry up and wait is a staple of warfare going back to pre-Republic times."

He looked out the viewport as his last TIE/WAC departed to back up TIE/WAC Herf. This particular scout ship had only returned from its prior mission long enough to refuel and for the cooks to shove some food and water aboard for the crew. There was no time for rest.

"Tell your V-Wing pilots to come in and refuel. Don't let them get comfortable because they're going right back up." Hasa told the Moff. Her drones were providing the only air cover for the planet besides his six TIE/In Starfighters. The Vratix manned thirty-six V-Wings and fourteen ARC-170s. The First Order was going to eat them alive.

"Two of the V-Wings are not responding." The 501st's FlightOps officer reported. "Probably a comm issue?"

"Can you contact your drones, my Lady?" Hasa asked.

"Our hive mind is not connected like that. My drones have a large amount of free will. We operate more by a general will rather than direct connection." The Vratix Canir explained.

Hasa would have liked to have had more time to discuss the fascinating connection, but he didn't have time for personal curiosity. "Hopefully, those pilots will figure it out on their own."

A moment later most of the V-Wings were down and their ground crews were scrambling to refuel them and get them back in the air. One of the V-Wings snapped a landing strut upon landing and buried its nose in the mud of the lagoon surrounding XXhenon City. Suddenly, Hasa was down three fighters.

Hasa cursed his luck but realized there was nothing he could do about it. The downed pilot was quickly reassigned to a flight coordinator slot for the remaining fighters. New Thyfeeria subsided into an uneasy calm, scarcely ruffled by other reports from various TIE/WACs that sighted a wide array of ghost airspeeders and phantom signals. Everyone was jumpy and the Kuat System was growing crowded. This was destined to be an unforgettable day.

Finally, the subspace signal Hasa had been waiting for crackled across the headquarters hyperwave radio. It was from Chief Bakoosta aboard TIE/WAC Herf trailing the enemy fleet. His reports had been spotty as he had presumably attempted to remain unseen by the invaders. "Four Star Destroyers bearing 320. Distance 180. Their speed is decreasing to point zero one."

New Thyfeeria began to crackle with action. Hasa turned to his FlightOps officer. "Launch the bombers."

"General?" Moff Tanax demanded an explanation.

"They've slowed to launch speeds, my Lady. And at that distance their advance TIE fighters will be here in just over an hour."

"Our bombers can't reach their ships that fast." Tanax pointed out.

"Correct. I estimate, if they're not intercepted, they'll reach the enemy fleet when the First Order fighters are on their return trip." Hasa suggested.

"After striking us." Tanax said.

"I promise you, Canir Tanax. Fewer of them will return to their ships than reach your world. We will make them pay."

"For the Empress, may your words come true." The large Vratix closed her eyes as if in prayer. "The Empire cannot lose anymore planets, least of all New Thyfeeria."

The great roar of ion engines could be heard all the way over in the main landing pads as Hasa's counterstrike lifted off. Twelve TIE/sa, eight TIE/IT Interdictors, six more Lancets Aerial Artilleries and twenty-four MG-100 StarFortresses climbed into orbit. Hasa wished his one counterpunch was stronger. As it was the newer StarFortresses were more effective against ground targets rather than warships. He couldn't even afford to send a fighter escort along with them.

As they passed out of subspace radar range the General grit his teeth in frustration as he saw his bomber wings start to drift apart. He couldn't even recall them as enemy jamming was already being detected. His bomber crews, except for a handful of Empire-Earth War veterans in Flight Leader slots, had virtually no combat experience.

"They certainly are brave." Tanax observed.

"They're green, is what they are." Hasa replied. He wanted to throw up. In his gut he knew he had just sent those troopers and drones to their deaths.

Bakoosta's voice cut across the comm channel once more. "Many bogeys heading towards New Thyfeeria. Bogey number three hundred plus. Bearing 320, distance 150 . . ."

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Flight Line, Eiffel class cruiser CENN Lady Liberty

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Lieutenant Moon practically devoured his cone as they returned from the ship's galley. "I'm telling you, Emma, we've got to get an ice cream machine aboard the Rok. They've got it made on these bigger boats."

"They really don't have room for the true essentials aboard the Revenges." Lieutenant Mallory agreed with her wingman.

"Maybe we should put a request in with your brother once we get back aboard. Man, those guys have got to be pissed about that ion mine."

"Yeah, first they're missing out on another invasion and now they're shit out of luck on the only gedunk bar in two parsecs." Emma laughed. It felt good to be out from under her brother's watchful gaze for once. She always wondered if she had been assigned to the Ragnarok and under her brother's command as a reward for him and a punishment for her. Well, she'd better enjoy it as much as she could, as soon as the Ragnarok was repaired it would catch up to them at this New Thyfeeria place within the next day or two. Then it was back under her brother's thumb.

They had headed to the galley as soon as they arrived aboard the Lady Liberty and being newcomers thought to do a little exploring of the larger warship. When they returned to the flight line, they found it to be empty of the eight X-1s that had been parked there when they had come aboard. Most of the deck crews were playing basketball on a basket set high on one end of the hangar or watching a movie on a flat screen in the pilot ready room.

Until the X-1s returned they had little to do, except for a rather irate Senior Chief. The NCO stood in front of their two X-1s and chewed out a helpless Space Force Guardian who happened to have walked by the two fighters at the wrong time. Seeing the two returning pilots, the NCO focused his anger on the new arrivals. "Do these two fucking fighters belong to you?"

Not used to being address by an enlisted man in such a manner, Lieutenants Mallory and Moon didn't know exactly how to respond. "Aye, Chief. We just transferred over from the Ragnarok."

"I don't care if you transferred from Confederate Center last Vengeance Day. Why the hell aren't you out on patrol?" The Senior Chief let loose a hurricane of spittle as he talked.

"Nobody told us where to go." Emma said.

"Holy shit. I suppose someone has to wipe your asses for you too. Get your fighters ready. I'm going to find someone to cut you some orders." The Senior Chief turned and yelled at nearby deck hands. "You apes prep these birds for launch."

With that he was gone. Emma and Moon looked at each other and shrugged. They knew they were catching hell for something they had either not been aware of or was someone else's mistake. Emma sighed, "Better get them warmed up."

They climbed back into their cockpits and donned their sentinel-style helmets. Underneath their fuselages the crews removed most of their weapons except for their main phasers and a pair of space-to-space missiles. In their place they mounted advanced sensor pods and a long-range antennae pod. Standard gear for a reconnaissance mission, Emma assumed.

It took another fifteen minutes, but the Senior Chief finally returned with a confused looking Lieutenant Commander who wore the patch of a FlightOps officer. He stood between the two X-1s and shouted up at the two pilots. "Who are you?"

"Pilots on a temp transfer from the Ragnarok, sir." Moon answered.

"Fucking hell. We need all hands on recon or CAP. We need to keep eyes out for the Impie Fleet while our ET allies hit Target Alexandria."

"Copy that, sir." Emma said, putting the bigger picture together.

"You guys are about forty minutes late. I want you to launch immediately. I will transmit your assigned patrol sector and the scouting frequency en route." The Lieutenant Commander explained. "Going to have to separate once you take off to cover more ground. Who knew space was such a big place when we started this whole thing?"

Emma just smiled back at the other officer's attempt at humor. They exchanged salutes as he moved out of their way. A deck crewman guided them into launch positions with glowing control rods. Within seconds they received clearance for launch and Emma was propelled back into her seat as they raced down the Lady Liberty's launch tube. Much different than simply falling away from the Ragnarok's hull whenever they needed to take off.

Their new orders and patrol sectors came across the navicomps as they cleared the ship. Moon in Moxxi One banked away rimward while Emma took a path nearly fifty thousand kilometers parallel to her wingman.

While alone in the confines of her cramped cockpit, Emma talked to herself. "I wonder what the hell was up that Chief's ass. It's not like the Akfar is going to miss much by launching a couple scouts late."

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Target Alexandria Strike Force, Judge Wave

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As soon as they were out of sight from the fleet Commander Calatran powered on his Silencer's deflector shield. They were under strict orders never to activate the shields whenever they were around their Confederate allies. High Command didn't want to give away too many of their secrets, and the fact that snub-nose fighters could carry shields was something Supreme Leader Ren didn't want to get out.

Only a few models of First Order TIEs carried shields. The Silencers were one example. TIE/sf fighters were the others. TIE/wi Whispers had enhanced stealth systems and were the only hyperdrive equipped TIE in First Order service, and for that reason had been delegated to torpedo bomber status since the 7th Fleet arrived in the Milky Way. While such gadgets were pretty, the deflector systems were extremely light and only saved the TIEs from a few more bolts than normal armor would alone. They would have been more of a factor in the oncoming battle if the vast majority of the attack force, consisting of TIE/fo fighters and TIE/fb bombers, also had shields. Unfortunately, the First Order had chosen to put its efforts into constructing Starkiller Base and monstrosities like the Supremacy and Mandator Siege Dreadnaughts instead.

Calatran checked the guidance on his Torplex flight computer. The assault was still on target as New Thyfeeria started to grow larger in their forward view screens. It was a green-blue world. Intelligence said it was full of lagoons brimming with Blue Krill and Trident Coral. The plains of New Thyfeeria were filled with xoorzi fungus, one of the key components of bacta production, and one of the main reasons the First Order wanted this world for their own.

The Commander keyed his subspace communication antennae to extreme short-wave burst. No sense in alerting the fake Imperials they were on their way. "All fighters hang back. Let the bombers and torpedo squadrons take the lead."

His plan was to use the slower craft as bait. Once the enemy committed their defending fighters then his pilots would pounce. If they had any luck, they would sweep the skies clear over Target Alexandria in little more than ten minutes.

Intelligence before the battle had been poor. The Confederates had never been to New Thyfeeria and had little idea of the location of its major population centers. The only information they had learned from the place was from interrogating prisoners of war back on Mars and they were not exactly the most reliable of sources. All Calatran knew was the capital of XXhenon City had two large landing pads near it and the 501st Legion had retreated there after their defeats along the Bloodstripe Run.

"I'm picking up large energy and life signs reading from a central location in the southwest hemisphere." One of Calatran's Wing Commanders reported. The southwest was about as close as FleetIntel had gotten to determining the location of the largest settlement on Target Alexandria.

"All squadrons vector in on that location. Marking orbital entry point now." Calatran entered in a set of chosen coordinates that he transmitted to the rest of the attack force. "We'll come in out of the east with Tau Ceti in their eyes."

White contrails trailed the bombers ahead of his flight as the attack entered New Thyfeeria's upper atmosphere. "Fangs out, everyone. Keep your head on a swivel and call out bogeys as they come. Squadron leaders mark your targets."

Thirty kilometers from the target he could make out the shimmering towers of XXhenon City. Search sensors started to deflect off his craft alerting Calatran to the fact that the enemy knew they were coming. The city was constructed in typical Vratix fashion with glowing blue towers that spiraled upwards into the sky. The city was surrounded by sprawling fishing lagoons teeming with shellfish and multi-armed cephalopods. Worker drones watched from small repulsar skiffs as the First Order attack bore past.

Three enemy TIE/In Starfighters made the initial contact. Flying high, they must have had the advantage of altitude to spot the attackers first. Calatran realized his mistake too late. His trap with holding his fighters back only worked if they spotted the enemy first. By the time he saw the first enemy Starfighter it had turned into a smooth roll and was screaming down to gain speed. The enemy flight leader caught the lead TIE/fb from the Hatred squarely in his blaster sights.

Calatran tried to scare the Imperial fighter off from his attack run with an ill-aimed bolt past their cockpit's viewscreen, but the Imperial pressed his attack which blew the TIE/fb apart right in front of him.

The First Order squadrons broke apart as the fighters raced ahead to protect the assault formations. Calatran swept through the bomber Vee ahead of him and sent his fighter in a tight, skidding turn toward the end of the formation. His rush caused one of the Imperial Starfighters to veer off into the sights of a First Order rear seat gunner aboard one of the bombers which raked the TIE/In with laser bolts.

The small victory distracted Calatran for a split second as he watched the enemy TIE sputter smoke and fall away to the lagoons below. His focus snapped back when the number three Whisper of the Number two section exploded nearby and went down in flames. A ghost of the past flashed across his viewscreen. An ARC-170, piloted and crewed with several insectoid Vratix zipped past blazing away at the bomber formations. A quartet of TIE/sf from the Sinister were hard on the archaic fighter's tail. The brave Vratix lost their pursuers in an errant cloud but only Calatran saw where they reemerged.

He dove on the irritant fighter, lining up his attack from the rear and below of the craft, just out of the range of the rear gunner. He whipped off a mag-pulse missile at the target. The newer weapon was overkill. When it contacted with the aft shields of the ARC-170 it atomized the rear half of the airspeeder. The bugs flying the thing probably never knew what hit them before their brains were vaporized.

A formation of V-Wings raced towards the bombers from the Assaulter. Calatran blasted into the Imperial formation. When he looked back to check his results, he was astonished to see several of the slower fighters on his tail. He headed straight down at full throttle, and they abandoned the chase at three hundred meters, evidently fearing that otherwise they could not level off in time to avoid crashing into the lagoons. Calatran climbed back to seven thousand meters and chased after the action as it moved towards XXhenon City. At about two kilometers from the city, he saw four V-Wings moving into positions behind another formation of TIE/fb, so he went into a 45-degree, full speed dive to join the party. This brought Calatran astern of and inside the circle made by one of the old-fashioned V-Wings. He gave the Vratix airspeeder a burst of bolts, the V-Wing fell off on one wing, and when Calatran last saw him, he was dropping almost directly downward, trailing smoke.

Another TIE/fo blew one of the V-Wings out of the sky but the other remaining two were closing in on Calatran, so he took to cloud cover and one gave up the chase. The other Vratix kept boring in, sending a shower of bolts thudding against his Silencer's shields and armor. Calatran had been shown a little judo from an Earthling observer on Titan and decided to use the enemy's superior position against him. Deliberately and suddenly, he cut his speed, throwing his Silencer into a skid. The V-Wing overshot wildly, Calatran blazed away as it went by. His bolts stitched across the cockpit setting the enemy fighter on fire and plummeting towards the ground.

Of the enemy TIE/Ins only one was destined to survive the battle. The other five charged directly into the largest formation of TIE Whispers and TIE/fb, all from the Kill. They downed seven of the First Order crew, killing all of their crews, before they were smothered in a swarm of Calatran's TIE/fo.

Some of the surviving ARC-170s spotted a large formation of TIE/fb. They were brave lads, Calatran decided. Worthy of flying as his grandfather had in those old Clone War airspeeders. He may have been the last one to see them alive as they mingled with the bombers. One by one they, and several of the First Order craft, fell from the sky until there were none of the defenders remaining.

Calatran noted a TIE/fb in flames, with the inevitable V-Wing at his back. The Imperial climbed to five thousand meters and tried to escape, but a vengeful TIE/sf followed him up and blasted away his left aileron.

Any commander who sent out pilots against the First Order in a Nimbus V-Wing or ARC-170 should consider that pilot lost before leaving the ground, Calatran decided.

One of the last ARC-170s picked the fourth First Order division, which consisted of five Whispers, and made a speedy head-on approach from a steep overhead angle. Calatran saw the ARC-170's incendiary bolts travel from a point in front of the bomber leader back through the left wing of the Vee. Two or three of the TIE/fb fell away in flames. Calatran launched his last missile at the defender, which missed, but it caused the ARC-170 crew to swerve into the sights of a pair of TIE/fo who shredded the enemy fighter with their chin cannons.

The bomber formations lumbered on, taking a scattering of casualties and losses as they approached the city. Calatran spotted the main landing bays ahead and marked them for the attentions of the assault squadrons. He was surprised to learn the enemy had constructed a third landing bay terminal near XXhenon City, which was another failure of the Confederate Intelligence Agency.

The last few stragglers from the defending enemy formations broke contact as the fighting carried over the city. Anti-airspeeder fire picked up as the ground defenders took over from their whittled down airborne brethren. Bolts and missiles rose from the ground. A nearby TIE/sf exploded in a flash of fire and light.

Calatran keyed his comm system to the Assaulter's FlightOps channel. A line of tracer bolts cut across his left side causing him to pitch to the right. His bomber formations began their attack runs as he connected with command back aboard the Resurgents. "This is Judge Leader. Enemy attack squadrons are not present at Alexandria. May be in-bound to your position. Target Alexandria heavily defended." He waved his hand to his wingman so that he could resend the message in case Calatran's didn't make it through the enemy jamming.

Then he added, "There is need for a second attack."

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501st Legion HQ Bunker, XXhenon City

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General Hasa braced himself for the oncoming ordeal. Moff Tanax had sacrificed some of her bravest drones attacking the enemy bomber formations, and now was the time to ensure their sacrifice had not been in vain. He keyed the PA system to all of his defensive turrets, "Open blast when targets are within range."

By this time the New Thyfeerian sky was clear of cloud cover, with good visibility for anti-airspeeder firing. All Imperial gunners around the city were well protected by sandbags and sand emplacements. Other personnel and Vratix drones not manning anti-airspeeder blasters huddled in dugouts, slit trenches and the like, their blasters at the ready.

Moff Tanax had informed Hasa that she hoped to get a few licks herself. Hasa stationed one of his hyperwave tech troopers along with a heavy blaster and tibanna and set up the Canir of the Vratix in a nearby E-WEB pit. She charged the weapon like an expert and aimed its muzzle into the sky with a hungry stare. This was her planet and she was stanged if anyone was going to take it from her.

The LAAT rescue airspeeders were underway, flying low over the surrounding lagoons, their turbolasers and even blaster rifles and pistols at the alert. They sped away towards distant descending parachutes from the drone pilots.

The newly installed hemisphere sensor screens above XXhenon City, one of the few sensors that could push through the enemy jamming and provide height and bearing, showed that enemy bombers were still bearing on the city's landing pads. The air battle, fierce as it was, had little appreciable effect on the First Order bombing mission. Hasa's Stormtroopers noted with professional admiration the skill and discipline with which the First Order's pilots maintained formation. As a bomber was shot down by Tanax's Vratix, the others in the vee regrouped and kept their course and speed.

The level TIE/fb bombers reached XXhenon City first, for one of their missions was to neutralize the 501st's anti-airspeeder fire, thus clearing the way for the dive bombers and strafing TIEs. The formations split up, one heading on the eastern city while the other the west. Before either of the enemy units could unload their cargo of destruction two TIE/fb bombers fell to vicious AA blasts from a turret next to XXhenon Primary Academy.

To General Hasa, the tibanna bolts appeared to burst slightly behind the TIEs, but he saw one hit and ignite in mid-air. As Hasa snatched up his macrobinoculars to watch, the bomber broke formation and dove straight down. No one bailed out.

Many of the observers in Hasa's bunker thought the turrets had claimed the First Order leader in his strange elongated Interceptor. But although his TIE took a hit the enemy officer flew back into low orbit to continue directing the attack. Another TIE fighter was clipped by a cluster missile. The First Order pilot, realizing he had drawn the death sabacc, opened his access hatch, stood up and waved goodbye to his comrades, closed the hatch and fell to his destruction at the base of one of the defending turrets. His gesture knocked the power out for the fortification, silencing its blasters until they could be repaired.

No sooner had he struck the ground than a quick-witted Vratix streaked for the wreck and heaved out the pilot's body. The Vratix began rapidly searching the dead man's pockets for any item of interest to FleetIntel when the first wave zoomed over. With all hell falling from the skies, the Vratix jumped back into his shelter.

The LAATs had a good view of another crash. The Imperial pilots saw the First Order bomber burst into flames and splash into the lagoon, its energy bomb falling separately on the other side of the LAAT, both narrowly missing the rescue craft.

The level bombers concentrated heavily on the empty landing bays. One squadron scored a direct hit on the fuel tanks on the northeast side of the bays, while another squadron silenced the heaviest anti-airspeeder turbolaser next to the landing site. So many bombers hit together that it became impossible to credit the damage with any degree of accuracy.

As the Vratix piloted fighters had gone all out toward the level bombers which led the First Order attack, and then had to exercise all their ingenuity against the ever-present elongated faux Interceptors, the bombers from the Assaulter and Kill reached XXhenon City unscathed and departed in almost the same enviable condition.

The attack on the command bunker opened with an incident which no one who saw it ever forgot. Suddenly the leading First Order TIE fighter peeled off. He dove down about thirty meters from the ground, turned over on his back and proceeded leisurely flying upside down over the bunker. Hasa swore he saw the pilot thumb his nose derisively as he sailed by. For a few seconds it held the Stormtroopers too rigid in amazement to fire.

"Echuta!" Moff Tanax shouted. She grabbed the controls of her E-WEB and let go at him and then blasted the impertinent pilot down. He slid off and crashed in the main lagoon with a mighty splash. Vratix in nearby slit trenches opened up with their small arms filling the cockpit with enough holes to guarantee no showboating pilot ever underestimated the Vratix again.

Perhaps the most serious damage to the eastern landing pads came three minutes into the attack when a TIE demolished the energy collector main station, knocking out the installation's electricity and water distillation plant. Almost equally disruptive was the horizontal bomb which destroyed the fuel lines between the refueling depot and the main fuel storage. Henceforth, Vratix ground crew would be busy around the chrono refueling airspeeders by hand from the four thousand drums of fuel borrowed from Nal Kuat. Hasa noticed the First Order attackers didn't touch the pads themselves and presumed their idea was to land there today or tomorrow when they started landing troopers on New Thyfeeria.

A hit to the Stormtrooper mess hall sent pots and pans winging skyward and made mincemeat of the entire normal food supply for the Legion. Another direct hit put the Post Exchange out of business, hurling alcohol cans far and wide like shrapnel. One can of Ebla plugged a Scout Trooper in the solar plexus, knocking him hors de combat.

"I never could take a beer on an empty stomach!" He gasped when consciousness returned.

The eastern pads received the rancor's share of the First Order's attention. A direct hit completely destroyed three tibanna storage bunkers. These burned for five days afterwards, the smoke making the overall damage seem worse than it actually was and interfering with the efficacy of the anti-airspeeder turrets.

Another bomb struck squarely on the hovertram line circling the city. A Whisper bomber set ablaze a LAAT hangar. A direct hit also flattened the city jail, fortunately unoccupied at the moment. Surrounding buildings throughout the city shook under varying degrees of damage ranging from heavy to superficial, either from hits, near misses, fragments or concussions.

The city hospital, clearly marked with the green Medical Corps circle on the roof, was completely demolished as a result of two direct hits and the resultant fires. Another bomb right on target squashed the 501st's laundry building, incinerating, among other things, virtually every article of clothing General Hasa possessed except the uniform on his back.

Hard on the tails of the bombers swarmed the attacking fighters, strafing everything in sight and engaging in last minute vape fights with the remaining V-Wings. Hasa saw the dive bombers come directly out of Tau Ceti shortly after the level bombers passed. As he watched two V-Wings tangled with the superior First Order TIEs, and one of the Vratix went down. A withering screen of blaster fire saved the second.

If anti-airspeeder blasts really bothered the First Order pilots, no one really noticed it. Hasa spotted one of them strafing nearby nearly thirty meters off the ground and it was almost impossible to miss. He watched as Moff Tanax directed several E-WEBs around her position onto the interloper. Their bolts struck the TIE's fuel tank and the whole snub-nose fighter billowed into instant flame.

Moff Tanax helped clear her own weapon, which had started to overheat after she had blazed away at six TIEs. She and her Stormtrooper assistant blasted at all airspeeders which came near her E-WEB pit. Which wasn't many, Hasa observed, as the enemy didn't seem overly interested in targets near them. After a few strafes the enemy stayed away from the center of the landing pads.

At this moment, no one in the 501st was in the mood to spare any sympathy for a First Order pilot. Up to this time, the battle had been a straightforward fight, if a lopsided one, but the manner of Lieutenant Yopaxtul's, a drone pilot, death added an element of personal bitterness. As soon as his repulsar chute opened up the TIEs were on him and didn't let up until he landed on a sandbar in the lagoon. The LAAT crews saw the TIEs strafing Yopaxtul's parachute and three of the craft tried to reach the scene but were driven back by circling TIEs. The parachute flapped in the wind, still connected to the fallen drone's body, in plain sight of the defenders for the remainder of the first attack.

Twenty minutes after the attack began, the enemy started breaking off and making for orbit where, no doubt, their Star Destroyers awaited them just beyond New Thyfeeria's sensors. Actually, XXhenon City was in better shape than General Hasa had expected. Approximately an even forty drones and forty troopers had been killed on the ground, a reasonably small casualty list. And the landing pads were so lightly damaged Hasa and Tanax could only assume the First Order had deliberately spared them for their own use.

Havoc at the defensive installations proved, upon post-attack inspection, to be in large part repairable, and all hands went to work with a will to restore electrical connections, water and sewage lines, put out incidental fires and clear debris. For one thing was clear. The First Order would be back, and most likely in greater numbers.

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Command Bridge, ISD Flood, Imperial Task Force, Edge of the Almuhit

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Captain Isoto took the message from the CommScan officer and walked it over to Admiral Banjeer. "General Hasa reports the enemy's first strike wave is currently over XXhenon City. He managed to launch his bombers thirty minutes prior to the attack and their flight leaders have reported that they have had no contact with enemy escorts on their way to the projected location of the First Order Fleet."

"Did Hasa say whether or not Confederate forces joined in the attack at New Thyfeeria?" Banjeer asked his subordinate.

"No reported sightings amongst the 501st or Tanax's drones of Earthling airspeeders." Isoto replied.

"No doubt they are on standby for follow up attacks on the colony. Both the Rcyclopper and the Herf verified Space Force vessels escorting First Order Star Destroyers. The whole task force could very well be led by a Terran." Banjeer suggested.

"I wonder, with everything we know of the First Order, whether they'd stand for it." Isoto proposed.

"Are our strike squadrons ready?" Banjeer asked.

"All pilots are on standby, both here and aboard the Slash and Quill."

"Very good. Begin launch operations. Inform the Flight Leaders they are to vector in on the Herf's last known spotting report of the enemy fleet. Comm silence until they begin their attacks." Banjeer ordered, which set off a flurry of activity down in the FlightOps station below.

"Sir, what about the Jedi?" Isoto asked. "The Prime Chancellor was adamant about getting them involved."

Banjeer sighed. There was no point in fighting it. The powers that be wanted the Jedi here, starting with his direct boss, Fleet Admiral Gentis. "Bring her over."

Captain Isoto waved to the Operations Chief in the crew pit. The man nodded and told the unoccupied Jedi to report to the head of the bridge. A moment later, not being familiar with where the stairs were located, or perhaps a natural show-off, the Kessurian Padawan leaped straight out of the crew pit and landed directly alongside the Admiral and Captain. She offered another awkward salute as she silently landed and came to rough attention.

"Padawan Teshlo, the Navy has use for your Battle Meditation technique." Admiral Banjeer informed her without returning the salute. His older siblings may have fought under Jedi in the Clone Wars, but Banjeer was a byproduct of the Palpatine System, as such he considered the Jedi with a fair amount of suspicion.

"That is what I am here for, Admiral." Sylphanie Teshlo replied with a fair amount of youthful naivety. Sixty thousand sailors and Stormtroopers sailed with this task force and if Command did not take the battle seriously, they could all be dead by next rotation.

"Let me explain the situation so that you might better understand the task I am assigning you."

"Alright." Teshlo agreed rather reluctantly. Did she assume she would make it up on the fly, Banjeer wondered.

"Three to five large First Order warships have slipped into the Kuat System. Each of which is more powerful and carries more TIEs than any of the three ships in this squadron. They are escorted by several Space Force escorts. The Confederacy has proven to possess torpedoes with far greater range than our own, though technically just as strong. We dare not close with the enemy fleet as we would be systematically destroyed, thus leaving New Thyfeeria, Nal Kessel and most importantly, the drive yards at Nal Kuat wide open for attack."

"Dank ferric." Teshlo whispered.

"Indeed." Banjeer agreed with her sentiment if not her attitude. "Currently, we believe our task force has gone undetected by enemy scouts. However, one of our TIE/WACs from New Thyfeeria is tailing the enemy forces. Those forces are in the nearby vicinity of New Thyfeeria where they just launched an attack against the Vratix colony at XXhenon City."

"Moff Tanax's place? Where they make all the bacta." Teshlo seemed to be tracking along for once.

"Correct. General Hasa is in command of the garrison there. Prior to the attack on his Legion, he managed to launch an attack by planet-based bombers upon the enemy fleet. They are in route now."

"I can't reach that far. My Battle Meditation only works in a single orbital space." Teshlo explained.

"But you can reach the pilots aboard the Slash and Quill?" Isoto asked the Jedi.

"Oh. Yes. Piece of cake." Teshlo snapped her fingers as if her task had already been completed.

"I need all of my TIEs launched to join with Hasa's attack. It is imperative we arrive at the same time as the enemy's returning attack and before they can launch their second wave. I don't have a hope we can reach Hasa's bombers before they begin their assault on the First Order warships, but we must try." Banjeer explained.

"So what exactly do you want me to do? Once those fighters and bombers are a couple hundred kilometers away, I lose my grip on them." Teshlo said.

"Understood. I need you to coordinate with the FlightOps officers, pilots and deck crews and launch a coordinated attack. Fill the troopers with confidence and prevent anyone from faltering. A coordinated and simultaneous launch will guarantee a unified attack." Banjeer said.

Isoto added, "If we catch them refueling and rearming, we have the best chance of wrecking as many of them as possible. Before they can launch a counterstrike and do the same to us."

"I'm on it. You can trust in the Jedi Order, sirs." Teshlo dismissed herself and jumped back down into the crew pit. Isoto was about to say something, but the way the Jedi threw herself into her work quieted their concerns."

"Do you think she will manage it, Admiral?" Isoto asked.

"It doesn't much matter. The ones that will win or lose this battle will be the pilots and bombardiers at the enemy's position. I very much doubt one small Jedi will factor very much one way or another. It's not like she's Anakin Skywalker."

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TIE Launch Racks, ISD Flood

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"Waterloo
I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo
Promise to love you forever more"

Strikeout sang to herself as she pictured her favorite band performing at Eurovision almost an entire century ago. She looked at her Interceptor's flight controls and chided herself, wasn't there something else she should be focusing on right now?

"Strikeout!" Vyvya called across the comm. Now, in their cockpits, they dropped their formal names of August and Zahn and became their call signs. Just as her father had done in the last war.

"Fierfek, I'm here." Strikeout answered her panelman.

"I've been calling you for two minutes. Are you playing your disco music too loud in there?" Vyvya reprimanded her, not knowing how right he was.

"Maybe it was the stims we took with breakfast, but my mind is all kinds of fuzzy right now." Strikeout admitted.

"Yeah, thought someone had mixed ozone into my oxygen lines for a minute. Had to do my pre-flight check three times." Vyvya replied.

"You wizard?"

"Sure, I can fly. Whatever is going on is affecting everyone up in launch control."

"No poodoo. They bump us from our launch order again, I'm going to scream." Strikeout admitted. She wasn't joking either. The small squadrons of fighters had been broken up to launch with their respective bomber and torpedo charges, thus shuffling them in the launch order. It couldn't have been standard operating procedure either, because Strikeout had never heard of any ship captain launching his bombers before their fighters.

"Someone has their heads up their shebs. I'm getting readouts from another Interceptor squadron over on the Quill. They launched their bombers twenty minutes ago along a vector of two-six-five, up bubble of twelve degrees." Vyvya reported.

"Isn't that the coordinates that TIE/WAC reported when it first spotted the First Order scum? That was hours ago. No way they're still there." Strikeout proclaimed.

"Certainly not the coordinates we were given. Is FlightOps hitting the spice up there?" Vyvya asked.

"I'm calling the skipper." Strikeout commed the shortwave squadron comm to reach their 5th Squadron commander, Captan Stalgis. "Sandtusker, this is Strikeout. Asking for ETA on launch time."

"Strikeout, stay off the comms we're almost out of range from the fleet."

"We are still on the Flood. Sir?"

"Karabast. You were supposed to launch with Torpedo-5. They took off seven minutes ago." Sandtusker snapped at them.

"Nobody told us, Sandtusker." Strikeout reported. There was a sudden thudding on the front of the cockpit. Strikeout looked forward and spotted a large KX-droid looking back at her.

The droid's white optical lenses flashed. "Congratulations, you can now launch against the enemy. Please, do not resist."

"Stang it, Strikeout, get your shebs out here." Sandtusker snapped.

"I think we just got clearance, Sandtusker, launching now." Strikeout pushed her throttles to the maximum and released the manual docking clamp. The SFS P-s5.6 twin ion engines screamed as Strikeout pushed them to the brink. A controller in the FlightOps station gave her and Vyvya the blue lamp for launch. A heartbeat later she was pushed back into her ejection seat as the TIE fighter howled down the launch chute and out into the freezing emptiness of the Void. The hairs on the back of her neck tingled as they passed through the shield's magnetic fields.

"All clear, Strikeout. I'm on your port." Vyvya reported on the shortwave.

"Fangs out, partner." Strikeout switched her own weapons systems to active. As they moved further away from the Flood it seemed as if a fog was slowly being lifted from her mind. Her senses and reflexes became sharp and instinctive once again.

"Roger, roger. I've got a bearing on Torpedo Five's heading. Recommend 0.9 sublight, and we will catch up halfway to estimated target area." Vyvya replied.

"Copy that." Strikeout marked the position in her navicomp. They needed to make up time and quick. They were the only close escorts assigned for those twelve bombers and if they lost them, then those TIE/sa bombers would be sitting mynocks when they made their attack runs. "Don't forget, if we get a chance . . ."

"Yeah, yeah we will try out your little maneuver."

"Don't hate. Just remember when we go up against those First Order bucketheads, my idea might be the only thing that saves our shebs."

The Imperial strike, for better or worse, was space-borne. By contrast with the First Order operations earlier in the day, it had been a chaotic and discombobulated process. Commander Calatran's over three hundred TIE New Thyfeeria attack force had taken twelve minutes to launch from the four hangars of the First Order Resurgents, and once aloft they had rendezvoused quickly and flown on to New Thyfeeria in one, huge, integrated formation. The Imperial Fleet had required a full forty minutes to get their strikes out into the Void. Once aloft, they did not attempt to rendezvous, they did not even fly off in the same direction. Each attack squadron took a different course, according to their flight leaders' independent and sharply varying navigation solutions. To confuse the picture even further, nearly every pilot had felt a cloudiness settle in their minds as they launched, causing none of the outbound groups to stay together.

For all of that, the Imperial strike was in the Void and on its way to the enemy. The enemy had not yet replied. Though that single fact might matter more than any other.

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Command Bridge, FOS Assaulter, Combined Allied Fleet, Kuat System

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Pairs of X-Wings and A-Wings performed lazy figure eights in their circuits around the combined fleet. General Crisis would have preferred some of his First Order fighters among their numbers, but all TIE fighters had been launched against Target Alexandria. A compromise for the cause of a unified strike, he was afraid. He just hoped it wasn't a mistake. Vader's ghost, they hadn't even told their allies about adding shields to their airspeeders. But then again, when the First Order had met with President Harris he was more concerned with dealing strikes to the Empire and New Mandalore than any thought of protecting his own troopers when the Empire finally struck back.

Captain Setrauss took the message from the CommScan officer, quickly glanced over it, and then read it aloud. "Commander Calatran has wrapped up the first strike. He reports light losses were incurred and that Judge Wave is on its way back. He recommends an immediate follow up strike by Jury Wave."

"Does he say what kind of damage we inflicted on the defenders?" Admiral Akfar dug deeper.

"Only that a few of the enemy's fighters were still operational and that they have yet to reduce the AA turrets surrounding the city." Setrauss reported.

"Those will have to be eliminated before I can start landing my Legion." Crisis imagined his Atmospheric Assault Landers, filled with the troopers of the 23rd, falling in flames from the skies over New Thyfeeria when they attempted their invasion tomorrow. It wasn't a pretty image.

"Is the Jury Wave still armed with a mix of proton torpedoes and energy bombs?" Akfar asked.

"Aye, sir."

"Notify the hangars. Have them immediately begin to switch over all torpedo craft to energy bombs." Akfar ordered.

"That will take some time. Jury Wave is already on standby in the launch racks. They'll have to be removed back to the hangars before the deck crews can swap out the weapons. The whole process can take up to an hour for that many TIE/fb." Setrauss informed the Earthling.

"The Jury Wave, under Commander Ekthar, has no fighter escort." Crisis interjected. "We will have to wait until Commander Calatran returns and refuels. Then his fighters can escort Jury Wave back to Target Alexandria."

"Make it so." Akfar ordered.

"One thing, Admiral." Setrauss stated. "There is the matter of the Imperial Fleet. Is it wise to switch our torpedo bombers to energy bombs at this juncture? What if Gentis makes an appearance?"

"All sources, especially Fulcrum, have identified the Imperial Fleet's location at Onasi V. No doubt the good Admiral has received notification from Target Alexandria that they are under attack and is under way to this location, but that still puts him more than a day away by their top lightspeed. More than enough time for several more strikes on Alexandria. Hell, we might even have time to start the first rounds of invasion landings before the Empire shows its face." Akfar swore by Fulcrum as if it were holy writ itself.

Something caught the light cast from Tau Ceti just right to give a slight shimmer in the corner of Crisis's eye. He stepped away from Setrauss and Akfar's discussion and peered out the forward viewport. Evidently, he wasn't the only one to have spotted something as the nearby cruiser Sailor Moon and an escorting Revenge corvette started turning towards the unidentified objects.

It took the length of several heartbeats before tiny shapes appeared against the backdrop of the star-filled Void. They grew larger until they took on distinct shape of twelve TIE/sa torpedo bombers and eight larger MG-100 StarFortresses. They were approaching from a superior position relative to the Combined Fleet's orientation, no doubt attempting to strike the shield generators and weaker upper armor of the First Order's warships.

"What are those?" Akfar stepped to Crisis's side and gazed at the approach bombers. "Are those Imperials? Where are their fighters?"

"That's suicide." Setrauss woke to the approaching threat just as the Sailor Moon opened up with her forward heavy turbolasers and railguns at the developing enemy attack. Green laser bolts flashed past the bombers.

Crisis turned to the bridge. Crew were standing up at their stations attempting to get a better view of the antique airspeeders approaching the fleet. "Are you blind? Deploy the escorts!"

The officers and sailors snapped back to their duties at Crisis's rebuke. The Space Force vessels of the fleet began to tighten their circle around the Resurgents, plugging gaps against torpedo attacks and adding their firepower to a steadily increasing anti-airspeeder barrage. Since the attack was coming in from a superior vector, the Earthling escorts moved to intercept. X-Wings and A-Wings pulled away from their patrol zones and raced each other towards the enemy targets. Since this was one of the few times they had seen the enemy advancing toward them rather than retreating it was something of a novelty to the Earthling pilots.

For their part, the Resurgents assumed battle speed, raised their shields and turned toward the attack in order to present the narrowest target profile for the attackers to hit. Lady Liberty and Eiffel opened fire, and one minute later Akfar ordered the last of the Space Force fighters off of his escorts to tangle with the Imperials. As they approached it looked to Crisis as if the Imperials were splitting off into two groups.

The TIE/sa opened their bomb bay doors enlarging their flight profiles, making themselves larger targets. They were like clay pigeons for the X-Wings, but so many Confederate airspeeders were swarming around by this time that they actually got in each other's way, and by a miracle the vulnerable TIE/sa pressed on towards the Resurgents.

The Sailor Moon caught the first victim with a heavy bolt dead square in its pilot cockpit. The TIE boomeranged as its ruptured hull defenestrated its bombardier. A-Wings cut into the two flank bombers as a swarm of X-Wings swirled into positions behind the bombers. Their Earthling pilots jockeying each other for the chance at what appeared to be easy kills. The attackers never came within fifty kilometers of the Resurgents as one by one they were vaped and atomized by the Confederate fighters and AA fire. Only one of the TIE's escaped, being hit several times early on, its pilot must have had a lack of fortitude as he peeled his wounded TIE away and back towards Target Alexandria.

"They can't do that. It is illegal." Akfar announced as if he could simply have the Imperials arrested and flogged for poor tactics.

"I agree, Admiral." Crisis understood the Earthling's point. "The fault is not in those bombers, they are well armored and piloted, but it is obvious they cannot go through fighter opposition without fighter protection."

"Signal Commander Calatran and encourage him to bring his fighters back here as quickly as possible. These bombers were obviously launched from Target Alexandria and I'll be damned if I send our bombers back there without proper escorts." Akfar swore. "And put a fire under our deck crews switching out those torpedoes."

"We might have more pressing concerns, sirs." Setrauss pointed to the flight of StarFortresses. The eight larger bombers made for the heart of the Combined Fleet. Turning slightly to port away from the doomed TIE/sa squadron, then sharply to starboard to avoid AA blasts, and ignoring several cruisers they made for the area superior to the Resurgents' dorsal hulls.

All starships were blasting, and nine X-Wings raced up to meet them. The lead bomber dove sharply to allow the X-Wings' fire to pass over him, but his number two and three craft were not so lucky as they were set upon and torn apart by the Confederate escorts.

Under Setrauss's commands, the Assaulter was dodging frantically, making a full turn to starboard and then to port, but the lead StarFortress was inside their turning circle and Crisis believed the Imperial couldn't miss. He released his bombs at eight kilometers high, just as another of his wing mates moved alongside him. The second StarFortress let fly with his sticks of magnetic proton bombs at four and a half kilometers. Several hundred bolts hit the lead StarFortress perforating it from bow to stern, killing its crew and leaving its powerless hulk to drift away into the Void.

The enemy wingman only survived, despite taking a beating from several enemy passes, because the X-Wings continued to interfere with each other's aim. The pilot would later report clean hits on the Assaulter, but the Resurgent's only damage was from a strafing ball turret gunner who severely injured three First Order gunners manning the Star Destroyer's bow turret and knocked out the turret's aiming mechanism for the next hour. Observers aboard the Assaulter saw one large stick of bombs fall past to starboard and two drop past to port. One of these clumps of bombs crossed astern and the other was in the process of self-detonation as it fell past.

Crisis watched Admiral Akfar's reaction to the destruction of the Imperial bombers with particular interest. The Earthling hadn't given a second thought to doing the same to First Order pilots, sending their bombers out without protection. One of the surviving StarFortresses took a RIM 203 ERAM missile, fired from the Eiffel, directly in their left sublight thruster. The damaged StarFortress turned slightly and then screamed head-on for the Assaulter, despite every turbolaser aboard the Star Destroyer tearing huge chunks out of the dying craft.

"She's going to hit my bridge." Captain Setrauss observed. "Fortify forward deflector shields."

"Is he doing that on purpose?" Akfar wondered. To his favor, the Earthling stood side by side with the two First Order commanders, accepting the same fate as them.

"He's likely gone. That craft is a dead stick." Crisis suggested as the bomber grew larger and larger in the forward viewscreen.

It skimmed narrowly over the top of the Assaulter's superstructure with only a few meters to spare, its blue Imperial insignia visible against its strangely unpainted fuselage. Clearing the Assaulter, it sped towards the Hatred, then suddenly dipped to port and tore itself apart from internal explosions.

The crew in the pit nearly jumped for joy at their sudden salvation. Crisis watched the fire quickly burn out leaving a cloud of smoke and debris that quickly fell away from the rapidly moving fleet. He nodded his helmet toward the unknown enemy who, like himself, was a brave trooper willing to die for an Empress over a Supreme Leader. Perhaps one day he'd share that pilot's fate. The solemn moment burst in a shower of excited laughter.

"This is fun." Remarked Setrauss with a cold chill.

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Hangar Deck, FOS Sinister, Combined Fleet

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EB-9 tugged at the harness attached to the repulsar sled. He was hauling up another load of twenty RF-555 Energy Bombs. They were classified for high-explosive ground detonation and requisitioned by FlightOps.

More BB-series astromech droids, painted in their customary black and gray First Order markings, raced back and forth between the hangars and the armory. The corridors of the ship were crowded. Squads of Stormtroopers raced past while First Order gunners ran to their battle stations.

The little EB-9 followed another astromech hauling hover palettes of proximity detonators, which would be attached to the energy bombs as they were placed in the bomb bays of TIE/fb. Deck crews screamed at the droids to hurry as soon as they were inside the hangar. They skirted around the large gaping launch corridor in the deck of the warship. The light of the distant Almuhit shined brightly in the Void. Officers shouted at the sailors and blew sonic whistles to encourage them to work faster.

EB-9 did not understand all the commotion. They had already launched one perfectly outfitted wave of TIE craft and had situated a mixed group of TIE bombers for a second strike. Suddenly, they had been ordered to remove all the proton torpedo carrying craft and replace their armaments with energy bombs. The little droid computed that the threat of anti-starship operations must have been negligible for high command to issue such an order.

The rolling droid pulled up in front of a TIE/wi Whisper crawling with deck crew. The TIE pilot stood in his open hatch shouting profanities at the harried sailors. EB-9 chirped a series of beeps to indicate that the correct amount of ordered munitions had been delivered.

"What did it say?" One of the sailors asked his compatriots as they detached a heavy proton torpedo from the Whisper.

"He says our bombs are here." The second sailor responded correctly. EB-9 whirred in gratitude. He was accustomed to being ignored or yelled at by deck crews.

EB-9 looked around the busy hangar. Sailors manning fuel hoses stood at the ready, prepared to turn around the returning first wave as quickly as possible. More droids were bringing up stacks and stacks of bombs to re-arm the soon to arrive first wave of TIEs. The deck crews were rushed and were stacking the proton torpedoes along the walls of the hangar instead of returning them to the ship's armory. This was against protocol and EB-9 decided it needed to be reported.

He rolled over to one of the officers directing the rearmament effort. He chirped his complaint to deaf ears since, like the earlier sailor, the junior officer did not understand a beep of astromech. He called to the first sailor who had interpreted EB-9 a moment ago.

"Sailor, what is this thing going on about?" The officer seemed annoyed to be distracted by the concerns of a droid. Typical organic, EB-9 reasoned.

The droid repeated its warning. The sailor just shrugged and spoke. "It can't be helped, little guy."

"What is it saying?" the officer asked.

"It says this place is a powder keg."

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Moxxi Two's X-1 Star Fighter, 380,000 kilometers coreward of the Combined Fleet

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No matter how long a day it had been for Lieutenant Emma Mallory, she couldn't complain that the rotation had been boring. First, she and her wingman, Lieutenant Moon, had escorted the Ragnarok out of Kafrene Outpost's orbit. Then, while they had been on patrol, her brother had somehow hit a mine with their corvette. It had been a lucky strike, with no one injured and had alerted the fleet to the hidden booby trap. Her transfer to the Lady Liberty had been fraught with miscommunication. Evidently, both Moxxi pilots had been reassigned from escort duties to reconnaissance, however nobody told them of the change for almost an hour after they had arrived in the battle zone. Fifty minutes after the other searches had been launched, she and Moon were finally on their way. Luckily, their planned route was far from New Thyfeeria and most likely vacant. Thus, their delay would have little consequence.

She spent an unproductive twenty minutes of her outbound flight investigating a small asteroid that was outgassing. From a distance she had suspected it was one of those invisible chameleon ships that had spotted the fleet around Kafrene Outpost. But on closer inspection she had discovered it no more than the same space debris that cluttered millions of star systems around the Milky Way. The small detour had put her further behind on her assigned flight plan.

An outgassing asteroid would have been cause for huge excitement back in the days of NASA. Now it was just one more piece of clutter in a messy Galaxy. She had just finished her outward leg, which took her to the edge of the Kuat System and close to its protective Almuhit Maelstrom. The great clouds of radiation and gases swirled about out there, full of hate, carbon-bergs and space rocks. The energy created by such a field played havoc with her sensors and she had to rely more and more on her advanced optics.

Just as she started to turn back, she had her big break.

A burst of static came across her new subspace radio. The device was a First Order contraption that had only been installed on her X-1 in the past month and while FleetCom loved it, the pilots of Space Force distrusted most things that had to do with their shady human-alien allies. Static coming from the gas cluster of a maelstrom was nothing new, but this pattern seemed to have a regulated pulse. Definitely man-made, Emma figured, or that filthy alien-tech the Imps use.

Following the same bearing as the static originated from, Emma kept her eyes on the closing fingers of dust and gas rolling out of the maelstrom. Something caught her eye fifty kilometers away, a small black shape moving against the flow of the maelstrom backdrop.

Emma cut her power signature and engaged the X-1's stealth features. She had seen little sign they worked as advertised but it was better than nothing. She drifted closer as she throttled down her thrusters. Then she withdrew a pair of Nikon amplified targeting scopes from the X-1's emergency kit and held it to her face.

"What the fuck are those?" More objects materialized to move in formation with the first. Emma studied them for a minute as she floated closer.

Finally, making up her mind, she risked keying her scouting channel. She knew she could be risking her life by giving away her position with the subspace. She reported back to the Lady Liberty, "Sight what appears to be ten enemy starships, in position ten degrees twenty-eight down bubble distance two-hundred-forty thousand klicks from Target Alexandria. Course one-fifty degrees over ten thousand knots."

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Bridge, FOS Assaulter, Combined Fleet

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The message from Moxxi Two scored a direct hit on the Assaulter's bridge. There they are, thought Crisis.

"What appears to be ten enemy starships? Not the most lucid of reports." Admiral Akfar critiqued his fellow Earthling scout pilot. The Admiral appeared deep in thought as he weighed his options.

"Naturally, any ships in that area must be the enemy." Crisis reminded the Admiral. It wasn't like there were any other Space Force or 7th Fleet of Conquest elements here in the Kuat System. He supposed they could be Kazoookians or even somehow New Mandalorians by some trick of the Force.

"Navigation reports that position is a mere two hundred thousand kilometers away." Captain Setrauss passed on a message from the crew pit.

"The big question is whether or not this new unit contains any Star Destroyers." Crisis suggested.

"Impossible." Admiral Akfar swore with a lot less conviction than he possessed an hour ago. The Admiral needed to take this threat very seriously, Crisis thought. If it didn't contain Star Destroyers, it would have presented little danger to the combined strike fleet. It was well within reach of their TIEs and could be left to play around with to their heart's content until the Jury Wave polished off the unfinished business with New Thyfeeria.

But if the enemy ships did include one or more Star Destroyers, this was a much different proposition. "There can't be an Imperial force without Star Destroyers in the area Moxxi Two reported and logic dictates there must be Imperial Star Destroyers somewhere."

"I do not see how we can cancel the next attack on Target Alexandria. The sighting of this Imperial convoy does not alter the considerations which dictated my earlier orders. Alexandria is still a threat and needs to be suppressed." Akfar reiterated that New Thyfeeria was still his number one priority.

Unadaptable fool, Crisis decided. Crisis watched the conflict in the Earthling's mind spill out across his face. His eyes squinted and mouth curled as he considered what to do next. Obviously, the next strike on Target Alexandria must remain in the agenda, but they could not ignore the presence of unfriendly vessels, nor could they twiddle their thumbs while the Lady Liberty's scout determined the exact type involved. By the Sith Eternal, the Ares could be out there for all they knew. Finally, after several agonizing and unproductive minutes, the Earthling Admiral made up his mind. "Prepare to carry out attacks on enemy fleet units. Leave torpedoes on those attack TIEs which have not yet switched to bombs."

At this point the rearming of the Resurgents' torpedo-carrying Whispers was about at the half-way mark. Commander Calatran was nearly halfway back with his fighters which had raced ahead of his bombers returning from New Thyfeeria. As deck crews completed the switch on each TIE from torpedo to energy bombs the TIEs were lifted back into their launch racks. At that time, Akfar brought everything to a screeching halt, therefore, the launch and recovery racks each held twenty to thirty bombers all set for planet-side attack. Of course, they could use these demolition types against Star Destroyers in a pinch, but proton torpedoes were much more accurate, and more devastating.

However much the Combined Fleet's commanders' minds may have been centered on the mysterious enemy starships, Target Alexandria had not yet thrown in the sponge. The CommScan officer called up from the pit. "Sinister is reporting twelve to fifteen enemy airspeeders, bearing three-two-zero degrees, superior bubble of twenty-eight."

All eyes turned upwards as Akfar shouted commands to vector more Space Force escort squadrons onto the arrivals. Revenge corvettes and Naruto cruisers opened up with their anti-airspeeder batteries on the edges of the fleet. These newcomers were the advanced guard of General Hasa's TIE/IT Interdictor bomber squadron.

The X-Wings and A-Wings caught the interlopers just as they came within sight of the fleet. Red bolts raced ahead of the defending escorts as once again they cut each other off in their rush to engage the enemy, the confusion allowed the slow Imperial bombers to close much further with the Combined Fleet than should have been allowed.

The Confederate flight leaders finally got a modicum of control over their fighters and suddenly the Imperials discovered they were up against a clever foe. Operating at double level and with highly effective teamwork the Space Force fighters seemed to wait until the Imperial crews had used up their hundred bolt tibanna clips, then dove in for the kill. With unerring instinct, the Earthlings concentrated on the Imperial flight leader. The lead Interdictor caught fire then spun away, out of control. The enemy second-in-command took over and led his squadron into their attack runs. No doubt they were focused on the four Resurgents sitting, from their perspective, at the inferior lower portion of the Combined Fleet.

The Confederate Wing Commander, fresh from his tangle with the StarFortresses, made three or four solo attacks on the Interdictors. Two of his colleagues joined him, and together they blasted down a number of the meandering bombers. Those remaining went for the Resurgents and as soon as they cleared the First Order AA bolts, the Space Force fighters were right back on their tails.

Pulling out of their glide, General Crisis watched as two of their bombs fell right alongside the Hatred's bow. Actually, the Imperial had nearly boxed the Hatred, but the two nearest bombs fell about fifty meters away from the target, one to port and the other off the starboard bow. The Imperial pilot must have believed he had bagged a Star Destroyer, for Crisis on the nearby Assaulter, watching with a racing heart, thought the same thing for a second.

Crisis noticed how the brave little group of Interdictors held their course despite half their number being shot down, and he did not see how they could have missed the Resurgent. Hatred disappeared in a flash of explosive near-misses and smoke, but soon emerged triumphantly, like a grand old trouper taking a curtain call.

The Resurgents blazed back at the Interdictors while almost an entire ring of fire from the AA turrets and the Imperial survivors soared away with a covey of X-Wings on their tails. They were hit dozens of times as they exited the battle zone, two of them crumpled to pieces but three made it out. Each of them trailing smoke and bleeding power.

Another formation of bombers entered the fleet's defensive screen from the coreward sector a moment after the Interdictors left. Crisis didn't even notice the new flight of StarFighters until a Squadron of A-Wings veered off after the new intruders.

A layer of dense turbofire and fighters reached up towards the bombers, which Crisis estimated were outnumbered by the Space Force fighters three to one. Still, they bore on and dropped their magnetic pulse bombs from nearly ten kilometers above the Resurgents. Then their troubles really began. Fighters drilled holes in their stabilizers and fuselages.

Several of the bombers went down and floated lifelessly away into the Void. The leader blew apart in a blue explosion of hypermatter and fuel.

General Crisis and Admiral Akfar were so distracted by the ongoing attacks that they almost missed Setrauss's message. He had to repeat himself to the two senior commanders. "New report from Moxxi Two. The enemy is on course eighty degrees, speed twenty thousand knots."

"A pretty sharp turn of course. And bearing near directly at us." Crisis calculated. The two naval commanders had probably already deduced as much.

Fuming, Akfar snapped at the Captain. "Tell that damn scout, advise on ship types!"

To add to the Admiral's frustration, it was becoming rather tough to hear one think. The Imperial bombers were whisking overhead as still more planet-based airspeeders from Target Alexandria were droning in. Between their throbbing engines, the screams of Space Force fighters on the warpath, the explosions of bombs and the barking of the flak turbolasers, the officers on the bridge could not hear one another's voices, and even orders over the PA audicasters were barely audible for several minutes as the fighting grew near to the Resurgents.

Captain Setrauss was the first to make himself heard again. "The Kill just reported that eight twin-ion bombers flew over us at two-seven-zero degrees, superior bubble six kilometers."

Evidently the sensor techs aboard the Kill could not count past two for Crisis looked up to see fourteen TIE/hb heavy bombers dropping their bombs from relative above. Again, the bombs scattered across the maneuvering Resurgents causing several close calls but none of them scored a hit before another squadron of X-Wings vectored onto the bombers.

"Amateurs. Using glide bombing rather than dive bombing." Setrauss graded the dismal Imperial performance so far.

"I assume Admiral Gentis is scraping the bottom for his pilots by this point. Probably pulling them directly out of flight academies." Crisis smiled at how pathetic the feared enemy had actually turned out.

"Gettysburg is reporting a new flight of bogeys bearing twenty-five degrees and heading for our fleet concentration." An officer called up from the pit.

Crisis instinctively looked up and towards the indicated direction. He was not surprised to see another squadron of StarFortresses being set upon by X-Wings. While entertaining to see his foes vanquished in such a ruthless manner, this was becoming an annoyance. The crews below were running behind on switching the assault TIEs back to proton torpedoes, and they had yet to clear the recovery racks for Commander Calatran's returning fighters. They couldn't just launch the Jury Wave without fighters as the Imperials were showing exactly what would happen to any attack that didn't provide its own fighter protection. Suicide.

"Another message from Moxxi Two." Setrauss announced. "Enemy is composed of five cruisers, types unknown and five Raider class corvettes."

Akfar clapped his hands together in relieved joy. "At last! Just as I thought. There are no Star Destroyers in the Kuat System."

Although the message momentarily shook his mind, General Crisis was not thrown off base. "This message alone couldn't make it clear that no enemy Star Destroyers are out there. Dank ferric, Admiral, think! How in the kriff could an enemy force without Star Destroyers even venture out here knowing we were coming after they spotted us leaving Kafrene Outpost?"

Akfar was too happy with his relief to offer an answer and instead went back to directing his Starfighter squadrons in their interceptions.

"Best not to argue." Setrauss spoke softly so that the Earthling couldn't hear them. "You and I both know it would be unprofessional to leave a minor force within striking distance of our fleet. I assume they're an escort force. Moxxi Two will uncover them soon I predict. But if we keep up our battle with the Admiral, he will only issue more counter orders and further our delay in rearming Jury Wave."

"Aye. Priority must be given to getting them off the Resurgents and striking the enemy . . . somewhere." Crisis agreed.

Another reason why Akfar and Crisis's staff made no change of tactics at this moment was that the experience of the past six months had imbued these officers with a bone-deep contempt for Imperial TIEs, a contempt which the planet-based attacks now under way did nothing to dispel. The individual Imperial TIE pilots were brave, but seemingly could not hit a First Order warship from the inside with the blast doors closed. Sending these bombers out without fighter cover was unadulterated folly, and the uncoordinated attacks proclaimed a lack of organization and precision past reasonable belief in past Imperial victories. If the 2nd Galactic Empire had a Star Destroyer in the area, why had it not launched its TIEs in support of its planet-based comrades?

Once more the Dark Side laughed as another batch of Imperial StarFortresses found the Combined Fleet. Once more they were pressed by the X-Wings in superior positions over the relative location of the fleet. Once more they were riddled with blaster fire and missed their targets. A third of them were blown apart before the survivors could escape coreward.

This force was followed by another small squadron of TIE/sa bombers who went for the Hatred again. Their bombs bracketed the ship's stern and one close miss exploded and perforated one of her thrusters. Minor damage that could be ignored until the ship saw port once more.

The latest StarFortress attack differed sharply from the preceding planet-based strikes on the Combined Fleet. The X-Wings had barely touched them, in fact, as far as Crisis could tell they had no desire to close with the Imperial heavy bombers. "How many escort fighters have we lost?"

Setrauss checked with the technicians in the crew pit. "Thirteen, and all of them to the ball turrets of those big boys. The TIEs haven't touched us."

"Kriffing Earth scum," He muttered when he was sure Akfar couldn't overhear him. "Those bombers can't be as tough as they think. For Palpatine's sake, they have yet to hit us with a single bomb."

"The Earthlings still have too much will to live, I suppose." Setrauss assumed.

"Their lives are inconsequential in regard to final victory. We all must make sacrifices." Crisis snapped back, wondering how he could inspire the vast numbers his ally possessed into throwing their lives away to serve the First Order when the time came.

X-Wings did eventually pounce on the StarFortresses as they were distracted by their bombing runs. The Space Force attacks threw off their aim once again. This time they focused on the Sinister, and Crisis could see their sister Resurgent ringed by a wall of near misses as she frantically evaded to starboard.

"My god!" Akfar exclaimed, peering out the port viewport. Crisis and Setrauss joined the Earthling at his side and gasped at what they saw. Dozens of airspeeders were racing towards the Combined Fleet. Like dust kicked in their face, the tiny shapes grew larger as they neared the fleet.

Crisis chuckled first and then nodded towards the newest arrivals. "That's Commander Calatran."

"Have we been fighting off those bombers for an hour already?" Setrauss looked to the large chrono on the back wall to confirm his suspicion. "We have!"

"Get them aboard and refueled at once." Akfar ordered.

"Clear the racks. Give priority to the fighters." Setrauss shouted to his sailors.

"Tell Commander Ekthar he's to launch as soon as his TIEs have been repositioned and Calatran's fighters are ready. Do not have them wait to recover the Judge Wave bombers." Akfar added.

Crisis smiled in anticipation. "This war just might be decided in the next hour."

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Moxxi Two, Kuat System, Coreward of the Combined Fleet

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Emma Mallory was getting worried. The longer she stayed out here, the more likely the ETs would spot her.

She had tailed the enemy fleet for almost thirty minutes now, watching as they disappeared and reappeared behind the gaseous dust clouds of the Almuhit's outer edge. She could see six of the enemy ships at that moment but roughly guessed where the other ones were located based on their last bearing.

On her left side, about ten kilometers away, flew her wing man, Moxxi One, who had been vectored in on her patrol path to assist her after her first sighting. Now the two of them flew along in silence, trying to remain undetected as long as they could.

Emma kept her eyes peeled on a large, radiated dust cloud about ninety kilometers ahead of her which had hidden several of the Imperial warships a few minutes ago. A large energy signal was coming from the dust cloud, which Emma confirmed was within tolerable thresholds for a large deflector shield.

The X-1 pilot gasped as several Imperial ships emerged from the asteroid clouds. Several TIEs could be seen flying escort around the capital ships. Something even larger was plowing its way through the cloud, setting off dust swirls in its wake that were visible to Emma's naked eye despite the distance.

As if a demon were emerging from her darkest nightmare a giant shape materialized from the dust cloud. Emma didn't have to consult her targeting computer to recognize a Star Destroyer. From this distance it appeared to be an Imperial I class warship, presumably the Slash or the Flood, for the First Order still claimed to have crippled or sunk all others of the class at Nal Kuat six months ago, and Space Force had eradicated the Limbo and Purgatory at the Battle of Luna shortly thereafter.

The unidentified Star Destroyer followed its escort on their bearing towards Admiral's Akfar's fleet. She squinted hard against her macrobinoculars and studied a pair of the closest TIE escorts. Were they turning in her direction?

"Calm down, girl. They haven't seen you yet." She tried to assuage her fears, while at the same time reaching for the hyperwave radio controls. Well, they'll know I'm around after this, she thought.

She keyed her hyperwave. "The enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a Star Destroyer in a position to the rear of the others."

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