The flight of X-wings jumbled and bounced around as they travelled through hyperspace, the usual blue light of hyperspace completely absent, reminding the pilots of their position within the unknown regions.
The lack of natural lighting from the light speed tunnel left only the various instrument panels within his cockpit to provide any lighting.
Poe reached over to flick on his communicator. "All wings check in."
A garbled static flower back before his astromech adjusted the frequency and isolation of the channel.
"Red leader checking in, I've lost red five, four and two."
"Gold leader checking in," The aged Y-wing flight leader reported. "I've lost Gold two and three."
"Blue leader checking in. I'm the only one."
"Purple leader checking in, I've not lost any." Zeb replied.
"We lost all of white squadron to those defenders." His wingman called.
Poe sighed at their losses, they were high, but all the pilots knew their raid didn't even have any guarantee of success when they lifted off.
His navicomputer began to whine, indicating the fighters were soon to arrive at Jeddha.
"Keep close when we exit light speed, start programming in the coordinates for the base." Poe ordered aloud, before reverting into internal comms with BB-8.
"Send a message off to base, confirm our strike was successful, and send over all the scans we got."
After receiving a pair of affirmative beeps, he dropped out of light speed, into the Jeddah system.
The command centre on Ilum was still abuzz with activity. One section of the giant room dedicated to the management of the planetary super weapon was working feverishly to begin the process of charging the weapon.
"Grand Marshall." He turned to see an officer wearing the red trimmed uniform of the sith eternal officer in the central command well with him, two of the red armoured stormtroopers accompanying her.
"We cannot use the weapon without the Supreme Leader's approval."
Jackson looked her up and down, her uniform was untarnished and well maintained, however he had no patience for those serving the sith at this point in time.
"The Supreme Leader has been removed of any military duties, Colonel." He lectured tersely. "This weapon now falls under my sole and direct command. Now begin charging."
The officer's jaw tensed, and her two escorts stiffened at the confrontation. Jackson gave a small flick of his wrist and those units of his own guard quietly stepped into the low lighting of the room, showing that the sith eternal members were surrounded.
"Very Well, Grand Marshall." The colonel bit out, placing her executive key into his outstretched palm. He waved his soldiers on, who were quick to 'escort' the colonel out of the room.
Jackson then moved to the central console and slotted the two keys in, twisting simultaneously. It was certainly an archaic method of security, but one that worked nonetheless.
A flare of alarms were heard as the techs began their work, and the planet began to harvest the energy of the sun to charge the planetary super laser.
"Make contact with the reserve fleet at Jeddha." He ordered, the central holographic display bringing up the aforementioned system.
"Putting them through now sir, Admiral Solace took charge of the movement." A tech reported.
"Solace here." The admiral answered.
"Admiral, a group of rebel fighters is about to enter your system, seeking to escape back to friendly space. Bring forward one of the electronic warfare gozantis and track their hyperspace vector and any long range transmissions the ships make, and try land a tracking device on one too." Jackson ordered.
"Affirmative Admiral, moving up the support vessel. Rebel ships entering now." Came the report.
"When they leave return to Erebus."
"Affirmative."
Jackson awaited the final arrivals of the First Order's chiefs of staff. Deep within the crust of the planet Erebus, the high command sector was practically impenetrable and housed the majority of key infrastructure of which the military relied on.
The blast doors buzzed loudly as the final members were admitted, taking their seats at the long meeting table, which he headed.
"I'm sure you've all read the reports." He began, his tone gravelly, his hair having gained more silver following the events.
"I can confirm that we have lost what is potentially our largest asset, in the form of the star forge, and subsequently the Labyrinth station."
"What appears to be a mostly independent, clandestine branch of the New Republic Navy are responsible for the attack, and thanks to the efforts of Admiral Solace, we are now aware of their base's location."
"In addition to this, the military is now independent of the Supreme Leader, and we are now the de facto ruling party within our regions."
"Following this attack on our Key production facilities, and having been forced into the open by the actions of the Sith Eternal, it is my recommendation that we attack the new Republic." Jackson finished.
There was a murmur of conversation among the chiefs at the revelation.
"Is the weapon ready, sir?" Chase questioned.
"The weapon is currently operational, and charging." He replied.
"We have the numbers and supplies in order to mount this attack, however we will have to prioritise seizing industrial hubs in order to fuel our war effort." General Valdez pitched in.
"Do we have a plan to implement our first strike capability?" Chase asked.
"The complete destruction of the Hosnian system will undoubtedly send the New Republic into utter disarray. Furthermore, we now have the capability to ping all New Republic Navy communications centres, where we can send covert teams to neutralise critical fleet communications." Jackson revealed.
"By both beheading the snake of New Republic and removing their communications infrastructure we would leave them in an incredibly vulnerable state, I support this plan." Chase backed, Di Angelo quick to second.
The other chiefs agreed to the strategy.
"Our main fleet components are being readied as we speak, including reserve fleets and logistical barges." Jackson informed, "In addition, I've also prepared small teams of specialists responsible for destroying the New Republic Communications stations for when we attack."
"Then let us burn the New Republic."
Entering the Jeddha system, Poe immediately saw the three star destroyers ahead of the fighter group, and jinked right to avoid flying head on into the bow of the capital ship.
The ship's turbolasers erupted into a hail of fire, shaking the space around him as the flak shells detonated.
"Let's make it past these Imperials and return to base." Poe called over the radio to the other fighters.
The fighters skimmed along the hull of the destroyer, passing it, before being presented with another Star destroyer attempting to cut them off.
The pilots again weaved as now TIE fighters began to join the fray, the wing leader in an interceptor was quick to lock onto the leading X wing and fire a tracking device at him, peeling away from the pursuit when his console alerted him as to a successful track.
Making it to the jump point, Poe was quick to pull back the lever, sending himself into hyperspace and back towards the rebel base.
Aboard the bridge, Solace waited tersely for the flight leader to report in a successful track, as star fighters buzzed around eachother in space, tracing the imposing hulls of the star destroyers, as New Republic fighters fought for survival whilst plotting their escaping jump vectors to make it back to friendly space.
From one of the command wells, a technician affirmed that a successful tracker had been landed on a New Republic fighter. Internally, Solace sagged in relief as the news was announced, before signalling it to be forwarded to high command.
"Sir, Solace reports both a successful interception of transmissions and a tracking device planted on the lead X-wing."
"Excellent. Place on stormtrooper legions on high readiness, and tell them to begin loading their heavy equipment." Ordered the lower officer.
"Right away sir."
In the centre of the large conference table, a hologram of the galaxy was displayed, a pulsing red blip showed the New Republic fighters travelling in light speed.
The surface of Erebus, covered in a layer of military instillations, was positively teeming with activity. While some of the many star destroyers sat in the few planetary dry docks that cross crossed the surface, hooked into an array of logistical loading systems as they prepared to campaign.
Other formations hovered in low orbit above the surface, their dagger like shadows casting large portions of the planet into darkness as waves of sentinel class landing craft rose from the surface into the hangar bays of the star destroyers.
Within the deeply burrowed hangar systems of Erebus, reserved for secret operations and privy to only few within the First Order, the specialist teams were being made ready.
It had been decided that the teams would each have an arquitens light cruiser, in addition to two gozanti cruisers, the latter carrying a standard fighter compliment, while the arquitens held boarding craft ready.
The commando teams that were loading into the craft were specially trained for such operations, and the large window in the conference room showed the first of the groups begin to ascend out of the deeply burrowed hangar systems.
"We estimate a day before all ships are ready sir." Valdez reported.
"That's within acceptable parameters. But we must be quick as to minimise the time given for the new republic to organise." Jackson replied.
"Have we decided on fleet composition?" Chase asked.
"A standard fleet will be three star destroyers with a few support craft where necessary. Specialised fleets for high ranking officers will be five strong, with the mark four star destroyers as flagships." Jackson explained whilst an array of holographic displays showed the respective ships.
The mark fours were a recent upgrade to their standard mark three star destroyers. They still bore some resemblance to eachother, with both having the bridge sunken into the main super structure, to avoid leaving the neck as a weak point, however we're about thirty percent larger, and each of their admirals had them specially marked with some form of insignia.
They were built specially at the orbital shipyards above Erebus, although production had dramatically slowed following the loss of the star forge, and they were few and far between.
All throughout mapped First Order space, star destroyers huddled together in tense anticipation of the incoming movement orders.
After so many years of build up their time had finally come. Among both the natural born descendants of those that had first arrived within the unknown regions under the empire, and vast numbers of clones made up of the original Jango Fett template, their day had finally come.
The fleets within the Ilum system watched in morbid fascination as the energy of the orbiting sun was drained by the inbuilt planetary super laser, slowly delving the system into darkness.
The battered remnants of the New Republic strike force emerged from hyperspace above their home base's planet.
In orbit, an aging MC-80 awaited them, accompanied by a variety of other craft also dating back to the galactic civil war.
The shadow fleet, which existed purely off the books of the New Republic Navy, had been specially kept in reserve for such a dire time like this. With all ships present having been officially noted down as both decommissioned scrapped.
A downside of this, was an organisational system which would cause any logistical droid to short circuit, something which had been demonstrated when General Syndulla had attempted to power on the aging AP-5.
The hangar had been cleared of personnel, to prevent any potential spies from gaining an insight, and a group of guards awaited the pilots as they touched down, with one quick to begin retrieving Poe's flight recorder as he clambered out.
"Commander Dameron, the generals are waiting."
He was quick to move through the hallways of the ship, his droid, BB-8 close in tow behind him. Arriving in the bridge, both General Organa and Admiral Ackbar awaited. BB-8 was quick to plug into the central holotable.
Throughout the mission the droid had been constantly pinging their scanners to map out the space they travelled through for the debrief.
The Generals and Admiral watched the recording through before commenting. "Our worst fears have been confirmed. There is an element of the empire that still exists. This is more than a rogue warlord."
"Those star destroyers are far from what we recognise in the imperial one or two class, their capability could be disastrous."
"And look at that flagship, it's even bigger than the standard destroyers."
"The first one that was posted by the factory didn't have a fighter compliment though, they could be limited in their star fighter capabilities." Ackbar noted.
"Hard to tell, we had defenders join the fray before that wider fleet, of which did have their own fighters." Poe replied.
"Did you manage to intercept any communications?" Leia asked.
BB-8 chirped in affirmation, before playing one they had recorded, the familiar encryption of rakaatan present.
They applied their decryption cypher and were again presented with a readable imperial transmission.
"Well, they don't know we can read their communications yet, that's give us a pretty big advantage." Poe shrugged.
"To say the least." Leia murmured.
"We cannot expect these Imperials to do nothing after our attack. For all we know a counter attack could be in the making right now." Ackbar urged. "We must take action!"
Leia found herself nodding. "I will call for an emergency meeting with the chancellor and summon the defence committee to the ministry headquarters on Hosnian prime. With any luck, we can convince them that an attack is coming."
"In the meantime, we will need to source all the extra manpower and ships we can get our hands on. I will begin to visit our old black sites to gather reserve equipment and begin activating older reserve ships." Ackbar proposed.
Jackson sat through the juddering of the shuttle as it descended through the rough clouds to land on the dark side of the ancient moon.
The contingent of death troopers stationed at the grandiose doors of the millenia old temple parted as he approached, his old fur cape flapping behind him in a nonexistent wind.
The temple had undergone even further alterations since he had last visited, with more of the highly specialised life support equipment taking up significant space within.
Approaching the throne chamber, Jackson again straightened out his uniform and squared his shoulders, before the doors opened and he stepped through, bowing before the Emperor.
"Jackson, what news do you bring me?"
"Snoke was sloppy, and his cultists were caught out by the New Republic. They were able to launch a preemptive attack against us, and we have lost both the labyrinth station and the star forge." Jackson reported.
The very air around him hummed in displeasure, no doubt in response to The Emperor's own anger at the news.
"Snoke has also taken on his own sect of apprentices, the former pupils of Skywalker."
A noise of curiosity left the Emperor now. "Interesting indeed. Keep me informed of their activities."
"Yes, my Lord"
"Be patient my boy, for we will soon be rid of Snoke, he has near outlived his purpose." Palpatine assured.
AN
Shorter Chapter this time, but i wanted to save the action for next chapter, when it will all start to kick off.
Go and checkout my other fics, I have a couple more Star Wars ones, and PJO ones of their own. I also recently put up the first chapter for a Titanfall x PJO crossover, if that interests you.
Or go and checkout Sol JustanotherPJOfan's Wings of a Republic & its sequel Talons of an Empire.
Stay safe,
Dudueheh