The engines of the shuttle juddered as they descended through the giant ash cloud that hung over Porsa. The once green and vibrant planet and city, was now a depressing grey hue.
Flying down past the hovering Sunray, the shuttle set down in the city central star port, where Fleet Admiral Jackson disembarked.
Nodding a greeting to the waiting squad, he strode over, newly donned black cape flowing behind him.
The journey was silent, and only took ten minutes. It gave him the opportunity to ponder how that the first time he was stepping foot in the planet was to assess the damage of an hour long orbital bombardment laid down by an imperial battle group.
The air got thicker with ash the closer they got to the impact site. It had been officially cordoned off by the legion, and there were roving patrols around the perimeter to ensure no trespassers.
Arriving at the checkpoint, he was quickly waved through. Through the fog of ash, probe droids surveyed the debris, with cargo walkers using their equipment to move the rubble.
Not one building stood, the entire district had been flattened by the sheer power of the imperial navy.
The captain in charge approached, saluting him.
"Fleet Admiral, we recovered this from the body of the senator." He said, handing over a blade hilt. Jackson took it, and studied it for a moment.
It was a very ancient design, primitive even. Nonetheless, it was expertly crafted and detailed. Thumbing the igniter, a flat purple blade ignited. Giving it a small wave around, confirmed it was indeed a lightsaber.
"Excellent find trooper. Was there anything else?"
"No sir."
Nodding, Jackson turned on his heel and began walking back to the speeder. The new clearing within the city was an excellent opportunity for a fully fledged imperial installation, he made a note on his data pad to notify the admiralty.
His next stop was the administrative quarter, which had been used as their planet side base of operations. Walking back to the waiting speeder, he hopped in.
It set off a moment later, moving steadily through the Main Street. Active resistance had been near nothing since the attack, and it was hoped that the insurgents had gone back underground following the devastation.
Unfortunately the route taken towards the ground base took them through a shanty part of town, with dirt roads and bustling market stalls.
As per usual, the long over cloaks were being worn, making it incredibly hard to profile any would be attackers. It was incredibly dangerous for him to be riding in an open top speeder, and as such he was currently wearing an officer's armour chest piece.
He tapped his driver and signaled them to stop. Hopping out, he approached a stall that had garnered his attention. It was draped in animal pelts and skulls.
"What can you tell me about these pelts?" He asked,
The vendor, an old, greyed human, grumbled before speaking. "That pelt with the spikes on is the old Maynari spined wolf." He reached under the desk, "And this 'ere it's skull."
Impressed, Jackson dumped a large stack of credits on the booth, whilst the vendor wrapped both items. As he went to take a step back, a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder and spun him.
He saw a flash of silver and ducked. The knife flew over his head and Jackson spear tackled his attackers, sending him sprawling.
All around him, cloaks were shed and blasters drawn. Most concerningly, he could spot commando droids within the crowd.
The escort squad immediately returned fire, both sides taking casualties. Climbing upwards, he withdrew the purple lightsaber he had taken, and swung it down onto the knife attacker.
They tried to raise their arm to stop the blade, but said limb was only detached whilst the blade arced downward towards him, killing him instantly.
All around him, a viscous urban battle was being fought. Turning, he ran another insurgent through, before grabbing his rifle.
A team of commando droids leaped up to the roof and started firing, picking off stormtroopers.
Overheard, three gunships roared over, each setting down at different points and opening their doors, dropping a squad of troopers each. Following the new arrival, the battle intensified rapidly as insurgents deployed the more simple B-1 battle droid from all over.
Realizing a losing situation when he saw one Jackson ducked out towards one of the gunships. He climbed in just as it began to lift off, and ordered it to return to the garrison headquarters.
The gunship touched down as others lifted off to aid in the fight. Anger simmered within Jackson. These rebels were too cocky in their plans.
His communicator beeped. Sighing angrily, he answered. "Yes?"
"Fleet admiral, a number of insurgent ships have just left the system." The voice squawked.
"what ships were they and when." He demanded.
"Three rebellion X-wing fighters and eight sheathipede shuttles sir. They left the system minutes ago. We have captured one of the shuttles with crew alive."
Jackson pieced the timeline together. The ships had fled whilst he was being attacked, which meant this entire operation was planned.
The low drone of imperial gunships was a sound that Jackson had heard so much he had gone practically deaf to it.
Inside the troop compartment with him was Hark and a squad of troopers, with two other filled gunships flying in tandem.
Ahead of them, lay the unground complex. The once flat and earth covered ground had been cut open by ground doors opening, leaving scarring openings across the clearing.
The gunships circled as they awaited orders. "Get us down, we will split up to investigate the facility." Jackson ordered the pilot.
They slowed to a stop and began the descent into the underground hangers.
The accompanying troopers clicked their torches on and the imperial task force began to scour the facility.
Compared with what he had seen over the video footage of Hark's raid, the facility was now abandoned. The racks of battle droids had been emptied and now lay empty, their mechanical wards location unknown.
The examination was slow and laborious, but eventually they had the facility checked from top to bottom. As the preliminary scans suggested, it did indeed run for many miles underground.
From what Perseus could deduce, this was meant to act as a separatist fallout base, stocked with enough provisions and necessary facilities to redouble their war efforts.
Of course, since the collapse of the Confederacy and the rise of the empire, such a facility was unlikely to have been well documented and was likely lost in the transition period. Though it begged the question, what good were all these ground components without an accompanying fleet?
The insurgents had done an excellent job of covering their tracks, with the base generator having been scorched, alongside all of the computers in the central command center having been melted and exploded.
Jackson sighed realising the trip had been a waste of time. "Captain, have your men place the charges." He began the walk up to the gunships that had borough them here.
His next move would be to interrogate the captured insurgents to figure out where they were going, and what they had planned.
Seven escaped shuttles were almost certainly enough to transport an insurgency off-world, but their destination was so far unknown.
"Fleet Admiral, I've taken the liberty of interrogating the prisoners." The voice of agent Nightshade greeted him as he stepped onto the bridge.
"Saves me a job, what have you learnt?" Jackson asked.
"The shuttle was encoded with coordinates that appear to take it wild space." She replied, analysing her data pad.
"Where did they draw the coordinates from?" Jackson asked, looking at his own data pad.
"They claim it was from the central computer, but that they know nothing else." Nightshade answered back.
"Airlock them then, it's too much paperwork to have them sent to a prison." Jackson ordered, before striding away from the holotable to the command deck.
"Fleet ops, prepare the fleet to move out, station the Sunray to stay behind. Navigation, move the rest of fleet to these coordinates."
The bridge was again a bustle as they prepared to move four star destroyers into hyperspace.
Jackson could spy Solace's ship on its way back to orbit as his own ships came to bear, prepping for their jump to light speed.
"Fleet is reporting ready status sir."
"Make the jump."
As the fleet hurtled into light speed, Jackson was preparing his engagement plan, he was fully expecting a small former separatist fleet to be waiting.
He returned to the command deck as he prepared himself for a fight.
Dropping out of Hyperspace, Jackson did not know what to expect, aside from that there was to be something former separatist there.
What he did not expect, was to exit into a system centered by a black hole, with a large separatist fleet near the event horizon, docked onto a large space station.
"Sound battle stations, power the weapons and shields, starfighters on standby." Jacksons voice was clinical and calm.
The battle station alarms sounded, and all over the ship became a flurry of activity.
"Enemy ships are hailing us sir." The Communications officer announced.
"Put them through." Jackson replied, the vidscreen infront of him burst to life as he straightened his navy grey uniform.
"I am Karkos, of Maynar. Leave Imperial Dog."
Jackson regarded to speaker with a flat, unimpressed look.
"I am acting governer of the Maynar system, Fleet Admiral Jackson. Power down your ships and surrender." Jackson ordered.
"Prepare to die Imperial." Came the solitary response as the transmission cut.
"Enemy ships are departing from the station and taking up battle positions. Four munificent class frigates and a providence class dreadnaught. Scans indicate a full droid crew compliment. And increased power to their engines." A deckhand called.
"Could it be possible such thrust is needed to keep them idled on the event horizon?" The voice of captain Chase came through the comm.
"Possibly. If so, then its likely they cannot deploy their star fighter compliment." Agreed the voice of captain Zhang.
"Either way, separatist ships are completely outgunned by our own, why worry?" Nakamura's voice.
"Agreed, we can determine whether are theories are founded during the fight." Jackson finalized. "All ships open fire."
The space between the rival fleets light up with green and red turbolasers as the insurgent fleet fired in return.
"Enemy ships are deploying fighters sir, standard CIS vulture droids." Fighter command called out.
"Deploy TIE elements on defensive manoeuvres, stay far from the black hole." Jackson countered.
The fight raged on in uncharted space. Eventually, one of the munificent's shields buckled, and was gutted by imperial fire as the Retribution laid its firepower upon it.
"Target the next ship's engines, let us test our theory." Jackson ordered.
The next ship to follow was on the opposite end of the enemy formation, and had its engine block decimated. Immediately the ship was pulled towards the centre of the vortex.
"Excellent observation captain Chase, all ships target enemy engines." As Jackson gave the order, the wave of enemy fighters arrived, engaging with the standard imperial TIEs.
The fighters were evenly matched, though the imperial losses would be longer lasting, as pilots had to be trained.
"Enemy fleet is advancing sir."
"Fleet ops, split formation, prepare all ships for broadside. Maximum firepower." Jackson ordered.
The insurgent charge was both a desperate last act and an attempt to escape the pull of the black hole.
The enemy flagship was charging towards his own, clearly aiming for a final showdown.
"Target the enemy bridge, let us get this over with."
The mighty star destroyer shuddered as the shields of both the Wolf's Head and the enemy flagship passed through each other, both ships now within the zone of no protection and maximum damage.
Both ships shook under the pressure of exchange of barrages, but the superior armour and armaments of the Imperial Star Destroyer allowed it stand firm under the broadside of the outdated separatist flagship.
Midway through the withering exchange of close range fire, the command bridge of the providence class detonated after a direct hit by an imperial turbolaser.
With the head of the snake removed, the ship fell to a stop and its guns began firing erratically. Bringing the ship around, Jackson unleashed the firepower of the other side of his ship, the impacts breaking the enemy ship apart.
The other ships in the insurgent fleet, the remaining munificent frigates, had been decimated under their own broadsides, with the most damage sustained being that on the Leviathan under captain Zhang.
Overall, the ninth fleet had suffered minor losses during an engagement with what would be reported as a heavily armed separatist holdout.
The blue hologram lit up the room as Jackson activated the transmission to naval high command.
"Lord Vader?" He questioned, not expecting his call to be answered by the dark enforcer.
"Fleet admiral Jackson, the Emperor has new orders for you." The cyborg ordained.
"I live to serve my Lord." Jackson replied dutifully.
"The Emperor was most impressed with your findings, and believes you to be the most suitable candidate for a secret project of his, following the presumed death of grand admiral Thrawn."
"Project sir?" Jackson questioned.
"The Emperor is most interested in exploration into the unknown regions and wild space. He believe the system you are in to be critical to this effort." Vader explained.
"The abandoned station in the system holds necessary technology to stabilise the epicentre of the black hole, and allow the travel through the created wormhole."
Jackson nodded along whilst making notes.
"Effective immediately, you are no longer in command of the ninth fleet, or hold the rank of Fleet admiral. As necessary, you may select your replacement from your present officers."
"Captain Chase." Jackson answered.
"Very well. In order for to best command this extensive project, you have been granted the rank of Grand Moff. You will soon receive the brief of the project, and the extensive list of available assets at your command."
"My thanks, Lord Vader."
"Direct your thanks to the Emperor, for it was he who selected you for this project. He sees great promise in you, Jackson. You would do well to not disappoint him."
AN: Shorter chapter as I was looking to wrap things up in the Maynar arc and I was looking to push this chapter forward.
I'm continuing to write along for this story and toy around with future ideas, but in my own true fashion I cannot be bothered to story board or write anything proper down.
Along side, I'm also toying around with other OC centric SW stories, but have committed nothing to writing yet.
Anyways, Stay safe
-Dudududhehe