Unknown Regions
4 ABY
In the years following, progress had been frankly astounding. There were now three populated star systems, forming what was now being referred to in the upper echelons as the "Triumvirate."
The first colonized planet, Elysium, was now entering its final stages of being completely enveloped by metropolis. The forming ecumenopolis had exploded in population, and now hosted its own civil government. The other systems that made up the triumvirate, came together to form the wider civil sector government.
Of course, they were still subject to the military command, headed by the newly established Imperial council, overseen by Grand Moff Jackson.
Military infrastructure had seen a dramatic buildup, spurred on following the encounter with the leviathan two years ago.
They were now fully self sufficient, which was finally finished as resources had dried up from the gateway, as the rebellion gained evermore traction.
The reports that were intercepted from the extensive listening operation they had, listed entire rebel battle groups operating in the different galactic sectors.
Now, the final touches to the orbital dry docks were being added, they had copied the industrial super complex that orbited Kuat.
The megastructure circled the equator of Erebus, who's surface was now a maze of barracks, factories and cloning labs.
That had been based from the last shipment of supplies, at the orders of palpatine, and in order to protect the precious cloning assets they had been moved from beyond the reach of the rebellion.
The cloners had been hard at work synthesising the next generation of soldiers for them.
Jackson's boot falls were heavy. The black armoured clones flanked him as he stalked through the hallways of the strategic high command complex, built deep into the crust of Erebus.
The troopers armour was an evolved design of that used by the inquisitorious, made using a harder, yet more lightweight armour compound.
The ray shields in the hallway dropped as the blast doors opened, revealing the imperial council, sat surrounding the table.
Jackson took his seat at the head of the table, silencing the debate.
"Moff Jackson, we must intervene!" An admiral shouted.
"Peace Gallus, the news is a shock to us all, and we must step carefully." Jackson's voice was one of calm.
"If we act now, we can sweep through the rebellions forces!" Admiral Gallus insisted.
"And yet in doing so, expose ourselves to the wider galaxy. With the death of both Lord Vader and Emperor Palpatine, no one in the galaxy knows we are here." Jackson explained.
"Lord Jackson, are you saying we but to hide away like cowards?" General Kryx
"No." Came the grave response. "While the newly constructed dry docks begin construction of our fleet, using our newly developed star destroyer designs, I will lead a task force of ships to secure both Imperial personnel, and high priority infrastructure."
"Our navy is small, what ships do you plan on taking?"
"I will take my flagship, two other star destroyers and five arquitens light cruisers. I will meet other Imperial units in the wider galaxy and recruit them under me." Jackson explained.
"Very well then. This is a good plan of action, best of luck Moff Jackson." The mediating voice of Admiral Edmayne voiced. With that, Jackson rose and strode out, keying information into his datapad.
The shuttle touched down aboard the Voidwalker II, and Jackson descended. The hanger was a mess of supply ships and haulers as the fleet prepared to campaign against the rebel alliance.
It was the only ship to have undergone the upgrade to the Imperial Three class, a much more drastic refit than the difference between the Imperial one and two, the newly designed Imperial three removed one of the critical structural weaknesses of the star destroyer, whilst also reducing its height profile. It took considerable time and resources, however the new class completely removed the neck of the ship, and integrated the bridge superstructure into the main hull itself. It was the specification of star destroyer that would be being built out in the Unknown regions, and in testing had performed far better than the previous iteration of capital ship.
Jackson ducked under a rack of Tie interceptors that was being loaded in the bowels of the ship, and stepped passed a squad of pilots supervising. As a result of shrunken superstructure, the trip to the bridge was considerably shorter.
He arrived to a flurry of activity, the ship had been previously kept mostly a skeleton crew, as the need for combat worthy ships was minimal during the four year period they had been out in the unknown regions.
"Captain Reyna, how long until the fleet is ready to move out?" He asked.
The fleet officer turned from the technician she was speaking to, and saluted him.
"Three standard hours sir, all ships are currently being equipped for campaigning." She reported dutifully.
"Excellent. Have the fleet deploy to the Mustafar system, I've informed navigation as to our route back to the known galaxy."
"Yes sir."
Emerging into real space back within the known galaxy was a bumpy affair. Privately, Jackson wondered if the hull was going to be torn apart at times.
Regardless, they emerged into the Takodana system in one piece. A moment followed before the rest of the fleet dropped into the system.
"Have the fleet check in. Run a scan of the system. Cycle the hyperdrives." Jackson ordered, taking charge.
One by one, the ships in the fleet checked in, as power was diverted to the scanners aboard.
"Sir, no other ships with us in the system." Came the vocal report.
Jackson nodded. "Set course for the mustafar system."
While the navigation crew sought to the task at hand, Jackson stared out at the rest of the fleet accompanying him.
An alarm beeping pulled his attention, before the scanners team called out, "Sir, multiple ships exiting hyperspace!"
Jackson cursed. "Call for battle stations, begin jamming any comms trying to leave the system."
The bridge exploded into activity as the alarm started for battle stations, extra personnel taking up their stations.
Ahead of them, a rebel fleet dropped into the system. A typical mess of ships, the fleet's flagship was an MC-80, flanked by two Nebulon B frigates and accompanied by a half dozen rebel blockade runners, with fighter squadrons spread out in between the formation.
"Sir, enemy flagship is hailing us."
Jackson stopped for a moment, stilling himself and standing straighter.
"Put them through."
The channel emitted static before it cleared up, a result of the jamming.
"Attention Imperial dogs. I am admiral Rexel of the Freedom Fighter, New republic navy. Currently, what remains of Imperial High command is in talks to surrender to the New republic. If you surrender, you will be given amnesty." The lording stopped and Jackson moved to respond.
"Admiral Rexel, this is Grand Moff Jackson, of the empire. We reject your cowardly offer." He responses shortly.
A blood thirsty grin grew across the rebel admiral's face. "Then I will enjoy taking that fancy star destroyer as a trophy, Moff."
The communication was cut from the other end.
"Rebel squadrons moving to attack positions sir!" A deck officer called.
Jackson's presence emitted an aura of calmness. "Open fire, focus on the MC80. Deploy fighters."
The hopelessly outgunned rebel fleet turned to try and attempt a broadside, whilst their fighters and bombers advanced.
They were met by the horde of TIE Interceptors that spilled out from the ventral hangars of the three star destroyers, and moved to engage the rebel ships.
As the rebel fleet turned to fire its broadside, the imperial fleet began its barrage. Immediately, a corvette was hit in the magazine and began to list downwards towards the planet.
As the MC80 began to finalise its turn, it focused his fire on the Voidwalker II, which juddered as its shield took the hits.
"Intensify forward deflectors." Was Jackson's only order.
Under the combined withering barrage of the three star destroyers, the classic heavy mon calamari shielding finally gave out, and the savage turbo laser blasts began tearing into the hull of the capital ship.
"Deploy bombers."
Two bomber wings were promptly ejected, and began their course to the wounded MC80. Any X-wings that attempted to intercept were cut down by the superior numbers of Tie Interceptors.
Looking through the viewport, Jackson spied as a nebulon frigate was split in half by its weak spine, the two parts falling to the atmosphere below.
They were winning.
Decisively.
The intense firepower continued, the fleet now focused on the Mon Cala ship, entire sections now deformed and burning of the ship.
"Sir, the enemy ship is hailing us repeatedly, they may want to surrender." Communications called out.
"Increase firepower. Blow the ship to pieces." Was the cold response.
The hail of fire continued, before a shot from the Voidwalker II struck true, and caused a chain detonation, obliterating the mon cala ship.
A round of cheers went up as the final piece of the rebel fleet was destroyed.
"Tally the fleet and prepare to move out." Jackson ordered once the cheering had subsided. The fleet moved to bear and jumped into hyperspace.
As the fleet emerged into real space in the mustafar system, it was soon obvious they were not alone. Right after settling, a turbolaser shot was fired across the bow.
Jackson quickly had his fleet halt. Before them, lay a single star destroyer, angled at a broadside towards them.
"What on earth?" He muttered to himself, before turning to a comms officer. "Open a channel."
A channel was quickly opened, a black armored individual filling the vidscreen.
"So, you have answered my call." His voice was soft, "Pledge your allegiance to me."
Jackson assessed the person as an inquisitor, before responding.
"My allegiance is to the empire."
The inquisitor growled. "Who are you to defy me."
"I am grand Moff Jackson, nominated custodian of the empire by the emperor himself. Stand down." Jackson replied.
"The emperor is dead. His mandate dies with him." Came the retort.
"The empire lives on. And you swore an oath to it." Jackson answered.
"No!" The inquisitor barked. "I will forge my own empire!"
"It's treason then." Jackson remarked, signalling for his fleet to ready weapons.
"You cannot commit treason to what no longer exists. I-" The pompous lording was cut short, as the vid screen flashed red, before the inquisitor slumped to the floor, steaming hole in his back.
A new figure stepped onto the vid screen. "Captain Solace of the Sunray reporting for duty sir."
"It's been too long captain." Jackson greeted, a rare smile emerging.
"Indeed it has, I've been saddled under the inquisitorious for a year or so." He lamented.
"My condolences. I have orders to destroy the fortress to prevent it falling into rebel hands." Jackson said.
"With pleasure. All navy and army personnel were evacuated by the sixth brother, only inquisitorious forces remain there. They've gone rogue to say the least." Solace reported.
"Do you have the coordinates for the base?"
A moment followed before the Voidwalker II received a new heading, and the fleet settled above the underwater fortress.
The familiar whine of turbo lasers charging was a sound the crew had accustomed themselves to, and it was soon broken by the barrage the fleet of star destroyers opened fire.
Immediately, the part of the base protruding from the water was obliterated, debris tumbling into the ocean.
The fleet continued to bombard the water, the heated plasma boiling the water it impacted.
After twenty minutes of unrelenting bombardment, they had sufficiently superheated the surrounding water of the fortress, and scanners were showing the structure as slowly melting down.
The superheated water not only deformed the main metal structure itself, but greatly reduced its structural stability, allowing the crushing pressure of the water to finish off the underwater installation.
Once satisfied they had wiped out the structure, the fleet returned to orbit. "What is the plan moving forward sir?"
"Our next stop is Fondor to fill up on Tibana gas. After that, Coruscant, to secure the admiralty complex." Jackson explained.
"I will inform my crew." Solace replied, cutting communications as the fleet prepared to jump.
The exit from hyperspace into the Takodana system was seamless, a second ship followed him in.
His astromech warbled behind him, whilst he checked his flight system.
"Yea I know R3, but it's been like that since Hoth so stop worrying." He replied, before radioing his wingman.
"So Tra, you see anything?" He asked.
"Hmm, nothing with my eyes. Scanners are picking up what appears to be a debris field over at point two." She replied.
The two powered their X-wings over to the debris field, switching on their lights to inspect the remains.
"X-wing remains here. Looks like Yellow squadron." Zeb announced.
"I've got Tie Fighter remains here too, some sort of engagement happened."
"You're telling me, I've got a chunk of some ship over here. Let's go checkout the surface, chances are debris has fallen down." Zeb instructed.
The two linked up and powered down to the surface, flying in atmosphere looking for any debris.
"Smoke at point five." Tra said.
"Good spot, let's go." The two banked right and approached the smoke, circling around the source of it.
"Corvette, took a hit to the magazine?" Tra asked.
Zeb grumbled as he came around and touched down near the wreck, shouldering his Bo-rifle he dropped down to the ground. Tra followed him in.
The lasat wrenched open an access door, and the two entered the ship.
Bodies were strewn around, it didn't look like much of a survivable crash, considering about a third of the ship was missing as a result of the hit.
The two prowled through the ship until they reached the bridge. Clearing it, they tried to activate a terminal, only for it to fizzle out.
Zeb sighed. "We're going to have to get the flight recorder."
"Okay where is that?" Tra asked. Zeb just pointed up.
"The projected mantlet?"
Zeb just trudged over and picked up her, lifting her to where she could reach in and pull the thick data drive from the slot.
It came loose with a clunk, and Zeb dropped Tra back to the floor.
"Should get this back to command."
"Can we not look at it?" Tra asked, betraying her status as a rookie.
"Nope. Breach of protocol and their encrypted anyway." Zeb replied.
The two hopped back into their X-wings and headed for orbit. As they approached, a warning alarm went off in their cockpits.
"Ship exiting hyperspace." Zeb called out.
An imperial gozanti entered the system, and clocked them immediately, dropping its compliment of two TIE fighters and two TIE interceptors.
"Set S foils in attack position." Zeb ordered, priming deflectors.
The gozanti fired its light cannon, causing the two new republic ships evasive.
Zeb came around and squeezed the trigger on his flight stick, firing and eliminating one of the fighters.
Looking out right, he could see Tra being tailed by both a fighter and interceptor, green lasers flying all around.
"Tra, bank left and wrap around the gozanti." He ordered, banking to meet her as she passed the big engines of the ship.
Tra blew past him, before the two TIE fighters followed, entering straight into his crosshairs. A quick burst of laser fire saw to the quick detonation of both ships.
Zeb grinned to himself before a hail of green laser fire passed him from behind, his ship juddering as it took a hit. "Karabast." He cursed
He flew evasive as the tie stayed on him.
"Tra where are you?" He questioned angrily.
"Right here! Duh-duh-doo!" She sung her own fan fare as she blasted the remaining interceptor to bits.
"Finally." He muttered. He looked over to see the gozanti jump out of the system. "Right, let's return to the fleet."
Zeb clambered out the cockpit onto the hangar decking of Home one, to an annoyingly familiar warbled laughing.
"Yes chopper. It's very funny my astromech got decapitated by a tie fighter." He replied sardonically as the remains of the droid were lifted out by the technicians.
They placed the droid down in a standing up position, before chopper extended one of his arms and batted it over, leaving it to flop onto the deck.
"Oooh, what happened?" Tra asked, looking over at the husk of the astromech.
"Imps." Was Zeb's grunting reply, to chopper's continued amusement.
"That's what, the third you've gone through?" Tra asked, crouching down and patting chopper's dome.
"Shut it rookie. Let's get that intel to high command." Zeb answered, lumbering out of the hangar.
The two were buzzed into the bridge, where a familiar Twilek was waiting.
"What did you find Zeb?" Hera asked.
"Mostly a debris field general. We found no survivors of the yellow squadron or the auxiliary fleet." He reported. "We did recover a flight log of one of the corvettes."
Rex walked over and grabbed the data drive from Tra, plugging it into the holotable and entering the code to the data.
The display fizzled to life, showing the bridge of the corvette. The ship dropped into the system, and the group saw the imperial fleet that was in the system.
"What are imperial doing in Takodana?" Hera asked aloud.
"I don't like the look of that star destroyer." Rex said.
The group watched the exchange between the two fleet leaders. "Do we have any record of a grand Moff Jackson?" Zeb asked.
Rex frowned. "Not that I know of. I would say he's an admiral who's gone a bit rogue and declared himself grand Moff, but that tricked out star destroyer says otherwise."
"Hmm, agreed." Hera continued. "Logs confirm the ship identity as the Voidwalker II."
"Well what happened to the first Voidwalker?" Tra asked.
"I don't think we've got any intel on a ship of that designation." Rex replied.
"I imagine we will gain some after the raid on Coruscant." Hera said confidently.
"Whoever this Moff Jackson is he was clearly trying to hide himself, a gozanti tried to get us when we were looking at debris." Zeb reported.
"I'll pass this up to the council, they'll want to know about this. Good work you two." Hera bade, saluting the pair of pilots.
BAM
Another one done.
Just as a note, the new star destroyer model is like a bridge between the first order star destroyer and the standard empire one.
Grand Moff Jackson venture back into the known galaxy and meets some of his crew, and is doing some cleaning up of the bad stuff the emperor left lying around.
Decided to use some rebels characters for the little bit at the end, quite happy with how I pulled off the chopper / Zeb interaction.
Do go check out "Sol JustanotherPJOFan" too, he's got some stellar work going on, and a really good beta reader.
Stay safe people.
-duduehehehe