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Phase 5: The Rim Campaign I, Act I

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Part 5

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asteroid belt

Cularin System, Thaere sector

Gravity waves tore asteroids into gravel, shattering weapon emplacements and bases alike. They sheared fighters and bombers into chunks until fuel and ordnance detonated, turning the small craft into funeral pyres.

Wraav survived three such onslaughts, each leaving him more and more battered. His fighter was about to fly apart, yet somehow retained a shred of hull integrity. The same couldn't be said for the fourth makeshift unit he led into a futile attempt to stop the incoming seismic warheads. The enemy had more than enough of those damned things. They could afford to spend Droid Fighters like those things were going out of fashion to escort the strikes.

It was working, too, because Wraav was sure the Confederacy's losses in small craft were around the same as those of his people. That was a catastrophic rate of attrition, considering the utter annihilation of all the fixed defenses and hidden bases located by those suicidal machines.

There was no question about who the better pilots were or which side had better fighters, which was a bitter surprise for the Wookie. He knew that his people were technologically behind the rest of the galaxy due to the long isolation. That was one of the reasons behind their defensive strategy and why no one bothered developing the capacity to build capital ships. Any such vessels would have been woefully obsolete after they returned to contact with the wider galaxy.

The same was true for fighters and small strike vessels. It was just that they weren't supposed to fight in the open against technologically more advanced opponents. Using the asteroid belt as a hiding place and fixed defenses as power multipliers was seen as the only sane strategy until Cularin could update its technological base.

Wraav had better fighters and, arguably, bombers, even if they should have been obsolete because the Confederacy went for cheap, mass-produced droid-controlled machines. He had better pilots, too, due to extensive training and the enemy being cheap. He should have been elated at the revelation.

It was just that it didn't matter. The enemy's strategy was working. They had overwhelming numbers, which they were using with ruthless machine efficiency. Wraav's pilots could take on three or four of the enemy in open combat.

The defenders were facing ten to one odds at best, and the only reason they survived as long as they did was the Droids' single-minded focus on escorting the missiles to their targets.

After losing a third hidden base and fleeing with the few survivors following him, Wraav knew their strategy would surely fall. The only question was, would it be worth it to die to destroy a bunch of Vultures because that was all they would manage to do before the Sithspawned Droids wiped them out and cleared the asteroid belt?

"Commander, they aren't breaking off…" a tired voice pulled Wraav out of his dark thoughts. The Wookie's eyes darted over the scanner screen, and he growled to himself.

Dozens of contacts were still behind them, flying just on the edge of their sensor range.

"They want us to lead them to another base," Wraav thought aloud.

"Does it matter, Commander? They are systematically searching the asteroid field. They have more than enough tin cans to do it, too."

Wraav knew his wingman was right. Otherwise, he would have stood and died at the second base instead of fleeing after its destruction. They could head for another base, rearm, refuel, and get a bit of rest before the enemy reached them. Or they could turn around and die, perhaps buying the installation a few more hours.

The Wing Commander called up a map of the local part of the asteroid field. A chunk of it was painted dark red, with an exclusion zone written across it. That was one of the few remaining ancient Sith installations in the system and the only one in the asteroid belt. All of them were forbidden to enter or approach because bad things happened to all the poor bastards who did so. Whatever the Sith did at those locations, they left them cursed, ready to damn anyone stupid enough to trespass.

The enemy was unlikely to know that. If anything, with a self-proclaimed Sith among them, they might pause to secure such an installation, buying time for the remaining defenders to think of something.

"We have one option to slow down the enemy," Wraav declared. "It will get us all killed, but at least it won't be for nothing. We're going for the Sith fort."

"Commander, are you insane?! That place is cursed!"

"We are all dead anyway," Wraav roared back. "I am not surrendering to a Sith. We all know the old stories and what they're like!"

Subdued grumbles were all the answers Wraav got or needed. He changed course and accelerated, heading straight for the exclusion zone. Predictably, the enemy fighters followed. Most of his makeshift command did so as well. However, a handful of fighters broke off. It went deeper into the asteroid field, heading for the nearest friendly base.

The Vultures accelerated in a way that Wraav's fighters couldn't without blowing out their inertial dampeners and killing their pilots. It was a reckless thing to do within the asteroid field. No one but a Jedi, Sith, or a machine would have the reflexes to pull it off without slamming into an asteroid. At least a few of the devices also failed, and their signatures suddenly blinked out from the sensor screen.

Some Vultures decelerated instead, falling back, likely eager to see how their suicidal friends would die.

Wraav felt an unnatural chill as they came closer and closer to the ancient fort. Here and there, defenses came online, and targeting systems swept over the approaching small craft. Jammers did their best to obscure Wraav's fighters, allowing them to get deeper and deeper within the ancient defense network than they had any right to do.

The Vultures were rapidly overtaking them. They could also detect the active old systems and quickly open fire. The defense network sluggishly responded. Missiles and laser fire lashed back at the Confederate machines. To Wraav's surprise, the defenses didn't engage his flight. He kept going until dark form of the fortress built into a large asteroid came into sight.

"We will move behind it and wait for the enemy to approach in numbers," Wraav ordered. "We will bait them to commit and try to take that death trap!"

The pursuing Vultures died mapping parts of the defense network and noting the presence of a large fortification at its center.

Wraav spent a few more hours stuck in the cockpit of his fighter, shuddering from the constant, impossible chill seeping into his bones. He was sure whispers were coming from that black monolith of a Sith base. The place wasn't just cursed, he decided; it was haunted, too!

To the Wookie's astonishment, the enemy didn't bother sending a massive boarding force escorted by as many fighters as they could spare. Instead, his sensors lit up with new contacts – nearly a thousand Vultures escorting the largest missile strike he had ever seen.

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Part 6

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bridge, Invulnerable, Providence class dreadnought

Cularin System, Thaere sector

Genarius was one of the places the Confederacy knew most about in the system. The reasons for this were many – from corruption to widespread criminal activity and past dealings of Confederacy members. Now that he knew the CIS was built upon a lie, Admiral Trench didn't implicitly trust any of the sources that offered the data available.

The system shouldn't have enough enemy assets to threaten his command, much less the forces deployed. Just like there shouldn't have been a secret Clone Army key Confederation leaders knew of, but didn't tell anyone about. Trench didn't miss how everyone was dancing around the topic of what their leadership knew or planned for until very recently. That by itself was more than enough to have him in a perpetually foul mood.

Trench could imagine throwing the ships gathered here at Kuat or even Coruscant six months ago. He could have won the war before the Republic knew what hit it. The Clone Army would have been a mere annoyance. Simulations from many different Tactical Droids backed the Admiral's belief.

His mouth twitched at those thoughts. Believing himself over that treachery was self-deception, Trench decided. Still, his resentment and anger had no place in his mind when commanding a fleet. Allowing himself to be influenced by such emotions, no matter how justified would lead to mistakes, and in battle, mistakes could be deadly.

One light minute from the planetary system, Trench's Task Group split into five task forces. Three of them were small scouting flotillas meant to escort Vultures to their targets and relay recon data despite enemy jamming. Their targets were Eskaron, Ostfrei and Ulbaska.

The first was a dead moon, eaten out by space worms, which left behind a massive tunnel network that could hide whole fleets. The ships Trench sent there were meant to act as a tripwire and to slow down any enemies that might be hiding there, if any.

Ostfrei, on the other hand, was a moon that died as a consequence of the destruction Oblis, which also created the asteroid belt in the system. Notably, that moon was supposed to have a secret base for the Thaereian Navy. A decade ago, the Republic gave the Thaerians the task of policing Cularin, and more importantly, they were now Confederate members. Trench could be reasonably sure he wouldn't face meaningful opposition today if they could be trusted.

In light of recent events, that was a very big if.

The only exciting thing about Ulbaska was that it was supposed to be an utterly pointless clash over mining rights between local branches of SoroSuub and Naescorcom because the place didn't have enough useful minerals to warrant an actual mining operation.

The fourth task force was built around a core of Lucrehulk battleships and their escorts. Their target was Uffel, and no one knew what they would find there. The place was a manufacturing center operated and run by droids. They had orbital defense platforms, which, a decade ago, were able to take out four pirate ships. What defenses, if any, the machines had on the ground, or how they might react to the system changing hands was anyone's guess.

Most of Trench's ships remained under his direct command. They headed for the gas giant, with its floating cities and industrial facilities. Everyone in charge over there should have been aware of what was happening hours ago. They should have answered his calls for surrender by either doing as instructed or attempting to negotiate.

The lack of central authority in the planetary system made securing it harder. While technically under the aegis of the government on Cularin, corporate interests, and crime syndicates ran the various floating cities and owned most of the industry. To be fair, Cularin itself was strongly influenced by corporate interests. This kind separated from the Trade Federation over a decade ago. If it wasn't for that bad blood and Republic meddling, securing the system might have been possible through diplomacy alone. As things stood, Trench would be the second Confederate force to engage the enemy in Cularin after the ships clearing the asteroid field faced ineffective resistance.

"Admiral, we are receiving transmissions from Edic Bar and Friz Harammel. A CEO from SoroSuub Corporation and a representative of the Metatheran Cartel wish to negotiate," a B1 droid reported.

That was interesting. Technically, the ruling authority of the gas giant was supposed to be a Central Council, where those two would have seats. The cartel representative was arguably more important because the conglomerate they represented allegedly pulled the strings in the system. SoroSuub's presence in Cularin was due to their invitation if Trench properly recalled his research on the political situation.

"Put them up on conference call. I'll speak with both of them," the Admiral decided.

Two more holographic windows appeared, hovering in such a way that the Harch could effortlessly keep a couple of eyes on each other while still focusing on the big picture. The one to the left displayed the image of a youthful-looking human woman, wearing the eyesore that passed for High Core "fashion" these days. The other representative was a short, brown Sullustan sitting in a hovering metal armchair.

Data scrolled by the holographic windows, splaying critical information about the people dragged out of the fleet's data banks.

The woman was Melisa Kay, a troubleshooter for the Metatheran Cartel and one of their highest-ranking members in the system.

The Sullustan was one Bilbo Bribbs, a distant cousin of Beolars Bribbs, the CEO of SoroSuub. He was out here to prove himself, something he was succeeding at due to the quick building and development of the floating city Edic Bar he was in charge of.

As far as Trench knew, SoroSuub was now more powerful than the Sullustan Council. Due to Sullust joining the Confederacy, it was supposed to be clear where their allegiances lay. He should have had the CEO's backing, as a matter of course.

Trench smiled in a way he knew made most species nervous.

"Are you ready to return to the fold and follow the lead of SoroSuub's main branch?" The Admiral asked. "Or should I deem you both useless and treacherous obstacles to be removed?"

The two corporate underlings looked at each other, then back to Trench.

"The Cartel members I represent wish to negotiate, Admiral," Kay spoke first.

The Sullustan gathered himself a moment later. "I represent the interests of SoroSuub as you noted, Admiral Trench," he spoke in his native language, and the translators part of the computers on the bridge immediately translated his words into standard Basic. "I require assurance that your actions won't infringe on our operations and interests in this system."

A few weeks ago, Trench would have been cautious to avoid creating too many enemies within corporate circles. Things were somewhat different now. It was clear to everyone within the Confederacy that these three powers mattered most. For all its power and reach, SoroSuub wasn't even a close contender for a distant fourth place behind the Trade Federation, Techno Union, or the Banking Clans.

Nevertheless, today, he had the time to be diplomatic.

"Securing all industrial assets within the Genarius planetary system is my task in the ongoing operation. Either that or the destruction of any hostile presence," Trench patiently explained and kept smiling. "My forces will be taking the role of protecting all SoroSuub installations to ensure their continued security and service for the duration of the war. Afterward, security and operational control would fully revert to the appropriate SoroSuub affiliates. Anything but full cooperation can be deemed treason."

The Sullustan spluttered at that. Trench ignored him and looked at the human.

"Elaborate, Representative Kay. Which cartel members do you represent, and what assets within this system do they control?" the Harch inquired.

"I represent the Cartel's economic interests on Genarius and certain board members who can influence events on Cularin."

That could be useful, Trench noted. "I would like to hear more, Representative."

Meanwhile, six of the Harch's many eyes focused on the Sullustan, awaiting his reaction.