[19 BBY]

[Executive Security Solutions City-ship/Capital-class Warship Stormcrow {II}, Task-force Blotus, Battlegroup Army of Light, Edge of Arami System, Galov Sector, Outer Rim Territories]

My fingers drummed over the metal edge of the tactical plot for a moment, my mind moving through my next move. I was pretty sure two of the holograms before me on the plot were what would become, or would have become, Imperial Star Destroyers in a possible future. Which mean several bad things, in the larger scale that Darth Sidious was apparently less and less concerned about secrecy in his efforts to get rid of little old me. In the immediate terms it added the firepower of two heavy, very modern, warships to what was already a reasonably dangerous pirate/bounty-hunter fleet.

My staff counted two...perhaps three...bands, excluding the dual Star Destroyer surprise, judging from the way the forces advancing on us were clumped together. One cluster was around an aging Invincible-class Dreadnaught, while another cluster was around, according to our computer data-bases, a truly ancient Valor-class cruiser. Between the muster of starfighters, patrol boats, and frigates, out there they'd brought more enough to overwhelm what I'd officially brought with me. Truth be told, it right now with those two Star Destroyers it certainly outgunned my task-force, and if I screwed up defeat and disaster was very likely.

"Gozanti's have dropped their cargo pods, and formed up. Fleet in position Captain-General"

"Excellent Gardan, orders to Captain Yulen Darksails have his squadron ready schiltron pods, we're going to thin out those fighter numbers in but a moment. Seems like it's time to spend some credits" I replied as my 'Command Staff', now including Ventress in an actual Republic Aegis Guard uniform, formed up around me, and I ignored the calls of a Jedi Master locked up in Quarantine. Right now my task-force was continuing a slow burn towards the gravity well out of the system towards Gamor or a dozen related systems, and the hunters forward screen was racing to engage. We were skimming the systems outermost worlds and asteroid belt, and should making jump tactics suicidal for now.

'Hmm...let's see what we can do to thin the herd' I thought looking at the approach vectors of the attackers and our own advance towards the best exit points. They'd definitely catch us even if we went full burn, but the larger capitals were going to join the fight after, rather than with, their screen. My gauntleted fingers tapped our glowing blue icons, then pulled them off in the direction of the smaller gas giant in the system and beyond that another exit from the gravity wells of the system "The Task-force is to increase speed by ten percent on this track, maintain formation and prepare for sudden course corrections. Prepare for Black Out on enemy comms on my order"

"Running?" Ventress almost seemed surprised, and I shook my head, my eyes glued to the displays.

"Far from it, I want to see what speed these..." I tapped at the icons of the Star Destroyers, and then at the two other enemy heavies "...heavies of theirs have. Ideally I want to draw away their escorts and starfighters before I drop the hammer on them, and this is as close to the furthest distance we can get between us and those heavies while looking like we're trying to run their blockade"

The Invincible for instance was known to be pretty poor in terms of handling small, fast, attack craft, and I had no idea how well refitted, and maintained, that Valor was. We had had one in our fleet, and it was in decent condition by modern combat standards after a full refit;- though that was hopefully unlikely for an Outer Rim pirate warband. One could hope so at least, as while I had four 'heavies' to their four, the Venator Troubadour didn't have half the turbolaser batteries one of those Star Destroyers appeared to have, and my Revenants were powerful, well shielded, but lacked sufficient armour even with our refits. Probably why the Confederates insisted on calling what were really cruisers, frigates.

My Stormcrow was a true capital in terms of shielding and armour belt, in size alone dwarfing any of other other ships present, but our weaponary was 'heavy cruiser' range in firepower terms as we were a Command Ship rather than a Battleship. Still, that and a hefty investment in missiles, light-turbolaser, and few railguns, gave us a superior engagement zone with smaller craft as I ordered all the emergency engines and power plants brought on line. Shielding and defector arrays gained a major boost, as did the activation of the more energy intensive parts of the droid-computer targeting and analysis assistance systems I normally kept off outside major engagements.

For now though I had us restrict our interference with enemy sensors to a minimum, though cranking up our own to the maximum allowable, energy readings likely spiking. As the seconds passed by, and our course change became apparent even at half our available engine power, I watched as a large host of the enemy star-fighters and patrol boats, with a corvette or two mixed in, raced after us; splitting into two groups to vector in on separate approaches around the planet to box us in. Behind them the heavies were moving forward, but not a great speed despite some acceleration in an effort to maintain formation.

I nodded "Okay, let's play the wounded Bantha then...Gardan signal to the task-force we're going to slow, then drop our acceleration by...forty percent. Delay about twenty seconds, then order the task-force to reform formation around us once again at the lower speeds. Have the Spectral Knight and Watchful Wraith to have their Vulture droids prepped to launch on a moment's notice"

"By your order Captain-General" he replied, and the display showed the following of those orders even if there was no sign within the ship of the sudden deceleration between our ships size, advanced grav-systems, and how deep we were within the vessel's heart.

"You think they'll buy it?"

I motioned my hand back and forth to Ventress as the formation on the screen readjusted to our sudden drop out of it, then reforming around us at the lower speed "Maybe, maybe not, it's worth a try with the initial wave, and we'll know in about...two minutes, twenty-four seconds"

Engaging a Battle Meditation was a, dangerous, possibility right now of things went wrong, and I willed myself to calm as the seconds ticked by, icons moving in the formless void, cameras tracking them. Ancient memories stirred as I drew on them; definitely some breed of Star Destroyers, even if they were nothing like Vader's Executor the two ships beyond the charging star-fighters were very familiar to Palpatine's Empire. Likely some variant of the new Victory warships we'd been hearing rumours of since the disaster at Kuat Yards I expected, though we hadn't seen any in use yet on the front-lines.

Before me I saw the larger of the two starfighter swarms charge towards us as we hit one minute by tracking system estimate, and now was the time to trigger stage two. Orders flowed, ships turned, flipped in certain cases, for twenty seconds, before engines engaged at double our previous speed – straight into towards the 'chaser' group of enemies. There were just under two hundred enemy fighters, of numerous variants, and their 'formation' was ragged at best, disorganised at worst, and it seemed they weren't ready for our ships and deployed TIEs to turn and charge right into them.

Comm-jammers, powered by power-plants where apartment complexes had once been on the city-ship, engaged and interdicted the pirate and bounty hunter channels; instead filling them with a loud, wailing, shriek that disorientated certain species. Anti-starfighter turbolasers and the schiltron missile pods engaged in a familiar slaughter. In the end this was the part of war we'd honed our skills on, even before the Clone Wars, and engaging multiple battles with Confederate droid-fighter squads had made us damned good at it. The pirate 'swam' died, and died hard as their sensors and comms were blinded, and the Stormcrow's large quantity of quality AA was brought to bear.

Two hundred became a hundred, became a few dozen as I ordered speed drops and direction changes to shift us to circle around back towards the second 'swarm' that had been intended as the hammer to the dying clusters anvil. My TIE's descended upon the surviving enemy fighters as my ships again brought their power to bear on them in passing. We had to kill as many as we could before those now desperately accelerating warships arrived, and my 'heavies' reduced those corvettes and frigates that had come to delay us to debris in a rather brutal three minutes.

Not that we were without losses, an Arquitens beings destroyed by a crashing bomber, one of the Hammerheads taking heavy damage to its engines, a few losses amongst my TIE squadrons. Still it certainly had thinned the herd, and the survivors were fleeing the system in about the same numbers as trying to get back behind the approaching fleet. I motioned, giving orders, and droid-fighters surged from their carrier-cruisers, ion cannons and turbolasers coming to bear on the crude enemy formation. Stormcrow directed the fire, focusing our barrage on individual enemy ships in a coordinated manner.

"Kriff" I heard Gardan mutter, and I nodded concerned and angered, watching as one of my Revenants, the Watchful Wraith's shields failed under the furious barrage of the two Star Destroyers. My droid fighters and bombers were effectively swarming the Invincible and the Valor now they were shorn of the star-figher support. Even now the pirates were coming apart, but the two Star Destoyers were charging forward relentlessly, gunning for my flagship it seemed. What was more problematic was they actually had decent anti-starfighter systems, though not enough to keep off my bombers.

I nodded, ok then "Fine, they want us? Reinforce forward shields and barrier arrays; we can take this level of firepower from them...for a time at least. Focus all Ion Canons and Torpedoes on those two, I want those ships dead gentlebeings"

I'd made a mistake engaging them in a direct fleet action after the success against the starfighters, one that was costing me ships and crews as another escort, a Gozanti, died even as the pirate fleet broke apart. Thankfully the two 'secret weapons' on the enemy side was making a mistake in focusing on my ship. I nodded as the Stormcrow's multiple shield barriers and thickened armour belt shrugged off the heavy turbolasers and ion canons, while the defensive batteries took out missiles launched. Now the Troubadour was getting underneath the enemy duo, which had that weird less armament thing like the Venators, as I 'won' the fleet action. My eyes widened...

"Engage full burn frontal thrusters! Reverse us! All units concentrate fire on that starship!" I ordered quickly feeling the discilplined and focused beacons of calm amongst the sea of terror and panic that was the enemy fleet. One of the two Star Destroyers had gone inactive moments ago, and I now watched as it detonated in a pyrotechnic display of destruction as someone triggered a self-destruct. Despite the sight my focus was on the survivor, which now engaged its engines at what must be full power to try close the distance between us in some kind of kamikaze...

But...it was too slow, and too far, and my reaction likely unnecessary as it died under the now combined firepower of my task-force as the remaining pirates used the distraction to flee the battlefield. Or, more accurately, the Star Destroyer was battered into submission like its twin and, just like its twin, self-destructed when the situation became hopeless. That was less pleasant that it should be as debris caused major damage to my Venator,The Troubadour, and killed a dozen of my star-fighters and droid-fighters that had been too closely targeting it.

My hands rested on the tactical display as I surveyed the damage, then nodded to myself "Order recovery of all our survivors and begin emergency repairs. We'll recover the cargo-pods we dropped earlier if we've time, but I need us ready to move as soon as possible, and inform the damaged ships we won't be stopping at Rothana, so I if they can't make Ryloth at least we'll scuttle. Gardan pull up charts for reaching Eriadu as swiftly as we can from here, get me Eluw'niri, a secure holo-link, and then one afterwards to forces at Rothana. Within the hour I might add..."

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