Tigellinus folded his hands behind his back.
"All right, summarize the situation for me," he said. "We're nearly there, now tell me who we're fighting."
"Information is sparse, Grand Admiral," his intelligence wonk said, apologetically. "According to the data burst we got from our informant, the shipyards on Cheres IV have been abnormally active for the last six months."
"...and this concerns us?" the Grand Admiral asked.
"It does, Sir," the intelligence officer replied… whatever his name was. Hernas, perhaps?
"While Cheres IV is primarily known as a freighter yard, they were involved in warship construction during the Clone Wars, and none of their manufacturing systems have been replaced. They have the smelters able to handle high powered weapons and the volume to produce capital ships."
"A capital ship yard that we didn't monitor?" Tignellius asked. "Who is supposed to be in charge of this Oversector, anyway? This is a clear and direct failure by someone. Make a note."
"Yes, Admiral," an aide said, tapping away at a datapad.
"As for this yard, hmm…" Tignellius frowned. "Why wasn't it being monitored?"
"Every shipyard in the Empire could produce capital ships," the intelligence officer pointed out. "Cheres IV is somewhat higher capacity than others, but it's shown no hint of involvement until now. What actually raised my concern is not so much the report of high activity but that it's dissonant with the other, pre-existing reports which were being sent by the management. Somebody is lying to us."
He flicked to a new page. "According to our best estimates, the maximum possible construction volume they could have completed roughly amounts to a single Star Destroyer of the Imperial class, plus escorting cruisers in proportion. Rebel assets that could have been deployed to defend the yards might amount to as many as two of their capital ships, their Star Destroyer equivalents. Again, escorts in proportion."
Tigellinus frowned, then nodded.
"It's fortunate we have ten Star Destroyers in the core of our fleet, isn't it?" he asked. "Still, we'd best not be too hasty… order to the fleet, all ships are to deploy their full complement of fighters as soon as we drop out of hyperspace. They are to form a screen; if the enemy launches a fighter strike, send out a combined interception force anchored on the Carracks to blunt it. I won't take losses against a clearly inferior foe. We'll offer them one chance to surrender to preserve the docks, then I'll destroy whatever is there with turbolasers. Stormtroopers will convince the Cheresi board of directors of their folly."
The ops personnel copied that down, converting it into orders, and Tigellinus looked up at the main viewscreen.
Not long now. And he'd show the rebel scum what the might of the Empire could do.
Starlines formed, then condensed into stars, and Tigellinus looked at the tactical display.
The whole formation was neat and ordered around his flagship, Praetor, and he allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.
"Report," he snapped. "Get me targets!"
"Scanning now, Admiral!" someone called back. "Dropping the images on the plot!"
Markers appeared, and Tigellinus frowned – then relaxed.
A dozen fighters were out on a clear combat patrol, and even as he watched they reacted to his presence. There'd be more launching soon, but he could only see four of the Rebel light carriers – not enough to be a serious threat, not against the hundreds of TIEs his own force was sending into space, obedient to his orders and shaking out into combat formation.
But, more importantly, there were only two enemy heavy capital ships – not three. Both were consistent with Mon Cal designs, the damp aliens, though there were more light ships than he'd have expected.
"Have the Rebels really been building light ships here?" he asked, out loud. "Or have they been sending off what they build as soon as it's complete… status on the Denier?"
"Interdiction cone coming online in sixty," someone told him.
That, at least, was acceptable. He might lose the enemy cruisers, but the Mon Cal ships would be trapped before they could jump out and that was worth the entire trip.
"Admiral," the intelligence officer said, appearing at his side. "I've been running the data streams, and there's something wrong about the enemy combatants."
"Then tell me what it is, Hernas," Tigellinus said, shaking his head with a sigh. "Don't play riddles with me. What are we facing?"
More fighters were appearing on the screen, and half his attention was on the body language of the two forces… would the Rebels try and launch a strike on Denier, hiding behind the body of his fleet? Run now with everything that could jump? Or try desperately to save the two Mon Cal Star Cruisers, opening themselves up to complete destruction?
"The cruisers don't match anything that we recognize, but there's at least a hundred of them," Hernas said. "All built to the same design. And the Mon Cal cruisers have a different profile, it's distorted along the dorsal and ventral lines."
The big ships in question were neither turning to run nor turning to close the range, Tigellinus noted – or, at least, not by much. Instead they'd turned to fly left-to-right along his formation's front. And the lighter cruisers were forming up into a clearly planned formation, with the Rebel fighters behind them on patrol.
What was going on?
"We're in range of the cruisers, sir," an ops officer said. "The Mon Cal ships are behind the enemy cruiser line, still."
"Open fire on the cruisers," Tigellinus replied. "Order the right wing to be ready to pursue those Star Cruisers – along with Denier. I want those prizes."
"Yes, sir," the ops officer replied, and the heavy turbolasers either side of his flagship's main bridge turned, elevated – then fired. Nine other Star Destroyers fired in unison, spitting nearly a hundred and sixty coherent bolts of light out at the enemy cruiser line.
And about five hundred came back.
First Action, in the formation to the left of Praetor, staggered visibly as her shields took an intense hammer blow. Three of the enemy cruisers had taken multiple hits, one of them exploding as it was flattened in a single blow, but they were small targets and First Action was a massive target… one which had just taken so much concentrated energy that the shield systems were unable to fully contain it.
"What the kriff was that?" Tigellinus demanded.
"The cruisers!" Hernas warned. "Sir – they're built around capital ship turrets!"
Turrets.
Turrets.
The produce of the damn shipyards hadn't been sent away at all. It was right here. The heavy turbolaser turrets of an Imperial-class were a tiny fraction of the total volume, and the metal it took to build a single Star Destroyer could build hundreds of heavy turrets instead of the eight actually fitted to ships like his flagship.
First Action got hit by a second hammerblow of energy, crackling before a series of internal explosions began, and a moment later a priority alert came in from Interrex on the right wing of the formation.
The two Mon Cal Star Cruisers had been heavily refitted, Tigellinus realized in a sudden flash of insight. Their dorsal and ventral lines were nothing but turrets, with at least six times the heavy gun complement of a Star Destroyer – each – and that was if they hadn't had heavy turrets added to the port and starboard sides, as well.
The Star Cruisers had his fleet outgunned. The enemy light cruisers, separately, had his fleet outgunned.
"Get us out of here!" he snapped. "Tell Denier to shut down her gravity well projectors!"
"They've only just come up, sir!" Hernas pointed out. "It's going to take several minutes to-"
The entire ship rocked, as Rebel heavy turret fire marched down the formation, and Tignellius regretted his life choices.
Briefly.
AN:
Inspired by the consideration that, really, a Star Destroyer's main battery is almost invisibly small in comparison to the size of the ship.
Note – I'm aware of the arguments that the ISD design is more sensible, but I'm choosing to assume that they basically built giant multi-purpose population-control ships that are just not very good at direct line combat. A Hapan Battle Dragon is a significantly better design for line combat because it is optimized for it, for example…