Star Wars The Other Side of Eternity

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
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Update on the rewritten next chapter, it's fully plotted out however due to not having access to my home computer and Google Docs being a bear to work with on this craptactular chromebook will be delayed until after the 22nd of November.
 
Chapter Four

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
The Other Side of Eternity
Chapter Four


Bridge – HIMS Impetuous
Zaloriis System
- Now

The Vindicator class light cruiser Tyrant's Bane and the Nebulon-B class frigate Jasper had arrived during the 'night' watch, joining the lightly damaged Impetuous as she lingered near the battle site and the detected hyperspace anomaly. The small flotilla was mostly engaged in cleaning up the aftermath of the battle with the Rebel task force, with salvage shuttles moving amongst the debris field pinpointing still active systems either for salvage or for destruction by the patrols of roving X-Wings.

"What is the status from Sector Command?" Captain Nalla inquired of the duty communications officer as she strode through the communications section on her way to the bridge.

"Admiral Onasi is en route and expected to arrive in several hours, Ma'am. A science team is being dispatched as well and is expected to arrive in the next two to three days depending on transport availability, Ma'am." came the report from the young twi'lek ensign manning the communications station. "The dispatch stated that Admiral Onasi is currently in command of the 93rd Strike Task Force, I have downloaded the data for your review."

Nalla smiled slightly at the slightly over-eager young officer and nodded. "Very well, Ensign, carry on." she said genially before passing onto the bridge itself.

"Status?" she inquired immediately, not even giving the duty officer the chance to make the ritual 'captain on deck' call she cordially detested.

Commander Llor, long accustomed to his CO's eccentricities in that regard contented himself with a slightly raised eyebrow in silent commentary on her refusal to bow to that ancient tradition, but answered crisply. "Salvage operations are on schedule, nothing significant to report. Tyrant's Bane and Jasper arrived on schedule and are providing close-in support to operations. There have been no further unscheduled in-system arrivals, the planetary defense force is engaged in heightened patrols of near-space and report nothing out of the ordinary. Astrogation shows no changes in the anomaly according to their scans, all data is being transmitted back to Sector Command for further analysis." a slight pause as the diminutive officer shifted mental gears slightly. "Lt Hido reports that apart from the unusual reactions of Lt Liskin and the twi'lek prisoner now..." a sardonic pause and slight smirk "positively identified as one Captain Alani Liskin of the 'independent' vessel Firebird to each other the currently detained crew of the derelict have been rather confused at the makeup of our crew but not actually hostile. Lt Hido informed me that he would have a complete report for you within the hour on the initial interviews."

"So that ship has been identified as the Firebird, just not the Firebird we were expecting? And we now have two Liskin's on board?" Nalla asked, eyebrow climbing rapidly towards her hairline.

"More or less, Ma'am, Hido is still trying to make sense of what is going on, but it is looking stranger and stranger the more we learn." Llor replied. "He promised a full report, as I said, he's currently compiling everything together. Both Liskin's are currently under heavy sedation in sickbay as that appears to be the only means of keeping them from screaming obscenities at each other even if they aren't in the same compartment."

"Very well." Nalla began, only to be cut off by a call from the crew pit.

"Status change on the anomaly, ma'am, detecting a Cronau radiation buildup at..." the report was cut off suddenly as a flash of energy erupted from the center of the anomalous region, and a pair of Imperial-II class Star Destroyers erupted into existence in an oddly chaotic flash of energy.

"General quarters, clear for action." Nalla snapped, followed moments later by the armored panels snapping shut and the holographic displays activating once more. The Battle Stations klaxon sounded in the background as the ship cleared for action.

"Transmit IFF challenges to the newcomers, classify as Raid One." she continued, even as the bridge crew smoothly went about bringing the mighty cruiser to full battle readiness.

"No response, Ma'am. Status change, contacts are launching unidentified snubfighters, profile consistent with data from the derelict." came the report, as the contact icons on the display flashed red, dozens of TIE fighters erupting from the launch chutes of the opposing vessels, visually nearly sister ships of the Impetuous herself. "Identifying snubfighters as TIE's at this time."

"Have Tyrant's Bane and Jasper form up and prepare to engage. Designate leading contact as Aurek, trailing as Besh, and incoming snubs as Charlie. Continue broadcasting challenge, suspend all salvage operations and launch all snubs. Coms, contact Sector and Admiral Onasi and advise them of the situation and keep on trying to get those people on channel." Nalla rapped out, stepping forward to peer into the main display.

Those Imperial X’s and Kappa-3’s that had been on patrol quickly formed up, while the alert fighters aboard Impetuous and Jasper swiftly launched to join them. There were less than two dozen Imperial fighters in local space even with all the alert birds launched. The planetary militia V-Wings with their lack of hyperdrive were still in transit and wouldn’t arrive for crucial minutes even though they had launched almost an hour earlier. The handful of friendly snub icons on the display were massively outnumbered by the growing swarm of tentative hostiles.

"Ma'am, still no response from the new contacts, we are picking up ship-to-ship chatter however it is not in standard Imperial protocols or encryption." came the report from the communications section. "Sector has been notified, Admiral Onasi advises will arrive in approximately thirty minutes."

“Then we have to hold…” Nalla began.

Suddenly the situation exploded, as both of the opposing star destroyer's opened fire simultaneously targeting the X-Wing squadrons that were on Combat Space Patrol. Likewise the TIE's also opened fire, forcing the Imperial X-Wings to engage in evasive maneuvers to avoid destruction. Within instants what had been a tense stand-off had erupted into battle.

"Classify contacts as hostile and engage." Nalla ordered coldly as icons for the snubfighters started blazing red and flashing from existence. "Impetuous and all snubfighter are to concentrate fire on Aurek, Tyrant's Bane and Jasper on Besh. Coms, alert Admiral Onasi of status change."

Moments later, almost before the order had finished, the massive batteries of the cruiser thundered forth, sending stabbing bolts of coruscating destruction towards the closer of the two enemy vessels. Shields flared and mostly held with only minor penetration scorching the armored hulls of the enemy ships which returned fire, both vessels focusing all of their firepower on Impetuous while ignoring the smaller vessels with apparent contempt.

"Fifteen degrees port, two-thirds thrust. Five degree's negative vertical." Nalla ordered the helm, sending the cruiser onto an oblique heading that served to partially mask the fire of the trailing enemy vessel. The ships multiple shield layers and redundant generators were so far absorbing the incoming fire well enough but that would inevitably change. Answering fire clawed into the weaker shields of the enemy vessel, not yet penetrating either but that would come as well. "Helm, evasion pattern Gamma Five."

The cruiser immediately began twisting about, the selected evasion pattern intended to spread enemy fire across multiple quadrants of the shield grid, thus increasing overall survivability by a rather significant amount. The drawback to that was that the rapid maneuvering reduced the accuracy and intensity of Impetuous' own fire as batteries weren't always able to lock on and fire as rapidly as potentially possible.

The two lighter units used their greater speed and agility to catch the trailing enemy vessel in a cross fire, with Tyrant's Bane dipping below the ecliptic and Jasper soaring above. Such fancy tactics proved to be a bit pointless however as the enemy target was seemingly ignoring them and their relatively light firepower, swinging wide of its companion vessel to attempt to maintain target lock on Impetuous alone. The enemy snubfighters, identified from the derelicts war-book as TIE/ln fighters, were focusing their full attention on the relative handful of their imperial counterparts, rather than attempting to interfere in the battle between the larger warships.

The Kappa-3s were having a field day. Small and agile as the TIE/ln fighters were, the Kappa-3s were faster, more agile, and better armed. The diminutive interceptors ripped through the enemy formation like tiny sharks through schools of minnows, leaving death and destruction in their wakes.

Meanwhile the X-Wings were charging through the mass of light interceptors and generally ignoring them unless they got a clear shot as their focus was on pressing home attack runs on the enemy warship. As the heavy cannons from Impetuous hammered down the enemies shields, the X-Wings proton torpedoes struck home adding to the growing destruction.

One particularly lucky torpedo shot through a gap in the shields and turned one of the unarmored octuple turrets of the leading enemy vessel into twisted scrap metal and plasma-fed flames.

It was chaos.

It was hell.

It was battle.

Turbolasers snarled and spat defiance across the vast distances of a space battlefield, interleaved with the crackling bolts of ion cannons and the crisscrossing ion trails of the snubfighters.

Brief flashes of brilliance marked the graves of dead snubfighters even as the giants pummeled each other with everything they had.

Turrets indexed about, tracking their targets as the ships maneuvered in a lethal ballet of firepower and destruction.

The two attacking star destroyers remained relatively stationary, maneuvering only to maintain clear lanes of fire on Impetuous, while the defending flotilla bobbed and weaved, thrusters flaring brilliantly as they attempted to simultaneously keep their own weapon arcs clear while trying to divide the enemy's fire with a marked lack of success as the two star destroyers stubbornly continued to focus solely on Impetuous.

"Ray and particle shielding down to 30 percent, ma'am." came the unwelcome report from damage control central, even as the tactical plot burned red and the deck of the mighty cruiser heaved as another brutal salvo pounded home. "They are still concentrating fire on us."

"Close the range." Nalla ordered with a frown. The enemy ships weren't behaving like the cruisers they appeared to be but rather as battle line units… which was ridiculous considering how fragile they seemed to be.

"Helm, starboard five degrees, positive three... evasion delta six and full power. At my mark full slew turn to port and gunnery, alpha strike as you bear..."

The massive ship went to full thrust and lunged forward. Meanwhile her smaller companions continued to pour fire into their own target with slowly increasing results. The much larger vessels shields were inadequate to completely resist even the light cruiser and frigate’s comparatively light fire.

Finally, minutes after the battle had begun, the first of the planetary militia's V-Wings had arrived, diving into the fray and freeing the X-Wings to make mostly unopposed runs against their target by mixing up with the TIE's in snarling dogfights that danced around the battlefield, a violent and lethal ballet forming the under card to the heavyweight slugging match.

Impetuous charged forward like a wounded grizzly, crabbing towards the enemy vessels at an oblique angle that seemed to catch them by surprise. That brief moment of hesitation was all Nalla needed as the cruiser reached an imaginary point in space designated solely on the tactical holodisplays on her bridge.

"Mark! Skew turn and fire!" she shouted, glaring at the display.

The holodisplays skewed wildly as the helm turned hard, the ship almost skidding in space as the reaction control system fired at full power to augment the normal thrust vectoring systems.

Impetuous actually managed to slide almost behind the enemy vessel and her turbolaser batteries spoke with one furious voice of thunder as the vessel managed to bring every single weapon to bear at once in a textbook maneuver right out of the Imperial Fleet Tactical Handbook.

The massive volley succeeded perfectly in its primary goal, the entire shield grid of the hapless enemy star destroyer was brought down as the primary generators were overloaded.

The enemy vessels were reacting, but too slowly.

Aurek tried to yaw about, but failed to make use of the pitch axis. As a result, she was unable to bring any significant firepower to bear on Impetuous, a few wild shots from the trench guns splattering across the cruisers depleted shields.

Besh also skew turns on the yaw axis, and likewise failed to pitch. Battle line tactics… not cruiser tactics. She likewise wasn’t able to bring significant firepower to bear for several critical seconds.

Critical seconds that allowed Impetuous to unleash a second alpha strike volley directly into the rear of Aurek.

The results were impressive, that single volley nearly gutting the star destroyer and leaving her drifting out of control with plasma fires and explosions dotting her armored form.

Although she was suffering a death of a thousand cuts from the lighter units, Besh finally managed to come around and unleashed a thunderous volley against Impetuous.

Impetuous was in far worse shape than Besh, leaking atmosphere from dozens of shots that had penetrated even the multi-layered shielding and thick armor plates that replaced the massive hangar bays and ground attack elements of the star destroyers she was facing.

"We've lost shields, ma'am." came the grim call, even as the second target soared out of its dying sisters shadow and prepared to fire once more. "Five seconds to get backup generators fully online."

"Rotate ship and secure for impact." Nalla ordered, hoping to take the next volley from the surviving enemy on the massively armored ventral surface of the cruiser. The battered vessel responded crisply, RCS thrusters flaring to life and spinning the massive cruiser about its axis like a top.

The expected volley lanced out.

But it never hit.

Instead, the still undamaged Nebulon-B Jasper dove into the line of fire, physically interposing herself between that lethal barrage and the nearly crippled and extremely vulnerable cruiser. The small ships shields flared and died and flames erupted as the paper-thin armor was penetrated. Moments later the small ship vanished forever in a ball of plasma, her back broken and her reactors gone critical.

"Damnit!" Nalla almost snarled, even as the ventral batteries spat return fire, stabbing through the wreckage that had once been a proud frigate in service to the Empire and into Jasper's executioner.

"Backup shield generators coming online, skipper." came the report from engineering as the cruiser completed the switchover from the failed primary generators.

"Good, continue rotation and maintain fire, tell Tyrant's Bane to swing around and attack from the rear of Besh." Nalla ordered grimly, face set with fury as the thunderous engagement resumed with fresh fury.

After the brief pause from the death of the frigate, the fury of battle only escalated.

The damaged Impetuous was no longer able to match the thunders she unleashed at the start of the battle. She had severe damage, turrets out of action, trench guns disabled, armor breaches and atmosphere loss in multiple compartments.

Besh wasn’t much better off, however.

Between them, the light cruiser and frigate had sandblasted the star destroyer, wiping out all of the completely unarmored octuple turrets and reducing the enemy to only trench guns. Her armor was in better condition, not having been significantly penetrated, but it was only a matter of time.

The enemy TIE's were almost completely wiped out at a murderous cost in PDF V-Wings. Only half a squadron was left of Kappa-3’s as attrition had slowly worn down the lethal birds, and only a squadrons worth of X-Wings still engaged in strafing runs against Besh.

Volleys lanced out from the two giants, gouging, hammering.

Small flashes heralded hits from the snubfighters strafing runs, sensor installations and minor peripheral equipment on Besh erupting into sparks and wreckage.

The rapid metronome of hits from Tyrant’s Bane left glowing craters in the armor of the enemy ship and she began to leak atmosphere as penetrations started to occur.

Besh started to turn, started to orientate herself on the anomaly.

"Incoming hyperwakes!" came the call suddenly from tactical. "Estimate twenty hulls, tentative ID as the 93rd. On expected vector and time chop."

"Clear their emergence zone." Nalla ordered, as the critically damaged warship struggled to respond to her helm, only two of the main thrusters still operating at full thrust. It was barely enough to get clear, as an incoming volley hammered hard into the massively damaged cruiser moments later knocking out both thrusters.

Coasting on momentum alone the cruiser barely got clear.

In an eruption of Cronau radiation that almost blinded the surviving sensors the twenty warships of the 93rd Strike Task Force appeared out of hyper with their shields snapping up with meticulous precision at the minimum possible interval.

At the center of the formation floated a lone, massive Executor-class super carrier, flanked by a half dozen far smaller Allegiance-class battleships and surrounded by a carefully arrayed close escort force comprised of a mix of three Tector and four Imperial-II class heavy cruisers. An outer ring of a half dozen Vindicator-class light cruisers completed the arriving force, arrayed in an outer defensive perimeter shell around the heavier units.

Swarms of X-Wings, Kappa-3 interceptors, Super-Y Mk I's, and ARC-175 'Spark ARC' strike snubfighters deployed from their launch bays within moments of the task forces arrival adding a penumbra of snubfighters to the formation and coming perilously close to overloading the holographic displays before automatic filters kicked in.

It was a mere matter of moments before a massive barrage of turbolaser fire ranging from the light batteries of the arriving Vindicators to the super-heavy blasts from the Allegiances erupted from the formation and converged with merciless and lethal precision on the surviving enemy star destroyer.

Seconds later, a brilliant flash of energy heralded the demise of the enemy warship.

Before she could escape.

Before she could warn the other side of what they faced.

The battle was over.

Nalla sagged, gripping the crash bars on the bridge walk for support as the sudden cessation of battle caused the inevitable adrenaline crash. "Stand down from battle stations, commence full damage control and casualty evacuation protocols." she said, her voice a bit hoarse as she forced herself to straighten once more.

"Ma'am, engineering is SCRAMing the main reactor, switching over to backup reactors now." came the report, even as the lights dimmed on the bridge and the sophisticated displays flickered before returning to normal operation albeit on backup power. "Backup systems online and nominal, successful shutdown of main power."

"Understood, all non-essential crew prepare for possible evacuation, prepare to evacuate the civilians from the derelict as well." Nalla said, voice even grimmer now as damage assessments started pouring in. "Contact the force flag to inform them of our situation. I want all hands to be prepared to abandon ship at a moment's notice if absolutely necessary, but we're going to save this ship if at all possible."
 

Big Steve

For the Republic!
Founder
An excellent engagement, all things told. You can tell which faction is used mostly to police actions and fighting weaker foes and which one is used to peer competitors.
 

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