Command and Control

[Valiens Nantaris]

And so days passed. The Battle of Eriadu was triumphantly won and the planet had joined the fold of the Protectorate. In the aftermath of this battle, and with the journey to Naboo upcoming the meeting of the leadership of Omega Pyre was called.

They met on Sigma Station over Fondor. There the General was waiting for them as they entered. There were several junior colonels and majors who led other strike forces. Siobhan was seated near the head of the table opposite Maelion.
"Thank you for all coming. Now, to business," General Guyenne said. "Colonel Kerrigan, your analysis of the action on Eriadu?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Siobhan took her seat around the conference table opposite Maelion. "It was our first large-scale deployment. We had to muster the troops on very short notice and respond rapidly. The Eriaduans weren't pushovers. But the troops performed well, I guess that validates our strategic approach."

Subsequently Siobhan launched into a brief description of what transpired in Eriadu. Given that most of the officers were familiar with events or like Colonel Liates had participated, she did not have to go into many details. Subsequently she addressed a few points that seemed relevant to her.

"The op almost went nowhere because of conflicting orders from the Exarchs," she said bluntly, never one to mince words. "But once the ground the troops did well, the AT-SE passed its first armour-on-armour combat test. Stealth team ran into issues due to being half-strength, but a coordinated assault took care of the ion cannon. Our shock and we approach worked. If given more time the Eriaduans could've easily made things difficult if they'd actually been able to amass forces and bog us down."


As it was the Eriaduans had wasted a good deal of their forces in mass, but not very coordinated assaults, leaving only inexperienced People's Guards, many of them teenagers and old men, to fight...or rather surrender. There had been no one left to turn Eriadu City into a fortress.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

The General frowned slightly at the questioning of those above, but he said nothing. When Siobhan was finished he nodded. "Thank you, Colonel. Your performance in this action was exceptional. It's clear though the lessons that must be learned from this. Communications, fast and decisive strikes, strong tactical leadership. That is what we need to succeed."

"So that our forces do not become over-stretched we will be dividing into a series of large bases. Each battalion will have its own base, and is responsible for that area of space, or for moving to perform such missions as required. I want weekly holocom meetings and all reports to be submitted promptly. This is a new kind of organisation, and we must be sure to make it work. Does anyone have anything further?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

For her part Siobhan had found it remarkably irresponsible - and, yes, things had to be had when Siobhan of all people thought someone was irresponsible - when the Exarchs could not make up their mind and issued conflicting orders. Or rather Carter went behind everyone's back and meddled with military command.

She had been grateful when Allaina broke the deadlock and sorted out the mess. Of course, in the end it had all worked out. The lie about the Bando Gora had left a bad taste in her mouth, but she had understood.

She shook her head at the General's query. "Nothing further from me, sir. Eriadu's settling down. OP's in the process of training local security forces loyal to us. Looks like Admiral Mare getting their space forces to surrender won us some brownie points."

The rest of the meeting passed with some other officers making comments or queries, many of them relating to everyone being understandably eager to get the best toys for their battalions. For her part Siobhan seemed quite interested in the new frigate Carter and Lady Velori were said to be working on, but information on it was still locked tight and kept on a need-to-know basis.

There was some more chatter about keeping order on Eriadu. Omega Pyre was mopping up the last diehards, who only posed a negligible threat, though rebuilding the capital would take some time and some operations had been mounted to wipe out bandit groups that had used the brief disorder to their advantage.

After some further talk about rumours of mounting tensions between the Republic and the Sith, the meeting was finally brought to a close and Siobhan felt like she could use a smoke.