Mama Said Knock You Out [ATTN OS]

[Tålamod Shapochka]

Anaxes


Six capital ships popped into realspace over the former Republic capital of Anaxes, vengeance being their motive; assassination being their modus operandi.

Shapochka was the captain of this operation: a furious foray into the edge of Sith space. It had been difficult to ease her temper and thus hold her back from knifing deep into the heart of enemy territory, but eventually her impetuous war cry was subdued by with more prudent battle plans--though her fury could not be repressed. She would no longer be contained. Justice needed to be dispensed.

And who could blame her? As irrationally virulent as her hate for the Sith could be, no one could deny that the defensive could not be maintained forever. Action was necessary. And Anaxes was hardly a foreign field. The Republic's fleet knew every part of its surface.

And so Captain Tålamod Shapochka of the Galactic Republic Navy tread the deck of the Admiral Ackbar's command bridge, sullen eyes immolating with utter hatred as she beheld the globe of the storied Imperial and Republic ecumenopolis. Her teeth clenched and one might think she would presently begin to foam at the mouth. While generally a cool and empathetic commander, Tålamod had one burning passion to annihilate the destroyers of her homeworld; of her nation. She would murder the Sith--murder them all, even if it meant obliterating her own body and compromising her very soul. They would pay.

"Guns are on-line and approach vector is accurate to periapsis above the Thorn. Track for Carida is also set on return run," Shapochka's commanding officer reported. "Are we green to proceed?"

Despite having the reins for this attack, she had been instructed to consult the Supreme Commander as a 'safety valve' protocol. She relayed the request over the comms to her rank superior. "Commander Quee, we are cleared, yes?" Without waiting for his response, the captain signaled her flagship forward.

Spoiler: Fleet

• Admiral Ackbar
• Bastion
• Emancipation
• Inexorable
• Mother Goose
• Relentless

 

[Gir Quee]

Steadfast-class Star Cruiser Inexorable, Anaxes System

Admiral Quee fidgeted with his uniform as he watched the flowing lines of hyperspace travel. Some found the lines soothing; others maddening, but to the Hast native, he found them an inexorable constant. He glanced at his wrist chrono. We're almost there. It'll be interesting to see how she handles it...He knew of [member="Tålamod Shapochka"] more by reputation than by personal experience, though he had met her a few times in passing. But reputation wasn't exactly the best measure of a truth. No, he decided that if she was going to be promoted, he was going to have to observe her on the battlefield, and what better way to do that then by acting as one of her subordinates. Sometimes positions of relative power can blind us to realities...hopefully this will not be one of those cases...His communication's icon on his console began to flash. Think of the devil... He tapped a button, letting her voice flow into his headset's ear piece.

"This is your operation," replied Admiral Quee quietly, "I'm just a participant. It's your call, though I'm curious to see what the One Sith have waiting for us..."

 

[Tålamod Shapochka]

"Then we are cleared," the captain announced, gesturing to her lieutenant to ping the other vessels and give them the signal to gun for a somewhat shallow orbital trajectory of Anaxes. Given their incoming velocity and position, they would be moving in fast as it was with the aid of gravity. never mind how fast their inbound course would be with a little boost from the thrusters. The fleet would be virtually impossible to intercept on the approach.

Activating her HUD holoprojector, Tålamod took in the array of capital ships under her command and began mentally organizing the best approach formation. "Bastion is to lead, with our ship following and prow two kilometers below." Then she gave orders for the pair of Vinnath-class carriers to take the starboard outskirts of the fleet beside Ackbar, as the Republic forces would pass over Anaxes' equatorial region on their portside. "Commander Quee, I would like if you controlling Inexorable and Emancipation at the rear." This setup would handle the gravitational complications well.

"Starboard guns to the fore, aft guns away-face, port guns away-face until fourty-five degrees." As the Admiral Ackbar and its companion ships began their 'descent' towards the planet that was quickly growing within the sights of the bridge viewports, Captain Shapochka strode forward and balled her left hand into a reddened fist while accusingly pointing at the planet with her right. "To hell with your Sith."

Spoiler: Fleet

• Admiral Ackbar
• Bastion
• Emancipation
• Inexorable
• Mother Goose
• Relentless

 

[Gir Quee]

Steadfast-class Star Cruiser Inexorable, Axum System

"Understood," replied the admiral, tapping a button on his headset.

The admiral began to type in several commands, issuing orders to the Emancipation as well as the crew as the Inexorable. He rapidly punched in commands into his console, bringing up a detailed holo-image of the world and its single moon. The man quickly tapped several buttons, allowing him to fully understand the orbital motions involved. When he had been at Anaxes before, and had even studied at the academy below once upon a time, the calculations he was making couldn't be based on rough estimation, not if everything was going to go according to plan. The prows of the Inexorable and Emancipation broke from the rest of the fleet in order to ensure that they were not quite in the world's gravity well, but the admiral kept both ships cruising in an orbit opposite to that of the world's moon. Moments later, the Emancipation's gravity well generator kicked on, being projected to create a mass shadow that almost appeared to be the twin of the moon's own signature, and several planetary radii outside of the world.

The admiral double-checked his calculations. They match up with the originals, meaning that the moon or our own gravity well will pull out any starships jumping to Anaxes several planetary radii out from the world itself...that should give us ample time to form up if they scramble any ships at us...

 

[Tålamod Shapochka]

At full speed, the Vinnath-class pocket carriers were bypassing the Admiral Ackbar and drawing close alongside Bastion until a certain point, at which gravity and mass began to noticeably play their roles, bringing the Bastion to a leading position and the massive, pursuing Ackbar closer to the corvettes again. It had the visual effect of a slinky from a distant vantage point. One could also notice the ever-increasing velocity of the approaching fleet as it sped towards the source of gravity in a propelled 'fall'. Dozens of kilometers were traveled in mere seconds.

On the bridge, Tålamod eyed the planet as it became the sole occupant of the port windows--a massive jewel of the Empire of old, where her great ancestors had attended university. She was of a long line of Imperial and Republic navymen, and it somewhat saddened her to consider what she was about to do. But Anaxes was no longer the Anaxes of pristine beauty and unshakeable order. It was defiled by the Sith and their disgusting, irreconcilable Vong mediums. They were a disease, and Shapochka's fleet was to be the vaccine, however temporary the cure may be.

But she would be back. Someday, she would purge the bacteria once and for all.

No resistance reported. "All port guns to Anaxes." She flicked on her comm piece again to speak with Admiral Quee. "Do you have coordinates for surface defenses? Thorn is in our sights, but we needing have surface capital guns marked." Bastion's AI systems would be able to utilize sensors and pinpoint weapons and high-density biological populaces to determine where to hit and where not to hit.

They were the Republic saviors. Not the Sith despots. Victory was in innocence--even as Captain Shapochka's anger burned like the suns in violent and brilliant nuclear fusion. Her judgment hand could not be restrained.

Spoiler: Fleet

• Admiral Ackbar
• Bastion
• Emancipation
• Inexorable
• Mother Goose
• Relentless

[member="Darth Venefica"]

 

[Gir Quee]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Admiral Quee rapidly typed in several commands into his console, pulling up information that [member="Tålamod Shapochka"] requested.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Gathering intelligence about targets was generally fairly tricky, especially in enemy territory. Frequently the terrain was unknown, the locals were hostile, and one didn't even know where to begin to start looking. But Anaxes was different. The lay of the land was fairly well-known to the attackers, both from their governance of the world before and from open-source intelligence. After all, the world lay on a major tradelane, seeing tons of civilian traffic fly through, which was good for the world's economy and consequently the One Sith. But having an open world meant that people would see or learn things, and that would flow back GRIM eventually or some shady infochant on the Black market, but that was assuming that such a base wasn't advertised. Some were, primarily to restrict ground and air traffic from nearing the base itself, and thus keeping it from being a security risk, especially on such a highly populated world. While they had information from such sources before the fleet had arrived, it hadn't been confirmed.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]With the arrival of the fleet however, the powerful sensor arrays of the star destroyers present were quite capable of looking through the atmosphere to scan the suspected military base. He eyed the newly taken aerial images of the base intently, glancing at the photo-analysis and commentary being added to them by the sensor operators and intelligence analysts aboard the fleet. Well, it definitely wasn't here last time...the building architecture looks right to be a military base, and there appears to be some sort of weaponry mounted on the roof. That isn't the sort of thing you'd find on civilian buildings. He eyed a somewhat fuzzy spot. Bah, didn't get good enough resolution in that overfly view, but it would seem to be a walker of some sort...not a lot of civilian walkers in use these days...another sign that it's probably a military base...[/SIZE]He tapped a button, rerouting the data, including its coordinates, on the Anaxes Military Installation to the other naval officer and her crew.

[SIZE=10.5pt]"[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]Your ships's crews should now have that data[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]," informed Admiral Quee.[/SIZE]

 

[Tålamod Shapochka]

"We are in range, Captain," said the commander.

Shapochka was deaf to him as she stared at the world, glassed-over eyes jittering with each drink of the world's features below. There were too many innocent people; too much history, even, to warrant a Base Delta Zero. Even the angry Toli inside was considerate of that. Most of the people down there at her mercy were not deserving to die--and especially not justified in death at the hands of the Republic. No, they were her kin in a way. They hailed from times past--Republic, Imperial, stagnation, revitalization, boom, and decay. Winter, spring, summer, autumn. It was a majestic world, much like her home of Empress Teta. She would not burn this world just like she would not burn hers.

Still, the Sith down there would get no quarter. She was their judge and executioner. And she had found them all guilty.

"Captain--we're in range."

Tålamod awoke from her musings, eyebrows raising as the voice repeated itself, alerting her to their vertical proximity to the targets located on the surface. The eruptive energy of vengeance was also awakened, seeping from her heart and flaming through her teeth. "Fire. Rain the hell."

If space carried sound, the opening salvo of turbolasers and mass driver guns from Admiral Ackbar and Bastion may have rivaled the songs of angels.


Bombardment salvo fired upon: Anaxes Military Installation

Spoiler: Fleet

• Admiral Ackbar
• Bastion
• Emancipation
• Inexorable
• Mother Goose
• Relentless

[member="Darth Venefica"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir watched through the holo-cams as the two largest Republic warships began to rain down fire onto the world below. The blonde man winced. At least their deaths will be relatively painless...quick...they might well be incinerated before they're capable of realizing that they're dying. They're lucky to have deaths like that...The man shook the morbid thoughts from his head and began to rapidly type in several commands into his console. It's time to bring in the second group...The admiral swiveled in his chair to face his flight controller.

"Dispatch Red Wing to patrol around sector 8.4," said the blonde man.

"Yes sir."

Best to double-check it though. The man quickly recalculated the rough jump into the system, just to ensure that it was indeed feasible. It wouldn't do to send hundreds of peoples to their deaths and throw away millions of credits when it could easily avoided. Several minutes later, he was certain that not only was the jump feasible, but that it was safe as well. He flipped through several screens to eye the system map and the forces present. Looks like Red Wing is properly staged to receive them too. He toggled his headset's frequency button.

"Second group, you are clear to jump into the system. Jump when ready."

Several seconds passed before he received a muted reply.

"Moving sir."