We're Going To Annihilate...

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Malus"] [member="Aken Bosch"]
Considering the Chimaera could sit back here and continue firing without ever entering the Obscurity's range, and considering that a belly orientation was a pretty clear delaying tactic for some manner of aid, Ashin's flotilla didn't move. Well, except for the CGT-immune Penumbra-class interdictors, who made for clear space now that they'd blanketed the region in interdiction. As someone said once, ain't nobody goin' nowhere.

She pondered the situation. Under Malus' command, one unique light star destroyer that was currently taking barrage after barrage of energy torpedos from ninety launchers while keeping itself pretty neatly pinned in orbit. Under Bosch's command, three Star Destroyers, two artillery cruisers, seven corvettes. Under Ashin's command, two cloaked interdictors, the Chimaera, fourteen Hammer-B LACs, and twelve Defensor-class flak ships. The odds weren't exactly in Ashin's favour, but at least the huge interdiction bubbles meant Bosch's fleet had dropped out a good distance from Ashin, well out of turbolaser range. That gave her at least some time to work with, should they press ahead into the interdicted zone that contained Ashin, the Obscurity, and the planet Morellia. The little flotilla took up a position behind her vessel, in case those artillery frigates decided to start taking potshots with the mass drivers' extreme range. The Chimaera's four shield generators would do just fine against that sort of thing.

"Admiral Bosch, this is the Chimaera." It had been built to be the flagship of the Sith Empire's fleet, and half the men under Bosch's command would have served under Ashin's regime, if not more. They knew this ship. Not what it had been modified into, granted, not its current capabilities, but still. "The Obscurity and her captain and crew are in the process of being adjudicated for desertion. Once the process is complete, we'll be leaving your territory, and you'll be more than welcome to cannibalize her for her stygium."

Also, considering the only stealthed vessels around had gravitic modulators, Bosch couldn't even know they were there, let alone provide targeting data.

 

[Aran Finn]

Alen did not know that his Blackbird had been pinged. However, he was still well out of range of anything the Obscurity or Bosch's fleet could throw at him, and his craft was more than nimble enough to dodge danger once it got close to the targeted Star Destroyer. So he went for it. Alen hit the throttle hard, and the Blackbird launched forward quickly, following the trajectory of the consistently-firing long range torpedoes that streamed towards the Obscurity. He did not even need to bob and weave his starfighter given the straight trajectory of the consistently pumping torpedoes. Instead he found a slipstream and maintained course, drawing closer and closer to the Obscurity. Due to the interdiction fields, he also had plenty of space between himself and Bosch's fleet.

A one man boarding party was coming. There was a lot of damage a Sith Lord could do from the inside of a ship, and Na'Varro did not plan on holding back.

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Aken Bosch"] [member="Malus"]

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Brutus Tyval, Lord Pathollex, Darth Ferus, Maleus, Malus, Alicia Dreyhttp://starwarsrp.net/user/3042-alicia-drey/, Alen Na'Varro, Spencer Jacobs, Ashin Varaninhttp://starwarsrp.net/user/572-ashin-varanin/, [member="Aken Bosch"],

Ahh, the fat man thought in his head, and inner smile rippled through his mind. He understood what was going on now. Inside the world, there were interdiction mines keeping everything coming in, away at a distance, the intruders were inside pounding away with torpedoes at a ship scantily protected the the sacrificed hull of another star ship holding fighters behind it. The newly arrived Bosch Fleet was outside the "planetary radii" of the interdiction field and out of turbolaser range, but soon closing in. With his probes alone, the Sith Lord probed the area with the force and discovered the stealth fighters that Aken had pinged and....

"What..." Every probe whispered at the powerful thought within Voracitos... "Impossible..." They all said.

The Chimaera had only one owner, and it was from a bygone age he himself had destroyed. There was no way an Imperial Vessel of that infamy could find itself affiliated with a Confederacy at the other end of the galaxy. It could be acquired by pirates possibly, but there was no way any competent imperial officer would allow it to be captured... and Ashin's reign was renowned for competence.

What he felt in the force only confirmed this thought. He had fought both of them on the Abominor, but the duel did not go very far, and the gap of time between then and now only compounded the Darth's surprise. The urgency, at which he desired to be within the grasp of this location increased one hundred fold. Knowledge of the Obscurity slowly degraded as the Dark Lord's sole thought was the obliteration of his rival's soul.

Her mind was currently protected by her witch of a wife, and her witch of a wife protected by Ashin. But even if they were not vulnerable together... their ship most certainly was. Only this time, he would be sure no secret stealth ship got in the way of her doom. This time, he would be sure she would die. This time, he would destroy the ship and ensure the good Admiral went down with it.

He didn't care if it hurt her, if it hurt his wife, or if made them feel good about themselves, or if they even cared to die at all.

His pride had been wounded oh so long ago, at the feet of an Empress. Since then, he had create the illusion of control over himself by pulling the strings of an Empire and "defeating" his greatest foe, attempting to inspire the ashen remains out of the husk of an Imperial corpse to fight for him yet another day. Everything was an illusion while Ashin lived, and he could not stand for it. He never lost... anything... ever. Then Ashin came, and now he has lost everything. He lost his illusions, he lost his life, he lost his corpse, he lost everything. Everything.

He could come to solace now if he could own just one more thing: the Soul of She Who Killed Him.

In this fit of desperate urgent fury, the Dark Lord accelerated his passage through hyperspace and aimed for behind Ashin's ship. There were interdiction fields to deal with, but there was nothing in this galaxy that would stop him for doing this. It would be everything in his power to rip open the course he desired, despite the obstacle. If it tried to throw him off into the star nearest, he'd correct the path. Anyway it tried to shove him, he would toss it aside and tell it to go to hell.

The fat man was on a mission, and any expenditure of energy was inconsequential to him. Tiny fractures appeared upon the nine crystals that were bent to his mastery and will. At that moment in time, Voracitos hailed all the ships with his probes, and forcibly punctured his way through the permission of the receiver. No machine was a match for the Shadow Emperor, he had proven this on a multitude of occasions. All energy was diverted to his personal arrival, and the transmission of his message. On ordinary occasion, he would have shielded the Obscurity with his own mechanisms... but today was far more important than the protection of a mere stealth vessel out of his laziness to reject the development a new one.

The message was clear, "VARANIN!"

All that needed be said was said in a single word.

 

[Onrai]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

Pausing for a moment, Bosch considered the circumstances - The Obscurity had disappeared well before the Sith Empire's dissolution, and considering the New Order was the direct successor state, the vessel was under their flag, technically. The Chimaera, though an advanced vessel in its own right, was still smaller and more poorly armed compared to the larger and more brawny Tulak Hord under Bosch's command. The vessels in his reserve fleet moved ever closer to the location of the Obscurity as Bosch moved to put his gambit into action.

"Pardon our crossing paths at this peculiar moment, Chimaera, but I am under direct orders of High Command to bring the Obscurity and its crew in for interrogation. That vessel was stolen from the Sith Empire - now the New Order - and we require it and its crew to be punished for desertion from our military forces. Considering that the Star Destroyer in question is of Imperial manufacture, and was reported as rogue under Imperial military decree prior to its desertion under your flag, pan-galactic law gives us precedence when the deserters in question are found. Rest assured, each member of the Obscurity's crew shall be tried under a general court martial for their offense. Should they not be sentenced to death, they likely will be turned over to you as part of your trials over their desertion."

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Malus"] [member="Alicia Drey"] [member="Darth Voracitos"] [member="Spencer Jacobs"] [member="Lord Pathollex"] [member="Brutus Tyval"] [member="Darth Ferus"] [member="Maleus"] [member="Alen Na'Varro"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Aken Bosch"] [member="Malus"] [member="Darth Voracitos"] [member="Spencer Jacobs"]

Voracitos' voice got a thin smile, but no response. Ashin had work to do. The Chimaera reoriented slightly to face Bosch's fleet. "Spencer, can you fog the minds of his fighter screen?"

The reserve fleet still had a long way to go before it got to the Obscurity, as interdiction bubbles had blanketed the entire region. However, as had been going on for quite some time, the eighty energy torpedo launchers and ten heavy energy torpedo launchers continued to bombard the Obscurity, which had not attempted to maneuver away or close the range, and thus had taken literally hundreds of energy warhead impacts by this point. Bosch's plan, presumably, was to block Ashin's line of fire, though he would have been better served, time-wise, to have aimed for a point between the Chimaera and the Obscurity. A waste of time that would probably cost Malus his ship, after a bombardment long enough for a second ship to arrive, call for a fleet of reinforcements, have those reinforcements arrive, and wait around while conversation was had. The bombardment had been going on for that long, eighty proton torpedo equivalents every thirty seconds, ten assault concussion missile equivalents every sixty seconds. By this point, in Ashin's experience, the Obscurity should be several lumps of glowing slag descending on the unwary population of Morellia.

Oh, and the Chimaera boasted a normalized capital gun count of nine hundred. A Tulak Hord's normalized capital gun count was nine hundred. As a carrier, a Ranator's was a hundred and twenty. The Obscurity's was five hundred and fourteen. Not only did the Chimaera match the Tulak for firepower in every respect, its energy torpedos could slug farther than the Tulak's long-range turbolasers, and its shields were significantly more durable.

"Admiral Bosch, any government led by the barbarian Krag has no business speaking of international law."

She cut the transmission. Fourteen Hammer-B LACs, thirty-two Malos-class gunships, and twenty-four Detryte-class heavy bombers blossomed out from behind the Chimaera, and wave after wave of HELIX warheads accelerated toward the flank of Bosch's fleet -- a fleet that had been entirely designed to fire at things in front of it, and was most definitely facing toward something else entirely. Her flotilla had come loaded for bear, for capital ship battles, and that meant the HELIX -- technology that Bosch would never have heard of, let alone experienced. Each Malos carried four instead of its proton bombs; each Hammer-B LAC carried twelve; each massively overloaded Detryte carried eight instead of its sixteen bombs. The stream of warheads spread out, accelerating further, a massive spread of four hundred eighty-eight HELIX charges aimed for Bosch's fleet.

And it was here that the novelty of the HELIX would come into play. They flew like normal assault concussion missiles, which detonated on impact or proximity. Assault concussion missiles could be intercepted by point-defense turrets and quad lasers like the ones on the Tulak Hord. They could be intercepted by the point-defense turrets and quad lasers on the Ranators. They could be intercepted by the standard and longshot quad lasers on the Anemois, the quad lasers on the Subjugators, the quad lasers on the Monitor.

An assault concussion missile was not a HELIX. Each fifty-megaton nuclear warhead was keyed to detonate a handful of kilometres away from its target, unlike any missile that had ever been seen or heard of, and well outside the extreme range of quad lasers and point defense. Also well before the starfighter screen could expect a deadline to have to handle the problem, both in time and distance; most starfighter screens stayed less than a klick from their motherships, to maintain screen density. No, the only weapons which Bosch could use against the HELIX wave were the thirty flak cannons on each of the two artillery cruisers. Sixty little guns...against four hundred eighty-eight warheads, well spread out. And when the warheads detonated, far before their detonation could possibly be expected, each fifty-megaton nuclear warhead not only irradiated any nearby starfighters past the point of standard shield tolerances, it pumped the bulk of its explosion into twenty x-ray laser beams on divergent courses. Invisible, fast as light, each beam carried the power of one and a half standard turbolaser bolts. Once warheads were deployed, the LACs, gunships, and bombers returned behind the Chimaera, and the non-hypercapable LACs began slipping back into the hangar bay when feasible.

Fratricide occurred, of course. Warheads slaughtered each other as their porcupine array of x-ray laser beams created a dense thicket, sometimes overlapping. Those sixty flak guns took their toll, and the starfighter screen might have had a bit of a chance against the barrage-

If the Chimaera hadn't ordered all those warheads targeted around, but not within, the direct fire lane that formed the core of the offensive. A Star Destroyer's flank could only fire half its guns, leaving the Chimaera facing something in the neighbourhood of six or seven hundred turbolasers when it was firing significantly more. The energy torpedos joined the fight -- but the capital guns and torps weren't firing at the Tulak. They were firing at the starfighter screen to pin it down and keep it from engaging the HELIX barrage that swarmed around the firing lane like an apple around the core. A single turbolaser battery, if targeted properly, could take out a formation of dropships or a squadron of fighters easily enough, though most commanders preferred to use the heavy weapons on the heavy ships. Against a grand total of almost six hundred barrels pumping out nine hundred guns' worth of firepower, the fighters faced some troubles. That, and all of the Chimaera's defensive guns were quad mass driver flak cannons or antimissile octets -- and physics dictated that objects in motion continued in motion. At extreme range, eighty mass drivers filled Bosch's starfighter screen with a constant torrent of anti-small-craft flak travelling six kilometres per second. Meanwhile, the light energy torpedo launchers, eighty in all, filled the starfighter screen's space with barrages of packets travelling twenty percent of the speed of light.

The goal was to absolutely shred and pin down the starfighter screen at this long range, even at the cost of letting the Tulak Hord engage in a serious way. The Chimaera, unique, re-outfitted and reinforced to the gills, was charitably known as the shotgun from Hell, and that fighter screen, despite its impressive numbers, likely couldn't gain any real proportion of the ground necessary to engage the HELIX barrage in any substantive way before it detonated. Some fraction of four hundred and eighty HELIX warheads spat some fraction of nine thousand six hundred unguided x-ray laser beams, comparable to some fraction of a full-forward barrage from an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer.

 

[Onrai]

"I have some disbelief in that. Galactic laws filling the void over such disputes as this still apply, regardless of how needlessly bloodthirsty the current emperor is."

The moment the HELIX warheads entered the area, Bosch gave the order for all starfighters to, for the moment, move towards the command ship. The capital ships themselves were to continue moving forward on their natural momentum, their engine energy transferred to the shields. All the firepower on the vessels went into play, moving to detonate the warheads as best they could. And of course, the warheads being in such a cluster, detonating a few was all it took for the scattered xasers - considering that they scattered in random directions, and were not all focused forward - to pierce through the screen of explosive ordnance and detonate the majority of it. Of course, majority did not equal all, as a good portion still managed to detonate within range of the fleet.

While the power given to shields helped some, the majority of the vessels had their shield energy depleted below twenty-five percent. For the Subjugators and Anemois, it was more along the lines of ten percent. Several fighters and bombers had been destroyed by the explosions, while others were drifting due to the EMP-like effect of multiple nuclear blasts. A shuttle was being sent to help repair their electronics.

The shields on the vessels began to slowly regenerate as the fighters and bombers buzzed around the capital ships like bees surrounding their hive, in order to dodge most of the fire coming from the Invictus's guns. Energy was returned to their engines as the capital ships opened up from long range from the front on the Chimaera - but instead of randomly aiming at the vessel, hoping to get a hit in somewhere, the vessels focused their fire on the one truly vulnerable part of the ship, the part that would completely cripple the Fringe flagship were it to be damaged - the bridge. The part of the Invictus that, like their predecessors, the Imperial-class, was most vulnerable to fire. The twenty quad long-range turbolaser cannons would converge their fire on the vessel's bridge, where Ashin herself would likely see the fire impacting - either as a glow where it impacted the shields, or as fire that physically impacted the metal. While the long-range turbolasers hoped to adequately harm the shields of the bridge, each of the two Yorikas focused their three long-range hypervelocity guns on the bridge as well, firing them in sync. And once having fired their main guns, they "wobbled," Allowing each of the ships' ten heavy energy torpedo launchers a shot with the high-speed ordnance at the bridge of the Chimaera. The Yorikas' own flak guns fired at the Invictus's fighters, retreating back to their mothership's hangar bay in an attempt to damage at least some of them.

"Find the locations of those pulse-mass mines. The next barrage of flak fire should be at them. Once they're down, we can calibrate our hyperdrive to allow for a nano-jump to let us get in a better firing position so we can use our shorter-range main guns."

[member="Brutus Tyval"] [member="Darth Ferus"] [member="Malus"] [member="Alicia Drey"] [member="Darth Voracitos"] [member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Spencer Jacobs"] [member="Lord Pathollex"] [member="Maleus"] [member="Alen Na'Varro"]

(Going to bed, will respond to any tagged posts tomorrow)

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Aken Bosch"]

The warheads had been very clearly, and very deliberately, spread out, and nuclear weapons were not at all vulnerable to sympathetic detonation, meaning that hitting one didn't blow up those near it. Bosch's bombardment, including full turbolaser application and the use of his hypervelocity guns, required that your fleet be facing the Chimaera, and it wasn't. Instead, it was headed toward the Obscurity, which had a planet behind it and which was well outside turbolaser range of the Chimaera. That meant Bosch's fleet was firing broadside, able to bring less than half of its firepower to bear; that was basic trigonometry. At an angle like this, Bosch's entire fleet, which was designed to fire forward, could bring less total guns to bear than Ashin's single capital ship, which was pointed straight at them. The fleet needed to maneuver, which took time.

The pulse-mass mines were turadium-plated, and flak wouldn't do a thing unless one got very close -- flak spreads. Furthermore, they'd been deployed in two broad, diffuse streams, and Bosch's direct course into the interdiction zone might have put him close enough to one of those streams that his flak guns could hit that side of the mine formation accurately, but he would still be more than inside the second stream's area of effect (which was something like a hundred thousand kilometres) long before his flak guns could even shoot at them in an effective way. Meanwhile, the flak guns fired at the Hammer-B LACs as they made their way back into the hangar, but a Hammer-B was not a fighter; Ashin hadn't even brought fighters, apart from a couple of Blackbirds for her associates. She'd brought durable Koensayr gunships, sixty-metre LACs, seventy-metre flak ships, and heavy bombers the size of a couple of light freighters stacked together. Flak guns, at this immensely extreme range, did exactly nothing against ships this size, though they'd have helped shred fighters if she'd had any. The Hammer LACs re-boarded safely.

Her eyes narrowed in evaluation as her big guns and energy torpedo launchers focused in on the Tulak Hord, which -- big and slow as it was -- was still turning to the point where it could actually bring its full loadout to bear. The cruiser-mounted hypervelocity guns slammed against her shields with an impact pretty much exactly equivalent to normal vessels that size firing their turbolasers -- which was to say, it might add up, but it wasn't a concern. The bridge didn't have dedicated shields; precious few vessels went that route. Like most ships of the line, its shields covered the entire vessel seamlessly. Unlike most ships of the line, it had four generators' worth of the absolute best shields the Sith Empire had produced at the same time as the Tulak Hord had been designed. Oh, and the range differential between a standard turbolaser -- tens of thousands of kiilometres, sufficient for orbital bombardment -- and a long-range turbolaser -- more tens of thousands of kilometres, almost as much as the interdiction grav well radius -- was too tiny for a nanojump to be any kind of a viable or desirable option. Especially because microjumping a fleet was a wonderful way to crash into each other and die horribly, but Bosch was welcome to try. His fleet was at full steam heading into the interdiction zone, she was headed towards him, they were already in normal turbolaser engagement range, which was plenty long. Ten points, ten major points, in which Bosch's evaluation hadn't matched the situation as Ashin perceived it. But that didn't especially matter, because that command ship's shields were down to twenty-five percent, and the Chimaera's had just dipped below ninety-five as it took the first actual incoming shots of the entire engagement from vessels too drastically out of position to bring their main guns to bear.

She paid no serious mind to the Obscurity. It had sat there and waited for another fleet to arrive while taking barrage after barrage from nearly a hundred warhead launchers. Its small fighter force might join with Bosch's fleet, but the stealthed light star destroyer had, like Bosch's fleet, maneuvered in such a way as to make itself permanently and entirely ineffective. A Marg Sabl closure maneuver without any actual closure, plus waiting for Ashin to close to range where the Obscurity could return her fire. No, her mind was on Bosch, who had somehow picked up on her amusement at his poor course plotting and changed it, as any good psychic would.

This fight was over, and it had barely even gotten started yet. It all played out in her mind's eye. With her fire concentrated entirely on the Tulak Hord, its heavily depleted shields would go down faster, in percentage terms, than her fully functional multilayered shields. And even if they didn't, they'd still reach zero long before hers, at which point not even a turadium-reinforced bridge would save Bosch from the fundamental problem of a Tulak Hord: It was long and narrow, with poor structural integrity as a result. The same and more went for the Ranators, which an unscrupulous and daft commander might try to use to block her fire from the Tulak Hord (blocking his own as well, and cutting available guns by close to two thirds). The Ranators would lose shields even faster than the Tulak, which at least had a set of redundant generators as a slug-it-out ship of the line, and their structural integrity was even worse than the flagship's.

No, this fight was over. Bosch just hadn't realized yet that discretion was the better part of valor.

 

[Masamune Tametomo]

Another Blackbird followed the first
As it hid in the other's sensor shadow.
As the bombs and missiles around did burst
Masamune carefully piloted the ship.

He'd followed quietly to aid
The other pilot in his mission
For once on board the blade
Masamune carried would be invaluable.

The Bushi kept the controls steady
Despite the volume of fire around.
Once closer and docked he would be ready
To begin his true task as a warrior.

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Aken Bosch"] [member="Alen Na'Varro"]

 

[Aran Finn]

[member="Masamune Tametomo"] [member="Aken Bosch"] [member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Malus"]

The two Blackbirds closed on the Obscurity and they closed fast. The fighters had the speed of an interceptor, the armory of an elite space superiority fighter, and stealth to boot. Beautiful ships. Fast ships. Strong ships. And thus far, no one had even attempted to fire on them. It was almost too easy. Na'Varro's Blackbird shot towards the light Star Destroyer in a straight line, followed by Masamune's craft and surrounded by hundreds of torpedoes that streamed from the Chimaera towards its target. And the Obscurity had taken a hell of a lot of damage. A metric fethton, if that was any indication. And Na'Varro and Masamune were going to do a lot more of it. Their skill-sets spoke for themselves. Na'Varro patted his breather helmet fondly.

With his stealth systems on, Na'Varro didn't bother communicating with Masamune. He knew to follow, and he was good enough to keep up. Alen immersed himself in the embrace of the Dark Side, and prepared to make his attack run. The Force connection was necessary for reasons that were twofold: Firstly, to enhance his reflexes and make sure that one of the Chimaera's warheads didn't turn his Blackbird into space dust. Secondly, the main part of his load-out was a Jedi shadow bomb, loaded with packed baradium. Two well placed shadow bombs could split a corvette-sized ship ... one was enough to open a hole where the hangar doors of a light Star Destroyer should be. Na'Varro twisted the controls of his Blackbird, and his baby danced. Twisting in between warheads, the Blackbird came up on the broadside of the Obscurity and began its approach. Hopefully Jacobs' mind-fethery would keep his cloaked ship cloaked ... and then the Jedi shadow bomb was away. No clearly visible trajectory, trail or point of origin ... it was simply one with Alen's mind, and the Force. Basically undetectable. A shadow indeed.

As Alen's Blackbird danced, his mind guided the Jedi shadow bomb to its final place of origin ... a target directly next to the hangar doors. The blast, he hoped, would completely blow a massive hole in the side of the hangar, big enough for he and Masamune to fly through and land. Baradium blasts vaporized anything within their blast radius ... basically, Na'Varro was tearing a huge hole in the side of the ship ... casualties in the hanger due to the blast and resulting exposure to vacuum would be high. Poor grunts ... they should have mutinied when they had a chance.

And ... well, explosions in space make no sound. But the sight was quite something to behold. Not waiting to see the extent of the damage he had caused, Na'Varro's Blackbird shot straight for the hole the blast had made. Time was of the essence.

Bosch should have taken the stygium. Now it was going to be Na'Varro's.

 

[Other Space Kaiden]

[member="Alen Na'Varro"] [member="Ashin Varanin"]


Morellia, the heart of the New Order and the planet directly connected to Mytus through hyperspace lane. This was as close as the Fringe could get without seeing a palace, it was a brave move that would insult Vulcanus more than their attempt to kill him at Bosph. Of course, didn't know who had ventured so close to his capital but he did know that readings had picked up a vessel of a warship class entering the Morellia system. This told Vulcanus two things, someone had entered a New Order system with a warship and that was already a challenge in of itself. Secondly, the detection of only a single warship probably meant that the ones utilizing these ships were of an advanced civilization and most likely had at least a fleet worth of cloaked vessels with them. Though, this was all speculation based on what information the Graug Warlord had available.


In response to this, the Emperor of the New Order had mustered a fleet of warships that centered around his new personal flagship "The Sovereign". The organic vessel was an abomination of Graug/Vong design that's design had been dubbed the Omen-Class. The ship was a twisted design and the current apex of what a Graug warbeast could be. Strapped with hull-like armor and adapted with all the basic Vong weapons, the Omen-Class was truly a force to be reckoned with. Already this massive beast of death was zipping through the strange dimension of Hyperspace, headed straight for the nearby system of Morellia. It wouldn't take long for a military grade fleet to arrive at a system so close to the capital planet.


Sitting in the cognition throne of the vessel, Vulcanus could comprehend more than he ever possibly imagined. His senses with the force were never spectacular, but with the powers of the Vong bio-techs at his disposal it was like he imagined force sensing would be like. The semi-sentient warbrain at the heart of the structure was allowing the Graug-Warlord to feel every life on board the ship as if they were all apart of him. The beast had gotten used to the force absence of the Vong and their tech, but it still unsettled him that the war coordinator of the ship could speak to him without it. "The time is near" was all that the mysterious whisper said, as if it were a thought from his own head. Though that could be interpreted in many ways, Vulcanus somehow understood that the ship was close to exiting hyperspace.


Just as the voice had said, the massive warbeast-ship exited into the fringes of the Morellia system and directly behind the Chimera. Entering directly to its flanks, were two Inquisition-Class Light Star Destroyers that immediately began to power up their total of twelve gravity well generators in preparation for combat. Coming in to the right flank of the flagship was a Sidious-Class Assault Carrier. Immediately the Yammosk began to relay information to the small insects that resided in the throne, each glowing red or green dependent on the ship it represented. It was like watching fireflies dance across the board until they finally settled into their places to show the warlord an accurate battlefield representation.


"Mi'lord" the captain's voice rang through the communicator that Vulcanus wore, "the observation deck has visual and IDF confirmation that the enemy flagship is of Fringe Origin. We believe it is the Chimera, mi'lord"


So, it was the fallen Empress hoping to reclaim her glory yet again. That fact, now that it was made clear, made Vulcanus growl with hatred. How dare that witch enter the heart of his New Order, she would die for her constant interference. "I want our gravity well generators online, long range weapons targeted at that ship and all star fighters deployed!" and thus the maneuvers began.


The present Sidious-Class Assault Carrier began to unload its forty TIE Bows and twenty-two TIE Rapiors, the latter fanning out and moving to intercept the Fringe's fighters. It also released its payload of seventy-two bombers, as did the Inquisition release their eight a piece. By the time all ships had deployed fighters, one hundred-thirteen bombers and seventy-two fighters would be in space and each bomber was heading towards the Fringe flag-ship. The Sovereign began to move full speed towards the back-end of the Fringe ship, only its long range Yaret-Kor and Magma Missiles able to hit it from its current range. The void lit up with fire as the Vong ship shot two of its front mounted plasma cannons at the engines of the Fringe flagship, magma missiles following close behind. Behind them came even more fire, a hypervelocity gun from the Sidious-class and a wealth of long-range fire from the Inquisition-Class Star Destroyers that also began to deploy their gravity wells.

Fleet movements summarized below

Spoiler

The Sovereign - Moving bow first toward the backside of The Chimera - Firing 2 long range plasma cannons - Firing 2 Magma Missiles - Deploying bombers

--------------------

"The Deliverance" Sidious-Class Assault Carrier - Deploying fighters and bombers - firing a single hypervelocity cannon at The Chimera

--------------------

"The Render of Judgment" Inquisition-Class - Targeting The Chimera Deployed bombers - Firing 2 long range turbo - Firing 2 long range Ion - Firing 3 Hypervelocity guns - Firing 2 Assault Concussion Missiles - Firing 5 photon missiles


"The Blade of the Emperor" Inquisition-Class - Targeting The Chimera Deployed bombers - Firing 2 long range turbo - Firing 2 long range Ion - Firing 3 Hypervelocity guns - Firing 2 Assault Concussion Missiles - Firing 5 photon missiles

-------------------------

108 bombers - Targeting subsystems and weapons of the Chimera - en route

22 interceptors - Moving to engage enemy fighters - en route

40 fighters - screening the underbelly of "The Sovereign"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

So the enemy had found it necessary to call in a reinforcement fleet for its reinforcement fleet. A fleet which had somehow arrived directly behind Ashin. Perhaps its commander had forgotten that hyperspace maneuvers that precise and serendipitous just didn't work, much as the first, and now brutalized, reinforcement fleet had been preparing for a combat nanojump less than a hundredth of a second long -- a maneuver which would have torn Bosch's ships apart and crashed them into each other. And as Ashin's sensors recognized the grav wells about to come online -- a process, not an instantaneous deal -- she gave the order she'd been ready to give since the non-hypercapable LACs. She'd been winning, and winning easily, at four to one. This was seven to one, and now was the time to make the call.

Pity. It would have been a joy to eviscerate that undergunned half-Vong command ship.

[member="Alen Na'Varro"] [member="Masamune Tametomo"]
Get out of there. Stealth up and bail. New grav wells. Seven to one.

She had no worries about the two stealth fighters getting away from the site of concurrent and impending angst. The Blackbird-class was brokenly fast, and stealthed against everything from advanced sensors to crystal gravfield traps, and the only vessel anywhere near them was the Obscurity, which had taken hundreds upon hundreds of warhead hits and was in no position to intercept anything. The Obscurity's fighter complement wouldn't even be able to see the two stealth fighters before they vanished into hyperspace.

She rather hoped Na'Varro used that hole in the hangar door to drop a full warhead load at the ship's interior on his way out, though. All depended on his precognitive sense of the interdiction about to come into play.

The two cloaked Penumbra interdictors remotely deactivated their pulse-mass mines on Ashin's signal, and simultaneously, three things happened. The cloaked interdictors vanished into hyperspace, their mines self-destructed thoroughly, and Ashin's little flotilla -- the Chimaera and its complement of Defensors and gunships and bombers -- vanished into hyperspace before those terribly convenient instantaneous gravity wells could power up from that terribly convenient position. To cover the first, and failed, reinforcement fleet, which had somehow, in a terribly convenient way, failed to lose a single ship over twenty metres to a bombardment equivalent to every gun on an Executor.

Such convenience was not in Ashin's playbook, and so she departed, shields comfortably at seventy percent, having lost exactly zero of her support craft.

 

[Aran Finn]

Get out of there. Stealth up and bail. New grav wells. Seven to one.

It was like these guys were made of reinforcement fleets. Feh. The bearded Sith Lord growled with disgust. All these kids ... no skill, no timing, all Star Destroyer spam. But he'd leave those thoughts for later. He had twelve proton torpedoes ... twelve baradium proton torpedoes, and a big fething hole to shoot them through. He was about to re-decorate the interior of the Obscurity with beautiful explosions. Beautiful, beautiful explosions. Na'Varro switched to his two proton torpedo tubes and fired, then fired again and again and again and again and again. Explosions rocked the interior of the light Star Destroyer, Na'Varro was sure they'd do serious damage.

[member="Masamune Tametomo"], Dump your payload and let's bail this joint. The dependable swordsmith would hear those words reverberate through his skull as he made his own pass, but Alen was already heading for the edge of the gravity well and hyperspace.

They'd come here and done what they'd needed to do. Two reinforcement fleets and seven Star Destroyers had just been made to look like blundering banthas in a desert, and the Obscurity was likely a crippled wreck. Ashin hadn't lost a single ship.

Lol, Alen thought.

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Darth Vulcanus"] [member="Aken Bosch"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

Ashin didn’t need to ask twice. Spencer had already begun her trip down to her favorite place on the ship. A meditation sphere allowed her peace and helped clear her mind when she was needed in battle. Upon entering the room, she removed her jacket and stopped in the center of the room. Kneeling down, she closed her eyes and fell into the trance she had been in so many times before. The connections that formed within the force became clear to and she reached for them pulling them towards her protection.

Whispers of encouragement echoed through the Force and the cloud of doubt left the minds of the crew and allies of the Chimera. Her aura seeped through the Battle Meditation and casted a shroud of fog protecting the minds of everyone on board, especially [member="Ashin Varanin"]. The woman was her focus above all, especially in this situation. Once she was comfortable with her influence being spread carefully among the allies her attention turned to the enemy. The lovely thing about Battle Meditation was the fact that it could both be used to boost your allies and hinder the moral of your opponents.

Like she had done with the crew of the Chimera, she pushed her influence farther, but instead of whispering words of encouragement the words of doubt filled the minds of the pilots surrounding the fleet of [member="Aken Bosch"] . The fog of doubt and fear filled their minds as the meditation flowed towards them. The meditation remained strong as she influenced her side and casted a wave of doubt and fear upon her opponents.

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Brutus Tyval, Lord Pathollex, Darth Ferus, Maleus, Malus, Alicia Drey, Alen Na'Varro, Spencer Jacobs, Ashin Varanin, Aken Bosch,

As usual... Voracitos seemed to be late.

In a storm of the force the beast tore open a pathway between his ship and behind the position where Ashin had been and appeared to find....

Absolute Hatred.

There are no words to describe the complete planet cracking tantrum of unbelievable rage that radiated in huge panic inducing waves from his ship. Storms of emotion roiled off the surface of the Girth of Gluttony, pushing away the debris created from the Obscurity's now less than glorious form. Any scraps coming within 4,000 meters of his ship was instantly turned to slag the moment he realized he had missed his opportunity to kill Ashin Varanin, and simultaneously be given a wrecked ship as testament to his once again wounded pride and failure. Voracitos never did react well to failure, and since his introduction to his better, the one who welcomed him as first among equals in his point of lowliness, failure seemed to be a common companion for him.

Anyone within hearing range of his probes could hear on every sound frequency the low rumbling roar slowly building as the realization of total failure hit the ethereal spirit. Inside the Girth of Gluttony near the Holocron, the cracks on the nine shards grew slightly, as boiling rage tore the spirit of Voracitos apart in his uncontrollable frustration and anger. His spirit was crimson, it oozed blood from nothing, and bubbles of fire spouted out of the lakes filling his control room. All of the probes shook as if vibrating from anger as the full brunt of Voracitos awakened in this place.

"Unacceptable. Unacceptable. Unacceptable. UNACCEPTABLE. UNACCEPTABLE. UNACCEPTABLE. UNACCEPTABLEUNACCEPTABLEUNECCEPTIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"​

​

Impotent rage pushed everything away from Voracitos and his ship, and on the spot wherever they were near this planet every probe melted and exploded blasting the last word worthy of a sonic blaster in every direction. The resulting slag was then crushed together into a minuscule ball bearing of gleaming, steaming, semi-molten bullet that from where it was vanished from the eye of man in a flash of light.

What happened? Voracitos was so pissed off at everything he took his probes, crushed them into dense cores, tore them out of real space, and hurled them at Ashin's ship in hyperspace. Twelve hyperspace Asteroids out of spite of his failure. Chances of hitting were debatable, and likelihood of destruction equally so, but Voracitos didn't care. Anything that might hit her, anything that might destroy something of hers, anything at all. That's what he wanted most desperately. An attack on his operations by his worst nightmare without a single loss, would not pass Voracitos. Everyone, must suffer.

Yes, he was that angry.

 

[Darth Ayra]

Ayra watched from the cockpit of the Niathal at the remains of the Obscurity. Broken, desolate, gone. The Conqueror of a Thousand worlds had been quick in her retribution, before her subsequent retirement at the hands of Aken Bosch and Darth Vulcanus's small armadas. She hailed the nearest Star Destroyer and spoke into the comms. "Lock a tractor beam on what is left on the Obscurity. Evacuate all surviving personnel. Drag it back to Morellia shipyards for repairs. Let us salvage what is left of the vessel."

Engaging the impulse engines of the Niathal to follow what was left of the Attrition-class Star Destroyer and the cohorts that were dragging it back to shipyards, Ayra intended to finish her mission. The Fringe had proved to be a minor snag. That was all.

 

[Tales of the Rule of Two]

Malus was sat in the medical bay of a Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer, alongside the rest of the surviving crew that had been evacuated from the Obscurity following the conclusion of the New Order's skirmish with the Lords of the Fringe. He supported a cast that had a bacta tank attached. It was soothing and also assisting the healing process of the third degree burns he had suffered. He had also received burns on other areas of his body, but nothing as serious; and save for his wounded pride and loss of hair, Malus had escaped with no broken bones. He was a very lucky Chiss.

Moving up from his bed, he began to make his way along the bay, to visit his people. Meanwhile, the Obscurity had been towed into the Morellia shipyards, to receive the repairs and in some cases, entire reconstruction of the lost parts of the ship, including the hangar bay, engine room and two lost barracks, where Stormtroopers and so on had been stationed in.

 

[Darth Ayra]

Darth Ayra marched along the hallways of the Morellia shipyards, leaving behind the Niathal, which was currently docked. Doors sealed over the tube that currently connected the shuttle to the station, in which the Sith Lord began her journey from her personal ship towards the main docking area for larger ships, such as Star Destroyers and Cruisers. It was where the remnants of the Attrition-class Star Destroyer, the Obscurity, had been towed in and subsequently brought into reconstruction and repairs. What had been a mission to recover the Annihilator-class generators that the missing Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vazela, had designed and made, had now become a salvage mission of sorts.

She came to a stop on an observational deck, where her yellow, sulfuric eyes fell onto the broken Star Destroyer. Folding her arms across her chest, she would wait until the construction crews began the Obscurity's restoration; and then she would go about the recovery of the generator in question.

 

[Tales of the Rule of Two]

Malus touched the heads of each crewman and woman he met with, telling them that they would be okay, that they were home and back among the Sith. That no longer would they have to survive in the dark expanse and their journey had come to an end. Some of them accepted that their days of serving the Empire was over. Too injured to continue, it looked like they were on their last leg. Literally. Others told their commanding officer that they would be back and he accepted that. He enjoyed the patriotism they showed. They would need it for the upcoming struggles.

 

[Darth Ayra]

Hours passed by the Sith Lord and still her eyes were on the Obscurity. Thoughts turned to the upcoming plan to usurp Ziost from the clutches of the United Mandalorian Clans. Mandalorians, Fringe, New Order, One Sith. Even the Confederacy was involved in some way. The linage of Sith Lords that predated the Pandeima-Ayra relationship would of been proud of such a scheme that involved so many factions. Ziost was only the beginning of the end. The manipulation of events would have to be careful and unique, with so many elite figures of each faction becoming joint up in the web of lies and deceit. Individuals such as [member="Ashin Varanin"] would have to be thought about extensively.

Her eyes finally glanced upon construction crews beginning the restoration of the Obscurity. Sparks began to ignite, cranes were moved and dozens of men and women, ranging from all types of species, were beginning their work. Darth Ayra turned from the transparisteel screen and out onto the flight of stairs that led down into the outside area. The gigantic blast doors that led into the shipyards port, where the Obscurity was docked, were sealed shut, so as to keep the now running life support. That was why it had taken so long for the restoration to begin.

Her feet found even surface at last. She began to cross the ground towards the supervisor that was overseeing the construction. The first point of contact to the man in charge. Her hands lifted to the cowl of her Sith robe and lowered it from her head. Darth Ayra got the attention of the supervisor and told him. "Bring me to your boss."

 

[Onrai]

Considering who was in charge of the Morellia shipyards, there was only one woman who was the boss of this entire operation. One woman who wielded such absolute control over the Sith Empire's new shipyards. That woman was Circe Savan. Better known as Darth Pandeima to the ivory-skinned Sith apprentice that called her Master. At her desk, in her transparisteel-walled office watching the restoration, she smiled. "You've done a superb job, my apprentice. Giving me the plans earlier will help with the rebuilding of the vessel to traditional Attrition specifications."

[member="Alicia Drey"]