On board the mighty Battleship Guardian, orbiting above the planet of Sat'Skar.....

Admiral Kraken entered the war room to find it full of the people he had already called to the meeting, along with their aides, and advisors. They were standing around a large, circular holo table that currently held a number of displays. The main display held the system of Coyn, and it also displayed the planets of Coyn, and D'Skar, along with the planet Sat'Skar, currently in Imperial hands. Sat'Skar and D'Skar were both currently expanded into different screens, showing ships in orbit above both planets. Sat'Skar held quite a few Imperial Battleships, preparing to invade D'Skar, the next planet on the list of the Imperials. Recent probes had indicated a build up of warships at both Coyn and D'Skar, but mainly D'Skar, perhaps the cunning warrior peoples of Coyn realising that D'Skar would probably be next. Or perhaps they had a spy in their midst, someone who either thought they feared the Coyn more than the Imperials, or who perhaps seeked to add a little income to their accounts. In any case, the number of capital ships in orbit had doubled in recent weeks, with more smaller types of ships joining the ones in orbit over the planet. The planet's main defense force, before the Imperial fleet buildup had begun over Sat'Skar, had consisted of a old but immensly powerful Bulwark class Battlecruiser, and a number of old corellian corvettes. A recent raid into the Coyn Run had captured one of these corvettes, thanks to the combined work of the cruiser Indomitable, and her two squadrons of elite TIE Defenders, Vanguard and Scimitar squadrons. They had been fairly modified and were good fighting ships, carrying the usual two double turbolaser cannons, replacing the four singles with quad laser cannons on fast reflexive mounts, and mounting a pair of dual proton torpedo launchers to the side of the hammerhead bridge structre.

Right now, the forces they had in orbit over Sat'Skar included much of the Grand Fleet, as well as some of the Baron's 100th Heavy Assault Squadron, hence, the reason that the Guardian was here in the first place. Other elements include some ships out of the Imperial reserve, here to guard Sat'Skar in case of a counter-attack. With this in mind, Kraken ordered the men to begin the breifing, beginning with the Commodore on the far left, a man by the name of Huey.

Huey stood, and bowed to everyone, and then began his breifing, "To this day, since we have conquered Sat'Skar, we have noticed a higher than average amount of activity among our enemies within the Coyn system. Their have begun to greatly increase their shipyard building capacity, as well as increasing the amount of military forces they have through other means, such as buying from other goverments, and hiring mercenaries, or bribing pirates, and smugglers. Whatever the cause or reason, the point I'm bringing us to today is that, as a result, the traffic within the Coyn run has greatly increased. Many more merchant ships are ferrying supplies such as fuel oil, scrap metal, and other materiels first to the planet of D'Skar, which is their manufacturing world, and then the processed materiels on to the shipyards above the world of Coyn. It is my aim to launch first a series of dual raids to capture the merchants, and destroy any enemy warships within this zone, and then to initiate a long term blockade by the time we recieve more ships from the Mid-Rim. I propose that two task groups be created, each containing a Reign class Destroyer, four Illustrious Fast Attack Cruisers, ten gunships, and five Constrainer Pickets for the purpose of these raids." said Huey.

"Very good," observed Kraken, "Your plan is both a sound one, and a reasonable one. I approve this plan. Time of implementation will follow shortly. Now, let us turn our attention to Commodore Brand, who has been monitoring the enemy warships throughout the run, and the planet of D'Skar. Commodore?"

"Well, we have new information that just came in. Agents on the ground have confirmed that mercenaries, and pirates are being hired. The mercenary gang known as the Dude Thugs are coming in with a heavily modified Bulwark Battlecruiser with full complements of older types of TIE Starfighters, and ground troops. Also, the Calvrihu Pirates are coming in as well with a Kaloth Battlecruiser, and about four Corellian Gunships. In the way of enemy vessels, the Coyn's have deployed eight corvettes to patrol the run, along with one old Nebula Star Destroyer now. Finally, over D'Skar they have four semi-modern CC-9600 Frigates, one Defender class Star Destroyer, one MC-85 Command Cruiser, heavily modified, and about fifty smaller assorted vessels, from Escort frigates, scout cruisers, and corvettes down to gunships, patrol boats, and pickets. Starfighters here a more modern, A-wings, lots of A-wings, for example, along with some E-wings, and even a few salvaged K-wing heavy assault bombers. And that is all for my breifing." said Commodore Brand.

"And with that, our meeting is concluded. We will move on Huey's plan as soon as the taskforce can be organized, and dispatched. If possible, I would love the opprotunity to eliminate the Dude's, and Calvrihu's as soon as possible, and away from the rest of the enemy fleets. Dismissed." said Kraken as he and his fellow officers began to pack up and depart from the war room.......

In the middle of the Coyn Run....

Freighters of all sizes and warships of all sizes buzzed in and about the Coyn run, arriving out of hyperspace from various places, and turning about to re-enter hyperspaces heading on torwards their destination planets. There were many good sized merchant ships about, many Bulk Cruisers, armed with an assortment of laser cannons, ferrying scrap metal, scrap aluminum, and raw oil to the planet of D'Skar to be broken down and reprocessed into good, sturdy durasteel, and other supplies that were needed to run the factories, and build up the war industy of Coyn.

Warships were either using the transit points as well, or else were patrolling this area of space to ensure that pirates and smugglers were kept in line, and so forth. At the moment, there were a group of pirates transiting through this area of space, the Calvrihu pirates, with one big Kaloth class Battlecruiser, three smaller Pacifier class Assault Frigates, and six Corellian Gunships. Also in the area were a number of heavily armed corvettes.

Minutes later, trouble began to brew in the run. Some merchant ships began to flee when a huge white dagger appeared in their midst. The Reign class Star Destroyer Courageous had entered the system, and powered up her gravity wells immediatly, as well as deploying her complements of fighters and shuttles. The warships immediatly in the area converged for an attack, and then were interrupted as more warships flickered in from hyperspace, having been pulled out by the Interdiction field as well. There were four Aegis sized warships, and ten smaller ships, sized of pickets, but size matters not. These ships were also Imperial, and in addition to powering up shields, and weapons, immediatly went after the convering warships.

Two Intrepid type gunships, the I-13 and I-15, went after one of the enemy corvettes going after the Glorious. The gunships fired their quad turbolaser cannons at the corvette, initiating a responding hail of turbolaser and laser cannon fire in retaliation. Then the gunships, and corvettes both fired their complements of proton torpedoes. Thirty two torpedoes crashed into the weakened corvette, smashing her shields, and opening great gaps in her hull, blowing out the insides with great gouts of flames. The wreckage of the corvette began to drift in space, it's crew all dead. The four proton torpedoes fired by the corvette slammed into the I-15, destroying what remained of it's shields, but no more. The gunship withdrew from the combat zone for the time being, waiting for her shields to recharge.

Elsewhere in the engagement zone, an Illustrious class Fast Attack cruiser took on the Calvirhu Pirate gang. The gang must have been confident of success, for they threw only the Kaloth Battlecruiser, and two gunships against the heavy cruiser. Big mistake. The cruiser sideslipped in between the gunships, and used nine of it's eighteen heavy ion batteries on each of the gunships, pouring a torrent of fire that rivaled that of thirty six individual ion cannons. Within minutes the gunships were completley disabled, and the cruiser only took minor shield damage in return. Now the only thing left was the Kaloth Battlecruiser. That is when the Battlecruiser opened fire with it's large complements of turbolaser and laser cannons. The Battlecruiser fired a total of three salvos that did considerable damage to the cruiser's shields. Then the Illustrious's capitan activated a special ability of his ship. The crew on the Battlecruiser noted the cruiser's weapons power going down, but then the shields suddenly went back up to full power. As the Battlecruiser attempted to fire again, the cruiser launched all six of it's octect proton torpedo launchers. Forty eight proton torpedos streaked out torwards the Battlecruiser. The Battlecruiser tried desperatley to bring their laser cannons to bear, but it was too late. One minute later, glowing fragments is all that remained of the battlecruiser. Another Illustrious cruiser arrived on the scene, and together the two of them finished off the Calvrihu Pirate gang once and for all.

It wasn't soon after the raid on Coyn that the real operation against D'Skar was soon to commence. Changes were made at the last moment to hopefully minimize losses, as hotspots were popping up across Imperial regions across space, and there was no telling when some of the warships may have needed to be recalled. So it was decided to send in an advance party of the types of warships best suited to taking large amounts of punishment. So, in short order, it was decided to send in a force of Illustrious Fast Attack Cruisers to soften the enemy up, before the main fleet jumped in, and attempted to finish off the enemy defending fleet.

The attack force would consist of eight such cruisers, under the capable command of Commodore Huey. Huey had a fine reputation, beginning with negotiating with Farfalen on a deal of exchanging warships for spice, which while in it's self didn't sound very cool, the warships were used in an attempt to bring the Anthos Republic into the war against the Outer-Rim Sovereignty by staging a false attack on the Anthos homeworld after the ships had been marked with ORS markings. From there the Imperial Commodore had lead a taskforce into the heat of battle over Bakura, and had not only rescued the Farfalen leader, Prime Minister Kyric Zen, from certain doom, but had also witnessed the destruction of the Sovereign's Super Star Destroyer, a memorable sight.

Now was the time for him to once again lead Imperial forces into battle, and to emerge more or less intact. Hopefully more than so, as was usually the case. The Imperial advance fleet had organized it's self. The Illustrious cruisers would be going in with full starfighter support, some sixteen squadrons of TIE Defenders, as was their maximum fighter capacity. The heavy cruisers were fast and strong, and were ready for battle. Commodore Huey transferred his flag to the battlecruiser Indomitable, and signaled that they were ready to depart. With one last quick communication between the two Commodores, Huey, and Braxis, exchanging good luck, and good hunting well wishes, the fleet was off, into a quick jump through hyperspace.

A short time later, the fleet arrived within the system. Half of the TIE Defenders were immediatly deployed into a screen as the cruisers came about, and prepared to engage whatever they found within the system. The number of enemy warships within the system, as sensors soon showed the heavy cruisers, were appalling. Three Imperial Star Destroyers, Mark IIs, formed the center of this massive enemy fleet, followed up by two Republic class Star Destroyers, and eight Nebula class Star Destroyers. That was the bulk of the enemy fleet, and damn, what a bulk it was too. But also in the enemy fleet were traces of smaller ships, escort frigates, and strike cruisers, as well as carrack cruisers, and corellian gunships.

Commodore Huey was not happy at the sight of so much former Imperial hardware in the hands of the enemy, and it made him feel sick as well. He ordered his fleet into full combat readiness, to deploy all remaining TIE Defenders, and to come about and prepare to engage. Shields were fully energized, weapons were powered fully online, along with special systems, and warhead launchers were loaded, and ready to be deployed. Commodore Huey allowed himself a breif ruefuel grin, as a portion of the enemy fleet broke off, and began to head torwards him. It consisted of the two Republic class Star Destroyers at the head, and four Nebula Star Destroyers at the rear, along with ten carrack cruisers, and ten corellian gunships. If the enemy thought that this force could easily destroy the eight heavy cruisers, then they were sadly mistaken, although by all means they could destroy the eight heavy cruisers, just not easily.

Commodore Huey decided to take advantage of the fact that the enemy was not yet seen to deployed any starfighters. He ordered his capital ships to launch a warhead volley at the lead Republic Star Destroyer, and for his starfighters to launch a one-two salvo punch on the second Republic class Star Destroyer. More than three hundred fifty proton torpedoes leaped out from the tubes of the launchers on board the eight heavy cruisers, while the starfighters launched two waves of proton torpedoes, each one consisting of more than three hundred fifty proton torpedoes. The first wave from the capital ships reached the enemy ships, and detonated against their shields, and against some of the hull too. When the explosions faded, the Republic class Star Destroyer had been moderatly damaged, with maybe fifty percent of her firepower and manueverabilty gone forever. The second Republic class Star Destroyer was destroyed utterly by the huge amounts of proton torpedoes, taking with it whatever starfighters it had carried aboard, if any at all were carried.

The remaining Republic Destroyer, and the other vessels in the fleet immediatly learned from their mistake, and deployed their starfighters before the Imperials could take them up with their home ships. Commodore Huey allowed himself a smile at this. Way back in the day, the New Republic had learned a smiliar lesson at the Battle of Orinda, when the Super Star Destroyer Reaper, under the command of the brilliant Admiral Gilad Pelleaon, had annihilated the New Republic Fleet Carrier Endurance, taking many of the New Republic's starfighters with it, because they had not been deployed when the carrier had first arrived within the system. Now the enemy had made a similar mistake, and about seventy two of thier starfighters or so had paid the price.

Commodore Huey released half of his own starfighter force, a total of some ninety six starfighters, to head out and engage and destroy the enemy starfighters at their leisure. The enemy starfighter lot was a mixed one, with many old types mixed in with many new types. XJ-wings, TIE Defenders, and E-wings took the foreground of the enemy starfighter formation, followed by some older types, such as X-wings, Z-95s, A-9s, and even a few the oldest and weakest TIE Fighter types. At the back of the formation were some old Y-wing bombers, and some Die-wings, types of ugly starfighters that were deathtraps to their pilots. This starfighter fleet represented many years of investments of the Coyn goverment, and today they would either get their money's worth, or see their credits go spiraling down the drain. Commodore Huey knew which option he wanted to bet on.

The approaching New Order TIE Defenders opened up on the enemy formation first with two spreads of proton torpedoes, targeting the most modern brands of enemy starfighters with their launchers. Tens of explosions signaled the ends of enemy TIE Defenders, XJ-wings, and E-wings. A quick look at the display scanner confirmed that only five enemy TIE Defenders, and XJ-wings remained, along with fifteen E-wings. In contrast and comparison, his own starfighter formation lost only one squadron's worth of Defenders when the enemy responded to their proton torpedo barrage with one of their own. Then the first wave of starfighters were past one another, and became hopelessley intermixed.

Now it was time to once again pound on the enemies's capital warships while their starfighters were intermixed. He ordered another proton torpedo salvo to be fired from the enemy capital warships while the remaining starfighters that had fallen back also fired another proton torpedo salvo. This time the entire formation was firing a one-two punch, the capital ships firing on one of the enemy Nebula class Destroyers, with the starfighters firing a second salvo at the same target. Similar to the first Republic Destroyer, this Nebula Star Destroyer was also utterly destroyed in this proton torpedo salvo. It's wreckage littered the landscape, and another Nebula Star Destroyer right behind it had to steer wide in order to avoid some of the wreckage.

The starfighter engagement, in the meantime, wasn't going as well as hoped. While the enemy were taking far more losses than the Imperials were, there were still lot more of the enemies than there were Imperials. All of the enemy's advanced starfighter types had been destroyed by now, along with about one quarter of their regular brands, but in exchange massed enemy fired had destroyed three more squadrons of New Order TIE Defenders, reducing Commodore Huey's starfighter contigent engaging the enemy starfighters by half. With a grimace Huey ordered the remaining TIE Defenders in his formation to go into the formation, and to help his starfighters win the day against the enemy squadrons. Meanwhile, he ordered his captial ships to form into a powerful line of battle. No doubt the enemy was going to take full advantage of the situation.

As it was Commodore Huey hadn't underestimated the situation at all. Seeing the remaining starfighter heading off into the engagement zone, the enemy capital ships came straight on torwards his own, intent on securing a quick victory in this part of the engagement zone. With no New Order starfighters left near their captial ships to harass his own ships, the enemy commander was free to let his own ships cocentrate on the enemy ships. Commodore Huey fired one last proton torpedo salvo at the enemy formation before his launchers ran dry, and then he ordered for his ships to prepare for close range action. But his ships were ready anyways, and so Commodore Huey now just waited for the range to close between his ships, and that of the enemy ships.

Going back to the starfighter engagement, the Imperials were doing much better there when the reinforcements arrived. First the reinforcements fired a proton torpedo salvo at the enemy, taking them by suprise, and reducing their number by about one hundred. Then the fresh Imperial reinforcements were among the enemy starfighter squadrons, chewing them up like a rancor chewing up a gamorrean pig. The enemy was losing ground fast in this department, as more than half of his modern types of starfighters had been destroyed, and his oldest types were starting to take substantial losses as well. It would not be long before all of his starfighters had been vanquished, and indeed small groups of surviving squadrons coming out of the main engagement zone were already beginning to retreat back torwards their planet.

Then the enemy capital ships were upon the Imperial ones, and the night of space was turned green and red by turbolaser and laser cannon flashed as the two sides commenced firing between one another. Early on the Imperials scored some noticeable victories that probably determined the outcome of the battle, but the enemy still fought on anyways. First two Illustrious cruisers ganged up on the enemy Republic class Star Destroyer, finishing off her weakened shields from earlier, and pummeling her hull with turbolaser and ion cannon strikes. She tried to fight back desperatley, but was no match, and within a couple of minutes, her reactor core overloaded, exploding in a massive display that left her drifting and gutted in space.

Free from this threat, the two cruisers next began to take the enemy carrack cruisers under fire, demolishing or disabling them one by one. Meanwhile, the other six cruisers each had their sights set on one enemy Nebula Star Destroyer. There were three Nebulas remaining, and they were being jumped one by two Illustrious cruisers each. The Nebulas began to take real damage with the huge amounts of ion cannon fire being thrown into them began to take it's toll on the ship's systems, in particular their weaponry, and shielding systems being badly affected by this firepower. The enemy carrack cruisers were dueling with the two cruisers that had come about to engage them, while there was no trace of the enemy gunships. Commore Huey checked his display scanner, and was horrified to see that they were engaging his own starfighter formations. He said a quick blessing of luck and godspeed to them, and then turned his attention back to the capital ship battle.

Five more minutes, and the tide of the battle was known both to Commodore Huey, and to the enemy commander. Despite their best efforts, the enemy had made little or no damage to the Imperial vessels, thanks to their special damage control systems, and in exchange the Imperials had inflicted massive damage to the enemy capital ship fleet. The two remaining Nebula Star Destroyers began a withdrawal, followed by the six remaining carrack cruisers. One of the Nebula Star Destroyers, and two of the carrack cruisers had been disabled by the Imperial forces, and as his orders were to take no prisoners, the destruction of the enemy ships was shortly executed by the turbolasers of the Imperial fleet. His own starfighters had fared well on their own, having destroyed four gunships with their remaining proton torpedoes, along with disabling two more. Now the Imperial starfighters were withdrawing back to their vessels, and Huey saw with some shock that a full six Imperial fighter squadrons, one wing, had been destroyed by the enemy. But still, it was a glorious Imperial victory. He stabbed his button on the holocomm, and transmitted a mission accomplished signal to his superiors.

0400 hours, above the world of D'Skar, local time......

The Imperial Star Destroyer Decimator shot out of hyperspace, being accompanied by the Victory class Star Destroyer Vengeance. The two ships immediatly formed into a line abreast formation, and shot forwards, torwards the enemy fleet. Capitan Mancuso was the commander of this little attack, being stationed aboard the Impstar. This attack was merely a probe to see how well prepared the defenders of the world were. Captian Mancuso was fully aware of the peril his ships faced, for if the enemy defenders were extremley well prepared and alert, one or both of his ships could be destroyed in the ensuing battle. The order of the day was for close range action to commence as soon as the ships had closed the range. Closest to their fleet was a taskforce consisting of two Mon Calamari type eighty heavy cruisers, escorted by a taskforce of four modified escort frigates, and six corellian corvettes. This taskforce was a good match for the Imperial fleet, and so Captian Mancuso ordered an intercept course.

As the Imperial ships entered the system and swung about on an intercept vector, the enemy defenders woke up to the fact that they were under attack, and began to pull themselves together. Capitan Mancuso made a log of the fact that the enemy were not prepared for such a short response of the Imperials. It would be good to have this information when the final push against Coyn began. The enemy defenders were coming about, including the formation that the Imperials were targeting. The corvettes, and frigates formed a screen while the Mon Calamari cruisers launched their complements of fighters. The escort frigates also launched their starfighters as well, in order to soften up the Imperial ships before the main taskforce arrived.

Captian Mancuso ordered his own starfighter squadrons to be launched to form a screen. Six squadrons of TIE Fighters slid off the launching bays of the Decimator, and Vengeance, and approached the enemy starfighter squadrons incoming. The enemy squadrons consisted of eight squadrons of X-wing starfighters launched from the frigates, and six squadrons of Y-wing bombers, launched from the Mon Calamari cruisers. The TIE Fighters split up into their individual squadrons, being tasked for which units to go after, and then after that split up into their designated wing trios. Then the two groups of starfighters met head on, firing laser cannons and proton torpedoes, as they split up to go after individual targets. Most of the enemy starfighters were flown by rookies, and proved to be easy targets for his veterans. X-wing after X-wing exploded, with the occasional TIE Fighter exploding as well as numerical odds wore down on his pilots.

Within eight minutes the X-wings were largely destroyed, some ten of their number surviving the dogfight. Now the remaining TIE Fighters were mostly swarming the Y-wing bombers, which proved tough since it appeared that the enemy ships were dueces with a gunner in the back controlling the ion cannon. The TIE Fighters ganged up on the Y-wings when possible, with three TIE Fighters attacking one Y-wing from multipule directions. In the end, the enemy pilots aborted their attack after an additional three minutes, and the enemy survivors were allowed to retreat. Captian Mancuso ordered five Sentinel Shuttles to be launched from the Decimator in order to retrieve his pilots that had been disabled. Total in the engagment he had lost twenty two TIE Fighters destroyed, and fourteen more disabled, totalling thirty six fighters out of the engagement, totalling exactly half of his strength when he had first ordered the starfighters to be launched. In reuturn seventy X-wings had been destroyed, along with thirty Y-wings, more than making up for the losses of the Imperials.

Now it was time for the capital ship battle to commence. The enemy fleet split into two sections, with one consisting of the corvettes, and frigates, and the other one consisting of the two Mon Calamari Star Cruisers. The Star Cruisers came after the Impstar Duece, while the other ships went after the Victory Star Destroyer. Captian Mancuso had expected this reponse, and so in retaliation ordered a squadron of TIE Bombers to be launched to help the Victory Star Destroyer. In the opening shots, the Victory launched it's full complement of eighty concussion missiles at the starboard Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, identified as the Mon Casima II. The missile spread hit the length of the ship and detonated, stripping her shields on her starboard side. The Decimator took advantage of this, and slipped around the Mon Calamari cruiser, leaving the other Mon Calamari cruiser, the Mon Delindo, with no clear shot to the Impstar. Captian Mancuso ordered his port side gunners to fire on the exposed flank of the Star Cruiser, and ordered his gunners on the other side to break the backs of the enemy frigates. The Victory also engaged the frigates with her guns. Then the enemy ships opened fire.

In the resulting engagement, the enemy ships were caught at an disadvantage. The Decimator quickly heavily damaged the Mon Casima II, leaving her in bad shape, with her propulsion down to zero percent, and her weapons and shield systems on that side impared. The Impstar also quickly destroyed an enemy frigate with a full broadside that cut through their shields, and broke her hull in her spine, snapping the frigate in half. The Victory concentrated her turbolaser cannons on another frigate, snapping that one in half as well. Then the TIE Bombers that Capitan Mancuso had launched finally got into the action, splitting into two groups of six each and launched coordinated proton torpedo volleys that destroyed two Corellian Corvettes. But while the Imperial success was astounding, they weren't getting away with it, either. Repeated volleys of turbolaser and laser cannon fire from the frigates and corvettes had punched through the shields of the Vengeance, and had damaged her hull, knocking out some weapons, and shield stations.

The other Mon Calamari cruiser in the meantime had swung around her crippled partner, and was lacing the rear of the Decimator with turbolaser and ion cannon fire. The Impstars propulsion was beginning to be affected by the ion cannon fire which specialized in disabling enemy systems. Capitan Mancuso took a glance at the sensor board. There, approaching the engagement zone was another enemy taskforce, consisting of three Dreadnought heavy cruisers, and six accompanying enemy starfighter squadrons. Capitan Mancuso felt it was time, and so sent an order into the hypercomm, back the way he had came, to the second group of Imperial warships waiting just outside the system. At this order they entered into a microjump that brought them out of the system near the Dreadnought taskforce. The Imperial force consisted of six Illustrious cruisers, and was escorted by a force of four Fire class Light Frigates. The Illustrious cruiser immediatly attacked the enemy Dreadnoughts, two Illustrious cruisers each pounding on an enemy dreadnought. The enemy could only respond with scattered turbolaser fire that the shields easily absorbed aboard the Imperial Heavy cruisers. In return their heavy turbolaser collapsed the enemy shields, and ion cannon fire disabled them. With precision turbolaser fire the Illustrious cruisers punched through the hulls of the disabled dreadnoughts, and punched through their reactor cores, detonating them in spectacular fireballs that destroyed the dreadnoughts whole.

The Fire light frigates, in the meantime, attacked the six enemy squadrons of starfighters that were accompayning the dreadnoughts, all of them ancient Z-95 Headhunters. Five squadrons were destroyed within a minute, and the final squadron destroyed shortly thereafterwards. With their task completed, the Fire light frigates withdrew from the system, while the Illustrious cruisers angled in to attack the Mon Calamari cruisers that were engaged with the Imperial fleet. They fired their proton torpedoes first, collapsing the shields of the Mon Delindo. Then they poured torrents of turbolaser and ion cannon fire into the weakened enemy cruiser, leaving it a dead, drifting hulk. The Impstar, and Vicstar finished off the enemy picket ships, destroyed the sole remaining frigate, and the remaining four corvettes in easy time. With this completed the final task was to finish off the other Mon Cal Cruiser, which they did. With their mission accomplished, Capitan Mancuso ordered a withdrawal from the system. In this raid the Imperial fleet had lost thirty six TIE Fighters, and in exchanged had destroyed fifteen enemy capital ships, and twenty squadrons of enemy starfighters. The Imperials had won a stunning victory in this round of engagmements.

Over the orbit of D'Skar.....

It had been several days since the incursion by the small Imperial taskforce which had wrought so much havok with the fleets in orbit. The Imperials were waiting to see whether or not the planet would capitulate following the devastating losses, but it appeared that the planet would remain under rigid control of the enemy. Therefore it was now obvious that a full scale military engagement would need to be fought in order to gain control of the planet. Currently taskforces were being organized, troops readied, and plans being thought out and practiced. Right now the plan consisted of a multi-stage assault to destroy certain elements of the fleets before the main assault began.

The latest recon probes indicated that the fleets surronding D'Skar had clumped into three main battlegroups, with about twenty five smaller groups of individual ships, two, three, or four taskforce ship groups. All the large capital warships were in the three clustered fleets, while the smaller taskforces consisted of nothing larger than an escort frigate. Also, two Golan I battle platforms had been stationed around the planet as well. These had been deployed from Coyn, and reduced that planet's defense force a small percentage. Right now the operational plan called for a fleet of two hundred fifty warships to participate in the overall execution and capturing of the planets.

The fleets would be lead by the four Commodores of the Mid-Rim protectorate, as well as by six other commanders. There were ten fleets in all. The first six consisted of a mix of star destroyer type battleships, and heavy cruisers of various classes. The first six would also be the first stage of the battle, and would dispose of the smaller enemy taskforces, leaving the clumped fleets for the other larger taskforces to deal with.

The order to jump was given, and the first taskforce was away, bound for the world of D'Skar.

On board the Star Destroyer Firestorm, flagship of task force 3.5

Commodore Braxus watched from his post as his taskforce hurled through hyperspace. His fleet consisted of one Imperial Star Destroyer Mark II along with a small five ship support force. His fighter elements consisted of the older TIE Interceptor and TIE Bomber models, but would be adequate for this mission at hand. His target was three groups of four enemy warships each, half of them frigates, and the other half corvettes, with a fair number of starfighters also. Along with him on the ride were two Imperial strike class cruisers, and three Carrack class light cruisers. This gave his fleet a formidable punch. He would come out of hyperspace within vicinity of the three fleets, and whether or not they would come at him at once, or wait to combine together, and for him to bring the fight to them, he did not care. This enemy taskforce would fall by his hand.

Then the stars of hyperspace faded away, and they had come out into the planetery system of D'Skar. In addition to the planet, three moons orbited it at long distance, providing lots of mass shadows that they had taken into account during planning. If the enemy fleets broke and ran, they would be trapped for a long time in realspace by those mass shadows, and they had planned for this ground to become a massacre for the enemy fleets. His star destroyer flashed into realspace first, followed by the strike cruisers, and then the carrack cruisers, deploying into his line of battle, and deploying their TIE scout fighters for screening formation. His sensor displays lit up with enemy contacts. The firs two groups were near each other, and were now deploying together, while the third enemy group was also coming about, but to go straight at the Imperials, not to join with the other two. Commodore Braxus smiled at this and decided immediatly was his course for the engagement would be. His complement of Interceptors, and bombers would be deployed to dispose of the third group, while his own capital ships would attack and destroy the first two groups, now designated one whole group.

The four squadrons of TIE Interceptors, and two squadrons of TIE bombers screamed from the launching bays of the Firestorm, and headed torwards the third group as their mothership lead the rest of the fleet torwards the combined two other groups. The group they were going after consisted of one frigate, one marauder corvette, and two older picket boats with added weaponry, but minimal other systems. The group deployed it's complement of starfighters, which appeared to be under strength for maxiumum capacity. Eight Z-95 Headhunters from the frigate, and six I-7 Howlrunners from the corvette deployed against the Imperials. The TIE Interceptor squadrons roared it, firing cannons, and obliterated or crippled all the enemy starfighters on the first pass. Then they broke up, one squadron each swarming an enemy capital ship while the bombers deployed into four groups of six each to make their runs on the enemy capital ships. The two picket ships were destroyed first, having their systems shot out by the interceptors, and then being destroyed outright by two proton torpedoes fired from the TIE bombers. Then the frigate went next, it's spine going out with a salvo of torpedoes, breaking the ship in half. The marauder corvette went out thirty seconds later, in a mass hail fire of laser blasts, and proton torpedoes. In total the Imperial fighter squadrons had lost nine TIE interceptors and no TIE bombers. The remaining starfighters went upwards after the combined two enemy groups, which were now engaging the star destroyer, and it's complement of support warships.

The Imperial Star Destroyer flashed as it's weaponry engaged, targeting two enemy frigates, one on each flank. The frigates were of a modified Nebulon type, with four of the pylons where normal frigates of the type carried only one. It was very unusual and ugly looking, and although the ships boasted excellent weaponry, they were still easy pickings. The Star Destroyer's weapony chewed into the ship's flank shields, dissolving them and chewing them back from the most vulnerable section of the frigate. The frigate's spine was the star destroyer's target, but was more heavily armoured than the earlier models. The frigates fired back, banks of turbolaser and laser cannons chewing into the star destroyer's shields, and some of them punching through to strike hull armour. A minor fire was started on deck twenty six. While emergency crews tended to it, the star destroyer finished the engagement with the frigates by concentrating it's combined power on first one spine, and then the second spine of both frigates. With four large pieces of ship floating through space, the star destroyer turned it's attention to whatever was left over. The two strike cruisers were engaged with a gunnery duel with another two escort frigates, while the carrack cruisers were systimatically destroying the corvettes. Three marauder type corvettes had ganged up on one carrack cruiser, and had just broken through it's sheilds. The Firestorm came to it's assistance, but not before a disabling shot was fired from one of the marauder corvettes. The Star destroyer's weaponry flashed, obliterating two of the corvettes in a staggling quadrupule explosion that included the two remaining frigates, the strike cruisers having easily won the gunnery duels. The remaning handfuls of enemy warships were finished off by the TIE squadrons, having finished off the group three of enemy warships.

With this group of warships annihilated, the room was clear for the first of the large taskforces to revert from hyperspace, and to engage one of the large enemy fleets which was coming to attack the small Imperial squadron. A taskforce leapt from hyperspace, commanded by Commodore Carson, and consisted of three Reign class Star Destroyers, six Illustrious class heavy cruisers, and thirty Intrepid class gunships. The gunships immediatly moved out and engaged the enemy support ships while the Reign and Illustrious class ships fired on the enemy main capitals. While the enemy fleet was preoccupied with the newly arrived Imperial squadron, Commodore Brand led his remaining warships, and starfighters in a pincer movement from the other side of the enemy fleet. When the enemies large capital ships rotated to bring fresh shields, and weapons against the Imperial main fleet, Commodore Brand ordered his ships to open fire, savaging the enemy ship's unprotected flanks. This enemy squadron consisted of three aging victory class destroyers, and two type eighty mon calamari cruisers. The two mon calamari cruisers were the first to be destroyed, their old systems failing them as they were repeadetly pummeled. The victory class ships, looking to have undergone recent restoration, were in much better shape, and lasted a full ten minutes against the Imperial fleet before two of them were destroyed, and the third one was crippled, and then scuttled by it's crew. That left just the support ships to be dealt with, and with damage sustained to Commodore Brand's fleet, the task was finished by Commodore Carson's newly arrived forces. Some short time later, twenty seven enemy vessels had been annihilated, with Commodore Brand losing another carrack cruiser, and with Commodore Carson losing five Intrepid gunships destroyed, and one of his Reigns suffered moderate damage from the duel with the victory class star destroyers.

With a second enemy fleet annihilated, with minimal losses to the Imperial fleet, the enemy defenders were now becoming very wary of the Imperials and their from hyperspace ambush tatics. They opted to detach a portion of their fleet to return to Coyn, as part as a preserving act. The Imperials were well aware of his possibility, and of the possibility that the fleet may return on their flanks if the enemy defenders sought to use the Imperial's own tatics against them. A fleet of four more Reign class Star Destroyers appeared in the path of the defender's withdrawing fleet, and when they tried to leave, they activated their gravity well projectors, bringing the enemy fleet back into realspace right on top of them. Other Imperial ships, namely four Imperial Star destroyers, six Victory star destroyers, and ten support vessels, also used the gravity well projection zone to be brought out of hyperspace within the bounds of the firing range for the enemy fleet. A savage battle was fought as this fleet, larger than the first one, but smaller than the third one, was systimatically disabled, and then brutually slaughtered, this time fifty five capital ships destroyed, with the Imperials losing one victory destroyer destroyed, three support vessels destroyed, and five other large capital ships damaged to the point that they needed to immediatly withdraw. The third Imperial taskforce was lead by Commodore Huey.

Finally the endgame for the invasion of D'Skar was at hand. The largest Imperial Taskforce yet, consisting of ten very large capital ships, ten smaller, but still large, capital ships, and some fifty support ships leapt out of hyperspace on a direct intercept vector with the main enemy fleet, made up of some one hundred ten enemy warships, many of them old outdated models, modified, but still extremley dangerous. This fleet was lead by Admiral Kraken himself personally from his flagship, the Tormentor. At his orders, his fleet engaged the enemy fleet, and when they had the enemy fully occupied, Commodores Brand and Carson lead their taskforces in a pincer movement that enveloped the flanks of the enemy. Finally, a singal to Commodore Huey brought his remaining ships to the enemy's rear, and in a massive, twenty five minute battle, the last enemy fleet was annihilated. The price for this last victory was high though, with fifteen Imperial capital ships either destroyed or disabled, the biggest ship destroyed being one of the four allegiance class destroyers in Kraken's main fleet.

With the enemy ships all annihilated, now it was time for the landings to begin. Shuttles and bombers dropped from all or most of the capital ships descended to the surface of the planet, and some one million Imperial troops of all types, and roles engaged in a three week protracted conflict with some ten million enemy defenders. In the end, the outcome was not in doubt, and have rooted out the last pockets of resistance, D'skar had fell under complete Imperial control. Total Imperial casualties in the battles in and around D'Skar amounted to some two hundred fifty thousand personnel, with enemy casulaties estimated at some eleven million killed, with one million more captured. Civilian casualties, always a sure thing in war, amounted to some five hundred thousand killed. High, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. The warriors of D'skar, fine and honorable as they had been, had chosen not to use civilians as shields, as many other goverments had when they had fallen under Imperial rule.

The Imperial Star Destroyer Devastator glided through the blackness of space. At the moment it's weapons of mass destruction were silent, it's hangar bays, containing so many vehicles of smaller death, silent, it's corridors echoing as no one is in sight. But there was some whisper of activity, silent figures stalking through the halls. The holocamms could only catch a glimpse of one or another before they would vanish. On the bridge of the Star Destroyer, First Line Capitan Mancuso could hardly believe what was going on. For that matter, he, his personnel staff, the bridge crew, and a platoon of stormtroopers were the only ones left alive onboard the Star Destroyer. The ship had been on patrol along the Coyn trade corridor, looking about for any enemy warships or merchant ships that they could ambush. One such opportunity had come up when an enemy bulk freighter had popped out of hyperspace, needing to revert to realspace to make a turn for the final leg of it's journey to Coyn. The ship was quickly disabled by the ion batteries of the star destroyer, and had been brought into the bay for crew capture, and cargo impoundment. After the crew had been transferred to their cells, and the cargo canisters taken aboard, the freighter had been dropped back into space, and was blasted into drifting wreckage by the star destroyer's turbolasers. Make that seventeen freighters and three picket ships interdicted by the destroyer, tallying a total of three hundred thousand gross tons.

Then the trouble had started. Imperial shipboard security began recieving reports of missing personnel, and pretty soon, over ten thousand individuals had gone missing, one third of the crew total. Imperial stormtroopers had been dispatched throughout the ship, and many of them were killed, by what had finally been identified as a group of Defel commandoes. Obviously they had counted on the Imperials being here, and had planned to take over the star destroyer, and sell it to the goverment. Or at least that was the current thoughts that were circulating around the bridge. Several distress calls had been sent out requesting reinforcements, but the capitan did not know if they had been recieved by the other Imperial commanders or not. The Defels were now gathering outside the bridge, and were preparing their final assault in order to finish the siege of the star destroyer, or so they thought.

But then the lights to the bridge went out, casting them into near total darkness. Then the star destroyer began to move. With a sudden realization of horror, capitan Mancuso realized that they cut power to the main bridge, and then seized control and are using the secondary bridge to move the ship out. Then, space off to the portside of the ship rippled, and a vessel emerged from hyperspace. It was three Imperial shuttles, Sentinel types. They immediatly headed torwards the star destroyer without bothering to hail it, which the capitan thought must be because they are possibly enemy reinforcements coming to help finish the job. He knew then there weren't when one of the turbolaser batteries the enemy had commandered and patched up with a droid brain opened fire on the shuttles, which went into an evasive pattern. The three shuttles made it into the hangar bay of the star destroyer safely.

Captian Mancuso and his remaining crew waited patiently, as slowly by slowly more and more shadows detached themselves from the walls and headed down to engage whatever had come aboard. Finally, three hours after the shuttles had landed, sounds of battle could be heard from the bridge. By that time they had entered hyperspace, and capitan Mancuso thought that the time to act was rapidly dwindling down. Finally, ten minutes later, the last of the shadow creatures had been eliminated, and four commandoes in black clad armour made their way to the bridge. One of them removed his helmet and identified himself as Major Robert Crusoe, capitan of the 43rd platoon of Imperial Specnav commandoes, elite special ops division. He explained that Intelligence had been looking into the disappearance of an Imperial picket ship, and had come across some evidence that eventually led up to this time and place. They had uncovered evidence in the bank records of goverment officials on Coyn that had hired privateers to either raid, destroy, or espically capture Imperial warships at high prices. However, they had arrived too late to stop this ship from hyperspace, so they would ride it to wherever it went, and deal with whatever confronted them when the time came.

Twelve hours later, on the bridge of the Command Ship Tormentor....

Vice Admiral Kraken swiveled away from the chair, and looked at the information that had just come in from the Coyn run. Apparently the commandoes had successfully made their assault and recaptured the star destroyer, but not before it had jumped into Coyn's planetery mass shadow. Now they were trapped, with not enough crew to effect an escape. They did have the option of evacuating, and scuttling the warship, but Kraken did not want to see the Devastator destroyed, for it had a proud history with the Imperial Navy. Rather, he had another idea....

He thought up a plan for an ambush, and decided to act upon it, and worry about the rest later. He was going to need to call in quite a few resources right now, but it was worth it. He selected a total of twelve various star destroyers, mostly victory and imperial types, but with one Archangel class destroyer to lead the taskforce. It's job would be to jump in and effect crew transfers and repairs to the Imperial destroyer, but to make sure they couldn't leave the mass shadow before being caught by the massive starfleet now surronding Coyn. When that fleet attempted to trap and destroy the taskforce, the rest of the Imperial ships would jump in, engage, and hopefully destroy the remaining defenders without suffering too many casualties.

He gave the orders for the taskforce to be lead by Commodore Brand. The taskforce would be leaving within the hour for the rendezvous point, and four hours from now would be in the Coyn system. It is going to take Admiral Kraken at least six hours for him to gather up enough of the dispersed fleet to launch an assault on Coyn and safeguard for a counterattack on either D'Skar or Sat'Skar, although in his opinion the former was much more likely than the former. Getting up from his chair, he jogged over to the comm station, orders in hand, and began ordering the messages to be sent out to various commanders of ships and taskforces. They had a lot of work to do.

The Archangel type Star Destroyer Lazarev emerged from hyperspace well within the Coyn planetery system, followed by seven other Star Destroyers, three of them Imperial types, and the other four Victory types, of all marks, both groups. The fleet was now executing a turn to port and forming into column formation. The crew-deprived Star Destroyer Devastator was now off their port side, away from the planet, and to their starboard side was the planet Coyn, and the enemy fleet that they must stop. The enemy taskforce was spearheaded by two old mon calamari cruisers, type eighty-Bs, also known as star destroyer killers, for the first of ship, Mon Remonda herself, had taken part in the destruction of several star destroyers, the capture of other ones, before she herself was taken out by a world devastator in the disastrous mon calamari destruction campaign. The other ships in the taskforce consisted of about a dozen old frigates, escort types, and twenty four smaller craft, mostly gunships of the Corellian types. From the reports Commodore Brand had read about the makeup of the enemy fleet, it seems that the enemy were content to throw their older ships in the effort to take out the one lonely crew deprived Star destroyer. Well their attempt was about to backfire right in their faces.

The enemy deployed his ships well for the battle ahead. The two cruisers manuevered to take on the Archangel directly, which was exactly their two combined lengths, and sported quite a complement of weaponry. The twelve enemy frigates manuever to where four of them a piece could take on an Imperial Star destroyer, while the gunships split up into groups of six apiece to take on the victory star destroyers. The enemy deployed his complement of starfighters, Y-wings from the mon calamari cruisers, six squadrons total, and x-wings, twenty four squadrons total, from the frigates. Commodore Brand was suprised to learn that the enemy fleet carried full complements, and ran background checks on the various logos on the starfighters, where he learned that several of the enemy squadrons belonged to mercenary groups. Commodore Brand would meet them as they were proposing to go to head to head, except that he would deploy his starfigthers differently.

First, the Archangel would engage one star cruiser at a time, while the Imperials would deal with their respective frigate groups one at a time. The Y-wings seemed to be heading for the Victory star destroyers, partially escorted by the x-wings, so the victory destroyers would launch their full complements of TIE fighters to take these on. The Imperial star destroyers would launch their complements of TIEs to help defeat the remaining X-wings, and destroy the frigates. The Archangel would deploy it's complement of fighters to harass the star cruiser that it would not target first. Commodore Brand gave his orders for deployment, and watched as the various taskgroups, and squadrons assembled for battle.

Then the starfighters were upon one another. His TIE squadrons were well trained, but still took heavy losses in the opening moments. Well executed manuevers resulted in the loss of several enemy pilots after the first head to head, leaving the odds fairely matched for the battle. Several of the Y-wings managed to break through to launch a torpedo attack on the Firestorm, but their attack was un-coordinated, and thusly, defeated. The starfighter battle took on less of a surreal quality as the capital ships engaged, turbolaser flashes and missles filling the space voids between their two fleets.

Five minutes into the battle, and Commodore Brand was already confident of victory. Despite loosing heavy numbers of starfighters, the capital ship engagement was proceeding very well. The Lazarev, and Firestorm were being heavily pounded, true, but one of the mon calamari cruisers had lost it's shields, and was being pounded. In addition, three enemy frigates had been destroyed, along with five enemy gunships. Even as he watched, one of the enemy frigates blinked blue, signyfying that it was disabled, and two more gunship blips expanded and then winked off the board. The Imperial starfigthers had finished off the remaining x-wings, and were racing to help the Firestorm.

Ten minutes later it was all but finished. Turbolasers and beam cannon shots from the Lazarev had found the first mon calamari cruiser's vitals, and the ship had exploded. Within minutes of that, three more enemy frigates, and five more enemy gunships were destroyed. With such heavy losses, the enemy commander, or second in command now, opted for a withdrawal. But it would not last, not with more enemy forces arraying against them from the planet's orbit. Commodore Brand just hoped that Admiral Kraken would make it here in time. There was an hour's expected wait from the moment the ships had jumped in system, and so far thirty minutes had passed. From the way enemy ships were gathering, Brand suspected that they would engage him in fifteen minutes, leaving fifteen minutes more in which battle would be commenced. And Commodore Brand knew that that was one way to lose an engagement. On a bright note, he was transferring the crew of the Firestorm to the Devastator, meaning he would have a fresh crew on a fresh ship ready to help him out.......

Over the world of Coyn....

To the naked casual eye, the space surronding Coyn was one of a new galaxy being formed, bright stars suddenly going supernova, hurdling debris in all directions, comets trailing long streams of fire and debris, hurtling away from the flashes of lasers and gamma rays and glowing meteroites striking small interstellar bodies. To the ones fighting in the battle, and to the sensors they relied upon, it took upon an entirely new form. It told the story of losses, and victories, a collection of small battles that usually constitues what is known as a major engagement. And as of the moment, the sides appeared deadlocked. All it would take is one victory here and there to shift the tide. So the question was, who would be in control of space over Coyn at the end of the day, the Empire, or the Coynesian Warriors?

On the bridge of the Archangel class Star Destroyer Lazarev, over the world of Coyn, near it's north pole....

The Star Destroyer was just one of the four ships of the same type involved in this engagement, and it, like the other ones, was leading it's own taskforce. But it's was the largest of the taskforces, consisting of five other Imperial type Star Destroyers, along with four Victory class Star Destroyers. Although it had many large powerful ships, what it did lack were the handy picket ships that the other taskforces had. Right now the destroyers were in diamond formation, and were drilling a hole into an enemy taskforce of five large cruisers, and about twenty five modified support ships. According to uprooted records these ships once belonged to the Empire, but were captured by the New Republic, and then sold in order to raise funds for more of their own brand of warships.

One of the enemy cruisers, an old dreadnought class, but modified to appear almost as a republic type assault frigate, was pumping quite a few turbolaser beams into one of the victory destroyers in the fleet. The Imperials responded with turbolaser salvos from three of their star destroyers. After a moment the turbolaser bolts punched through the shields and the frigate broke off, heading out away from the engagement. Two squadrons of assault starfighters were detached from the taskforce to hunt down and finish off the frigate. The trouble with defeating these ones is that they always withdrew when the going got rough, which required the Imperials to split up their strength if they intended to destroy all the ships, which they did. But even so, two corvettes, and a heavily damaged gunship has thus far eluded Imperial efforts and slipped by the fleet to enter hyperspace.

Commodore Brand was the leader of this taskforce. His ships were now heavily engaged when they recieved a distress call for assistance nearby. Three Illustrious cruisers had been cut off from another taskforce when they had to go out and around the wreckage of a large capital class warship destroyed earlier in the engagement. The three cruisers were being assaulted by two attack carriers and their fighters, which they were apparently using as kamikazes. The taskforce had executed a pincer movement on the carrier support group, trapping it, and now they were using every resources and asset avilable in order to try to escape. Commodore Brand decided to detach two entire wings of starfighters that he wasn't really using right now except for detection and destroy missions to go help. Over a hundred ion trails detached from the fleet and headed out into open space, away from this battle, and torwars the next one over where the engagement was occuring. One of the Illustrious cruisers had lost it's shields, and was now being riddled by the rapid fire weaponry of one of the carriers. Despite this the carriers were being pounded, and would have been destroyed by now, if it hadn't been for their fighters, most of which were the outdated A-9 Vigilance Interceptor models.

Moments later the Imperial starfighters arrived and in short order chopped up the enemy starfighters. It was an unfair contest, each carrier only began with four squadrons of an inferior model of starfighter. Mere minutes later the Illustrious cruisers had counter-attacked, and both of the carriers had been destroyed, with two squadrons of Defenders chasing after the eleven remaining A-9s. Meanwhile, back at the other nearby engagement, Commodore Brand was experiencing some difficulty. Five frigates had come up behind the enemy taskforce, and was now flanking his star destroyers on one side, firing laser cannons into exposed hull where shields had been brought down. The Illustrious cruisers, being cut off from their taskforce, decided to help Brand, executing a quick missile strike that destroyed or crippled three of the frigates. The returning starfighters quickly finished off the frigates with massed torpedo salvoes.

It had now been five hours since the battle started. Over one hundred enemy ships, not including starfighters, had been destroyed or crippled, mostly the smaller ships. The Imperials had lost twenty one ships, also mostly small ships. Who would win this engagement?