OOC: Forewarning ahead of time: I don't know whether or not this is a reasonable amount of damage during this post or not.
IC:
Admiral Kraken recieved the communications from Commander Perrin on the bridge. So he was in overall command, eh? Ah, not that it really mattered, Kraken had his own agenda in mind; The complete destruction or route of the ORS forces involved. The ORS ships were currently split into two groups. An Imperial Star Destroyer and ten gunships were engaged with a group of Imperial warships, badly outgunning them, while another Imperial Star Destroyer and 14 gunships were engaged with a group of ships now identified as belong to the Anthos. The Anthos were currently holding their own agains the ORS main fleet. Kraken decided to send most of his fleet to help the Imperial Light Frigates that were under assault by the smaller of the two ORS Taskforces. His flagship, the Glorious broke formation with the fleet, along with the two Fire class Light Frigates, and formed Task Force Alpha. This force would micro-jump into the planet to assist the Imperial Fire Light Frigates under attack. The two Victory class Star Destroyers would form Taskforce Beta, and would jump in to assist the Anthos ships in decimating the main ORS taskforce. Then the order to jump was executed.
Task Force Beta: Commander Harrier of the Victory Mk2 Star Destroyer Glory watched as his ship almost made lightspeed, then fell back into realspace almost immediatly. Off to his port side were a group of Outer-Rim Soveriengty Warships engaged in a furious duel with a fleet of Anthos warships. Seeing the two large Anthos Star Destroyers pounding on the one Outer-Rim Soveriengty Star Destroyer present, Harrier decided to go after the smaller gunships. He ordered his four squadrons of TIE Defenders to deploy, and make missile runs on the gunships. He then turned his ships about, with shields and weapons charged to maximum, and made maximum sublight speed, to make a quick strafing run on the enemy with all weapons targeting the rears of the various gunships. His ships opened fire, and the Defenders launched their missiles, in all 96 concussion missiles. Many were destroyed by the rapid fire defenses of the gunships, and some TIE Defenders were destroyed as well. Then the maximum range shots from the VSDs arrived. Many missed, but some impacted on the rear shields of the Gunships, after which missiles hit as well. OOC Damages: 9 TIE Defenders destroyed 2 Ranger Gunships shields reduced to 40% power. 1 Ranger Gunship shields reduced to 75% power.
Task Force Alpha: Admiral Kraken watched as the Glorious reverted from the microjump acceleration to right behind the Imperial formation. He snapped at the young navigation officer for bring the ships so close to the Outer-Rim Soveriengty ships, only 2 kilometers distant, but now they had the ORS fleet trapped in a pincer movement. The Reign class Star Destroyer unleashed a torrent of Turbolaser fire while it recharged it's partially depleted shields, while the FCLFs each engaged one gunship, firing their turbolasers, and preparing their missle tubes for a salvo. OOC Damages: ORS: 1 ISD Mk2 rear shields reduced by 10% 2 CEC Gunships rear shields reduced by 10% TNO: 1 Reign SD shields reduced by 5%.
The Captain of the Frigate smiled slightly as the gunships changed position to strike at them as they moved to put the ISD between them an the bulk of the gunships.
The guns of the ISD were not silenced and though every gun tried to focus on the frigates, since they were under the ISD, there was not much for them to hit.
"Secondary locks, fire!" he ordered and as the frigates moved down (lengthwise near each edge) under the ISD, their ion cannons struck maneuvering thruster locations.
As they passed completely under it, their ion shots struck the port side main engine and the aft of the frigates soon faced the aft of the ISD.
But, unfortunately, the ISD could not turn around. For you see, the damage to the bridge was not to stop their weapons. It was to destroy it's helm control. To follow up on that, the manevuering thrusters were damaged meaning the ships course when it struck would remain constant, especially at the rate of speed it was going, which was an ISD's top speed.
Given the ORS flanking maneuver, it was not heading straight for where shipyard 2 used to be, but was headed to the gap and the shipyard beyond. Shipyard 4.
"Punch our speed up! Let's leave this party behind!" the captain shouted and the three fire class frigates moved their 70 mglt away from the ORS group.
The TIE Devils formed a rear screen pattern as they followed.
Group 1
Group 1
"Tractor beams holding!"
Shipyard #2 was moving slowly in the direction of shipyard 3, its slow rotation complete.
The TIE Devils were providing a screen to the rear.
Group 2
Shipyard #3 was the farthest away due to it being the last yard in the line. It's rotation complete, the threshold barrier had been reached and surpassed as inertia overcame relative gravity and the orbit was broken.
The TIE Devils provided a screen to the rear.
Group 3
"Tractor beams holding!"
Shipyard #1 was moving, albeit slowly into a higher orbit, but moving in the direction of its orbit...toward shipyards 2 and 3.
It began to rotate slowly, the TIE Devils moving to the rear to provide a screen.
Group 4
SBC 14 and 15 moved behind shipyard #1.
K405
Cloaked.
Maintained it's watchdog status beneath Shipyard 2.
K406
Cloaked.
Reached the Argoth and positioned itself on 'watchdog duty'.
K408
Cloaked.
Completed its wide circular course.
Attack Sphere Argoth
The soldiers of the Argoth spread throughout the hanger and found droids scrambling in the 0 gravity, already having implimented some sort of internal programming.
It was as if the droids thought:
But, seeing that the soldiers in the hanger would see robots scrambling and clawing around the zero "g" atmosphere (or lack thereof), there was no way they could escape notice.
No doubt that if, they had succeeded, they would have:
"Hey Bak! Lookit this?" called one trooper through his comlink as the suited soldiers began going through the wreckage of the ill-fated ship.
The soldier plucked, floating in the zero g, a droid that looked to be an exact representation of an Imperial mouse droid.
No doubt, if it had been able to use it's wheels in zero g (as if), it would have been able to:
Especially since it was built to exact Imperial specifications.
Several soldiers and techs floated over and one tech had a dummy consol in his arm, attempting to find out why there were droids crewing ORS ships and not men.
"Well, they like to send droids to do men's work.." Bak growled but it was not specific enough for the techs.
"Check it out!" one exclaimed as the mouse droid suddenly,
especially since it was a dummy terminal..
..especially since there weren't any in the dummy consol.
"Lookit how quickly it's programming works. We'll definitely need to take these apart to check them out. Forster! Grap up these little mouse droids. Also, alert the General to the underhandedness of our enemies."
If they could have taken their helmets off and heard noise in the vacuum, they would have heard many tiny wheels moving in place as little mouse droids floated here and there, never being able to grasp floor and move along it somehow.
As Bak, dismissed the techs, their work with the mouse droids going smoothly, he surveyed the damage done to the hanger from the disabled corvette.
Already, engineers had severed the corvette's reactor core and ejected it outside the Sphere.
But that wasn't the only thing ejecting for some of the
having, as yet, to
not through any efforts of their own but do to the explosion knocking some into a darker corner of the hanger..
No doubt, their intent was to put the explosives in the ship but their execution left much to be desired.
One droid, not near any solid wall, simply let his explosive float away which struck a soldier on the shoulder alerting them to the danger.
Several explosives were found, detached and hurled out of the hanger bay into space.
But one droid did suceed in finding a computer consol and tried jacking in to hack the computer system. Unfortunately, the residue from the planetary ion cannon fused the poor droids mechanism into one solid lump of metal, erasing most of the droids primary and secondary functions.
The droids was attempting to forge a live feed with the ORS fleet as it hacked, but since most of the computers were either fused, wiped or slag due to the ion cannon blasts, there was nothing to hack into.
"Holy @#%$ sir! Look over here!" A crewman ran a set of portable scanning equipment over the droid as it moved helplessly fused into the wall where the computer control used to be.
The crewman plugged some wires into the droid to investigate a signal that seemed to eminate from it when the shining face of Mr. Foster of the "soon to be late" ORS fleet.
"Who the @#%$ are you?" the crewman asked as Foster could evidently see him too. "Must be a live feed to your dead droid you've got going. Aren't you the most amazing little shitheads around?"
Bak floated over as he ordered others to continue their work.
"General Ming sends his compliments but asks kindly that you keep your trash off our ships." he grinned through his helmet.
Foster ignored the voice, instead glancing back up to Drost, who was occupied with the battle against Anthos.
"Sir, the assault teams have failed." He said.
"It doesn't matter. This battle is all but lost." Drost said, resigned to his fate.
"Enemy ships are advancing, Admiral." One of the crewmen said, glancing at his own sensor screens.
"Kill as many of them as possible. We must hold out for as long as possible. All weapons, continue firing on the two enemy Star Destroyers. Gunships are to engage them as well."
Drost sat down in his command chair and stared balefully at the two advancing Anthos Star Destroyers and their support craft. The 9 gunships that had accompanied Drost's Star Destroyer formed in a wedge formation.
As Drost's Star Destroyer continued it's pressure, the Gunships moved out of the wedge formation and into two columns. Both columns of gunships then pushed their engine power to full and headed between one of the Star Destroyers, flanking it on both sides, and maneuvered themselves close to the hull, giving them some protection from the ships's weapons.
On the Imperial front, nearer to the planet the ORS forces continued their pounding on the Fire-class Light Frigates. All of them were showing signs of heavy damage.
All gunships in range were ordered to provide support for the Star Destroyer, that was being damaged by the Imperial frigates.
As they came into range, they began to fire.
Damages -
Fire Class Light Frigates - Shields (5%) Anthos Star Destroyers - Forward Shields (75%)
"Focus your fire on the bridge," said dBale to his weapons officer. "Draw energy from the tractor beams and engines if you have to."
"Forward shields weakening, reinforcing," said the officer at tactical. "Drawing energy from engines and reserves."
"All engines come to a full stop," ordered dBale in reply. "Hold this distance from the enemy craft."
"Sir, new arrivals identify themselves as Imperial..."
Laser fire continued to flash across space between the two fleets as dBale's primary task force focused their fire on the enemy command ship, and its gunship escorts. dBale's Aegis cruisers began to move in closer to the kill, their commanders having synchronized their significant firepower upon four gunships.
With a rhythmic gundge ... gundge ... gundge, the dual turbolasers aboard the Aegis craft battered the forward shields on the gunships into oblivion, while the single emplacement heavy turbolasers spread their fire out to other targets.
"Prepare the missiles," was the order aboard all craft, as the Aegis gunners prepared to annihilate the last of the starboard shields aboard the enemy gunships.
"Enemy gunships accelerating forward!"
"Hold our position," barked dBale's second.
"Keep those weapons firing," said dBale, gritting his teeth. "Order our fleet to continue to fire, we'll be alright, the shields will hold.
Vigil's & Skipray's
The group commander, a tough man who had weathered several battles during the previous galactic wars, glared out the viewpoint of his Vigil. He squinted slightly, and then reached over to tap a few buttons. In between the blinding flashes of light from his ships weapons systems, and the flashes of connecting missiles, he spotted movement.
"Enemy gunships accelerating toward Commander dBale's craft," said his tacticle officer, confirming what he had seen.
Then, over the com ... "Continue firing, our shields will hold. Repeat, continue firing, our shields will hold..."
"Lock all proton torpedo tubes onto the rear of that Imperator, and fire at will!" barked the squad leader. "Save the Concussion missiles for next."
Moments later the words of "Fire in the hole" blared across the ship's com system, and multiple missiles stabbed forward.
Phantom's, Cloaked
Hidden and dangerous, though not nearly as potent in terms of firepower as their visible counterparts, the cloaked TiE's continued to do as they were ordered, stripping the weapons from the enemy craft.
The rate of fire from these hidden birds of prey was lowered considerably when the enemy craft moved closer to their own Command ship, but like a persistent rash, they doggedly continued.
----------- OOC: ORS damage: Gunships: 4 Gunships: 20% forward shields, 20% energy weapons (fire from Aegis') Remaining Gunships: Rear shields: 75%, Forward shields: 90%, Weapons systems 80%
Imperator: Forward shields to 60% (Laser fire from two Imperators) Rear shields to 40% (70 odd proton torpedoes) Energy Weapon systems to 90% (Phantom fire)
Anthos: Imperator forward shields reinforced to 80% and climbing (x2)
Commander Germor smiled as the new Imperial formation micro-jumped into range of the ORS vessels that were fighting the Imperials. What they didn't realise is that their jump had just carried them into range of the partially destroyed minefield infront of shipyard one. Immediately the mines started concentrating fire on the first Fire Light Frigate(one of the ones from Krakken's fleet). The fire was concentrated near the engines, though there was enough spread across the rest of the ship to bring down the other systems. The ion barrage continued, passing through the shields that didn't effect ion cannons, and hitting the bare hull. The ion bolts then spread across the hull, like blue lightning, disablign everything it hit.
"Send a message to the ORS fleets. Recommend that they move inbetween the two minefields, so that we can offer protection to them."
"Yes sir."
"Message sent."
"How much longer until another planetary ion cannon is in range of the Imperials?"
"Still unknown, because they orbits of the shipyards are constantly changing."
"That is not good. Oh well, keep up the mine fire."
OOC Damages: Fire Light Frigate Engines: 50% disabled Weapons: 20% of the weapons disabled Shields: 20% of shield power down-due to the fact that even though we don't know where the shield generators are, they would still be damaged by the massive barrage of ion cannon fire.
The Victory Mk2 Star Destroyer Glory continued to pound on the rear of the ORS ISD. Thinking up of a new strategy of attack, he sent a tight beam transmission to the other Star Destroyer. That Star Destroyer slung out of line behind the ISD, and accelerated to maximum thrust with a 45 degree downtrime by the bow, intending to get below the Imperial Star Destroyer. The Glory executed a Tron Boral maneuver to line her up facing the ISD, to where she could keep pace with the ISD while brining most of her weapons to bear. The Glroy unleashed more of her weapons on the ISD, firing almost all sixty of her turbolasers, and Ion cannons, with the turbolaser striking the shields behind the engines, steadily shrinking the shield sphere that had already been lowered by an attack made by cloaked ships that Commander Harrier hadn't previously known were there. Meanwhile, her Ion Cannons smacked the rear portion of the command tower, some doing no more damage than disabling the systems that would allow the Star Destroyer to dump it's garbage, but with most arcing around the top and sides of the tower to disrupt important systems, like weaponry and propulsion control systems, and even more importantly, disrupt the shield generating and projecting capacity of the two shield domes on top of the command tower. Meanwhile, the Glory's consort raced under the ISD, firstly doing one of two things. First, she locked all of her tractor beams on the ISD in order to partially keep the two ships in relative position to one another. The Glory also locked onto the ISD with her tractor beams as well to help her consort, then the other VSD trained all of her weapons upwards, and fired into the hangar bay of the ISD. The Turbolaser bolts stopped dead at the shield boundary, but the shields began to buckle, what with the interference generated by the Ion Cannon fire. The VSD Ion Cannon shots went past the shields and magcon fields to strike the interior of the bay, disabling machinerey, and disrupting power. Lastly, the starfighters that had been deployed to deal with the threat of the gunships had been displaced by the sudden manuever they had pulled. Finding themselves more or less on even sides of the ISD, the order was given to execute a Marg Sabl manuever with their torpedoes, firing them twin linked, and Ion Cannons. This they did, then veered off to await further orders.
OOC: Damages: ORS: ISD Stern Shields down to 15% power. Ventral Shields down to 75% power. Bow Shields down to 40% power. (some 48 proton torpedoes, plus Ion cannon fire from TIE Defenders) TNO: VSD Shield Power down to 90% topside from ISD, which probaly would have fired on the VSD as it manuevered under the ISD. 6 TIE Defenders destroyed.
Task Force Alpha:
Admiral Kraken smiled as he saw the damaged Imperial FCLFs manuevering under and away from the enemy ISD, right torwards his ship. Although they were heavily damaged, they still had enough thrust and manueverability to angle up and over his Star Destoyer, using it's bulk to protect themselves from the ORS destroyer. The Glorious unloaded all of it's portside weaponry on the ORS Destroyer. Multipule Heavy Turbolaser, and Ion cannon fire befell the rear of the ISD, and while the heavy turbolaser blasts only weakened the shields, the Ion cannons went right past it, and skittered across the hull, disabling some systems, and disrupting others. The FCLF forward of him withdrew under his flagship, and joined with her consort in firing Ion cannon and Turbolaser fire at the rear of the ISD as well. Meanwhile, the Ion Cannon from the Mines were replied in kind by the starboard weaponry of the Reign Star Destroyer, along with the starboard weapons of the FCLFs, and all of the fleet's TIE Starfighters, which, thanks to the targeting data the Reing was providing them, along with data transmitted by the damaged FCLFs, provided excellent missile date. They were able to fire several salvos before the Massed Ion Cannon fire began to take it's toll. As soon as they had moved into the range of the Ion Mines, though, they had dispersed into a broad cloud of flights of one starfighter each, making the mine's job more difficult. After they finished with their torpedoes, the starfighters switched to lasers and ion cannons, and the space over Mon Calamari erupted into a violent storm of laser and ion cannon fire, more so than what was currently happening before then. The TIE Devils dived into the Mine field themselves, and used their manueveralbility to effect, causing some mines to hit each other with their Ion cannon fire. OOC Damages: ORS: ISD: Rear Shields of ISD down to 65%. Manueverabiltiy and Thrust cut to 80% effectiveness. TGC: 2000 Ion Mines destroyed. (4 missile salvos from TIE Defenders, Bombers, and Devastators, plus laser and Ion cannon fire from all 72 starfighters from Riegn, 36 starfighters from all 4 FCLFs, and starboardside of the Riegn and FCLFs themselves) TNO: 13 TIE Defenders, 4 TIE Bombers, 12 TIE Devastators, and 16 TIE Devils disabled by Ion cannon fire. Light damage to forward FCLF, now withdrawn to Riegn's side, from the Ion Mines before it withdrew.
The Fire Class Light Frigates had left the ISD behind, their speed and position direction moving in the opposite direction of the ISD, helm locked onto a course with Shipyard 4, the FCLCs damage having been done.
The ships used their superior speed to put distance between the two groups, though if the Gunships decided to follow them to further their destructive rain of fire, that gap would not be as great as the Captain of one of the FCLCs hoped.
The TIE devils screened their rear.
Enemy ISD
Blazing ahead at it's top speed, locked into a collision course with Shipyard #4, the resourceful crew of the mighty ship began to reinforce the shields as the mess with the fused helm control circuitry and maneuvering thrusters.
Now the Captain of the ISD had a choice. They could open fire on the shipyard with their many weapons breaking the yard up to lessen the damage to be done to their ISD when they struck or they could simply try to reinforce their warship.
In any event, the ISD struck the yard.
Now, a common fallicy is that many underestimate the strength and excellent construction of an Imperial Star Destroyer. These were ships bred for one purpose and they were good at carrying out that purpose.
While one could hurt and maim these might warships, the fact is is that they can take a beating. Nothing proved this more as in the case of the Outer Rim Sovereignty's ISD striking the Coalition Shipyard.
Now it was not exactly a direct hit. That would have been too fortuitous indeed.
A corner was struck and the two opposing forces, the orbital speed of the yard against the top speed of the ISD, caused the structural struts of the yard to buckle under the stresses.
Crew on both objects were thrown around like so much pulp but, for the most part, they held on admirably.
The ISD's shields went down completely and internal damages shattered terminals on all decks.
Yet the ship held together.
The ship found itself behind the ion mine field guarding shipyard 4.
The corner strike on the shipyard caused it to spin (although slowly, faster that normal due to it's orbital speed) in the direction of it's orbit. The yard groaned as metal creased upon metal, after effects of the shock of the strike.
While still moving along it's orginal direction, it's trajectory had changed. The orbit was decaying.
SBC #1, tumbling down the ion cannon gap, finally struck against the energy shield that was protecting Mon Calamari and exploded in a brilliance of colors. The shield's energy signature crackled against the hit.
SBC #16, struck by the ORS fleet, tumbling toward the planet struck against the energy shield that was protecting Mon Calamari and exploded in a brilliance of colors. The shield's energy signature crackled visibly against the hit and it's color seemed dimmer.
SBC #17 struck by the ORS fleet (the same as SBC #16), tumbling toward the planet struck against the energy shield that was protecting Mon Calamari and exploded in a brilliance of colors. The shield's energy signature fractured visibly against the hit and it's once shimmering aura was nearly non-existent.
Group 1
Following the course of Shipyard #3.
It's rotation complete, the threshold barrier had been reached and surpassed as inertia overcame relative gravity and the orbit was broken.
The TIE Devils provided a screen to the rear.
Group 2
Shipyard #3 was the farthest away due to it being the last yard in the line. It's oribt broken, it set a course for the Anthos entry vector and began to move.
The TIE Devils provided a screen to the rear
Group 3
"Tractor beams holding!"
Shipyard #1 was moving slowly in the direction of shipyards 2 & 3, its slow rotation complete.
The TIE Devils were providing a screen to the rear.
Group 4
SBC 14 and 15, seeing Shipyard #4's orbit decaying, and with Shipyard #1 moving away from a stationary position. They began to fire on the dying yard.
K405
Cloaked.
Maintained it's watchdog status beneath Shipyard 2.
K406
Cloaked.
Maintained it's watchdog status around the Argoth.
K408
Cloaked.
Held it's position.
Attack Sphere Argoth
Through the active link established, Bak and several of his men heard the voices of the enemy.
"Sir, the assault teams have failed." a man had said.
"It doesn't matter. This battle is all but lost." was the response.
Bak felt the weariness in the enemy and felt a sudden pity for them, despite them coming to the aid of creatures who viciously attacked them.
And then he heard:
"Kill as many of them as possible. We must hold out for as long as possible. All weapons, continue firing on the two enemy Star Destroyers. Gunships are to engage them as well."
It was hard for pity to continue living amid revelations of that sort.
He noted that the live feed was being recorded and so left the soldiers grouped around to find General Ming. Floating through the hanger and the groups of crewmen attempting to clean up the mess, he made his way through the halls away from the hanger and into the few areas that still held some artificial gravity.
The Argoth began to "bleed" metal bits and debris through it's hanger.
Damages
TGC Shipyard #4 orbit decay (damaged structure)
ORS ISD. If you open fire on the yard to break the collision, shipyard will still be damaged and have orbital decay but your shields will be at say..30% though internally pretty banged around (collisions do that).
Commander Grant, of the Star Destroyer Firewind watched as his ship approached the shipyard rapidly. The captain had been killed when the bridge was destroyed, and it left command of the ship up to him.
"Sir. Commander! Your orders."
"Prepare to open fire!" He shouted.
The ship aproached the yards rapidly, and as Grant was about to give the order to open fire, an explosion resounded throughout the ship, and something hard hit him in the back of his head.
"Send a distress call!" He shouted as the darkness overtook him.
The communications officer, although bloodied and ready to pass out, managed to press an automated distress call that would instantly go to the nearest friendly world. As he pressed the button, the ship hit the yards...
*
"Sir, the Firewind has been destroyed."
Drost sighed resignedly.
"Shall we continue our fire?" Foster asked.
"No. Signal our surrender to the Anthos ships, and cease all of our weapons fire. Tell the gunships to back off and gather to us." Drost said, sitting down and running a finger through his thinning hair.
"Surrender...!?"
"Do it. And cut the link with our droids on the Sphere. They are useless now.
"Link, cut."
"Anthos vessels... this is Commander Foster of the Outer-Rim Sovereignty. I have been ordered to issue a surrender. We are halting our attacks...Anthos vessels..."
Drost sighed as he sat back in his chair, "Order all ships to retreat to our formation." He said.
At first, the command to cease-fire seemed to have no visible effect. Then, ever so slowly, gunners began to release their fingers from the triggers. A minute twenty after he had issued the command, dBale received the confirmation that; "All fire had ceased, Sir."
Nodding, dBale queried, "Are their weapons powered down?"
"Negative on that, Sir."
"Sovereignty ships," said dBale, "Your surrender is accepted. Please power down both shields and weapons, and prepare to be boarded. Commander dBale out."
He looked at his first officer, and science officer. "Easy battle," he said at last. "Did they take heavy casualties against the Empire?"
"Um... it appears that one of their Star Destroyer's has collided with a shipyard, that's all I'm getting now, Sir."
"Impressive ... " said dBale's number one. Whether he was commenting on an impressive lack of skill, or and impressive maneuver on the part of the Empire he did not say.
"Signal our Vigil's," said dBale. "Tell them to prepare their boarding parties."
