OOC: I am restarting this thread, but this time I've done my research.

This is a takeover of Null, Gala, Vinsoth, Mirial, Korriban, Garos IV, Dathomir, Sundari, Centares, Ziost, Thule, Agamar, and Er'kit.

As far as I know these are unowned. If your faction owns one of these listed or is taking one over, PM me and have a link to either the Planets list with it highlighted or thread to prove it.



Admiral Gilford surveyed the the twelve men that he had personally selected for this assignment. They were all sitting around an expensive conference table, made from a tree that no longer existed, in the ships conference room and were silently fidgeting as they waited for him to say something. Whenever they looked his way, each of them looked up at him with pure respect, except for Kach, who also had a quality Gilford could describe only as Icy in his eyes.

"Greetings, gentlemen. You all know who I am and I know who you all are. I am sure you are all wondering why I summoned you here. You will just have to listen to me for a few miniutes before I get to the point."

The rooms lights darkened slightly, it seemed to be twilight within the rooms cold walls, and behind him a 3-D projection of the Galaxy appeared. Lines ran through it, representing major trade routes. He touched a particular line, one representing the Hydian way, and the projection zoomed in onto that section of space, with stars disappearing that were too far away to be shown.

"These," he said, gesturing to some stars surrounding the Trade route, "Represent all inhabited systems around the Hydian way." He clicked a button on a remote controlt hat had somehow appeared in his left hand, and suddenly some of the stars began to change colors.

"These Purple systems," he said, "Represent systems controlled by Vinda Corp. These red ones here are occupied by the Cree'ar Dominion. The ones that are still white are neutral. Ones that have turned Black are planets whose ownership is being disputed, questionable, or is believed to have fallen into the hands of Crimonal Groups.

"Lately there has been a great race to takeover as many systems as possible in the region. We are here to decide how the Empire can become involved in this and hopefully come out on top. We have several main objectives by doing this. The first is to, of course, gather more resources for the Empire. The second is to take control of the Hydian Way. By doing this we will be able to funnel trade to the Outer Rim and therefore indirectly control the third of it dependant on the Hydian for both Supplies and Income. The last reason is to check any factions attempts to use this region of space as a launching point to attack the Empires Core worlds.

"You, Gentlemen, are here to select and then aquire the targets for the first wave of my new Hydian Campaign. The targets are not yet selected. That is the first thing you all must do. Youmust pick the targets that you all belive will help us achieve the three goals I stated just a miniute ago. Your task forces are already assemebled so that you may go as soon as you have all agreed on targets. Any questions?"

For a moment he was silent.

"Alright, then let's begin."

"There's no reason to take Sundari!" Rear Admiral Tech Gordon shouted across the table at one of his contemporaries. "There's nothing of value on it and there's little use of it as a colony world since it's hot and arid and nobody on their right mind would want to live there. Now Garos IV I understand. It's temperate and has a strong economy, even if it's dangerously close to Black Dragon territory. But why should we waste time and resources on a backwater world like Sundari?"

"Because," Line Captain Mark Dicen butted in, "It's a fairly productive mining colony, and Sundari has good sized deposits of metals such as Berodium and Cathidrum that are very rare yet are critical to star ship production. Also, it has an extremely large deposit of Oridium, and we all know what that's used for. And with prices of the metal sky high right now it might be valuable to come into possession of a deposition of it. Without the Empire buying it off the market prices will drop back to a reasonable level. Besides, Sundari is located in the same planetary system as Garos IV and it wouldn't take much effort to simply go and take it when you're done with Garos."

"Oridum?" the fat Rear Admiral said, his voice far away. "Well why didn't you just say so?"

"Alright." Admiral Gilford spoke up. "So that makes two targets. Garos IV and Sundari. All who object to the taking of either of these or both of these planets speak now or forever hold your peace.

The twelve other men at the table were silent.

"Alright. Good. Since they're both in the same system only one man will be needed to take them, which means we can still take another twelve targets. Ummmm... Kach, any planets you would like to take over in particular?"

"Yes sir, I've had my eyes on Serenno and Bandomeer since I heard just what we're talking about."

Gilford looked at the projection behind him, still up even though the lights were now back up to a normal level.

"Bandomeer is no problem, Kach, it's free. But as you can see on the projection, Serennos status is questionable."

"Alright then. Kach can take Bandomeer if nobody has any issues with it."

For a moment everyone was silent, but then Line Captain Zeth Miller decided to speak up at the last moment.

"Hold on," he said, almost shouting. "Before we agree to this I want to know the value of this planet. Just why should we take over it? I mean, we don't even know what's on this planet, though it appears you do, Kach. So why don't you just tell us what makes this Bandomeer of yours valuable enough to send a naval squadron or two out to take it?"

Several other men sitting around Zeth nodded their agreement to what he had just said.

"Alright," Kach said, standing up and heading towards Gilfords position a the head of the table. "I'll need the map for a moment, so lights please."

Gilford twisted a dial on the remote in his hand and the lights dimmed down so you could see the map projected on the other side of the room.

For a moment Kach looked at the map. Then he pointed to a particular pinprick of light near Chandrilla and the Hydians intersection with the Perlmian Trade Route. "Bandomeer is here," he said. "It's position near Chandrilla and right next to the Hydian makes it valuable, though not as valuable as some planets such as Telos that are right on the trade route. But its close proximity to the Core Worlds means it could be a valuable staging point for an offensive or defensive build up in the region.

"As for the planet itself," he said, touching the planet for three seconds to call up a holograph of it. It was very good looking, with a large ocean and green continents. "As for the planet itself," he repeated, "it is modestly populated, with about half a billion souls on its surface, 50 percent of them in the planets twenty largest city's. Most of the land, about half, is farmland, with two percent cities and the rest undeveloped. Its industry is fairly strong. It developed and built its own patrol ships and several light cruisers even though buying them from another source would be cheaper. It is the sectors fourth largest source of domestic products."

"Which could easily be converted over to military production, right?" asked an older admiral that Kach wasn't familiar with.

"Of course. With a few military conversion loans."

"How do you believe the planet should be taken?"

"By using intimidation so the attacker won't have to damage any of the planets economy. If somebody brought a Venerator or Superior Command Vessel over the planet it wouldn't take them long to be intimidated into surrendering."

Everyone was silent.

"Okay," Gilford said. "Do we all agree on Bandomeer being a target?"

There was a chorus of "Yes's" from the various officers around the conference table.

"Alright. Who would like to propose the next target?"

Line Captain Vance Miller spoke up first, beating the two men sitting next to him.

"Sir, how about Centares?"

"The planet you were born on?"

"Yes sir."

"I highly doubt that there's anything left of value on Corriban. Long ago, the last time the Empire was in possession of that planet, Her lava beds were tapped, here wide prairies strip mined, and the planet was generally polluted."

"Yes sir, I'm fully aware of that. But within the last few years we've begun to make a rebound of sorts, though we're still not the tourist world we once were, but an industrial one. When the Empire finally packed up and left after its mining, ruining the beautiful scenery that was what made us a tourist world with their massive factory's they had built, thousands of them, every one was sold off to private interests. We have the industry to make an Imperial conquest of the system worthwhile.

"In addition, our clean up efforts are just really starting to become effective. Our endless prairies are finally beginning to regrow, and the money funneled into the planet by an Imperial conquest would only speed up the cleanup process. In a few years we could probably even take in refugees displaced by the war with the Coalition. We have the room for them, we just need to clean up."

"I know a lot about your planet Captain, but one of the few things I"m not familiar with about Centares is the defenses. Tell me, how are they?"

"Back before the Galactic Civil war, before the Empire mined us out, we had perhaps a dozen patrol ships and another dozen Corsair class Star fighters in addition to a few gunships and Corvettes. And for perhaps a decade after as well. But then the clean up efforts really hit full gear and all were sold off except the Corsairs and a few squadrons of Z-95s for badly needed cash. Those were considered adequate for use against pirates. There's nothing heavy that could actually be a danger to anything larger than a Carrack, though the Corsairs could probably take out a stray gunship or Corvette if one strayed off."

Gilford nodded.

It appeared that Zeth had no plans to stop talking as of yet. In that nervous voice that he was cursed to possess he continued on, "Of course, that could have changed in the past few years. The last time I was on leave, six months ago, there was a big debate in the Senate about buying some of that new shipyards, SSS,'s new and Cheap Iceman-class orbital battle stations and a wing of their Vengeance interceptors, you know, those modular POD fighters that have been springing up lately. But anyways, last I heard was those plans had fallen through, but you never know. Also, there was a lot of talk about buying a pair of Clone Wars era Light Cruisers from a neighboring system that was desperate for cash after disease had ruined their cash crop."

"Would you mind taking your own planet?"

"Of course not sir. In fact, I'm sure they'd be more reasonable if they were dealing with a native anyway."

"Okay," he said, then turning to address the whole group. "Does anyone object to the taking of Centares?" he asked.

"Going once, going twice..."

He was interrupted by a hard lined, near ancient Vice Admiral who had served all the way back during the earliest days of the New Order. His anti-alien prejudices, something that had fortunately been left behind during Daalas reign for the majority of the Empire, was still alive and healthy. His name was Ganz Hawthorn.

"Uh, Mr. Miller, what species of aliens inhabit Centares in addition to your usual humans?" The questioner seemed very unnerved.

"Oh, the usual and a few more. Gotals, Aakiyans, even a few Ithorians that have fled Ithor.

"Alright." Ganz didn't seem any calmer.

"Okay. It appears that we have our forth target of fourteen. Ten more to go, gentlemen."

Thus far selecting the targets hadn't been very much work and was going quickly. But still, every one groaned their opinion on just how much they were looking forward to it.

The only female in the room was next to select a target, Line Captain Zena Manship.

"Sir," she spoke with a stern note in her voice, "How about the planet Gala?"

"Gala?"

"Yes. It's a class-D planet located just below Wayland and the Vorzyd system. It has a population of about a billion. It's fairly temperate, with an average temperature of seventy four degrees. It's an industrial planet, though not too industrial. Currently it's under control of a constitutional monarchy, though up until sixty years ago it was an absolute one. The whole monarchy things in its citizens blood. Just abolish their Parliament and restore the monarchy to full power and control them like a puppeteer controls marionettes and controlling the planet will be no problem. The citizens follow their king or queen like moon moths follow a glow rod."

"Just where did you get your experience on this planet?" Gilford asked smugly.

"Sir, me and my husband honeymooned there after our wedding."

"Ah yes, Mesh. A shame that he was drinking while driving his speeder. He was a good man."

"Yes sir, he was," she replied, with a small hint of sadness in her voice that she covered up immediately.

"Could you go into depth on this planets economy? 'It's very pretty and breathable atmosphere' isn't quite enough to justify taking it."

There were a few chuckles around the room that Zena ignored.

"Well sir, it's evenly split between industry and tourism. To protect the planets ecosystem, businesses and corporations are taxed for the amount of pollution they produce and release into the environment, though I can't remember whether it's by volume or weight. But anyway, this keeps businesses down to a minimum since it's expensive to pollute. Um, there's also a lot of fishing, and they export fish across the galaxy. Unfortunately, most of the industry isn't fit to convert over to large scale weapons production, but they do produce a lot of commercial products that are exported galaxy wide. They're a fairly wealthy planet. Oh, there's a small, privately owned shipyard in orbit. Fit for building vessels up to five hundred meters in length. Right now its owners build luxury liners on it. But it could easily be used to repair or build light or medium cruisers.

"What's the GPP (Gross Planetary Product)?"

"Approximately a quarter of a quadrillion credits, sir."

"Quite a sum. Well, if nobody..."

"Uh, sir," she interrupted. "You'll probably want to know that its citizens won't take kindly to us if we just go in there and wreck their environment."

"The Empire has no intention of wasting a perfectly good planet," he responded. "Unlike at the beginning of the glorious New Order, we are now more conscious about such things and use unpopulated planets to obtain resources. Believe me, we have no intention of mining this planet out or polluting it like we did Centares."

On the other side of the room, Line Captain Vance Miller winced.

"Very good sir. I was just making sure you were aware of that fact."

"And I thank you for it, but I've already learned that sort of lesson and how environmental types can get extremely emotional about this sort of issue."

He paused.

"So, are there any objections?"

"Alright then. Moving along..."

The only non-human at the conference table stood up next. A Chiss named Mi'karh'tal, shortened to his core name of Ikarh by all who had even heard about him. Rear Admiral Ikarh was a master of logistics, and it was no surprise when he began speaking about the topic of food in his deep, booming voice.

"Sir, to feed our conquests in the region, and force them to capitulate to us, I believe it would be wise to take the regions most important bread basket planet and therefore rob all planets who resist us of their most important food supplier."

"What do you have in mind?" Gilford asked.

"Sir, the planet Agamar is the most important Bread basket planet in the region, and controlling it and its exports would do a great deal in getting the surrounding systems to follow us. Importing enough food to feed all or even just part of a planet from the galactic core would be exceedingly expensive, so they would be forced to at least forced to listen to us, if not capitulate immediately to us if we took it.

"Plus, until more permanent supply bases in the region can be set up, it would allow us to resupply in the region instead of sending valuable ships back to the core worlds to bring up supplies.

"Surprisingly, due to its importance to its neighbors, the planet is almost defenseless. They, as in the planets government, state that they're neutral in all conflicts and accordingly do not need weapons. Of course, if someone weak warlord or similar scum took the planet in a pathetic attempt to dominate the Hydian Sector, the defense fleets of several dozen nearby planets would rush to Agamar to get their food source back before there reserves ran out and they starved. But against us they wouldn't' dare. Any pathetic effort to take the planet from us would be effortlessly squashed and they'd be forced to, as I stated earlier, to work with us or starve."

"A good plan with good logic," Gilford said, his voice carefully neutral. "You are going to take this planet."

"Of course sir."

"Good. Then who's next?

"Ooh, sir, I'd like to be!" Shouted one enthusiastic Officer at the end of the table, leaping to his feet as soon as Gilford asked the question.

Instead of acknowledging the ambitious young man who had spoke up, Line Captain Ames Tiller, Gilford called on rear Admiral Gil Nachfried.

"Gil, what system or systems do you have in mind?"

"Sir," Ames butted in. "Sir..."

"I believe sir," Nachfried began, doing his best to ignore Ames's persistent shouting, "That we should take the planet Null."

"Sir, how about..."

This was too much.

"Damn it Ames," Gilford shouted as he turned in his direction. "Wait your goddamn turn and stop shouting. This isn't a primary school or a cattle market, this is a Command conference on an Astrus-class Star Destroyer. I have a mind to demote you for this tremendous breech of protocol, or at least place a request to command that you be transferred out to a backwater assignment with no chance of promotion or leaving. This conference is made up of the best officers in our fleet. You should be proud to be part of this group. But you are not too good to be irreplaceable. IF you do not start acting like one of us, then you will have to leave and another man will have to be called in."

Ames had stopped everything, even breathing, from the shock of Gilfords sudden outburst. Now he was just staring at Gilford, his mouth hanging open. He almost looked like he was about to cry, and he just might, too. While a good commander, Ames weakness was his sensitivity.

"Uh...yes sir..." he said, almost sobbing. "I'm sorry sir. It will never happen again."

"See to it that it does not," Gilford replied, his voice cold as ice and sharp as a razor. Ames was lucky. If Gilfords eyes were lasers he would be burnt to a crisp right now.

Back in the early days of the New Order, Ames would have been shot for this, or at least given a long prison term. Gilford wouldn't have hesitated to recommend the first.

For just a few seconds, each one seemingly eternal for every person in the room, Gilford glared at him. Then, with the slightest bit of remorse that he could not lecture Ames further in front of these men, he turned back to Nachfried.

"Continue, Admiral," he spoke, his anger and agitation seeping into his voice. Anybody who wanted to mess with him now was taking his life into his own hands.

"Yes sir," Nachfried replied, trying to avoid Gilfords now-harsh gaze. "I believe sir, that we should take the planet Null."

"And just why do you believe this?" Gilfords normal sharp but fair attitude had been replaced by sternness of the highest degree. He was going to be viciously critical to anyone who suggested a target for the rest of this meeting."

"Sir, Null isn't an extremely prosperous planet. Not nearly, but..."

He paused.

"Sir, may I start over?"

Gilford nodded.

"Thank you sir. Null is inhabited by two main species, Nulls, of course, and humans. The Nulls rule the planet, and the humans resent it but accept it since it was their planet first.

"However, if they ever got a chance to change that they would. In the past, a trio of revolutions have sprung up. The first two failed because of lack of supplies, and the third, which is happening presently, is on the verge of the same.

"On the planet humans are the minority, though only by a slim margin, but still enough. However, lots of Nulls have recently began to support the human revolution as the planetary government becomes increasingly controlling in an attempt to stop the revolution.

"Sir, if we could just furnish them with supplies, weapons and ammo, food, maybe a few speeders, the revolution would be victorious and doubtlessly end up being pro-Empire because of the support we gave them. However, if we don't support them it is likely to fail or worse, the Coalition might support them and they could become pro-coalition, the last thing we want."

"Just how much supplies are you talking about," Gilford asked.

"Not much weaponry, sir. Just enough to equip a small division might be enough to get them onto the offensive. Opportunities multiply as they are seized and even a relatively small amount might tip the balance into their favor to unleash a domino effect as their position grows stronger, with the end of the chain being their victory."

"So it's already in the bag? Well, I see no problem with that, especially if it will involve few if any of our men and have a whole planet as the payoff for just a division or twos weaponry. Alright. We'll take Null. Who would..."

"Sir?" Nachfried entered.

"Aren't you done?" Gilford asked.

"Not quite yet sir. I have another planet I would like to suggest if you don't mind."

"Alright. Go ahead."

"Another planet with similar political conditions to Null, though not quite revolutionary in nature, is the planet Er'kit. A desert planet similar to countless others in the outer rim, it's recently established Communist government is working hard to make the planet wealthyer. But to get their plan working they've had to betgin using Conscripted slave labor to build their new factorys and plow their sparse fields. This is the exact opposite its citizens expected from their new government, established only a few years ago after a bloody and bitter revolution. Instead of freedom and the rising up of the peasant class, they have been forced into slavery.

"Even though the fever on the planet is not quite revolutionary, bloody battles often break out between peasants and government troopers sent to round them up into slave gangs, conscripted labor groups they call them. Rarely do the peasants win. They have only low power, small game hunting rifles and sporting pistols if they're lucky, but better equipped they could likely defend htemselves adequitly and, if the government cooperates with us and goes on massive slave gathering missions, something easily caused by entering orbit and demanding slaves, a requiest they cannot deny, the peasants could be enraged to the point of going onto the offensive.

"After taking the planet it should be no problem to funnel money and business in, allowing the citizens dreams of a prosperous planet to be withing their grasp. As long as they haven't reached that goal they will stick with us, and once they have they will be thankful and stay with us as well, though that will not happen for a very long time."

"Hmm," Gilford said skeptically, "How do you know this? Just what makes you a reader of souls that can predict the trends of an entire planets population?"

"SIr, I have a masters in Sociollogy and another in Psychology from Coruscant University."

The fact that he knew what he was talking about or at least appeared to made Gilford even more agitated than he already was.

"Whatever. But you better be right."

"Sir." Ames had apparently decided to speak up once more. At the same time, Gilford decided that the only way to shut him up would be to let him speak.

"Alright Ames," he said reluctantly, "What do you have in mind?"

"Sir, how..." his trailed of and hesetated for a second, as if he kne what the response was going to be, but he knew he at least had to suggest it. "Sir, what about Dathomir?"

The reaction around the room that name had caused was as if somebody had pulled out a blaster with the powerpack removed. There was a sharp intake of breath by many. Others stiffined up. Nearly all put on an expression of flabbergastedness, Kach being the only exception. He'd had a feeling that this planet would come up sooner or later, and it was no suprise to him that Ames was the one to suggest it.

"We can't do that," Gilford said, his voice trailing off at the end.

"Why not sir?" Ames replied. "The Nightsisters have finally been wiped out, so there's no threat of them escaping the planet. The the locals are freindly enough as ling as you don't bother them."

"Because...you know what happened on that planet last time it was under Imperial control."

"Still sir, I believe that we should take the planet. If the Jedi take it first they could have hundreds, possibly thousands of new cnaidates. We can stop that from happening. In turn, actually, we could give our sith allies new recruits in exchange for a few favors."

"The Sith are allies by necessity, not because we like them. They're very useful, but their day will come."

"Then we could take the planet and wipe all its inhabitants out, therefore eliminating them as a threat entirely."

"We don't want to mess with them if we don't have to."

"Sir," Kach injected. "If you don't mind me saying so, I think it's a good idea. If we don't want to wipe them out, we should at least take the planet so we can keep a close eye on them and the system. Besides, it's a very pleasant planet, except of course for all the Rancors, and even they could be useful."

"Hmm," Gilford though for a moment, Glaring at Kach and then turning his piercing gaze back to Ames. For ten seconds he staired him in the eye with a look you often see on a duelists face. "Allright, Ames. You can do it. But don't screw it up or I'll have your head on a platter."

After nearly twenty minutes of debate following the decision to take Dathomir, it was finally decided to take a break to relax a little and give Admiral Gilford some time to cool off. But of course, in his rage, he demanded that they compile a list of four more planets to be taken before they returned to the conference and somewhat ruined the whole point of taking a break.

The room quickly emptied as men wondered off to the snack bar by the bridge where personnel taking a ten minute break could relax and get something to eat or drink. This place was almost exclusively for low rank, however, and more than a few eyes widened when their owners saw a dozen Imperial officers, all of them possessing a fairly high rank, march into the little place.

However, as soon as they sat down in a corner, dragging six four person tables together, the debate started up again, though not quite as hotly as men tossed about ideas they wouldn't even think about under Gilfords watchful eyes.

"Why not Korriban?" Ame's asked another man who was sitting across from him.

"Because, it's the site of an Ancient Sith graveyard. It's a sacred place to them and I doubt they'll look at us kindly for taking it."

"It's a bargaining chip," Ames replied, "We can use it, to a degree, to control them, to get them to do our bidding."

"You fool, it doesn't work like that. If we do something they like this in the interest of controlling them they will only get mad at us and not listen."

"I bet you they will listen to us if we really want them to. If they don't we can simply vaporize their relics and tombs and whatever else on that planet that's so precious to them and they won't be able to do anything about it."

Ludo Fern, the old man arguing with Ames, had about exhausted himself by arguing with the younger man. Instead of fighting him further, he settled with mumbling, "You just try to get that past Gilford."

Ames, straightening up, smiled.



When they returned to see Gilford they had their list of four more planets all made up and printed out. The Admiral, who had changed and returned in a standard fleet uniform instead of the dress one he had been wearing earlier, looked over the print out with skepticism and then said to the whole group, "Mirial, Ziost, Vinsoth and Thule. These are the planets you have decided you want to take?"

Most of them nodded.

"Garos IV, Null, Gala, Vinsoth, Mirial, Korriban, Dathomir, Sundari, Centari, Ziost, Thule, Agamar and Er'kit," he read off. "Does anyone object."

He looked every one of them in the eye.

"Gentlemen, your task forces are already assembled and have been assigned to you, so you are set to go as soon as you wish to. Good luck, men, and Gloria Imperium.

All around them they could hear the troops positioning themselves for the coming attack. Because there were so many and they were so well armed (at least compared to them) meant that it was almost futile to try to stop them, but they at least had to try.

Ando Smith could see one of the Government troopers now 500 meters away. Well outside the peasants tiny section of the city, their own little ghetto on the west side, and the short range of the rifles they had. With the man he could see there was at least one platoon of troops, the whole lot of them untouchable at this range.

To the underarmed and armored peasants of the ghetto they might as well of been stormtroopers, though against the real thing the government troopers would be slaughtered almost as fast as they could slaughter the peasants.

Each one of those troops was equipped with either a blaster rifle or carbine, with most of them them and all of the officers also in possession of a pistol. Protecting their torsos was plasteel armor, light yet strong enough to stop a bullet smaller than ten millimeters except at point blank range. Against a larger blaster though, it was useless.

Unfortuantely, those large blasters were in extremely short supply.

Around Ando now were dozens of his peasant comrades armed with anything they could get their hands on. Most were armed with six shot slugthrowers purchased from the Er'kit mafia in exchange for crops. A few were armed, like him, with single shot hunting rifles or blasters. Some had a few blaster carbines slipped in from another section of town that where a government raid like they were about to face had been repelled. A small group, mostly zealous teenagers, were armed with clubs and smashball bats.

In the center of them all was a single E-web repeating blaster, recovered from a Galactic Civil War battlefield and lovingly restored. It was more precious than gold to the men and women with him. Behind it stood racks of grenades made by dumping powder from slugthrower cartridges into Clay shells and sticking a fuse in. Crude, but effective.

And on top of their lack of adequate equipment, they were badly outnumbered. Perhaps the only thing really going for them was they had a earthwork fort constructed, with pikes braced at the tops of the walls. But that wouldn't hold an enemy for long.

The Er'kit government and army had learned its lesson early on when outnumbered slave drives had been wiped out. Now the "Mandatory Labor Conscription" units moved in mass and were escorted by speeders mounted with blaster cannons and Assault Mortar platforms. To nullify the advantage in numbers the peasants always seemed to have, larger bodies of troops launched only one attack at a time instead of splitting up. To help nullify this, Andos ghetto had sent messengers to gather up more peasant militiamen from surrounding areas and ghettos, but if they didn't get here soon they'd be sunk.

Down the road, near the position where a group of scouts were located there was a sudden screeching of blaster fire, responded to by the cracking of slugthrowers and the shatter-boom of the clay pot grenades. A few seconds later half a dozen men slipped off a side street and came running towards their position, hugging the sides of the road for cover and safety.

Six. That was only half the number of scouts they'd sent out earlier.

"They're attacking!" the lead man shouted, "They're..." He was cut off as a blaster bolt hit him in the back, dropping him and leaving a smoking hole in his flesh.

The cover of the units trying to flank them blown, the main force, surrounding the entire ghetto, uprooted and began to move towards the dozen earthwork forts similar to this one surrounding the area. In front of them, squad after squad of government troops began to leave the cover of the building they'd been hiding in at the end of the street. There were at least three hundred of them, up against the fifty or so at this little place.

Suddenly there were four flashes of sun-on-metal as four Assault Mortar speeders accelerated away from their position on a side street. He hadn't seen them, nor had anyone else around him since no one had raised the alarm earlier.

"Incoming!" he shouted, pulling his squirrel rifle up to his shoulder.

It took only five seconds fot the Assault Mortars to cover half of the five hundred meters to them and enter his minimum range. Exhaling, he squeezed off a shot that missed the pilot, who he was aiming for, but smashed into a steering vane, causing the fast moving vehicle to veer to the right and slam into a building before either of its crew members even knew something had happened.

Following his lead, dozens of slugthrowers opened up around him, throwing molten lead in their enemies direction. They were fools, since the remaining three platforms were out of their range for the next few seconds and by then they'd have used up half their ammo, but he couldn't blame them since almost none of them had ever used the weapons before now. A few, surprised by the weapons recoil, even fell down.

Striking the wall of steel another two went down, but the forth assault mortar continued, the grenade launcher on the crafts front end spitting out balls of death now that it had entered its one hundred meter range.

As soon as the Mortars had begun to fire, each of the spirited teens who had been carrying smashball bats traded them in for grenades. Even if they didn't know how to fire a blaster or slugthrower, they at least knew how to throw a ball and this wasn't much different.

Lead by a ball thrown by a pitcher, several Clay pot grenades detonated by the speeder, tearing it to shreds with a hail of nuts, screws, bolts and nails that had been mixed into the clay.

But with that victory over the first attacker they had taken their first casualties: Five dead peasants were caught by a single mortar bomb.

Running along the edge of the road, during the past twelve seconds the enemy infantry had advanced fifty yards. Every five seconds the one real sniper rifle they had would crack and drop a man, but still they continued.

Trying to mimic the sniper, one of the men with a mafia rifle opened fire even though his target was well out of range. The man next to him topped this waste of ammo with a single solid punch to the mans jaw.

To the right there was a sudden rumble and all hell broke loose at the position next to their own.

He shut his eyes and waited for their foes to enter range, taking deep breaths to relive the tension he felt inside himself as he counted to thirty. At the end of his count he opened his eyes to see that the enemy was much closer now, nearly within range.

"Aim for the head," he whispered to himself as he chose a target, "You can't pierce that armor with a squirrel rifle. McAndrews down there might be able to do it with his fifty caliber weapon, but you can't with this."

He pulled the trigger, his rifle cracked, his target fell, and the battle began.

Knowing nothing about weapons, all the people around him once again opened fire even though their target was far beyond their range. Falling seventy five meters short, the hail of lead tore up the pavement, throwing shards of cobblestones everywhere.

Well, even if it didn't hit them he had to admit it had a powerful psychological effect. The entire charging mass of troops wavered and then slowed slightly. Perhaps a dozen troops turned around and tried to flee in fear; every one of them were shot by the pistol wielding officers following their platoons.

In response, a salvo of blaster bolts tore away from the soldiers, dissipating in the humid air before reaching the line. To his left, the precious E-web began opening fire, it's more powerful blasts managing to strike home even at this range.

Finally coming into range, another wave of blaster bolts tore towards them, this time reaching them and dropping six peasants. Many of the others pulled back behind the dirt fortifications they had built.

"Fire, fire!" he shouted, the cry being taken up by some of the other men around him.

Fire. Pull the bolt back. Stick a new cartridge in. Push the bolt back. Fire. His mind was already following the steps automatically without any sort of conscious input at all.

Pulling back to the cover of doorways and storefronts and porches for protection from he hail of bullets, the government troops began leapfrogging forwards towards their enemy.

Woosh! A could of smoke appeared on one side of the street, and seconds later a portion of the line blew up, scattering body parts everywhere.

"Get that Rocket Launcher!" he shouted to the E-webs crew beside him. But the sound of the battle was too loud, the didn't hear him. They continued ripping up a pocket of infantrymen hiding in a doorway.

The enemy were only one hundred and twelve meters away.

Falling back into his pattern of firing, he tried to shoot the man with the rocket launcher. The man fell, clutching his chest, but it was too late. A second rocket shot out with a cloud of smoke.

But at the last second a stray bullet hit it, knocking it into a building behind the peasants.

He squeezed the trigger, hitting an officer rallying his men. A man beside Ando was hit, his face burnt to a cinder. He was pulled back from the wall by a slim woman, who picked up the mans old rifle and continued firing where he had left off.

She was hit six seconds later.

Down the street, three blue speeders began approaching the infantry from behind. For a brief second he hoped they might be reinforcements from another ghetto, but his hopes were quickly shot down as the blaster cannon mounted on the back of it began to open fire.

"Get the speeders," he shouted to the men behind him manning the E-web, but he didn't hear them respond. In fact, he hadn't heard anything from them in quite a few moments...

He turned around to see its crew both slumped over the weapon, blood pouring out of their bellys.

"Shit," he shouted, abandoning his rifle and jumping up behind the weapons controls. Just before he kicked the gunners body away he stopped himself and pulled a blaster pistol out of the dead mans belt and stuck it in his own.

Fiddling with the weapons guiding joystick, he aimed the barrel at the speeder mounting the blaster cannon-or was it a light turbo laser? It wasn't firing very fast- and he pulled the trigger, unleashing a salvo of blood red energy at his target that dissipated harmlessly on it's jury rigged shields.

"Damn it," he screamed, puring another burst of fire into it, bringing the weapon and generator dangerously close to overheating.

At the last second the shields gave and the speeder exploded in a magnificent fireball, pelting its two shield less companions with flack.

The government troops were just beginning to enter the effective range of the peasants mafia made rifles, there most important weapon. Beyond eighty five meters away they weren't very accurate due to their cost saving minimum rifling.

For the next endless twenty seconds he cowered behind the weapons metal guard waiting for it to cool off. Using the pistol he had appropriated he occasionally took pot shots over the flak guard.

It was only now that he realized just how badly they were taking it. They had begun with sixty eight men and women, 48 of them armed. They were now down to less than half that, with bloody, half dead peasants screaming their half blown away brains out all over the place.

The enemies, on the other hand, weren't doing so bad. They had taken about twice the number of casualties, but it didn't hurt them so badly because of their far greater numbers.

Sticking his head above the flak-guard, he was amazed to see the remaining troopers charging the last fifty meters to their position. The E-web hadn't cooled off all the way yet, but it was now ar never. Twisting the joystick and pulling the trigger, he blasted three or four men into oblivion.

They kept on coming.

The enemys finally in range. The teen soldiers dropped their smack ball bats once more and began lobbing grenades at them, carefully checking to make sure the fuse was lit before throwing them. Shatter-booming in front of the line, they threw up so much dust that it became hard to see. Enemies fell, dozens of them. The grenades, while primitive, were effective.

During these final desperate moments of the battle each man and woman was possessed by their long buried animal instincts. Ando pulled the trigger, firing dozens of red lances of death into the enemy body. People picked up the guns of fallen comrades, only to be gunned down themselves a few seconds later. Suicidal soldiers climbed the ramparts as grenades fell down onto them and blaster bolts and slugs blew their head apart. A grenade thrown by the enemy exploded, damaging the E-web and dropping four peasants. Slugthrowers continued to fire into the enemy body, piercing even body armor at this close range.

Carnage. The gray Imperial Army Surplus uniforms the Government troops were clad in were now smeared with blood, either each mans own or some fallen comrades.

But finally the massed troopers began to make headway. Pushing forwards, they selflessly climbed the ramparts, many of them getting impaled on the pikes placed at the top or scalded by boiling oil poured down onto them, but still they continued.

Finally able to reach each other, the hand to hand fighting was short but bitter. Picking up the clubs and bats that had been dropped earlier, peasants briefly gave everything they had to fight them off. Loaded rifles were emptied into enemys bellys. Blasters or the rare automatic slugthrowers they had took down whole lines of enemys.

But eventually they fled, though not before someone set the E-webs generator to overload and explode. That little gambit killed another squad of enemys and injured nearly a platoon of them.

Dashing madly for other friendly positions, many fell to stun blasts in the back (They were on a slave drive after all). Ando was one of the lucky ones, successfully reaching a position a hundred meters to their right.

The battle was almost over here as well, the last dozen peasants decapatating troopers that stuck their heads over the wall with shovels and throwing grenades onto the men behind them.

To the left of the position the troops that had assaulted the mini fortress he had been at began moving this way, far more of them than the men here could possibly handle. Unfortuantely, they didn't have an E-web here, just a heavy machine gun with barely a hundred rounds left for it, but he manned it anyway, turning it towards the charging men.

With the first burst of fire he must have taken down a full squad of them, each man he hit being ripped in half by the heavy slugs the weapon fired. Now sure of this weapons power, he let completely loose, raking the front of the charging mass. The fifty caliber bullets penetrated even the plasteel body armor the men wore.

There couldn't be more than fifty or fifty five left.

Pulling the trigger once again after giving the barrel a second to cool off, the weapon ripped a hole straight through the line. But his gory success at nearly stopping them was shortened when the weapon ran out of ammo.

"Shit," he cried out, grabbing a rifle that was laying beside the weapon. He fired three shots into the body with it and then it was empty.

Jumping down, he looked for any ammo that might be left for the machine gun. When he had been firing it he had started to like it more than the E-web he had been using because it fired faster and didn't over heat quite so quickly. But now that he needed ammo he wasn't so sure he liked it that much. With an E-web you could just wait for a second for it to recharge, but with this when you were out you were out.

Grabbing a club, he began to smash the heads of any troops that climbed the wall he was guarding. A few impaled themselves on the razor sharp pikes positioned down the side of the wall. He didn't bother with them.

He smashed the head of one man a little too har; the smashball bat he had been using cracked and split in half. He pulled a pike out of the wall, shanking a man in the face immediately after doing so. Three more times and that broke as well. Grabbing a shovel off the ground, now becoming saturated with blood in some areas, he began decapatating or attempting to decapitate anyone who stuck their head over the wall. During a short lull he grabbed a rifle with a bayonet on the end instead.

Big mistake. It broke off the first time he stabbed a man with it.

Swearing, he shot the next two men in the head with it and threw the now empty weapon away. Yanking the pistol off his belt, he shot another one who tried to climb over and waited for another.

None did.

For twenty seconds all of the remaining seven men in the mini-fortress just stood poised for them to continue the attack.

It didn't come.

Finally, one of the men dared to stick his head over the wass, and his sharp intake of breath sent Ando and the other three men left scurrying up the wall to see what was going on.

It was breathtaking. Around the little fort were hundreds of body's, plus an equal number of wounded. They had died in many grotesque and horrifying ways. Many were impaled on pikes in there haste to get over the ramparts. Others were ripped in half by bullets from the now ammo less machine gun. Some were riddled to pieces by grenades, and others merely shot by slugthrowers and blasters.

There was not an uninjured soul among them.

The survivors of the two combined attack forces were running down the street, trying to get as far away from this living hell as fast as possible. There were probably thirty or thirty five left.

Jumping down, he lifted a rifle and several magazines off a dead man and then climbed back up, cutting arm on a pike made up of a durasteel shard on a pole in his haste.

"Shit!" he shouted, snapping a fresh magazine into the rifle. Blood trickled out of the gash in his arm. He wasn't much of a bleeder. Around him, another man was doing the same. The others just stood in place, frozen by the gory spectacle.

Surgically he began squeezing off shots, taking a man down with almost every pull of the trigger.

It was over before they'd even got halfway out of range.

From the East a convoy of speeders and wheeled ground cars drove up, packed to the brim with peasant soldiers. They stopped at the sight of the carnage, then looked at the five survivors with disbelief.

For a few eternal moments everyone was silent.

"Chairman!" the messenger shouted, rushing through the capitals halls towards the mans office, nearly getting shot by a newer guard who didn't recognise him. "Chairman!"

Dear god, he thought, He better be here.

"Chairman!" he shouted one more time, more in surprise than urgency as he rounded a corner and found himself face to face with the fat man who ran Er'kit.

"Yes, messenger?" he asked in a jolly voice.

"Uh, sir," he replied, trying to catch his breath. "Mr. Chairman, an Imperial fleet has entered orbit around our planet!"

The look on the Chairmans face went almost grim and, much faster than one would have thought possible for such a fat man he began running towards the Capitals Communications center.



Fifteen minutes after the battle

Like in the text of many religions, salvation came from the sky during the peoples most desperate hour. For Ando Smith and the survivors of his section of town and many other towns across the planet, it came in the form of a trio of Imperial shuttles, setting themselves down in snug clearing near his home. For a few moments there was pandomonium as people suspected the government had acquired a few shuttles, but those fears were quickly dismissed when somebody pointed out that the shuttles possessed Imperial markings, and the Empire had a spotless record of hunting down and destroying people or political entity's that used their banner falsely.

By a slim margin it was decided the Imperials would be heard out, and it was very lucky for the peasants that they did.

Covered by a platoon of men, a pair of representatives waited at the spot where the shuttles boarding ramps met the sandy earth to meet the pair of Imperials that descended from it a moment later.

The Imperial men were the first to speak.

"Greetings citizens of Er'kit. I am Imperial Navy Major Hawthorn Schmitt and this is my aid, Yakob Yingleheimer. I would like to get straight to business since we don't have much time.

"You see, the Empire favors you peasants, you average citizens of the planet Er'kit, and believes the government has become corrupted. However, we have noticed that you are not winning most of the fights between you two, primarily due to a lack of powerful and modern armaments. Therefore, the Imperial Navy has brought a gift for you."

The two messengers stepped up theramp and looked into the Sentinel landers hold.

It was filled with blasters, grenades, and everything else one needs to fight a war, with enough ammunition to keep a small one going for some time.

All across Er'kit, at dozens of Ghettos and Peasant villages, this same scene was being repeated.

As soon as they were unleaded, they each took off and returned to orbit.





By the time the Chairman reached the communications center his cloths were soaked with sweat and he was completely drained of energy. But he stopped only for a second to towel off his face before he stepped up to a status monitor on one side of the room to see what was going on.

In orbit were a dozen ships: two Star Destroyers, two heavy cruisers of a type the recognition computers didn't recognise, and an assortment of smaller frigates and light cruisers.

Every few minutes a lander was entering or leaving one of the Star Destroyers hanger bays.

"What the..." he said, the color draining out of his face. "Get me a line to their commanding officer. I want to know what's going on."

"We've had a connection on standby for several minutes," one of the technicians in the room told him, "And I don't think their commander wants to wait much longer."

"Well, why didn't you say so?" the Chairman asked, not really expecting an answer, as he stepped onto the holonet transmitter in the center of the room and put on the expression of helpfulness and willing to cooperate that every other successful politician knew as well.

"Patch me through," he told the tech, who pressed a switch and gave him a thumbs up.

"Hello sir, it is such an honor to have you over Er'kit and..."

"Shut up," the man told him sternly. The fat Chairman did.

"Me and my flotilla have come to Er'kit on a 'mandatory labor conscription' drive. However, it appears that your citizens are resisting us far more than we anticipated. I do not like wasting my men. Therefore, you have twelve hours to come up with ten thousand slaves."

"And what if we can't get that many by then?" the Chairman asked nervously, cowering back from the blue figure in front of him.

"Then you, and all others government officials, will take their places in the 'Imperial Labor Guild.'"

"Uh, you can count on us," he replied stupidly, "You can count on us."