Aboard the Imperial Battleship Tormentor, lurking near the edge of the Elrood Sector......

Vice Admiral Kraken was tired of pacing the deck. He was worried now that he had misread the situation, and that the enemy hit and fade force had struck elsewhere, perhaps at Almar, where his forces were currently not that strong. Just to be on the safe side, he dispatched a pair of Aegis cruisers from his reserve forces to the planet to reinforce it in case of an enemy attack. Within minutes, the cruisers reported that they were on the way. The Cossack, and Lance would be on station over Almar within a couple of hours.

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Sectors and systems away, on board the Imperial Battleship Formidable....

Commodore Brand was satisfied with the results of the bombardement. Now it was time to regain the faith and loving kind care of the Ishori people. Shuttles were dispatched with pre-fabricated buildings to begin the rebuilding process. Just now ten shuttles filled with parts needed to construct twenty buildings were leaving the docking bays of the Formidable, along with a nominal escort of twenty TIE Defender fighters.

Suddenly, alarms began to blare throughout the bridge. Brand immediatly motions for the alarms to be silenced, and looks for the source of them. His immediate concern is sabotage, that a terroist sect had somehow gotten aboard the flagship and detonated a bomb in a vital spot. However, his sensor's officer soon informed him that this was not the case, but it could be just as worse. Unknown ships were emerging from hyperspace in sector twenty, near the equator on the darkside of the world. In that immediate area was the cruiser Insidious, and a group of five Intrepid Gunships. The interlopers were identified to contain such ships as Kaloth Battlecruisers, and Kruk Battlewagons, outdated ships, but also found were some modern ships, such as Warriro type gunships. The enemy fleet consisted of eighty ungainly vessels, mostly outdated. Immediatly facing them was the most modern type of cruiser in the Imperial navy, and five modern gunships, all bristling with weaponry. The Imperial ships immediatly demanded indentifications and intentions, only to be met with silence. As the fleet deployed into a combat formation, their intentions became perfectly clear. Commodore Brand immediatly ordered comm stations to send off two messages, one directed to Admiral Kraken in the Elrood Sector informing him of this development, and the other to the nearby system of Diamal, requesting reinforcements from any units stationed there. Then he deployed his fleet for battle. The cruiser and gunships closest to the fleet were ordered to group together, and prepare their weapons, and missile launchers. In the meantime, the remainder of the fleet would come against the enemy in two groups. Around one side of the planet would come the Victory Star Destroyer Valorous, the Imperial cruiser Inflackable, and three Intrepid Gunships, while around the other side of the planet came the two remaining gunships, and the Imperial flagship, the Star Destroyer Formidable. While the initial contact ships started the engagement, the other two groups would come around and hopefully catch the enemy fleet in a pincer movement. As a couple of afterthoughts, Commodore Brand first ordered that this battle be recorded, and broadcast to the planet as yet another reminder of the might of the Imperial authority, and also decided to hold his starfighters in reserve, launching them only as desperation, or to mop up anything that tried to flee. As his ships manuevered, he ordered the initial contact group to open fire at will......

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Aboard the Imperial Battleship Bellicose, some distance from the planet of Vladet

Admiral Parker watched as the Imperial fleet came to life. They were ready, and awaited only the arrival of the enemy force. And it came sooner than he expected. Alarms began to blare as hostile ships poured from hyperspace, modern gunships, corvettes, and frigates, and then medium and heavy cruisers, finally ending with the broad hulls of enemy Star Destroyers. The enemy had come, and in full force too. Now it was time to play hardball. The enemy force closed in, first at a nice jaunt, then slowed considerably as they took in full scans of the planet and the surronding area of space. But all they detected, besides the ships in reserve docks scattered around the planet and system, were a group of eight Victory Star Destroyers, and some swarms of starfighters near the shipyards. Is this all there was? thought Brand as he placed himself in the shoes of the commander. Some precautions had to be taken in case this indeed wasn't all. Of the five enemy Defender class Star Destroyers, three stayed in the middle formation, deploying into line abreast. The other two Defenders deployed into seperate taskforces that would take care of any reinforcements coming in from hyperspace. If the enemy ahead focused their fire on the outer taskforces, it would reassure the commander that there were indeed reinforcements waiting to make a flanking attack. Each flanking taskforce, besides the one Defender Star Destroyer, consisted of two Frigates, and four corvettes and gunships, not a powerful force, but one that would be able to hold off a new enemy threat until more forces could be brought in to bear. For this purpose a number of cruisers, and gunships were held back, in reserve. Admiral Parker grimaced at this for this meant that the job of the cloaking cruisers to attack the rears of the enemy Defenders were now made much harder. He decided that when he jumped in, he would send all of the bombers to the rear to attack and wear down these forces, espically the swift and nimble gunships. The main enemy taskforce, with one frigate, and two gunships assigned to each Defender, began to move in on the formation of Victory Star Destroyers. They launched their starfighters, and blastboats, and sent them ahead to engage the Star Destroyers with their complements of proton torpedoes.

Then, at extreme range, the battle was joined as the Victories launched their full complements of missiles out at the enemy fleet that was closing in. The middle four Victories concentrated their vollies on what was thought to be the flagship, the Defender at the head of the wedge formation. Three hundred and twenty missiles leapt through space, and three hundred survived to slam full tilt into the shields of the Defender, collapsing them utterly, and peppering the hull with holes. The battle had been joined.......

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Back aboard the Imperial Battleship Tormentor

A few hours after he had last made his actions, the full tilt of the situation had been made aware. The enemy fleet had arrived as expected over Vladet, and fighting was joined there between the initial defending fleet of Victory Star Destroyers, and Defender class Star Destroyers. And, unexpecteldy, instead of falling into their trap, the enemy raiding force had not struck at the blockade of those two systems, but instead had struck at the world of Isht. Admiral Kraken was maddened by this prospect of daring counterstrikes aimed at vulnerable areas. It now occured to him that the enemy had totally ignored the Imperial forces stationed here, and that they were free to attack the enemy. He suspected the enemy knew this, and expected him to strike at the enemy homeworld, so Kraken instead decided to strike at the most unlikely place: Their military shipyards, where hordes of enemy captial ships and starfighters. Admiral Kraken knew he had a tough battle ahead, and so he sat down with his war staff, and began to plan the counterstrike that would cripple his enemies military might forever........

Aboard the Imperial Battleship Bellicose, near Vladet....

Admiral Parker watched as his fleet of Victory Star Destroyers engaged the enemy ships. The enemy had been caught off guard by their tatics, and as a result their most valuable destroyers suffered heavy damage very early in the battle. The enemy flagship was now a burning wreck, having suffered four huge missile salvoes. But plenty of crewmen survived, including three command pods that were retrieved by one of the other Destroyers. The other two destroyers have suffered heavy shield losses before they reinforced them, and deployed thier faster starfighters to shoot down missiles, as well as some of the gunships from the reserve fleet. The Victory Destroyers were now taking a lot of damage to their shields, and some even had hull damage. Admiral Parker decided that now the time had come to spring the trap. With an order the six Imperial class Destroyers, three on one side of the system, three on the other side, made last minute corrections to their already planned micro-jump points, then accelerated into hyperspace. While this was happeneing, a group of thirty Shroud class cloaking cruisers had been shadowing the enemy reinforcement fleet since they had come from hyperspace. An ultratight flash tranmission from the flagship Victory signaled them to begin their attack.

Then the Imperial Star Destroyers emerged from hyperspace, two groups of them each one kilometer or less from the enemy outer taskforces. As the awesome weaponry onboard the Star Destroyers came to life, hundreds of TIE Defenders, and Scimitars poured from their docking bays, and proceeded to attack the enemy Outlier ships, and Reinforcement ships. Within moments both of the Defender Star Destroyers assigned to flank protection duty had been overwhelmed and reduced to flaming hulks, their accompanying ships scattering and firing erratically at the Imperial Destroyers as they panicked. The Shroud Cruisers opened fire with thier missile launchers, scoring several suprise hits against the Meidium Cruisers to the rear of the fleet after they had diverted their aft shield forward to reinforce themselves from the oncoming starfighter swarms. The TIE Defenders of the fleet crashed into the enemy starfighter formations in something similar to a Marg Sabl manuever, two horders of starfighters coming at an enemy in a pincer style movement. Within moments, the enemy fleet's situation had been reversed from improved to utter disaster. Already elements of the reserve, and support fleets were fleeing the battle.

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In the meantime, over the world of Isht

The Naval Battle was raging fiercely now. The enemy fleet was deploying into individual squadrons, and were moving on to surrond the initial contact group. At that moment, starfighters from the other two groups moving into pincer positions arrived, some coming over the north pole, others coming from under the South pole. While the two task groups of ships were coming around the equator, and would envelope the enemy from left and right, the starfighters had gone north and south, and would envelope the enemy from top and bottom. Several large salvos of torpedoes heralded the starfighters arrival, a total of one hundred forty four from the various ships winging into battle. Three large enemy capital ships detonated immediatly, and most of their picket and gunships broke formation in order to deal with this threat. What few starfighters were carried by the enemy fleet immediatly deployed into battle with the Imperial Starfightes.

In the meantime, the Reign Star Destroyer Formidable completed her run around the planet, and came within sight of the enemy fleet. At the same time, the other task group consisting of the smaller Victorys, and Illustrious cruiser were rounding the other side of the planet. At his order, both groups fire simultaneously, missiles and turbolaser blasts rocking the enemy capital ships. Those ships returned fire however, and hits began to reduce the shields on the Imperial fleet. Commodore Brand frevently hoped that reinforcements were indeed coming, because he wasn't sure they could hold if they didn't. Right now the enemy fleet contained more ships than he did, and although they were older, and more damagable, they were also modified to carry a lot more weaponry.

At this critical moment of battle, it was decided that the Imperials would win. For coming out of hyperspace, reinforcements came in from Diamal. And they came in right at the rear of the enemy fleet. Two Belarus Medium Cruisers, and ten Corellian Engineering Corporation Gunships shot out of hyperspace, and immediatly engaged the rear of the enemy force as they raised their shields and tried to deploy into a combat formation. The enemy fleet had been taken off guard, and three more capital ships were quickly crippled or destroyed as the Imperial fleet capitalized. This broke the morale and fighting spirit of the enemy fleet. They split up into three squadrons, one heading torwards the planet, one heading away, and another one too caught up in the firefight to really think about retreating. The last group was quickly destroyed and dealt with, with a few ships surrending here and there. Of more immediate concern to the Imperials were the enemy ships retreating torwards the planet.

And sure enough their fears were justified as the enemy capital ships and pickets opened fire with their turbolaser and laser cannons on the planet below, hoping to destroy as many Imperial assets as possible. Most of their targeting was way off course, and as a result, many more civilians were killed instead of Imperial troops. Still, it was a terrible thing, and Commodore Brand vowed not to let the enemy ships that were responsib get away with it. With two sharp orders he deployed his fleet into a decisive formation. The Reign powered up her gravity wells in order to prevent the enemy escape, while the rest of the fleet used the planet's gravity to do a slingshot manuever to cut them off. In short order, the enemy fleet had been surronded, and annihilated.

This left the fleet retreating away from the planet to deal with. This group contained the largest number of capital ships, two badly damaged Kruk Battlewagons, and three Telgorn Pacifer Assault Cruisers forming the core of this fleet. They concentrated all their firepower on the Imperial reinforcements, and decimated them as they went, with some of the enemy damaged and cripples ramming the Imperial ships. When it was all said and done, only five enemy ships, one captial ship, three gunships, and one picket vessel, along with seven starfighters, survived to retreat into the safety of hyperspace. The Imperials had lost the two Intrepid Gunships of the contact squadron, six Corellian Gunships of the reinforcement group, along with the two Belarus Medium cruisers, and thirty nine starfighters, mostly TIE Defenders. Around the planet and system lay scattered the hulks of ninety three enemy ships, half picket and capital ships, half old and outdated starfighters. A great Imperial victory indeed.

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Finally, aboard the Imperial Battleship Tormentor

Admiral Kraken had recieved the last of the messages a standard hour ago. Both the battles of Isht, and Vladet had been astounding Naval victories. Hundreds of enemy ships had been destroyed, and more captured, or have been sighted in other systems where they do not belong, signs that they had abandoned their sovereign nation. For this reason Admiral Kraken decided to put off his planned counter-strike against the enemy planets, and decided to instead devote his resources to cleaning up operations, and helping the people of Isht recover after the cowardly enemy bombardement. Park Kraken had to smile at this. First, their bombardment of the city as a demostration had broken the spirit of the younger rioters, and then the cowardly attack of the forces that were supposed to be liberating them betrayed the trust of the older, wise, and corporate citizens. Within one day of the battle, the riots had quieted down into almost nothing, and order had been restored. The citizens, not only fearing the Imperials on a new level, but also having been betrayed by their supposed liberators, had in turn betrayed their matyrs, and upsurpers, turning over many of the pawns of the terroits, along with most of the members of the cell. Some of them managed to commit suicide, along with thier leader, but enough had been captured and subsequently interrogated that the Imperials had learned much more about the terroist organization. It's name was the Union, and according to the intelligence gathered, plus correlating evidence from elsewhere, it's capital planet appeared to be Falleen.

The End