Commodore Brand glanced out the forward viewport at the distant specs that were the enemy ships, steadily glowing dimmer as they raced away from the Impeiral fleet.

"Sir, the enemy ships, they are retreating before us at full sublight." said the sensors officer.

"What is the status of their shields, weapons, etc.?" asked the Commodore.

"Sir, their weapons are apparently not fully powered, while I can't even detect their shields. I wonder if they have extra power running into their sublight engines? It would explain their haste of retreat." reported sensors.

"Very well, send a signal to all ships, advance on the enemy at flank speed." ordered the Commodore.

"Sir, we're being jammed. But there appears to be multipule sources. Between us and the enemy fleet, if triangulation is correct." reported communications.

"Sensors, send out a full power ping, let's see if there are any cloaked hostiles out there." said the Commodore. At that moment, however, a series of bright intense detonations lit up the forward parts of the formation.

"Multipule detonations confirmed at forward shield barriers, shields are down to 75%. Source unknown." sang out sensors.

"Sir, the jamming has been lifted." said the communications officer.

"Very well. Order the Defence class cruisers to target the fleeing formation. Guardians are to set their shields on standby for a moment, then bring them back up after the cruiser's have fired a salvo. Execute." ordered the Commodore.

The Defence class gun cruisers came about and targeted their cannon on the fleeing Confederation warships. Their targeting computers shared their information with each other and took into account the effect the gravity wells and other factors would have on the flight path of the warheads, and when the targeting solution was locked in, the cruisers fired. Several volleys of armour piercing warheads leapt out from the cruiser's guns, streaking across space in a matter of moments to slam into the rear of the enemy formation.

Even with the advanced targeting solutions locked in, not all the warheads impacted, for the advanced computers could not take all factors, could not know all factors. However, better than fifty percent struck home on their targets. The warheads slammed into the enemy's hull, penetrating deeply before detonating. On board the larger ships, the first strikes to hit home lit up like an electric storm, then dissipated into plasma. The following hits drilled through and detonated into the interior. One of the shells passed into the exhaust ports of a cruiser and detonated in the drive reactor, causing a chain explosion that crippled that ship's sublight propulsion.

"Sensors, any indication of damage to enemy fleet?" asked the Commodore.

"Sir, by impact analysis and the such, I would say one enemy cruiser crippled, two more cruisers moderatley damaged, and one destroyer moderatley damaged." replied sensors.

"Excellent." replied the Commodore as the Defence class cruiser's guns fell silent, and the Guardians re-distributed their shield coverage.

"Sir, sensors indicate the enemy command ship has suffered catastrophic shield failure on the starboard side-"

"No matter," the Commodore returned, "they'll have backup shields."

And indeed, within a moment a new sphere of energy had encapsulated the enemy ship, protecting it again from weapons fire. But, as was the nature of backup shields, not nearly as well as her primary defences had.

Not nearly well enough to defend her from the devestating attack - the wall of fire - thrown at her by the EMPIRE SOb. The EMPIRE was a capital ship killer - this was what she was designed to do. And while the Pegasus was a powerful opponent in her own right, she was not capable of shrugging off the EMPIRE's attack.

The Pegasus' commander, recognizing the vulnerability of his ship, did the only thing he could: he attempted to roll it, to present his undamaged port side to his enemy.

The EMPIRE, operating under the command of one of the best minds the Imperial Fleet had to offer, was ready for that. The enemy ship began to roll, and the EMPIRE reached out with its tractor beams, latching on the to larger vessel.

Tractor beams were designed for a ship to pull in enemies, but the Pegasus was larger and massed more than the EMPIRE. So instead of the smaller ship pulling the larger to her, the reverse happened: aided by her ion engines, the EMPIRE followed the Pegasus's roll, all the while pouring fire down into the breach in her shields.

The roll also had the effect of putting the Pegasus' substantial bulk between the EMPIRE and the second Star Destroyer, shielding the Imperial ship.

And all the while, turbolaser and missile fire poured into the breach.

"Once more unto the breach," the Commodore murmured. Some old theatrical piece he had seen as a boy.

The heavy guns of the EMPIRE were taking their toll: her position to the aft of the enemy ship had given her a valuable target. Now, as the fire continued to mount, the first of the enemy ship's great ion engines flamed out.

And still the fire came, like the vengful wrath of God, from the Imperial craft.

Oh, the enemy had attempted to stop her. Fire had been returned, for what it was worth. But not in any concentrated manner: the ship's rudimentary stealth systems did not make the EMPIRE fully invisible, but they did make her incredibly difficult to target. With no ability to coordinate any sort of mass firing, what few blasts that were not turned away by her powerful shields were deflected by her heavy armour. Even an ion bolt could not easily penetrate the EMPIRE's unusually thick skin. A handful of turrets had lost tracking, but the enemy Star Destroyer presented a vast target, and that was really of little consequence. A further number had been disabled entirely, but the majority of the EMPIRE's guns continued to lance out pure bundles of destructive energy.

The returning enemy bombers (what few remained) and capital ships had approached with the intent of targetting her. But the speed with which the Pegasus and the EMPIRE had swapped places put the Kashan flagship directly in the path of their fire. And only a fool would fire on his own side!

"Hyperspace reversion, Sir! Looks like another of their cruisers..."

In actual fact, it was nothing of the sort. But it had arrived to where the EMPIRE ship had been, moments before. For the jump had been programmed before the Pegasus' roll, and now as it made its microjump along that predetermined path, it ended up on the opposite side of larger ship from its target.

The Commodore could only appluad the attempt.

Then the entire ship shook as the shields failed briefly and some of the enemy fire began to hit home.

And then, the lead ship first, the three CPECs jumped, accelerating faster than the speed of light, the CPEFs in their wake.

Pegasus, Confederation Flagship

“We aren’t sticking around for this. All ships to commence to start plotting emergency jump coordinates.”

“Aye sir.”

“Engines are back to nearly normal efficiency; the LEs did it sir.”

“Firing missiles sir.”

A volley of Starflares, with their jammers engaged, surged forth from the silver wedge dodging and weaving among the fire vectors of both ships. They abruptly arced at breakneck speeds towards the tractor beams of the SOb that had locked onto the Pegasus. Entering the beam itself, they not only broke the lock, but accelerated right into it. With the beam pulling it and its own engine power, the missiles surged forth at an otherwise impossible speed; straight into the emitter’s themselves. Not all of the missiles made it, as a few direct, haphazard hits from the SOb’s weapons demolished them. But most did through a combination of speed, jamming, and reinforced nose and armor. They impacted, their reinforced heads piercing or shattering the emitters, and letting their fusion warhead payloads directly into the hull itself. Brilliant shades of blues burst out from those areas into the internal workings of the Imperial ship itself. Aside from the explosions ripping the ship from the inside out, the warheads, like other pure fusion weapons, releasing large quantities of neutrons throughout the warship, killing the nearby organic automation of the warship.

The EMPIRE’s maneuver had not been without its faults, and while it had temporarily shielded itself by placing the Pegasus between it and the Audacieuse, in doing so, it had placed itself between the flagship and the Confederation vanguard of Seraphs and Juaires, which quickly pivoted around to meet the new threat, pouring out streams of ion and turbolaser fire into the craft; those ships packed more firepower than the Audacieuse. Ionic energy didn’t pierce the molecularly hull, but instead used it as a conduct to travel across the external hull to burn out weapons, sensors, and other external subsystems. The blue energy sprawled across the SOb’s hull, shutting down nearly all of the external Imperial weapon systems, not by accuracy, but by sheer volume and rate of fire. The swift Audacieuse cut over her sister ship’s hull, unleasing her ventral batteries of turbolasers and ion cannons immediately onto the hull as she maneuvered her bow downwards to bear down her topside weapons on the Imperial ship.

And even as the bulk of the fleet’s heavy units bore down onto the increasingly disabled Imperial vessel, the Confederation’s “Cavalry” swept forward in their pincer movement, the starfighters from the port, the Cavaliers from the starboard. The SOb’s maneuver had slowed and even partially stalled the maneuver, but the Confederation had used it to rally the S9s to form up with the A3s for their converging attack. And they fired. Just as the Defence-class Cruisers of the Imperial fleet had critically damaged a star destroyer, the Cavalier’s struck, sending solid and ionic slugs directly into the SOb’s exhaust port. Most stopped there, crumpling the engines into a myriad of distorted variations of their original selves and the ionic slugs pumping ionic energy directly into the engine systems of the advanced ship, overloading nearby circuitry, cutting off the power flow to those systems. But one pierced farther, piercing into the drive reactor of the vessel, spilling the contents into the rest of the ship and into space itself. Simultenously, the horde of Kashan-built starfighters released a hail of converging missiles and bombs rather indiscriminately onto the hull, saturating the vessel with a myriad of explosions among the continuing blue fire of the ion cannons, which began to increasing pierce the armor of the vessel. The fleet’s Cavalry passed each other overhead of the SOb, most of whose weapons, including the STLs, were offline from the ionic attack.

Amidst the Confederation storm of fury and onslaught, the Pegasus surged forward to safety and away the Curaisseurs and SOb, as the latter Imperial warship’s tractor beam locks were broken under the missile barrage and subsequent ion barrage.
----------------------------
Pegasus-class Star Destroyer Liberty, Metalorn Defence Fleet Flagship

“Damage report.”

“Moderate sir,” reported the Audacian lieutenant, who continued to tap buttons on his console, “one of the shells was explosive. It’s a wonder that it wasn’t immediately disintegrated by the heat generated the engines. It was according to our sensors, but some of the shells fragments continued on and cut a few cables. Weren’t so lucky with the solid shot.”

Captain Tywe nodded. The Pegasus-class was exceptionally well-armored in the engine section. When the ship was designed, its creators had realized that its most important abilities would have to be both well-armored and well-maintained. Aside from thicker than normal armor, the engines had dedicated repair crews of Cybot Galactica’s LE Repair Droids, like most of the more modern Kashan-designed vessels. Still, the damage was extensive: for most of the explosives had been detonated before hitting the hull by the massive amounts of heat generated by the engines, the solid shells continued on unfazed by the heat. They had struck in numerous places, shearing through plating and system, including an auxiliarly power system of the star destroyer; enough to partially cripple the vessel’s sublight propulsion. Enough to make the craft slower than average. But it still had some thrust, not enough for good combat performance, but enough to allow it so that it could slowly plod through space as a wounded Bantha stumbled across the plains of any of dozens of worlds. LE repair crews and mechanics desparately swarmed over the rear area, fixing it as best as they could. But it would still not be enough to escape the pursuing Imperial vessels.

“We’re being tractored, just as planned.”

Those ships whose engine systems that had been damaged by the Imperial onslaught were not alone in their struggle; the rest of the fleet, composed of undamaged ships, had grabbed a hold on their comrades-in-arms with tractor beams, pulling them along at slightly substandard speeds compared to normal at the cost of their own speed. But it was still enough, as most Imperial ships were designed for firepower and defence, rather than speed and defence as with most of the Confederation vessels.

“Excellent,” nodded Max, “Did I say to concentrate our shields, both shield types to our rear?”

“Yes sir. All shields are at full rear now, as opposed to how we formerly had them split up.”

“Sir, we have escaped the enemy’s gravity-well.”

“Jump.”

Confederation ships made the jump into hyperspace, whether their own power or by being towed along by their cohorts. Viewports of the entire Metalorn Defence Fleet were soon flooded with the familiar, soothing colours of hyperspace. The ships dropped out of hyperspace aside of enemy sensor range, and abruptly made another turn before disappearing and traveling once more through deepspace.
----------------------------------------
Metalorn

A new kind of war: Insurgency.

“Give those frakker’s hell, Ed.”

The S10 pilot squeezed the trigger, sending a supercharged plasma shell into an unwary Tie cockpit. It slammed into the craft, piercing it and killing pilot besides damaging the ship. And the pair of S10s abruptly swept over and away from the doomed Imperial. A familiar situation for most of the Confederation pilots. The entire Metalorn Defence Fleet, down to the last corvette, had safely jumped away with no capital ship losses, leaving their fighters to play a new game; an old, yet startling different type of warfare: guerilla warfare adopted to space. Confederation starfighters swept across the battlefield, picking off members of the Imperial fighter patrols at random before vanishing like wraiths into the night. The Imperials had deployed Surveyor-class Scout Cruisers equipped with Crystal Grav Traps; usually a useful sensor against stealth and cloak ships. But this was instance where their were not, as not only the planet’s mass shadow produced inconclusive readings to the sensor, but also because of the gravity-wells generated by the Raptors further scrambled the readings.

The hit-and-fades continued, striking down and damaging Imperial fighters before the Empire’s vessel could respond to the attack. While the attacks did inflict losses to the Empire’s fighter force, that was not their goal. Instead, the attacks were designed to whittle down Imperial morale by creating an apparently undefeatable enemy and raise Confederation morale in the same way; half of every fight is in the mind. And while the S10s continued their hit-and-fade strikes, the S9s and A3s, which had intentionally not engaged any of the enemy fighters, readied themselves for the attack. Most of them continued to spread out surrounding Metalorn, but several daring squadrons converged on bigger fish: the Surveyors. It wasn’By approaching singly and in pairs, the approaching fighters were nearly invisible on their target ship’s screen, due to the sensors being scrambled by the masses as well as the minute size of the fighters in comparison. This was further enhanced by the Stormfires’ raids, which undoubtably distracted some of the Imperial crewmembers. They weaved through the Imperial flotilla, staying as far away from the enemy ships as possible; and then they struck. Two squadrons of Nemesis Bombers spearheaded the silent, invisible charge on each ship, with each squadron launching a full payload of stealthed space bombs, nearly 150 per Surveyor, into the cruisers from all matter of angles; enough firepower to completely demolish the cruisers. Enhancing this was the nearly point-blank range at which they were launched and the lack of anti-missile systems onboard the scout cruisers. Fires erupted across the target cruisers as bomb after bomb expoded. If by some miracle they were not completely demolished, it was doubtful that any of its dedicated sensors or communications equipment would work. As the two squadrons of bombers diverged into vastness of space, the other accompanying squadrons set themselves up for a follow-up run in case the first attack failed.

Bridge of the Sultan

"Sir, enemy fleet has entered hyperspace." reported sensors.

"Dammit, he has gotten away." replied the Commodore with a curse.

"Shall we lay in coordinates for a pursuit?" asked the chief navigator.

"No, I don't think we will be able to catch him, with our interdictors still online, and no telling where he was going or where he will go after that." replied Brand.

"Our mission is finished here. Divide up the command. Defence, Guardian, and Interdictors are to head to Metalorn to support Rear-Admiral Thorton in his operations there. Once they arrive they are to immediatley place themselves under his command and await orders. I'll take the remaining ships personally to support Captain Trinity." ordered the Commodore. With that the bridge went to work, issueing commands to the other vessels in the fleet. Shields were lowered to the norm, starfighters were recalled, vessels manuevered for the jump into hyperspace.

Moments later, both now divided groups of ships entered hyperspace. One group reverted almost immediatley within the gravity well of Metalorn. The other, however, took a couple of minutes longer to reach the position of the forces of the Yaga Minor protectorate. When they reverted, Commodore Brand went to work.

"Raise shields to full combat standards, except for dorsal shields until all starfighters are away. Bring all weaponry up to full power. Starfighters are to deploy into screening formation. And take us ahead at half of flank speed." ordered the Commodore.

It is true, every word of it, that half a battle is in the soldier's hearts and minds. As the legendary author Samuel Clemens once said, "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." However, once can not honestly expect a tiny Chiuaua to take on a vicious Pit bowl. At some point this philosophy starts to become less and less true, as relative numbers increase.

The Imperial Armada had long crossed this threshold.

The Kashan commander obviously though he was being clever with the little game he was playing- his stealth ships striking the Imperial fighters sent out to disperse them, using their stealth to hit them unwarned. However, it was a foolish effort at best. While defenitly present, barely a third of the Kashan ships were piloted by trained, professional star fighter pilots. Most were flown by inexperienced volunteers who had a few hours in the cockpit, but suffered from a severe lack of experience. This, combined with a lack of knowledge about fighter tactics (including the strikes), made them far less effective than they might have been if flown by true pilots.

But the element of surprise is a powerful ally. Their first strikes caught the Imperial pursuers off guard as some of the stealthy fighters appeared out of nowhere and struck (the planet was interfering with the CGT’s long range accuracy). TIEs, caught off guard, were vaporized in terrible quantities.

But as quickly as they had been struck, the Imperials reacted.

The Surveyors had been waiting for just a moment like this. Aware of the enemy fighters presence, they had kept their powerful jamming systems on standby. Now they activated them, and instantly all Kashan communications seized. Enemy fighters were instantly cut off from one another, along with all other subspace communication in several million kilometers by non-Imperial vessels.

And then it became a slaughter.

The ability to coordinate their actions and communicate with each other outweighed all the advantages of stealth in this particular instance, Kach rightly believed. With their primary communications jammed, and no line of sight communication to fall back on, the enemy fighters were forced to split up. The hunter had become the hunted.

Imperial TIEs tore into them with a ruthlessness that would make the late Emperor Palpatine proud, decimating the occasional ship that showed up on the CGT and deducing the locations of and destroying other fighters who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And in the middle of it all, the enemy squadrons of A3s showed up.

Cut off from one another, the proceeded to attack one vessel at a time, each fighter charging in with it's boosters active in hopes of dropping it's payload and getting away.

But factory workers and volunteers had no chance of even equalling the Phyrryic run made against the Commodore's Curiassers earlier. Imperial defensive banks and TIE Defenders tore into the four squadrons, detected on the CGT with reasonable accuracy due to their close proximity to the Surveyors. Not even half lived to drop their payloads on the Surveyors, and less than half of them managed to make it out the other side of the fleet in one piece, and even then pursued by packs of TIEs.

However, they had made their mark. One of the ships, the Inexorable, was aflame, with her crews ejecting in escape pods now. The other, the Lancer, had taken significant damage to her Electromagnetic sensor packages and subspace receiver, cutting her off for the moment, but her CGT was thankfully intact, along with her jamming array.

Annoyed, Gilford ordered the launch of another two wings of fighters detailed specifically to protect the last Surveyor.

Her last crew members evacuated, the Inexorable was remotely programmed on a collision course with the planet's shields.

The Imperial CPECs emerged from hyperspace to find everything nearly as they expected.

The EMPIRE was taking heavy fire from the enemy fleet. Lacking another target, the Kashan fleet had done the only thing they knew to do: turn and shoot at the enemy vessel in their midst.

No matter - the EMPIRE was designed to engage ships many times her size, and her shields and moleculary bonded hull were more than capable of stopping the enemy attack. Which was not to say she had not taken damage, and indeed diagnostics coming from that ship indicated she was suffering electronics damage, mostly from the ionic weapons employed by her enemies.

But the EMPIRE was a smart ship, and recognizing the tactics being employed by the Imperial fleet, newly arrived, she altered her strategy.

Her two great Super Turbolasers lanced out again. One had been struck by a stray ion bolt, and the energy had fried some of its cooling systems. The weapon flashed, its deadly beam cutting through space between the two ships, and promptly exploded.

But it was enough: the STLs had created a gap in the shields, breaking them for an instant.

Long enough for the CPECs and CPEFs to pour fire into the gap: the heavy forward guns of the CPECs lanced out, slamming home into the engines of the enemy capital ship. This happened almost concurrently with the ship's attempt to manouver: as the helmsman increased thrust into his already damaged engine, everything went wrong at once.

The repair droids had done their work, and well, given the circumstances, but there was damage that could not be undone without time in drydock afflicting the enemy vessel. As power was directed into her compromised engine, it began to melt. It did not explode - failsafes prevented that from happening, else the ship surely would have been lost. But the heat generated spread, igniting fires in the engine section of the enemy ship and flaming out each engine in turn.

And that was the oppertunity the Imperial fleet had awaited. Now proton torpedoes - hundreds of them - lanced out from close range, their sheaths of energy protecting from the extreme heat raging at the stern of the Pegasus.

And they exploded, wave after coordinated wave, against the vulnerable engines of the enemy craft. The enemy vessel was heavily armoured, but her engines - as with any vessel - were her weak point. It was impossible for a ship to be so fast, and yet adorn her engines with heavy armour: they needed to be large.

Large targets, as the case was.

The Pegasus did not explode, but her primary engine bank did. The blast shook the great ship to its core, flame spewing out of her flanks as energy conduits carried the force of the blast outwards.

The Pegasus was still alive, but only barely.

And still fire continued to be directed towards the EMPIRE. Laser fire she could handle without worry: it was the ion fire that threatened her.

But while the enemy had managed to mass a great deal of fire, it was uncoordinated. Enemy gunners could not see her, could not adjust their fire for maximum damage. And so only a fraction of the attack's potential force was realized. Further, because the EMPIRE was perpendicular to the Pegasus, the majority of the attacking fire had effected her less vital systems on the rear of the ship.

Less vital, save for her engines. Her tractor lock broken, her engines dead, the EMPIRE could only pour fire into the Pegasus.

And so she did, the Imperial fleet massing its own substantial fire into the crippled stern of the enemy Star Destroyer.

On Metalorn...

“Prime Minister, sir,” stated the armored trooper, “we must get you to the safe house.”

The graying slowly shook his head. “What kind of message would I send to my people if I were to cower at the mere sight of an Imperial Fleet? It’s not like our defences are substandard.”

Hans shook his head. “They’re not, but neither is that fleet. Orbital sensors have confirmed the addition of more Imperial forces in orbit. And with all due respect, sir, a dead leader isn’t a good leader, which is what you’re likely to become if remain here. Besides, your people are in shelter as it is.”

DeMarkesh relunctantly nodded. “Very well, Colonel. Let us go then.”

The Audacian-born Shock Trooper nodded, motioning for his men to form around the Prime Minister as they left for the turbolift. Metallic bootsteps echoed throughout the halls as the entourage quickly paced, taking several turbolifts and hallways throughout Metalorn’s main municipal building. The last lift finally halted into a dismal abyss of darkness and decay. A pair of the troopers leveled their rifles and slowly advanced; viscious, subterranean wildlife occurred in the deepest, dankest crags of the Confederation planet, much like on lower levels of Coruscant. The coast apparently clear, the entourage warily advanced with everyone, including the Prime Minister, sweeping the area with weapons drawn. Thus they made their way through the winding and twisting maze not frequented by man in well over several decades; any electronics or lights built by the government were broken or destroyed by lack of maintenance or the wildlife, which seemed to have developed an intense hatred for any kind of light. Any person could easily get lost in the passage, or ambushed and killed by the beasts, as attested to by the occasional skeleton and corpse of wayward travelers. No sane man would want to walk through this area, much less live in it. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Eight, take a left at the next corner,” ordered the Colonel.

“Yes sir,” replied the junior Metalorn private, poking his E11 around the corner.

Colonel Trützig hefted his own longblaster, an A280, to his shoulder, and looked at the datapad. Just weeks ago, he had come down here along with the current squad and scouted the area, eventually finding and restoring an old living complex that had once belonged to a working class family decades before the advent of the Clone Wars. Abandoned during those years, its amenities were not only dated, but in bad repair, which had prompted a second expedition by the same squad to refit it as an emergency safe house for the Prime Minister. For who would guess that the Prime Minister would not only hide there, but would want to come down searching level after level of the entire planet simply looking for him? That would take time for even the largest army, and besides, the beasts would likely get them before they met a sentient being; and that applied to both the hunters and the hunted. With the location only known to the squad and only known route and location recorded on the Colonel’s datapad, it was highly unlikely that anyone would be able to simply trace the Prime Minister’s whereabouts, which was further compounded by the having entire survelliance of the turbolifts and hallways brought offline by the Colonel while the Prime Minister was evacuated by the Trutzig’s squad. They entered the safe house’s heavy blast doors slid open to admit the party, which rushed into the sanctuary.

“It’s not much sir,” commented Trutzig, shutting the blast doors, “but it’s something. We thought it would be a good idea if we didn’t have to rely on the outside for a while, so we’ve stored food and have a small portable power generator taken off an E-WEB.”

The Prime Minister nodded. “It will be enough, let’s hope.”

Indeed. For this is only one part of the plot. Across the planet, Confederation Shock Troopers and Paladin II Droids entrenched themselves in bunkers or hid in pockets within other facilities, governmental and private alike. Turbolaser gunners and shield generator operators manned their posts in expectation of the inevitable planetary assault. But military personnel were hardly the only ones busy; civilians, most of them factory workers, took shelter deep underground taking supplies and their valuables with them. And for some of them, valuables included weapons. For even if the Imperials managed to defeat the Confederations forces garrisoned on the industrial planets, the war would continue; in the form of insurgency.

Sleeper cells had already been set up by the Confederation Intelligence Service as part of the standard induction to the Contegorian Confederation. Besides the invariable amount of arms stashed away that every sleeper cell was equipped with, Metalorn’s nature as an industrial planet gave the cells another tool: Paladin II Assault Droids. A small portion of Metalorn’s output of the droids had been secreted throughout the planet, albeit most remained underground, safe from bombardment and initial Imperial occupation. Two men would lead it if the need be: Colonel Trutzig, with his military expertise, and Prime Minister DeMarkesh, elected leader of the people. Both men gathered around the room’s central holo-projector.

And as they plotted, one of the LNR’s rotated and fired into the sky, sending a powerful burst of emerald energy through the planetary shields and into space.

You paid me a lot, but enough, brother. Sven briefly thought of his brother's parting words as the blue lines stopped as the younger Lucerne’s S12 reverted to realspace among the stars and Metalorn. He experimentally pushed the stick to port, rolling his fighter to the starboard. Behind him, more Shadowcasters, manned by the Confederation’s elite Defender Wing, normally based off nearby Genon, hovered around the bounty hunter’s craft. Deftly sliding forward like wraiths in the night, the Confederation fighters edged forward to the perimeter of the battle. He lined his fighter up with one of the many unwary Tie Defenders surging across the battlefield. It entered his targeting brackets, and he fired, sending dark pulses of traditional energy and magnetic. They impacted, the energy doing little damage to the strongly shielded Imperial ship, but the shields did not stop the magnetic pulse; it impacted the fighter, taking out some of the many electronics systems that kept a high-tech fighter in top performance. More bolts streamed in from various angles, bringing down the shields by sheer volume and via electrical damage incurred by the many subsequent magnetic pulses. Some of the energy bolts lanced in, destroying the fighter in a miniscule fireball.

In the foreground, a pair of bright, expanding spheres dominated the battlefield; no mere starfighter, but those of capital ships. As the heavily damaged Inexorable plummeted towards the planetary shields, a pulse of emerald energy from one of Metalorn’s planetary turbolasers slammed into the cruiser, decimating the craft, culminating into a brief flash of light as the ship’s reactor exploded; and the Inexorable was no more. Some of the outermost pieces of the ship were hurled across space, taking out several Confederation and Imperial fighters alike.

The Lancer fared better. While it had managed to destroy many of the attacking bombers, the attack had taken her communications, which was vital in order to transmit the targeting data from the ship’s CGT to its protectors: the Tie Defenders. The survivors of the Confederation assault peeled off from the engagement and moved to exit out of the gravity well to make a jump. As they did so, the second wave of designated Confederation fighters, several squadrons worth of Deathsaber Mk IIs, surged forward in another converging attack to finish the job. A squadron of Stormfires which had accompanied the craft split off, starting a frenzied attack on nearby Imperial fighters. A slug from one of the Confederation fighters found its mark, venting plasma within the cockpit as well as punching a clean hole right through the fighter. As the initial flames from the antennae dotted wedge of the ship burned out as the gases needed to continue the combustion were consumed, the S9s, with their SAS engaged, launched or dropped a variety of munitions ranging from seismic charges and space bombs to concussion missiles onto the ship.

Bolts from the wary and damaged Lancer impacted on several of the fighters, damaging their shields and incurring minor hull damage. But the fighters emerged from the attack relatively unscathed; ray shields not only blocked energy, but it also absorbed a small amount of it directly into the shield itself. Hardly a unique circumstance, as many military-grade deflector shield generator from any number of factions, including the Confederation and the Empire could pull it off. To defeat a ray shield either required a large volume of lower-powered shots, a medium dose of average bolts, or a few heavy ones. But the damaged Lancer didn’t offer any of those, as the majority of its quad laser cannons, being mounted on the outside of the hull, suffered damage from the first assault by the Nemesis. A techni-coloured conflagration of fireworks suffused the Lancer, with small plumes of explosions from missiles and space bombs blossoming throughout the hull while a single, seismic charge made it’s way into one of the holes in the hull produced by the previous assaults and detonated, sheering much of the cruiser into two portions, both of which were aflame, until a concussion missile slammed into the now-exposed reactor; vaporizing the Imperial ship as well as several of the attacking Confederation fighters.

And the fight continued on. As with the rest of the wing, the youngest Lucerne activated the OSAIA system. Data flowed into his brain as machine and mind became one. He slammed the stick, whipping his interceptor around to lash out on the Imperial invaders. A sustained stream of bolts gnawed away at the Defender, whose pilot strained to control the increasingly unresponsive craft. A bolt finally passed through the Imperial fighter’s shields, searing the inside in a brief, bright flash. Throughout the battlefield, the Confederation starfighters engaged in their space guerilla warfare, striking at only the Tie Defenders before vanishing into the darkness before their opponents could respond. The S9s stayed cleared of the attacks for the most part, as the flash of their laser cannons would give them away, thus, they soared across the battlefield with their SAS engaged, gathering information on the Imperial fleet from their sensors while the S10s, S11s, and A3s hammered away at their opponents with their stealthed weapons.

The Commodore clutched his chair as the Pegasus rocked forward; the lights briefly dimmed under the fury of TNO weapons. Corise sighed as he leaned back in his chair.

“Damage Report!”

“We’ve lost one of our maneuvering thrusters, a little damage elsewhere. It’s a hell of a good thing that we had all shields full rear. That and their uncoordination. It wasn’t bad, but not synchronized very good.”

The Commodore nodded. How the enemy managed to pull off anything close to a coordinated attack was beyond him, as the entire TNO fleet was being jammed by the Sinew. The slightest bit of uncoordination could make an attack pointless, particularly when the said opponent was already heavily geared to protecting against the said type of attacks, which in this case were Kashan ships designed with a great deal in mind against energy attacks. Complementing Ultrachrome’s typical properties was the way it was made by the Confederation, exactly the same way as molecular armor, aside that it wasn’t bombarded by charged particles. But it lacked there was made up for by the thickness of the armor and the complementary insulating armor, which slowed down any heat penetration into any of the ship’s systems produced by the enthalapy change created by energy reacting with the Ultrachrome. With the entire engine section heavily protected by the armor, the engines weren’t exactly a weak point; the Confederation had realized early on the importance of speed to the star destroyer. It wasn’t the perfect armor, but it was nearly as good if not better than molecularly bonded armor in some regards. The fact that ray shields partially absorbed energy and used it for its own power did not help the Imperial attack either. While the two STLs had inflicted damage to the Pegasus, the emerald energy from the smaller Imperial ships hit the heavily armored hide that protected the Pegasus; an attack that incurred little damage to the ship’s structure or engines.

Then hundreds of proton torpedoes began to emerge from the SOb. Capable of inflicting massive damages through their thermonuclear attack, the weapons were nothing to scoff at, especially in such large numbers. It would have devastated the star destroyer, if precautions hadn’t already been taken for it. Albeit initially the ionic damage dealt from the two star destroyers and three cruisers had been the planned covering fire for the Pegasus’ attempt to shake the SOb, as the ion cannons would have taken out nearly all if not all of the SOb’s weapons offline not by coordination and precise hits, but by sheer volume and rate of fire; for Confederation ships generally sported a third of their firepower in terms of ionic energy with capital grade quad ion cannons, which had exceptionally high firing rates. But as many deeper thinkers thought, relying on one method or technology was bad; even the VindaCorp stockholders and brokers knew that. And so it was with the Confederation. The second method used to cover the Pegasus’s retreat had been the starfighter, saturating the enemy cruisers with warheads in an attempt to destroy the ship and it’s exposed weapons. While the SOb’s thick armor protected it from such assaults, it did not protect the emerging torpedoes. A set of concussion missiles surged from the launch tube of a S9; its target, one of the torpedoe tubes of the SOb. An Imperial torpedoes inadvertently imposed itself between the concussion missiles, resulting in the weapons colliding and detonating. A massive chain reaction spread across space as the powerful warheads exploded, culminating in a massive ball of fire between the Confederation and Imperial craft, slightly damaging both and taking out several of the nearby Confederation starfighters caught between the blast. Those few torpedoes that managed to escape unscathed exploded prematurely, as the heat output of any engine was too strong, for while a proton torpedo’s energy sheath could protect the weapon for grazing and near misses by laser cannons, it could be destroyed by a single direct hit from the weapon, which was a relatively weak. The average heat that was generated by the Pegasus engines more than dwarfed that of a single laser cannon bolt. A flurry of explosions enveloped behind the star destroyer as the heat prematurely detonated the torpedoes. Thus the Pegasus cruised on to safety before turning about to face the Imperial warship for a head-to-head maneuver.

Meanwhile, the sudden reappearance of the other Imperial vessels into the midst of the Confederation fleet was unexpected, and while a threat, were not as much of one as they could be, as the Caymans had already taken considerable damage from the Seraphs before their jump, with entire sections of the hull being taken out on those ships due to concentrated ion and turbolaser fire from the Confederation cruisers. And so the Confederation onslaught turned again, with the Seraphs and Cavaliers focusing their firepower on the smallest Imperial capital ships present: the Tiburons. While heavily armored, they too did not carry any defences against the ionic attacks that the Confederation favored. Ion bolts lanced out from the craft, striking them to spread ionic energy throughout their hull, slowly disabling weapon systems as they went. The Seraphs blanketed the torpedo clusters with flak fire to ward off and prematurely detonate any potential torpedo attack. The Cavaliers complemented the action by making another engine strike in a similar fashion as to that used previously on the EMPIRE while the Audacieuse turned to flank and strike at the already damaged CPECs with salvos from heavy turbolasers, quad ion cannons, and Starflare launchers, using electrite crystal warheads. The two undamaged Juaires were also active, swiftly turning to face the SOb, and they fired at distances which few weapons could hope to match, their tachyon beams bearing down on the cruiser while their gravitational disruptors invisibly to kill the EMPIRE’s bridge crew.

“We’re coming about sir.”

“Very good lieutenant. Any word from the fleet?”

“Yes sir; we have friendly contacts inbound from all directions, including the Metalorn Defence Fleet. Most of them are fighter squadrons based on nearby planets, but the…”

The Imperial formation swept down on the Confederation fleet that was paying far too much attention to the Imperial ships under the command of captain Trinity. The enemy seemed to be heavily focusing on the EMPIRE ship, although some attention was being payed to the rest of the fleet as well. It was here into which Commodore Brand would make his entrance, and sow confusion and destruction into the ranks of the overconfident enemy.

First, the enemy Pegasus class star destroyer was the target of the Imperial fleet. Having just survived a mass torpedo volley delievered by the EMPIRE class ship, the enemy destroyer would be ill prepared to recieve another. Four of the Thorne dreadnoughts in the Imperial formation fired their complement of torpedoes. They proceeded to streak in space and strike the enemy destroyer, ripping apart hull plates, destroying weapons batteries, shield projectors, and knocking out other systems all along it's length, leaving the ship looking like it had been gnawed upon by a giant Trandoshan, although her internal systems had suffered only moderate damage, mostly from the concussions of the detonations and a few secondary explosions.

Next, the Imperial ships fired their turbolasers in massed volleys against the Seraphs that were harrassing the Imperial fleet. These volleys served to weaken their shields, and open their way to the hulls for the destruction that was yet to come. For when they were in range, the Regents let loose with their heavy continious fire turbolaser pulse cannons, drilling a continious beam of destruction into the enemy cruisers, vaporising their hull armour and drilling straight into their reactor cores. One of the Seraphs detonated outright, while another simply died, to drift off into space, like the coffin that it was.

Finally, the starfighter squadrons slammed into the enemy formation, targeting enemy starfighters and capital ships alike. A single TIE-2 may be nothing more than a single bee, but enough of their stings can prove to be fatal. As the engagment wore on it was clear that the tide of the battle was turning into the Imperial's favor. The Commodore could not help but feel respect for his opponents. Although they were heavily outnumbered and outgunned, they still fought with a valour that he had not seen in a long time. Truly these Confederates were worthy opponents.