(Are you certain that wasn't editied in? After all, I don't remember seeing it the first time.)

The computer blinked one and Isstal swore under his breath.
"Tactical, have our escorts lock onto the flagship's targeting computer. All guns fire."

The Star Destroyers, their computers locked onto the advanced targeting systems of the Super Cruiser, tore into the side of the 'enemy' flagship, raping it of it's shields and armours and melting the batteries along the port side, the side that was facing the incoming fleet.

The ship rocked with the impact. The Majestics Support ISD's rushed in to help, and got there just in time. The three ISD's full complements of Turbo Lasers targeted the same targets at the same time, surgicly slicing through the shields of the single SD's that they were firing on. In less than a minute, the Majestic had pulled back, and two more of the enemys ships were limping back.

5 down, 15 to go, but at a cost. His flagship was badly dammaged, and his fighters were taking a heavy beating.

Dammage Report

**substantial damage to the aft side sir, only one Turbolaser left functioning. Several hull breaches. Casualties are coming in now...**

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> The Refaree ship's computers whirred, and sent a message to the Majestic<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->
<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--> Majestic, the computer says you have lost your aft side, and half of your engine capacity. Please compensate for that.<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END-->

Yes sir. Tem glowered. Such an obvous trick, and he had fallen for it.

Sir, The enemy flagship is within the claw, shall I have the formation come in?

Yes, have them swich to Sphere formation, on the double.

All 18 ships concintrate full power on the SC. Take her engines out. The power of over 200 turbolasers hitting the same spot will be too much for them this time.

Tell the commander of that ISD there *he points* to cover the aft side.
Bring the fighters in as well, send them through the enemy Carracks. Retain the quarter.

(I don't think you can do that much damage in one post)

Isstal sighed as one of his Star Destroyer's reported system failures.
"Move two of the Vics up to compensate," he said. "Pull back Conquest and keep up the fire on the flagship's rear quarter." he said.
"Bring forward A4 and A5 and commence a run across Sector Nine. A1 and A2 run interferance." Then he watched.

The fighters, two sqaudrons of Scimitar Assault Bombers, screamed by the 'enemy' flagship and dropped their charges, retreating as the enemy fighters made it by the other two Defender sqaudrons.

"Boom."

OOC: I only dammaged two ships, the others moved into posision.

The ship lurched to the side.

<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START--> Sir, dammage reported on decks 1 to 4, very serious sir. The engine room reports heavy power loss. Casualties going up<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END-->

Tem stood. Enough was enough.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> Order all ships to fire <!--EZCODE UNDERLINE START-->now<!--EZCODE UNDERLINE END--><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->

Light from hell burned out of the sphere surrounding the Enemy Flagship. All ships attempted to concentrate power on the engines, but as it was a sphere formation, that was not possible. Instead they did the next best thing. The out of range ships fired on the foward shields.

With 5 Carracks and 4 SD's firing on the back, concentrating on the engines, and another 4 Carracks and 3 SD's firing on the front, the shields drained rappidly. In a few short seconds, The main force reported that they had punched through the rear shields, and were now taking out the engines.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> Good. Have the forward ships break off, form a double backslash, and attack the enemy Carracks. Tell the Main body to continue their attack. The Enemy Flagship is going nowhere now.<!--EZCODE BOLD END-->

OOC, Double backslash = //, with the ships moving up.

<tt>Main engines offline. Attempting restart... Restart Failed. Backup engines offline. Attempting restart... Restart failed.</tt>

"Admiral, sir! Enemy ships closing in!" Isstal nodded.
"Have Conquest give us a hand to bring us about, they'll know what to do." The officer looked skeptical, but did his duty. Moments later, the Star Destroyer had locked its tractor beams onto the command ship and was dragging it about.

"Tactical, give those fighters another pass. Back the Carracks out of range and have them cover our flanks. Assign Conquest and Invincible to take out the lead enemy Star Destroyer."

"Sir, damage assesments coming in... the fighter mission was a success."

Isstal glanced down at his monitor, which showed the opposing flagship. The bombers had indeed done their work well. The enemy ship's superstructure was virtually gone (well, as far gone as it could be in simulated warfare, anyway), and it was suffering from lack of coordination as the location where the bridge had once rested was wreathed in flames.

<tt>Damage Assesment: Force One
1 Damaged Super Cruiser - 65% Opertional Systems
1 Damaged Star Destroyer 78% Operational Systems
3 Destroyed Carrack Cruisers

Damage Assesment: Force Two
1 Damaged Super Cruiser - 47% Operational Systems
1 Damaged Star Destroyer - 86% Operational Systems</tt>

"Bring the Vics up to cover our ISDs and prepare to move out."

Alone, on a potentially hostile world. That was the situation Admiral Hiram Drayson of the Galactic Defence Initiative found himself in. Well, not quite alone.

He looked up at the sky and through he could see the brief flashes of light as the portions of the GDI fleet engaged in mock war, though it could easily have been a trick of the light.

He hazarded a glance behind him to see if the shadow was still there. He was, and Drayson thought that if anything he was closer than before. He sighed and, pulling his cloak tighter around himself, turned into the sleezy cantina known as the LowBlow.

Behind him, his shadow entered. Admiral Drayson was sitting in a small booth by that time, and caught the man's eye. He smiled kindly and gestured for the man to come nearer.

All attempts at subtlety gone, the shadow moved closer and sat across from the Admiral. He lowered his hood.

"Admiral Hiram Drayson, fancy finding you here." He said.
"I could say the same for you, Pellaeon." The man said. "Care to tell me what you're doing here?" The Imperial Vice-Admiral, Supreme Commander, Drayson reminded himself. Ever since Daala he had more or less taken charge, going so far as to negotiate a peace treaty with the New Republic. The man laughed.
"I assume the same thing you're doing. Trying to bring Eriadu into our respective factions." Drayson smiled.
"I knew the Empire wasn't dead. Didn't believe it for a second." Pellaeon smiled, but said nothing.
"See you've found a new line of work." He pointed out, indicating Drayson's leaving the New Republic. The Admiral laughed slightly.
"Wasn't to crazy about the new leadership. But the Galactic Defence Initiative is as good a place to end up as any."
"So I've heard. Nice fleet you've got up there."
"Yeah, it does the job. Though the Republic's is bigger, not to mention Rogue Empire."
"Can't help but notice the Imperial designs up there."
"Yeah well, if there's one thing you did right was your starships. Can't argue with a Star Destroyer, I'll give you that."

Then the cantina went dark and a boom could be heard not far off.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> All personnel remove themselves to the backup bridge, repeat, all bridge personnel remove themselves to the backup bridge<!--EZCODE BOLD END-->

Tem Gasped for air, as the smoke moved in on him. Stumbling to the airlock, he took a deep breath, and heaved himself back in to the bridge. Groping frantically, he found the body of his aid, and began to drag him back to the airlock.

Although it was not a real fire, or real smoke, the computer would count him as dead if he did not get off the bridge in the time the computer calculated it would take him to die of asphyxiation.

The Airlock opened, and Tem's men pulled the two in. Tem sucked in an enormous amount of air, and then proceeded to give orders.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> Put all unnecessary personnel in escapepods, and fire them at our backup SD. Have her tractor them in. Tell the necessary personnel to prepare to evacuate by shuttle if needed.

Bring the port side of the cruiser around. Open fire upon all fighters and bombers. The advanced targeting systems will make short work of them.

We are going to need backup. Bring all ISD's over to cover us in a sphere formation. Tell the double backslash group to strafe the enemy ISD's, and make a run at the Carracks.<!--EZCODE BOLD END-->

Sir, Backslash group reports it has taken out 4 enemy Carracks, and has lost 2 ships. Battle casualty list coming in sir.

The enemy has lost a total of 5 Carracks, one Star Destroyer, and much damage to it's flagship.

We have lost one Star Destroyer, 3 Carracks, and have approximately 52% damage to our Flagship.

<!--EZCODE BOLD START--> Well, the odds are now somewhat in our favor. Tell the fleet to regroup at Delta 69.78 334.5 ASAP. Let's bring in the reserve fighters.<!--EZCODE BOLD END-->

The "enemy" had seemingly forgotten about the Reserve fighters Tem had sent to their rear. With a Howling shriek, they tore through the unsuspecting enemy force. Muted Torps smashed against the ships hulls, flaking paint, while the referee ship computed damage.

3 Carracks suffered a 20% hull integrity loss, and 7 other enemy ships seem to have lost around 17% of their shields. The fighters can't do much against Cruisers Sir.

"Sir, we're ready." Isstal nodded and looked out the viewport at the regrouping armada. Then, with one last salvo, they were gone...

The fleet appeared again behind the second armada, lasers firing before they even found their target locks. And the starfighters that had been slashing at the capital ships were stuck across the battlefield, with no hope of making it back in time to defend the Star Destroyer.

The ship in question shuddered as two of its brothers pounded it from either side, their powerful lasers taking their toll. The mighty flasghip, even in its damaged state, was more than a match for the second Star Destroyer, and with the support of two of the Victory-class Star Destroyers commenced their attack on the other.

OOC: Sorry for the wait, I can't post a longer post till monday
RL troubles

“What was that?” Drayson rose from the floor and looked around the Cantina. The lights, those that hadn’t been shattered or destroyed in the blast, were glowing faintly. Drink glasses and bottles where smashed to pieces across the floor, and at least two of the heavy wooden roof beams had fallen and broken apart the floor where they fell.

The Imperial Commander was gone, evidently having snuck out during the initial blast. Admiral Drayson made it to the doorway in time to see the Imperial Lambda shuttle lift off into a billowing cloud of acrid black smoke. A cloud of smoke originating from one of the many old factories that covered the planet. Drayson turned and ran the opposite direction, making it to his speeder in time to outrace a group of thugs who were trying in vain to steal a vehicle.

The landspeeder came to a stop two kilometres out of the city, which was now flooded with the foul smoke. Flipping on the holonet receiver, Drayson saw the face of an alien newscaster relaying the news of the explosion.
“…Evidently a blast from one of the orbiting battleships. The Galactic Defence Initiative forces seem to have fired on and destroyed the Klan’Dal Processing Plant. This unprovoked attack-” Admiral Drayson clicked off the newscaster and sent the file up to the orbiting GDI fleet. Then something in the back of his mind clicked. The Imperials. Here. Patching the sensors from the orbiting Ajax he detected, almost immediately, the Victory-class Star Destroyer. From the looks of things, the three ships in orbit had as well. They were in hot pursuit of the Imperial ships, turbolasers sending deadly scarlet laser beams into the ship’s shields. Then the Star Destroyer was gone, and the three Assault Frigates were left to return to their stations, wondering why the ship had been there in the first place, and why it was so eager to escape.

His com unit beeped, and as he activated it the face of Supreme Commander Isstal appeared on the screen.
“Admiral, you’ve heard.” Drayson nodded slightly. “I want you to tell the government exactly why it wasn’t us that made that attack. The sensor packet from Ajax is on its way.”
“Thank you, sir.” His superior’s face vanished, and Drayson spun the speeder back towards the city.