Looks like Hatha wants to probe the line before making a decision on my flanking forces. Good. It gives them more time to fortify their positions and gives my line a chance to bloody the enemy.

  “All ships, fire at will.” I order calmly.

  I don’t think I’ll ever loose the respect I have for the opening volley. Over a hundred blue turbolasers race towards our foe, an even larger number of concussion missiles on their tails as the Seps enter our range. Turbolasers smash against the enemy’s shields as the Seps rush to enter their own heavy turbolasers’ range. Maker I love having better ordnance than my enemy.

  The enemy’s pickets and flak manage to take down a handful of our missiles, but their limited numbers make little difference overall. The missiles too smash against the enemy’s shields, exploding in beautiful cacophonies of reds and blues. As the second salvo of heavy turbolasers soar towards our foe they return the opening volley in turn, hundreds of red bolts soaring towards our own line and breaking on our shields.

  “Hold off on the second salvo of missiles.” I caution. I wanted to see if Hatha would commit.

  Another exchange of heavy turbolasers as the Seps slow their momentum. I frown as the Little Revenge shudders, the first enemy hit on my ship of the battle. Did Hatha want a long range exchange? That suited me fine.

  “Contact Colonel Cain and whoever we put in charge of the anti-orbital battery.” I order calmly.

  “That would be Captain Eriksen.” Mi-Kus informs me politely.

  “Yes, both of them.” I say. Soon enough the holographic visages of an old warhound and the Alsakan Colonel appear before me.

  “Admiral. I am happy to inform you the gun is operational.” Colonel Cain says in lieu of the usual formalities.

  “Already?” I ask. That was quick.

  “Yes, sir.” Cain answers.

  “What’s the target, Admiral?” Eriksen asks, clearly eager to fire the massive cannon as soon as possible.

  “There’s an enemy Munificent that’s been hit rather badly by the opening salvo, she’s just lost her shields and it looks like she may exit your maximum range. She’s just across Unit Ord Mantell.” I say, “I would enjoy no longer seeing this ship blight our skies.”

  “As you command. Lieutenant, begin firing solutions.” The Captain orders.

  “This will cause the enemy to prepare their ground troops.” Cain laments.

  “Do you feel under-prepared?” I ask the commanding officer of my ground forces.

  “I wish we had another regiment. Two Divisions could hold this position better and give any beaten troops relief and a chance at rest outside of the trenches. For now a sole regiment for the reserve will have to do.” The Alsakan replies.

  “Little to do for it now.” I reply coldly.

  “Firing solution is prepared, sir.” Eriksen interrupts.

  “Fire at will.” I reply, “Prepare for future orders and an enemy invasion force.”

  “By your leave.” Cain says.

  “As expected. Fire!” Eriksen barks as the hologram goes out.

  Soon enough I get a wonderful view as a flash of the anti-orbital cannon’s muzzle let’s forth its ordnance. The laser smashing into the Munificent I was observing and breaking it. I suppress a shudder. Those things would not have been fun to fight around at Dellalt. The damn cannon’s only easily usable weakness was that they couldn’t be shielded, instead the giant gun was covered in massive amounts of armor. It was honestly a miracle the engineers managed to assemble the thing, hook it up to some prefab generators and get it working in the handful of hours we had between arriving in system and Hatha showing up, the engineers deserved some rest and a generous bonus for that feat.

  I can almost see the gears stop spinning in Hatha’s mind as one of his Munificents meets a rather premature death. The cannon shouldn’t be able to do much of anything to a shielded ship, but an unshielded ship? Well everything has a weakness to exploit and Munificents notoriously have the joint between her prow and aft sections.

  “Concentrate fire on localized Recusant lights. I want to see about pushing Hatha.” I order, “I’ll leave the precise targets to local Commodore discretion.” I add as further turbolasers are exchanged. A lucky hit goes through a Consular, blowing the entire corvette to bits from its cockpit to its engine block.

  It was slowly turning into a game of chicken as heavy turbolasers smash into localized targets, concentrated fire of my heavy ships against the enemy’s concentrated fire. The only true pro I had in this was the target saturation provided by my hundred and thirty nine light ships and pickets being able to take a hit before pulling back to recycle their shields.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Two targets to choose from. One near Unit Albedo Brave one near Unit Bad Fortune.” I hear.

  Either a target near our previous target or almost the opposite part of the line with the Albedo Brave’s opponent. Better not reveal my hand too early: “Inform Captain Eriksen to target the enemy Recusant light across Unit Bad Fortune. Give him all the information he’ll need for it.”

  Soon enough another explosion rocks the surrounding ships. Maker if the enemy had these anti-orbital batteries on Mintooine I don’t think I would have been able to seize it. The Seps begin to reverse at full speed while keeping their bows facing towards us.

  “Now would be the time for another missile salvo.” I order calmly.

  “Lock on targets?” Mi-Kus asks.

  “Got a good one!” The battery Adjutant reports from one of the trenches.

  “Fire!” Mi-Kus barks as the Republic’s missile capable ships unleash another, more uncoordinated, wave of ordnance towards our foes. They smash against weakened shields. It’s a poor parting gift as the following turbolasers do little after traveling their maximum distance.

  “Casualties?” I ask.

  “We’ve lost four corvettes, three Consulars and a CR90. Other than that, mild damage across all units.” Comes the quick report.

  “And the enemy?” I ask.

  “One Munificent, one Recusant light, four decently damaged Recusant lights, three decently damaged Munificents and a heavily damaged Munifex.” Lieutenant Hursk replies.

  Not a bad first exchange, though still a painful loss. I nod as I look through the Sep formation. Looks like they were trying to reorganize: “Begin emergency repairs and scavenging teams. Deploy half our strikecraft towards the enemy with orders to pull back after half on hour of engaging the enemy strikecraft and cruisers unless overwhelmed.”

  “That is quite a commitment.” Mi-Kus cautions.

  “Not like they can really outflank us.” I reply. They could try, but we’d see it from miles away. Our fighter probe meanwhile would keep Hatha on his toes and also give us a decent look at the enemy’s fighter composition and their numbers.

  “Transmission relay originating from Commodore Hugh.” Lieutenant Slas reports.

  “And?” I ask.

  “She reports successful positioning of her forces and the establishment of her minefield. She’s requesting permission to begin skirmishing with her light ships and pickets.” The comms chief reports.

  “Permission granted. See if she can snipe a Captor or two before pulling back.” I reply.

  “Looks like Hatha’s splitting his forces.” Lieutenant Hursk says.

  “Not particularly large splits.” A different Adjutant says.

  “Think they’re big enough to destroy one of the pass units?” A third asks quietly.

  “Not quite, they’re large enough to plug gaps, but not necessarily large enough to do much else.” I interject, “Look he’s taking all of his Munifexes and two Munificents to do this.”

  “That is more than twenty three pickets and three Acclamators can handle.” A younger Adjutant counters.

  “In a conventional battle twenty or twenty one Munifexes and a Munificent should be able to defeat some twenty light ships and pickets alongside three cruisers and their fighter detachments, though it would be rather costly. Is this a conventional battle?” I ask.

  “No, sir.” The Adjutant replies, his tone losing a bit of his confidence.

  “Hatha will be busy micromanaging the line battle he has so politely agreed to have with us.” I begin explaining, “He will either place a lesser commander, at most a Commodore, or a group of droid commanders in charge of these plugs. He can sacrifice some forty ships of the line, especially those that cannot match our range unless in close quarters. If they cannot get through our minefields, or destroy our detachments, so be it. Hatha will see it as a worthy trade.”

  “But doesn’t that mean it isn’t a worthy trade for us?” A different Adjutant asks.

  I feel a smirk grow on my face as I turn back towards our foe: “Of course. That means forty one ships that were purpose built against light ships and pickets no longer being a part of Hatha’s line.”

  One of the Adjutants jumps on my train of thought: “Meaning we can harass him more easily with our corvettes and light cruisers.”

  “Just so.” I mutter coldly. Now all we had to do was wait until the enemy’s Munifexes were too far away to help.

  Colonel Cain looks through his macrobinoculars as the first Sep landing ships enter atmosphere. Too far away for the triple a to do anything about it, but maybe just close enough for an intercept from the fighters. Cain nods to himself as he looks around the outside of his command bunker. He sees his Staff Sergeant Ferik and gestures him forward, the man lugging his portable comms station along with him as he does.

  “Sir?” Ferik asks.

  “Get me a line to the Admiral. Enemy transports sighted. I’m counting eleven C-9979s landing along the prime meridian and anti-meridian of Handooine.” Cain says, trying to hide his emotions as he does.

  Ferik frowns slightly: “That’s about one and a half times our number.”

  “Good to see all the fighting hasn’t stopped you from being able to count, Ferik.” Cain replies.

  Ferik gives a toothy smile as he punches in the codes required for the Admiral. Soon enough the man’s image appears in miniature before the nervous Colonel.

  “Colonel Cain. What is it?” The man responsible for the security of an entire regional command asks, his tone cold and eyes preoccupied.

  “The enemy has begun launching a surface invasion with at least eleven regiments worth of troops. I would request fighter interception, as our triple A is currently not in range.” The Colonel requests, his own false bravado ringing in his ear.

  “Very well. I’ll divert three squadrons of fighters towards the surface alongside a squadron of Y-Wings to give you some permanent air support. Pass along the information to the soon to be provided formation leads. Maker keep you, Colonel.”

  “Stars keep us all, Admiral.” The Colonel replies.

  The Alsakan lets out a deep sigh as the holographic depiction of the Fondorian disappears before him. The Admiral does frighten the Colonel somewhat. Something about the emotionless eyes the Fondorian often carries, as if all the world was merely a stage. Terrifying.

  The Colonel returns to his observations, his macrobinoculars once more covering his eyes as he watches the agonizingly slow descent of the enemy transports and their patrolling fighters.

  Suddenly a gust of wind billows his trench coat as a squadron of Starchasers race above his trenchline, followed closely by a quartet of Y-Wings. Looks like the fighter leads decided to divide the bombers and incorporate them into the fighter squadrons for this attack.

  A group of Vultures peel off from their patrol to attempt an intercept, but a volley of concussion missiles from the Starchasers smash into the droid fighters before the two sides can enter laser range. The fighters enter the range of the C-9979’s point defense lasers as explosions of flak pepper the approaching fighters and bombers. Finally the Republic strikecraft unleash their own salvos of fire, before peeling off. Lasers smash into the weakpoints of the H shaped transports as the trio of them collapse in on themselves from the damage done to their stabilizers.

  “Transmission from anti-meridian, both groups in sight have been destroyed.” Ferik reports.

  “Our fighters just did the same along the meridian.” Cain adds, “Looks like we’ll have another couple hours before the Seps land.”

  “Looksit, sir.” Ferik replies.

  “I think I’ll have that third cup of tea now, Sergeant.” Cain mutters.

  “I’ll inform the commissary.”

  “Thank you Sergeant.” The Colonel says, his macrobinoculars closing in on the wreckage of the Sep transports as he does. He’ll need to send out a couple parties to scour the debris for surviving droids and any intel. The Colonel sighs, the day hadn’t even really begun yet.

  I look over the tactical display as if it owed me money. Hatha seemed comfortable enough in following my lead for now, plugging the northernmost and central pass through the asteroid belt and even adding a small rapid response force of a trio of Munificents and a duet of Captors between the two. My board was almost ready, despite things not going precisely to plan, it was close enough so that I don’t have to change anything.

  I needed this to be decisive. If it wasn’t … I’d be karked for sure. Hatha was probing my lines and testing the limits of the anti-orbital battery as he goes. Well he would be, if I hadn’t ordered the large cannon to hold fire until ordered otherwise. I didn’t want Hatha to be able to guess the weapon’s maximum range, for all he knew, the weapon was modified to all nine Hells and could hit a fly on Coruscant from here.

  “Sir, it looks like the enemy is detaching a new force.” Mi-Kus reports.

  I frown, that wasn’t good: “Its size?”

  “Maybe five Recusant light destroyers, a heavy destroyer, ten Munificents and a couple Gozantis.”

  “Prepare a couple fighter wings for harassment and get me Commodore Miller. We’re deploying the Hammerheads and their escorts to cut the enemy off.” I order.

  “We won’t have a reserve.” Mi-Kus warns.

  “We have the Little Revenge, two Arquitenses and twelve beaten up corvettes. It will have to do.” I reply coldly. What else could I do? If I stretched my line the enemy would be able to exploit our gaps. If I allowed the enemy to seize our only route of escape we would be doomed to either win or die over Handooine’s soil.