“Our shields are down.”

  “I’ve lost comms with the Oubliette.”

  “Providence is going down!”

  “I’ve got a squadron of Hyenas incoming portside.”

  “Our fighter pickets are being chewed apart by those damn Tri-fighters.”

  “Concentrate fire on that Munificent at eleven o’clock!”

  “Admiral, I’ve got three Hammerheaad corvettes coming up from our starboard.”

  I jump at the opportunity: “Hail them, see if we can get them integrated into our pickets’ formation.”

  “Fondor’s Daughter taking some bad hits, but her shields look to be holding.”

  “That damn Man o’ War’s still trying to get a good angle on our engines.”

  “Move the Fondor City and the Sand-dust II to try and get rid of it then.” I bark in order.

  The battle was not exactly going to plan.

  “More Hyenas incoming.” A sensors officer reports, “At least another squadron of them. They’re making a run for the ion cannons along our central spine.”

  “Scramble fighters, those Ion cannons are half the reason we’ve been able to keep our enemy’s shields down!” Hills barks.

  “We’ve only got a flight left and they’re overwhelmed doing picket duty for us.”

  “Then get us more!” Hills barks again.

  “The enemy fighters are karking swarming us, sir. How do you expect them to get here?” The agitated comms officer exclaims.

  No, things weren’t going to plan at all. The line battle centered around most of the Divisions had fully devolved into a brawl. The damn enemy Munificents were successfully jamming our medium to long range communications, turning what should have been a single brawl into dozens of smaller engagements. We were still able to communicate in bubbles of a couple kilometers, yet the Seps were annoyingly capable of cutting in between said bubbles to ensure we wouldn’t be able to communicate even through other ships.

  At least we were slowly winning, but not without losses. The Grey Ghost had gone down, Z’timin desperately trying to keep command and control active as turbolasers smashed into his flagship’s broken hull. The Grey Ghost wasn’t the only command ship to have gone dark and it looked like the concentrated fighter swarms that had done the deed had decided to cut off the head of the snake. Lucky us.

  “Damn Munificents, they keep switching the ships that are jamming our short range comms!” A comms officer shouts frustratedly, “I can’t get a lock!”

  The ship shudders as a squadron of Hyenas pass over our hull, dropping proton bombs as they go. A concentrated volley of heavy turbolasers smash into a circling Munificent, crashing through its outer hull and burning into its innards. Honestly the only things I was relatively certain on was that Sykes was having a much better time engaging at medium range and that Praut was having a terrible time fighting off more than twice their number, though at least their enemies were mostly carriers and Separatist Dreadnoughts, I’d bet my officer’s cap they were still using Model 2 Dreadnoughts, a bastardized Model 3 at best.

  “Admiral, I’ve got half a wing of strikecraft incoming, they’re friendlies.”

  “Note their CO for commendation.” I order.

  “Solo won’t like that, sir.” Lieutenant Hursk reports.

  The shock of that statement pulls me out of the rhythm of battle for a moment. A shudder then my addendum: “Add a bottle of my finest then.”

  “Understood, sir.” Hursk replies.

  “I think I’ve got a signal to the Ruusan’s Folly.” A comms officer reports.

  “Message to Vice Admiral Sykes. Finish up and reinforce our forces fighting the enemy reserve asap. Main battle devolved, but relatively stable. Deploy ground force reserve when practical.” I order rapid fire.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  The ship shudders again as Starchasers and Headhunters break through the swarms of enemy Tri-fighters and Hyenas. A hundred dogfights erupting around the Fondor’s Star and her pickets, a hundred duels between aces and droids. Another Sep cruiser goes up in flames as its bracketed by heavy turbolasers

  Battle raged around us. A duet of Venators were covering one anothers’ engines a couple dozen clicks away. Clever, certainly deserved a commendation, I make a quick note of it as one of our corvettes explodes in a fiery ball of reds and yellows. A Hyena flies less than a hundred meters away from the bridge, burning and spinning while being hounded by a very aggressive, red painted, Starchaser. Maker bless Solo.

  A rocket punches into the face of the AT-TE, detonating within her cockpit and pushing it back a small amount. The walker shudders, then collapses onto the boulevard. Red blasterbolts continue to race towards them from the other side of the avenue, B1 droids and dwarf-spider droids doing an annoyingly good job at slowing Krugwolt’s advance.

  Frustratedly he shouts: “COME ON LADS! I CAN SEE THE PARLIAMENT FROM HERE!”

  An army trooper gets nailed in the chest, collapsing onto the floor before being dragged behind better cover by two of the man’s comrades. Krugwolt hears robotic footsteps marching in lockstep. Heavy. B2s then, probably to reinforce the swarms of B1s dead ahead of them.

  A rumble behind him, then the familiar sound of multiple missiles being fired rapidly from a sole launching system. Krugwolt turns his head around to confirm the juggernaut racing up the avenue, pushing aside broken AT-TE walkers and deftly avoiding the other vehicles busy transporting wounded back and fresh soldiers forward. The juggernaut’s missiles crash into the pavement among the droid ranks, exploding in a shower of debris and shrapnel. Hundreds of B1s fall to the concentrated barrage as the juggernaut slows to a stop, a hatch opening up with an Aqualish Captain leaning out of it.

  “General!” The Captain shouts, “Your command vehicle has arrived.”

  Krugwolt makes a run for the hatch, clambering up the ladder and into the safety of the armored vehicle, his command squad quick on his heels. A quick exchange of nods between the General and Captain leading to the human being ending up in the command bunker within the juggernaut. The small room mostly empty except for the large holotable at its center.

  “Bring up the map and continue our advance.” Krugwolt orders.

  The armored vehicle shudders as it begins a slow advance, keeping pace with the slower AT-TEs that made up most of the armor so far. At least with the Acclamators landing that should improve, Krugwolt muses. He’s handed a datapad form one of his staff Sergeants and the General quickly looks over it. General Koth lost two Acclamator in his descent, while Tagge and Cain had lost one each. The Lieutenant General frowns, that was bad. It would slow their advance considerably and leave them with far less heavy armor.

  The map finally comes to life, four red dots placed upon a blue terrain, various lines jutting out from them towards various strategically critical places. Two were jutting towards Raxus’s administrative and governmental district, though Krugwolt’s advance was far more along than General Koth’s. Cain’s forces were slowly advancing to the power plants at the edge of the city and the transport depot. Tagge meanwhile was attempting to make multiple attacks against the army headquarters on Raxus’s surface.

  The many boulevards of Raxus were both a blessing and a curse, Krugwolt found. Perfect for pushing armor through, terrible for cover and any attempt at making a barricade. The General sighs before speaking: “See if we can get our artillery closer to the main line, keep a decent protective force around them, I don’t trust the Seps to keep out of civy buildings.”

  “Roger that.”

  Another shudder as something punches the side of the juggernaut, the holotable and lights flickering for a moment before returning back to normal. Krugwolt sighs as he takes another look at the holotable. So far so good.

  Vice Admiral Sykes looks onto the increasingly mauled Separatist forces before him. He was making good progress, steady progress. He felt like an ocean of calm in the storm around him. The enemy line ahead of him was breaking apart now, the former hundred and fifty odd ships now reduced to a mere five dozen. He could pounce now, loose his medium to long range advantage and close to a knife fighting distance.

  Then a transmission disturbs his musings, his comms operator jumping up from his station: “Sir, message from the Fondor’s Star. It’s garbled, but I think we should be able to get everything out of it.”

  “Play it.” Sykes orders, frowning. He had just lost his control over the pace of his part of the battle. That was always a risk when serving under Fleet Admiral Dericote, though the man’s coattails were definitely worth hanging onto so far.

  The transmission begins playing into the command deck of the Ruusan’s Folly: “Fi-ish up and re---force our ----- fighting the enemy reserve -sap. Main b-ttle -evolved, b-- rel----ly -table. --ploy gr-und ----- --serve wh-n practical.”

  Sykes finishes listening to the message before sighing: “All forces of Taskforce Detachment Little Vengeance. Begin preparing for charge of enemy forces, we plow through them onto the enemy reserve to assist our brothers in Gamma Division. Prepare ground forces to reinforce General Krugwolt’s and General Cain’s positions, deploy by regiment instead of by division. Pick your targets and coordinate with your nearby ships to maximize effective firepower and damage. Victories to switch to proton torpedoes for fly by and before any of the chucklefucks complain, I know that the torps do worse with the specialized tubes, but I want maximized firepower.”

  “Orders being transmitted. It’ll take a minute or two for everyone to choose their targets.” His Adjutant Captain reports.

  “They have forty seconds.” Sykes orders. Slowly counting down the time of his next orders, turbolasers flying between his forces and the enemy’s as he does.

  “Time’s up.” His Adjutant informs Sykes.

  “All ships, maximum acceleration, then cut engines and put all power into your shields and weapons for the pass, once we’re behind the enemy I want Iota Division to make a one eighty rotation starboard and finish off whatever remains of the enemy from behind. Theta and the Victory subdivision will continue on to face the enemy reserve.” Sykes orders.

  “Max acceleration.” His Helmsman reports.

  Sykes watches coldly as the distance between his forces and the Separatist line closes rapidly. Turbolasers and ion cannons continue to scream and smash against shields until the Separatist Providences unleash their forward proton torpedo launchers’ armaments, hundreds of deadly proton warheads smashing against shields and armored hulls, the Ruusan’s Folly shuddering under her received pummeling alongside the other victims of the bombardment.

  Then Sykes orders his full retribution: “FIRE!”

  Red, blue and green turbolasers smash into the shields and hulls of the remaining Separatist warships. The already battered ships buckling under the pressure as the few remaining shields break and holes are punched into various armored hulls. A series of explosions rock the two formations as proton torpedoes and turbolasers carve into the various ships, many breaking into the internal systems and innards.

  It takes both an agonizingly long moment and yet it passes faster than the blink of an eye. Soon enough Sykes finds a bit more than half his forces continuing the race towards the battered forces engaging the enemy’s reserve while the rest begins their turn to engage the enemy from behind. Or at least attempt it, Sykes thinks as he refocuses at the enemy ahead of him.

  “Enemy forces?” Sykes asks.

  “About thirty Captors, four Lucrehulks, a half dead Providence dreadnought, six Dreadnought heavy cruisers and a couple dozen Tionese Sloops, sir.” His Adjutant reminds the Vice Admiral.

  Sykes nods in understanding before trying to get a good read on the fight between the rapidly diminishing Delta Division and the Sep forces. It was a mess. He couldn’t fire from range like this, he’d need to close distance and hope for the best. A quick glance over his own forces and Sykes knows he’s made his decision. It was going against the letter of his orders, but Admiral Dericote was always willing to accept a certain amount of … flexibility in how one followed the Admiral’s orders.

  “Contact Commodore Spruce. I want the Victory subdivision to make for the primary brawl. They are to help the main line and start cleaning up the galactic western flank and see about rolling up the rest.” Sykes orders.

  “Think they’ll be useful there, sir?” His Adjutant asks.

  “They won’t get a favorable long range engagement anywhere. Might as well send them somewhere where they might at least cause some damage.” Sykes answers.

  “Understood, sir.” His Adjutant replies.

  Sykes returns his attention to the two brawls ahead of him, twelve pyramid like cruisers peeling off from his formation and racing towards the further out battle for survival. Sykes nods to himself as the ships adapt to form a proper line to enrapture the enemy force. The Vice Admiral feels a smirk growing, victory was within their grasps.