It was a day like every other day in the past two weeks: No Rebels, no Pirates, not even asteroids to fire upon. The SSSD Sovereign ran smoothly trough space to one of its service stops at the Triad Platforms. Deep in Imperial space nothing happened that could be even a faint distraction from everyday boredom. So the cantina was full of pilots idling around, still hoping for the famous klaxon that signaled some action. Even the great news of their first victorious Competition against Wing X of the ISD Challenge 5 days ago were long forgotten.
The bridge officers had nothing to do either. Sensors showed nothing. Suddenly a console beeped and everyone was alerted immediately. But it only was the Comm-Panel, signaling an incoming message from the Home-System, requesting yet another confirmation of the ships ETA. Fleet Admiral Kramer returned from his meeting with the ships Wing Commanders, when he saw a flash right in front of the Sovereign. "What the hell was that? Tactical: scan the area! I want to know what that wa- Oh my GOD!"
Tactical officer Barbat, a middle aged Corellian did not trust his sensors. Suddenly a full scale imperial taskforce appeared, where the flash has been only seconds before. He checked his sensors again and again.
"Sir, there seems to be an imperial task-force out there consisting of... 1 Imperial Class Star destroyer, 3 Victory class Star destroyers, 1 Frigate class vessel and several Supply crafts. Sensors indicate extensive damage on two of the VSDs as well as on the Frigate... Sir, one VSD's main reactor is overloading!"
One VSD suddenly veered off and nearly collided with one of the Freighters. The sub-light thrusters glowed so intensely, that it hurt to look into them even from the distance. It accelerated past the fleet and exploded in a gigantic blinding fireball. On the bridge nobody could believe his eyes. Some junior officers were stunned, mouths wide open in shock. How was that possible? A normal Imperial task force had enough supplies to keep the capital ships running at 100% efficiency for at least a year, not to mention the spare parts that could be cannibalized from empty crafts of the support group. That fleet really must have been trough unimaginable battles.
"Incoming transmission, Sir. The Flagship is hailing us." The young officer at Communications obviously tried to keep his emotions at bay, despite of the sudden loss of about 10000 comrades. His success was moderate at best.
"Put them on visual. Tactical: Alert level two for all decks. I want all medical teams ready for medical emergencies, as well as all transporters we have. And get all pilots into their flight suits. I want to be ready in case the cause of the damage should arrive"
"Copy that."
The small holographical emitter on the bridge came to life and showed a picture of horror: The bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer was almost black. The once white support beams, made of the same material as the gleaming white surface of the Star Destroyer itself was blackened with soot from uncountable fires. Half the stations were dark, cables hanging out everywhere, only emergency backup stations were sparely staffed. And that was only what could be seen past the Commander of the vessel. The Commander. They definitely had many run ins with hostile forces recently, because even the commander looked terribly. His uniform was smeared with dirt, his battle ribbons were pulled away, probably to provide some engineer with the conductive material he needed to repair a critical station. His dark eyes were sank deep into holes, a scar ran over his right cheek.
"This is Fleet Admiral Kramer of the imperial Sovereign class Super Star Destroyer Sovereign. Please identify yourself."
"Admiral Sniter, from the Imperial class Star Destroyer Oberserver. A pleasure to meet you, Sir." Something that looked like a brief smile appeared on Sniter's face, but was almost instantly replaced by the serious look he had since the beginning of communication.
"We could really use some help over here, Sovereign. Almost all ships in our fleet sustained some sort of damage. You have seen what happened to the VSD. If we hadn't found you, the last ship would have exploded in one or two weeks."
His XO stepped beside him, and signaled Kramer, that some problems have occurred.
"Please stand by, Observer. We'll be right back". As soon as Kramer said the last word, the image winked out.
"Sir, We have a ISD Observer in the records, but it has been reported MIA about 2 years ago. It disappeared somewhere in the Outer Rim."
"Hmm, that's odd. Comm: Resume communication."
The image of ADM Sniter reappeared on the bridge. "Excuse me, Admiral, but I must insist on following the imperial ID-procedures one-oh-two-nine-five."
"Of course. We will transmit the codes at once. Please stand by, Sovereign."
The secret ID-codes, known only to the commanding officers of imperial capital ships were transmitted. To any potential listener, it simply was a column of numbers, sounds and energy-fluctuations, but parts of it sent trough the right computer, a clear ID signature of the ship appeared, confirming, in this case the Identity of the unknown vessel.
"Codes confirmed. Where have you been that long?", Kramer asked.
"Oh, that's a long story I'd be happy to tell you when all my crews are save. I hope you can understand it."
"Of course. We will lent you every help possible. We will evacuate the remaining VSDs and the Frigate. They almost seem to fall apart. Some medical teams will board your ship, as well as some empty freighters. Please ship your wounded to these locations. Our Escort-Squadrons will be out in one minute"
"Understood. Sniter out"
"Tactical: Prepare all craft. Squadrons from Wings I and II are to leave immediately. They will provide perimeter defense. Begin transfer of medics and evacuations squads."
"Aye, Sir." Barbat said and pressed a button on his console "Attention Wings one and two: Launch immediately and fly standard patrol pattern alpha. Squadrons Kappa and Sadhe: provide close escort to medical convoy, that will leave shortly after your departure."
Squadron Commander Deacan of Kappa Squadron just finished his weekly Squadron report, a collection of standard must-be-included-comments, when the sirens blurted. Several pilots around him in the relative silence of the ships recreation area almost fell off their chairs. "Alert level two. All Squadrons: Alert level two. Report to your TIEs and prepare for launch. " The disembodied voice of the ship's tactical officer came out of the speakers. He jumped up and headed to the dormitory. On his way, some other members of his Squadron met him and together they entered the room with their lockers and their beds, where he found the rest, alert, but still half asleep. He couldn't blame them. He, too, still had a hideous headache from the promotion of a fellow wingmember, or, to be more precisely, the following party. But besides that, he was fully capable of piloting his Tie Defender, as were the others. Kappa was, after all, Wing II 's elite squadron for escort duties and he was damned proud of being its Squadron Commander.
He was opening the locker with his flightsuit, when the launch order came from the bridge. Deacan heard the remaining chatter of his pilots cease abruptly. Medical Transports? Right here in the middle of nowhere? Something odd was going on. They began to run the remaining distance to their fighters. When they arrived in the crowded hangar, their fighters were already powered up and armed. They boarded them and were just about to initiate pre-launch system checks, when all lights went off and the massive Sovereign shuddered violently. Deacan could hear the shouting of the working crew and screaming of a klaxon indicating a shipwide battle alert level one. They were under attack. He went trough the pre flight checks as fast as possible and only seconds later he left the hangar bay.
He was barely outside the docking clamps, when some suicidal rebel fighter headed for him, lasers firing. Deacan made his Missile-Boat make maneuvers that strained the structure to its limits and even beyond them and very likely would make every engineer scream in terror if he knew what had been done to the peak of imperial bomber technology and tried to avoid the deadly bolts of concentrated energy. He managed to get out of it alive, but only barely and only because the Turbo Lasers of the Sovereign came to live. His shields were down and his weapons were off-line. The pilot must have been really good. Deacan looked behind him, just in the moment the last of his pilots left the launching area. But, wait a second: What's that?!
He looked at his CMD and saw the last seconds of the Torpedo homing in on the hangar bay, scoring a direct hit. The concussion wave hit his fighter and he tumbled trough space. "Kappa 1-1 to all pilots: engage the enemy. Kappa 2-1, come to my aid" the next thing he heard was the screaming of the other fighter's engines rushing past him. He checked his damage display. It seemed the concussion wave fried almost every important system, but at least he still had engines and flight control. His Hyperdrive systems were damaged beyond the abilities of his in-flight repair system and sensors were offline for at least another two minutes.
He switched his communications frequencies to the imperial standard and tried to raise the other pilots. No answers. "Kappa 1-1 to Kappa 3-1: Hawkins: Transmit your sensor data to my ship." After he had a first look on the other fighter's sensor data, Deacan let out a small whistle. That really was not good! The Torpedo must have severely damaged the Sovereign's launch control. Kappa was the only squadron that made it out in time. The others were trapped inside the hangars, doomed to wait until control could be reestablished. So far the hopelessly understaffed and outnumbered Kappa Squadron was everything that could keep the attackers from destroying the Fleet. That is, if they succeeded in fighting off the crafts with the heavier warheads before they vaporized the imperial ships.
And Deacan's disabled fighter floated in the middle of the battle.
"Kappa 1-1 to Kappa Squadron: Fire at will. Good luck, guys!"
LT Jan Wemmel was the last pilot to get out before the Torpedo detonated, but unlike Deacan's fighter, his Missile boat only lost 50% of it's shields. He checked his radar. There were at least 30 dots in the immediate area and obviously they were reinforced by another 40 that were still far away. For now. "Let's see what we've got out there", he muttered silently to himself. He went trough the enemy ships as fast as possible. The 30 dots were smaller craft, mostly B-Wings and Y-Wings, escorted by several A-Wings. Their purpose was clear. The A-Wings had to fight off the opposing fighters as long as it took the bombers to drop off their deadly load of warheads on the capital ships. As the first torpedo already stroke the Sovereign, it was the likeliest target. He targeted the nearest B-Wing and opened fire. The sluggish group of rebel bombers was an easy target. He did not even have to fire some of his rockets. His single Laser Cannon was more than enough to force some rebel pilots to make contact with the vacuum. The escort was another matter. The Missile Boat may be good for long range fire support or Cap-Ship decimation, but it was seriously outgunned by the more agile and better armed X-Wings that were heading towards him. Jan switched to concussion missiles and fired some into the group that was closing in rapidly, then he redirected all energy to the engines, activated his rarely used SLAM, turned around and headed back for the save area between the Sovereign's gunturrets. The rebels shot down most of the warheads, but some hit, leaving nothing but spinning debris, where one moment before an incoming A-Wing acquired a lock on Jan's fighter and was just about to fire two of his missiles.
He was relatively save for now, but as soon as the fighters covered the distance between them, he would again be in serious trouble.
"2-3 to 3-1 Hawkins do you read me?"
"Hawkins here."
"I could use some help here. I've at least a full squadron of rebels on my tail."
"Understood. I'll be there in a minute"
"Make it 10 seconds and I'll possibly be alive to get you a beer in the cantina"
"Sounds good. I'm on them"
It took Hawkins' Defender only 6 seconds to fry the first X-Wing. One of it's foils hit the next rebel, dropping it's shields to almost nonexistence. Having one less fighter to bother him, Jan turned around his Missile boat and fired his single laser at the damaged craft. Under normal circumstances the few hits he scored would have barely dented it's shields, but without shields it was an easy target. Laser bolt after Laser bolt hit the X-Wing. The pilot was able to fire one salvo at the Missile Boat, but that was the last thing he ever did. His fighter made a nice small cloud of frozen gases.
As most of the attacking fighters were neutralized, it was time to handle the approaching capital ships. Some Frigates were already coming into weapons range and with hardly any fighter support the Sovereign was a sitting duck. A well armed duck, granted, but most of it defense were hardly effective when it came to simultaneously fighting off Cap-ships and incoming warheads. What made the situation particularly precarious was that some of the rebel gunners were quite good in destroying the SSSDs laser turrets, leaving wide areas defenseless.
Jan locked his torpedoes on the next enemy ship, a Modified frigate, and fired his Torpedoes. The Frigates' crew seemed to be rather occupied with attacking the Sovereign, for only one gunner realized the rapidly approaching warheads. He shot down one or two, but the rest hit their target. The ship erupted into a gigantic ball of flames, which were almost immediately extinguished by the vacuum of space.
Commander Hawkins didn't know where to attack first, when he left the docking clamps. Ahead were several squadrons of rebel fighters, that were guarding the heavy cap ships, that were looming below them and behind him were the light anti fighter corvettes and Correllian Gunboats. He cursed the technician of the weapons arming crew, who decided, that a simple escort mission without any fsingns of an upcoming rebel attack , wouldn't require advanced systems such as a tractor beam.
Because of that, Kappa squadron, had to fight rebels, that outnumbered them at least five to one, with nothing but a single load of standard missiles, advanced proton torpedoes for the MISs and without the extra energy, the tractor beam would have provided. He ran through the targets on his CMD and just reached Deacans heavily damaged Missile Boat, when the same ordered him to transfer the sensor readouts to his ship. He thumbed communications on. "Hawkins to Sovereign control: we have multiple rebel targets in the area. Enemy forces consist of several CRSs, CLRs, FRGs, backed up by at least 15 flightgroups of A-, B-, and X-Wings as well as several Corvettes and Correllian Gunboats but I don't know how many fighters still are in their hangars. We have one missile boat down. Repeat: CMDR Deacan is temporarily out of business due to a heavy hit that shorted out every major system. We are in need of immediate assistance."
"Kappa 3-1, this is Sovereign control. Copy that. Launch systems are heavily damaged. There is no backup available at the moment. Concentrate on the torpedo carrying craft that are attacking the sovereign and then head out and save as much of the imperial fleet as you can. We will be sending out reinforcements as soon as possible. Good luck. FCON out."
OK. Time for some shock frosted rebels. "Confirmed Flight Control.", he said and steered the heavily armed TIE Defender towards the approaching B-Wings.
The first two heavy bombers didn't even know what hit them. Two missiles followed by a full salvo of Hawkins' quad lasers vaporized the first, and only a moment after that, the imperial TIE-Defender was on the tail of the second one. That one was a better pilot, or Hawkins simply lost the advances of a surprise attack, because the rebel managed to evade one of the missiles and dodged a few lasers.
But it did him no good. The next lasers hit their target and the few ion bolts that followed the laser barrage ensured., that he would be available for personal interrogation by an enraged Hawkins.
He was headed to the Rebel Toaster, Jan's Missile Boat to help him survive a rebel attack, when some B-Wings broke off their attack on the Sovereign and began heading towards a damaged frigate of the other imperial fleet.
He used some of his remaining missiles to get the worst off Jan's tail, redirected all energy to the engines and began to follow the B-Wings. He switched to missiles and steadily gained ground on the rebels. He got in range, gave the missiles some time to get at least a weak lock on the target and fired two at the leading bomber. Hawkins didn't wait till the missiles hit, but targeted the position two rebel. Just as the first ship veered off to evade further hits, the missiles, that were destined for his comrade, smashed into the leaders' craft and completely destroyed it, while the other gained a solid lock on the frigate and fired all of his torpedo, as did the other three craft in his flightgroup. Hawkins targeted the torpedoes, tried to get a missile lock on one of them and fired all he could on the streak of blue warheads, that were rapidly approaching their target. He managed to get some, but the rest hit the weakest part of the ship, that had once been the nightmare of every fighter pilot.
Torpedo after torpedo weakened the hull, atmosphere was venting from the ruptures and finally the ship broke in half and exploded shortly after.
By the time the B-Wings changed their course and headed towards the freighters with the wounded, Hawkins already decimated the flightgroup from five to two with empty warhead launchers.
From the bridge of the Sovereign the ballet of moving dots exchanging small flashes of concentrated energy looked almost beautiful. Kramer would have been able to enjoy the fireworks, weren't the lives of imperial personnel at stake. The fact that the Sovereign still seemed to be the primary target and still had no way of launching more fighters to defend itself didn't make his mood any better. Hit after hit punched into the Sovereign's shields. They already lost some of their power systems. The lights flickered more often and sometimes they went off for more than a minute, as the power distributors had to reroute the flow of energy to circumvent damaged areas.
"Kramer to damage control teams: What is your status"
" We are working on the Launch Control systems, Sir. We should be able to reinitialize at least the backup systems in 2 or 3 more minutes. That's all we can do."
"Ok. Work on the power systems next. Kramer out"
Suddenly there was another flash and a ship appeared that was unlike every ship in the Databases. It looked vaguely like the tip of an arrow and had a absolutely black surface, making it virtually invisible for the human eye. The arrow headed directly towards the Sovereign and accelerated to a speed beyond the capabilities of even an Corellian Gunboat.
"Tactical: scan the new ship. I want to know exactly what their offensive capabilities are."
"Scanning. That's odd. According to the scans this ship has a graviton well projector, a whole new type of deflector shields, but no Weapon systems or a life support system. It seems to be completely automated."
"Automated... You mean like our experiments with automated TIE fighters?"
"Exactly, sir."
Some years ago, shortly before the battle of Endor, the empire tested remotely controlled TIE fighters. They were very effective when they were tested on a number of rebel convoys, but it quickly became obvious that their dependence on control ships in the area were their weakest point. All the rebels had to do was to destroy a few escort transports and every fighter was useless. After the rebels destroyed the main base for the RC Fighters, the project was closed and mostly forgotten about in the chaos that followed the defeat at Endor. Obviously the Rebels were able to recover some data and began research on their own ships.
Kramer looked at the tactical officer and saw every bit of color draining from his face in shock: One of the fighter designs the empire tested were moving bombs designed to ram capital ships and exploding upon contact. Just like the experimental TIE, the enemy ship had no lasers or ion cannons and headed directly towards the largest capital ship in the area at a speed that would quickly drain their fuel, leaving them stranded and with out any means of return. That meant the ship was never designed to return.
"It's a gigantic bomb! Full reverse thrust! Tactical: concentrate fire on the enemy vessel"
"But sir, they are-"
" You've got an order, Lieutenant", Kramer shouted at the corellian
"Yes, sir!"
Navigation: get our nose pointing at him.
"Aye sir"
Damage control: Report on the status of the superlaser and get our fighters out NOW!"
"The superlaser only has minimal damage", a crackling voice came over the speakers, "The energy should be enough for one shot. The fighters will be out in a minute thirty, but we can't get them into space any sooner, without jeopardizing the structural integrity of the whole hangar bay"
"OK. Understood. Prepare the ASL and report in when ready. Bridge out"
Looking out of the forward viewport, Kramer could see the mighty turbolaser turrets spin and open fire on the mysterious attacker. The ship was still too far away for the laser bolts to actually cause damage, but that wasn't intended for the next few seconds. Kramer hoped, that, with a little luck, some enemy fighters would draw away from the dogfights and attack the Sov, giving them a hint if those new shields were vulnerable to laser fire, or not.
He looked at his tactical hologram of the battle area and saw, that some of the remaining rebel fighters and corvettes were now heading towards the Sovereign. They were still some klicks away, but were rapidly getting closer
"Tac, give me an ETA on those fighters and the time to impact of the new arrival."
"The fighters will be in weapon range in about three minutes twenty seconds and the unknown vessel will collide with us in seven minutes at present speed."
"OK. Open a channel to Sniter and tell him to head out at his best possible speed. Sublight if necessary. I don't want him to be hit by the explosion. Fighter Control: Order all fighters to provide close perimeter defense around the Sovereign. We will be almost defenseless, while our superlaser charges."
LCM "Roasty" Astarosta was right in the middle of a dogfight with two rebel X-Wings, when he got the order to disengage and return to escort position around the Sovereign. He finished off one of the X-Wings, quickly recharged his shields with some of the energy from his laser capacitors, turned towards the black mass of the Sov's hull and engaged the SLAM. His speed indicator was still rising, when he heard the characteristic beeping of a missile being locked on his craft. He checked the radar and there he was: an A-wing approached from lower fore. Astarosta let the rebel close in and fire the missile, waited a second or two and finally triggered the countermeasures twice. Two flares shot out of their sockets and headed towards their targets. The first hit the missile and destroyed it, while the second of those micro concussion missiles slammed into the attacking A-Wing and sent it spinning out of control. The rebel never knew what hit him, when the imperial missile-boat he just fired upon deactivated the SLAM, changed course and fired two concussion missiles at the disorientated foe. Shooting through the newly formed cloud of atmospheric gases and fighter debris, Roasty reactivated the speed boosters and headed for his command ship at speeds, an early TIE/ln pilot would have dreamt of.
When his laser energy got low and he had to disengage the SLAM, he was already very close to his assigned position near the Sovereign and hailed the ship to get a status update.
His communication display was very small, but it was large enough to capture the situation on the Sovereign's bridge all too well. He saw crewmen running around and officers shouting orders into their comlinks. Over his speakers he could hear FA Kramer's voice booming over the noise, issuing what sounded like orders to power up the Axial Superlaser. His thoughts were quickly confirmed by the comm officer who gave him the report. He came too late to play a role in the attack on the new arrival, but he was still needed as close range escort for the Sovereign itself while it charged the ASL and had to redistribute all the energy for the Turbolasers to the "big one". The rest of Kappa was already trying to protect the remainder of the Stargazer-fleet or hunting down rebel bombers that got too close to the Sov.
He was shooting down a very persistent B-Wing himself, when finally the doors of the hanger bays opened and wave after wave of TIE Advanceds, Defenders, Assault Gunboats, Missile Boats and even some of the new TIE-Dragons entered the battle. They formed up around the Sov and waited for the ship to do the next move. And it did.
Even as Astarosta switched his radio to the common imperial fighter frequency to thank them to finally arrive, the mighty Sovereign Class Super Star Destroyer above him suddenly stopped its back run, slightly changed the course and, with a and spit a bright green beam towards the needle shaped attacker.
The unknown ship staggered under the impact with its shields ablaze with dispersed energy and suddenly the shields winked out and the beam sliced neatly through the middle of the ship. Next the Dragons and Missile Boats began their attack run on the ship. The Dragon's Vulcan Plasma Pulse Generator and heavy rockets, supported by the torpedo barrage the Missile Boats lay, hit the unknown ship dead on and, with one last attempt to reach the Sovereign, the needle shaped ship broke apart.
Flames were still twitching out of the larger chunks of debris and were quickly extinguished by the vacuum, when the newly arrived TIE-Defenders began their mission of fighter suppression.
The A-Wings were first, then came the X-Wings. Assisted by the turbolaser crews from the Sovereign, the bombers weren't much of a problem, either. While the Defenders cleared the fighter screen, the Missile Boats were on the retreating capital ships.
After another 15 minutes, it was over.
Commander Deacan sat in his Office and finished writing the report. Overall losses have been minimal and they delivered a serious punch on new republican forces. The Sovereign had some hullbreaches and several Turbolaser emplacement have been destroyed, but they were able to get on their way to Aurora along with most of the Stargazer fleet and the crews.
He spent the last three days in a bacta tank and the wounds were almost healed, but some of his comrades weren't that lucky. The ceremony for the crew of the frigate and the freighters the rebels destroyed had been that morning and the funeral of the pilots from the Sovereign was scheduled for the next day at 0700. They had won the battle, but had to pay dearly for this victory. More than 15000 imperial citizens had lost their lives and several of the best pilots on the Sovereign had to end their promising career of an imperial fighter pilot because of their injuries.
Brushing the dark thoughts out of his head, he turned to his PAD and told the waiting computer to send the report to the Wing Commander and the Commodore.
Then he got up from his chair and headed for the cantina where his squadron mates were waiting. Despite all the losses, the members of Kappa Squadron were the heroes of the battle. They held off the attacking fighters until reinforcements arrived and scored several kills themselves. He already heard rumors of medals being awarded and promotion requests already being sent for his Squadron.
Approaching the door to Airlock 54, he managed a faint smile. Captain Deacan... that didn't sound bad... not bad at all.