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| - Commander Starn of the Republic Fleet had never thought he would be in such a position of power. He had under his command 30 ships, and nearly 60,000 crew members, and 700 fighters. But, it was one position that tittered on the edge of a knife. "Has the trap been sprung?" Raveg said, stalking in from his chambers onto the command bridge. "Yes, sir," Starn said, clearly uncomfortable. "How did they go?" he asked, coming closer to the commander in every step. "Not so well," he shrugged, "Our strike force against the Emperor did take out 30 of his guards, but he made short work of his assailants. Our force that tried to kill the Grand Admiral ran afoul of his crew and many of them were killed during fire fights. The Grand Admiral made sure the rest did not escape." Raveg nodded. "Good. I did not expect those two to succeed. That'll throw them off our trail for a few days, as they will be forced to weed through the entire fleet and guard, taking out all our clones we've managed to slip into their ranks. What of Barad-Dur?" Starn really felt uncomfortable now. "We didn't launch it against him sir." Raveg stopped short of Starn, his eyes narrowing to slits. "How come it was not carried out?" he hissed. "I took the liberty of redirecting the attack against Gra'tua," he said, eying with distaste at the cyborg claws hooking themselves in preparation to strike him. "You have two seconds to live," Raveg said, and the words at once silenced all conversation and work on the bridge, people watching nervously as the clawed hand rose slowly higher to strike, "And you better explain why you would dare change my orders." "Gra'tua is the High Inquisitor of the Empire," Starn replied, choosing his words very carefully, for his life depended on it, "It's his duty to ensure the safety of the Empire. We were able to have one of our cloned Jedi throw a force projection of Darth Barad-Dur that attacked Gra'tua. Then, we had several regular clones that had no force ability tell Gra'tua that Barad-Dur was in league with us and would one day betray the Sith Empire. Then, Gra'tua and the rest will do our job for us." "Why would you tell him that?" Raveg said, his claw now at full height, ready to strike, "He knows Barad-Dur better then that." "Gra'tua is gullible," Starn said, "I mean, look what he did to you." Raveg stood there, ready to strike, thinking. Indeed, it was really plausible. Gra'tua would be following Barad-Dur like a mynock goes to space ships. Gra'tua had destroyed Raveg because of a simple lie the Emperor had said, that Raveg's spice mining company was selling to rebels. Gra'tua had personally led the assault team against his spice mining operation. Gra'tua had left him so destroyed, that this cyborg body was the only thing that had saved Raveg. He slowly dropped his hand. "In this case," he said, "Your taking the liberty is worth it. But next time, inform me." Grand Admiral Marix sat at the control chair of the SSD The Darkest Knight, his fingers practically sliding over the datapad as he typed up a report to the Emperor. He was nearing completion when there was a small beep at his communications console. He didn't even look up, but simply spun the chair towards the console and punched the button to open the console while still typing at about 400 words a minute. "What is it?" he demanded, reading over it to make sure he had got all he wanted too on there. "Sir," a crisp voice replied, "We have dropped out of hyperspace near the Alderaan System, and there are reports of a large body of vessels nearby." "Engage them immediately," Marix ordered, punching the key that would send off his report. There was a slight hesitation and Marix looked over at the console. "Is there a problem?" he asked. "Only sir, they might be civilian vessels," the officer replied, voicing his concerns. "Soldier!" Marix snapped, "Do your duty!" A few minutes later, the two fleets were deep in combat. Marix had deployed 100 TIE Fighters, 100 TIE Interceptors, and 100 Preybirds, which was less then a tenth of the fights he could deploy, but, if he was correct, there was no need for a lot of fighters. Massive fire from both sides tore away at hulls and few ships even exploded, but, Marix was keeping his distance. Barad-Dur's spies had not sent any messages, which was a bad thing, and he wanted to probe until he knew what type of enemy he was engaging. "Sir," an officer said, his holo appearing right in-front of Marix, "The enemy has fifty capitol vessels at their disposal. And twelve support ships. Orders?" "Move the fleet to point blank range," Marix ordered, looking over at the holo that was now working, showing the two fleets, "And I want all fighters deployed. And I want all the bombers deployed and to execute plan Tamper." The officers' eyes grew wide, although it wasn't pronounced on the holo face, "We never execute that plan unless---" "I want few if any of them to escape captain," Marix said, holding up his hand. "Yes, sir," the officer replied, then his holo flickered and disappeared. Hundreds of fighters flew from their bays, and with a heavy wall of flying lasers, cut huge swaths through enemy lines. The enemy capitol ships raked space with silver lasers, and dozens of fights exploded into fiery balls, but they pressed forward, until they were in the mist of the enemy ships. Then, they broke ranks and flew in many directions peppering the mammoth targets. But, that held little importance next to the TIE Bombers that flew forward, their protection now gone. Their orders were precise and they executed them to the letter. They would full charge their weapons, then ram themselves into the massive engines, their full powered and overloaded systems damaging or destroying the targets. Then, the survivors would then fly into the enemy hanger bays and then explode, starting a chain reaction of exploding ships, droids, machinery, and clones, destroying any chance for launching ships to assist in the beleaguered defense. For five minutes this holocaust continued, and many TIE Bombers never reached their target, but 3 out of every 4 reached their targets. Within five minutes, the enemy fleet was almost entirely wrecked, unable to escape, or send fighters to screen them. When the last target had exploded, Marix smiled. The casualties were staggering, but, it would allow for easy pickings now. If the Grand Admiral had known what was in store, it is doubtful he would have ordered the advance of his mighty fleet. He gave the order for the fleet to advance, and it lurched forward, blazing away at the severely weakened enemy. Raveg sneered as his fleet went up in smoke. He had his surprises. He turned to Starn, who was giving orders for the most seriously damaged ships to self-destruct only when enemy capitol ships were very close, and the less damaged to pull back. "Starn," he ordered, "Get the ship ready to jump into hyperspace. Set coordinates for Jabiim." "Yes, sir," Starn replied, "Anything else?" "Activate the mines." The Star Destroyer's belly ripped apart with a massive explosion as the supposedly dead ship exploded. Another Star Destroyer started to spin out of control when it's command bridge was obliterated with the destruction of the enemy ship. Two support ship vanished as the enemy disintegrated into fiery glory. "Destroy all ships not pulling back!" Marix ordered as another ship was torn in two by the self destructing ship. The orders did not need to be told twice. Turbolaser batteries opened up as fierce as Marix had ever seen them, and all six remaining ship melted under the fire. "Sir!" another holocron said, appearing before him, "The enemy has pulled behind the asteroid field, and jumping to lightspeed." Marix opened his mouth to order the pursuit, but at once felt something wrong. A disturbance in the force. Something was not right. "Order all fighters to pursue," he ordered instead, "But order all capitol ships are to stop immediately and not enter the field." Massive waves of fighters pulled forward, but, soon, many were dodging, and dying, as mines flew towards the fighters. "Open fire on all these asteroids, and create a five kilometer radius around the fleet before we continue the pursuit." "But, they'll be out of our range!" the officer replied. "Order Barad-Dur and Gra'tua to take up the pursuit," he told him, "And if you have them, give them the coordinates." "Yes, sir," the officer signed off. But, still something felt wrong to Marix. Like, something really bad.
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