TAG:
Prael'rs'akinc
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Remus Adair
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Amelia von Sorenn
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Magdalena Bloodscrawl
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Location: ANS Indomitable, Primary Firing Deck
Time: +12 minutes since reversion to realspace
The void trembled.
Lines of fire crisscrossed the Coruscant battlespace as Imperial formations buckled under the sudden precision and fury of the Alliance counteroffensive. The lead battlecruiser, once the centerpiece of the Empire’s orbital siege, was now locked in mortal focus—its shielding flaring like lightning beneath the coordinated strikes of squadrons and turbolaser batteries.
But amid the flurry of chaos, one energy was still gathering.
Inside the Indomitable’s core, the spinal cannon’s mag-drive chamber spun up. The reactor bay groaned. Feed coils rotated into final sequence. The spinal supercapacitor hummed so loudly that the entire ship vibrated on a subsonic level, as if the heart of the carrier was beating for war.
Bridge officers stood at their stations, shoulders rigid, expressions cold. Targeting reticles encircled the battlecruiser’s midline: just below the command deck, just above the dorsal hangar banks. A kill shot, if the timing was right.
“Spinal cannon charged. Target solutions locked.”
“Incoming comm from the Void Lance, Commander Erlsak directly…”
"Captain Halpern, Jedi Dawson, glad to have you two along, my flotilla and squadrons are preparing for a run on that dreadnought. If one or both of you could be so kind as to cover my ass when it retaliates, it'd be much appreciated."
Fleet Captain Halpern didn’t nod. He simply exhaled.
Fire.
The lights on the Indomitable dimmed.
Then—
A beam of raw, hyperaccelerated energy tore through the void like a sword drawn by vengeance. It didn’t roar. It shrieked—a sound that bent comms and sensors alike as it punched through shields, armor, and decks with devastating clarity.
The battlecruiser convulsed mid-space.
The main dorsal corridor exploded in a geyser of white fire and molten debris. Her engines flared and died. Explosive decompression tore through seven decks. Even the TIE bays imploded, spitting fighter wreckage like shrapnel across the orbiting battlefield.
Smoke and bodies bloomed from her flanks.
She was not dead—but she was silenced.
“Hit and Fade”
Location: Void Lance — Corvette Group Skirmish Wing Delta
Time: Seconds after The Sepulchre’s spinal hit
Commander Prae’lr’sakinc’s display would be flooded with real-time telemetry. The spinal cannon strike had blown open a path. No more overlapping kill zones. No more screening destroyers. The right flank of a Star Destroyer—code-sign ISV Impavid—was fully exposed, ventral hangars flickering, shields already strained.
The command channel the Chiss Commander was on would receive
”[Follow our X-wings, they’ll clear you a path! Authorization received. All craft: weapons free.
The X-wing cloud around her wing tightened, then dove.
Her corvette group could now follow, and was now open to riding the slipstream of the assault—each ship able to shed inertia limiters as they fall in behind the fighters. Proton torpedoes launched in coordinated bursts. Laser cannons strafed weakened turrets. Ion strikes peppered the neck and keel.
The Void Lance herself could now lead the dive, her forward arrays glowing as the X-wings set the stage with a burst of phased plasma directly into the Destroyer’s gaping hangar bay. Explosions. Secondary fires. Fuel lines ruptured. Escape pods jettisoned without command authorization—some tumbling into the chaos of space, others incinerated instantly by crossfire.
Elrsak’s corvettes were now wide open to close the show their fighter leads opened before arcing away with surgical precision. Two could pull vertical, forcing the destroyer’s automated flak to swing wide—and into its own shielding field, also clearing the lanes for Y-wings to close them off.
Impavid’s main reactor flared —as if leading to shearing itself apart, as if all it needed was a well placed attack run.
“The Sky Opens”
Location: High Orbit, Coruscant Battlespace
“Sir! Incoming message from Supreme Commander Von Soren!”
"Commander Elrask, Captain Halpern, Jedi Knight Dawson... You've got friends incoming..."
There were murmurs coming from several of the pits, Gym just looked outward.
Game on…
“Multiple hyperspace breaches—Alliance signatures confirmed!”
One. Five. Twelve.
Dozens of Alliance ships emerged in overlapping starlines—wedge destroyers, carrier formations, support frigates, and a pair of Mon Cala siege platforms. The 10th Sector Armada had arrived. Its mass eclipsed a thousand kilometers of sky. The stars were vanishing—swallowed by hulls, shields, and resolve.
The bridge crew of the Indomitable stared in quiet awe. Even seasoned officers swallowed hard.
"This is Vice Admiral Thalu of the Galactic Alliance, all vessels form up on the Mon Mothma - our focus is to provide and hold an escape corridor for civilians to evacute from the conflict zone. Battlegroup Mothma will hold the line with Theselon Squadron supporting. I want Ascendancy Squadron to maintain the corridor while the Obsidian Skirmish Line will provide picket and escort duty for the civilians. All vessels launch your Starfighter Wings and May the Force Be With Us..."
No words from Halpern.
Only the faintest lift at the edge of his mouth.
“The Emperor’s Fist”
“Sir... another contact.”
One? Halpern asked.
“...One.” A pause. “Mass reading five kilometers. Not a glitch.” Sensors shrieked again.
Then the stars blackened in silhouette.
And something colossal broke into reality like a leviathan surfacing from deep water. A five-kilometer-wide Imperial battlecruiser, triangular and black as midnight, slid into orbit on a burning slipstream of hyperspace energy. Its hull bore no standard designation—only a symbol: a crowned skull with a vertical slash.
No shields active. No weapons firing. It simply appeared—as if daring the Alliance to shoot first.
“Sensor telemetry confirms… class unknown. It’s not in any naval registry.”
It is now. That’s a “Rampart”.
Halpern stepped forward. The ship’s shape cast a shadow across the upper atmosphere of Coruscant.
New target. Spinal cannon… full recharge. Stand by.
His hand clenched behind his back, thumb brushing the edge of a silver insignia once given to him by Admiral Liram Angellus.
Let’s remind them: the only thing waiting for them in this sky… is us.
”Striking the hand of a God”
The bridge dimmed again—not from battle damage, but from power redistribution.
The spinal mount, already warm from its first shot, began a second charge cycle—faster, hotter, and far more dangerous. The hull of the Indomitable groaned audibly as cooling veins across the superstructure glowed a dull cobalt blue, dumping residual heat into the void.
“Spinal weapon charge cycle reinitiated.”
“Estimated time to fire: sixty-three seconds.”
“Target locked: Rampart Imperial capital vessel. Five kilometers. Origin unknown.”
Even from a distance, the new warship exuded menace. Its silhouette was angular and unnaturally smooth. No open weapon ports. No visible hangars. No active shields. Just presence—the kind that made veterans clench their jaws and glance skyward without knowing why.
And yet Halpern didn’t hesitate. The targeting computer did not ask for a name. Only coordinates.
Begin stress equalization on containment matrix. Keep it balanced, or we lose more than the gun.
A low vibration built into the deck, seeping through every surface like the breath of something deep and patient. The spinal cannon did not scream this time. It hummed, as though the ship was meditating before it struck God Himself.[/I]
Surgical Fire
With the spinal system locked in sequence, Halpern issued a parallel command.
Bring planetary strike arrays online. Priority: Imperial landing zones. Target troop carriers. Supply columns. Shield disruption arrays.
“Sir, Admiral Thalu is expecting us to form up.”
... and we are but our friends are down there. Let’s remind them we’re up here. Across the Indomitable’s flanks, broadside missile launchers and long-range turbolaser batteries swiveled planetward. Targeting pods locked onto dozens of Imperial positions on Coruscant’s surface—makeshift command outposts, shield relay towers, and clusters of Imperial walkers unloading through breach points.
A storm of fire rained down.
Hypervelocity rounds punched clean through kilometer-long columns of dropships. Disruption torpedoes detonated with clinical precision across shield pylons, overloading generators in blue-white pulses. The main support beam of a temporary Imperial garrison in the Financial District snapped like a toothpick.
Elsewhere across the atmosphere, Alliance defenders scrambled in renewed formation. Ground commanders sent quick pings of thanks. Resistance held—and pushed.
The Heavy Wings Arrive
[C.A.G… Our PTLs? They want in the fight don’t they… what say we finally let’em play?] Over the Comms, he did not need to see it, but could tell from the Commander Air Group’s tone that he was smiling.
[“Aye!”]
The PTL-B9 “Heavy B-Wing” Patrol Ships had been held in reserve—but no longer.
Six full squadrons deployed from dorsal hangars like ghosts with vengeance, wing foils unfolding as they entered a deep escort arc around the Indomitable and allied capital ships. Built for endurance and orbital siege, the B9s were slow, steady, and utterly merciless.
“PTL-B9s: Designate primary targets. Recommend the support destroyers between flanking Interdictors.”
“Confirmed. Beginning attack runs.”
One by one, the PTLs spun into position, stabilized, and unleashed full payloads—bursts of antiship plasma rounds, multi-stage proton missiles, and ion net arrays designed to overload internal shielding banks.
The second destroyer in line took a full broadside to her command tower, shields failing in under three seconds. The entire forward section erupted in vacuum flame, breaking into two major pieces. The third tried to retreat, only to be caught in a slow-motion tail spin, her engines slagged by two synchronized salvos.
The B9s moved like executioners.
”Forming the Line
“Sir. 10th Sector command ship hailing. The Mon Mothma has assumed system-wide coordination.”
The massive fleet flagship, shimmering with gold-accented plating and commanding antenna arrays, appeared above the upper hemisphere like a planetary ring all its own. Its presence on comms silenced every fleet captain within listening range.
But Halpern didn’t need orders. He’d been preparing for this war before anyone admitted it had returned.
Bring us alongside. Defensive alignment Delta-One. Maintain open fire lanes for spinal execution vector.
The Indomitable moved with precision—a predator syncing to the school, positioning itself slightly forward of the Mon Mothma, bracketing it like a watchful blade. The 10th Sector Armada was now fully formed—a wall of steel between Coruscant and destruction.
In the darkness between stars, the humming grew louder.
“Spinal cannon status: 94% charge.”
“Target tracking solid. Recoil compensators ready.”
“Final phase… counting down.”
See that Rampart? When you get to zero, I don’t want to see it anymore.
Rannan Kol
Vaegon Dolmyrian
