Aculia paced back and forth on the bridge of her flagship, the HMS Valiant, her stomach turning slightly as she reflected on the irony and perhaps what some might consider the blatant hypocrisy of her position in this particular battle. Despite being a proponent of democratic reforms in her own home territory of the Elysium Empire at the edge of the galaxy to check Rex’s more autocratic tendencies, and having been noted for helping stop the tyrannical Maw at the Battle of Tython, today she was siding with the Empire in their occupation of Ilum. Fighting
against the Galactic Alliance, the preeminent non-authoritarian power in the galaxy. Not to mention the Jedi, who, despite her misgivings with them as being hopelessly naïve and idealistic, she did not loath nor particularly wish to kill, and upon whose holy world her allies desecrated today.
But it was the Empire who offered her the paycheck this day, while the Alliance had been radio silent towards her, perhaps out of apathy, perhaps out of overconfidence, perhaps out of a simple disdain towards using mercenaries. And at the end of the day to take care of her people back home at the other end of the galaxy far from the comfy and prestigious position at the center of the galaxy the Alliance enjoyed, she needed credits. If she had to swallow her tongue and pride to do so, so be it, because at the end of the day, her allegiance was to those who looked to her to protect them and their families.
And we shall earn that money, and one day, we may no longer have to fight.
“Captain Severin, have our forces been deployed as I have instructed?”
“Yes, Admiral. Per your orders, we have assembled behind Moff Korvan’s forces, split into three equal strike forces. One on his right flank, one on his left, and one behind him in reserve. The standoff gravity well generators have been turned on-there will be no micro jumping directly on top of our carriers today. We mostly have Howling Harriers deployed for the flexibility they offer, along with some Strike Eagles to further ensure space superiority. They will wait in place and guard their positions until you order otherwise.”
She gave him an affirming nod. She was not here today to use the majority of her forces to hunt down and destroy the GA fleet. She was here to protect
Ignacious Korvan
's flanks and his superweapon, and crush the hopes of GA admiral that they could simply swarm or ambush the Moff with superior amounts of strikecraft or ships. There was one exception to that, however…
“And the Voland Classes?” She inquired.
“They have your orders and have been deployed forward in five pairs, cloaked, and awaiting the arrival of any GA forces. They understand your orders on engagement, distance, and tactics.”
“Good. For what we had to sacrifice in order to get the technology and funding to make them, let us hope they perform well.”
“Sir! ARGUS scans have detected incoming Alliance forces! Korvan’s fleet is opening fire! Power fluctuations detected coming from the Reckoning! It seems they are beginning to power it up!”
Aculia watched as her chief ally today, Moff Korvan, opened fire with an impressive opening salvo towards a Galactic Alliance fleet egressing from hyperspace, scoring several hits although perhaps jumping the gun a little bit early as some of the fire seemed premature. A few of the Alliance screening vessels went down along with the shields of their own Star Destroyers flaring brightly against the Imperial fire, but held. Still, she doubted that slight folly would matter all that much in the course of the battle, if the Empire’s superweapon could do what her brief analysis of it from her earlier position suspected it could. And what she and her fleet were here to help it do.
“Keep our forces steady, Captain Severin. Korvan can handle return firepower of that magnitude with his own ships. We’re to risk our lives only if necessary.”
Moving over to her command chair and settling in, she began to breathe slowly, and calmly. She had found she had a latent talent for battle meditation, and had been fostering it during and since Tython. She was far from a master of it, of course: experience leads to mastery, and these kinds of large scale battles were still relatively new to her, but every little bit of courage she could give to those under her command would help.
Meanwhile, in the void of space forward of the Imperial forces and the XIII Battlegroup, scattered around the likely projected entry points of the Galactic Alliance forces the Voland Class Space Submarines lurked in five pairs,
cloaked with the latest in advanced stealth technology from the Eternal Empire. They had been ordered to keep quiet and conceal themselves since they had first deployed to the space around the planet, scouting and keeping watch for any sizeable GA fleets that might appear, and engage targets of opportunity with their new, specialized stealth space torpedoes. And just such an opportunity arrived when a particularly ambitious, or perhaps stupid, Galactic Alliance Admiral jumped straight into the system and began to go head to head with Korvan immediately. No scouts, no advance force, nothing.
What a bold and interesting strategy, not unlike the Mawites, although to their credit they are smart enough to have brought smaller screening capital ships, unlike them. I guess one can afford these kinds of losses when you have the manpower and industry that the Alliance has...
Per her earlier standing orders, the submarines began to shift their trajectories towards the Alliance Fleet of
Pa'Kar Sang that had jumped out of hyperspace, took some fire from Korvan, and begun to scramble their own strikecraft. Two of them swiftly moved above the enemy fleet, two of them laterally behind, two below, and two each flank, keeping a fair amount of distance between each submarine. And then, silently in the void of space, they began to carry out their orders.
The first order of business was to destroy the ability of this particular Alliance fleet to hunt them easily once they became aware of their presence. Unfortunately that meant leaving their juicy heavier ships alone for now, while their corvettes and cruiser pickets were hopefully sent to a cold, icy grave in space. Silently ejecting with strong propelled air pressure from their tubes, the launch hidden from enemy sensors by the submarine’s own cloaking device, the
Orel Stealth Torpedoes seamlessly and silently switched on their own fields the moment they exited their motherships’, moving at a relatively modest pace towards the unsuspecting Alliance picket vessels, which they would continue to do until they met their arming distance.
Immediately after the launches, the submarines began to swiftly make major course corrections from their previous trajectories, some erring to bank hard to the left, others to the right, some going in reverse, some up, and some down in a kind of peculiar coordinated chaos away from the Alliance fleet. Anything to shake up where they had been going before-because when the torpedoes did reach their arming distance, turn off their cloaking device, and engage the thermal plumes of their rockets, it would not be difficult to get a sense of where the previous bearing and heading of their mother vessels were-and to direct return fire, even if they could not see or sense exactly where they were.
As this was occurring, Severin continued to feed tactical data to Aculia noting that one of the Alliance vessels in particular had decided to launch a large amount of strikecraft, including Z-95 Headhunters, X-Wings, Y-Wings, and some kind of what she assumed must be heavy bombers.
“Ask Korvan if he requires some assistance in dealing with them or if he can handle them. We are, after all, mostly in reserve.”
As she did so, and as the Alliance forces began to counterbattery Korvan’s and move toward the middle of his forces, the Orel Torpedoes reached their arming distance, which was programmed to be a moderate distance from the center of the enemy formation. All of the numerous, fast, and deadly torpedoes dropped their cloaking devices in favor of anti-point defense shielding, engaged their rocket boosters with massive thermal plumes, and began to streak in large amounts toward the enemy corvettes and light cruisers from seemingly all directions-which would definitely light up on their sensors. If things went according to plan this would devastate the smaller ships enough that the Alliance fleet would try to have to hunt her swift and maneuverable subs with their bulky Star Destroyers instead-or worry about another potential wave of heavier torpedoes hitting them from behind while they engaged Korvan to the front.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tags and let me know if I need to change anything here/account for people actions/ or tag more people on Discord or PM! I'm friendly! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pa'Kar Sang
Ignacious Korvan
Jadwiga Drozd
.
Aaran Tafo
Michael Barran
