FLEET ADMIRAL VORIN ZONILL
OBJECTIVE III: RAISE THE FLAG!
FLORRUM HYPERGATE
"What's our status report, Captain?",
Fleet Admiral Vorin Zonill asked Captain Sellferr.
"Sir", Sellferr replied, "our forces have begun to make contact with the enemy. The
Pathfinder has reported multiple Sith ships guarding the hypergate, along with a number of models seemingly hailing from the now defunct
Galactic Alliance".
"Can't say I'm particularly surprised", Zonill replied bitterly. "With the speed with which the Alliance collapsed, it would surely be impossible for them to scuttle all of their naval assets. If I were the Sith, I would have done the exact same thing. After all, as different as they may be, the Sith would have to be fools to pass up the use of free ships."
"Agreed sir, though I find it a bit odd that the Sith would bring so many ships from a different faction for the defense of such a vitally important piece on infrastructure. Perhaps we've overestimated their naval capacity?"
"I don't think so Captain. Based on what we've witnessed before, the Sith Fleet is more than sufficient to put up a serious defense of the Florrum Hypergate without having to rely on captured naval assets. Something else must be going on here, though what that is, I'm not quite sure. Enough of that though, do we have any specifics on ship numbers and types?"
"Just a moment sir, the information is coming through now. The
Pathfinder is reporting dozens...no hundreds...no wait,
thousands of Sith vessels converging around our position!", Sellferr cried out in alarm.
"WHAT? IMPOSSIBLE!", Zonill roared as he got up out of his command chair to take a look at Sellferr's
Holodisplay. Yet Sellferr had been right, for Zonill could see thousands of blips appearing all across the screen, all headed for him and his fleet. Worse yet, he could begin to see them right outside the viewports of his ship, amassing in far greater numbers than the
Imperial Confederation could ever hope to handle. They were doomed, dammit, DOOMED! They stood no possible chance against he might of the Sith Fleet! And worse yet, they couldn't even escape due to the
Gravity Well Projectors that the Sith had already activated! It was hopeless, truly hopeless, they were going to die here no matter what happened!
Zonill became to look around in a panic...and then suddenly came back to his senses, his eyes settling on one of the
HNDA-Mk III/T's humming quietly in the corner. He took a moment to compose himself, surveying the rest of the bridge as he did. Captain Sellferr and the various other officers were all in different states of disarray, some having fallen onto the floor, others barely able to hold themselves upright as they desperately clung to their various panels and instruments. A small group of three or four men were holding another officer down on the ground, as the man they had incapacitated screamed about how doomed they were and how they should just end their lives now before the Sith captured him.
Zonill staggered over to Captain Sellferr, who was still lying on the ground, and helped the man back to his feet. He could feel the sweat dripping down his body as he nearly exhausted himself from the effort.
"What...what...what the hell just happened?", Zonill groaned out as he collapsed back into his chair.
"I...I don't know sir", Sellferr wheezed out in response. "If I had to guess, I think the Sith just hit us with some kind of force based attack."
Zonill cursed as he continued to regain his strength, his heart rate still far higher than it perhaps should have been. That was just about the only thing that made a modicum of sense, given what all his men had experienced. If it wasn't for the many
HNDA-Mk III/T's that had been installed around the bridge of his ship and the others in his fleet, he probably would have been dead. As it was, casualty reports were streaming in of officers who had injured or killed themselves during that bout of madness. Whatever the Sith had done, Zonill doubted that it had just affected the Imperials, as something that strong would surely have overwhelmed the Sith's own forces unless they had some way of blocking it. It just went to show how truly depraved these Sith were, willing to hurt their own men in order to get an advantage.
By now, Zonill had calmed down enough to retake command of the
Collateral Star, though the mere effort of dictating his orders was nearly enough to make him collapse.
"Ok...Captain, here is my next set of orders. I want all of our remaining
TIE Vultures and
NZ TIE/sb Strike Bombers deployed toward the nearest enemy fleet. Have the
Gundark and the
Disruptors begin firing their
V-150 Planet Defenders as the
SPHA-T Corvettes charge up their primary turbolasers. Those Sith are trying to bait us into attacking, and I for one am sure as hell NOT taking that bait!"
"Understood sir, I'll have those orders relayed immediately", Sellferr coughed out, still feeling the effects of the force based attack.
A hundred more
TIE Vultures and 168
NZ TIE/sb Strike Bombers began flying toward the Sith Fleet, joining the Mahporeenian assets that had already been deployed to the battlefield. 7
V-150 Planet Defender's worth of ion cannons began engaging the lead vessels of
Elmindra Xitaar
, trying to disable them long enough for the
Strike Bombers or the
SPHA-T Corvettes to destroy them, though the corvettes would require several minutes to fully charge their heavy turbolasers. Some of the bombers and their fighter escorts instead diverted their attack onto the forces brought by
Amelia von Sorenn
as a stray ion bolt wizzed past their ships every now and again, in an attempt to probe just how strong their defenses actually were.
The force based attacked had been mostly ineffective against the fighters that Zonill had previously deployed, since nearly all of them were
TIE Vultures and thus droids. The
Pathfinder had seemingly managed to escape without being majorly affected as well. The
Hyper-Jammers, sadly, were not quite as lucky. One of them crashed directly into its
TIE Vulture escort while another smashed straight into a piece of floating space debris, destroying both craft instantly. At least three more had jumped to hyperspace the moment the attack had begun, leaving the Imperial Remnant with just 15
Hyper-Jammers left, though Zonill did have an additional 5 in reserve. The remaining
Hyper-Jammers began engaging the Sith's fighter craft, using their various electronic warfare devices to aid the
TIE Vultures in eliminating them. A pair of
Hyper-Jammers, perhaps still disoriented from the force attack, nearly ended up colliding into each other, definitely getting to close to each other for comfort.
It was then that
Seela Leini
sprung her ambush!
Her
hyper-ionized laser bolts raced toward the 2
Hyper-Jammers as they desperately tried to get away from one another. One of the
Hyper-Jammers was destroyed instantly, blown apart into a thousand tiny pieces. The other
Hyper-Jammer was far luckier, for at the last possible minute, one of its
TIE Vultures escorts inadvertently took the hit, completely by accident. Yet that was enough to scare the
Hyper-Jammer into retreating, 9 of its
TIE Vulture escorts surrounding it as if they were a moving shield. The remaining 10
TIE Vultures began flocking toward the source of the laser fire, fully intent on utterly destroying whatever it was that was attacking them. Thanks to
Hasuras Na-Gerra
's wild and wanton attack, they might just get lucky enough to catch the attacker as they recovered from being disoriented from the force attack.
In any case, the battle was on, and Zonill fully intended to force the Sith to come to him, not the other way around!
TAGS:
Karl Von Strauss
Marlon Sularen
Calin Rakel
Amalia Visconti | Mira Rhory
Amelia von Sorenn
Elmindra Xitaar
Quinn Varanin
Darth Nefaron
Ufsa'zekhn'narun
Seela Leini
