Ascending Legend
The bridge of the Tracyn did not shake as a smaller ship would have.
It shuddered instead, a deep, structural complaint that ran through the deckplates and into the bones of everyone standing on them, as if the vessel itself had taken a breath and decided it would rather not die today.
Iandre kept her footing without thinking. Muscle memory. Years of bracing on moving decks, years of learning how to stand steady when the galaxy tried to throw you sideways. Her eyes stayed on the holotable as the tactical picture updated in rapid pulses, icons blooming and vanishing, the Bastion Curtain's geometry trying to reweave itself around fresh gaps carved by impact and debris.
The Lucrehulk was gone now, but its death had become a weather system.
A storm of shrapnel, fire, and falling metal.
She felt the shift in the Force like pressure changing in a sealed room. Panic below, confusion above, a bright flare of anger from the invaders, and beneath it all the cold, mechanical logic of war doing what it always did: turning living intent into math.
Laphisto's broadcast rolled out into the void, sharp as a thrown blade, and Iandre did not flinch at it. She understood why he did it. She also knew what it would cost.
There were some foes you could bleed into caution.
Mandalorians were not those foes.
Her gaze tracked the new contacts as they resolved on the edge of the holoprojection, battlecruisers and escorts sliding into angles meant to force choices, meant to make a defender split attention and pay for every misstep.
Iandre stepped closer to the table, one hand resting lightly against its rim, not for balance but to anchor herself to the present.
Then she spoke, voice calm enough that it did not need to compete with alarms.
"We should assume they are testing our response more than our armor."
A bridge officer flicked a look her way. Iandre continued, precise, purposeful.
"They want a pattern. If we give them a predictable screen, they will carve through it and call it proof. Let them think they are reading us, then change the language."
She pointed to the holomap, not touching the icons, just indicating the seam where the line had thinned.
"Reinforce the gaps with movement, not mass. Corvettes and interceptor wings on rotating vectors, short bursts, fast returns. Force their pilots to commit to targets that keep changing. Make their opening passes expensive."
Her eyes flicked to the readouts scrolling beside the main tactical overlay, shield harmonics recalibrating, defensive nodes attempting to learn from the first exchange.
"And keep the adaptive network breathing. If they try to bait us into locking shields on one frequency, we stagger the harmonics manually. Let the system learn, but do not let it learn in a straight line."
Another tremor ran through the ship. Somewhere deeper in the hull, a bulkhead groaned. Iandre did not look away from the battle.
A comms tech spoke quickly, urgency tightening their voice. "Open channel still active, incoming response possible."
Iandre's expression stayed composed, but the Force around her sharpened. Not anger. Readiness.
"If they answer him, they will do it with pride." She said, tone steady. "If they do not answer, they will do it with action."
She inhaled once, slowly.
"Either way, we treat this as the first real push."
Then, softer, directed to Laphisto without needing to turn her head.
"You asked earlier what makes command hard." Her eyes stayed on the shifting icons. "This moment. When the enemy wants you to become what they already decided you are."
Her hand tightened briefly against the table's edge, then eased.
"We do not give them that."
She straightened, posture tall, shoulders squared, the same calm she carried into duels and disaster alike.
"Give me a fighter wing." Iandre said, and now her voice carried a clean certainty that left no space for doubt. "Not to chase them. To break their rhythm. I will take a screen out past the Curtain edge, draw their strike craft into bad angles, and pull them into overlapping fire where our guns can teach them what it costs to get close."
A pause, then the smallest tilt of her head, as if she could already feel the enemy's intent pressing in from the dark.
"If they want an opening, let them come take it with their own hands."
Outside the viewport, the void flashed with distant fire, a slow blooming constellation of violence.
On the holotable, new contacts flared.
And Iandre stood beside Laphisto on the bridge of the Tracyn, not as a bystander, not as a symbol, but as a participant with a blade's mind and a soldier's clarity, ready to meet the first Mandalorian push head-on.
Tag: Open | Objective I | Bridge Engagement
Laphisto
It shuddered instead, a deep, structural complaint that ran through the deckplates and into the bones of everyone standing on them, as if the vessel itself had taken a breath and decided it would rather not die today.
Iandre kept her footing without thinking. Muscle memory. Years of bracing on moving decks, years of learning how to stand steady when the galaxy tried to throw you sideways. Her eyes stayed on the holotable as the tactical picture updated in rapid pulses, icons blooming and vanishing, the Bastion Curtain's geometry trying to reweave itself around fresh gaps carved by impact and debris.
The Lucrehulk was gone now, but its death had become a weather system.
A storm of shrapnel, fire, and falling metal.
She felt the shift in the Force like pressure changing in a sealed room. Panic below, confusion above, a bright flare of anger from the invaders, and beneath it all the cold, mechanical logic of war doing what it always did: turning living intent into math.
Laphisto's broadcast rolled out into the void, sharp as a thrown blade, and Iandre did not flinch at it. She understood why he did it. She also knew what it would cost.
There were some foes you could bleed into caution.
Mandalorians were not those foes.
Her gaze tracked the new contacts as they resolved on the edge of the holoprojection, battlecruisers and escorts sliding into angles meant to force choices, meant to make a defender split attention and pay for every misstep.
Iandre stepped closer to the table, one hand resting lightly against its rim, not for balance but to anchor herself to the present.
Then she spoke, voice calm enough that it did not need to compete with alarms.
"We should assume they are testing our response more than our armor."
A bridge officer flicked a look her way. Iandre continued, precise, purposeful.
"They want a pattern. If we give them a predictable screen, they will carve through it and call it proof. Let them think they are reading us, then change the language."
She pointed to the holomap, not touching the icons, just indicating the seam where the line had thinned.
"Reinforce the gaps with movement, not mass. Corvettes and interceptor wings on rotating vectors, short bursts, fast returns. Force their pilots to commit to targets that keep changing. Make their opening passes expensive."
Her eyes flicked to the readouts scrolling beside the main tactical overlay, shield harmonics recalibrating, defensive nodes attempting to learn from the first exchange.
"And keep the adaptive network breathing. If they try to bait us into locking shields on one frequency, we stagger the harmonics manually. Let the system learn, but do not let it learn in a straight line."
Another tremor ran through the ship. Somewhere deeper in the hull, a bulkhead groaned. Iandre did not look away from the battle.
A comms tech spoke quickly, urgency tightening their voice. "Open channel still active, incoming response possible."
Iandre's expression stayed composed, but the Force around her sharpened. Not anger. Readiness.
"If they answer him, they will do it with pride." She said, tone steady. "If they do not answer, they will do it with action."
She inhaled once, slowly.
"Either way, we treat this as the first real push."
Then, softer, directed to Laphisto without needing to turn her head.
"You asked earlier what makes command hard." Her eyes stayed on the shifting icons. "This moment. When the enemy wants you to become what they already decided you are."
Her hand tightened briefly against the table's edge, then eased.
"We do not give them that."
She straightened, posture tall, shoulders squared, the same calm she carried into duels and disaster alike.
"Give me a fighter wing." Iandre said, and now her voice carried a clean certainty that left no space for doubt. "Not to chase them. To break their rhythm. I will take a screen out past the Curtain edge, draw their strike craft into bad angles, and pull them into overlapping fire where our guns can teach them what it costs to get close."
A pause, then the smallest tilt of her head, as if she could already feel the enemy's intent pressing in from the dark.
"If they want an opening, let them come take it with their own hands."
Outside the viewport, the void flashed with distant fire, a slow blooming constellation of violence.
On the holotable, new contacts flared.
And Iandre stood beside Laphisto on the bridge of the Tracyn, not as a bystander, not as a symbol, but as a participant with a blade's mind and a soldier's clarity, ready to meet the first Mandalorian push head-on.
Tag: Open | Objective I | Bridge Engagement
Laphisto
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