Objective III Engaging Mandalorian Fleets
Laphisto stood at the holotable, one clawed hand gripping the edge while the other reached into the holographic display, seizing the projected battlespace and rotating it with deliberate precision. Icons representing Mandalorian task groups slid across the starfield as he adjusted the axis, watching their vectors update in real time. Space was not a battlefield of fronts and flanks, not truly. Had the Bastion Curtain been positioned along a single axis, it would have been a fatal oversight, a relic of planar thinking applied to an environment without up or down. Such a design would have allowed Mandalorian forces to bypass vast sections of the defensive line simply by approaching from an unguarded vector.
He had accounted for that long before the first station was laid into orbit. The orbital defense platforms were not arranged as a wall, but as clustered constellations surrounding the planet's presumed frontal hemisphere across every axis, X, Y, and Z alike. Each cluster overlapped firing solutions with the next, creating a layered kill sphere rather than a static barrier. No matter the direction of approach, any hostile fleet would be forced to transit through zones of overlapping turbolaser fire, ion saturation, and mass driver trajectories. There would be no clean angle of entry, no blind corridor to exploit, only escalating attrition.
At the center of that lattice sat Laphisto's fleet, held deliberately back from the outer engagement envelope. He had no intention of meeting the Mandalorians in a direct clash of maneuver and pride. The stations were the Outer wall. His fleet was the kill switch planned to strike only after the enemy had committed, after they had bled themselves forcing a path inward. He expected them to be advancing, pressing, convinced they could break through by force of will alone.
What he had not anticipated was the audacity, or the recklessness, of one Mandalorian battle group tearing directly out of hyperspace almost on top of him. The sudden emergence placed them not at the edge of the Curtain, but deep within its heart, surrounded on all sides by tens of thousands of active firing solutions. Turbolasers were already cycling. Ion batteries were charging. Mass drivers were aligning by reflexive automation. For a brief, lethal moment, the Mandalorian fleet existed at the center of a storm it had willingly leapt into, enclosed by fire before the first shot had even been ordered.
The moment
Renn Vizsla
dropped out of hyperspace on top of Laphisto's fleet, klaxons erupted across every bridge and command deck. The sudden proximity alarm rolled through the formation like a scream, and the response was immediate. The hundred corvettes screening the core elements broke from their omnidirectional fortification pattern and surged into motion, peeling away from their stations to reposition toward the rear of the formation. Their role shifted instantly from static denial to active interception.
Point defense systems came alive in cascading sequences. Seventy two cannons per picket ship tracked and fired in overlapping arcs, shredding incoming starfighters, missile salvos, and kinetic slugs before they could close with the heavy cruisers and star destroyers. The few missiles that survived the corvette screen did not travel far. Warhead deactivation fields flared to life across the capital ships, scrambling guidance systems and rendering payloads inert moments before impact.
Laphisto bared his teeth in a low snarl as the tactical picture resolved. He snapped open a fleet wide channel, his voice cutting through the chaos with controlled aggression. "
Pull all ships ninety degrees. I want one broadside facing that fleet. Keep the opposite side locked on the outer battlespace." As the fleet began its coordinated rotation, Laphisto turned back to the holotable and brought up the Bastion Curtain interface.
With a sharp motion, he tapped into the ground to orbit fire control grid, linking directly with the planetary weapons below. Targeting data streamed upward from his console to the massive guns embedded across the planet's surface, their firing solutions aligning with the unfolding engagement above. what had been meant to seem like a noose slipping around his neck, rapidly began to backfire on the Mandalorian captain.
Within moments, the two Tro'khil stations, the Forgepoint, and roughly fifteen planetary weapon emplacements opened fire in near perfect unison. massive Slugs tore upward into the battlespace, locking onto capital ships as the planetary guns fired on teh ships in range while the Orbital stations began to target support ships first. targeting Corvettes, Frigates, cruisers and then star destroyers.
Laphisto had to admit it, if only to himself. Without the Curtain and the planetary guns backing his fleet, this fight would have been far less certain. The Mandalorians had weight, numbers, and momentum. The defenses were what turned that momentum against them. He turned sharply toward the bridge officer, teeth bared as he snapped the next order. "
I want the Ixen ready now. And give me a status report on those reinforcement fleets." There was no pause between the commands. Both were equally urgent.
Pivoting from the officer, Laphisto's attention fixed on
Iandre Athlea
. His lone ear pinned back against his head as he spoke, his tone firm but not dismissive. "
If you want to hop into a fighter, then do it. But I can't give you the corvettes." His gaze returned to the holotable as the Tracyn began its turn, the massive vessel adjusting its orientation within the kill sphere. Icons shifted. Firing arcs realigned. Above them, and laphisto watched as the Mandalorian fleet began to deteriorate, layer by layer, as the Bastion Curtain did exactly what it had been built to do.
Once the Tracyn was repositioned, Laphisto looked out toward Renn's fleet. The gun trenches along the ship's right flank came alive almost as one, batteries rolling into sustained fire and unloading into the Mandalorian formation. Heavy turbolaser fire reached out first, followed by mass driver salvos, the combined barrage tearing across the void in disciplined waves rather than a single reckless discharge.
Shields flared as return fire began to land, the barrier around the Lilaste order fleet shifting harmonics in real time. One layer hardened specifically against turbolaser impacts, dispersing energy across its surface. A second shield tuned itself for kinetic strikes, absorbing slugs and debris with dense, localized reinforcement. The third layer [ built up of the three back uo generators on each ship] remained adaptive, cycling between energy and kinetic profiles as targeting data updated.
As one shield layer bled down toward the halfway mark, it dropped cleanly out of the rotation. Three backup generators surged online immediately, taking the load without interruption. While the backups absorbed the incoming fire, the depleted shield recharged behind them. Once it returned to strength, the backups shut down in sequence, conserving power and resetting for the next cycle. The process repeated continuously, a controlled rotation designed to keep the ship under constant protection without exposing a single vulnerable moment.
"
The Ixen is ready, sir.we have two patrol fleets inbound and three planetary defence fleets from nearby systems on the way."
Laphisto turned toward the bridge officer and stepped closer to the holotable. He tapped into the display and pulled up the location of
Amelia von Sorenn
fleet, selecting it with a sharp motion before transmitting the hyperspace coordinates. He made several additional adjustments, refining the solution and ensuring the coordinates updated in real time as the fleet continued to maneuver. The tracking lock held steady. It would not take long.
A single heavy cruiser tore out of hyperspace barely a kilometer in front of the Mandalorian fleet. Seconds later, it detonated. All forty thousand mass driver rounds had been dumped into the hangar bay. along with Ion cells and anythign else that woudl explode. Charges were set along fuel lines and critical structural weak points throughout the hull. The cruiser did not simply explode. It came apart under its own violence, the blast throwing a massive wave of superheated shrapnel outward, followed almost immediately by a rolling EMP surge that washed through the surrounding battlespace. Fire, debris, and ionized residue swallowed the Mandalorian formation. How badly they had been hit was still unclear.
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Fleet Compositon
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1 Tracyn [Lilaste order Flag ship]
3 Edaar Class star destroyer MKII
2 Vel'garoth Class Star Destroyer
30 Air'mar Heavy Cruiser MKII
100 Kor'ask Class Corvette
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Star fighter Composition
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50 Basilisk G-10 StarFighter [600 Total]
22 Pegasus D-5 Bomber [264 Total]
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TLDR
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As the Rens fleet jumps into the center of the Curtain, every station within range lights up. Targeting support ships first from corvette- star destroyer. they are also being fired on from all directions. with 15 planetary guns targeting capital ships.
Laphisto maneuvers his fleet so the ships have one side facing Ren's fleet and the other facing Amelia's.
A heavy cruiser jumps into the system after being reared in a nearby system. It detonates immediately afterward in a massive explosion, releasing all of its fuel, live ordnance, and ion cells. and the reactor is detonated, sending massive amounts of shrapnel and an EM shock wave rocking the Mandalorian fleet and a few ODP platforms.
Liorra
Morta Izanami
