Renn Vizsla
Laphisto remained at the helm of his vessel, his eyes moving rapidly across overlapping holo projections as stations succumbed to incoming fire. One by one, defensive platforms flickered and vanished from the display, their signatures replaced by expanding debris fields. The Mandalorian fleets continued their advance, grinding forward through fire that would have shattered less disciplined formations.
A low growl sounded in his throat. One of the bridge officers spoke up over the controlled tension of the command deck. "
Sir, the Antilla reports damaged shield emitters. The Domino is reporting similar degradation. While The Fluxim has sustained light scoring along her hull and has lost power to one shield generator entirely other ships are showing slow shield degradation but its managable."
Laphisto pulled the three ships forward on the tactical display, isolating their telemetry. Shield harmonics were destabilizing. Thermal output was rising. Structural strain had not yet reached catastrophic thresholds, but it would if left unchecked. He reached out and adjusted the formation manually.
"
The Antilla, Domino, and Fluxim are to fall back behind the main line immediately, Cycle in fresh hulls to replace them. Maintain continuous overlap. No gaps." The new ships slid forward as instructed, shields fully charged and weapons hot. The damaged vessels began their retreat under covering fire, disappearing behind the layered defensive envelope to stabilize and reroute power.
"
Direct all starfighters to coordinate with the point defense corvettes, Missile interception takes priority. Destroy them before they reach the primary formation." Across the projection, fighter squadrons adjusted course, tightening their operating radius and weaving into the firing patterns of the corvettes' defensive grids. Point defense lasers intensified, creating a near continuous barrier of light. Incoming Mandalorian missiles were intercepted in dense clusters, detonating far from their intended targets.
The Mandalorian strategy was clear. They were focusing fire on single vessels, attempting to overwhelm shields through sustained concentration until collapse became inevitable. It was a sound approach in theory. In practice, nearly half of their projected firepower never reached its mark.
Point defense ships continued to intercept heavy payloads, shredding missiles and thinning incoming volleys before they could meaningfully contribute to the saturation. What did make it through struck ships that were already rotating out of position, denying the Mandalorians the sustained pressure required to break through.
When
Renn Vizsla
's voice carried across the open channel, Laphisto's expression hardened. He shook his head once and turned to the nearest bridge officer.
"Open another channel, Route it through the same procedures as before." the bridge officer gave a small nod as the holoprojector activated, casting its pale light across the bridge as Laphisto stepped into its field. His full figure resolved across the holonet without distortion, and he made no attempt to obscure the sigil of Clan Ordo emblazoned upon his shoulder plate.
"
This is High Commander Laphisto of the Lilaste Order and Chief Military Executive of the Diarchy armed and naval forces I have heard your offer, Mandalorian, but I cannot say that I trust your words.
I saw what your leadership did on Taris. Civilians of the Mandalorian Empire were strung up and executed in public display. Those men, women, and children were Mandalorians by decree. Perhaps not by blood, but by citizenship. They stood beneath your banner. They relied upon your protection, and they were betrayed."
He allnarrowed his eyes slightly, arms folding behind his back as his lone ear flicked upon his head. "
If you are willing to do that to your own civilians, what prevents you from turning your guns upon our evacuation craft. What prevents you from destroying shuttles filled with families attempting to leave this system. Your forces are already attacking the space elevator, a structure currently being used for civilian evacuation. You speak of honor while targeting infrastructure meant to safeguard noncombatants."
"
So tell me, Vod, where has your honor gone. Where are the Mandalorians I fought during the wars of old. The warriors who understood that iron carries weight and that oaths carry consequence. Or are you merely hollow shells wearing armor without understanding what it demands? Our early skirmishes were due to a child being killed on Vexis Station. If I recall, your people were outraged at such a loss of innocent life. And yet here you stand. After your Manda'lor crucified the innocent, and your people are ready to kill families to create a symbol " The channel remained open as weapons fire continued to illuminate the void beyond the bridge viewport, the battle raging even as his challenge hung in the silence between fleets.
Amelia von Sorenn
Each station within the Curtain measured no more than seven hundred meters at its widest point, and that was before structural collapse reduced it to drifting debris. Once destroyed, very little of its mass remained intact enough to serve as meaningful cover. The fragments of the Lucrehulk were larger by comparison, vast carcass sections tumbling end over end through the engagement zone, yet even those were insufficient shields in a battlespace dominated by capital ships of far greater scale. The relative size of the combatants rendered most debris temporary concealment at best.
The Bastion Curtain did not rely upon individual stations as fixed bastions. When one defensive platform lost line of sight on a target, the network simply reassigned tracking solutions to another node. Firing arcs overlapped deliberately, and sensor telemetry propagated across the grid in fractions of a second. A ship that slipped beyond one station's envelope found itself immediately illuminated by another.
That was not to suggest the opposing fleets lacked similar adaptability. They too shifted coverage, recalculated angles, and attempted to exploit transient blind spots. In the aggregate, however, there was remarkably little true concealment anywhere within the engagement zone. Breaks in concentrated fire occurred only in brief intervals, small gaps opening for a heartbeat before being sealed by crossfire from another direction. Moments of reduced pressure were measured in seconds, sometimes less, and even then they came at the cost of exposure to a different vector.
When the Mandalorians began maneuvering to board the stations, those assault craft that survived the saturation of point defense cannon fire found no undefended prize waiting beyond the hull. Any boarding vessel that managed to breach the outer plating was met immediately with disciplined resistance. Every station was crewed not merely by technicians and observers, but by personnel trained under Laphisto's doctrine to fight as soldiers when required.
Each platform housed up to three hundred crew members, and each of them had access to standardized defensive armament. LO-20D rifles were distributed across compartments, corridors, and access choke points, loaded with beskar tipped slug rounds designed to punish armored targets at close range. The narrow passageways of the stations became deliberate kill corridors, bulkheads sealing behind advancing boarders to prevent internal flanking while defenders established interlocking fields of fire.
This was not a panicked defense improvised under pressure. It was structured resistance. Compartments were predesignated as fallback positions, power reroutes prioritized life support and internal lighting, and automated doors were controlled manually to force attackers into predictable approaches. The Mandalorians who made it inside did not encounter frightened technicians scrambling for escape. They encountered organized resistance from personnel who understood that holding the station was as vital as firing its guns. Under Laphisto's doctrine, every platform was both a weapon and a fortress. Those who boarded them would have to earn every meter in blood.
"
Sir, we are reading a large concentration of ground force shuttles breaking from the Mandalorian formation," one of the bridge officers reported "
They are vectoring toward the Curtain and appear to be attempting to pass directly through to the planet below."Laphisto raised a brow at the projection, a low rumble sounding in his throat as he studied the trajectory lines.
The shuttles were committing early, launching from a distance that forced them to cross a fully active defensive lattice before reaching anything of value. "
Scramble fighters, Divert ten of our picket ships to intercept. I want overlapping interception lanes established immediately." The holotable updated as corvettes peeled from their screening positions and starfighters surged outward in coordinated waves. "
If they intend to waste their kin by launching infantry shuttles from that distance, then we will remind them that poor choices leave blood on their own hands." He exhaled slowly, shaking his head with a faint scoff as he watched the interception vectors converge. "
Such a waste of life," .
As the order left his mouth, ten of the picket ships stationed along the left flank of Laphisto's formation, the side currently oriented toward Amelia's fleet, broke from their positions in disciplined arcs. Their engines flared as they accelerated toward the oncoming wave of Mandalorian fighters and bombers, adjusting formation mid burn to establish a layered interception screen rather than a single defensive line.
The first exchange occurred at range. Corvette mounted weapons opened fire in coordinated bursts, targeting bombers first, then any escort craft attempting to screen them. Those vessels that survived the initial interception push and continued forward were met by a second, far denser barrier. Well over mid ten thousand point defense cannons from the broader fleet and adjacent stations ignited almost simultaneously, saturating the approach corridor in overlapping streams of fire. The void between the formations became a storm of flak bursts, laser intercepts, and detonating warheads.
The picket ships did not focus solely on craft. Their targeting algorithms and gunners shifted quickly to incoming missile signatures, prioritizing any warheads on trajectory toward the planet. Defensive fire lanced outward in tight, controlled sequences, detonating munitions long before they could threaten atmosphere. Starfighters reinforced the effort, weaving between corvette firing lanes to ensure no missile slipped through unchallenged.
Even in the unlikely event that a warhead evaded both corvette and starfighter interception, the planetary defense grid remained active beneath them. Stations in low orbit tracked inbound threats continuously, prepared to eliminate anything that survived the outer defensive rings. The Mandalorian assault would have to pass through multiple layers of coordinated resistance before even approaching its intended objective.
Adelle Bastiel
'Sentinel' Janius Everwall
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