WotH-2 Chpt 18

==War on the Horizon - Chapter 18 / Book 2==
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
===Naval Engagement===
Date: March 19, 3018 AD/18.03.7957 CRC (Coruscant Reckoning Calendar)Location: Unnamed System between Hutt and CIS Space.
Dreadnought-class Heavy Cruisers from the CIS Navy winked into existence a short distance away from a myriad of space stations with heavy traffic between them. The vessels immediately raised shields and began moving into battle formations with overlapping lanes of fire with their support vessels.
 
Further away, blocking the exits to the system, Inhibitor-Class Battleships activated their Gravity wells, preventing any of the pirate or Hutt ships from jumping into hyperspace to evade the squadrons of starfighters that now streamed out of the support elements for the Dreadnoughts and the Battleships.
 
The smaller pirate ships darted around the system, moving down onto the lone habitable planet's surface or hiding behind the stations that orbited said planet as the fleet moved in.
 
"This is Admiral Jerome Landkai of the Confederacy of Independent Systems to all vessels and stations in this system. You have been found violating our sovereign space with acts of piracy and slaving. If you surrender, you will see your day in court and will be given a fair trial with adequate representation. If you do not, then may whatever gods you swear to have mercy upon your souls. For you will find none with me or my people."
 
A handful of ships powered down and seemed to accept the surrender offer, but the rest decided that discretion was not the better part of valor. 
 
On paper, the pirates and Hutts in this system outnumbered the fleet that the Confederacy Navy had jumped in. In reality, those ships were ill-maintained, lacked firepower, or couldn't take on the more modern vessels the Confederacy had brought to bear. 
 
"I want those big haulers disabled and boarded," Landkai ordered, gesturing toward a small cluster of ships still attempting to escape. "Get the Gladius and Longsword into position to target those light freighters. And have the rest of our starfighters shift to here," Landkai tapped a grid on the holotable. "We'll have them move in and clean up anything that's trying to hide after we're done here."
 
With his initial orders established, Landkai watched as they executed the plan they'd painstakingly worked on for the last few months and waited for something to go wrong.
 
The first thing to go wrong wasn't anything they'd accounted for. The Electronic Warfare suites of most of the CR-70 Corvettes that doubled as small carriers began to fall behind under a bombardment of advanced EWAR from the pirate stations. Any communication with them was lost in static and noise as the personnel frantically tried to break through the enemy jamming.
 
And so, the first casualties of the Confederacy's anti-piracy operations against the shadow systems controlled by the Hutts weren't their Starfighter pilots or the crews of the Cruisers or Battleships. But the Corvettes and smaller support vessels. 
 
The Confederacy had invested a great deal of money into acquiring and modernizing the ships that made up their navy. The vessels that were manufactured and refurbished by Rendilli were indeed state-of-the-art masterpieces that would stand in the future for at least a few years. However, not all of the Confederacy's Navy was built by Rendili. Despite the solid reputation of Corellian manufacturing, they refused to supply the Confederacy with upgraded EWAR and targeting suites. Requiring the CIS to source them from manufacturers that were simply not entirely up to the task of the more prominent manufacturers. 
 
Later, these smaller shipyards and companies would be some of the best in the entire Galaxy due to them eating the cost of their mistakes, engineering new EWAR suites, and targeting computers that were the best in the business, along with high-quality Corvettes and other support craft. 
 
But that wasn't today. Today, the Confederacy Navy paid a steep price for a lesson they thought they'd already learned. 
 
"Have our Pocket-carriers pull back." Landkai ordered.
 
"Sir, we're transmitting, but there's no response," the comms officer said, shaking his head. "Either they can't hear us or our primary transmitter was damaged in the salvo we took from that old Cruiser."
 
"Transmitter's working just fine!" The Damage Control Officer reported. "The problem isn't on our end; our shields are still holding at sixty percent, and we've only got a bit of hull scarring from that last exchange of fire."
 
"We're also not receiving any transmissions from them, Admiral. But we are managing to get through interference to a few squadrons of Starfighters."
 
"Have the Starfighters we held back move in to protect the CR-70s and other support craft," Landkai ordered as he watched two of the red dots on his holotable fade. 
 
The fighters moved in, and the furball grew. Snub nose fighters and other smaller craft darted around the larger ships, narrowly evading the large weapons as they exchanged broadsides of turbolasers and concussion missiles. 
 
One pirate ship went out in a blaze of glory, its engines pushing it into and through the broken shields of one CR-70, breaking it apart before the two collided with a third and spun off into close orbit of the planet below.
 
A squadron of bombers evaded pirate interceptors and began a run on one of the few capital ships in the system. Their payload struck the ancient cruiser as its shields fell, causing secondary explosions to ripple through the ship.
 
And amid all this chaos, a handful of ships began what was the most daring part of this operation. These ships had been loaded with boarding craft, gunships, and their escorts instead of starfighters, and seeing their opportunity, they began to launch.
 
The Boarding craft began to head for the hangers of the nearby space stations. Where they couldn't find a hanger, they impacted the side and cut their way through, sealing the holes behind them as they began to clear out the stations. 
 
These Marines cut a bloody swath through the pirates that remained on board, stunning those that they caught by surprise and shackling them with the cuffs they liberated from the pirate's own stores before stepping over the dead and continuing through the station. Wounded Marines were left behind with medics to cover the prisoners and begin rendering aid to freed slaves. 
 
Satele stepped into this chaos, her Mithril shielding her as she followed Frank and the rest of her squad into the station. The Force screamed around her. The dead and dying were one voice in the noise, but the worst was the lingering suffering of the tortured and damned who had been slaves or tortured here for year after year. 
 
"Hold," Frank grabbed her shoulder and held her back as their point man stacked up on the nearest door. "Get in position. We do this by the numbers so none of us gets more holes than we came with today."
 
"Yessir," Satele dry swallowed and released her firm hold on the Force, allowing the emotion around her to fade into the background. "I'm solid."
 
"If you need to sit this one out, just let me know," Frank said, opening a private channel for her.I read the briefings on these powers you've got, and I know the Empathetic connection is probably screaming in your head right now."
 
"I've got it under control," Satele replied, her voice firm. "I just needed a minute to process everything."
 
"Then we push," Frank nodded at their engineer, gesturing for him to hit the door controls. "Let's move it, Marines! We get paid by the job, not the hour!"
-----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
Chapter 2-18