The Rebel Faction

"Sir." sait a lieutenant cutting a sharp salute to Isip, the temporary commander of the Mon Calamari spearhead. As Ruuvan, the actual commander, was not quite yet back from planning strategy with Panacka, it had been Isip's job to marshall forces and prepare the region for war. Hardly a difficult job - in the middle of many wars in recent history, Mon Calamari was well-practiced in defending itself. Isip looked up, with a look of curiosity.

"Sir, we're recieving strange communications signals - and it appears we've sighted an enemy detatchment moving slowly towards the planet."

Isip straightened up, and with practiced calm said "Put all units on alert. Launch our fighters, then raise our shields. Power up weapons, load rockets, prepare planetary weapons. Evacuate the civilian population in orbit per standard protocol, and arm all station-bound weaponry. I want the shipyards locked down and all defences they possess activated."

He left the table he'd been working at and approached the command chair of the Dominator he was aboard. "Prepare our first volley, and pick targets. They haven't sent us a comm yet?"

"No, sir. Many of the ships are unidentified and unknown - one near the back especially. There are strange mouths on some of the bulkier ships near the middle, whatever they are they sucked up matter around them on the way in."

Isip judged this for a moment, and said "I have been briefed on an enemy bio-weapon, but our intelligence is limited, to say the least. The environment of Mon calamari could easily be compromised if they're carrying a biological agent..."

He kept thinking, wondering if he should give the order to attack or to stay his hand.

"They appear to be opening some kind of communications, sir."

Against his better judgement, Isip sighed. "Hold your fire. All gunners are to pick and lock their targets - especially the mysterious new enemy ships. Advance to block their route, and hail them. Tell them if they don't immediately stand down and guarentee this is no military endeavour, we will destroy them. Utterly. And... raise the planetary shield."

He sat back into his chair, and got comfortable as the crew around him rapped out precise orders. The knight sighed, wishing to charge and strike down his enemies, but there was something off. This couldn't be an enemy offensive, could it? A force so small? If he was wrong, however...

In a few seconds, he would open fire. They had that long to convince him not to.

Isip thought deeply before he spoke again, the bridge crew waiting in slience for his order. "I do believe, that in a time of war, an armed enemy force declaring the annexation of your world to be military action. As such, the appropriate response is resistance. Lieutenant?"

The ship's lieutenant-captain quickly stepped up "Yes, sir?"

"Lieutenant, now this is critical. I'm going to step down for a moment, giving you command of the ship. As you are a citizen of Mon Calamari of the highest rank on this ship, it is in your hands wether to reject or accept this move on the part of the Imperium, and what action to take."

With that, Isip stepped down from his command chair. "The ship is yours."

The lieutenant was clearly worried, and looked to the faces of his fellow crew. None seemed sure on what to do next. Finally, the lieutenant sighed, and took up the comm.

"Imperium forces... this is lieutenant Tantalus of the Mon Calamari Fleet. You have no authority to force us to submit to your rule, and we won't accept any annexation or loss of our democratic rights and identity. In a time of war, and after the blatantly aggresive actions over Teth, this is unacceptable. Leave immediately, and we promise to stop firing."

With that, he put down the comm and nodded "Prepare to engage - fire the first volley, Ions only, then reload and give them everything we've got! If they haven't turned around by then, we'll wipe them out." The leiutenant turned to Isip, waiting for his reaction.

Isip laughed, and smiled. "Just the answer I wanted to hear. You heard the man, open fire!"

The Coalition armada advanced towards the Black Dragons eagerly - the first concentrated volley sending every Ion discharging weapon they had. Some of the faster Sword line of ships (Claymores, Longswords, Kris) quickly overtook the pack, bearing down on the Black Dragons. The effect was like the release of an hourglass, eagerly charging down from their places in the organization.

"Remain staggered." said Isip "We don't need any crashes."

The Coalition fleet spread out a little, prepared to envelope the Black Dragons if they didn't leave right now.

The fleet stopped, puzzled.

Isip shook his head "Of all the underhanded shit. They're pulling a heat-tug on us. No ship blows up to Ion weapons, but by blowing up one of their own it looks like we're here to massacare them all. All right, well, damage done. Screw it, we'll just bring down the transports."

With that, the Coalition ships advanced towards the transports. The speedy Longswords were first to come into range, closing the distance to firing range with surprising speed for their enemy. With one last confirming nod from Isip, the order went through and the Projectors fired with a flash of light.

With the transports destabalized and the gates collapsed, the Coalition once again asserted full control of the system. Isip sighed. "Keep everything on lockdown for another hour or so, just to be sure. We'll stay on alert - it looks like Ruuvan's even on his way insystem. Great... Might as well tell him now.


Ruuvan listened to the situation as his shuttle made the quick dash back to the fleet. He rolled his eyes, and said "Low blow - at least this should dispell any doubts in our men. Such a blatantly obvious trick in front of the whole fleet? There'll be no doubts we face the honourless." He rubbed his chin "However... there is a way we can neutralize this. Take this down, and send it to our Minister of Ethics. He'll hate it, but I know he'll agree. Oh, and send him a full report and holos with it, just so he knows we're telling the truth.

"Now take this down..."

Upon Ruuvan's arrival, the Knight had ordered that the Coalition armada be divided, and a part advanced towards the direction of their enemy. He had read of Black Dragon tactics and knew the measure of their skill, and knew that they relied too greatly on their technology and bore too highly on their granted abilities.

It would not take long for him to devise a grand trap, making use of the time afforded to the defender, and also in guessing the psychology of the attacker. “The Black Dragons are proud, and impatient. That is why their society does everything instantly - they travel instantly, speak instantly, and move instantly. They will not wait long to launch an attack, and shall rely on their technology to triumph over us. This we can stop, if we act quickly.”

In the intervening time between the destruction of enemy transports, the scouts of the Mon Calamari fleet had been scattered about while the fleet cleared wreckage and resupplied. The Stealth Intruders were as invisible eyes connected together by the sight of the Sinew deployed with the fleet.

It had been one of those eyes of the Coalition that had spotted the Arbiter - for it had flown directly in line and away with the transports that the Coalition had hunted. The Intruder had shadowed its' target for some time - firstly by itself, then later followed by a good portion of the armada, which wished to see what the enemy's plans were. This force stayed back, letting the invisible Stealth Intruder be their eyes, so that the enemy had no inkling of the pursuit.

The pursuit was hours long, and boredom grew in the ranks. Thrice, Isip recommended that they fall upon the Arbiter and tear it to pieces, or capture it for their own use. Finally, the Intruder reported that the Arbiter had vanished in a portal, and could not be pursued.

For a moment, there was discussion about what was to be done. Isip, being warlike, suggested that they should pursue the plans of Captain Panacka post-haste, and depart for their target. He railed at the hours lost. Ruuvan, however, was of a more tactical mind, and knew that once roused the Dragon was quick to act. He instead called that the site be monitored, and the portion of fast vessels he had brought in pursuit to watch over the site, while the larger vessels remain around Mon Calamari for safety, and to maintain their combat readiness.

This turned out to be the correct decision, for it was not long before the portal reopened, in the same place, and another enemy vessel rose from it, to stabilize the portal. Isip demanded that they instantly open fire, but Ruuvan stayed his hand - the first move was feeble propaganda, the second would be genuine violence, and he wished a chance to catch a larger prey in the trap. Instead, he ordered that the Stealth Intruder keep its’ position close to the Arbiter, and await their orders. It was a grand gamble indeed.

The Coalition’s rapid forces instead circled far around the enemy, plotting a course with the aide of information from the Intruder to split up and be on either side of where they were deploying. Isip first called for the death of the arbiter, to halt the enemy force, but Ruuvan told him no, they would wait for a greater target. As the Deathgliders poured forth, Isip almost pleaded that they be allowed to begin the attack, but Ruuvan still told him no. Enemy vessels poured from the rift, and Isip came to fury, demanding that they take action, but his fellow Knight was calm and controlled.

Finally, with a great ominousness, there came the tip of something grand. A vast enemy warship began poking through the rift, and this Ruuvan knew would be their command ship.

Finally, with a shout of “Now!” did the Coalition fleet spring their trap. The Stealth Intruder was no mighty warrior, but against a foe a mere seven meters long there was no chance of failure. Missiles and laserfire tore into the tiny ship, and for good measure the stealth Intruder smacked it off its’ axis in its’ panicked escape. The Arbiter’s machinery broke, and destabilized the sensitive rift.

To play with the laws of existence as if they are your toys carries increasing risk - should your combustion engine fail, you may be stranded. Should your plane fail, you will crash. Should your space-vessel fail, you will freeze, or suffocate, or burn up on reentry - or all three. Apparently, however, should your portal be destabalized you'll be just fine.

"Well... shit." said Ruuvan "And I thought that was going to look so cool, too. Oh well."

Ships descended from both sides, the rapid Swords launching volleys of deadly Projector fire that turned the startled enemy fleet into a crossfire of massive boulder-like ammunition - ships were struck from different directions and crushed, or torn in two.

Upon the bridge of the Warlord, the Claymore Battlecruiser where Isip and Ruuvan stood, Isip shook his head. "Smooth move, fishface. I told you we should have just started shooting."

"Yeah, yeah, Mr. Smarty pants. Let's just kill them and get on with it." He turned to his bridge officers, saying “We shall not hold this position long, so have the Sinew initiate jamming of enemy communications, while sending orders back to our main base at Mon Calamari - have met the enemy, prepare to engage. We'll make some passes and fall back before they can rally.”

As he finished speaking, he watched curiously on the main viewer as a Kessel picketship listed to one side, a glowing field of debries floating out from the side of its hull. Not to remain in wonder for much longer, a pair of fightercraft passed by the display sensors of his upper hull, a configuration he had yet unseen, and certainly not in the previous war. Unloading a turrent of fire against his vessel, they peeled off and made another run on another vessel in formation leaving red and green pillows of energy in their path. The shields, also unseen in the last war, radiated these colors representing their multiple layers. An upper layer absorbed the initial energy blasts of the weapons while a secondary inner layer took in the force of their cuncussive blasts.

Connecting into the communications systems, he found them cloged with inquries of other bridge staff, attempting to follow the same course of action already determined by him. The clog was being caused by an outside source, he could feel it as he interfaced with the communications sensory subsystem, normally used to detect frequencies and wavelengths of incoming transmissions to send/recieve back on. The space in the system, and in a sphere retreating back into it was aghast with false computer transmissions and false static chatter, designed to overload area communications and otherwise stop ships from communicating with one another.

On the screen before him he saw the single drifting Kessel being left behind, as the line of Kutters and pickets slowly pushed their way forwards, following a distant formation of capital vessels retreating back into formation with the other ships raiding the Dragons formation. Across the board he detected weapons fire, the infamous H7's keeping the distance with the range of the vessels, the infamous ability of the Farfalen ships turbolaser systems to both target and destroy vessels at long range was the very reason they were being employed in this operation, he was glad to see that they were at least operating given the inability to send or recieve orders. He could only hope their commanders were intelligent enough to aim at the engines of the ships, infamously the weakest portions of a ships sheilds among vessels whos sublight engines were based on Ion propulsion.

The rest of the Tion fleet hung lifeless in space, acting on the last orders given before transmissions had been cut. Deathgliders holding the line at the front of the fleet, but the Farfalen units quickly made their way around them as they kept pace with the retreating hostile capital vessels. Closing his eyes, he felt out his way through the Intelligence Web, touching the backup command Mysteri aboard every ship in his vacinity that had them. All vessels recieving, direct all weapons batteries in forward and verticle trajectories and prepare for a single combined salvo of fire at my command, he thought to through the web to all recieving tion vessels, Immediatly after firing shut down ALL sensors systems and subsystems until further command.

Looking up at the front viewer once again, he watched as the fighters playing havoc on his fleet moved across the front of the Dread, laying a frightening cover of fire over its less than protective shielding. A Slight glow emited from its impacts, the lesser technologies incorporated into it barely withstanding the newer more able weapons of the hostile fighters. Arching up into the space before them, they made their way out in front of the fleet, moving to either attack the Farfalen units or retreat all together.

FIRE!

In a matter of seconds the space in front of the fleet was a vast array of color as weapons of various type and description rotated across their arcs to cover the entirety of trajectories prescribed by command, as the last of the cannons died down, he could make out the remains of portions of what seemed to be fighter craft sized vessels and knew them to not be deathgliders. He smirked to himself as the viewscreen went black and all his sensory data from outside the ship died.