The Rebel Faction

The earth shook as the durasteel blast doors ripped open from the explosives. Most observers would only see dust; Dust from the ground, from the doors, from the floors. But the Kashan troops saw everything perfectly clear through their helmets, courtesy of the image filtering system.

With the door in ruins, Second Lieutenant Fuller led the Kashan charge through the now-blasted doorway. The dust had engulfed that room as well, leaving its occupants incapacitated, gasping for air in the dust storm. Kashan troopers had little difficulty with the dust due to their breathing filters. Thus, the Coalition men overwhelmed with their opponents. As the dust settled to the ground, the troopers gathered up the paramilitary guards, but also a few of the clones in the orange prison suits. Fuller paused for a second as his comlink went off from Jon.

“Yes Theta Four? Very good. Bring him over to me. We have things to discuss. Fuller out.”

“Captain, several superfreighters have entered the system.”

Corise’s eyes narrowed. On any system with a populace numbering in the thousands, the Kashan man would have barely noticed their arrival. But several superfreighters of that size arriving at Genon was another thing altogether. First, at its zenith, Genon had a sentinent population that only ranged in the hundreds; for supply reasons, the most it would take would be a single superfreighter, not three. The presence of three of those freighters suggested that there was more to the planet that met the eye and the last Coalition intelligence reports. As well, the only freighters visiting Genon would be for its populace, which consisted solely of criminals. Thus, Corise could assume that the freighters were aligned with a criminal faction of some sort.

“That’s not right. Flight Control, redirect a squadron of Deathsabers to do a quick flyby and see if they can find anything about those freighters,” ordered Corise, “Communications, signal Task Force Seraph that they’re needed here now. Tell them that we need their troops to conduct a boarding operation to make sure that the freighters are legit.”

The Kashan commodore’s planning based on Coalition intelligence suggested that he only needed a few cruisers to mop up the planet. Particularly because he didn’t want to attract any more attention, he had coordinated the effort to clean Genon with the main Coalition military, thus the use of the Haven-class Light Cruisers as the main fleet. However, most military commanders knew that not everything went as planned, thus, it was always a good idea to have a back-up plan. Thus, he had had Task Force Seraph, consisting of the Seraph Mk II-class cruisers, stationed just outside the system. Now, courtesy of their x0.6 hyperdrives, the cruisers would be arriving in a manner of minutes.

“Open up a communications line with those freighters.”

The comms officer nodded.

“Unidentified freighters, you are now operating in a restricted area. Heave to and power down immediately for inspection. If you move at all, we will consider it to be an act of war. Declare your intentions immediately.”

Corise turned to the weapons officer. “Power up all weapons and train them on their bridges. Let’s let them know that we’re serious about it.”

An officer handed him a datapad…

"Realspace reversion in six... five... four... three... two... one... zero..." the automated countdown spoke over the comm.

Outside, the blue fires of Hyperspace dissipated around the Vendetta-class Battle cruiser Gorgon and her two identical companions, the Basilisk and Manticor.

"Make sure the Deceiver shield masker is up," Green ordered the bustling bridge crew of mercenary aliens surrounding him, "Make sure all our weapons are also withdrawn into the hull."

"They are as you said," the ships captain replied, a male Twi'lek who hunched over in front of Green as if he was beaten regularly. His voice was tainted with fear of the man who he knew could have him killed at any time.

Of course, Green wouldn't do that. He wasn't quite that cruel, though he'd killed his fare share of gutter scum, and more importantly, Mesh was a good Captain who knew and used all of his ships strengths and weaknesses.

That's Twi'leks for you, Green thought to himself, More scared than sensible.

With a screech, the bridge Klaxons began wailing, and a red signal light began glowing.

"Sir," one of the sensor technicians shouted out to him, "Bogey's ahead!"

Looking up at the status monitor in the bridges center, he could see a trio of ships, tags identifying them as light cruisers. They were colored gray, meaning they were unidentified. Around the planet, pulling away from the three Super freighters and the unidentified ships were dozens of tiny gold dots, freighters and shuttles belonging to third, neutral parties.

"Identify those ships at once, I want to know what we're facing!" he called out to the three techs in the forward crew pit.

"It's coming in now, sir," one called back, an Aqualish female. "Those ships are so old that the computer stuck them way back on the identify priority list and..."

"Spare me the lecture," he shouted at her, "Just tell me what they are!"

"Of course, sir. They're Haven-class light cruisers, broadcasting as Coalition ships."

"So they want to get involved with Black Sun, well, we'll show them. Get the Star Vipers and Blastboats ready to launch, double check the shield maskers are up and showing them only normal strength shields, we don't want them to know just how strong they are, and that the VIGO is fully deployed, we don't want them to see all the weapons that have been packed into this thing. And get me a visual line to their commander. I want to speak to him face to face."

"Yes sir," a Rodian communication specialist told him, "You have your line to him now."

In the center of the bridge, a blue figure appeared across from the Vendettas own visual transmission pad. The man was about average size for a human, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but when Green stood up on the Vendettas pad it was clear that in a fight Green would have no problem taking him on. A six foot four block of solid muscle, he could pulverize the man without working up a sweat. But to make sure his opponent wasn't intimidated he hunched down a little and bent his spine over, making him look submissive.

"Captain Abel Quiller of the Xizor Transport Systems Superfreighter AA-798 Vertigo at your service, Mr..."

"Lucerne," Green's contemporary spoke.

From the comm station behind them came a booming voice, "Unidentified freighters, you are now operating in a restricted area. Heave to and power down immediately for inspection. If you move at all, we will consider it to be an act of war. Declare your intentions immediately. Repeating..."

"We will move next to your fleet and power down for inspection, but I do request that you make it quick. I have to deliver my load of droids to my client as soon as possible, as waiting will not make him a very happy customer."

Slowly, the mammoth disguised warships came to a halt next to the three Havens.

"The forward hanger bay is ready to receive your inspectors, Mr. Lucerne, your boarding party is free to come aboard immediately. I will have a reception committee consisting of my Commander and aids meet your men there."

"Very good. Your assistance will be remembered in the future." The image disappeared as the man severed the line.

"Sir," one of the aids called, we've found something you'll want to know about. Our sensor suits have detected very faint ion trails. They disperse rapidly, but they're definitely there. Probably a byproduct of some cloaked ship."

"Probably the remains of some long dispersed Nebula or freighters drive trails."

"No sir, they're definitely being created as we speak. A piece of space is empty one second and the next the trail appears there as the ship passes through."

"Alright. Can our Starfighters detect the trails?"

"Yes sir, but since their sensor suits are less powerful they can only detect them in one swath of space at a time."

"Alright, here's what I want you to do. I want you to set up a data transfer line between our ships sensors and our fighters and blastboats sensors. That way..."

"Yes sir, that way they'll have the locations on all the targets around them."

She looked down at her console, clicked a few things on the touch screen, then typed something in. "It's done sir, the sensor link."

"Good. Now just sit back and get ready for war."

"Mesh," Green said, addressing the Gorgon's captain, "Undeploy the VIGO system, and launch fighters. Also, better call in a pair of backup cruisers."

"Of course, my liege," he replied, glaring at a trio of lieutenants who had heard Green's orders. They bustled off and began shouting orders to the respective sections they commanded.

It took seven seconds for the highly encrypted transmission to be sent to call in a pair of Cruisers.

It took twelve seconds for the first of the three Vendettas total of 144 fighters to begin launching, though Mesh only planned on launching half of them.

It took ten seconds for the VIGO system to finish deploying and the Military-Grade Reactor to come online.

Ah, Green thought to himself, If only I could see the look on Mr. Lucerne's face right now. Watching a trio of lightly armed Super freighters transform into a trio of heavily armed warships.

Green knew he had caught his enemy off guard, but this advantage would only last for a moment. But he wasn't one who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of an opportunity. His personal philosophy of taking advantage of situations was the same a an ancient phrase from our old time line written by Sun Tzu, Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

"Open Fire!" he shouted, his eyes bloodshot with fury.

And suddenly a whithering hail of fire tore out from the Gorgon, Basilisk, and Mantacors combined 264 Turbo lasers and Ion Cannons, a salvo of twenty Proton Torpedoes hot on their tails. At the same time, their 126 Heavy lasers began opening up on the formation of nearly invisible fighters and the recently disembarked shuttles.

"Oh, we'll be happy to help you, Mr. Lucerne," Green spoke softly to himself, but his voice full of fury. "Help you die. You, and your crew, and your damned takeover of Genon. You will regret the day to trifled with the Black Sun."

Seeing the Superfreighters suddenly transform into a trio of Battleships, the Havens began to power up their drives and charge away. They would only be within the Vendettas 50 Kilometer range for about fifteen seconds, but that was far more than enough. Horribly outgunned, the Havens probably couldn't last even that long.

Not even stopping to launch a salvo of turbolasers at the Black Sun ships, which would drain power from their drives, they began tearing away from the Battlecruisers. At the same time, Starviper Assault Starfighters began to launch from the Vendettas hangers, ready to pursue the enemy flotilla if called to.

The Vendettas fired at the Havens again and again. About thirty kilometers out, one Haven, a battered one that had doubtlessly seen many battles, lost all its shield power and had it's drives destroyed right out from under it. Using it's remaining momentum, it managed to reach the rear of the Seraphs lines before braking.

Against all odds the other two Havens, including the leaders, managed to reach the newly arrived Coalition ships.

But other than the brief thought that gave him the idea and had him order his crew to pick up damaged enemy fighters, Green didn't have much time to think about that.

He was concentraiting on a formation of blips approaching his ships in hyperspace.

The thing about ships in hyperspace is that they can't just jump right to their targets, they have to exit hyperspace outside a gravity well or they'll be destroyed by their targets mass shadow or, if in planetary orbit, the mass shadow of the planet.

This also applies to hyper drive equipped missiles.

They left hyperspace approximately six kilometers from the Vendettas.

With the Manticor behind the Basilisk from their angle of approach, only fire from the Basilisk and Gorgons weaponry could hit the incoming Starflares. And with the threat finally in realspace, they opened fire. Heavy laser and Medium Turbolaser bolts shot out towards the thirty six missiles, some striking home but many not. As they flew through the dogfight, several Starvipers pulled onto their tails and began firing on them as well, blowing many apart with shots to their unarmored aft side.

Approximately six managed to reach the one kilometer mark.

Here they were met by laser cannon fire from reserve batteries at nearly point blank range, as well as flak shots from Turbolasers. It was a whithering hail of fire, and even with their heavily reinforced nose only one managed to slip through- one of the Electrocrystal tipped ones. It smashed into the shields, tearing them down but not managing to slip through them.

But Greens mind had already turned away from that threat. The shields would recharge, until then he'd be fine. He was now concentraiting on the formation two hundred kilometers away.