The Rebel Faction

"Nellos can you get any readings on those strange missiles?" An aging pilot asked from the cockpit of his Tie fighter.

"Negative Sir. They're too far out of range for my scanners to get a lock."

"Okay I'm gonna try and get a closer look, that one on vector oh-seven nine five seems relatively unguarded. Keep an eye on my back."

Twisting his Tie in rapid movements the commanding officer shot in the direction he had pointed out. His nimble craft sped in and out of stray lare fire, dodged wild bolts, swept aside, under, and in and out of battle debris. As he approached the torpedo like craft one of the strange enemy fighters picked up his tail.

" I've got one on me. Where the hell is my support Nellos?" The pilot screamed into his comm unit as the enemy ship veered left and right, somehow managing to stay in constant alinement with his own movements. Infront of his view a half burned out Tie corpse and two of the still unrecognized enemy fighters swept in from the left. It would take some pretty precise flying but nothing he couldn't handle. Twisting his ship completely to the right he allowed it to fall into a roll, constantly making sure his path to the debris was correct. As he closed in just barely three metres from the junk he pulled out of his spin and sped as close to the burned out ship as possible. He swept as close underneath it as he could and then swung straight up. The following craft was quick on the uptake and came very close to following the Tie straight behind it. Had it not been for the surprise the Tie pilot had left behind he would have n doubt been sucessfull in following. As the enemy flew underneath the bulk of what had once been a Tie cockpit, the proton charge that the Tie had left behind erupted. It's explosion rocked the craft, sending what litle was left of the cockpit smashing through the front of the enemies craft. The resulting explosion tore both the pilot ad his ship apart and left the Tie free to close in on it's prey.

What the...? The commander thought as he surveyed the approaching torpedo like thing.

"I've got both a visual and scanner lock on the weapon now. But I don't think it's a weapon at all. I'm picking up life sign readings. Possibly an escape pod? Wait a minute, I'm getting a reading on some kind of tool at the nazel end of the craft. It's a mining weapon of some........ALL CRAFT CONVERGE ON THE UNIDENTIFIED SHIPS!!! I REPEAT ALL CRAFT CONVERGE ON THE UNIDENTIFIED SHIPS!!! They sure ain't escape pods. They're gonna use them to breach the hull and gain access. Take out as many as you can."

The commander twisted hios ship around and begun firing laser after laser into the hull breaker. It was only a matter of seconds before the people inside opened up their mining lasers and ripped his craft in two.

* * * *

The Deforen shook tremendously as the oddly shaped ships penetrated its hull in quick successions. Everytime a new craft tore through the ships outer hull at least another ten men were sucked into the endless vacuum of space. Countless technicians, mechanics, scientists and even Seshian engineers grabbed hold of whatever they could, desperatley gasping for air as it was taken from the ship. Door like hatches begun to swing open on the crafts that had so easily broken through the reinforced shields, from them emerged soilder after soilder. All members of the enemy that the Imperials had yet to even identify.

Through sheer weight of numbers and due to the unexpected brunt of this attack the Imperial troops were driven back into mad frenzys of chaos and destruction. Bodies littered the floor to the point where the polished silver surface could no longer be seen. Men, women, Seshians and species that some of the troopers could not even fathom began to attack each other in fierce waves. The Deforen had been breached by a powerful enemy, and in their wake they had left only one gift. Countless deaths.

* * * *

On the bridge of his Star Destroyer, Cas's rage knew no bounds. Data pads flew through the air. Troopers recived orders shouten at them from bare centimetre's away. Four people had already paid with their lives for their insolence of not informing the Grand Admiral the danger of those blasted torpedo wanna be's.

"Get all interior shields up and running now. I want the birdge sealed off from the rest of the ship. All decks are to be completely isolated. No one is to be able to leave their deck," the Grand Admral bellowed his orders so loudly that five crew members physically jumped. Cas turned to regard the two lines of thirty Seshian troops. Get down to the lower decks before anyone has a chance to shut off your access. Leave nothing alive down there. Nothing!!!"

The Grand Admiral could suddenelly feel that all eyes were no longer on him. He turned in the general direction that everyone appeared to be gazing. To his mild surprise he saw the trooper he had already ordered to begin work to the bring the lower half of the ship into order was not getting on with his commands.

"Crewer I have gave you an order. Start working on it......Comply now!!" For the first time since noticing him, the Grand Admiral looked closely at the young man's eyes. They were not returning the stare as any unafraid Imperial should, but staring past him. They stared to a point on the wall so precise it would need to be scaled a million times over just to come close to what the crewers eyes saw. They looked further than that. They looked through the twisted metal and space debris, focusing tightly on points in space that the living would never be able to comprehend. The man's body suddenelly slumped forwards. In the upper right of the back half of his body a small knife wound spread eager blood like ruby red droplets in a waterfall. The Seshian behind where the trooper had been sat wore a smile of great pleasure. From behind Cas a long and harsh sound of cackling begun. Cas slowly turned to see Captain Kerld approaching him. A mad look in his eyes.

"All Boarding Torpedoes have uploaded their compliments, sir!" Shouted an eager lieutenant on the bridge of the Quadratic. "We're getting reports of close-quarter fighting - looks like there's some sort of mutiny going on, sir!"

"A mutiny?" murmured Panacka "That complicates things. Order our men to try and identify which 'side' is mutineering, and toggle them as friendlies - for now. As for us, I want full space superiority - get in their face, already! Focus our batteries on the enemy fighters to make sure nothing escapes, and have the fighters regroup near our hangars for safe-keeping."

Panacka knew, though, that the space battle was already won. The Ties were outnumbered and outgunned. Even now, as the battlegroup advanced and the Kris fighters regrouped, it was obvious the Coalition had the edge. As for the enemy star destroyer, the chaos internally meant that it was effectively dead in space - even the guns were beginning to fall silent, and it certainly wasn't responding to their attacks any more. It was only a matter of waiting for the boarding crew to do their job.

On board, though, there was still a lot more fighting. Sergant Cy shouted orders to her squad as they advanced up the path to the bridge. "You got the orders from command, don't fire on the... alien things... so long as they don't fire on us. Besides that, though, fire on anything that moves!"

Squads like hers were scattered all throughout the ship, each targetting a different vital system - power, thrusters, weapon control - but Cy and her squad had a slightly more difficult target, the commander of this whole flying deathtrap.

The squad found the corridor they moved up mostly abandoned, however - evacauted. Blocking their way to the turbolift up the bridge, though, was something more.

"Internal shielding and blast doors..." murmured Cy "Well, we know how to take care of this! Corporal!"

"Yes mam!"

"Tear down this wall!"

"Yes mam!"

The corporal set demolition charges along the nearby wall, as the rest of the squad ducked for cover. As he too leapt behind a nearby wall, the charges ignited, tearing through the corridor and leaving the entire area in disarray - and the door in tatters. Internal armour was always much less then the plating on the outside of a cruiser.

"Squad, prepare to assault the bridge!" Cy checked her rifle was loaded - this was where things would get... interesting.

Panacka let loose a violent barrage of cursing as the Star Destroyer became a streak of light "We weren't fast enough! We were so close, a couple more minutes and our men would have disabled their hyperdrive! Damn it!"

He immeadietly returned to his command chair, calmed himself, and began giving concise orders again. "I want a comm message to the planetary population sent, tell them the Coalition is in pursuit of their attackers. In the mean-time, kill off the last of their fighters, then drop shields and recall our Kris fighters so we can make the jump to light-speed. Did they make any effort to mask their destination?"

"None, sir." said the scanner-officer confidently "They left a very clear 'trail' to follow, we have their coordinates."

"Good. Have all crew take this chance to attend to any damage, wounded, or other problems - in fact, make sure we tractor-beam any survivors or crippled fighters before we continue our pursuit."

"What about the men already on-board the enemy starship, sir?" said the Tac-Ops officer anxiously. "They're out of communications range."

"They can handle themselves, don't worry."

The Quadratic blasted through hyperspace, keeping in tight pursuit to it's quary and tearing through the fabric of reality to once again appear behind the Imperial vessel.

Panacka stood gobsmacked at what unfolded before his eyes - what sat right before his eyes. As soon as possible, though, he snapped back into action. "All power to the engines! Evacuate the front and upper decks and brace for potential collision! We're going to cut them off, goddamn it!"

The Quadratic was fast, easily twice as fast as it's opponant, but it might not have been enough were it not for a Coalition assault squad finally reaching the main thruster compartment onboard the enemy ship.

Standing knee-deep in burnt corpses, former Imperials who had not been partial to surrender, sargent Kakar chomped on the end of a cigarra as his squad-mates ran for cover. He grinned as they ran past, and said "What's the matter, never seen a pack of detonators go off in a ship's thrusters? It's quite a sight, trust me!"

At that moment, they blew, and the thruster shrieked and became a twisted melted mass of metal. In space, the effect was as simple as one light going out in the back of the Star destroyer, but for sergant Kakar, it was indeed quite a sight indeed.

Closer to the bridge, Cy cursed and leant out of the way of another barrage of lasers being spat down from below by fanatical defenders. She didn't have time for this.

"Give me that thing." she barked to a trooper, who promptly handed over the unit's one piece of heavy weaponry, a proper rocket launcher. "Now hold here." she said, and - somewhat awkwardly - the soldier held her firmly by the belt as she suddenly leant out into the shaft and launched a rocket straight into the floor the defenders were standing on.

On the bridge's main floor, just outside the doors of the bridge itself, defenders backed away as rubble and smoke filled the corridor. All was silent, except for the slightest hint of sound that resembled a cord being rolled up. Quite suprisingly, a line of Coalition troopers swung in on grapnels, crashing bodily into the defenders and causing confusion. More of the elite troopers followed in their wake as Cy beat a hapless sniper's head in and gathered her forces.

"Right" she spat "Time to get serious here. Prep for door breach."

Outside, Panacka sent a signal to all boarders about the impending intercept and possible collision. With the sudden gain in speed, it looked like the Quadratic just might cut off the Star Destroyer in time - but it would be close, oh so close.

Panacka realized just how insane an enemy he was dealing with "They're actually going to ram us - shit, reinforce shields! Evacuate ALL decks immeadietly on the impact zone. I want all of you to brace for impact and try and keep us centered so he'll hit where we want him to hit. Engineering - have all repair crews standing bye, we'll need them to keep from falling out of orbit!"

Panacka could only watch and grit his teeth as the enemy ship grew gargantuan in his sights. No amount of turbo-laser fire or ion blasts would slow them down now, and through gritted teeth he added "Prepare the escape pods - just in case."

On the ship, the fight was only getting more intense. Realizing the danger they were in, all Coalition assault teams - especially those in the nose of the ship - began charging through the ship to the bridge. Those few who were close enough to make it there in time to join the growing team outside the bridge doors ducked into cover as Cy gestured for everyone to get down. Pushing a plunger and closing her eyes, permacrete charges went off all along the frame of the blast-door and filled the area with sparks, smoke, and rubble.

Immeadietly, two men near the door threw flash-bang grenades, and as the sonic noise came crashing out more then two dozen Coalition troopers went storming in, through a cloud of smoke a spraying fire in a short and brutal exchange before the all-out melee began.

Drawing her sword and pistol, Cy lunged through the dispersing clouds and sunk her blade up to the hilt through a stormtrooper's chest-plate. All around, soldiers fought tooth and nail in front of a window showcasing a terrifying view of the Quadratic as it grew larger and closer. She lifted her sword from her enemy's chest, pointed it at the enemy commander who stood at the far wall, and said nothing as the most vital battle of the day began.