The Rebel Faction

Prime Fleet - Argoth


"You see here.. it looks like the hangers took the brunt of the explosion but the loss of vacuum burned the fires out really quickly."

"So no one burned to death.. which is bloody lucky for them." another commented.

"It did not contain biologics sir."

"Automated?"

"Fully. We've fired several ion charges to neutralize any stray power source to main systems and the techs have succeeded in removing the core."

"Excellent. I want this damn hunk of junk moving!"

"Aye Sir. Happy hunting General."

Ming merely grunted.


The essential transfers had finished and one Vicstar began to tractor the Argoth away from the planet angling the retreat in the direction of the planet's rotation to keep it out of range of any approaching planetary weapon.

The remaining Victory Star Destroyer moved around the mine field and began to also travel in the direction of the rotation so that there was no chance of a planetary weapon "coming up" onto their position. The others in low orbit followed suit, the advantage being that the fleet would also ensure they remained over a singular area of the planet at all times no matter the rotation.


Mon Calamari held not your usual array of cities. Those heavily populated and defended were hundreds of miles distant and yet under the sea, corral structures stretched forth.

With little surface landmass, one might wonder where Calamari received the numbers to man and arm their military units. The answer was, not from the suface area but from their natural living habitats within the reefs that stretched out farther than the collected areas of high defenses and techological groupings.


A small beam lanced out from the Victory Star Destroyer. A beam of some sort but not the traditional turbolaser weapon. All this beam did was heat an area of the water. It began to turn from cold, to cool, to warm... and eventually (theoretically) hot. This allowed time for any indigenous creatures to remove themselves from the warmer environment without harm.

Shuttles and fighters began to descend but circling only the area around the heating ocean water. The Imperials did not move out in any direction toward the defended areas.



A great many of the occupants in the shuttle held cylinders of some sort containing water and a floating.. live ..object.


A squid.


"Time to put those ecological nightmares back where they came from.." one muttered.




The probe crossed the systems outermost planet's orbit still in hyperspace.

Gradually, strike teams from each of the smaller Sovereignty craft reported in. The takeovers had gone smoothly for the most part, only one incident thus far, and that had been taken care of with a stun bolt.

Aboard the enemy Star Destroyer the men assigned to securing the main database were frantically working, trying to abort the data-purge in progress.

“Frack,” muttered one man. “I can't stop it here, it's coming from the bridge. Perhaps if I ...” and he began another approach, his fingers flying over a keyboard.

The other man, not quite so technically minded, had a different idea.

“Get back.” He said.

“Eh?” asked the first absentmindedly, as he tried to isolate the virus-like purge program.

His only response was the sound of a blaster firing.

“What the FRELL!” he yelped, jumping back. Ionized electricity jumped across the surface of the computer console. Another shot was fired, and then another.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” cried the programmer. “You're destroying the computer!”

“It'll reboot,” repleid the second man. “It's just ionized.”

“There's no guaranteeing that it's going to reboot, let alone reboot with all its data intact,” squeeked the programmer.

“They cold-boot xwings that have been ionized, I don't see how this is any different.”

“Apples and Oranges! You idiot, you've.....”

Their argument wasn't about to end.




Meanwhile, in two separate places over the water planet, two separate ships came to a hover over two separate faculties. One was completely above water, one almost completely below. Inside the one Stalker, men donned diving suites and prepped a small fast-attack submarine. Aboard another, a few assault speeders were warmed up, and men in attack gear checked their guns one last time.

"Why those little ingrates!" the Captain of the Victory Star Destroyer shouted as several missles launched from hand held launchers struck the underside of his ship.

The aliens had miscalculated just how low the Victory Star Destroyer was and fuel generated to propel the rockets against the planet's gravity soon dried up as they traveled higher and higher in their attempt to strike what they had been visually aimed at.

Still, some did make the climb, their trajectory allowing for least wind resistance and perhaps shorter travel time which accounted for that little bit extra that finally propelled the rocket into the shields of the VicStar.

"We take care not to harm their ecology and this is the thanks we get?!!" The Captain turned a savage eye to his gunners. Target those ... boats... and blow them out of the water! Have the fighters screen our landings and screen for more projectile weapons!"

The Captain cursed under his breath. General Ming wouldn't be too happy with this turn of events but there wasn't much choice.


The landing struts on the shuttles suddenly began to descend and as the beam remained constant, the steam from the oceans beginning to block visibility.

The struts entered the boiling water and touched the rough surface of something hard underneath the water. The shuttles underbelly touched the water and a cylinder began to lower from under the shuttle into the water until it, too, touched the rough surface of a shallow reef.

Other shuttles simply began to fan out away from enemy boats and away from the warmer water and began to drop tiny pods of their own.

Pods containing the squids that the Calamari and Azguards had brought to the water planet of Kamino. The fools never stopped to ask themselves how much ecological damage the insertion of this new life would have to the indigenous life of Kamino but then, that's why they would eventually lose.

Because they were fools.

So the Empire was returning what was theirs with interest.



*


The probe entered range of the Imperial Forces and an encrypted recognition code began to be sent out for General Ming.

In it, the probe held the details of the Corellian Attack and further orders for the General.

(OOC: I swear, I thought I posted in this)


The voice was fuzzy, the effects of the jamming from the outer atmosphere reaching even here. "On my mark..."

Outside of the Stalker Corvette the only evidence that the cloaked craft was there was the engine noise. Suddenly, a ripple appeared in the blue sky. Like a flame burning away a film of plastic, the Stalker decloaked directly above the surface of Mon Cal.

"Mark. Go Go Go Go!"

Twenty men hustled their way out, jumping and plummeting straight down toward the water below. On the opposite side of the craft a small shuttle-like submarine was ejected as well.

"Clear!"

There was a hum of a system engaging, and then the Stalker faded away into obscurity once again. Below in the water twenty men swam towards the submarine. It was just barely big enough to contain all of them.



On the other side of the planet, the same scene transpired in tandem. This time, however, twenty men ejected their Stalker in an armored speeder. Repulsorlifts screamed as they tried to compensate, and metal screeched in synthetic pain as the speeder was ejected from its mothership and performed a hairpin turn down, toward the faculty below.



"Diver One, this is Mother Squid. Do you read me?"

"Mother Squid, this is Diver One. We read you loud and clear."

"What is your status, Diver One?"

"Engines at 100% and staying level, shielding initialized at 95%, bore prepared and ready to run."

"Diver One, you may commence the operation."

At the command the submarine launched itself forward, its engines rapidly accelerating it to attack speed.




"Hover One, this is Mother Bird, how's the flying?"

"Mother Bird, the air is great today. We read you."

"What's your Status Hover One?"

"All systems at one-oh-oh. We are locked and loaded."

"Initialize at will, Hover One."

At the command the speeder pointed its nose at its target, a set of buildings, and accelerated.




dBale intently watched the holo display before him. Split down the middle, it displayed the status of both strike teams. A small display in the upper corner was relaying an often-fuzzy video from the nose cam of each speeder.

"Impact in twenty," said a very distorted voice. "Fifteen...Ten"

Ten seconds later the hardened nose on the submarine punctured the thick hull of a Mon Calamari R&D faculty. A door on the nose opened and the strike team poured out of the vessel into the lightly-guarded tech center.

"Move!"




A similar scene unfolded on the surface of the planet, this time however, it was in the air. The speeder flew in fast, heading straight towards the largest faculty. With an explosion of duracret and glass the hardened attack speeder burst through one of the upper levels, and the strike team inside poured out.

"Move!"




In space, the sovereignty fleet had been subdued completely. Each strike team checked in positive, the ships were all under control. All systems were slaved to dBale's command ship.

"... all data-cores have been hastily purged, Sir. We may be able to recover some data, but for the most part its been destroyed."

"Do what you can," said dBale. "Get all the necessary information."

The transmission was cut, and dBale turned to Gullage. "Status on the strike teams?"

"They're beginning operations."

Perrin's Sith Battlecruiser entered the area avoiding any left over mine fields.


The Attack Sphere was being towed out of the system and the Empire had gained control of the Mon Calamari sky.

The Capital of the Coalition was helpless below.

"Let them shuffle their soldiers around." the Sith muttered. "We can bombard them from orbit and reduce their oceans to desert."


*


Thousands of squids were being released back to the sea from which they came, the gesture holding a symbolic meaning, especially moreso given that the Empire was at TGC's capital world.



*


General Ming reread the transmission from the probe and let out a sigh.

It seemed the Empire was victorious around Corellia.

"But why send the imformation by probe and not holonet?" an underling asked.

The General barked out a laugh. "Because we are now leverage. As the negotiators were pounding out the terms, knowledge that their capital was under assault would force the Coalition to give in to more demands."

He turned grandly to his men. "The Empire wins on all fronts. Even diplomatic."


"Sir? Transmission from the planet."


"Let's hear it."


New Order forces. Our two governments have reached a peace treaty at the planet of Corellia. I know a message pod has just reached you, however I do not know its contents. If it does not concern news of the treaty, I swear to you that I am not lying. Contact your High Command, or any commanders at Corellia and they will back me up on this news. All GC assets have broken off assault on your assets. Please copy.


Ming laughed again. "A little ahead of ourselves are we?"

He then ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "Alright, bring the ships topside once we've unloaded all those beasties. We shall expect a transmission from the Grand Marshall himself at which point, further orders.. probably ordering us to leave, will be sent. Still, I will not second guess Kaine. For now, we secure the yards and tow the Sphere out of the system."




*


All the squids having been unloaded and released, the transports suddenly began to rise, the VSD having stopped it's bombardment of the ocean.


The Empire began to leave the atmosphere of Mon Calamari.