The Rebel Faction

The alarms began to blare across the scope of Grand Isle, sending people fleeing into pre-arranged shelters and causing military personnel to scramble to their stations. These particular alarms meant that an enemy fleet must be inbound to attack Vladet. At the time the alarms went off, Park Kraken was in a lunch date, entertaining the ambassadors from Isht and Diamal. While the two planets had cooled off towards each other since the Empire "helped" them to settle their differences, relations were still cool, espically about fighting over who got the right to mine a newly discovered asteriod belt at what used to be the borders between their empires. When the alarm was heard at their location, the two ambassadors were herded off to his private bunker, while Kraken himself was escorted by Imperial secret service agents to the military complex, where he would join other top commanders in an undergroud bunker.

Less than five minutes later, he was inside of the battle bunker complex, and demand to know what the latest was on an enemy fleet moving into the Vladet system. He was met with sheepish and embarrased smiles from the commanders and aides.

"Sorry sir, but there is no enemy fleet moving on the capital. The alarm was sounded because the system we normally use for alerting top commanders has had mechanical problems." reported Rear-Admiral Jokeen, the man responsible for maintaining the ground and space defenses around the capital planet.

"Well," said Park, twisting his head side to side as he considered the consequences of a false alarm, "What do you have?"

"An enemy fleet has been detected in the Bilbringi system. Preliminary scans just arrived indicate that this is the same fleet that has been gathering strength for weeks in the Ord Mantell system. Friendly forces have backed up the planet, and are waiting for the Coalition to engage." as Vice Admiral Brand finished saying this, a flash traffic priority came in over the datalink from Imperial High Command.

"Hmph, so the Galatic Coalition has decided to come in for a scrape after all. Well, we should prepare for our own counter-attack. Have the state of our forces increased to full red, and let's...." ordered Kraken before he was cut off by Brand.

"Sorry governer, but another message has come in from High Command. Coalition forces have opened fire on Imperial defenders. War plan Charlie Delta is being put into effect. That is all." repeated the Admiral, reading from the sheet of flimsiplast that he had been handed.

"And so it is." stated Park with some finality. He looked up to gauge the officers in his command complex. The older more senior ones snorted and lightly chuckled at the Coalition sealing it's own fate, while some of the more junior ones paled slightly at the seemingly stupidity of the Coalition in attacking their own powerful goverment.

"Okay, put all forces on red alert, as we are now in a state of war with the Galatic Coalition. And immediatly put into effect war plan Charlie Delta. Send authorization for plan Charlie Alpha Delta Sierra across the secure channels to the commanders of the Grand Fleet of the Mid-Rim. We will soon meet to begin the splintering and ultimate destruction of the Coalition." ordered Kraken. His orders was met with hand clapping from the more senior officers and little cheers from the more junior ones. While he hadn't meant for it to be a speech, his current reign of governer meant that he was will within practice of doing so.

"And on that note, I will be heading out to personally head this campaign. Wish me luck, and I will soon return to celebrate with you all the triumph of the Empire." said Kraken as he turned and headed out from the command room, followed by several of his commanders who would be accompayning him on this mission.

Minutes later, he arrived at the military spaceport, located near the command complex, and was being herded towards one of the shuttles ferrying personnel up to his flagship. There was a line of several tens of shuttles, both in descension and ascension, between the surface of the planet and the Imperial fleet holding orbit above the planet. His own shuttle lifted off soon, with him aboard, and soon there-afterwards, docked in the hangar bay of his massive fleet flagship, the command ship Superior. He rode a tram partway down the ship, and walked the rest of the way to the bridge, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead due to the many luncheons and lack of normal rigorous exercise that he had been getting lately.

All conversation on the bridge ceased when he had arrived, and took his position at his command chair. Park looked over to where the captain of the ship, Gullitone, stood at his personal station, looking between him, his command staff, and the fleet that was now beginning to leave orbit, such a change from where they had stood from less than an hour before.

"Well captain, let's get underway, we have an rendezvous with destiny, and I intend to not keep her waiting." ordered the vice-admiral. He could feel the deck beneath his feet shudder as the drive engines of the massive vessel ignited, propelling her from an orbit into the outer confines of the system. Around her, other vessels in this particular fleet detachment, consisting of star destroyers, heavy cruisers, and escorts, formed up around their flagship, as the flotilla entered hyperspace, bound for the gathering place of the Imperial fleet tasked with destroying the Cren Alliance.

<b>Cren Central Command</b>
<b>Onboard the spacestation</b><i> Defender 1</i>

"Captain, Imperial Probots detected!"

"Sound Code 1. Wake the Admiral. This is no drill people."

As the Code 1 alarm rang through the space station, com, radionic and laser-line of sight signals were sent to the other space stations, the space ships (which were not THAT much of an impressive fleet, especially considering the firepower the Imperials were expected to have) in the system and the defensive structures across the planet. As well a general alarm went up across the planet, informing the populace of an appearance of enemy ships (such as they were). Immediately active ground troops and those troops who were on reserve moved to go to their local headquarters, to report for possible duty. The fact everyone's coms, pagers, etc were going off made a rather annoying racket, but most people had the common sense to lower the volume on the ringers. Unfortunately sense isn't necessarily common, so some people just let their various communication devices ring at high volume until the probots left the system. Police, security forces, military police and militia all began patrol various assign areas in on the planet and its moons. They would look out for uncommon activity, incase there were spies, as well as help those who were in need of it.

Admiral Dawara was already awake by the time the alarms went off, he was just preforming a usual early morning task that required privacy. The Imperials had not only caught the Coalition in relative surprise, they had caught them with their pants around their ankles. Having finished his task, Admiral Dawara left his quarters and walked towards the command deck.

There was some surprise that the Imperials were here, for there was always surprise when an enemy showed up in your system, as much as some people may believe otherwise. Despite reports of a fleet amassing near your space, despite the knowledge that the enemy had hit you once before, even despite a spy showing you the enemy's battles plans for an invasion of your system with a time set for when the invasion would begin (this wasn't true in this case) there was always some surprise when the enemy did arrive. Because no matter what, no one ever WANTED that enemy fleet to arrive. There was always the chance that they were a feint and that the real fleet was headed elsewhere. However, despite this relative surprise, and despite the Imperials catching the Cren commander with his pants around his ankles (for Cren truly did wear pants), the Cren were still prepared. They had lived under Imperial rule once, and they weren't about to return to that.

"Admiral on deck," came the call as the Admiral, and Supreme Commander of the Cren Alliance Military strode onto the command deck.

"As you were. Captain, what seems to be the situation?"

"Imperial probots detected in our system. We activated sensor jammers to prevent the Imeperials from getting good information on our fleet and dispatched some Defender Gunships to deal with them....sir, the probots have just self-destructed, should we retrieve the wreckage?"

"No, pull back those gunships immediately and activate the interdictor's grav-well generators, give the Imperials a bit more of a surprise. What civilian traffic do we have in the system?"

"We had a lot of bulk freighters carrying material for the shipyards, they have been re-routed, many are going groundside on Farquak, some have been divereted out of system. Droid ships make up the bulk of those ships diverted to go out of system."

"Ok. Send out a general message to space travelers that the area around the Farquak System should temporarily be avoided starting immediately, for at least the next hour, due to the sitting of Imperial ships in the system and for them to watch for other updates. Begin powering up the defenses on Gernon, Farquak and Farquak Junior, but keep all hidden defenses of all kinds hidden. Have ships launch fighters, power up shields, leaving launch vectors open for the fighters. And have power ready to be transferred to weapons."

Admiral Dawara finished walking to his chair and sat down, staring out the viewport ahead of his. Around him people hustled and bustled around, getting status reports, sending people to different areas and doing system checks. And there he sat in the center of it all, in the eye of the storm as it were. A storm that paled in comparison to what it would be liked when the Imperials arrived.

During this time, Admiral Dawara thought back to his comments with Regrad and the other major commanders prior. He had claimed the Cren couldn't hold by themselves. This was an exagerrated comment, given that he wasn't even sure what he was facing yet. Hopefully that would not be the case, hopefully Ion would be able to get some reinforcements to Farquak before it was too late. In the meantime he'd deal with this issue as best he could. Fortunately the Imperial commander wasn't going to be exactly sure of what he was facing. He'd know there was some fair sized space stations, a couple Dominator HBC sized ships and some smaller ships between 1000 and 1600m, plus the 4 Defender Gunships who had attacked the probots, those he would know for sure, but he wouldn't be positive on the other ships. And he would probably be wondering a bit about where all the other gunship and light cruiser size ships were that seemed curiously absent, but he wouldn't know where they were. Once he arrived in system he would immediately identify the presence of the Interdictor Cruiser and would more than likely also identify the rest of the ships. He would probably also detect the presence of shield generators on Gernon, Farquak Junior and Farquak, and could possibly even detect that there were ships alongside the shipyards, but would be unaware of what those ships were, until he arrived in system and got closer.

Admiral Dawara did not know what he would or wouldn't detect for certain, there was too many maybes. Even the appearance of an Imperial fleet was still a maybe. He hoped they weren't coming, but he knew they probably would be.

The captain came over to Admiral Dawara.

"This is going to be fun, isn't it sir?"

"Pardon me?"

"This will be fun. I mean we have all the surprises, lik-"

"Captain, let me explain something to you. War is not 'fun'. War is never 'fun'. Nor are we likely to 'win'. You see, in war no one 'wins'. One side might lose more ships than the other, one side might even surrender to the other side. But no one 'wins'. Both sides lose. They lose men. The second one side loses a life, that side loses. And in war, both sides will undoubtably lose far more than just one life. The question is not 'who wins', its is 'who loses the least'. You are from Sapuni, and young. You have not seen a real war. This planet, these people, these Cren, have seen far too much war. Much of it was instigated by each other, but much was also instigated by the galactic powers. I support the Coalition's desire to fight against the Imperials, I really do. I realize fighting is a necessity. The strike on Bilbringi was a necessity, the Empire had to be shown we would not allow them to continuously attack our convoys, our people, our systems. But I do not like fighting and war. Not true veteran enjoys war, unless they are sick and mentally deranged."

"I see. Excuse my comments sir."

"There is nothing to be excused. You knew not what you were talking about. Yes we may take enjoyment from our accomplishments in war, for no doubt the other side will. But do not view it as fun. War is not a fun business."

With that the Admiral turned back to the view port and waited for the Imperials appearance...

"I want a(n) status update report, what is the latest status of our blockade forces?" inquired Park, coming onto the bridge after gaining some much needed rest in his personal quarters.

His senior aide, Commander Farlax, provided the answer by handing him a sheet of flimsiplast before summarizing what it said.

"Blockade forces for the Farquak and Sapuni systems are in place as we speak, Admiral. The two systems are sealed off from the outside galaxy. Interceptors report destroying a few trapped freighters and a few enemy pickets or patrol vessels caught away from the system." informed Farlax.

"No organized enemy resistance to the blockades?" asked Park, his eyes glazing over the longly written and comprehensive report.

"No sir, our scouts have indiciated that enemy battlefleet forces are staying in close to their respective planets." responded the commander.

"How are the minelaying operations proceeding?" asked Park, turning the subject aside slightly.

"Most of them are completed or almost completed. Already a few commerce ships have fallen prey to the minefields laid in the more heavily traveled corridors." said Farlax.

"Very well. I shall be in the mess below. Inform me of any other changes." said Kraken as he turned and started to walk away.

"Sir, a quick question. Any idea of how long we'll be here?" asked Farlax.

Kraken turned to give him a slightly hard look. "As long as we need to be here, commander. The Cren alliance chose to send warships to aide in the Coalition's attack on Bilbringi. As long as they support the Coalition, they shall suffer the wrath of the Empire." said Kraken, before proceeding to get something to eat.