In the skies above Wayland, the Fourth Fleet's current base of operations, Admiral Arthorn Blackkon stood before a holoprojector and it's return camera as he received his orders. Admiral Logan's image was approximately two feet tall, and crystal clear. "Yes sir. I'll be leaving in moments." Blackkon saluted into the holocam, and ended the transmission to get to work. These new orders made his others more complicated, but the Admiral was confident both missions could be completed without too many problems. Blackkon immediately brought his officers together in the main conference room of his command ship.
The files Grand Admiral Logan had sent him helped his short strategy session with his officers, holding vital information as to the defensive capabilities of the planet. The difficulty was planning the two missions to go off at once. Finally Captain Tedelan, who had shined at the Battle of Kessel with his maneuver that had saved the Admiral, came up with a shining idea regarding the Fleet's mission at Serndipal. Since that time Blackkon had kept the Captain in high regards, and he now commanded one of the fleets Star Destroyers. With the Admiral's respect, he had no problems voicing his idea, which spawned others by other commanders, and Blackkon himself. Preliminary plans complete, contingency plans were made and orders were sent out immediately. In the end, the hardest decision was which mission to personally supervise, as the Admiral sadly couldn't do both at the same time. It was a hard decision to make. Blackkon hated not being there with his men while they were in danger. Perhaps with proper timing, he could advise his forces at the other location over his holocom. Either way, he knew they would perform well.
Now it was time for action. Blackkon left the briefing room, entrusting one mission to his most trusted officers, and made his way to the hanger. There he boarded his personal shuttle, the one he'd brought to the Alliance when he joined, the "Blackk Night." Moments later, having immediately been bumped to the top of the flight list he left the ship on his own mission. The few force reallotments that were needed were already in progress as Arthorn left the hanger.
The planet Serndipidal...
It had been a long time since the planet had faced outside danger, several years since the Yuzzah Vong had attacked. Since that time the Serndipals had become more militant, as many cultures did after being devastated but not destroyed. Overall the people were downtrodden, the dust and dirt that filled thier atmosphere since that time wore them down, and a large portion of the normal civilians life was spent cleaning the dust from thier crops and equipment. However they were fairly well defended, though without a fleet presence. Several small defense stations orbited the planet, and the capital boasted a number of turbolasers and ion cannon emplacements, as well as a Gencore I shield generator. These had been built and manned constantly should the Yuzzuh Vong return. Fortunately, these would be of little consequence in this situation.
The planet itself was odd, half of it had been destroyed during the Yuzzuh Vong attack. The warrior aliens had crashed the planets moon into it, killing the famous Wookie Chewbacca in the process. The far side of the planet was a wasteland, constantly under bombardment by fragments of the planet that had been tossed into orbit being pulled back in by it's gravity. From the bridge of the Xyxl-class Battlcruiser Insurgent, Admiral Arthorn Blackkon looked down on the planet. It had taken several hours to get to their current location, having jumped in beyond the actual borders of the system and moved in under the cover of the ships cloaking device. Now they were in orbit over the capital, carefully maneuvering to avoid collisions with ships that could not see or sense them, and using the utmost care to remain undetected. The entire ship was rigged for ultra-quiet to avoid any sounds being picked up by defense stations.
At several locations on the planet, large transports had landed, carrying various "cargo". A few areas of these ships held what their manifests indicated, but in truth these ships held the Insurgent's 140 Titan-class Assault Walkers. These armored units boasted powerful weaponry and armor, more than enough to handle anything the native troops could put against them. They were divided into groups of four, scattered over the planet to take out important installations. In several instances multiple groups would hit the same target, especially well defended areas and the military bases.
As the bridge chrono ticked down in synch with the one on Blackkon's wrist, they together hit the time he had set before leaving Wayland. Stone-faced, he began the invasion with a single word, an open transmission, now that secrecy was a moot point. "Begin." While the man seemed especially cold considering thier target, special considerations had been made for the protection of the people as well as military personnel.
Immediately the cloaking device dropped as Ion cannon blasts rained down on the planet. The Insurgent's gunners were top of the line, thier weapons shutting down the ground-based orbital weapons. Blackkon however was impressed with the defenders response time though, the second salvo of weapons slammed into the shields, already coming up. It didn't matter though, the shields were not the Insurgent's target in the first place. With a short command the ship began targeting it's fire on the nearest defense stations. Here it used turbolasers only until the shields were down. Once they had dropped, Ion fire was brought up to disable the emplacements.
They had taken three of these stations offline when one of the officers reported that the ship was taking starfighter hits. Arthorn glanced at his panel, seeing the handful of fighters. They had obviously launched from stations still on line as well as ground stations, and would have to be dealt with, though not a serious threat at all. "Launch the fighters," Blackkon commanded, and they were. From the hanger, a single mixed squadron launched. They were all that would be needed. Eight Skipray Blastboats and four TIE Defenders leapt to the defense of their ship. The attackers scattered, and were pursued as long as they stayed near the battlecruiser. The Insurgent's fighters used only thier Ion cannons, they were under orders to harm no one except under extreme circumstances. Disabled fighters were hauled into the ships hanger and their pilots taken into custody.
Planetside, things were also moving in the Alliance's favor. With Blackkon's original order the Titans had begun their attacks on their predetermined targets. The first targets were military installations, primarily starfighter bases. Some fighters got off the ground, but they were dealt with using the Titan's shoulder mounted concussion missile launchers. The missiles launched were special ones, again intended to only damage and disable the fighters, forcing them to land again. Dark Troopers, who had been brought to the planet along with the assault walkers, spread throughout the cities, clearing out areas that couldn't be hit by the larger guns of the armored units, like those near residential areas. Even these forces were careful in thier handling of the locals, the robots pilots taking care not to damage anything structurally, and generally using non-lethal methods.
Finally, as the Insurgent was nearly finished with the defense stations in orbit, the Titan team assigned to the shield generator took it out. In an effort to keep the repair time for the shield low, they simply took out a link in the power supply, and protected that area. The shimmer of the protective field faltered and failed, as the skys above the capital were clear. The loss of life had been incredibly light amongst the native forces, and almost non-exsistant amonst the Alliance. Blackkon was adamant about constant training, among all forces under his command, be they Navy, Starfighter, or Ground Troops. The Titans and Dark Troopers had performed flawlessly alongside each other. Those killed amongst the natives were generally the fanatics, who refused to surrender and continued to attack New Alliance forces.
As the Xyxl Battlecruiser again came over the planet's capital, the Admiral again opened a communications channel. "Attention Serndipidal command. This is Admiral Arthorn Blackkon of the New Alliance Fourth Fleet. Serndipidal is now under New Alliance control. In a moment I'll be coming down to discuss terms of your surrender. Do not attempt to attack me at any point. I don't wish to hurt your people or damage your forces any more."
Within two minutes he was again aboard the "Blackk Night." Taking the controls himself as he always did, he smoothly left the hanger, pointing the Lambda towards the planet. Four of the Blastboats, with thier "Blackkon's Blades" insignia emblazened on the side of thier ships, formed up with the shuttle, as two Defenders kept a patrol route around the formation. As soon as he was out of the hanger the ship recloaked to assume a protective stance in orbit. Thankfully the Serndipals remained passive, and the shuttle was on the ground a few minutes later. The Admiral locked down his ship, trusting to his pilots to protect it, and was escorted to a speeder by a duo of Dark Troopers.
He really didn't think the troopers were neccesary, he could more than defend himself, but the image was useful to deter any that would try to harm him. He truly didn't want these people hurt in any way. He'd heard of what had happened to the Serndipals when the Yuzzuh Vong had attacked, and had felt for them. He would use this chance to show some mercy on these people. No one was on the streets, except for patrols of Dark Troopers. All of the civilians had been asked to stay inside for the time being. In less than fifteen minutes the speeder reached the capital, and he made his way up the steps and inside to meet with a nervous, sweaty little man who identified himself as the planetary leader, actually using a title Blackkon was unfamiliar with, but remembered from his briefing material. The man's pockmarked cheeks jiggled as he spoke, and his body in general showed the Admiral a lot, one of these things being the greed that was almost a requirement of a politician was present among this man's undesirable qualities. Blackkon had always dispised politicians, and politics in general. However, he'd somehow always ended up on one side of the negotiation table, he just had a knack for this type of thing.
Taking a seat at the head of the table they were using, Arthorn motioned for the politician to sit as well. "So, where should we begin? I'd really rather not have us fight any longer. The New Alliance is here to help you. The show of force you just had was to show you that we could protect you. I believe if you have all of your units report in you'll find there are almost no deaths among your forces, mostly just disabling. I do apologize for those few unfortunate deaths that did occur. Now, as a representative of the New Alliance, I've come to tell you we'd like your people to join us. I'm sure there are many ways we can assist you, be in the clean-up remaining pollution and such from the moon's impact, or an escape to another location if that's what you would like. The people of Serndipal themselves can help the Alliance in many ways as well. So, what do you think?"
