CG-10 Centaur
Red Three, near outskirts of the Balamak System
Droid Controller Rebosen gripped the transport's straps tightly; his squad of droids along with another dozen CMF security troopers seemed more at ease: the Paladins simply remained immobile while the security teams rechecked their weapons over again. He glanced at his datapad, pulling up the specs for all of the units he would be leading into battle. Most of them came from experienced personas. The lead Paladin unit had even participated in several actual skirmishes in the Meridian Sector under Commodore Tobias, which was more than he could say. The Gestalt-built craft rapidly slowed down, and Rebosen thought he could hear the telltale click of entering a magcon field, but he wasn't certain. Yet the craft did not stop, though he could hear the gunners talking about and firing their weapons at unseen enemies nearby.
There are still probably hundreds of droids left in this ship to oppose us...Several minutes passed before the ship came to an abrupt halt. He glanced at the CMF sergeant, who briefly nodded. Rebosen nodded in turn; tapping a few buttons on his datapad.
As the ramp of the transport lowered, the droids crouched down and exited, firing their assault rifles as they left the safety of the starship's shields and hull. The CMF troops pressed closely behind, their own blaster rifles leveled. Drawing his own blaster pistol, Rebosen quickly pocketed the datapad and fell in step with the CMF sergeant. The blackened remains of droidekas littered the ground at the rear of the hangar. Some had obviously been seared by the transport's laser weaponry, yet other seemed to have merely chunks missing. He couldn't tell if they were the victims of the disrepair and age, or if the shells from his droids had simply disintegrated them with their fusion shells.
“This way,” decided the sergeant, pointing at a nearby blast door.
That looks fairly well locked down...But before he could say anything, several of his more self-aware and motivated droids were already busy trying cut the sealed door with their cutting lasers. He tapped a button an his datapad, sending the other droids to help in the task; meanwhile, the CMF troopers formed a defensive ring around the droid controller and the sergeant, not that it was entirely necessary with the protection of the nearby Centaur. A few minutes passed before the droids cut it down and charged through the door, knocking down several dozen waiting B1 battle droids in the process. The Confederate organics followed, letting their battle droids take the initial fire and utterly devastate the opposition.
Durable and powerful, but still a little too simple-minded most of the time...The humans struggled to keep up with the quickly advancing droids, but they all finally met up near the blast doors to the warship's bridge, where the Paladins once again began to tirelessly burn through the wreck's door. Finally, one of the droids took its oversize arm and smashed the remains of the door down, revealing a nearly sterile bridge, aside from the remains of its Neimodian captain sprawled out across the floor, run by a crew of unarmed B1 droids with blue markings painted across their torsos. Without waiting for instruction, the troopers and their droids fell upon the wreck's bridge crew with more ferocity than a pack of starving howlrunners. But Rebosen paid neither the terrified droids or the Confederates intent on dismembering the hapless droids any heed. He jogged up to the command console and merely plugged in his oversized datapad.
*****
Styria-class Galleon
Warley, on the outskirts of the Balamak system
“One of the insertion teams has reached the bridge of the wrecked Lucrehulk, they're giving us plug and play control now.”
The woman merely nodded, staring intently at the swarm of fighters from both sides coalesce together briefly before chaotically falling out of it in dozens of almost separate dogfights. Swarms of Piranha drones enveloped their foes in fights more vicious thatn those between feral razor cats. But while the Entymals' attention was fixated on the ubiquitous drones, the light Shadowcasters opportunistically picked off their harried foes as two dozen Prowler heavy fighters smashed into regrouping elements of the Entymals' fighter groups. Nevaere ripped her eyes from the distant dogfights back to her command screen and its tactical screen. Asteroids clouded her physical view of the opposing capital ships, though she could tell by their FST profiles that several were about to slip through a series of asteroids to reveal themselves.
What mess have I gotten us into this time? Her stomach churned slightly.
Conflict is always inevitable in space, it's just a matter of how it's resolved...though I'm not sure I could make the clicking noises these fake Entymalians make...She shook the thought away and rapidly selected the nearest glowing dot on her sensor board and tagged it as the convoy's primary target, and then began designating various other enemy ships as other targets for those ships who weren't able to fire on the prime target because of their positions and the various asteroids blocking their fields of fire.
And we have to make sure we don't hit the asteroids...at least this field is mature enough that those around us are large, predictable, and slow-moving...
The prow of the first Entymalian ship just peered out of an asteroid's edge. It was roughly the size and shape of the aging Gallofree transports popularized by the Alliance. Yet a pair of metal structures shaped roughly like mandibles jutting out of the bow combined with batteries of ion cannons and slugthrowers quickly put the notion that it was a harmless vessel to rest. Slightly less than a dozen streams of sapphire bolts sprang out of the craft towards the Galleon
Ponsborne, which was attempting to outflank the approaching formation of Entymalian ships. Slugthrower batteries on the Entymalian escort tore at the clouds of Piranhas as the Confederate drones began to finish off the last of Entymalian starfighters. Streams of slow-moving ion tags hurled out from the clusters of Confederate galleons, joined by the turbolasers of the
Surcoaf lashed out in retaliation at the convoy's prime target. The Confederate's other Montcalm-class Frigate, the
Pallas, came out from behind the Ponsborne to meet a flanking movement by another Entymalian escort headed on.
“We're drawing fire from the Stellar Snare and those two other unknown frigates.”
So six capital vessels arrayed against us, we have them outnumbered, if we can safely get the other galleons in the rear in front of us without wrecking themselves on the asteroids...Turbolaser beams flashed out from the opposing frigate towards the
Warley.
Looks like they figured out we're the flagship...Lightning crackled across the lead Entymalian vessel. Meanwhile, beams of emerald turbolaser fire from the
Surcoaf shortly smashed into the mostly disabled ship, creating a brief conflagration which faded into a cloud of rapidly expanding shrapnel.
“The Ponsborne is getting hit bad,” noted Captain Noryn from behind her, “What are you going to do about her?”
Her stomach churned some more. Lydia watched as another surviving Entymalian escort ganged up on the galleon. Caught in the crossfire by the two of the escorts, the
Ponsborne struggled to keep even its position constant under the barrage of heavy ion fire. The
Pallas shot ahead of the crippled galleon to engage the escort attempting to outflank the Confederate formation.
I hate this part about the job. All the worlds to see, people to meet, things to discover like a regular merchant, but the consistent pay and the logistics all worked out for you...seems like the CMF seems like the perfect job, until you also realize that you're a combat commander too...it's a good thing those regular navy folks are taking initiative to deal with the problem...The
Pallas pounded the other escort mercilessly, battering down the smaller ship's shields with turbolasers and missiles while selectively trying to disable subsystems of the warship with its ion cannons. She cleared her throat.
“Comms, get the reserve galleons to send out some shuttles with damage control teams to help out the Ponsborne get that damage under control.”
“All enemy fighters destroyed,” announced her flight controller, “but we've lost dozens of the drones, probably several squadrons worth.”
She winced. The drones were expendable, though their loss would cut out into the profit margins of the expedition, assuming it went entirely as planned. Yet she was willing to trade their loss for the destruction of the opposing fighters.
At least that's one thing to not worry about now, now I'd rather not worry about our fighters much longer if their's are gone.
“Send them all on a brief attack run on the Stellar Snare and then have them fall back and dock with our ships,” decided the woman.
The two formations of ships edged closer to each other, with a flood of surviving Confederate starfighters rapidly filling the void between the formations before filtering into that of the Entymal ships to strafe the Nebulon frigate with a variety of missiles and guns. The
Stellar Snare loomed in the
Warley's viewport. The woman abandoned herself from watching the battle unfold into directing the formations of glowing dots to attack each other. She missed the spectacle of the
Pallas breaking down its opponents shields, disabling it with ion cannon fire, and then precisely cutting through its hull with its plasma drills before unleashing dozens of Paladin II Assault droids to seize the crippled craft. She did see the glowing dot labeled the
Stellar Snare attempt to limp away from the battle after suffering massed ion fire from the convoy and the starfighter assault. The Nebulon frigate didn't far before its crippled maneuvering thrusters gave out, sending the ship in a circle, jettisoning escape pods to picked up by the pair of Entymalian-built frigates. The aliens attempted another flanking movement with their last surviving escort on the starboard side of the
Warley, but were met head on by the newly arrived Galleon
Grosevnor, which promptly entangled the other craft with its tractor beams.
“Shields going under 80%,” announced her shield operator.
We are taking all the fire from their frigates...it's a good thing that KDI focused so much on heavy defenses for these ships, otherwise a typical vessel right now would be close to losing its shields...and their frigates are relatively unscratched. Well, we can change that...Lydia tapped several buttons, designating the closest Entymalian frigate as the convoy's prime target. She snorted.
I'm no Admiral Lucerne, but I can at least get some basic tactics done right...am I right? Weapons fire intensified between her galleon and the pair of Entymalian frigates. More red turbolaser bolts surged out of the wing-shaped frigates, as the Entymalian warships shifted their fire from other targets to focus on the
Warley. Her eyes narrowed.
So we're playing a little tit and tat, or is it just plain business? She licked her lips.
Well, it's going to be a short vendetta at this rate...The last Entymalian escort fell silent under the combined guns of the
Grovesnor and the
Ablemarle, leaving the Confederate fleet to focus their fire on the pair of frigates.
Her console flashed a vibrant yellow, indicating that her galleon's shields had been battered below fifty percent. She hesitated.
I'd rather not take any damage or lose anyone in this fight...and it doesn't look like their frigates are going to last much longer...but still...we can keep the pressure on for now...Escape pods shot out of the first frigate. Lydia felt her stomach ease up. But just as suddenly as they had appeared, the pods jumped into hyperspace. We must have taken out their engines. Her eyes turned towards the other frigate, which struggled against the pull of the
Pallas' tractor beam projectors. The slower galleons moved into range and latched their own tractor beams onto the ship. The Confederate warships pounded the frigate into submission until it too launched a flurry of escape pods and shuttlecraft that quickly jumped into hyperspace, leaving the Confederate forces firmly in control of the battlefield and their prizes.
