Helldivers 2 got cosmic horrors beyond my comprehension (I dont get it) also10k chapter, had quite a bit of fun with this one thats why its so long.
patreon . com / Deluxee
****
I thought I am free, but I am back in this fucking building again.
The war room was already active when I took my place at the head of the table, I can already tell this is going to be a long day.
The projections above the holotable showed everything in clear detail: local defence webs, the northeast approach corridor, minefield dispersal patterns, hangar readiness boards.
Elyria would spend itself just to remain standing. I will spend myself so that everything remains standing.
"As of now this is the final naval framework," I said. "There are still some pieces to refine so we should do it now, then we lock it. Once the first ship revert to realspace, there will be no more philosophy. Only execution."
The room settled into the hard quiet of people ready to argue over details because they think they know best.
I brought up the northeast vector.
"All current logistics movement and scout correlation still point to a direct reversion into Elyria from the galactic northeast hyperlane, with a few others pointing to our so called allies in other systems but the bulk of it is going here it seems. They chose our northeast hyperlane since it is the widest and closest to the planet itself. That is where we seed every remaining mine we can place, a dense, layered kill lattice on the most likely exit throat."
I sip my caff and think to myself that I would rather the mines somehow kill everyone but at most it will rattle them and damage some and maybe kill a few of the smaller vessels but these mines are old that's why Kuat was willing to sell them to us at a reduced price and without the necessary paperwork for military grade ones.
One of the naval officers leaned in. "If they revert clean outside the densest belt, the field loses value."
"They will try," I said. "Which is why the mines are only one of the obstacles but not the plan itself, we are not working around the mines working, if they do great, if not its a bit of a loss but nothing major."
I take a deep breath and look at the map and zoom it in.
"The moment their realspace signatures stabilize enough to paint, we need to hit them, no matter if they hit the mines or not. They will not expect it, from the intelligence we have gathered most of these are not veterans but political hires who only got there through nepotism and connections, they will try to make it a grand spectacle. Probably go in a parade formation into battle."
I type in a few things on the console and a hypothical signatures appear on screen.
" We will give them no time to do their hair and arrange themselves in a pretty lines or finish shield balancing. We jump down their throats while they are still shaking navigation scatter out of their teeth."
The first-wave package rotated into view: concealed fighter bays, hidden bomber pens, patrol craft under emissions control, and the smaller armed vessels that could be pushed hard in the opening minute.
"Initial strike belongs to the fast assets," I continued. "All hidden bombers, fighters, and light attack craft we can safely station on the nearby asteroids or drift in space, due to TIEs being... Ties, they will not be within this attack and will arrive with the rest of their fleet. These fighters and bombers job is not to win the battle in one pass, their job is to create chaos: sensor ghosting, early shield strain, destroy screening ships, and ruptured formation integrity. If the enemy arrives expecting a defensive line at polite range, they can die of that assumption."
From the far side of the table, one of the Viper tapped a marker near the mercenary stations. "And the mercs?"
"They get the system-wide alert with everyone else," I said. "Wording matters. We call the attackers raiders in the first broadcast, that naming keeps the legal and political temperature useful for it is what they are, raiders and we are just defending ourselves from them. Once the mercenaries enter enemy signal range, their IFFs and threat profiles will be painted by the opposing force regardless of what story either side prefers. At that point, flight becomes expensive. Their sensors, their comms, and their hulls will already be inside the engagement bubble."
"They may still run," someone said.
"They may try," I answered. "Which is why the second message goes out once battle is truly joined. If they flee and we win, they are branded traitors and hunted as such. If they flee and we lose, Jerjerrod's side will label them pirates or broken contractors and erase them anyway. Their only viable path becomes survival through our victory. I am not asking them to become patriots, I am removing the profitable exit as for what happens after they can break their contract and leave if they want, we got what we wanted out of them anyway."
A few grim smiles flickered and vanished.
I shifted the projection to the capital-ship problem."If they bring three Star Destroyers, those hulls become the centre of gravity, if they bring more it gets more complicated but our best estimates say its going to be four. With these behemoths we cant even play broadside vanity games with them, they would pulverise anything smaller than Iron reaver and our heaviest and best armoured heavy cruisers."
I open up the projection of the star destroyer and make a close up on it.
"Priorities are engines and command integrity, bombers and every heavy ship capable of meaningful concentrated fire work those targets early. A Destroyer that cannot manoeuvre can be isolated and kited, a Destroyer with a disrupted or destroyed command is crippled. A Destroyer that keeps both becomes a mobile fortress that eats our fleet."
"And boarding?" one of the Mandalorians asked. "Direct insertion onto the bridge tower."
That drew immediate response from the experienced personnel on the naval side.
"No," Reza's counterpart in local command said flatly. "Not as an opening move. You are not jetpacking onto a Star Destroyer bridge in the middle of a live fleet action and venting it clean. The bridge tower is one of the most heavily protected exterior structures on the ship. Local deflectors, point-defence batteries, overlapping anti-fighter turrets, and continuous patrol craft coverage make a direct external approach a mass casualty event before the first cutter torch hits hull."
Another officer nodded. "Even if a team survives final approach, boarding an alerted Destroyer and then fighting through it all would be a nightmare, even if you blow it up they will have time to re-route and move personnel to secondary command structures deeper within the ship, you'd have to then fight kilometres and thousands of crew and stormtroopers, it would not be a lightning operation, it would be a war inside a war."
"Agreed," I said. "Which is why any elite insertion is narrow, conditional, and opportunistic. Small teams only. They go when sensor chaos, shield instability, or local damage creates a real window. Their objectives are ranked: power disruption, engine disability, secondary command fracture. Full bridge seizure is authorized if the opportunity is exceptional, not because you think you could do it. You either are certain you can or you don't do it unless in dire circumstances."
The discussion opened properly then.
One captain argued for holding the bombers until the enemy screen was thinned. Another shot that down immediately, saying that if we waited for comfort we would be gifting the Destroyers free formation time.
A Mandalorian leader wanted more emphasis on killing the escorts first and isolating the heavy ships by subtraction, an aged clone officer countered that escorts could be replaced in functional terms faster than a burning engine block could be restored, and that early capital damage created fear and hesitation in the rest of the line.
Someone suggested using the half-repaired dockyard ships as a visible false main line to draw opening salvos, essentially sacrificing themselves.
Someone else warned that a false line only worked if it looked expensive enough to matter and not so expensive that losing it crippled us, the previous guy suggested that we stuff as many explosives, fuel and other materials into one of the largest ships we have and sending them towards the enemy to blow up, but as of now we don't have a ship that by itself would live long enough under fire from three star destroyers and how many else ships they are bringing with them, and giving it an escort would just kill our own.
On and on it went until we worked the sequence until it hung together.
Phase One: Pirate attack where their main goal is to cripple and destroy as many ships as they can and to make them weary before the battle even begins.
Phase Two: Reversion to real space punishment.
Mines first, where the exit throat allowed, immediate launch of concealed fighters, bombers, and light craft. The objective was shock and broken spacing.
Phase Three: Screen rupture.
All fast assets and responsive light capital ships concentrated on fracturing the enemy escort web. Not annihilation for its own sake, but the creation of lanes, confusion, and exposed heavy hull angles while remaining on the move and not letting their heavy ships pin them and destroy them.
Phase Four: Capital degradation.
Bombers and heavy ships shifted to engines and command systems on the Star Destroyers and other heavy ships. Torpedo runs coordinated with ion cannon pressure where possible. Any Destroyer that lost mobility became a priority isolation target.
Phase Five: Controlled expansion.
Only after the first shock had landed would the bulk of our visible fleet form into coherent killing lines. The late reveal mattered, if the enemy understood our full available weight too early, they would fight cleaner and take us a bit more seriously, but with them being delayed they will be too busy to give it too much thought.
Phase Six: Conditional deep insertion.
Elite teams remained on short leash, whenever an opportunity arises they will entered through damage scars, shadowed approaches, and collapsed local coverage. Disable first, capture if possible. Detonate and withdraw if not.
Phase Seven: Kill or containment.
Disabled capital ships not only star destroyers, were to be finished, boarded, or forced out of practical influence, escaping hulls were secondary to preventing the enemy from establishing orbital dominance over Elyria.
A communications officer frowned at the alert map. "If we frame them as raiders at the start, what stops Jerjerrod's commanders from broadcasting counter-claims immediately?"
"Nothing," I said. "We do not need the fiction to survive the week, we need it to survive the first hour. Long enough for the mercenaries to be inside the fire net and long enough for local command channels to orient around a single defensive narrative, once the battle is won we will be the ones with the power to spin the narrative however we want. Jerjerrod goodwill with others has long since expired and he has made many enemies over the years who will be more than happy to see him fall."
Atii spoke for the first time, dry and precise. "And if there are more than three Destroyers?"
"Then the priorities do not change," I said. "They only become uglier and we will lose more men, we still gut mobility and command where we can. We still refuse a fair fight. If the ceiling is higher than expected, we bleed them for time and wait for every delayed asset we have left to enter the board while broadcasting to every available defence fleet that we are being attacked by raiders and rebels, once other fleets arrive that are not under mine or his command the fighting will stop and from there we will pick up what's left and rebuild."
The holotable shifted one last time, showing the whole naval plan as a single moving organism: mines in the throat, hidden first knives, forced mercenary entanglement, capital ships hunted at the engines, and no clean tempo left to the enemy.
However if they bring more than 8 star destroyers even if I use every trick in the book, short of having Grok arrive with everything he has we will die unless a miracle happens.
I looked across the room." This is the naval battle from first contact to decisive turn," I said. "Ground contingencies, boarding allocations, and civilian defence layering come next. If anyone sees a fatal hole, identify it now. Once the northeast corridor lights up, we are no longer debating doctrine. We are practicing Elyrian hospitality."
People around chuckled, a bit grimly but at least they are not looking defeatist.
****
Once the naval sequence was locked, the holotable shifted from approach corridors and capital-ship silhouettes to Elyria and its moon: orbital shells, landing grids, approaches to vital zones, industrial belts, militia choke points, and the hardened civil defence layers we had spent months pretending were only "infrastructure improvements."
"Naval success means nothing if they put boots and armour on the surface to get hold of our ground defences and put civilians as hostages," I said.
The first argument started almost immediately.
One of the stormtrooper officers under Varn pushed for a hard outer defense, meeting any landing force on the plains and spaceport lines before they could form. Jaster cut that idea down with a single motion toward the map. "If they commit serious armoured strength, a thin outer wall dies in open ground. You force them into streets, ravines, plant complexes, and kill lanes where elevated forces can kill them without the armour even having them in their sights."
Elara nodded and Sira the militia commander agreed. "The clans can hold broken terrain and approach corridors far longer than open embankments. If we scatter too far forward, we lose the ability to reinforce, there is also not that much cover,"
Surface doctrine would be elastic, outer sensors, militia trip lines, and automated weapons would sting and delay. Local forces would not die trying to prove bravery on the first landing marker. The real defence would tighten around Havenridge and other major settlements, with the government district, key industrial nodes, power infrastructure, and the shuttle spines needed to keep orbit and surface connected."
Civilian priority," I said. "All nonessential workers go to shelters as soon as the system alert trips. Factories that can power down do so. Those that support munitions, repair, or medical output remain online under guard. I want corridors clear for military movement and casualty transfer, not clogged with people trying to save tools from a fire."
A logistics officer brought up the palace. "If they punch toward command, the palace becomes a magnet."
"It already is, just like the last war showed." Torv said. "So we stop treating that as a surprise. Layered fallback points, interior chokepoints and pre-assigned kill zones. If one section is compromised, we do not fight to the last. We commence a fighting retreat and keep the command continuity alive and for the love of everything that is holy, we need to stop people running around like headless chickens once they have to retreat."
We also designated who will command what and where and what position gets the heavy armour like the tanks Grok is sending our way, the old CIS tanks are quite decent but one direct salvo from an AT-AT or a shot from TX-225 GAVw "Occupier" Combat Assault Tanks heavy cannon and its toast.
And knowing that they have possibly the entire armoured division on their side we can expect more than AT-ATs or TX-225s but Sabers and possibly even Juggernauts and AT-STs.
I wonder if we will get to see the Legends "TIE" tank, also known as the TIE Crawler or Century tank, that thing looks so goofy and is so bad apparently but I would love to have one just in a museum or something, it looks like British Mark one world war one tank but with the TIE cockpit in the middle.
Anyways time to go back into space.
Boarding action, and with it the ugliest practicalities.
"We will not board every wounded enemy ship just because we can," I said. "Boarding is for value and necessity. Priority targets: disabled Star Destroyers, command frigates, and any transport carrying troops or armour that could still reach the surface. Everything else can burn cold in the void unless it threatens us, once the critical ships are down and we have more leeway we can then authorise more boarding action to other ships."
One of the Mandalorian from clan Vhett leaned over the table. "Assault windows?"
"Only through damage scars, silent approaches towards the shadowed parts of the hull sections, or sectors where point defence has already been blinded," I said. "No hero runs into intact battery coverage to prove yourself or because you think you will make it. Teams go in small, quiet, and with clear objectives: engines, power trunks, hangar control, secondary command, bridge if the path is already cracked open. If a ship cannot be taken quickly, we wreck its ability to fight and leave and go to another if possible."
Ridge gestured toward the projected interior of a Star Destroyer. "You'll need different packages for different hulls. What works on a frigate dies on a destroyer."
"Then we use different packages," I replied. "Most if not all boarding action will be by Mandalorians for the hardest insertions, they will be equipped with the best we can provide and enough explosives for them to throw around at will once things get messy, when we get the chance for other ships it repeats but if no Mandalorians are available in numbers to do it stealthily then our stormtroopers who will be wearing a distinctive set of paint on their arms to recognise friend for foe will go for structured corridor clearance and hold points, while select militia only as follow-on support once a beachhead compartment is stable, once a ship is secured leave a few stormtroopers to lead the militia while the rest extract to the next point when possible."
That earned several approving nods from the professional side of the room and fewer from the militia command staff, including Sira who was pouting.
I ignored the politics and wounded pride. Pride did not stop a thermal detonator in a closed hallway and while our militia could be compared to the Imperial Army in terms of training and effectiveness they have no where near the same experience or cohesion as them or Stormtroopers, what they do have is hell of a lot of bravery and tenacity.
Enemy landing doctrine got broken down next, if they came light, we drowned the landing zones in local force.
If they came with armour, we refused open engagement and pulled them into prepared anti-armour belts and places with elevated positions like tall buildings to shoot down at them from a safe position out of their turret range.
If they attempted multiple simultaneous landings, we prioritized the ones threatening command, power, and spaceport integrity. Everything else became delay and harassment until free assets existed.
"Air defence stays tied to ground command," one officer said. "If the naval fight above is still active, we cannot waste local batteries on every decoy."
"Correct," I said. "Surface-to-air and anti-orbit assets protect critical nodes first we cannot protect every village or every empty warehouse. Only the most vital of zones and places."
Grok's possible reinforcement window was entered into the plan with deliberate coldness." When the armour and infantry arrive in time, they are not a parade gift," I said. "They go where the line is breaking or where a counterpush can create panic. B2s and tanks for heavy support supplemented with B1s, while commandos for surgical interior work and decapitation strikes. Vultures and bombers will be strictly for naval battle but once things start slowing down they along with other naval assets will be made to do close air support runs and strafing enemy ground forces. We can use droids more disposably since more droids can be remade after but human lives cannot."
Atii tapped a finger against the palace approach map. "And if they come straight for you?"
I smile lightly.
"I hope they do because then the palace plan nightfall activates as written," I said. "I move only when continuity requires it, not when fear does. If command relocates every time a shell lands nearby, we will coordinate our own defeat in precise detail, when enemy forces enter the palace all window shudders are to be slammed shut and lights are to be overcharged till breaking point casting the entire place into darkness from there the palace guards with better night vision equipment along with hordes of droids hidden in all corners of the grounds with various weapons and blasters will attack them from every shadowed corner, and once they fight through the entire palace will they only realise I have already left to another secure command location."
A few tighter exchanges followed: Whether to pre-wire certain industrial sections for denial.
Whether captured enemy officers were worth extracting under fire, and whether clan warriors should remain under local command or be folded into the central lane defences by default.
And whether sabotaged routes inside the city should be closed now or left open as baited channels.
We argued each point until it became a decision instead of a feeling.
By the end, the second half of the plan stood beside the first.
In the void: punish reversion, rupture the screen, cripple capital mobility and command, force the battle into disorder and send in surgical teams.
On the surface: delay, compress, and defend what mattered.
In the corridors of wounded enemy ships: board only with purpose.
Across the civilian sphere: shelter, clear lanes, preserve medical and repair capacity.
Across all of it: no fair fight if an unfair one was available. AKA - kick them in the nuts and throw sand in their eyes.
"That is the complete defensive architecture for the opening of this war," I said. "Naval and ground. If Jerjerrod wants Elyria, he can pay for every kilometre of it, go and have our people rehearse the plans."
That was not all of it, more minor details needed discussing and some points we went back to to deliberate, all in all I was stuck in that room for the entire day, when I entered morning just started when it ended it was already the next day.
****
A few days later the sun had barely cleared the eastern ridge when Atii dragged me out to the lower training range, something about putting up a good fight or something, I was too discombobulated after being dragged out of my bed.
The air was still cold enough to bite and mist clung to the far edge of the practice field, and the palace walls behind us were pale with early light.
Couldn't we do it inside where its nice and warm, and cosy and there's water dispenser?
Atii wore a dark training layer with the sleeves rolled to her forearms, brown hair tied back in a short practical knot. There was a faint flush already in her cheeks from the morning air, and her eyes had that sharp, awake glitter she always got before drills.
Those eyes also usually meant I will get hurt, great.
I had thrown on a plain range jacket over a dark undershirt, nothing fancy, I also had gloves, a rifle sling, and the growing sense that she had slept better than I had.
"Again," she said, tapping the target frame with two fingers. "And this time don't snatch the trigger like it insulted your bloodline."
Sigh
I settled into position prone on the mat, the blaster rifle tucked into my shoulder. The weapon was heavier than a pistol and less forgiving of bad habits. Atii crouched beside me, one knee down, close enough that I could catch the faint scent of soap, metal, and the clean bitterness of weapon oil.
"Breathe out," she murmured. "Not after the shot. Through it." I fired.
The bolt cracked downrange and hit just outside the inner ring, Atii made a small disappointed sound somewhat similar to a cat. "Better. Still bad."
"I am full of hidden talents."
"Hidden is the correct word."
Ouch.
She adjusted my elbow with two fingers, then pressed lightly at my shoulder to change the angle. Every correction was efficient, but is there a reason why they remain once she's done?
God I am too tired for this.
Wait is there even God in star wars? Does the father count? Does that mean Anakin is the Father so has technically a God?
Too much thinking too early in the morning, brain hurts.
When she leaned in to check my sight picture, her hair brushed my temple and my nose almost making me sneeze and the side of her wrist rested against the back of my hand.
The morning cold made the warmth of that touch more pleasant than I would like to admit.
I tried to concentrate on the target, fired. A couple of times in fact.
I failed more than once. "You're drifting," she said.
Do I look like a BMW to you?
"I'm calculating."
"You're distracted."
"That is a form of calculation."
She huffed a quiet laugh and sat back on her heels. "Shoot."
I fired again, closer.
Then again.
The fourth bolt punched near the centre hard enough to make the target frame shiver. Atii's mouth curved, not full smugness, but genuine approval. "There," she said.
"See? You can be taught."
I rolled my eyes as I pushed up from the mat and held the rifle out to her. She reached for it at the same time. Our hands met on the receiver, skin to skin over cold metal, and neither of us moved for a second too long.
Her fingers were calloused from training, warm despite the morning. My own grip tightened before I realized I had done it. When I looked up, she was already looking at me.
No joke.
No insult.
Just that sudden, charged quiet that made the rest of the range fall away.
Atii's lips parted, she started to say something when my communicator chimed hard from the side table where I had left it.
The sound was rude enough to feel intentional.
I turned toward it at once, the moment breaking cleanly in half.
Priority coalition mark.
Caled Rynn.
Emergency session request.
Oh? That's interesting.
"Of course," I muttered.
I grabbed the communicator. "I'll be in my office in five minutes."
Then I was already moving, behind me, Atii remained near the firing line with one arm still half-raised toward the space where I had been.
By the time I reached the edge of the range she had lowered it again. I did not see the sigh that came out of her as I left.
****
Twenty minutes into the emergency session, I was already certain Caled had not called us together because of something important, in fact all of this is fucking boring. At least I am inside with a cup of coffee.
The holos of the coalition filled the chamber in a broken semicircle. Solenne. Dorn. Quill. Praxx. Luthen. Maranth. Kess. Vey.
Rynn at the centre of his own little performance, hands folded, voice coated in concern. "I wanted all of you informed immediately," Caled said. "My sources indicate Jerjerrod's assembly has suffered losses in transit and coordination. He is no longer looking at three hundred ships or more. The effective total may be two hundred or lower."
Relief moved through several faces at once. Orrin Vey openly exhaled. Governor Dorn muttered that the bastard had finally overreached. Counsellor Veya Maranth's shoulders loosened, the pinched anxiety in her expression softening into something almost hopeful.
I did not believe a word of it.
Neither, from the carefully blank looks across from the others like Quill, Praxx, or Luthen.
Caled continued in the same practiced tone, explaining disrupted staging schedules, delayed escorts, and the possibility that Jerjerrod might postpone any major action. He made it sound like hard intelligence and public service.
He made it sound like a man saving cooler heads from panic.
I was already preparing to fake a signal interruption to get out of this boring charade when Governor Mirea Solenne made a short, sharp noise.
Her holo shivered, then she vanished from the call.
The room froze.
Sera Quill reacted first. "Where did Mirea go?" Caled waved a hand, too quickly by half. "Connection loss. It happens. Her system line has been unstable all week."
That placated more people than it should have. Maranth actually nodded, visibly calmer than before, the sight lodged somewhere ugly in my thoughts. Another rat? Possibly. Or only another person so desperate for good news that they accepted the first soft lie that made it all seem better.
I shot Brask Luthen a look, his forces were nearest to Solenne's system and while still technically under Drell, Brask is in fact in charge of few intendent rapid sector defences so he has a few planets under his protection and most of his men are loyal to him since he always fought to get their pay and supplies on time.
His mouth tightened. He gave the smallest nod and left his own channel active while sub-windows began opening under his hands.
The meeting dragged on in false reassurance and circular caution until I ended it with a bureaucratic excuse and closed the main conference.
We already lost one person possibly and we have another rat, the informants from the Black Suns are not having any solid intel for the past few days and neither do my own sources, time to play some theatrics.
I opened a private line to Caled Rynn.
He accepted at once, all warm concern and ready loyalty.
"I think we have a spy in the coalition," I said without preamble with a hint of anxiety and nervousness that I have not shown openly before, playing to my young age.
"Someone feeding Jerjerrod." Caled's eyes sharpened, though no overt alert in them can be seen.
"Do you know who?"
"I can't be certain of everyone compromised," I said. "But you have been the most consistent voice for caution and stability. That is why I am telling you alone. Counsellor Maranth sits too close to too many soft channels. She may be the leak. Or one of them."
He nodded solemnly, already hungry for the trust. "There is another problem," I continued now openly frowning.
"Some forces inside Elyria have begun doubting whether I can hold if a true fleet arrives and there has been some talk of handing me over. As much as a third of my ships may hesitate or stand down if the opening looks bad enough or will get a better deal from Jerjerrod. I need external strength that answers to money and contract more cleanly than local fear. If you have mercenary contacts worth using, I need them. Fast. Route them through the northwestern hyperlane, grid 334 through 341. It is the least watched approach we still control. Mirea may already have been taken out. I will not wait for the same silence to reach me."
For a moment Caled only looked at me, almost blankly but the glint in his eyes and the small tug at his lips that lasted a second told me everything I needed to know.
Then he smiled the bright, relieved smile of a man who believed he had been invited into the only room that mattered.
"In fact," he said, "I already have a group in mind, not one company but several that I pulled under one temporary structure. Around one hundred and two ships of mixed size. They are already in the wider area. If I send word, they can reach Elyria in three days."
Three days, one hundred and two ships.
I smiled back as if he had offered rescue instead of confession by logistics. "Please tell them to go through the Serrel sector its the quickest and most discrete, and when this is over," I said, "I will make certain you receive a suitable gift."
Caled laughed, emboldened. "I always wanted true Mandalorian Beskar armour, you must have a couple of Mandalorians that you took offence at, I do also always wanted to bed a Mandalorian woman, surely one going missing would not matter overly much."
God his sly grin and the implication that he wants me to send a woman makes me want to hang him by the balls over a Sarlac Pit.
I laughed with him, heartily. "I'll handle it personally. In fact, I'll have a young woman named Karela packed and wrapped like a gift along with her armour and sent over."
We exchanged another minute of pleasant, empty courtesy before the channel closed.
Only then did I sit back in my chair and let the grin take my face properly.
He had given me the number, or at least the roughness of it, its still looking bad but its still better than facing over three hundred, better yet he gave me the timeline so we can be in position beforehand, hopefully they go through the sector and the grids I provided that's where the mines are, still not that effective but if a couple jump on top of them it will be quite the firework show.
He had given me the timeline.
Mirea Solenne was probably gone, not like I talked much with her and whenever I did she was condescending, annoying and a bitch, I honestly do not care about her being gone at most I care how many she took down with her.
That truth sat cold and practical in the chest, I would not dress it up as more than it was. If the knife had fallen there instead of here, then I am happy.
Elyria still had its window, and thanks to a self-assured traitor smiling through a holo, I finally knew how wide that window was.
Peace through power still fits, after that we will have a long period of peace.
**3 DAYS LATER PIRATE POV**
From the pilot cradle of the lead gunship that looks something like something that used to look like a Razor Crest but is now modified almost beyond recognition, the Nautolan captain Vesh'ra Kol watched the asteroid field drift by in slow, ugly silence.
The ship smelled of old sweat, fuel residue, and the sour metallic tang of too many bodies sealed too long in a hull that had never been meant for honest work, 2 days in this fucking tin can.
Proton torpedo racks lined the flanks and belly in crude clusters, mag-clamped and jury-linked into firing systems that looked one bad jolt away from killing their own crew. The skiffs and converted gunships around them were no prettier: scavenged armour, mismatched engines, and enough warheads strapped to each frame to make any customs inspector start shooting on sight.
They had been waiting for hours now after they received a message that the ships will be there momentarily to adjust their course for Elyria, and long periods of waiting made men talk.
"I'm telling you," a Weequay muttered from the side bench, scratching under a stained chest harness, "once this is done I'm taking the nearest ship and vanishing. No credits, no pardons. No 'honest work.' You stay, you end up collared again and I aint gonna work for that fucking cunt after he butcher me crew."
"You're a fucking dumbass," a human with a burned lip said. "Kid's desperate. Desperate people pay. I do this, I walk free, maybe even get a real post. Better than rotting in a labour pit until my lungs turn black or going pirating again just to be shot by the next fucker with a bigger ship."
A young man sat near the rear bulkhead, shoulders tight, hands clasped between his knees. Human. Barely into adulthood. Too clean around the eyes for this kind of company. "I'm not running. If he means it… I could fly. Properly, get papers maybe find someone and start over." The hopefulness in his voice made me almost retch.
The Weequay turned and grinned with too many teeth. "Hear that? Boy wants a wife."
"I do," the young man said, frowning.
"Oh, we'll visit," another pirate chuckled. "Make sure she's settled in, make sure she's pleased. Girl marries a soft-handed pilot, she'll need real men to show her what a bed is for."
A couple of them laughed, one made an explicit gesture with both hands.
Someone else started describing, in careful and filthy detail, how long a woman could be kept useful if you didn't damage her face too early.
The young man's mouth tightened, but when the Weequay leaned closer and asked whether he had an objection, he looked down and said nothing.
Cowards lived longer around men like these.
I let the talk run. It was better than silence.
"I once ran a bulk load out of a mining moon near the old Corporate edge," a scarred Rodian said. "Family transport. Father tried to be brave. Mother tried to pay. Daughter tried to run. We didn't need the father. Mother, an uptight Hapan whore lasted two weeks before she stopped eating. Daughter a pretty little thing fetched a price in three different ports before the trail went cold, probably with her body as well."
"Soft work," a heavyset human scoffed. "I was on a Hutt slave cutter that hit a refugee convoy near the rim. They begged by species, by credit, by gods. Doesn't matter. You line them, you sort them, you sell what's warm and dump what isn't or turn them into meat paste for Hutts to suck with their disgusting long tongues. One old fool offered me his grandchildren if I let the rest go, the look on the old farts face when I took the grandchildren and spaced him anyway."
Someone laughed.
Someone else asked if the children had sold well.
The conversation slid from there into worse things: cages, collars, which species broke fastest, which ones buyers preferred quiet, which ones people paid extra to hear scream.
A smuggler bragged about selling false coordinates to families fleeing debt collectors, then circling back to strip the ships after the life support failed.
A former pirate described brand marks for the various gangs the way other men described card games.
The young wannabe pilot-to-be looked sick, how he even got here one cared.
"What about the kid governor?" a Gran asked. "You trust him?"
"I trust that he needs us," I replied. "That's more reliable than kindness."
"I trust a free hull and a clear lane," the burned-lip human muttered. "After the first launch, I'm gone."
"You'll be gone in pieces if you jump early," another replied. "We hit, then we run. Not before, who knows maybe they'll pay us and then let us go."
They argued about women, about drink, about whether Elyria's amnesty was real or just a prettier cage. They argued about who among them had killed the most, cheated the most, survived the most betrayals.
They told stories about boarding actions between different pirate fleets where survivors were used for sport, about debtors nailed to bulkheads as warnings, about cargo that cried until the air scrubbers failed.
None of it was theatrical. It was casual, practiced, almost bored.
Atrocity as memory.
Cruelty as profession.
Then the scanner panel changed tone.
I straightened, contacts.
Multiple and fucking heavy.
The readings stacked so fast the older system struggled to label them. One of the younger pirates whispered a curse while another leaned over the scope and went pale.
"How many?" someone demanded.
I checked again, then gave a low whistle through his teeth. "Around ninety-eight ships entering the sector bubble, maybe more or less, who knows with this piece of junk."
The burned-lip human blinked. "Say that again."
"There are also three of them with readings showing them to be Imperial Star Destroyers." I said.
"Imperial-class, those triangle hulls are fucking ugly. That kid didn't just piss someone off. He made someone important want him erased."
The cabin noise changed at once.
A few men started checking straps and weapons with hard, practical focus. Others began arguing in rising voices about aborting, one skiff pilot openly said they should power up and run before the formation finished assembling.
Two more agreed, the young man looked from face to face as confidence cracked and the old animal logic of survival took over, dreams of a happy wife happy life gone."We leave,"
the Weequay snarled. "Now. To hell with the deal."
Several engines began to spool, that was when the controls died under my hands.
The yoke froze and manual override failed.
Navigation locked onto a fixed attack line, around them, the other ships in the strike package jerked into motion in ugly unison, accelerating out of the asteroid screen toward the assembling Imperial force whether their crews wanted it or not.
"I don't have control!" someone screamed over inter-ship comms. "Command console is sealed!"
"Kill the power or I swear I will snap your fucking neck!"
"I can't you try it then you moron!"
The gunship surged forward hard enough to throw unsecured men into the bulkheads. I stayed in the pilot seat only because the harness still held.
Behind me, pirates tore at the consoles with tools, knives, bare hands. A Rodian tried to lever a panel free and ripped two fingernails clean off in the attempt while a human slammed his mouth against a stuck latch while trying to bite and pry at once and cracked teeth on metal.
Someone else ran for the cargo bay shouting that there had to be a manual release buried in the back, I heard the crate lid scream open even from here.
Then the same man made a different sound entirely. "It's fuel," he shouted. "Charges, destabilized gel, warhead compound there's no override gear in here!"
The intercom filled with the same discovery from the other ships:
Explosives.
Accelerants.
EMP stacks.
Anything that makes an explosion or makes it bigger, no tools or spare control units.
No chance.
I sat back hard in the pilot seat as the truth completed itself.
The kid had never meant to free them, they were not a strike force.
They were the opening unwilling warhead.
Around me the crew kept fighting the ship like animals in a closing trap, fingers bloody, mouths flecked with spit and broken enamel, voices rising into pure panic. I looked past them, out through the forward screen, and an eerie calm rolled over him as the noise seemed to thin into nothing.
The Imperial fleet filled the black.
Three Imperial I-class Star Destroyers dominated the centre line, wedge hulls pale and immense, bridge towers already lit with combat readiness, around them moved a proper navy screen, not scavenged pirate junk: at least eight Victory II-class Star Destroyers holding the inner flanks, though they lost their shine and look a bit worse for wear with patched hulls and some missing emplacements, than Imperial Class, there was also a line of twelve Arquitens-class light cruisers, and more than twenty Raider-class corvettes cutting tight protective patterns through the formation.
Further back he could see the denser shapes of troop assets multiple Gozanti assault carriers and at least six larger dedicated Imperial transports, the kind built to throw soldiers and armour onto a world once orbit was secured.
There were more I couldn't recognise, though I am sure I have seen a few CR90s, Gamma-class Light Personnel Carrier and its heavier variant, Nebulon-Bs, Grek-class troop shuttle and others.
Fighter operations were already blooming into motion, swarm after swarm of TIE fighters poured from hangar mouths, green engine trails streaking into attack vectors, while heavier TIE bombers formed up behind the first screen in disciplined rising arcs.
It was not a gang fleet, a pirate fleet or even the mothballed Hutt fleet, it was an execution force of the Galactic Imperial standard with modern ships.
Green laserfire began to stitch the dark as the nearest TIE flights screamed toward the oncoming sacrificial ships. My gunship juked hard under droid or remote command, caring nothing for the bodies inside.
An unstrapped Togruta was flung sideways across the cabin and hit the console edge with a wet, decisive crack his head split open under the impact, one montral folding unnaturally, and then the lifeless body tumbled through the compartment with the next violent turn, leaving dark smears where it struck.
Shields flared under the first hits, the ship kept accelerating. I did not move, I just watched the wall of Imperial hulls grow larger and larger until the nearest Star Destroyer filled the viewport completely, every surface antenna, gun embankment, and hangar slit suddenly vast beyond sense.
The cabin was full of screaming but I barely heard it.
I closed my eyes.
Even through my eyelids the final light came hard and white. Heat followed in the same instant, complete and absolute, a brief all-body flash of pressure and fire with no room left in it for pain, thought, or regret.
Then nothing.
**KAEL POV**
We watched it all from the feed of a hidden scout hull buried in the dark beyond the assembly zone.
The image was clean enough to be obscene, no bridge glass between us and the killing, only projection light and the low murmur of officers who had stopped pretending that there was a peaceful resolution.
Some stood with me in the war room others attended by holo from local command pits, ship bridges, and hardened surface posts.
Every face was turned toward the same distant murder.
"Contact spread is holding," one sensor officer said. "Sacrificial package is advancing in staggered intervals. Wide spacing."
That had been deliberate the converted gunships and skiffs did not charge as a single knot of idiots. They came in a broken chain, each hull far enough from the next that a premature detonation would not erase the entire wave.
Even condemned men could be arranged efficiently if someone else did the arranging. On the feed, Imperial threat response bloomed like a virus. TIE swarms uncoiled from the hangars of the three ISD-Is and the supporting screen. Green lances cut the black.
The first sacrificial ship took concentrated fire, shields flaring white, then failed in a hard internal flash, the following explosion was immediate and absolute. For a fraction of a second the nearby TIE flight was still correcting pursuit angles.
Then the blast shell reached them, four fighters vanished as if a hand had closed around them. A fifth tumbled out of the fireball as a shredded engine cluster and nothing else, some others got hit with shrapnel and the explosion force.
Someone in the room exhaled through their teeth.
"Continue tracking yields," I said, eyes hard set on the projection.
The second and third ships died under similar conditions, one after another, each detonation punching holes in the eager TIE screen that had rushed too close. Not all of the sacrificial hulls reached optimal range, out of the twenty-four committed, only eleven survived long enough to penetrate the outer assembly line and become truly dangerous.
The rest were destroyed en route by fighter interception, point-defence stitching, or their own unstable cargo cooking off under sustained hits, eleven was enough to matter in this situation.
When the first of those deeper hulls went up inside the enemy formation, the scout feed washed pale from sensor bloom. EMP discharge and high-grade explosive force overlapped in a dirty, expanding sphere.
A Raider-class corvette caught the worst of it and simply opened amidships, its spine breaking in a bright, silent fold. Two more corvettes were hurled out of formation with dead drives and ruptured weapon decks.
A cluster of TIE bombers that had been rising through the same lane were wiped from the board so completely the system stopped listing them as contacts and began listing them as debris density.
Then the later ships hit, one detonation cracked across the flank of a Victory II hard enough to peel armour plates into vacuum and leave the destroyer venting from three decks with small explosions blooming inside of it in every direction.
Another sacrificial hull punched its payload off the bow quarter of an Arquitens and turned the light cruiser into a drifting furnace that slammed into the side of a large troop transport.
A third went up near a line of support craft and consumed them in sequence: an R90-class transport caught fire from nose to stern; a Gamma-class Light Personnel Carrier spun out with its ventral bay blown open and bodies, harnesses, and unsecured cargo tumbling into the dark; its heavier sister variant tried to sheer away and took the blast across the engine block, after which it continued forward only on momentum and dying internal light broken up by an occasional bloom of internal explosion
.The brutality of it was not only in the ships.
In the frozen frames, the scout optics caught what vacuum made honest, men and women from ruptured troop bays were thrown into open space mid-motion, some already burned black by flash-heat, some intact enough to claw at nothing for a second before the cold and decompression finished the work.
One recording slice from a dying Gamma-class showed the rear compartment decompressing so fast that a row of standing soldiers was dragged sideways into a collapsed bulkhead in a tangle of limbs and helmets.
Another frame caught a hangar crewman on an Arquitens exterior gantry, still belted to a maintenance line, as fire burst from the hatch behind him and turned the tethered body into a thrashing, burning signal flag before the line snapped.
It was not pretty, but it doesn't have to be. It has to be effective.
By the time the last sacrificial ship died, the Imperial assembly zone no longer looked like a parade of inevitability. It looked wounded and beaten.
The final damage board filled in hard numbers and incomplete estimates:
6 ships destroyed outright, including 2 Raider-class corvettes, 1 Arquitens-class light cruiser, 1 R90 transport, 1 Gamma-class Light Personnel Carrier, and 1 support gunship caught in chain blast
4 ships critically damaged and effectively immobile, among them 1 Victory II-class with collapsed drive integrity, and the entire side of her torn open on multiple decks. 1 heavier Gamma-variant personnel carrier, 1 Nebulon-B escort frigate with its keel warped under secondary explosions, and 1 Grek-class troop shuttle cluster-tug that had been feeding smaller landers into pattern
7 ships suffering catastrophic system failures or partial destruction of key decks: shield projectors, hangar control, fire-control networks, or engine output falling below combat standard
Multiple additional hulls reporting minor to moderate damage: scorched armour, localized breaches, destabilized sensors, lost fighter wings.
More probably are damaged but we cant get a read on them.
TIE losses substantial in the opening response, especially among those that had swarmed the approaching hulls too aggressively and been caught inside detonation radius, from what we have seen at least 130 TIEs either destroyed or damaged not to mention those that were still in hangars of the ships we destroyed or damaged.
The three Imperial I-class Star Destroyers remained in command of the formation, none were crippled or destroyed. But even they had not come through untouched, one showed visible scarring along the starboard hull hangars and fluctuating internal power.
Another was cycling shield layers unevenly after EMP bleed and debris impact while the third had lost a portion of its outer fighter screen and was temporarily absorbing orphaned squadrons from dying escorts.
They were still the heart of the enemy force, at least those princesses no longer looking nice and pretty.
Around me, reactions varied by temperament with one militia coordinator from native clans looks eerily similar to Chieftan Rekk and he looked sick, poor boy must have gotten this job through nepotism, I thought I made it clear that no favouritism is to happen within my forces. I will have Rusty and Thorne investigate.
A Mandalorian clan officer watched with professional approval and no pity but with a hint of dark glee barely contained, the small fading deathwatch insignia on his shoulder plate tells me all I need to know why he feels nothing but sick satisfaction.
Reza's channel remained all numbers and next actions, Torv said nothing, but his posture had changed into the one he used when a fight had stopped being theoretical. Atii's holo was silent, eyes narrowed, jaw set.
Somewhere behind me, a younger officer whispered with no small amount of horror and dread that the crews had still been alive.
Like I care for these scum, they made their choices.
"Report from the other fronts," I said.
The secondary feeds came in like a series of open wounds.
Brask Luthen's channel showed a live recording from a burning dockyard orbit: two of his picket ships broken in half, a third trailing fire, while an enemy mercenary cruiser hammered a planetary defence platform at close range.
His voice was steady over it. "We held the first wave. Barely, they came in under merchant codes and opened up the moment they cleared the outer buoy line, they were disguised as merchants and merc escorts not official Imperial IFFS, seems Jerjerrod doesn't want the stain of attacking a certified Imperial General no matter how much he wants me dead, as for how the situation is going I have traitors in my own docking authority. At least one cleared them through but we are holding but more signatures are blooming into existence."
Sera Quill's package was colder. A still image of her chief of security face-down in a private suite, throat opened to the spine, then a second image of a sabotaged shield control room, the operators shot where they had sat.
Her own transmission followed a second later, dimly lit from a hardened shelter, her immaculate makeup smudged and her teasing smile replaced with a flat line.
"Assassination first, disruption second, they tried to go at me in person and failed because they were too distracted by thinking with their cocks, thinking they could have a quick go at me before they slit my throat, I killed two and the remining one got shot when my security breached the locked door. They got three of my key people, furthermore my shipping web is compromised, but I'm still breathing, but a small army of mercenaries have landed on the planet, I have already deployed my forces."
Juno Praxx came through in the middle of an industrial emergency, behind him, factory complex lights flickered as explosions walked through a fabrication wing. "Saboteurs inside the assembly staff with two lines lost. One foundry is gone they wanted my production offline and security disabled. I am executing every confirmed collaborator as I get names."
The feed briefly caught the wall behind him: three bodies already hung from cargo hooks in a clean row, uniforms stained and faces dark, a warning more efficient than any speech, who would have thought that anxiety ridden man had some spine.
Governor Dorn reported heavy political betrayal rather than immediate battlefield collapse. One of his regional commanders had switched sides and opened a logistics corridor to Jerjerrod-aligned contractors and ships, letting them through. The recording attached to his report showed a motorcade ambush on a rain-slick avenue, blaster bolts turning a civil convoy into burning metal and scattered bodies.
In one frame a wounded aide tried to crawl from a wrecked speeder before a second bolt took him between the shoulders and pinned him dead to the wet stone.
Counsellor Maranth's office channel offered only confusion and fear. Too much fear and too little useful information. She spoke of rumours, of missing couriers, of people not answering secure lines.
Whether compromised or simply useless under pressure remained an open question, and open questions were dangerous, be it us wining or losing she is not going to hold that office for long.
From Solenne's system there was still no official signal, Luthen's earlier look had already said what the silence meant. One of the supporting packets from the edge of her territory contained a recovered security recording: palace outer checkpoints under sudden fire, guards suddenly switching on the other guards and dropping them in the first exchange, and a pair of attackers moving through a civilian hall with the calm of men finishing a job.
In the corner of the frame a staffer hid behind an overturned table and tried not to breathe while someone else's body was dragged past by the ankle, a body that looked suspiciously like Soleene's, that's pretty much all we got before we were kicked out of the systems, last thing we got from it was a couple of ship signatures, two of which matched ISD-1s.
Though its not all that bad, not every front was collapsing.
Two of the minor coalition partners had beaten back their opening strikes utterly, the enemies were cocky and overconfident but they managed to do what we are planning which is send in teams to board it, disable ships and take them over, they even captured prisoners, last we heard they are assembling their forces and going to help others.
One enemy mercenary captain had been taken alive after his boarding team walked into a prepared hangar kill-zone and was cut apart in close quarters. Another world reported that a local traitor had been publicly identified and shot against a landing-bay wall after attempting to disable planetary sensor towers, they then tricked the enemies by sending a code through the saboteurs communicator which allowed them to shoot the ships from orbit with their anti ship canons while their own ships flanked from the sides.
Those small victories mattered to boost our morale and demoralise the enemy.
"We need to decide our next course of action," I said.
Reza answered first. "The suicide attack went better then we have expected and their commander also doesn't seem to skilled, we need to use the disruption window. Their assembly is damaged, their fighter screen is bloodied, and their troop lift is partially compromised. If we wait for them to reorganize into clean order, we throw away the only advantage we just bought they will not expect another attack while they are recovering."
Viper, the ever quiet clone officer nodded and replied with a flat tone but a vicious glint "Hit while their casualty channels and recovery craft are still tangled in chaos, we send a force of light corvettes and frigates along with all the hyperspace travel able fighters and bombers and attack them, we need to make sure the mercenary forces are included so that they are already marked as hostiles, we should also invite their leaders to our command centre for 'protection'."
I clenched my fist and frowned but I did not dismiss the idea.
One of the Mandalorians gestured toward the ISD-Is. "Those three still decide the fight. Everything else is dangerous support. If we let them steady, they will grind us down by weight."
After a while I finally spoke
"Agreed, we do not give them the gift of recovery time. Launch the first true attack wave, include the mercenaries as Viper suggested and invite their leaders to the command centre to see the operation, do not stay engaged for long once sufficient damage has been dealt with retreat, avoid the mine field, they will probably rush after us and hit the mines, they will probably abandon some of their heavier damaged ships to chase after us. From there we go as planned, have some haulers on standby with ammunition and supplies near the exit and re-supply our forces as they emerge, the fighters and bombers will hide in the asteroid field. We will go how we planned from then on, begin isolating damaged enemy hulls for destruction or boarding only where the value is real. I want pressure on their engine lines and recovery operations. Make every repair attempt expensive."
"And the other governors?" Elara asked. "They hold with what they have, once we are done we go to where the damaged ships are recovering and demand their surrender if they don't we send force for boarding action, those ships could be useful after that we spread out to help the others and broadcast on all frequencies that we have been attacked by Jerjerrod who has colluded with anti-imperial groups, rebels, traitors, pirates and whatnot." I said.
"Quill, Praxx, and Luthen survived the opening if they win we will try to link up with them to present a unified front and relief any other of our allies."
On the scout feed, the Imperial formation was still trying to re-form around the three Star Destroyers. Rescue lights moved through debris fields while burning transports tumbled end over end.
Bodies and broken fighters drifted between larger wrecks in a slow, hideous orbit of their own.
They had arrived expecting a system that would flinch, and bow down at first sight of real firepower, instead they have experienced our renowned Elyrian Hospitality.
I watched the nearest ISD-I turn under the distant light and felt no triumph, only the cold recognition that the next phase would be worse.