Battle of Saleucami - Sundered Heavens

[Demiurge]

SUNDERED HEAVENS​

Saleucami
Saleucami System
Planetary Orbit
Planetary Battle Time - Zero Hour​

Sith Imperium
Superior Sith General Sogar Dermisa
Admiral Kelvin Wahia​

Galactic Alliance
Jedi General Akacen Mothturus
Jedi Commander Andreus Makaryk​

War has come to pass between the Galactic Alliance and the New Sith Impreium. Across the galaxy, the Border Worlds, planets, systems and sectors, have been intertwined in the strife, planted in the crossfire between the two galactic powers. And now, one of the most distant of the Border Worlds, has come under attack. Now, war has come to Saleucami.​

Set in the Regions of the Outer Rim, Saleucami is a key world, sitting on the Talcene Transit Hyperlane; a trade route for goods and supplies which crossed interstellar paths with the super-hyperroute, known as the Perlemian Trade Route. Technological exports and research centers are among the planet's appeal. However, perhaps Saleucami's most hidden prize is the botanical resources located within the planet's calderas, which are largely unexploited and unmolested. The wealth and potential of the calderas are nearly infinite.​

​

Valued still, are the magma caverns of Saleucami. Rich with precious ores, minerals, gas deposits and other raw resources, Saleucami's magma caverns prove to be one of the planet's most pivotal attractions. With the war still in it's relative infancy, the Sith Imperium has since targeted strategic worlds, with Saleucami being the latest of it's assaults. The invasion has commenced, and so begins the Battle for Saleucami. ​

Above the planet, teetering over the exosphere, the space battle rages overhead. Dozens of warships set luminous fires over the skies, as the stellar forces Sith Imperium commanded by the Superior Sith General Sogar Dermisa, and seconded by Admiral Kelvin Wahia, and Galactic Alliance led by Jedi General Akacen Mothturus, and reinforced by Jedi Commander Andreus Makaryk. Across Saleucami, war rages on all fronts, from the industrial wonder of the capital Aladaeris, to the molten mines of the Magma Caverns, to the majestic oases of the Caldera Clusters, battle ravages Saleucami, awaiting for the victors to arise from the ashes of war.​

 

[Black Noise]

((Since there is no established posting order, I think I'll go first. Translation for Der Teufel, the devil. As for the extra ships, they are the smaller support ships I was told we are allowed to have.))


Sogar stood on the observation deck of the Der Teufel, an Imperial Star Destroyer class capital ship. Imperial Star Destroyers were the pride of the New Sith Imperium, each one maximized with a crew of 37,000 and measuring 1,600 meters long. The amount of guns on these Capital ships far exceeded that of the steriotypical Mon Calimari Cruisers.

Sogar had been promoted to the rank of Superior Sith General for this battle, and was proud of the trust given to him to lead the fleet of twenty capital ships. He stood on the observation deck for two reasons, to command the fleet, and to annihilate any bombers or fighters that got within his range.

Sogar was a Sith Master, a rank earned through blood, sweat, and death. He was a practitioner of many powers, but a complete master of few. One of those few that he had mastered would be the power of Combustion. The power that allowed him to create an explosion with sheer willpower. It was virtually unstoppable, and it could easily bypass shields because shields could not keep out the Force.

His range was a total of 30KMs in all directions around his position in the ship, if any fighter got within his range, he could explode it. However, his Combustion required almost his entire concentration, leaving very little concentration to try and pick out the Force Sensitives in the fighters. He would need a little time before he would be able to target and destroy any fighters with a Jedi in them, but that would also have to be that they got within his range and he could pick them out.

He was thinking about disregarding trying to find the Jedi at all, but decided against it. After all, the Jedi were the heads here, if you cut off the head, the body dies.

One more perk of the range was that exploding fighters was not the only thing he could do, Capital ships were not an exception. Although concentrating hard enough to specifically target a specific capital ship and blow it up through its hard points would require an immense amount of force strength. Sogar knew he could do it, but what he didn't know is how many times. At the most, he thought he may be able to do it four times, five if he wanted to drive himself into complete exhaustion and unconsciousness.

Though the thought lingered in his head that, if he used it four times, he might be unable to continue fighting. Thus Sogar would attempt to limit himself to annihilating three Capital ships. After all, if he was one man single handedly taking down three capital ships, surely his men could handle the rest.

The twenty Star destroyers, four Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers, six Tartan Patrol cruisers and thousands of Imperial fighters dropped out of Hyperspace. Sogar breathed in deeply as his ships positioned to engage the enemy as they had been pre-ordered to do. He smiled and said aloud.
"Today is a good day."

 

[Count Sam]

Finally, it seemed that the Empire was on the move after a long wait and there first stop was going to be Saleucami which was a planet in the outer Rim that was under the control of the damn alliance and had many useful resources that the Empire could use pretty well. Of course Admiral Kelvin had to thank the rebels since they are the ones who lightened the flames of the war that Kelvin has been waiting for since a long time. It was true that this was not Kelvin's first encounter with the Alliance but of course the battle that was going to take place now was going to be bigger than the previous small skirmishes with the rebels and some Alliance ships.

The Admiral took a puff from his cigarette as he stood aboard "the flying snake" which was his personal Imperial star destroyer, and was also the same ship he commanded during the previous attacks on Muunilist and the chase of the rebels. Gladly, it was not so long before the ships dropped out of hyperspace and that was when the Admiral took a look at the enemy's defensive fleet.

" all ships are to take battle formations also give orders to all ships to prepare their guns, missiles and canons and to lock them on the enemies ships....I want a good first volley." He said to his XO who started to issue the Admiral's orders throughout the fleet. The Admiral then turned to his communication officer who was a young Zeltron who served under the Admiral for a long time.

"Send a message to Superior general Sogar tell him that all the ships and fighters under my command are ready to wreck havoc and are just waiting for his signal to blow those damn Jedi into pieces." The Admiral said in a cold tone as the officer nodded and quickly started to type a few buttons as he sent a message to general Sogar.

It seemed that the Admiral was ready now and all what he was waiting for was just a single signal from his superior....a signal that was going to start the first real battle with the Alliance.

It seemed that today was going to be a great day to dig a space grave for those damn Jedi.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

These were desperate times for the Jedi...

The former Battlemaster, Augustus Primus Leonus, had followed his friend, the former Grandmaster, into the abyss of darkness. The destruction of the Will of the Force had killed nearly all the Jedi's auxiliary naval commanders. The new, replacement Battlemaster held experience in ground combat, but scarcely any experience in naval combat at all. Now, with rumors of a Sith attack on Saleucami imminent, the Jedi had to reach deep down into the ranks to find anyone at all to command the defense fleet...

The Jedi were desperate. They really were. As recently as a few months ago, command of the naval defense forces might have been left to the Battlemaster, who commanded the Will. But the Order had hemorrhaged naval commanders of late, and now had to look to two recently-promoted Jedi Knights. One of those Knights, Andreus Makaryk, had received his promotion so recently that he still displayed in the Galactic Alliance's records as a padawan, and therefore had been assigned the rank of Commander on account of that bureaucratic error. He had been assigned to this slapdash defense because of his previous experience as a commercial pilot before joining the Jedi; he was one of the few Jedi who could actually fly a capital ship, let alone command a fleet of them, left in the aftermath of the Will's destruction. The other Jedi, Jedi General Akacen Mothturus, had received flight lessons from Andreus only a few short years prior.

Despite his inexperience with naval command, however, Andreus was not without his gifts. All trained Jedi could sense and communicate with the living, but to find the place of machine within the Unifying Force and communicate with that--such was a rare gift indeed, the province of the Jedi Ace. Even the capital ship Andreus Makaryk piloted seemed an extension of the Jedi's own body, albeit one with thousands of tons of mass. The second the Jedi had stepped aboard the Majestic-class heavy cruiser, he had meditated, communed with it, that he might learn the ship's true capabilities...

...But that was some hours ago, when he had first been deployed. Capital fleets did not just emerge from nowhere; commanders did not just show up above random planets from nowhere. They were deployed, and deployments took time. Time Andreus had to plan, time Andreus had to acquaint himself with the capabilities of the ships under his command, time Andreus had to develop some ideas to try, in hopes of offsetting his lack of experience with naval operations.

Commander Makaryk had consulted with General Mothturus to put one of those plans into effect...

When the Sith Fleet arrived, its commanders and crew might be dismayed. For contrary to expectations, only one Majestic-class heavy cruiser drifted over the planet of Saleucami, its weapons seemingly inoperative, the ship apparently partially disabled. The heavy cruiser did have its shields up, and its engines at flight idle, but it just seemed to drift. And it was all alone. All by itself. Just the perfect target for the Sith.

But the ship wasn't completely innocent. Not at all. It would still need to be destroyed, for it sent a transmission down to the planetary defense grid. Most of that transmission was encrypted, and contained the coordinates and disposition of the enemy fleet that had just jumped in. Part of that transmission, however, was over open comms.

"Planetary control, standby..."

"Tagging Target A..."

"FIRE."

Hmm...so the ship that drifted aimlessly over the planet wasn't innocent after all. It had the planetary defense batteries backing it up. Thick orange bolts lashed out at one of the Star Destroyers entering planetary orbit, shots fired from a planetary-grade ion cannon that should carry sufficient potency to disable it completely, if only temporarily until its engineers could reroute masses of fried circuits and start bringing some of its systems back online.

But the shots from the ion cannon were quickly followed up by more planetary mayhem. This time, seconds after the ion cannon rounds had their say, another planetary defense battery fired--this time a heavy turbolaser battery. The planetary turbolaser pulled no punches either, its gunners using the "innocent" spotter's transmission to aim its shots at the Star Destroyer's hopefully-exposed command bridge. Several powerful shots of green energy lanced forth from the planet, before the battery firing them ran out of charge and fell silent. It would be a few minutes before either fired again.

Meanwhile, that lone Majestic-class heavy cruiser seemed just a bit more interested in fleeing than a direct engagement against twenty Star Destroyers and supporting ships. Perhaps that might be understandable, if only it didn't flee towards the planet. It could only flee for so long on its present course, but for now, its engines flared up, its shields were raised, and its weapons still seemed "disabled" (if only to free more power for engines and shields). Hopefully, that Majestic would be able to get out of the engagement range of that flotilla of Star Destroyers post haste...

Some two hundred million kilometers away, Andreus Makaryk received another encrypted transmission. Oh, yes, that transmission, the jump-in point. The Empire had arrived, and hopefully two hundred million kilometers was enough distance that it'd take their sensors a few minutes to find the real fleet laying in wait. Of course, the comparatively small size and signature of the Majestics comprising the backbone of the fleet might help with that. Andreus wasted no time in decrypting the transmission.

Andreus Makaryk had work to do. He had a microjump to calculate. Post haste.

 

[Master Maverick]

The life of a Jedi was not an easy one. And by the looks of Akacen, he seemed to be the epitome of such a statement.

Indeed, just weeks earlier, he had been on the moon of Dxun on a mission with the Imperial Knights. They confronted what could only be described as a monster who sacrificed himself to try to kill those Jedi and Knights who happened to be there. While the others weren't nearly as wounded as he was, Akacen had, more or less, taken the brunt of the final desperate attempt by the beast to destroy them. Akacen had protected his Apprentice, Kalen, along with another Padawan, Tessa, however slight, and sacrificed himself to the maelstrom the beast had released upon them.

Indeed, the young Knight of the Jedi all but died due to his act. He wasn't even able to heal himself as the dark presence of the force on the planet threatened to consume him. Thus, he had to retreat far into his mind in order to protect himself. He was rescued, just in time, by Andre, a fellow Jedi Knight, along with an Imperial Knight know to Akacen as 'Z', as well as Tessa. While Kalen had come to his aid, he was not yet learned in the arts of healing, Akacen not having gotten around to that part in their training.

He was brought back from the brink of death and had, in the weeks since, been in intensive care within the Sage Halls of Empress Teta. While he had recovered, for the most part, he still needed a walking stick in order to keep himself from falling over. That is, when he actually decided to walk.

He was almost angry at the call for him to lead an orbital battle, the first confrontation with the Sith. There was no one else? He could scarcely believe as such. However, he remembered soon enough that many such Commanders had been killed upon the The Will of the Force. He was one of the few with the basic knowledge in order to do such. While he knew of theories, histories and stories, he had absolutely zero real-life experience in such things.

Luckily he was to work with someone with quite a bit of real-world experience. Albeit it was in commercial piloting. Indeed, he held no delusions of decisively winning this battle. However, hope that they would slip up enough to allow them not to take the planet still resided in the back of his mind.

Hours prior to the estimated start of the battle, Andreus and Akacen had met and talked over several strategies and ideas. They had figured out their defenses and their capabilities. As well, they had minimal intelligence of the composition of their fleet. Meaning that there was at least a 50% chance it was wrong.

This fact was irrelevant, however, as they only had twenty Majestic-class heavy cruisers and ten Corona-class frigates at their disposal. Looking upon such a fleet, it seemed meager and would most certainly crumble under the Sith onslaught. However, Majestics were specifically created in order to take a Star Destroyer in a one-on-one. And win. This is what they were counting on more than anything.

And that is what was delivered, thank the Force.

Akacen sat in the bridge of a Majestic, having done what Andreus had suggested and 'felt' the ship and her capabilities in the hours before the battle. While he had done this, there were many things he didn't understand, and wouldn't even after the battle was over. His experience was minimal with such ships, as he mostly flew smaller frigates in his time working with the GADF. Even that wasn't quite as much as he probably should have.

His greatest asset he would bring to this fight was his battle meditation, which his meditation since boarding the ship had been working towards, as well as solidifying a connection with Andreus for quick and seemless transmission of orders, thoughts and ideas to pass between them. No time would be lost in physically speaking to each other. Physically, he would be less than helpful. Luckily, it wasn't really required of him to do excessive moving unless they were set upon by a destroyer. Being that he was in the back of the fleet, this would be long in coming.

The decoy was in position, and the start of their plan had worked out perfectly. While the Sith fleet couldn't be seen from their current position, Akacen could, most certainly, feel them. A feeling he started to loathe ever more as he encountered more of them. His will had toughened considerable since the last time he had seen Andreus, among other things.

Within moments of sensing their presence, coordinates of the enemy fleet was sent to Akacen from Andreus' ship. The Captains and Commanders, never mind the Privates, were running around frantically. With calm that was out of place in this situation, he told his second, "Ready the coordinates. Get ready to jump at the signal." While it was indeed calm, his orders were practically emotionless. He was feeling out, in the endless expanse of space, their little section of it.

He made sure that the other ships under his command were getting ready, and when they were, to 'tell' Andreus telepathically that they were.

 

[Black Noise]

When the fleet arrived, and all that laid before them was a single Majestic cruiser with its weapons powered down, Sogar knew he had just walked into a trap. Alarms began going off as multiple crew members relayed that the nearest Star Destroyer to him had just been hit by an Ion cannon and, seconds later, had six of its forward tubrolaser batteries blown to bits as well as a small amount of the Life Support systems damaged.

Silently cursing, Sogar relayed a message to Admiral Kelvin.
"Admiral, do NOT engage that cruiser. Position the Star Destroyers in a semi-circle to maximize their defense. The ambushers have become the ambushed."
Turning, he told the nearest crew member.
"Contact the damaged Star Destroyer and tell them to come up alongside us, also, bring us about and get closer to that Majestic, but do not fire."

Sogar turned, he already had a plan. Things could go one of three ways, the enemy assaulted from all sides, in which case they could single them out at a closer range and annihilate them. They could go directly after Sogar and the disabled ship, thus falling into the semi-circles mid and being slaughtered. Or they could attack from one side, in which case he would need to bring the other half of the fleet around to catch them, the last option being the least favorable.

Within a few minutes they had gotten barely within 30 KMs of the Majestic Class Alliance Battercruiser. Sogar sent out another order to the rest of the fleet and Admiral Kelvin.
"Keep the fleet steady, and men, steel your minds. The battle had begun."

Sogar sat down crosslegged on the bridge, focusing through the force. Sogar had spent the whole hyperspace trip refreshing himself in the Dark Side, so he knew his first attempt at combustion would be his easiest. The next few would start to exhaust him completely. The second he sat down, a com expert informed him that the cruiser before them was sending out encrypted signals. Sogar ordered.
"Do not occupy yourself with decoding them, I can safely assume what they say."

He focused on the Majestic Class Cruiser, seeing past the hull, past the shields, and into the inside. Sogar could not tell if the crew was hiding, not there at all, or he was just missing them, but the ship seemed strangely empty. Sogar Focused harder, drawing on the power of Concentration as well to target the Main reactor. Then, he found it.

The Main reactor was designed specifically to provide power to the shields and engines, some of the only parts of the Capital ship active. Other, minor reactors were designed for the weapons batteries, which had been disabled to allow more strength to the Main Reactor. Sogar then concentrated, Combustion was all a matter of willpower, and strength.

Then it happened, it was unnoticable at first, then the Combustion activated directly inside the Main Reactor. The Reactor would explode, this Sogar knew, as Reactors were not built with shields designed to withstand the strength of thirty turbolasers firing at the same time -inside- the reactor. Which was the case with Sogar's combustion.

Sogar sighed, feeling slightly drained, and smiled.
"All too easy."

 

[Count Sam]

"Do not chase after the enemy's ships!!" The Admiral shouted as he stood up quickly and realized that the Jedi were the ones who ambushed them not the other way around. Those sly Jedi it seemed that the Jedi were more cunning than what the Admiral had always thought about them; however, the battle was just starting and the old veteran admiral was not planning to lose to those pathetic monks.

"All ships are to take semi circle formation...and all fighters are to form defensive screen around the capital ships from all sides. After all, we are expecting an attack from anywhere and at anytime gentlemen." He added as he took another cigar from his pocket and lightened it. It always seemed that this kind of stuff made the Admiral calm during intense moments like the one they were in now.

"General Sogar I suggest that we send a small scout group of fighters to scan the area....after all we can still ruin the enemy plans to ambush us if we knew their location and from where are they going to hit us." The Admiral sent a message to his superior officer as he took another puff from his cigar. It was true that he was not the one in charge here, but he was an Admiral and space battles were his specialty ever since he was young. Also as the Admiral sent this message to his superior he motioned for his crew to stay on the tale of Sogar's ship and cover it. After all, he knew well that the enemy could attack from anywhere and that is why he had to be extra cautious and defensive.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

The spotter cruiser sent another transmission--an update on the positioning of the Sith Fleet--before it exploded under mysterious circumstances. However, even Andreus Makaryk's senses would have trouble discerning exactly why the bait had so quickly exploded from two hundred million kilometers away. But that mattered not, for the lone cruiser had already served its purpose. The Sith Master hadn't quite managed to get into range in time. Star Destroyers were slow, after all.

The planetary defense authorities relayed the lone Majestic's last transmission to the fleet-in-waiting. Commander Makaryk received it, and he analyzed it quickly. The Sith seemed to be moving into formation--looked like it might be a semicircle around their damaged Star Destroyer, from what he could tell. Andreus had studied, and attuned himself to the capabilities of his ships during the preparations for the defense; he knew the Majestics excelled at maneuverability and long-range tracking. He had every intention of maximizing the advantages that his fleet afforded them--and his microjump would all but ensure that he could dictate his jump-in point, and therefore range. No, he would forego finishing off that one Star Destroyer, for to do so was to sacrifice every advantage he had; the crippled ship would be surrounded by its fleet by the time the Jedi fleet arrived. One ship just was not worth such an immense sacrifice--the planetary defenses could pretty much render a single ship almost permanently disabled anyway. By the time that Star Destroyer's engineers brought her systems back online again, that ion cannon should be almost ready to fire again anyway.

Andreus Makaryk might have been new to this whole naval command thing, but he wasn't stupid.

The newly minted naval commander adjusted his microjump calculations by a couple hundred kilometers--a task for which the more esoteric training he received as a commercial line pilot certainly came in handy. Combined with the superior maneuverability of Majestics compared to the slow and unwieldy Star Destroyers, the microjump ambush handed Andreus, Akacen, and their fleet a critical advantage--the ability to dictate the range of the engagement. Andreus, for one, had absolutely no intention of throwing that advantage away. He calculated a jump-in point a couple hundred kilometers off and further than the farthest tip of the forming enemy crescent--even if the fleet of Star Destroyers moved during the microjump, Andreus' calculation still left more than sufficient margin of error so the fleet would not get caught at point-blank.

Commander Andreus Makaryk transmitted the course and the coordinates for the microjump to the rest of the fleet, along with a final message.

"At all times maintain extreme range with respect to the closest Star Destroyer--all others should be kept out of range until the closest is destroyed. Then close to extreme range of the next closest, and so on. We outrange them, we fight outside their range, we pick them off one by one. May the Force be with us."

"Jump...now."

A couple minutes later​

The Jedi Fleet had vanished into hyperspace, where scouts were unlikely to find it. Where would it land? Where would it strike? Had the Sith turned the tables on the ambush with their semi-circle formation? Or were the Jedi still in control of their "defensive" ambush? Seconds passed into minutes, and the Sith could do little but wait and see, and possibly meditate...

It wouldn't be long, however, before the Sith found out. Only moments after the lone Majestic exploded under "mysterious circumstances," the Jedi fleet returned to realspace. But not in the middle of the crescent formation to go after the damaged Star Destroyer as Sogar had hoped. No, the Jedi commander wasn't about to throw away his main advantages like that, and the fleet landed some ninety kilometers from the nearest Empire ship. And that was closest Alliance ship to closest Empire ship.

Even the Majestics had to close. Andreus quickly flagged the nearest Star Destroyer as A and the next closest as B, so as targets were destroyed (or fell out of range), the Jedi could switch targets quickly and painlessly. "Primary target is A, secondary is B," Andreus called out to the fleet, meanwhile tagging every ship in the Sith fleet according to position. "Eliminate A first. Stay together, and maintain range at seventy-five kilometers."

Seventy-five kilometers, the extreme limit of optimal range for the Majestics. Beyond that, even the advanced targeting systems of the Majestics fell off in accuracy rapidly. But the Star Destroyers were several generations older, antique even by the standards of the stagnation of technology the last few hundred years, and their effective range was even shorter. Andreus brought his own ship to within seventy-five kilometers of that nearest Star Destroyer, on the outermost tip of the enemy semi-circle, ordered his gunners to begin firing, and then turned around to hold distance. He trusted Akacen would use that Battle Meditation he sensed to keep the fleet's movement similarly coordinated.

At this range, the Majestics could fire upon the Star Destroyers with some accuracy, but the Star Destroyers would have a lot of trouble hitting them back. It would help too that Star Destroyers were the bigger targets by far, and that Andreus had every intention of keeping his own fleet moving, using its maneuverability to the maximum. The Majestics were faster than the cumbersome and lumbering Star Destroyers; they should have little difficulty holding range, if their crews paid sufficient attention to doing it.

And Andreus Makaryk knew that this battle would be all about dictating range.

 

[Master Maverick]

Even thought he crew of the bait Majestic had been minimal, to stem the loss of life, the disturbance and silence after it exploded was, indeed, felt by the Jedi Knight. While he certainly wasn't powerful enough to know exactly why or how this happened, he knew something wasn't right. The fact they could blow up a capital ship in seconds was disconcerting even to the most hardened of soldiers. While Akacen certainly wasn't one of those, his training with the Jedi would give him the clarity and peace of mind to not be devastated by this realization.

As well, they seemed to need to get extremely close to be able to do that. This wouldn't happen again.

It had been spoken about well before the battle that they would be using the advantages their ships gave them against their enemy. Keeping a distance was the first and foremost priority. Andreus saying that was actually redundant to Akacen.

The silence that followed was deafening. Akacen was focused on making sure all their ships had their exact coordinates and they were correct. While he didn't know much about naval battle, he knew enough about coordinates to give Andreus the 'green light' to go. Immediately after, Andreus had given the order, and they jumped.

When they exited hyperspace, the fleet led by 2 Jedi for the Galactic Alliance found themselves pointing towards the starboard side of the destroyer most directly facing the planet. They had been busy since their pause in getting up a sort of defense. However, with the entire defensive fleet focused on one side, they were outnumbered at the moment. The Jedi would have 'plenty' of time before the 'back' destroyers even faced the right way. As it was, they were out of optimal range of the closest one. While some shots would, no doubt, hit one of the ships, they would almost be negligible.

Akacen's mind was frantic at this point, the whole of his concentration focused on keeping their own ships in position and at the prime distance from the Sith fleet. The entire Alliance fleet focused their attack on the closest Star Destroyer. The Alliance had yet to send out any starfighters and the Coronas were on standby, ready to defend the Majestics from incoming fighters and bombers. This would be their main objective for the time being.

Coordinates were locked and weapons systems were primed. Almost simultaneously, after coming out of hyperspace, the remaining 19 of the Majestics would fire upon the closest Star Destroyer. While only 12 were readily able to fire upon the destroyer with at least some accuracy, Akacen had made sure they were ready and helped to organize the ambush through the force, coordinating the commanders in the other ships to get into position.

Akacen's ship was yet to be in range and thus hadn't started firing. However, this gave him the opportunity to physically see the battle as well as brush his senses over it. While the Sith were just as organized, they had started off at, somewhat of, a disadvantage. Excitement filled him as, however temporarily, they had the upperhand. He would have stood were he not so physically handicapped, as it were.

However, his vantage point on the bridge of his ship was good enough to fully see the Sith Fleet. Quickly his ship, along with those others around him, moved to attack range. It would take a few moments, but surely not nearly as long as it would take for those Destroyers to turn and regroup.

 

[Black Noise]

Sogar quickly gave himself an assessment of the situation. They had nineteen Majestic Class cruisers and ten Coronas. He didn't need the scanners as his force Sight was far enough to see each one in detail. The Coronas were only 25 meters longer than the Tartans, and although they had turbolaser cannons, were only slightly better than the Tartans, and could be destroyed easily if they could get within range.

The Majestics were designed to have a range of 75 KMs, while the Star Destroyers and Dreadnaughts were only only accurate up to 45-50 KMs. So, for the Imperial Star Destroyers, they would simply be torn to pieces until they came within range, however, once in range, the Sith would then have the advantage. Although the Majestics had range and powerful heavy Turbolasers, they were smaller and had inferior shields compared to the Star Destroyers.

The Imperial Star Destroyers only appeared to be ancient from the outside. However, their weapons and shields had been drastically rehauled to fit the parameters set by the competition. They had been fixed to best just as good now as they were in the old days, better even. Although one major problem remained with them, they were still slow.

No matter what they did, the Star Destroyers were still around 1,600 meters long. Though they were over twice as large as the Majestics, and twice as strong, there were ridiculously slow moving. The shields on the Star Destroyers would more than hold out for a little while when the Majestics started hitting them, the Star Destroyers whose shields were either knocked out or were going to be knocked out might as well pronounce themselves dead.

However, one large factor in play was that once the Star Destroyers got into range, they would stay in range. Because if the Majestics and Coronas turned their backs on the Star Destroyers to try and get out of range, the destroyers would then annihilate their engines and pick them off at will. Sogar just had to get his fleet within range and keep it as intact as possible.

Sogar decided he needed to take action, and quickly. Already he was sending out orders.
"Tell Admiral Kelvin to take the right and foremost half of the fleet around to the left side of the Alliance's fleet. He will flank them from the side while I attack from the front, they will be boxed in by the planet itself."

Even as the message was being sent out, Sogar sent another message to his ships to move them around to head directly for the Majestics. Although the Majestics and Coronas were currently targeting Admiral Kelvin's ships, it would not be long before they switched over to hit Sogar's ships, being that Sogar's ships were headed for the Alliance fleet head-on.

 

[Count Sam]

Sir we have been able to detect the enemy's ships...it seems that they are trying to use long range combat as their main weapon!!!" One of the communication officer said out loud to the Admiral who was able to maintain his cool even after the Alliance finally showed up and started their assault against the Sith fleet. It was true that the Alliance had a good plan, but well it was not like the Admiral and sith superior did not come here without some tricks up their sleeve as well. One of those tricks was "flanking" Which was and old tactic, but still a very effective one especially in such situations.

Gladly, it did not take General Sogar so long before he issued his orders and of course the Admiral did not wait. After all, if they had waited a little longer they would have lost a lot of ships while they watched those damn Alliance making use of their long range abilities.

"Alright all ships are to take hard port!!!we are moving on to flank the damn alliance from their left side" The Admiral gave his orders as his ships finally started to move to the left flank of the enemy quickly, gladly since his ships were on the move the enemy's fire was not that accurate but still that did not prevent his ships from taking some heavy damage thought; however, still the Admiral could not help but give a cunning smile as the ships under his command broke apart from the fleet to flank the enemy from the left side, and as he took another puff from his cigar.

It was now a matter of time before the Alliance forces were trapped above their own planet.

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

The Empire had a bit of a problem. Flanking required at least some degree of relative maneuverability, maneuverability the Empire's cumbersome Star Destroyers simply didn't have compared to the smaller, more agile, faster Majestics. Either that, or the attempt at flanking required the Alliance ships to hold still, which simply wasn't happening.

The enemy's turbolasers lanced out in the general direction of the Alliance fleet, but at such range the targeting was wildly inaccurate. Only because a very few lucky shots splattered harmlessly against the backside shields could Commander Makaryk figure out the enemy was trying to target engines in an attempt to impede the maneuverability of his fleet. But with even the closest Star Destroyers a full 50% outside of their effective range, and a great many of them even farther out, they simply couldn't land enough shots to do it.

This required a bit of an adjustment. The Majestics could easily produce enough thrust to move their smaller hulls faster than Star Destroyers, but if they already maintained the maximums of their effective weapons range, why would they want to? But Andreus had an outlet for this extra thrust, oh yes he did. It would not be necessary to keep his back to the enemy--his ships had enough engine power to fly at an angle and still maintain the desired seventy-five kilometer range. This extra angular velocity vector would have the added bonus of reducing the profile of the engines to the enemy and making his ships even harder to hit in general, and it could be reduced (redirected into pulling away) or increased (exposing more of the broadside, less of the backside) as needed to maintain range.

Commander Makaryk pulled his own ship away from the planet, towards open space, for the simple reason that if he flew towards it, he would eventually run out of room for his maneuver, and that would be a bad thing. No doubt what the Empire was hoping for. But Andreus Makaryk wouldn't give the Empire's commanders what they were hoping for. Not this time!

Andreus hailed the Alliance Fleet to issue these new orders. "All ships, open up full throttle. Fly out towards open space at an angle to the closest Star Destroyer such that the seventy-five kilometer range is maintained. They are trying to get to our engines, so we use our maneuverability to minimize their profile to the enemy. I am already on such a heading. Continue to concentrate your fire on A; it will not last much longer. When A is destroyed, secondary is B. Tertiary is D." By now, the Star Destroyer Andreus had tagged as D had crept ever-so-closer than the one he had tagged as C. Commander Makaryk needed to keep track of such things...

It was true that this extreme range stretched the limits of the Majestics' accuracy. But they could still get some hits in, whereas the Star Destroyers were so far out of range they could scarcely hit anything short of a super-capital at all. Andreus had every intention of keeping it that way. It would take a while to slowly gnaw through the shields of twenty Star Destroyers, one by one, but that was quite all right. Both Andreus and Akacen had lots of patience, after all, and a headlong rush into a melee would only result in needless Alliance casualties. As the Alliance Fleet led Kelvin's flank out towards open space, Sogar's ships would simply get left in the space dust as they struggled and strained to turn. Likely, Andreus would have to come back to them after Kelvin's ships were finally sniped to space dust. Andreus simply wished the Majestics came complete with gravity-well projectors, as his present course would eventually lead the Star Destroyers outside of Saleucami's gravity well, but he couldn't have it all.

It was also true that with the Alliance Fleet maintaining range with respect to the Star Destroyers, the Empire's dreadnoughts and Tartans might begin to catch up. But that was no worry, for if that even began to happen, they could easily be picked off as well. The sacrifice of that lone Majestic to get a good jump-in point on the enemy fleet had indeed paid off, it seemed.

Commander Andreus Makaryk was flying the Empire Fleet around like little more than a kite...

 

[Master Maverick]

As Andreus spoke it was almost like an echo as he 'heard' it within his mind a moment earlier.

At this point Akacen stood from his chair and 'hobbled' over to a control panel, the closest one to him, on the bridge. All the tactical information about all the ships within the range of his, which happened to be all the ships in the battle, were displayed.

((I apologize, this should have been stated earlier. If you want me to change it that bad, then I will. I just realized that I was backwards...))

Akacen was, at this point, leading the fleet, or fleets to be more accurate, away from the planet. The forward ships would slow down slightly to allow for the others to 'catch up', but he kept a steady eye on the distances, relaying such information with the other Commanders. Even as Andreus said it, Akacen already knew from reading his mind and observing that their marks were changing. Hopefully it wouldn't get too confusing for the rest of the fleet, but he would work hard to prevent this.

Adding to Andreus' orders, he announced, "All Corona-class frigates, ready weapons for incoming enemy support ships and fighters. Do not break formation. All fighter pilots to your ships, prime for take off. Wait for the signal." The command in his voice was only subtly diminished to those who would know it. This was only because he was physically weakened, but his mind was as sharp as ever.

The organization of the heavy cruisers and frigates was seemless. Soon, all but 2 of the Majestics would be firing upon the closest destroyer, the one Akacen on being an exception. Even with almost less than half of the weapons present on their Captial Ships able to fire upon the one destroyer, the barrage would be quite enough to break the shields and start punching holes in the hull, while relatively slowly, quickly enough to start giving heavy damage to the enemy's ship.

 

[Black Noise]

Sogar looked on as his Star Destroyers started sending him reports on the damage they were taking, hanger bays lost, life support damaged, gun turrets taking damage. This was more than just annoying now as two of his Star Destroyers were now damaged, one of them having a severely damaged life support and was mainly running off the backup kept near the reactor core that was draining a considerable amount of power away from their guns.

Sogar watched his enemy's movements, he knew what they were trying to do. They would attempt to play cat and mouse with him and slowly pick off his ships. While Sogar loved a good game, he made sure everyone else played by his rules. A plan formed in his head, a plan that the Jedi would have no choice but to play along.

He sent a message to Admiral Kelvin.
"Admiral, I have a plan. However, it requires your utter co-operation. What I am about to order you is evil, wrong, and you most likely kill thousands of innocents. However, if you do not follow my orders, then your replacements are always ready to.

Take thirteen Super Star Destroyers and 2,000 of the Fighter and Bomber squadrons. Position yourself exactly 65 Kilometers from my current position behind me, once there, bombard Saleucami's surface. I want every city and village within a 500 Kilometer range below you to turn into a crisp. Do not reply, do not ask questions, I trust in you, Admiral. Your actions here dictate the course this grand Empire will take, choose wisely."

Sogar ended the message and turned to his transmitters, ordering.
"Send out a message to the remaining six star destroyers, four dreadnaughts, six tartans, and 1,000 fighter and bomber squadrons. Tell them they are to divert ALL power to shields until the Jedi are one kilometer within range, then rip them to shreds. I will handle anything that tries to pass me, try to save a few for me to annihilate."

Sogar knew that the Jedi would be not only turning their backs upon hundreds thousands of innocent people, but on everything they stood for if they did not go along with Sogar's plan. They would have to turn around and head directly for Sogar's ships to get within range to stop Kelvin's ships from annihilating hundreds of thousands of people.

If the Jedi tried to go around Sogar, he would easily see it coming from afar off. In which case, rather than having to turn fully around, Sogar would only have to adjust the angles of his ships a few degrees to intercept the Majestics and Coronas.

If they did in fact, try to rip through Sogar's smaller fleet to get to Kelvin, then they would suffer massive losses. Sogar would, himself alone, destroy two or three capital ships. The Star Destroyers had a little more firepower than the Majestics, and they were a ton of a lot bigger. Although they would be firing at each other with the same guns, the Star Destroyers would take twice as long to be destroyed because they were twice as big as the Majestics.

Sogar smiled, now the real fighting would begin. His game was in motion, all he had to do was wait for the enemy to move their pieces.

 

[Count Sam]

The Admiral listened carefully as the sith master gave him his new orders. It sounded like there were going to be a lot of sacrifices but the Admiral did not really care. After all, he simply did what he had to do no matter what they orders were. Also while he was listening to the Sith Master's order the Admiral took a long puff from his cigarettes as he thought about Muunlist and how similar this was going to be to it.

"General Sogar, I assure you during all those years I have served the Empire I have never ever defied a single order no matter what it was from a superior...I will not fail you master" He said as the communications were lost and as the Admiral went back to his seat as he started to issue his orders.

"Alright all ships are to divert some energy to the engines and move sixty five kilometers behind the general's ships!!!" The Admiral gave his orders as the navigation officer quickly started to pinpoint the new coordinates and it was not so long before the ships started to move behind Sogar's fleet. The orders were issued to the thirteen destroyers and 2000 fighters that the Admiral had under his command for this certain order. Of course one of the things that the Admiral was glad about was the fact that his ships were now hiding behind Sogar's ships and would not take damage anymore or at least for the time being.

"All ships are to prepare their guns and lock them on our new target....the surface of Saleucami and those who defy these orders will be killed right on the spot!!" The Admiral added making it clear to everyone that there was no going back on this and that it was an either do it or get killed matter.

"sir all ships are ready to fire we are waiting for your orders!!!" the Admiral's XO said as he looked curious at the Admiral still not sure if he was really going to give the orders to fire or not.

"Fire!!!" The Admiral said as all the ships under his command started to fire at the surface of Saleucami. It was indeed one heck of a view, the mix of bolts, missiles and slugs flying toward the surface of Saleucami to wreck havoc and kill thousands of beings.

The Admiral smiled as he remembered Muunlist and how fun it was to kill those damn Muuns back then...

 

[Andreus Makaryk]

Aww, so the Sith no longer wanted to be forced to chase a fleet they had absolutely no chance to catch. Perhaps this was understandable. Annoying, but understandable. The formation of Star Destroyers began to decelerate. The enemy fleet was coming to a stop. Some of the bulky ships began the arduous process of turning around.

As the Star Destroyers fought their forward inertia, the Majestics began turning inward, in their loose formation, to hold their seventy-five kilometer range against the Star Destroyers. They had a moment to continue firing on the designated primary, before they began to drop back and Sogar's ships began to overtake them. The closer Star Destroyers, and their support ships, seemed to be dumping abnormally high amounts of power into shields, if sensor readings were to be believed. Nevertheless, Commander Makaryk held his range with respect to the closest ships, which had now changed. The fleet had standing orders to do the same.

He now had to re-shuffle his list of targets. With the nearest Star Destroyers now dumping power into their shields, it now seemed more efficacious to pick off their support ships, the dreadnoughts and the Tartans. Though these ships reinforced their shields as well, those shields were far weaker than those of Star Destroyers. They would die under concentrated firepower more quickly, thus leaving the Empire side with only the Star Destroyers. Any ability the Empire's forces might have to chase ships down later in the fleet battle with their faster support ships would be compromised, and if the Empire ever did get into range, they would have that much less damage output to boot.

In order to do this, however, he had to close, just a bit. Not near what the Sith had hoped for, however. "All ships, close to seventy kilometers and maintain new distance." That way, Andreus had a bit of margin of error for his targets trying to use their larger counterparts for range cover, while still not letting his opponent get into their range. The tradeoff, of course, was a bit less margin of error should the Star Destroyers try to close again. But the tradeoff was slight.

Andreus tagged the support ships with numbers that popped up next to their respective readings on sensor scopes, with the dreadnoughts registering one through four, and the Tartans five through ten.

"Primary target is one!"

"Secondary is two!"

"Tertiary is three!"

"Quaternary is four!"

And so Commander Makaryk went down the list of support ships--with nineteen capital ships, each with almost-comparable firepower to the Star Destroyers, each firing on the first target, not moving onto the next until the first was dispatched (or managed somehow to get out of range again). Under the concentrated fire, the weaker shields of the support ships should melt; yet the Alliance fleet still held its orbit well outside of the Empire's weapons range, using its superior maneuverability as necessary. Andreus wondered why the Empire rotated its ships so--was it simply to swap damaged ships out to the rear? He couldn't know. Not yet.

Not until Kelvin's now-rearguard formation was in its firing position and dumping power into its weapons.

The bastards began bombarding the planet, and Andreus Makaryk immediately felt the first deaths through the Force. But unlike combat, these deaths left a residue that indicated the people who perished clearly had not expected it. The purpose of the Sith ship rotation immediately became clear--the Sith commander was trying to goad the Jedi into doing something very, very stupid by manipulating their emotions. It became clear now--to save the civvies, Andreus would have to have his fleet burn into range of a formation now some hundred thirtyish kilometers away. The burn would take him straight through the formation of Star Destroyers with reinforced shields--affording the Sith an opportunity to get into range and tear the Alliance fleet apart in the process.

Meld me, Andreus sent telepathically to his counterpart, General Mothturus. If Akacen used Battle Meditation, Andreus hoped he was familiar with mind-melding as well, for he had not the time to confer by voice comms. Thoughts were faster. He wanted Akacen to read those, as Andreus evaluated the new circumstances within seconds.

There were factors the Sith commander probably did not expect the Jedi to consider.

One, the mysterious explosion of the bait ship at the very beginning of the battle. Star Destroyers did have a lot of firepower, especially a fleet of twenty of them, but even that wasn't enough to alpha-strike a Majestic so quickly. That would take at least thirty seconds, but the Majestic hadn't even had time to ram up its engines to escape. Something had gone seriously wrong; the Sith had some kind of secret weapon that only seemed to work at close range. Just how much could they use it? That factor was unknown.

Moreover, the blind charge the Sith now goaded for would result in heavy Alliance casualties--probably enough to simply hand Sith the battle. The Sith weren't nice, and however many civilians a few minutes of planetary bombardment killed, actual Sith rule would kill at least as many. Sith weren't nice people; Andreus knew that all too well. He had been Sith once, as a boy, and even when he was barely older than a toddler, Darth Oseth had ensured he'd done more than his fair share of killing. So, bad as the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians was now, compared to the longer-term option of the suffering that would ensue after a Sith victory, denying the Sith their victory still seemed the better option. In addition to that, the Jedi served and protected the Alliance as well, and just handing the Sith victory in a foolish, emotionally-driven charge like that would constitute dereliction of duty in its own right.

The next consideration was really a derivative of the previous one, but quite possibly even more important. The Alliance would lose a lot of firepower in the charge--firepower that would otherwise be applied to removing the bombarding Star Destroyers, which had already proven difficult enough to kill, or even disable. If the Sith destroyed enough of the Alliance fleet because Andreus charged to within their range, the firepower the Alliance fleet would then lack would make killing the Star Destroyers now committing war crimes just that much harder. They might not get killed at all, and the bombardment would continue--and the charge would then be for nothing. A fruitless waste.

Jedi were at all times supposed to remain calm, and in control of their emotions. Not surprisingly, the Sith now tried to strip away that self-control. But for Andreus, at least, he would do what had to be done: He could maneuver into position to remove the planetary bombardment, but he could not hand the Sith victory on a silver platter in so doing. Even the Jedi could not save everybody, and though Commander Makaryk's decision would be a controversial one, it was nonetheless the correct one. The Jedi Council might well inquire after the battle, but Andreus knew that in light of all of the facts available to him, he could defend the decision by arguing a Sith victory would be far worse, and he would be correct to do so.

"We go around. Continue on present heading, in a semicircle arc around the obstructing formation." The semicircle faced out towards open space, not inwards towards the planet. All the while, his ships continued to fire on their designated targets from the support ship category, hopefully stripping the Empire of its non-fighter support entirely.

But there was one thing Andreus Makaryk could do, even while he maneuvered around, to staunch the bleeding. He still had one tool left at his disposal.

The planetary batteries. They were ready to fire again. Commander Makaryk sent orders to ground control, as this would require some coordination. Of course, he had encrypted the orders, for he wanted to catch the bombarding ships with their defensive pants down, so to speak.

"Ion control, fire at ships designated I and J. Turbolaser control, fire up the hangar of J." Both the designated target Star Destroyers were in the formation that had begun planetary bombardment. Andreus Makaryk couldn't reach the formation yet, but he could weaken its firepower with the now-recharged planetary defenses. As the bombarding ships had likely received orders to focus their reactor output on bombardment, having slid far out of the Majestics' range, they shouldn't be putting too much power into their shields, thus enabling the ion cannon to split its firepower and yet still do its job. And hopefully, if the planetary turbolaser destroyed the second Star Destroyer's hangar hard enough, it would stress the ship's superstructure enough for the bow to start sagging and eventually snap off.

The planetary batteries fired as ordered, sending angry orange and green bolts up in answer to the brazen Sith mass murder.

Andreus had one more thing to tell the ground crews. This transmission, of course, was also properly encrypted.

"Shut down the civilian grid, with the exception of emergency services. Tie the power into the planetary batteries."

Against these Star Destroyers, Andreus Makaryk needed all the firepower he could get. Dumping the civilian grid generation into planetary defense might not cause the defense batteries to recycle any faster, but it kriffing well might make them fire harder next time.

 

[Master Maverick]

Upon the 'order', Akacen did just that and their minds, for a lack of a better term, became one. Their minds relayed to each other seamlessly and instantly.

As Andreus thought and figured, Akacen did as well, giving his input, emotions and thoughts on the situation. The turn of events threatened to anger him, but Andreus' rationale and Akacen's realism helped him to know that this was the best course of action. If they didn't win this battle, then all might be lost for the planet.

As the destruction of the planet below commenced, Akacen's mind twanged and bent with the massive amount of death being delivered to the planet. Countless innocents were being killed simply to draw the Alliance fleet out of their safety zone. It was far form admirable and honorable, but it would work.

Only somewhat.

Akacen, while letting Andreus know about his feelings of the plan and that he was somewhat against it, let him know that he agreed and would stand by his decision should the council question them. While he was rather anxious about such a happening, the thoughts had no time in his mind as it raced to organize the rest of the fleet into action.

Once their fleet had successfully turned, getting only marginally closer, practically negligible, they started to release a full bombardment upon their support ships. The Majestics would keep in a position in which they could easily move should they need to, but as they were, they were able to unleash more of their weapons, almost doubling the amount of fire.

Akacen kept his mind on the fleet, making sure they were in perfect formation and position and keeping them from disobeying the orders and breaking file to save the planet on their own, which would be only suicidal and futile.

In a flash of a thought, Akacen shot Andreus the idea of splitting up the fleet once they had taken down whatever number of enemy ships. It was simply an idea to consider and by no means any sort of definitive thought, never mind order. He just wanted to end the needless killing as soon as possible.