Author - Might re-watch Andor and Rebels.
Patreon Deluxee
****
The lead up to the big event was honestly kind of boring.
Publicly I kept to Elyrian work: route disputes, repair schedules, two governors arguing over who got the bigger balls, a customs board that wanted praise for doing its job that they get paid for.
Privately we organised the quiet crew transfers, and hulls that vanished from active boards under scrap and deep operations excuses, Reza handled the public face of the reassignments there were some people asking questions like other captains from other systems and Orlen but we all just gave the same answers and we had the data and communications to back them up, I am thankful that Harlan buried the paperwork with the help of our first specialised administrative droid that arrived, that clanka is a god send.
Human crews came off light cruisers and gunships first, then a thinner set of heavies were pushed toward home fronts, understandably some were displeased that they have to move to different ships and most of the captains were displeased that they will lose command, even if temporarily one had to be made example of when he threw a fit and threatened to resign, so with sadness we fired him since he was so dissatisfied with the navy he can try his luck in ground combat.
Last I heard he is getting a divorce and she took the kids while he took to the bottle.
In the old crews place droid took full control.
Atii spent her free hours in the mountain complex with her new SS-54 she lovingly named Elyrias Delight.
Mines went out to Red Shear in limited loads, we never had enough to build a real wall, only a thin first layer for whoever came through too confident. Grok also had some of his freighters modified for more intense with more canons and more space for fighters and bombers.
Speaking of, Vultures and Hyena bombers were packed into the transferred warships and onto external clamps where the hulls could carry them, and the Lucrehulk was the centre of the whole force. It is probably the second most powerful in my entire arsenal right behind the star destroyers.
Now the minimal plan was to take Red Shear and the mouth system, break their outbound survey and military push, keep the route from opening into our charted space.
Best case: hold the key worlds beyond the mouth and fold them under Elyrian control through NIDA without the Empire ever learning of it.
No one in the inner circle liked the odds, afterall its less than a hundred ships against 500, some of which as big as Iron Reaver, though the fact that we outclassed them in every other way put some of my fears to rest.
By the end of the slow stretch the force was mostly in position and now all that remained was to wait .
I stood in the secure room late one night with Grok on the line.
"Status," I said.
Grok answered from the dark side of the map. "Sufficient to contest the mouth if contact occurs inside the projected window. Probability of success rising."
"Well that sounds great, any problems?"
"No."
As the brits would say. "Fooken splendid bruv"
****
A week and a half later the scout return finally told us some interesting news.
In a secure room Grok had already cleaned the raw feed into something readable: route traces, hull counts, formation estimates, and a rough personnel range that made the room feel smaller.
"Four hundred and twelve ships," Grok said. "Plus a much larger screen of fighters, bombers, and smaller craft. Personnel estimate is incomplete, but the lower bound is already in the hundreds of thousands if those ships are crewed at normal density for their sizes not to mention security and ground divisions."
The largest ships matched what we had feared from the earlier glimpses, what we have designated as Tusk-class heavies, roughly on the same scale as Iron Reaver, built thick and blunt, with shield profiles that looked dense at a glance and weaker once the returns were broken down via sensors. Their main guns were heavy for their design and still shorter in effective range than ours.
Then the Mast-class cruisers made up a lot of the centre mass, roughly the size of our cruisers, outfited every inch with any viable weapon they have and oversized engines probably overcompensating for their weaker designs.
There was also Hook-class gun ships that ran the flanks somewhat resembling the republic LAATs but a bit wider and bulker.
Ash-class boarding shuttles rode close to the carriers and heavies, while they might have limited weapons their shields are the most powerful, probably stuck as many shield generators and called it a day, plus armour hull thicker than some larger ships.
The fighter and bomber counts were worse than the capital count, at least triple that of ours, maybe more if they have more stashed up in their ships somewhere. From last skirmishes it is clear they prefer swarming tactics as individually the fighters are worse but are very agile and quickm while bombers went for quality over quantity in terms of ships and their payload judging by the readings coming from their ships.
"Hyperdrive quality?" Reza asked.
"Poor by any standard we use," Grok said. "They make up for it in numbers and they have their own unique hyperspace engines that have deviated from galactic standard. On conventional sense we have the more powerful weapon systems along with the range, we hold the advantage. On mass, we do not, if even a third of them close the gaps they can simply oversaturate our shields or begin mass docking procedures, it is imperative we do not let them get in close or surrounded us. That is why some forces will be stationed as previously discussed around the flanks with some reinforcements hidden in the nearby asteroid field in case they get behind us so we can get behind them."
I went through the images one by one. The Tusk-class ships had broad prows and layered armour skirts. The Mast-class looked more like long haulers turned into warships, with weapon mounts added where cargo gear had once been. Fighters came in two common frames, one faster and light, one thicker and probably harder to kill and used to perform long distance escort duties for bombers. Then there were Bombers, there were many different variations that we can't simply categorised, they moved in denser groups surrounded by the heavy fighters.
"Timing?" I asked.
"If they hold present course and do not lose days to void navigation, two to four days after final staging," Grok said. "They have found enough of the route to move with purpose, they seemed to get one of our buoys and finally cracked it and are moving along our designated route."
I pulled our board up beside theirs. About seventy dedicated warships, forty of the ones I gave Grok plus some of the ones he had or managed to build, they are all staged around the system mouth in a semi circle roughly 135 degrees all around it, with Vultures and bombers not only in the hangars but locked along outer hull clamps where the ships could carry them into the first exchange.
Further thirty freighters from Grok modified heavily for a fight The Lucrehulk waiting as the heavy centre and occupation carrier. Mines already laid in a thin screen at the entrance, not enough to stop a fleet like we did with Orlen, but enough to punish the front ranks and slow the rest.
Light flank groups marked around the edges, mostly lighter hulls and gunships. With the rest of the available forces positioned along the Asteroid which includes any ship with even a single gun, rest of Vultures and bombers Grok also took the imitative and put any tanks and cannons he had on those asteroid so that if he gets pushed hard the Asteroids will bombard them from the side and force them to take them out first before proceeding.
Something like Anakin and Rex did in that one clone wars episode, or was it the sex icon Obi Wan? I don't know memory getting funky already.
Minimum objective remained the same: hold Red Shear, take the mouth system, break this push before it became a permanent road into charted space. If the fight ran better than the ratios deserved, the key worlds beyond the mouth came next.
Atii had come in halfway through the review and stood with her arms folded, "They're bringing a sky full of short-range craft and betting we can't kill them fast enough, honestly what a waste."
I snorted "Isn't that what the Empire is doing?"
She just gave a slight amused huff.
Grok adjusted the final staging markers as if nothing. "Orders are ready for distribution to NIDA forces."
I nodded and signed the official authorisation for Grok.
Fucking send it my clanka, show those neathendrals the power of the ex CIS warcime machine.
**Grok POV**
Segment 3
I held the force in a wide arc around the mouth of the system and waited for their exit burns to resolve into targets.
Seventy-one dedicated warships sat in the main line, with the Lucrehulk cantered behind the first heavy tier where it could launch, recover, and absorb pressure without blocking the lanes of fire. Vulture packs clung to outer hull clamps in dormant clusters and filled the near screen in dense rotating flights. Hyena Bombers with an assortment of scavenged other craft waited in shorter cycles, loaded and assigned.
Thirty freighters, rebuilt with extra plating, added guns, and internal racks for chassis and munitions, held the rear and low flanks. They were ugly ships, nothing like the elegant and slick Recusants or other NIDA dedicated space craft however by my calculations their armed presence under my dedicated command was required in this particular situation.
The mine screen at the entrance was thin. I would have wished for more but we do not have capacity to build them and mines are rather restricted in terms of sales and with each procurement we would need to give an explanation of where and why they would be used, what we got was 2nd hand older stockpiles we got through Kaels connection with the Pykes.
Then I get a message flash through my photoreceptors, their fleet is approaching and are beginning their reversion to hyperspace.
Tusk-class heavies came through near the centre with Mast-class cruisers packing the lanes around them, Hook-class gun ships spilled wide and fast all around the area, some already hitting the few mines scattered around.
While their fighters and bombers began making formations, with even more pouring out of the ships, a third class of fighters and small craft, presumably with no hyperdrive thats why they were inside.
Curious, the third kind of fighters do not have signs of life on them, droids? Will require scans after the battle.
Four hundred and twelve ships with thousands more fighters, bombers and other smaller craft, the ship saturation is high, and dense. They occupied the mouth like a moving city with guns.
Update for memory bank, subfolder space war and tactics #7721. Station closer to the mouth and fire upon them when they are this clustered up in the Sheer sector.
The front ranks hit the mines, at least what remained of them after a few fighters and smaller forward ships hit them.
Detonations walked through the first screen in irregular blooms. One Mast-class lost thrust and slewed into a Hook-class hard enough to strip both out of future usefulness. Two smaller hulls broke apart. While several more fighters died.
The rest of the enemy formation compressed, shifted, and kept coming. The mines had done their work.
I opened a broad transmission on every channel their prior contact traces had used.
"This is the controlling command of the force you are approaching. Identify your authority and state your intent. If you continue on present course you will be engaged."
No answer.
I repeated the challenge on narrower bands, then on raw power, then through the simple pictographic hail patterns left over from the first survey encounters.
The enemy fleet continued to organize into attack positions and their power emissions showed targeting activity and fighter deployment orders with their shields now fully up.
No diplomatic handshake.
Very well, probability of victory. 73.42%
I assigned final fire priorities across the net. Heavies were to cut the nearest Tusk-class and Mast-class frames at range. Light ships were to keep the flanks from wrapping. Vulture screens were to meet the first fighter waves before they could collide with our lines while bombers will be held for the moment when enemy capital ships or when they are needed as situation progresses.
"All units," I sent. "Engage."
The opening exchange lit the mouth of the system in clean coordinated volleys once they got into range. Clearly they did not expect to be out ranged by such a huge margins as I watched the enemy shields flare unevenly under impacts they could not yet return. Several Mast-class cruisers took immediate surface damage with one Tusk-class heavy that was bombarded by multiple mines and got concentrated by multiple ships at once turned into a ball of fire that tried to bull through on mass alone. Fighters on both sides closed the gap between the capital lines fast .
I watched the range clocks fall and the enemy screen thicken.
****
The capital lines settled into a hard exchange and the mouth of the system filled with continuous fire.
Our heavies kept the advantage as long as range remained between us.
Tusk-class shields held poorly under sustained hits and Mast-class cruisers began showing hull scars. Enemy return fire was thick enough to matter once they closed even a little, but their effective reach still fell short of ours, when the shots connected they barely made a ripple in the shields.
I used that.
Every ship in the main line fired on pre assigned targets and drifted back by measured intervals, keeping the distance open while the front of their formation tried to push through while avoiding the increasing amount of wreckages in their wake, their fighters are also sustaining heavy damage.
The light groups on the flanks stayed where they were. Their work was to prevent flanking and to strike from the sides once the enemy has fully dedicated and there are no signs of reinforcements.
Moving backwards is slower than turning around and flying, but should we do it we will lose our range advantage as only few ships have canons that could go and fire back behind us, so ever so slowly the enemy is closing space with only five minutes remaining before their main batteries would stop being an occasional nuisance and start becoming a constant.
I ordered the line to continue falling back under fire as I checked the status of the fleet in under a second I have seen that all the canons have remained active, taking adequate time before shots so as to not overheat the barrels, with ammunition storage sitting around 87%. Formation has remained intact with only miniscule deviations.
Then I get a notification from Vulture Droid #442 that a large chunk of fighters have started accelerating towards us with countless shuttles and bombers, and they will be right on top of us quickly, it seems the enemy still has some cards to play.
Their fighters and bombers were faster than first anticipated, boarding shuttles were worse in terms of speed but still could take a couple hits as they were bulkier and had better shields.
The Ash-class frames did not behave like typical craft waiting for capital dominance. They burned hard out of the enemy shadow, ignored the safer timing windows that a normal captain or commander would take, and started gaining on our rear quarter in dense clusters. Some Hook-class gun ships came with them to force lanes through the screen.
I redirected Vulture packs and our own gunships into the intercept immediately and activated squadrons of bombers to intercept.
The collision of small craft turned the middle distance between the two fleets into a broken field filled with frame wreckages and constant colour of blaster shots, proton torpedo's and explosions. Our Vultures held better acceleration curves and cleaner fire control and could perform manoeuvres a normal flesh and bone humanoid would not be capable of.
They killed at a strong ratio and still began to disappear under sheer number of enemies, with one vulture being targeted by eight fighters and two gunships at once as I have seen, not two seconds later after dodging fire he was finally shot down, Vulture Droid #1022 survived longer than most, his data bank if recoverable will be restored and will be put back into action and upgraded with a better self learning module and promoted to squadron leader.
Then I switched my view to our bomber that tried to thin the shuttle groups before contact. Several Ash-class frames died in those passes. The rest did not slow down much/
"Intercept is insufficient," one local control node droid reported.
"Continue withdrawal as planned," I sent. "Do not let the capital line stop for the screen fight."
Some enemy fighters broke through anyway. A first set of bombers followed, taking losses and still coming and strafing our shields, behind them the boarding shuttles kept their hard approach vector lanes toward the Lucrehulk and two nearest heavies.
Their course pathing solutions were not standard attack profiles, they were insertion profiles. They meant to latch, cut, and get bodies inside. Possibly take control of the biggest ship and the presumed capital ship and take the leader hostage and demand surrender before taking all the ships for themselves.
This cannot come to pass, NIDA technology and property will not fall into the hands of... lesser beings.
I allocated additional defensive fire and personally adjusted targeting modules and left the rest of the processing load where it belonged and gave it back to the dedicated commanders.
The aforementioned ships under threat and some others were also carrying occupation forces for the system beyond the mouth, if it comes to pass I have myriad of different classes of chassis in dense storages, some already activated in anticipation of boarding strikes.
As for internal defence lines, they were already mapped and through heavy calculation and countless simulations I have arranged it so that particular corridors will be abandoned while others will turn into killing zones, all the others are sealed with small but heavily entrenched droids there to deter any flanking manoeuvres.
Unless these boarders were all exceptional troops under exceptional command like the clones and jedi were during the Confederacy of Independent Systems Secession War or as the Republic called it, the clone wars the chances of their victory are marginal, with my calculations predicting around 11.23% success rate.
They were driving into a prepared interior lines, with the best that NIDA has to offer for defence, they are also wielding worse blasters and armour and from what I have glimpsed their warrior caste is more glory seeking, over that of sound tactical solutions. However, they are still largely unknown which has risen their success rate to what it is.
I adjusted the retreat clocks toward the asteroid field markers and kept the guns working as they are about to enter effective main cannon range.
****
The first Ash-class shuttles hit the Lucrehulk hard enough that the hull carried the impacts through internal frames as dull, repeated shocks.
I split my processing power so that I can pay attention across the boarding action and the external battle without compromising the primary command for the retreat towards the asteroid.
The initial entries came through cut external plates and forced service entrances near mid-hull and lower storage. Their boarding method was direct and wasteful: clamp, burn, blow, push.
No elegant or trying for even a single silent infiltration to catch me by surprise. They spent shuttles to make one way entrances and sent screaming warriors through before fully understanding what is on the other side, if they landed too high in a storage area they would all tumble out screaming and falling to their death, which one shuttle was close to doing.
In multiple manned sectors several of the first ranks died in hail of blaster fire while the rest climbed over their charred corpses or used them as shields. All the while screaming.
Interesting, is screaming part of their culture? Will have to catalogue it and study it. Data bank #44, culture, sub folder Varanki.
I dedicated a little bit more processing power as I studied the live feeds as my defence droids met them.
Varanki warriors were broad-built and dense, with the same heavy cranial line and thick-jointed frame the earlier survey images had suggested, only clearer now at close range. Skin tones ran from deep earth-dark to ash-brown, often marked with pale scar patterns that looked deliberate, something other castes do not poses.
Many wore layered plate over flexible under-harness: not uniform Imperial issue, more like caste-forged sets with repeated symbols at shoulder and throat, all varying in appearance and usefulness, many having plenty of ornaments and accessories.
It seems that the ornaments mattered, the more you had the more important or powerful you were. Bone beads, metal rings, jaw-trophies, and painted rank bars appeared often enough to map hierarchy at a glance. And makes them easier to take out to put their subordinates into leaderless chaos, it seems the leaders are also smarter since when a leader is downed the grunts do not know what to do.
Warrior markers dominated the boarding groups. Cleaner, lighter ornament sets showed up only on the few who hung back and had less weapons but more tools, their engineers it seems? But they appear to still be from the warrior caste.
Their weapons for ground battle were better than their ships had implied.
They possessed Hard-projectile launchers with heavy punch capable of punching through thiner walls or blast doors, short energy cutters for doors and close work, shock mauls, and thick-bladed hand arms built to break armour by force.
They also posesed a myriad of various make of blasters, some as good as those from few decades ago but it is their heavy repeaters that are true danger, with the Varanki being stronger than average human the heavy repeaters they carry are true monsters, a single pass with it cut a B2 in half at the waist.
A standard human soldier would have found them punishing in a straight tight corridor fight. My NIDA lines did not care about intimidation and kept on going even as they lost frames rapidly, especially when pairs or trios of Varanki closed into melee it was a slaughter, however at range we still outgun them.
The boarders were stronger than an average human and quicker in a straight surge. What they lacked was flexibility. They liked one direction: forward. When a corridor forced lateral movement or split choices, their cohesion lagged behind their violence.
Tactics followed the same pattern. One fighting mass up the centre with supporting shooters behind. A commander figure using shouted cadence and repeated chest strikes to keep momentum usually in centre and then leading a charge when appropriate. When a door held, they did not disperse into parallel routes first. They stacked, roared, and tried to make the door open through... intimidation?
My processor froze for a tenth of a second.
It appears I have over estimated their leader cadre, thinking that they are way above the intelligence of the standard grunts.
A technical team of theirs spent nearly a minute failing to force the panel open. Sparks, cutter, heavy fist and no result.
The corridor behind them filled until the feed showed packed shoulders and raised weapons. Then the stacked warriors started a deep, rhythmic slam against their own chest plates, chanting in a rough cadence that the audio systems caught as physical force more than language.
A large warrior, easily a head and half taller than others, covered in head to toe in ornaments and accessories and a cape pushed through to the front with a massive electrified Warhammer in one hand and a large heavy repeater in the other. His plate was marked with myriad of older scars and a full set of throat rings. He roared until the local mic distorted, dropped into a full sprint.
And hit the blast door like a living ram...
Impressive.
The blast door actually dented.
However.
His skull caved under the return force hard enough that the feed shook for a second, it did record how the outline froze for a bit before he started sliding down the metal and with a heavy thump he fell in a weird position at the door, head on the floor his backside high in the air and arms lifelessly lying beside him going backwards.
"That is one weird meatbag."
"I know but look at that he actually managed to dent the blast doors"
"Dont tell that to #99534 Maintenance droid, he will leak oil when he learns that the door he polished just yesterday got dented by a thick headed brute."
I ignored the talkative B1 Commander droids and focused more than necessary processing power at the feed, trying to understand what happened.
For the moment immediately after the corridor went silent except for the dead machine noise of my own chassis repositioning and my own droid brain increasing its power. Then the stacked warriors roared as if the failed charge had been a completed rite and surged forward over the body, cutters and mauls working the dented section with renewed frenzy.
Blood-driven.
That was the useful classification.
Their warrior caste would spend lives to keep a line moving even those at the highest echelons of command it would seem. Their local commanders were smarter, yes. But not by a wide margin. Enough to choose a door. Not enough to understand charging head first into a reinforced metal plate at full sprint is bad idea.
Elsewhere on the Lucrehulk the pattern repeated with local variation. One boarding group learned to use captured service carts as mobile cover. Another used shock mauls in specific spots to break B2s in one devastating hit to the head or mid section.
A third group stalled hard when their commander died early to a wrist rocket and the remaining fighters started competing for the leadership spot instead of fighting their enemies.
None of it resembled elite clone doctrine under Jedi direction. It was akin to primitive species somehow with a heavy emphasis of caste system that somehow found themselves inside a starship interior all courage, ritual fanaticism, and limited adaptation and subpar execution of simple strategies.
Most of the successful shuttle hits had concentrated on the Lucrehulk. That choice made sense from their perspective. It was the largest target and looked like a carrier-command hybrid worth bleeding for. I watched one group breach into a primary staging warehouse on the lower decks and finally understand what they had boarded.
The warehouse lights were already at full power. Rows of chassis stood active in packed ranks: B1 lines, B2 blocks, construction frames rearmed for light combat but to primarily re-seal doors on ships and do repairs and if planet side to work as an engineering corp, tank units on mag-locks, support droids with cutters and fire gear waiting in the aisles and more.
More than a hundred thousand machines in that single deep hold, as one turned their optical sensors toward the breach in one shared motion.
The first Varanki through the smoke froze.
It was brief, only a fraction of a second, but visible on multiple cameras: the sudden bodily stop of fighters who had expected corridors, crews, and maybe a security detachment, not a buried army looking back at them.
One commander tried to force the moment through with a roar and a raised maul, the front rank managed two steps.
Then the hold opened fire in coordinated layers and the boarding group ceased to function as a unit, they all got turned to ash.
I left local net command to finish the interior clearances and turned more processing back outside.
The space battle had stretched during the boarding window. Our line was closer to the asteroid field markers now, still firing, still intact. The enemy main mass had continued pressing and was clearly angry about the failed quick break.
Their long-range fire had increased in volume and decreased in quality. Mast-class and Tusk-class guns flashed repeatedly from distances where impact energy on our shields remained low. Several of their ships kept wasting battery cycles on shots that arrived as light disturbance and little more.
Emotional gunnery.
Inefficient, but informative.
However, in 5.2 seconds they will be in effective range for all of their ships in formation.
Near the asteroid field I opened the dormant channels.
"Release hidden groups," I sent. "All remaining local craft, Vulture reserves, and staged hulls in the field are to attack on marked vectors. Flanking forces are to close from behind and cut retreat routes. No reinforcements are coming return to formation and engage all hostiles when in range."
Acknowledgments returned in clean sequences, within a fraction of a second all forces did as they were told.
In the Lucrehulk corridors, Varanki warriors were still roaring over dead of their own and driving into dug in prepared heavy repeaters. In the warehouse hold, the frozen moment was already gone droids now awaiting command for when to drop on the planets.
I recalculated the pocket as the first hidden units came active on sensors.
The boarders had given me useful data.
The asteroid field would make use of it.
****
I stopped the withdrawal when the asteroid field markers crossed the threshold I had set and turned the line forward in one order.
The effect on the enemy was immediate. Their forward ships brightened in emissions and pushed harder, reading the change as a break in our posture. Several Mast-class cruisers accelerated as if they had been waiting for the moment our backs finally failed, Hook-class gun ships lunged with them.
For a short interval the centre of their fleet looked almost celebratory in its movement, the frantic pings going between their ships certainly pointed to it. They were all full throttle ahead and aggressive targeting, the earlier wasted long-range fire replaced by a hungry close push.
They were still fighting the battle they preferred: mass toward an enemy who had stopped running.
Then their sensors picked up more incoming from the nearby asteroid field.
Hulls and Vulture packs that had remained inactive in the field lit hard and cut into their flank and lower screen from angles the Varanki formation had stopped checking, or never checked to begin with.
Bombers already in the close quarters shifted from intercept work to short attack runs against engines and shield generators. The ratio there had stayed favourable through the retreat; now it became decisive in local pockets as hidden craft multiplied the pressure. One Tusk-class heavy took three coordinated bomber passes across the same rear quarter and lost primary thrust in a burning slide. Two Hook-class ships died so close together that their debris became a navigation hazard for the fighters trying to cover them, sensors incapable of telling what part belonged to which ship.
Signal traffic in the enemy net spiked even more so than before, mostly coming from their central and most deliberately accessorised ship.
What we managed to intercept showed that ships asked for confirmation while command channels stepped on and over each other. A portion of their screen tried to turn toward the asteroid threat while the centre still pushed forward against my main line, creating a tear in their own positioning, something I have exploited and sent a heavy detachment of bombers and gunships through. That was the moment the flank forces from the mouth finished their long close and announced themselves on their rear sensors.
The pocket sealed, no way out unless they push on through the ships while under close quarters fire.
What had been a pursuit turned into an enclosure with only narrowing gaps. Our capital guns, no longer on backwards move worked cleaner firing lanes into their formation, formation that was surrounded on all sides by ships of better quality than theirs.
Vultures cut through disrupted fighter cover and kept the bombers alive long enough to finish wounded hulls while the modified freighters on my rear finally fully earned their retrofitting by absorbing secondary threats and dumping additional fire-support.
The Varanki response after the second shock was not a disciplined breakout plan or a consolidation for a final stand.
Sections of their line marked themselves with hard acceleration and drove straight toward my nearest heavies in suicide charges, hoping impact, boarding, or chaos would open space or take us with them. Some of those charges damaged us.
One light cruiser on my right side had a deep gauge in their side and half their engines were gone while a freighter was gutted and had to be marked for later recovery or scuttle. The rest of the charges died under layered fire before they could deal any significant damage.
Warriors who would ram a blast door with their own skulls made the same choice in ships. The result was mostly the same, meaning all it did was give me a dent and a scratch on the paint job as Torv, the now General of Elyria would put it.
I began drafting the status update to Moff Kael while the pocket finished collapsing.
Mouth engagement. Successful.
Enemy fleet combat power. Ineffective.
Limited boarding action. Contained.
Occupation path open for the forward system. Active
Surviving enemy elements limited and uncoordinated. Prediction, annihilation.
It was a neat message, something I as the commander of the NIDA proud myself on as a Super Tactical Droid anything less would be beneath me.
Then the largest remaining Tusk-class hull produced an energy surge large enough that local sensors first tagged it as a self-destruct cascade.
I redirected focus at once.
The ship's outer plating flared with deep, unstable light. Nearby Varanki craft turned away from it in sudden, almost panicked motion, not toward my line but outward, away from the surge area.
That was not how ships behaved around a standard reactor death, they were making room as that ship rotated back.
The Tusk-class heeled hard, burned its thrusters up to a deep blue that did not match its earlier engine signature, and drove for a thinning gap near the rear quarter of the pocket where my flank net was still killing stragglers. For a fraction of a second I recalculated intercepts and saw that I could wound it, maybe cripple it, not reliably stop it before the surge completed.
Space around the hull folded wrong, with my systems and sensors screaming in errors as my computing power tries and fails to understand what is happening, after a full ten seconds I get a basic understanding.
Its a hyperspace, but wrong. It is different and unprecedented in the way Imperial and Republic charts understood it, even my vast databank cannot pinpoint anything similar within the galaxy outside of any secret testing or lost knowledge.
A violent local puncture, expensive and bright, accompanied by a scatter of secondary emissions that marked stress across the escaping ship's entire frame. Then it was gone with a blur, leaving a residual disturbance and weird signature readings in that area.
Around that absence, the rest of the trapped force died faster, some tried to follow and failed, breaking against the same region of space without whatever apparatus the Tusk-class had used. Some turned back into my guns because there was nowhere else to turn. A few small craft scattered into the shear edge and became problems for later pursuit rather than this engagement.
With only a few choosing to surrender.
I erased the unfinished good-news packet.
And revised my assessment:
Enemy fleet at the mouth destroyed or rendered non-operational in majority.
Boarding defeated.
Forward system open for occupation.
One major hull escaped using a nonstandard hyperspace jump.
Survivors will carry partial tactical data and confirmation that the route is contested by a force they cannot yet classify or defeat.
The pocket continued to close under ordinary killing work. Vultures and bombers stayed on favourable ratios as resistance became thinner, then they went after any stragglers that escaped.
My line advanced through wreckage and dead signatures. The Lucrehulk reported internal clearances nearing completion, with remaining Varanki boarders isolated in sealed sections and being reduced by the minute.
I transmitted the updated report to Kael and began reallocating units for system entry.
The battle at the mouth was won.
An enemy who could punch out of a sealed engagement with a drive that should not have functioned meant that the occupation of the forward system had to move immediately, before the survivors could regroup or for reinforcements to arrive.
"All capable units," I sent, "re-form for system assault. Priority targets are ports, command centers, and lane-control sites."
**Hroddan Kel - Varanki Commander POV**
I held the command rail hard enough that the metal edge bit into my palms and watched the Jump Drive tear us out of a battle we should have finished with skulls and fire.
My name is Hroddan Kel, spear-line of the warrior caste, bonded captain of the Tusk-ship Mother of Ash, and there was no version of this return that would not stink of humiliation for me, my family and my clan. The bridge around me still shook from the punch while sparks crawled along the lower instrument ribs.
One of the drive-techs, some no body from the technology caste was on his knees with blood in his teeth from a console that had blown back in his face. The air stank of scorched resin, ozone, and the wet-iron smell that meant a pressure line had gone somewhere deep in the deck.
I look into the shining metal of the rail and look at my self.
I am broad even among my own, dark-skinned under scar-paint, throat heavy with rank rings earned in surface wars and inter family skirmishes and boarding actions that had names sung in pubs. My left tusk-plate is cracked from an older fight and never replaced because the crack made younger warriors careful around me while the older ones looked with respect. On any other day that would have been enough. On this day the Mother of Ash fled with her belly full of unfinished battle and a Jump Drive chewing through her bones to keep us alive.
"Report," I said.
The tech caste officer at the surge board did not look at me when he answered. Cowardice, or wisdom.
"As predicted. Jump stress across primary and secondary nodes. Outages in the lower barracks rings. Small explosions in storage ribs nine and twelve. We will survive the run if barely."
I looked once at the rear display before it failed into static. The so called bloody sector was already behind us I know understand why it is called so because the enemy we faced would give us a bloody battle. But no one told me how fucking blood!
My fleet, my fighters, my men who died in boarding, all gone to a cowardly enemy that drifted back like a weak cowardly animal.
Cowardly method but effective method a small voice in my mind supplied.
Their droids did not roar for glorious battle neither did they chant ancient songs of their ancestors or their creators. They were silent and cold, just like the space where my fleet used to be. They killed us at range and then swarmed us in the melee.
The pen-pushers would mock this. The administrative caste would call it failure.
Men with clean hands and full bellies would ask why Mother of Ash came home while other ships died for the glory of our people.
Better a live commander with data than a dead hero with none. I told myself that until I fully believed it.
When we finally broke back into familiar space near the inner beacon chain, the ship was limping and half the bridge lights were dead. I sent the compiled battle record to the war council before we even finished docking clearance: enemy range advantage, machine infantry density, false retreat pattern, hidden flankers, asteroid reserve, estimated losses, and the one truth that might keep my head on my shoulders. These new enemies were weak in spirit and dangerous in tools. If we took those tools, the Varanki would not need to stop at just one nearby systems but the whole galaxy.
Orders went out while the Mother of Ash still vented, more ships and many more fighters and bombers.
Planetside, the capital fortress smelled of oil stone, dust, and crowded bodies. The chamber of the three held the high seats: warrior caste in scarred plate, administrative caste in layered gray, technological caste with their tool-chains and pale eye lenses. Around them the wider councils filled the tiers and the holo-rails, faces already turned toward me like a sentence waiting for its final word.
They grilled me.
Coward.
Incompetent.
Route-breaker.
Family shame.
A warrior elder with white at the jaw demanded to know why I had not died with my fellow battle warriors while an administrative speaker asked how many tax-worlds worth of ships I had spent learning that the enemy could fly backwards fast.
A tech magistrate wanted only the Jump Drive stress figures and whether the enemy's machines could be captured intact and any data. I answered all of it with my shoulders straight and the data open above the floor.
The record saved my life if barely I could see the turn happen when the range charts and the warehouse images from our boarding feeds reached the higher tiers. Anger remained but the cool of heads busy with strategy kept them busy.
"More ships will be prepared," the chief elder warrior finally said. "A grand invasion force, we will go in tens of thousands. We will strip all of our prisons and slaves and put them on the frontlines if need be.
I was in the middle of answering deployment intervals when a senior officer from the outer watch ran through the side doors without waiting for approval.
"They are attacking!" he shouted. "Enemy forces are already in-system. Ports are under fire. Orbital lines breaking."
For a breath the chamber became pure noise. Rage from the warrior tiers. Sharp demands from admin. Tech voices snapping for sensor confirmation.
Even the holo-present councillors shouted over each other, mouths large with insult and war-hunger.
Then an incoming transmission cut across the floor channel.
The administrative seat seized it first, as was their habit when a message might contain terms rather than only fire, cowards. The image that formed above the central stone was not one of our own.
A human.
Young. Too young for the authority in his posture. Fair skin by our measure, dark hair, green eyes like cold glass. He wore a formal gray uniform with what appears to be rank markers and a dark cloak-fall at the shoulders, neat enough that he looked less like a youngling and more like a man who expected rooms to rearrange themselves around his words, a blaster at his side and various scars told me he is not one to shy away from a fight. Behind him was a clean office wall and the faint edge of a military map light.
"I am Kael Voss," he said. "Moff of the Elyrian sector. I speak on behalf of the Galactic Empire, the rightful governing body of the galaxy. Millions of worlds fall under its order. Trillions of sentients live within its law. Its navy is measured in tens of millions of hulls and hands. You will surrender. If you refuse, then when the main fleet arrives you will be brought to the negotiating table in chains."
The chamber split on the spot.
Most of the warrior caste erupted at once: death threats, oaths, promises to take his empire apart and rule what remained as rightful masters. Several military juniors joined the roar. But not all.
Most of the administrative councillors went still and thoughtful while a significant number of the technological seats leaned forward with bright, ugly interest at the word empire and the scale attached to it, especially since it is now a fact they are now more technologically advanced than we are as much as that put a sour taste in my mouth to admit.
Even a thin minority among the warrior officers did not shout. They listened, eyes narrowed, already trying to count what kind of navy made a young foreigner speak so casually of their surrender.
I stared at the human and felt the old rage climb back up, mixed with the bitterness of my defeat.
Kael Voss listened to the threats as if they were weather. Then he nodded once.
"I wish you fortune in the wars to come."
Then the fortress shook.
Dust fell first in a fine dry rain. Then the upper supports screamed. I looked up in time to see a whole section of the chamber roof break loose under a hit from outside, stone and metal dropping in a black mass. Someone shouted my name.
Somewhere else a screeching of chairs was heard.
But I cared not for any of it for the ceiling reached me before any one of them did.
**Grok POV**
The forward system fell in pieces, then all at once.
With the mobile fleet broken at the mouth, the remaining Varanki orbital cover was thin and local: gun platforms built to watch restive districts, short-range batteries meant to scare planetary factions into obedience, a few damaged Mast-class hulls that had never reached the Shear fight and tried to act like a navy but broke apart like the Jedi during operation knightfall.
I put the converted heavies over the main approaches, stripped those platforms down, and began landing operations before command could put up a coherent defence.
The main world took priority.
First wave went to the ports and lane-control spires. Modified freighters, gunships and shuttles dropped droids in dense packs: B1 screens, B2 breakers, construction frames with cutters, anti-armour units for the expected ground masses.
Drop pods followed into the administrative district of the capital and the military yards beside it, filled with the elite BX commando droids and any other non-standard combat droids we have procured over the years.
Where local batteries still tracked, bombers took the mounts apart from above.
Where fighters rose from hidden surface bays, Vultures met them and killed them.
On the surface the Varanki fought as they had in the corridors: hard, direct, and late to adapt. Warrior groups formed in the main avenues and tried to hold open squares with mauls, portable guns, and sheer body count. Some civilian blocks emptied into cellars and transit tunnels.
Other civilians took up weapons from fallen caste troops or any thing or even just their fists and joined the street lines, either from loyalty or from the simple belief that an invader was an invader. I did not spend computing power seeing the distinction. Hostiles in the open were marked and removed, no matter if they were young or old.
Noncombatants who fled were left alone.
Key points went down one by one.
Port authority, broadcast stations, military muster yards and armouries along with local police stations if they were nearby. Power spines feeding the central fortress district. Resistance remained thick around the main governmental square, where a large warrior concentration had decided to make a stand supplemented with civilians that took up arms as well as noncombatants, packing the plaza shoulder to shoulder.
I committed a free squadron of HMP droid gunships.
They came in low over the square and worked it in overlapping passes while dodging the sporadic anti air fire and ground blaster fire.
The first pass butchered the front ranks, turning most into charred husks while the second destroyed the clustered support weapons while the third and fourth ended the rest, there was no escape and no survivors scans indicated.
When the smoke thinned, nothing in the plaza that used to have a heartbeat had it. Bodies and wreckage covered the stones from the administrative steps to the far market mouths, civilians who had tried to shelter among the warrior lines were dead with them, men women and children.
Acceptable losses.
That was when the transmission arrived.
Origin: a side administrative building on the far edge of the capital, outside the main fortress collapse zone. The image showed a technological-caste male with tool-chains and a cut across his brow, standing rigid before the pickup. Behind him a wounded administrative-caste figure held a long dagger still wet to the hilt with blood, one arm tucked against his ribs, eyes bright with pain and calculation.
Interesting.
I put most of my calculating and processing power to this as they begin to speak.
"We are willing to surrender," the tech-caste speaker said. His voice was tight, forced into submissive tone. "Spare the women and children."
I regarded them through the link and let the pause work making them nervous and uncertain.
"If your people surrender in order and cease resistance," I said, "they will be spared. Some will refuse. That is expected. Those who help identify and remove dissenters will be rewarded, as will their families and close associates."
Relief moved through both faces, incomplete and wary. Understandable after a plaza full of dead.
So I sent them data.
Not weapons designs or anything really sensitive or important but instead I sent them medical protocols, food-preservation systems, water purification methods, basic power-grid stabilizers, trauma-response frameworks, and logistical models for moving grain and medicine without caste gatekeeping. Along with a map of the galaxy and the power of not only Elyria but the empire.
To me, minor data sent from a civilization generations ahead of their industrial average. To them, a gold mine that would help them thrive.
"The Empire is millennia beyond you in most practical fields," I told them. "Under orderly submission your wounded will receive better care than your current hospitals can provide. Worlds need not starve for administrative failure or warrior excess. Disaster response can be timely and technological advancements will not be supressed or redirected for warrior whims. You will not live under constant worry that a local skirmish between your people leaves your worlds devestated. The technological caste may continue study under supervision, the administrative caste may keep civic function without bowing to every temper of the warrior halls. In exchange you stand down, keep order, and stop feeding this fight. Should some warrior caste see reason we have plenty of weapons and plenty of enemies to use them on."
They reviewed the first file sets in silence. The gleam that entered their eyes was hard for them to conceal, it was appetite mixed with survival, the recognition that the they do not need to bow and scrape to the ridiculous demands of the overbearing warrior caste makes it all the better.
The tech-caste speaker bowed his head. The wounded administrator followed, slower, dagger lowering.
"We will issue stand-down orders."
The link closed.
Across the capital, resistance did not vanish in an instant, but its bulk began to fail and falter. Warrior groups that still wanted death found it with as easily as breathing.
Broadcast nodes under administrative control started carrying cessation commands. Surface batteries went dark in irregular sequence. On the secondary world and occupied moons the same pattern repeated under local NIDA detachments: break the open fighters, seize the control sites, leave room for the castes that preferred living terms to glorious corpses.
I stood in the Lucrehulk command centre and watched the surrender markers multiply across the system chart.
If I had feelings in the human sense, the state would have been close to elation.
As it was, I logged the result, allocated garrison density, saved this important data in my data bank and opened a priority channel to Kael.
Forward system secured. In full, sporadic resistance.
Warrior resistance fragmented. Some surrendering, rest choosing death.
Administrative and technological elements beginning controlled surrender. 93%
Occupation ongoing. 64%, expected 100% within standard 6 hours.
The first battle of NIDA was complete.