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Roleplay Logs

23 May 2002

Assault on Courscant Pt 2: Drawing First Blood


IP: 64.254.131.154
Posted on 05/23/02 at 02:35:20 by Admiral Ric Hawkins


The command center of the Archon was in a state of organized chaos. Around me officers sounded off on alerts, enemy movements, comm. traffic, course corrections, and damage reports after the shooting stared.

I watched the tactical holo, well my eyes were pointed in that general direction, but my consciousness was focused elsewhere.

Thought the force, I could see the battle unfolding out before me. It was like someone projecting a holodrama directly into my mind, except, there was no script here, and there was a chance that this would not have a happy ending.

The initial assault had gone well. The Home Fleet and the 3rd fleet had exited hyperspace precisely as planned. Appearing almost on top of a cluster of Golan IIIs, hundreads of ion cannons fired upon assigned targets, the gunners using the beacons as rangefinders. It only took a few salvos’ to bring the Golans down. One by one we extended the perimeter. We took only light damage from the Golans and satellites, but the planetary batteries began to open up and played bloody havoc with us. I ordered our ships to overlap and redirect shields to hold off until fighters could take some of the heat off. Both the Home and 3rd fleet clustered together, forming an impromptu shield wall. A few light cruisers and gunships were forced to withdraw, but the rest of us held fast.

“Sir Shields holding, but only for about 5 more minets!” I heard an officer call out. “But attack group One is en route, ETA to targets 45 seconds

“Understood, have all ships in the shield wall temporally re-direct power from weapons to hold shields until the attack group is finished.”

Our fighters in space were having success though. The few roving patrols of TIE fighters in the area were immediately pounced upon by X and A-wing squadrons and destroyed. The rest of the fighters were taking out defensive satellites and moving out to support the 3rd. But that wasn’t the worry right now.

Fighting over the planet was a bit fiercer both the wraith attack force and Black Knight squadrons had succeeded with their primary objectives. And we had our window, the problem was that being so many of our fighters in the area, we couldn’t risk firing down on the planet for fear of hitting our own pilots. We had to trust they would do their job.

The wraiths had taken gotten a bad break and were jumped by 2 squadrons of TIE Defenders after their initial attack run. If not for the intervention of the Knights, they would have been mauled even more.14 Wraith fighters were lost. That was ofseta bit by a bit of good luck soon after. Without warning the main communications center in Imperial Palace went out. The planetary defenses then became less coordinated and for moment, they blinked. That was all the strike fighters needed

I reached out and concentrated on the planers surface. B, E, K and Y wing strike groups were beginning attack runs on planetary defense batteries. Most were disabled with ion minlets, ion bombs, or mag-pulse missiles, while others were simply blasted to oblivion. I know we needed to save as many as the planetary defenses as we could, but when you’re being shot at, your first concern is how to STOP it.

Over the course of 4 minets, the planetary defenses in the window were taken care of. Nothing like cutting it close. I ordered the 3rd to begin moving out.

Behind us, were the 2nd, 3rd and 4th BGs of my 4th fleet; assigned to cover our rear. As the 3rd split up and moved outwards to expand the window, the two BGs split up as well and took up flanking positions to re-enforce the now split 3rd.

As they moved outward, they used the overlapping shield tactic in an offensive manor. Channeling them all forward, they plowed through the Golans and satelights, (with the aid of starfighters) like they weren’t even there. Within 15 min after exiting hyperspace, we had secured a full quarter of the planet’s space.

It was to damn easy.

“Tactical!, what’s the Status on Overwatch?, I called out. Because I was concentrating so much on the battle here, I wasn’t able to sense what was happening on the other side of the planet.

For all I knew, all of the Capital ships were about ready to jump us. That was a surprise I didn’t want to have. So I sent out all of our Agave-class picket ships to take up positions around the plant and act as early-warning, control, and scout craft.

“Overwatch is now getting into position, standby….Sir, Overwatch reports Large numbers of ships in quadrant 2. Count, 68 Capital ships, repeat Six-eight. Numerous transport ships are leaving the planet. Type: bulk freighters, Star Galleons, and similar transports.”

So that’s what they were doing. They were evacuating the planet. They were holding forces back to cover the retreat, not unlike what the Rebellion did at Hoth. Damn, how times have changed. But I needed to control ALL of Courscant’s space. Something was wrong, they couldnt have gotten this many ships togeather this fast.

The 3rd Fleet’s 1st and 2nd BG supported by the 4th’Fleet’s 2nd BG were closest to the enemy fleet, so I ordered them to engage and for ops to give me a countdown to enemy contact. The Home fleet stayed in position to prepare for landing operations and to secure the window. The rest of the my forces began a course over Courscant’s pole to flank the Imperial forces. I doubted it would be necessary, seeing how Gen A’bhat had a Judicator-class SSD at his Command, but I wanted to wrap this part of the operation up as soon as possible. But something was bothering me.


“ETA to enemy fleet, 4 min, 31 seconds.” Ops called out.


My head began hurting. This was the first time I had used the force to coordinate so many. Sarganda was a drop in the bucket compared to this. I decided to let that part fade and used the tactical holo, what a concept. The window was secure. It was time to begin landing operations, but still something was bugging me.

Hmm…

“Comm., call Landing group, tell them to begin planetary assault.”

Thirty seconds later, 15 modified transports, 4 Sacheen escort cruisers, and the Republic-class SDS Red Star and Wolf of Mibu exited hyperspace. Onboard the Transports were hundreads of Marines and Army personnel. Their mission was to secure a landing area and create a secure perimeter. When the space around Courscant was secure, and a safe LZ established, more ground forces were going to be called in.

The Sacheen’s hangar bays had been epitied of their fighters and carried extra troops as well as V-wing air speeders/ They would also act as heavy cover. The Red Star and Wolf would launch drop ships and heavy armor as well as use her fighters as escort. We didn’t have lot of armor, but then again courscant isn’t that type of battleground.

The ground battle was going to be fought street by street, level by lever. It made me glad I was going to be in space.

“ETA to enemy fleet, 2 min, 10 seconds”

For the first time I took a moment to assess the situations. So far none of my fleet had suffered more the minor damage. Our combined shield tactics worked well. There were minor fighter skirmishes and some had been lost, but overall, we were intact.

“This might actually go off without a hitch.” I said to myself.

“ETA to enemy fleet, 40 seconds.

That’s when it hit me. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut….

I saw it in my mind, like an alarm. Destruction, agony, death.. My fleet was about to be ambushed..