Diversion: Devaron

[Serena Laran]

Hyperspace swirled across the viewscreen of the ISD-V Kelvin, the flagship of Fleet Admiral Laran. The Admiral was spending her time sitting in the command chair, idly tapping her long fingers against the arm rest. Most of the Sovereignty's fleet was engaged at Bestin IV, but this small task force had been diverted, for a related, but different purpose.

"Time?" Laran still looked straight ahead, but she addressed the lieutenant at the helm.

His head snapped up, "Three minutes to real space, Admiral."

She nodded, still not diverting her attention from the screen in front of her. The soothing colors of hyperspace helped her formulate and finalize her battle plan. Her flagship was accompanied by an assault frigate, the Scintilla, and two Victory-class Star Destroyers, the Indoctrinator and the Memel, respectively.

Once they reached the system they were aiming for, the fleet would pop out of hyperspace, deal a glancing blow, and fade back into hyperspace. A small line appeared on her smooth forehead, as Laran considered the possibility that the intelligence was not correct, and that the New Republic planet of Devaron was better equipped than reported.

No, I will stick to the plan.

"One minute to real space, Admiral." Lieutenant Goffrey sounded a little excited. She would have to talk to him about that later. War was many things, but one thing it was not was exciting. Excitement led to mistakes.

Laran braced herself as Kelvin slid out into the coldness of real space, a huge blue/green planet nearly covering the entire transparisteel viewport. Behind the ISD-V, the rest of the division silently made their entrance above the atmosphere of Devaron. The Fleet Admiral turned to her comm.

"Captain Derien, deploy fighters. The assault frigates are on the other side of the planet, but it won't take them long to get here."

"Certainly, Admiral!" Derien was an older captain, one that refused advancement because he loved his ship. The Memel didn't look any different from any other VSD in the Sovereignty fleet, but Derien had been it's stubborn captain for fifteen years. None of her officers needed telling what to do, having gone over the battle plan in detail two days ago at the rendevous point. Still, she liked to keep in touch with those in her command.

The four assault frigates were tracked on scanners, making their way from the night side of the planet. Sublights flaring, the Indoctrinator closed the distance to the planet, and began powering turbolasers. Indoctrinator was to cause chaos, while the Kelvin took out military sites.

Indoctrinator's targets had been chosen carefully - maximum damage, with minimum terror or civillian causalties. Power plants, water sanitizers and the like were on his list.

Fleet Admiral Laran stood to her full six feet, and straightened her thick grey wool uniform. "Ready turbolasers."

[Serena Laran]

One of the bridge officers was copying Serena's habit, and was drumming their fingers on their console. The Admiral looked around, and the sound stopped.

"Turbolasers ready." The gunnery officer had been in the Navy for twenty years, and had the calmness of a man who had been in many battles. Which Serena respected, and liked in an officer. Someone who knew how to behave in a tense situation.

She nodded to the officer. "Acquire targets, and fire when ready."

"Yes sir. Acquiring targets now." He bent back to his task, and she turned her attention to the heads up tactical screen. A few quick strides brought her to the bulkhead it was fixed to, and she studied it with her second, Captain Faust.

He pointed to a trickle of triangles from the planet. "Ground based fighters are taking to air."

She knew how to read the screen, but talking what he saw was how Faust best computed information, so she merely nodded. "As anticipated, Captain. Our fighters are moving to intercept." Blue circles, indicating Sovereignty fighters, were swarming from the Memel. The Scintilla was biding it's time, waiting for the quartet of opposing frigates to come into view. It's captain was changing course slightly in relation with the Memel, readying for attack.

"Firing now." Serena looked up in time to see the bright green of a turbolaser lancing out towards the immense planet. They were much too far away to see the explosions, not that she would have wanted to. There was something... sterile... about attacking like this. The Indoctrinator followed suit, twin turbolasers splashing down through Devaron's atmosphere.

[Redic Scott]

The attack was totally unexpected, but the trained military forces reacted quickly. As soon as the Imperial force was detected entering the system a myriad of activity took place. The good part was that it wasn't chaotic, but trained. Troopers and airmen ran out toward their positions and started to man them. Half dressed flight crews raced out to ready as many fighters as they could as the pilots started to dress as they dashed toward the airfields and their fighters.

Inside one of the underground command centers, a holo display projected the images of the Imperial ships moving into position. By they not launching shuttles, it could only mean one thing and one thing only. The alert was sent out at once and men and women started to run toward their designated hardened shelters. As they ran, the first of the fighters started to hover and awaited the rest. The first to be up were the 2 E-wing Squadrons, followed by 3 XJ-Wing squadrons and 1 A-wing squad. The last to get off the ground was the Squadron of K-wing heavy bombers. These were fully loaded with an anti-ship armament and lifted off from their hardened bunkers.

In space, the 4 Assault frigates raced around the planet, using its gravity in their favor as they gathered more and more speed. Around them were the 3 Fighter Squadrons from the Escort Carrier on the other side of the planet. These fighters kept close to the frigates and hid their signitures as the larger capital ships formed into a straigh line. The commander of the Defense fleet was Line Captain Stew Baker. He stood at the front of the bridge and was happy to have targets already. His batteries and the torpedos from the fighter squadron had all recieved data a while ago, provided by the few early warning satellites spining around the planet.

As they came around, orders were sent to the ground based fighters and they provided a diversion as they turned sharply and raced away from the imperial fighters, but still toward space, moving away from the Imperial fleet and hoping the Imperial fighters will follow them.

"Sir, One minute until firing position." Called out the sensor officer.

"Very well Ensign. Lets see what they got." The Captain stood expressionless, but inside he knew that if they got into a slugging match, he wouldn't win without reinforcements. While his ships were good, they were also some of the older ships in the fleets. They weren't a match for the larger and newer imperial ships.

As the view quickly changed, he could see the flicker of the back most imperial ship. They Scimitar Class Frigate would be the first to get hit. The 4 Assault frigates emerged in a crescent shape as they moved around the planet. "Fire!!" The Captain called out.

Instantly the already leveled side batteries thumped and released deadly bolts of energy at the Scimitar Frigate. The broadside raced toward the frigate just as the next frigate reached firing position a second later and let loose as well, moving forward as the next one in line came toward that point. and so did the forth. Once passed that point, ships kept firing upon the frigate, but the fighters held tight, moving closely with the Frigates. Broadside after broadside was fired toward the Scimitar Frigate as the NR battle line slowed and took up position behind the imperial fleet.

As it did, orders went out and the formation changed. Into a square, but only this one was standing on its edge. They held this formation as all the ships were on their sides, exposing more of their weapons toward the threat. As they moved appart slightly, they could hit the Scimitar from most angles except the rear. Once here, the fighters flared and raced toward the rear of the Imperial formation, moving past the Scimitar, under it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the ground the Command Center shook as the blasts smashed into the ground. Most above ground facilities were destroyed and were turned into blacked slag. Fired ragged around the military bases on that side of the planet and only a few training centers in the country were spared. Barracks were destroyed as were any other buildings withing the blast zones. The horrible part would be when the troopers would emerge to find that some of the underground shelters had taken direct hits and the troopers inside had been instantly killed.

[Serena Laran]

ooc: I don't think that you could have surrounded my frigate without my captain moving it, or the VSD that is nearest it./ic:

"All fighters, stay near the fleet. Do not pursue enemy fighters!" Admiral Laran shook her head as Captain Derien snapped over the comm at his deployed squadrons. Everything had to be nearby for pick-up and extraction in the next few minutes.

The frigates were attacking now, turbolaser batteries beating back at the shields of the Scintilla. The Indoctrinator's fighter squadrons had looped away from the ground based fighters, and half were screaming towards the new threat of fighters in the starboard quadrant. The other half waited near the Indoctrinator for the ground based fighters to swing back.

The Scintilla's forward shield was battered down, but it was already moving to compensate, it's captain targeting the bridge of the formost attacking frigate. The Memel was slicing upward, exposing it's heavy topside turbolaser batteries to the frigates and firing multiple turbolaser blasts simultaeneously, targeting the other three frigates. Captain van'Espi of the Scintilla also deployed his squadron of TIE Devils. The unmanned ships flew straight into the fray, protecting Scintilla's forward flank from fighters as the captial ships battered the NR's frigates with return fire.

The Indoctrinator and the Kelvin continued raining green turbolaser fire down on the planet. Admiral Laran checked her chrono. Only a few more minutes.

[Redic Scott]

As the NR fighters closed on the Imperial frigate, they locked on to the Devils coming at them and unleashed one salvo of torpedos at them, there were enough to probably overwhelm a lot of the Devil squad. As soon as the torps were away the formation flowered out, leaving the remaining Devils inside. As it did, the Assault frigate quad laser batteries opened up, quickly tracking the Devils and trying to even the odds. They were also waiting for the other incoming fighters to get in range.

Coming around from the flowering formation, the fighters were now around the front of the imperial frigate. Locking on to the ship, they unleashed another salvo of 72 Advanced Torpedos. As they turned back toward the Devils three of the Xjs took hits from defensive batteries. Two exploded and the third lost control. The pilot ejected as the fight spun away.

As the 4 Assault frigates drifted closer, they kept pounding the Scintilla, knowing that soon its shields should be coming down to the pounding of the 4 frigates. As they fired away, one of the frigate's shields started to glow and faulter as the Victory SD fired at it.

"The Holen is reporting shield damage. Shields at 15% and lowering, sir."

"Reposition it toward the other side of the formation. Get Lancer to take up that position."

As the pounded frigate floated back and over to the side, another frigate came down into its place, firing again at the Scintilla. So far the ships could take what the two imperial ships were dishing out. As they fought on, the ground based squadrons had what they needed. They looped around and now had half the number of fighters to go again. As they screamed in, the fighters took up position in front, blocking the K-wings from view. The A-wings shot off ahead of the other fighters and swung in toward the imperial fighters, distracting them and the defensive batteries on the ships.

As the fighters closed, they began to take fire and four of them exploded, but the rest reached launch range and fired off a concentrated Salvo of 98 adv. Torps at the Kelvin's ridge line targeting stations. As they did, targeting data was fed into the K-wing systems.

The E and XJ wing fighters spilt away to attack the imperial fighter and the K-wings went to full power, closing in and unloading a volloy of 24 Plasma Torpedos, to take down shields, followed by 24 Heavy Capital Torps. As these raced in, the K-wings came at the SD with full power, loosing 2 to the Destroyers defensive fire before dropping 48 Heavy Space Bombs right on top of the ISD. As they turned away, they ran into a gauntlet of fire from the Victory near the Kelvin. three others never made it out, but the rest raced toward the planet away from the battle.

[Serena Laran]

The TIE Devils that had been launched by the Scintilla sent a few to sacrifice themselves on the torpedos, and the rest arrowed in on the NR frigate that was targeting them. They kamikazed into the frigate, battering down the ventral shields, and causing significant damage.

Serena checked the progress of the turbolaser strikes, and keyed the fleet comm. "This is Admiral Laran - we have completed our objective. Pull back fighters and prepare for the jump to lightspeed." Her captains acknowledged, and the fighters broke off combat, and began returning to the hangars.

Captain van'Espi of the Scintilla was the first to fire sublights and peel away from the frigates. He'd taken the brunt of the NR's defense, and his Devils had cleared the way for his escape. The Memel was gathering the last few TIEs, using it's lasers to protect the retreating fighters.

The last wave of K-wings had damaged the targeting systems, but they were already finished here. As the NR fighters raced back towards Devaron, the Kelvin and the Indoctrinator reversed sublights and headed out to space. The Memel followed shortly, a few tardy TIE pilots racing to catch up. Serena regretted the fact that those pilots might be left behind.

However, they knew nothing of the fleet's plans, only their immediate orders. And they were well trained, Imperial boys, and they knew their duty. As do we all. Laran sat back in her command chair and drummed her fingers on the arm as the fleet jumped to hyperspace. As do we all.