Thorns Poke. Fires Burn.

[Anne Phoenix]

The Hydian Way, Core Worlds

As the Allegiance drifted through the relative blackness of space against her white hull, her captain, also a female by nature, stalked through her corridors, heading from the captain's quarters to the bridge of the light cruiser.

Designated a type forty light cruiser by Alliance standards, she was a well armed and protected vessel, carrying plenty in the way of support in starfighters and troops. With a full supply of provisions and an escort of two Corellian corvettes, reconfigured to provide anti-starfighter support, she was on one mission and one mission alone; disrupt Imperial commerce and do all in her power to help the Alliance recover from a string of recent and devastating defeats.

The three ships were not the only vessels assigned to her command. Although she captained the Allegiance, Anne Phoenix wore the rank of Commodore within the Alliance Navy, thanks for a need to fill in positions vacated by those who have died in the recent defeats. In addition to her flagship force, two other taskgroups awaited her command to strike, all that she needed now was the timing provided by the Bothan spies.

Even as she was thinking this, a beeping at the comm station to her left caught her attention. As the officer in charge of communications answered, she strode over to stand next to him, eyeing the message coming up on the screen after going through the decoder.

'Imperial Convoy departed Corulag 1100 local time; Destination Corellia, ETA to your position in 0030 minutes, Corulag time'

"Battlestations, prepare the fleet for deployment," ordered Anne to the bridge, settling into her command chair and propping her elbow on the seat rest, resting her chin on it in a slightly hunched over position. This was known to the crew as her buisness position, as when she sat in this position, they would be saddled with a lot of work very soon. She did not dissapoint this time around.

"Hangar Boss, I want Crimson, Clover, and Blue squadrons deployed and ready for hyperspace jump, chevron formation. Y-wings in front, X-wings behind. Standing orders for the Y-wings to attack the merchant vessels in hyperspace when they arrive, X-wings are to target enemy weapon emplacements and cover the Y-wings as needed, their jump set time will be five minutes behind ours,"

"Weapons, I expect an enemy escort of one capital ship and perhaps two custom pursuit ships, and two dozen or so starfighters. We'll go ahead of our starfighters to engage the enemy escort and seperate them from the convoy. Be prepared to engage and disable or destroy these enemy vessels,"

"Communications, signal Task Groups Avenger and Highflier. They are to commence attack three minutes from now,"

"Navigator and Helm, bring us about, we are jumping in thirty seconds," commanded Commodore Phoenix.

She settled back into her command chair. A few moments rest and allow her subordinates to do their work, then she would be going back into conflict. Finally.

[Park Kraken]

Imperial Convoy CEC-03-CO, Hydian Way

The second jump of their short journey from Corulag to Corellia had been completed. The ships had all arrived safely, and at the present time were reconfiguring back into their column formation, the escort again taking position, as the plot for the third jump and scans to make sure nothing was in the way were calculated.

When departure was but a mere ten minutes away, alarms began blaring on the bridge.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked Captain Druso angrily from the bridge of his command vessel, the Imperial Strike class cruiser Philibuster.

"Sir, ships are dropping out of hyperspace directly ahead of us, collision alarms are activating. I see one large and two smaller vessels on the screens," spoke out the chief navigator.

The alarms rose in crescendo and changed in sound.

"Captain, sensors have identified the ships as Alliance ships, one Mon Calamari light cruiser and two Corellian corvettes. No sign of starfighter deployments, but all three vessels have raised shields and powered up weapons," reported the sensors officer.

"Raise our shields and power up our weapons too. Have the convoy turn about on our previous vector. The Harridan will stay with them, have the Grant deployed ahead of us to act as a anti-starfighter screen. Launch all our starfighters and have them attack that Mon Calamari cruiser," ordered Druso.

Starfighters screamed out of the single hangar bay aboard the Strike cruiser as she turned about to engage the Allegiance. Druso was so excited about the prospect of crushing Rebel scum that he never thought to have a message sent out that his convoy was under attack....

[Anne Phoenix]

Captain Phoenix smiled as whoever commanded the convoy played to her very tune, with the one exception perhaps of a single IPV patrol craft remaining with the convoy as it turned about, the other one deploying itself ahead of the Imperial Strike cruiser. While Anne was hoping for something a little lighter in the escort department, she was just glad it was something they could handle, unlike some of the Outer-Rim military convoys that contained Imperial class star destroyers for convoy escorts.

"Commence firing. Target their primary weapon systems," ordered Phoenix. Ion cannons and turbolasers aboard the cruiser flashed as they lanced out torwards the strike cruiser, the Tangent and Tarry adding fire from their dual turbolaser cannons. The cruiser's shields held through the first salvo, although some of her turbolasers were temporarily disabled by the ion cannon fire.

The cruiser blasted back at the Allegiance, her own turbolasers and ion cannons striking the Mon Cal light cruiser. Her strong shields held, but a limited amount of ion cannon fire washed over the hull, disabling one of her turbolaser cannons. Small gray dots in the distance rapidly grew into approaching enemy starfighters. A full squadron of TIE Fighters it appeared.

Anne couldn't help the small giggle that escaped her lips. Unless they were modified to carry torpedoes, TIE Fighters had no armament that could threaten her cruiser or it's escorts in any serious way. It seems the convoy commander was not well versed in naval engagements.

Before the squadron could even fire one laser cannon, the AG-2G Quad laser cannons aboard the corvettes picked off three of them. The starfighters dove into the attack, concentrating their laser cannon fire on a single shielded spot, actually managing to drain some shield power before they passed the cruiser.

As the starfighters passed over her hull, a blister exploded, deploying several cluster bombs. Some of the TIEs managed to swerve away, but another three were caught and exploded in the anti-starfighter trap. The remaining six retreated back the way they had come, either fleeing in terror or being recalled by the convoy commander. A pinging on the sensor board caught Anne's attention.

Highflier and Avenger squadrons had just exited hyperspace. A grin crept it's way up her face. If only she could see the expression on the convoy commander's face...

[Park Kraken]

The hull beneath his feet shook and shuddered as his cruiser took hits from that Mon Calamari cruiser. Consoles sparked and went black as a wave of ion cannon energy washed over the bridge. One console blew up in the face of it's viewer, that crewman going down into the pit, screaming as his hands covered torn remains of his face, blooding and bits of flesh seeping out. A pair of deckhands helped him up and half carried, half dragged him back towards the ship infirmary.

That station, communications, was now useless. Druso considered it's loss as non-siginifcant to the battle currently underway. The deck shuddered slightly as the turbolasers on his ship blasted back again towards the Allegiance in a seemingly non-ending back and forth duel. Cheers broke out on the bridge as the cruiser finally managed to penetrate shields, a turbolaser strike reduced in power blackening the pristine white hull of the light cruiser.

The cheers turned into screams when a turbolaser from said enemy ship struck the forward viewport, shattering it and opening the bridge to the coldness and vacuum of space. Druso turned to the blast door, but found himself flying through the air, outside, away from the ship as a deep coldness froze his bones and his oxygen deprived body was screaming for air...


* * *


IPV Grant

Major Greeson coughed in shock when he saw the strike on the bridge of the Akula that transformed her bridge into smouldering wreckage, leaking smoke into space behind the strike cruiser. With no orders coming from the bridge, nor would they be ever again, the crew of the injured vessel carried out their last assigned tasks, conducting an engagement against the enemy light cruiser.

But the sensor screens aboard the Grant showed the additional two enemy taskforces coming out of hyperspace to engage their assigned shepherds. Making a quick decision, deciding which was more important, Greeson ordered his vessel to come about and backtrack towards the convoy, ordering all remaining starfighters to accompany him, leaving the Akula to her duel, alone.