Anaxes - Military Base

[Sgt. Slaughter]

 

”Where the hell is the fleet?”

”Why are we alone out here?”

”Oh Force, we’re all going to die!”

”What happened to the [/i]Montressor? She was there when we went into hyperspace!”

”Sweet mother of mercy, is that the Garibaldi?”

Such was the state of the comms of the civilian ships that the Galactic Alliance fleet had been tasked to escort to Anaxes. Not quite up to the specifications of the advanced navigational computers of the military capital ships, two of the smaller ships had actually attempted to revert to realspace on top of each other. Their hulls complained at the violation of their personal space with predictable and catastrophic results for the passengers inside. No more than three minutes after the menagerie of freighters and passenger liners had reverted from hyperspace in a state of disarray, their escorts dropped into realspace in multiple positions in the system to form a perimeter around the seething school of refugees.

The Steadfast’s starfighter patrol, already dispatched to police the squadron’s airspace, was forced to fire across the cockpits of three of the freighters to encourage their crews await orders from Anaxes’ airspace operators, rather than make a solitary dash for any traffic corridor that they could force their craft into.

On the bridge of the MC90 Cruiser, Slaughter pinched his nose and scowled. His leg had been bandaged and constrained in a splint, but he was at least able to limp his way across the bridge with the assistance of a cane. “Dispatch rescue shuttles to the Montressor and Garibaldi,” he sighed, knowing what was going to be the result of a collision during reversion to realspace. “And have Jern-Cresh send repair crews for our ships. I’ll be in my office.”

Tremors of pain jolting up his leg with every other step, he managed to limp his way to his office without assistance and activated the holocomm installed in his desk. The Admiral was going to do something that he had hoped would never be required of him.

He was going to ask for the assistance of the Jedi Order.
 

((Jern-Cresh: Mangled acronym for Joint Military Command.))

Edited February 4, 2019 by ObliviousKnight

[Sgt. Slaughter]

 

“I think that we’ve entertained our guests long enough. Cap, dispose of the trash.” The shipyards of Anaxes grew closer, and shuttles and barges were beginning to ferry supplies from the fortress world to the Alliance fleet. Chrysaetos was already in dry dock, a swarm of vacuum-suited techs and other craft working feverishly to restore the cruiser’s sublight engines. The Steadfast would be next in the repair yards and would require a full third of her turbolaser batteries to be repaired or replaced.

From the entire Galactic Alliance fleet, a small armada of shuttles, gunships, and freighters landed around Anaxes’ military installations and her orbital shipyards. Having expected to serve as a rally point for both the Imperial Remnant and the Galactic Alliance, the world had built up a tremendous reserve of munitions and materiel. With the Mandalorians having taken Coruscant and bearing down on at least three other Core Worlds, it seemed a shame in Admiral Slaughter’s eyes to leave so much equipment to be taken by the invaders.

Any equipment that was not secured was requisitioned by the Galactic Alliance. As for the rest, it was seized by Alliance marines and hauled away. No doubt that treating Anaxes like an enemy supply depot to plunder would cause a minor diplomatic uproar, but Slaughter had no intention to remain at the planet for any longer than necessary.

____

An obsolete model that was pinging away with active sensors, the probe droids that were dispatched to Anaxes were easy for the fleet to detect and the A-Wings of Hawkbat and Riposte Squadrons were diverted to intercept them. They fell upon the craft with aplomb, blazing away through empty space with laser fire.

One of the A-Wing pilots, a Flight Lieutenant Adrianne Zinthos (no relation to the Imperial Head of State), plinking away at one of the little spacecraft with carefully aimed fire, was barked at by her squadron commander to “stop treating it like target practice and vape the blasted things.”

[Sgt. Slaughter]

The aerospace traffic controller of the Steadfast eventually responded; the ship was unknown to the Galactic Alliance, but the transponder codes were genuine for an officer several years ago.

”Land at Hangar Three and report to the bridge.” A teasing note entered the traffic controller’s voice. “You do still know your way around an MC90, right?”

____

Construction requisitions, panicky Senators, a thoroughly irritated loading foreman on the planet surface; these were all the mundane details that Slaughter would have preferred to leave to his executive officer or a staff officer, but the majority of the fleet’s bureaucracy had been forced to evacuate from Hesperidium and was still en route to the shipyards of Bilbringi. Some of these decisions were necessarily passed directly to the office of the Admiral. The hours continued and the drone of wheedling politicians was eventually replaced by the roar of plasma cutters and crash of micro-explosives; Slaughter’s vision began to cloud over and he found himself tempted to throw a datapad against the wall and smash it under his boot.

”Admiral to the bridge. Admiral to the bridge,” chirped a yeoman’s voice over a comlink, saving the report of abandoned munitions from its fate.

When Mythos arrived to the bridge, he would find it in a state of organized mayhem; a miniature magcon field had been deployed over a quarter of its canopy and engineers floating in the void just beyond, removing a cracked panel of transparisteel. A Twi’lek approached the Admiral and muttered a word into the stocky human’s ear; the man looked up from his datapad and gazed intently at the Shistavanen.

“Von Howlster. Admiral Slaughter.” The exiled Coruscanti had never met the Shistavanen, but he’d skimmed through his personnel file for a minute and gotten a measure of the paramilitary’s history. “I hope that the events of the last few days have brought you out of retirement.”
 

[Sgt. Slaughter]

“Probably there’s a ceremony for reactivating your commission, but we don't have time. Welcome back to the Alliance, Marshal. On me.” Without another word, the stocky human strode from the clatter and roar that had turned the customary order and routine of the command center into the organized mayhem of a construction site. He didn’t want some civilian contractors to overhear what needed to be said.

His ready room was only ten seconds from the bridge. He slumped into his desk with an exhausted thud.

“I need to be blunt, we’re hurting. We gave as good as we got when the Mandos hit Triple Zero, but everyone knows that we can’t survive a loss like that easily.” Slaughter thumbed a control on his desk and the atmosphere in the cabin grew stifling with the activation of the room’s privacy field generator. For the moment, the only communication devices that be of any use would be those hardwired into its circuitry, and even an outside eavesdropper would find it difficult to listen in on their muffled conversation. “We’re going to need to delay our satisfaction if we’re going to survive the next month. Your work with the marshals--you ever have to go undercover? Infiltrate a criminal organization to gather intel or get a source out?”

[Sgt. Slaughter]

 

“Like I said, delayed satisfaction.” Slaughter glanced at the fourth wall, and for a brief moment, felt as though he had been in his office, speaking to the same person--a wholly unsettling sense of deja vu. A Force-Sensitive--or even a more thoughtful character--might have experienced a mind-melting episode of existential terror and gone running off into the corridors of the Steadfast, but Bruce Slaughter was merely a grunt who had received a field promotion to a station perhaps beyond his talents. He merely glanced at the bacta patch on his leg and tossed back a glass of lukewarm water that had been lingering on his desk since Coruscant.

“We’re going after the Imperial Head of State: Raven Zinthos. She was taken captive by Black Sun and their Sith allies after their conquest of Kuat.” A holoprojector in his desk flashed images of the IMperial Head of State: a surprisingly small woman for one wielding the awesome power of her office. With her enlarged eyes, she appeared almost as an overgrown child. Next, the image of a plinth-like space station. “Unfortunately, she’s being held in a space station that we know relatively little about: Dark Sun. Some significant fortifications, but nothing the fleet can’t handle--the problem is that it’s primarily civilian--headquarters for multiple megacorporations, arms manufacturers, banking syndicates, the like.

“It’s obviously a trap. I’d prefer to get her out without committing the fleet, but even then I’d like to have someone on the inside, someone comfortable infiltrating a criminal organization. You have three critical objectives for this mission: we need information regarding the location of Zinthos within the station; we need to know if the Sith or Black Sun fleets are nearby; and if and only if opportune, to rescue Zinthos.”

____

The transmission from Borleias having been received from their facilities on that world, several of the better-repaired ships orbiting Anaxes broke orbit and vectored for a hyperspace route towards deep space.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

“You’re working with Aliastra Interstellar, an arms designer negotiating manufacturing contracts and conducting trials for a new carbine, codenamed ‘Borcatu.’” Slaughter’s stubby fingers activated a miniature holoprojector and passed it across the desk. The image was that of a boxy, inelegant blaster carbine--clearly a model that was optimized for ease of manufacture. “There are several arms manufacturers on Dark Sun and it will provide you with an excuse to carry a live weapon while on board.”

His lips thinned. “Yes, it’s real. Please don’t let the prints fall into Black Sun’s hands. We’ve briefed several intel operatives on the mission and your weapons--all excellent men, you will have your pick. You’ll have a clean transport--no connection to the Galactic Alliance or Imperials. But work as quickly as practical. The fleet will be going in regardless of your success, and soon.

“The Galactic Alliance needs the Imperials operational again, or… we’re looking at something like the old days of the Rebellion. Any questions?”

____

The Steadfast’s/ air traffic control responded within a few seconds of Andromina’s hail. “Permission to land granted, follow the beacons to hangar two. The Admiral will want to see you. Proceed as quickly as possible, we’re scheduled to push off in five.”

Indeed, several ships of the Galactic Alliance fleet had completed their repairs and were vectored towards a hyperspace route, and the flashing lights drifting away from the MC90’s hull indicated the completion of repairs.

((Steadfast, Fidelity, Phalanx, Kalidor, Surprise, Audacity, and Incisor take off and prepare to leave.))
 

[Sgt. Slaughter]

((Sorry, should have clarified in last post that the NPC is yours to flesh out.))

Knowing of Black Sun’s retrograde attitudes towards nonhuman species (most notably its dabbling in the slave trade), most of the officers briefed on the attempt to rescue Head of State Zinthos were human. He would join the Shistavenan in the YT-2000 freighter that had been scrubbed for the mission.

As for Slaughter, he limped towards the bridge to find that the breached canopy had been repaired and the tools that had been scattered by Anaxes’ repair crews had finally been cleaned up, just in time to receive Andromina and her squad of commandos. Uniformly human, still clad in their black TIE pilots uniforms, they were a stark contrast to the medley of species on the bridge of the Steadfast.

“I assume that you’ve been briefed. We will have your Head of State back and I’m prepared to shoot our way through Dark Sun to take her back. We’ll begin by establishing a blockade around the station and give them one chance to hand her over. If not… you’ll be in the first wave. I imagine that the Sunners don’t expect we have the audacity for this kind of attack. They’ll be in for a surprise.”

Feeling that his boast had probably fallen on unappreciative ears, Slaughter paused for a pair of awkward seconds and continued. “Sorry. You’ll be assigned to the Surprise as part of the first wave. She and Audacity will make a breach for your Templars and our marines to assault. We launch for the rendezvous point in…”

At that point, one of the hangar deck crew spoke into her station and a Coruscanti voice boomed over the ship’s intercom. “Jump to hyperspace in five minutes. Secure all stations.”
 

[Sgt. Slaughter]

A comlink on Slaughter’s desk chimed an urgent report. Holding up a hand to excuse himself, Slaughter listened closely, his wide face turning ruddy with ugly blotches as the communique continued. Finally, with great care, the Admiral punched in commands to summon Marshal Howlster back to his office.

“We’ve had a change of plans. The Jedi have already begun their attack.” Slaughter close his eyes and pressed his fingers into them until stars appeared in his sight. He sighed. “Marshall, your infiltration will obviously now be impossible, but I’ll need you to lead any boarding actions. Templar, our goal will be to achieve domination of Dark Sun’s perimeter--knock out any defenses, rout any fleet that might be stationed. At that point we demand your Head of State back. We board and start breaking things if she isn’t immediately returned. I’ll have a surprise for the Sunners if they think that we’ll be delayed. Any questions?”

A tremor ran under the floor at that very moment, indicating that the Steadfast had entered hyperspace, along with the rest of the armada.

((Ships leaving Anaxes: Steadfast, Fidelity, Phalanx, Kalidor, Surprise, Audacity, Incisor, Crescelle.))