The Battle of the Masserix Belt: Zugzwang
Posted on Sun Feb 12th, 2023 @ 9:57pm by Thane & Bomoor Thort & Amare & Valavai Tarses
3,189 words; about a 16 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter VI: The Last Bastion
Location: The Masserix Belt, Bastion Space
Timeline: Night (Day Three, Week Four) - The Battle of the Masserix Belt
OLD
Tarses then gazed more sternly at Thane, "Under the circumstances, such a maneuver is incredibly risky, and I've chosen it specifically due to your presence. I've placed an incredible amount of faith and trust in the three of you so far. Much more than is reasonable in most regards. This is the moment you can prove to all of these honorable people behind us that you're worthy of the uniforms we've given you. If the Sith have indeed returned, give them a reason to believe it as I have."
Bomoor had now returned, having contacted the Raptor, and heard the bulk of the plan and Tarses' comment about the strength of the Sith.
"You will see not only the power of the Sith but the omnipotence of the Force itself at work here today, Grand Moff," Bomoor spoke with a renewed confidence, "Our crew will support your fighters in the asteroid field and we shall demonstrate abilities that neither your rebel Moff nor GalactaWerks can fathom."
NEW
GalactaWerks Corporate Star Destroyer Enterprise, Masserix Belt
The claws of Executive Morthart's dominant hand retracted slowly from the grip of her command chair's armrest as she surveyed the holographic display imprinted across the viewscreen. Various shapes and colours had taken formation, indicating friend and foe, fighter and capital ship, as well as the asteroids of disparate sizes and shapes. Some carried additional notations regarding their influence on communications and hyperspace – their ‘mass shadows’.
The technical elements of the confrontation were largely lost on the Zygerrian; she had relied heavily on Superintendent Mosquith to manage these sorts of affairs, both on terrain and in the vacuum of space, through his many years of leal service. Whilst the source and inspiration for his dedication was never truly known to her, Morthart had known it was never in question, and he was a testament to her truest gift of selecting the right sentients, with the right skill-sets, to surround and support her enviable person. His demise at the hands of the Jedi had been one of the greatest blows to her establishment – one she would not so easily replace.
She glanced to the tactical droid stood beside her, eyeing its angular, sharp and artificial features with undisguised disgust, although its photoreceptors were planted firmly on the display that she knew was directly linked to its processors. In many ways, the tactical droid – she forgot its designation – was as much the ship as the bulkheads lining its superstructure. Morthart would never dismiss the statistical advantage that advanced machines like the droid could offer over an organic mind, but the experience and blended cybernetics of her superintendent had been the ultimate marriage – bolstered only by his loyalty, which had come genuinely and without programming.
Her claws dug into the velvet of her command chair again, tearing some of the expensive fabric in the process and causing some of its golden cloth to gather beneath her nails. She made a mental note to have a better weave installed into her next vessel, following her inevitable promotion in the Board. She was also determined that the trappings she had brought with her to her resort on Bastion would be installed at her next complex. The current loss of the base stung almost as much as Mosquith, but at least that was only a temporary setback.
She looked across to one of the few organic beings staffing the bridge, a handsome Twi’lek male, handpicked by Morthart, who was co-ordinating the droids and non-droids that would make up the starfighter squadrons, when a priority call from Anthark was routed directly into the viewport before her.
"Executive Morthart," hailed the Human Moff, his face stern but as well-groomed as ever as he sat at the helm of his own ship, the BSD Servator. "Tarses is engaging us, so slow your engines and tighten formation. Are your fighters ready to scramble with ours?"
“Your old friend is a fool, Edwoff,” she seethed, fully-aware of Grand Moff Tarses’ Star Destroyer on an approach vector, drawing itself close to firing range, as well as the asteroid field that had left them momentarily adrift from hyperspace – and cut off from her allies rallying at Muunilinst. “He numbers but one Star Destroyer, with less range and fewer fighters than even my Enterprise.” She paid no mind to Anthark's attempt to deign to give her orders.
For a nation so obsessed with obedience, their leaders had much to learn about the true order of the galaxy. Even now, the Imperial fleet found itself split, engaging in conflicts across Bastion space as the Council of Moffs fell upon itself in an effort to secure their respective visions for the future. Morthart almost smiled a fang-filled sneer at the thought.
All over me, she mused darkly to herself. Things may not have developed exactly as her portfolio to the Board had promised, but the end result would be much the same.
“We should obliterate him and his Jedi pets now,” she hissed, causing her tactical droid to twist his cranial unit a few centimetres on its axis towards her. “Let us reward his arrogance with fire and molten slag!”
Anthark cupped his chin and inhaled for a moment before issuing a reply, "I certainly intend to put the old man to shame in this battle. This skirmish will be the final demonstration of our collective might and once-and-for-all end his foolish notions of expansion. The entire Empire must see that I have secured their continued way of life."
His gaze shifted, likely looking at his own screens or displays, "But my old mentor is no fool: he is a brilliant tactician and he has access to those secret projects and plans that he selfishly hoarded from the rest of the council. He and those Jedi intruders will know what they are up against and I would count on some bold ploy to attempt to embarrass us, even if it does not secure a final victory."
He now gazed back through the screen and down towards the Tactical Droid beavering away before Morthart like a diligent servant before their master's throne, "I suspect your machines know little of Imperial warfare so I suggest you defer to my judgement in this conflict, Executive."
Bastion Star Destroyer Absolution
Wings of small starships, largely made up of TIE fighters from the opposing Imperial forces, fell upon one another, brilliant green and orange streaks of extreme-heated plasma smashing into each other, the nearby asteroids and, occasionally, the three Star Destroyers that were now closing in one one another. Larger, heavier beams of plasma blasted into the larger asteroids that drifted too close to the capital ships, and were now also streaking between each of the conflicting dreadnoughts.
It was a chaotic scene to behold, as Thane's eyes lit up with each explosion or blast of laser crossing the viewport. Whereas before it had been impossible to make out the finer details of the starfighters harrying one another, he could now occasionally spot the shapes of the pilots in the cockpits - the pilots risking and sacrificing their lives for this microcosm of a greater galactic struggle that had been plaguing the stellar landscape for generations.
The Absolution shook again from one of the blasts striking against its deflectors, a natural expectation from the risky manoeuvre Grand Moff Tarses had enacted, at the behest of Thane, Bomoor and Amare. The resultant quaking of the ship forced the gathered figures on the bridge to steady themselves. An additional alarm blared around them signifying some distinct damage had been caused, and Thane heard some of the officers in the pits barking orders and updates between themselves.
"Anthark's blocking our flanking vector," Tarses announced to the pit staff. "Helm, adjust to heading one-four-five. All ahead full! We'll cut straight between them."
"One-four-five, ahead full, aye sir!" the helm officer confirmed as the slight shift in inertia could be felt across the ship at the hard course change.
"Main batteries charged!" the gunnery chief called out.
"Target primary batteries on Servator's central axis," Tarses ordered. "Standby secondaries for broadside on port targets, focus two decks above the belt line. That should rattle their laser capacitors."
"Targets locked!" the chief acknowledged.
"Slow to two-thirds and fire as they bare!" Tarses gave the word just as Servator and Enterprise closed the gap to attempt to force Absolution into a deadly pincer snare. Tarses was having none of it. His ship was outmatched, but Absolution could hard-burn a flanking maneuver like few ships in the Bastion fleet.
The distance between Tarses' flagship and their foes had already been sliced as they now found themselves getting caught between the two behemoth starships. Even Thane could not deny to himself an innate sense of dread at the spectacle unfolding; at either side of them, two hulking Star Destroyers reminded him of the sheer scales involved in these conflicts, the sizes of the vessels dwarfing the sentient beings controlling them. He peered through the viewport in both trepidation and maligned wonder, and a sensation dawned on him, not unlike his earliest memories of spacefaring and contemplating the enormity of the Universe's void.
Once, it had plagued him, consuming Thane's youthful mind with confusion and fear. Now, that existential dread and wonderment he knew existed in nearly all sentient beings, only gave him focus. It was all one through the Force - and the Force was theirs.
"I always forget how vivid it is up close," Bomoor spoke solemnly at his side, "Spiking emotions and sparks of life glinting and fading in muddled haze within the Force. But, this time, I seem to have more focus - I can sense individuals and predict their intentions with greater accuracy than before. Perhaps it is our bond allowing me to see with new eyes or perhaps I am truly more a part of things than I ever was during my time with the Jedi."
Bomoor's comment broke Thane from his dark reverie and he looked sidelong at his lifelong friend, considering the words he had muttered cautiously to him at the head of the bridge. He did not immediately say anything, instead allowing the moment to pass quietly between them, even against the backdrop of conflict, starfighters and harried officers and troopers making their way busily around the command centre. He mused inwardly at the paths they had taken to finally lead them to this place, of the prior conflicts they had experienced on Onderon, Ord Yutani and even between Nar Shaddaa and Korriban, before finding themselves stood upon the bridge of the Imperial flagship, and of the responsibilities that they - that he - held for the stark, grim shifts in their occupations, characters and roles in the conflicts shaping the galaxy around them.
Not for the first time, he wondered warily at the changes within his companion. The once-kindly Ithorian, previously so resolute in his mantras regarding the Living Force and those that it touched, so firm in his dedication to the protection of sentient life and the promise and opportunity held within them all, now stood ready, prepared and armed to face the inevitable chaos and death of warfare and the extreme, but necessary, application of the Force against insurmountable odds and enemy lives. He wondered, really, at the darkness and absolute narratives that had taken hold in his friend, and what responsibility he held for causing or, rather, fostering it.
For not challenging it.
For not challenging Bomoor as he took those same tentative steps along the same dark path Thane now trod.
After all, was it not the duty of a friend to ensure such actions, presumably taken with the best of intentions, philosophy or kinship, were taken with one's eyes open and mind clear - and not out of corruption or, worse, some manner of misguidance?
"Perhaps," Thane finally said, barely audible, eyes still warily examining Bomoor's profile, not at all believing it. Other words - truer and more meaningful words, words of conviction and friendship - played across his tongue and lips, but were, ultimately, left unsaid, swallowed back within him, and he turned his molten-flecked eyes back to the battle unfolding before them.
Amare noted their words, but pretended not to notice as she drank in the scene of her first actual military conflict. With each destroyed fighter vanishing in a ball of flames, she was struck at the suddenness of life being ended so quickly and senselessly. The void left behind from the instant deaths fascinated her with an odd cold sense of emptiness that she never quite sensed before.
At first, it was a touch jarring to feel hints of fear through the Force right before the pilots were obliterated. However, having been exposed to death and murder multiple times -- including by her own hands -- she started to subconsciously screen it out, her brain quickly adapting and feeling desensitized to it all. Where life was like burning torches full of thought and potential, hopes and dreams, their deaths started to feel to her as nothing more than flipping a switch to turn off a light.
She turned and glanced at Tarses while he was barking orders. She started to admire his place on the bridge, his gravitas and confidence. She began to envy him having the power and authority and the loyalty of his men that were willing to die by his command. The very thought of it...it seemed so alluring, intoxicating even. However, Tarses was just an old experienced man with tactical words and a uniform. She wondered how much more she could do in command with the power of the Force to back her up.
That was when she turned to Thane, and she saw him locking his harsh golden-flecked eyes with her like a demon poised to tear her very soul to shreds. By his steely gaze, she knew he could feel her envy and desire for more power. She also sensed the moment was upon them, and with Bomoor adding his glare on her, Amare got the message that it was time to focus.
Just then, Tarses called out, "All personnel, brace for collision!"
Outside the viewport, the battle silently raged on, punctuated only with the patter of laser fire on the shields or the occasional rumble as a section of the hull was pierced in a weakened region of the defences by a lucky strike or a stray chunk of asteroid.
The distance between the three gargantuan ships had closed significantly and TIE and TRI fighters of both sides zipped around, avoiding the frigid chunks of rock peppering the battlefield and pelting each other with ghoulish green weapon fire. From across the other side, another spectator observed the scene from his own command bridge.
A rusty orange shape caught Anthark’s eye and prompted him to break his silence of internal thoughts, “A Corellian ship? What in blazes is that doing there? Is that the rust bucket those Jedi were found floating in?”
Squinting slightly, he watched as the YX-class ship pivoted and fired off a round of reddish laser fire into one of his fighters, causing it to fly into a spin and into the path of another finishing shot from one of Tarses’ fighters.
“Utter madness,” Anthark tutted, turning away and returning to the more informative tactical display, where one of his own Admirals stood analysing the data and occasionally barking commands to the crew in the pits.
“Can we get a few pilots on the tail of that ancient Corellian vessel?” he gestured but trailed off as he spotted a subtle but significant shift in the Absolution’s trajectory.
Someone began to respond to him about the old smuggler ship but he was already leaning in towards the shimmering representation of his opponent’s capital ship, “What are you doing, you old fossil? We have you penned in; you don’t have the room to manoeuvre like that…”
A sinking feeling set in as the dejarik pieces all fell into place in his mind. Having slowed the Absolution with barely two kilometres of space between them, Tarses was angling to bring the aft of his vessel against the Servator’s starboard side.
“Quickly!” he shouted, his voice piercing across the bridge, “Direct power to the starboard shields and all hands brace for impact!”
"What are these Humans doing?" Morthart seethed, smacking the back of her bejewelled hand against the chassis of the tactical droid, which had foolishly remained standing close to the executive, which she immediately regretted. Her instinct was to withdraw her paw, inspect the valuable gems for any unintentional damage or tarnishing. She did not, however, and also suppressed the desire to rub the throbbing knuckles.
The droid barely reacted to its master's outburst. Morthart neither knew nor cared if that was a programmed feature of the valuable line of tactical machines or a trait that had developed through this particular unit's experience of Morthart's personality. A cursory glance at its main bulk, its tasteful gold-hued finish unblemished, confirmed Morthart had nothing to worry about, and she looked back to the shocking display unfolding in the space surrounding her ship.
"Mistress, Corporate and Republic records remain particularly limited on Imperial naval tactics of recent history," the droid said, its unmoving mouth lighting up with each heavily-synthesised word that slipped through its vocabulator. It had its thick metal digits clasped together behind its back, its cranial unit bobbing in a painful simulation of sentient behaviour. "Most data available is based on limited exposure to skirmishes witnessed between Bastion forces and Mandalorian units in the past six decades, or from data spliced from Third Republic Intelligence Office nodes. More reliable data reaches back eight hundred years-"
Morthart hissed and flew up from her command chair, thrusting the droid aside to reach her Twi'lek officer, one clawed hand sinking into one of his shoulders as the other pointed towards the viewport. "What is he doing?"
"The Absolution's position against the Servator has obstructed our firing arc, ma'am," the officer said, only the slightest hint of nervousness tainting his deep voice. "We risk contact with Moff Anthark's ship if we continue firing all batteries at this range and position."
"Our reinforcements?" She then growled across to the Zeltron communications officer, whose hand was clasped firmly against an oversized earpiece crushed against his crimson face, he looked back to her, his angular features set in concern. He shook his head in reply, and Morthart growled again. "Keep firing!" She ordered. "If we cripple his ship, we will just scoop up Anthark from whatever escape pod he hides in." The Zygerrian raised her hand once more and pointed at the Grand Moff's Star Destroyer. "A six-figure bonus to whoever blasts that ship out of the cosmos!"
TBD
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