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Post #792291

Author
Frey
Parent topic
The Clone Menace
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/792291/action/topic#792291
Date created
6-Oct-2015, 4:46 PM

Grant issues an order to his fighter wing, Home Red, to circumvent the battlecruiser screen while the other wings (Home Blue, Home Green, and Home Gold) advance towards the battlecruisers under the cover of ground defense cannon fire. He relays the coordinates of the incoming battlecruisers to Raffe. Kenobi issues the order to fire salvoes of cannon bolts at the Mandalorian fleet. Glowing red lances of energy strike out towards the Mandalorian battlecruisers, just barely skirting the flight paths of Home Blue, Green, and Gold. The three swarms of Z-95 Headhunters open with laser fire at the undersides of the Mandalorian battlecruisers. Turrets on the battlecruisers swivel to meet the incoming fighters and let out bursts of effervescent particles. The hulls of the large ships are pockmarked with hot craters, most from blaster impacts but also some from flaming Headhunters crashing headlong into their havod alloy plates.

Jaster Mereel surveys the battle from the bridge of the Kyr’Amudh, witnessing colorful streaks zip across the darkness of space. Three Headhunter wings dart about in confrontation with his battlecruiser force. He orders his Taung lieutenant to provide the location of the fourth Headhunter wing, but the officer says they have dropped out of the fleet’s subspace scanning range. Mereel says that such a thing is impossible, only to have his suspicion confirmed when the ship’s sensors detect an incoming fighter wing approaching from the flagship’s aft section. Mereel realizes that these fighters masked their subspace signatures in his ship’s engine exhaust. He orders the nearest two battlecruisers to assist in destroying Home Red.

Piloting his Headhunter with white-knuckle determination, Grant Lars’ Home Red wingmates strafe the Kyr’Amudh’s bridge with blaster fire. The local shields absorb the blows, strings of electricity dancing across the straining defensive field.

Grant dives towards the Kyr’Amudh's to inspect the ship’s cargo. Grant sees a large mechanical assembly with a flat foundation and a series of landing legs clasped against each other in a folded position. Grant contacts General Kenobi, telling him that the flagship is carrying some sort of prefabricated structure designed to be dropped onto the planet’s surface from low orbit.

Down in the Palace’s war room, Kenobi swivels around to face the primary tactical display, manned by an emancipated clone and officer of the Home Guard ground crew named Covis. Covis tells his General that Home Red’s sneak attack on the Kyr’Amudh has delayed the progress of the Mandalorian fleet; the other three fighter wings are drawing the fire of the battlecruisers, but at the cost of heavy casualties. Kenobi directs an order to the ground defense cannon crews to consolidate their fire on each battlecruiser one at a time.

To be continued.