IS_L_OSV01.45-MHA_A-12-07-2002
IS_Library_OfficialStoryResumeV01.45
Chapter
VII
Laila: A Light Inside the Darkness
Shortly
after the battle on Endor, a incident took place when one of shadow’s
supporters that survived on Earth called Zapata tried to kill Mendoza’s people
because they were oneof the few that could save the Empire from it’s destruction.
Before we defeat Zapata he captured Laila while she was in her slicing mission
.When we defeated him, a shadow vessel shows up and destroyed the base with
Zapata and Laila still inside but there’s evidence (can't be totally trusted ,
was given by damaged sensors) that she was somehow
transported to the shadow vessel.
17 years after Endor.
General Araujo’s task force receives an emergency call from the
shipyards at Lelmra IV , they’re under attack by the New Republic . Looks like
a tactical movement to make the Remnant more weak. When the task force arrives,
they immediately launched all their fighters while the Diana , the Hunter
and the Conciliator attacked the small gunship that was escorting the
assault force and was moving into position to attack our fighters. Tau Squadron
led a bombardment on the Bulwark Battlecruiser Alliance using Assault
Gunboats armed with Advanced Torpedoes (first 3 ones) and Heavy Rockets (the
rest). At the middle of the battle Araujo made a plan:
He have studied bulwark battlecruiser’s firepower stats and response
capabilities . He found some weak points. In the aft port they have less
firepower than a ISDII at it’s front side . And the almost-built ship was
exactly what he need : an ISDII . If he could put the Star Destroyer behind the
Bulwark…
But he
need first to take command of the vessel . Since he was a cadet his duties were
both starship crew stuff and fighter pilot missions ,as a lieutenant he was able
to learn how to fly transports , and he was at the helm of some starships , as
well as some serious fighter missions , as a commander leading a squadron and
coordinating all fighter ops in the ship as well as helping the captain as a
first officer, as a captain he still fly some fighter missions and coordinates
fighter missions but the main duty was to command the whole ship and some other
stuff like diplomacy and deal with some high rank personnel as well as some of
politics. He didn’t liked too much that last part of the job.
But now
he was a general so he have enough authority to order the captain of the vessel
to proceed as he says. Now he isn’t commanding only one ship, he must coordinate the combined efforts of the various starships and fighter squadrons
attached to the task force he led.
So he
suddenly turned up the commlink to the squad’s frequency and he said “This
is Tau 1 : turn to the general frequency I have something to say to all the
pilots, I’ve changed of planes”.
Then he
turned his own radio to the general frequency . “Araujo to all hands: I've an
idea I'll enter the SD . Tovar , Miranda , Janet keep the rebel fighters
busy.” He hesitated for a moment expecting some of his people to ask him what
he was about to do . He treated them with some degree of liberty and confidence
allowing them to give their own opinions a
thing Araujo appreciate since they may discover a mistake in his tactics or his
plans but this time they must trust him “don’t ask me anything, just do
it” he added.
He told
then to the star destroyer “prepare the hangar bay to receive my gunboat”.
The star destroyer’s communications officer acknowledged and then he made
docking procedures to enter the hangar. Once inside he went to the command
bridge as soon as he was able and assumed command of the vessel , then he asked
the captain “how close is the construction of this ship to finish?”. The captain
answer “90% sir we’re just fixing some stuff in the tractor beam
projectors” , “what about the weapons and
engines ?” Araujo asked “they’re fully operational sir”
the captain said.
“Good
, set coordinate 2x1x2 mark 1 in the shipyard and give me the coordinates of the
battlecruiser ” Araujo asked.
“Sensors
, report ” captain said turning to the sensors station at the bridge. The
officer in charge was a young man , probably it is the first time he saw some
action , no matter how well the academy
prepares you , you will always scare at least a little the first time. In fact
all the personnel in the bridge were
looking like if they were scared , perfect! they’re newbies. Hope that at
least they remember well what they learned in the academy .
“No
general, we’re ready to execute the jump in the hyperspace whenever you
order” the captain said happy to leave from this deadly situation.
Yes, the
imperial will to fight was disappearing knowing they’ll always loose with the
republic. But about withdrawing from battle , Araujo came from old school and
he just said dryly “who said we’ll withdraw?, helm take us to 3 by 1
by 1.5 mark 2 assuming you can use float point coordinates”. Tactical map look
like this.
The
helmsman begin the procedure to move the vessel , Araujo told to his task force
”this is Araujo, we’re setting coordinates 2 by 1 by 2
mark 1 to the shipyard , the battlecruiser is at 3 by 2 by 2 mark 1 ,
disperse the ships a little thru battlecruiser’s front and right starboard
ports, Tau squadron keep busy the left starboard
,alphas I want that gunship eliminated”.
Alpha 1
answer “sir we’ll do our best sir”. If things goes as he was thinking ,
Araujo would be able to make the new reps think he’s withdrawing the star
destroyer , assuming it is a secondary objective and making the new reps think
that he’s offering the two interdictors , the Victory II Star Destroyer and
the shipyard in exchange for the star destroyer since it would be better to keep
the most powerful ship , he then will be able to draw the bulwark’s attention
while he silently moves into position ,
there was another advantage: the reps ignore
that the star destroyer’s weapons and shields were fully operational . After
reaching the coordinates Araujo said “move now to 3 by 3 by 2 mark 2 and get
the weapon stations ready ” . That was a test the star destroyer’s captain
never expected for his gunners but given the situation ... Looks like this general
was about to engage the
battlecruiser . And if he was expecting to die he surely will die fighting but
taking the star destroyer’s crew
with him . Of course the captain reluctantly
followed Araujo’s orders that wasn’t the moment for anything else .
“Sir
weapon stations reports ready“ the tactical officer said. “Good , then get
the starboard batteries firing at Bulwark’s weapon emplacements in the aft
section , front batteries fire at the bulwark engines (he haven't the ship at a
correct angle to use the tractors so he
need a way to immobilize the vessel to make things easier ) and helm take us now to 3 by 2 by 2 head to the
battlecruiser’s engines and hold relative position and distance the best you
can”. Then he said “battle stations” and everybody was moving to their
positions.
The
maneuver was effective . The star destroyer fired it’s turbolasers disabling
many of the bulwark’s batteries in the aft section and took out 5 engines .
One thing Araujo forgot was the fact that he wasn’t alone , the Diana’s captain understood the tactic and set the tractor beams to maximum
and the two interdictors used their tractors and gravity well
projectors to avoid the Bulwark from even veering a little, the 3 ships and the star destroyer still took heavy
damage , some shoots came to the command bridge then something explodes near the
star destroyer's captain killing him and two other officers. Araujo was wounded
too but he just stood and said “don’t move and keep the pressure”. Alpha
squadron was doing a great job they destroyed the gunship without any loses and
they were now engaging the B Wings that were now turning to attack Araujo’s
star destroyer, Commander Miranda now at the command of Iota Squadron
was wiping out all the A Wings despite the odds ( about 90 A wings vs. 12
TIE Advances) with the help of TIE
Advanced X1 Gamma squadron and two TIE Fighter squadrons launched from
the factory. Alphas managed to destroy all B wings then enter the skirmish to
help Miranda . She was taking out A Wings so easily that she just said to major
Tovar “c’mon guy this is as funny as a shooting gallery” , fortunately for
the imperials the New Republic this time rely on sheer numbers better than skill
of their pilots .
At the end the battlecruiser ‘s shield generator’s power
get closer and closer to zero and
the combined attack of a ISDII, 12
Assault Gunboats and a Victory II Star Destroyer forced the ship to
withdraw but there were the Interdictors … the
Bulwark disabled the Diana’s weapon systems and the interdictors just
came out of fire range, the battlecruiser outran them. The only ship still
fighting was Araujo’s star destroyer
Perhaps
the best choice was to let the ship go but something told Araujo he was close to
destroy the ship and effectively two or 3 turbolaser shots later the battlecruiser’s hull
explode. Yes Tau squadron was here still doing their job. They took out 70% of
the hull with their rockets allowing the star destroyer to
do the rest with what was left of it’s weapons system. The explosion
damaged even more the star destroyer but at the end the Empire has been
victorious .
“Bulwark
battlecruiser destroyed and enemy threat eliminated sir awaiting orders” . Was
too obvious that the battlecruiser was destroyed. But Araujo didn’t laughed
neither for what the guy said or for
the victory. Many people died at this battle . War isn’t the thing everybody
thinks, out there in the space were many bodies of pilots awaiting for recovery
and dead officers and crew from both sides …or their pieces …no one is
invincible and in war there’s no real winner only losers . He remember his dead friend Laila.
He
suddenly order the communication ‘s officer to turn the frequency to speak to
all imperial forces. “This is General Araujo . I congratulate all of you from
the crew up to the command officers for the great job, what we got here was almost
impossible: a victory”
Two days
later Imperial Starfleet High Command reassigned Araujo back to the armada (he
was relocated from the armada to the air space force first, because of his
perfom as a starfighter pilot) and promoted Araujo to Vice Admiral given his
skills to lead a task force, and offered to attach the star destroyer to Araujo’s task force he of
course accepted he was only 30 minutes in the star destroyer but he felt that he know the
crew and the vessel from all the life (of course they shared such a hard
experience). He thinks that there’s something special about the ship and the
crew. His first order was to be
allowed to speak to all the crew and officers he just said “I know the death
and I know that beyond the dead there’s the hope and you gave hope to you and to
all the people in the shipyard. I
would like to share my own hope with you so … my second order will be to
rename this ship with the name of someone who I loved and taught me that the
Imperial Philosophy is the right way, someone who brought light to my world when I
was thinking I was on the wrong place. From now this will be the Imperial II
Class Star Destroyer Laila”. He felt a tear running thru his face: he was
crying ...he haven’t cried before and he was unsure if he was crying of
happiness or sadness or just the feeling of the moment . He spoke some words for
a few minutes then he retired to his quarters. So the captain was dead
doesn’t matter he can do the job… then he realized and suddenly said “Vice
Admiral…. I was promoted!” , he’s now a high rank officer probably the
youngest one ..no wait that was Mónica. Suddenly the door opened, it was
Nathalye she just look at him and smiled “vice admiral… I cannot believe it
. You’re so young …but u did ok at that last battle”
“I
think so since we’re here and alive just waiting for the repairs to finish”
Araujo spoke. We could be floating out there like the rep officers.
“Not
you. Neither me and not right now” Nathalye said in a serious voice. The girl
was all the time joking and happy even in the middle of an skirmish, she's serious
only a few times and when she’s
serious is because …she’s talking about some really serious stuff .
“What
about you, you’re now this task force’s Wing Commander” Araujo said
avoiding serious stuff; he wasn’t in that mode he just want to rest. Nathalye
just came back to her normal mode and smiled “guess we can celebrate in the station’s bar what do you think eh?” … “ok
that’s fine for me let’s do it” Araujo said.
Some
years after the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn
(which really applied the Imperial Philosophy and worked close and
secretly with the First Ones) precisely
18 years
after the battle at Endor , the then Vice Admiral Araujo (one of Mendoza’s
chosen at earth) and his task force following a mysterious vessel that has been
attacking neutral & imperial worlds , intercepted the ship and engaged it .
It was a Borg Cube . Araujo managed to capture the ship and analyze the ship’s
tech and a Laila’s second party of imperial engineering translate the
ship’s log into basic and seize control of the ship learning how to manage the
systems, they realize that they can give to the whole cube and its personnel
orders like if they were a huge computer. Araujo took the info and reported it to
Mendoza . Then Mendoza was feeling
that the moment to tell the truth is now so he told to Araujo (ok, ok me
….back to real life everything I’m telling you about this new incident is a
mix up of what I have in mind and what he said and he also
added something ,the guy told me this new stuff the Sunday so I added it in that
way) : vorlons and the shadows were
trained by the 1st ones and they’re supposed to teach us how to
created and maintain a strong empire to allow several races to envelop in peace
and order . The vorlon’s colony on this galaxy envelop but they trusted
too much in their tech and then they started to be lazy and lazy and lazy until
they did anything and for yet unknown reasons they disappeared so only the shadows were able to train the humans,
they ensure to make both the rest of
the vorlon and the first ones thinks that that vorlon colony was ok . The humans
created by themselves the Republic but the were ignored by the shadows as they
managed to manipulate a Jedi to separate from the light Jedi creating the dark
jedis and then convinced the dark jedi to learn how to use the powers that a
race called the siths were using in
their civilization. They created the dark jedis expecting to rule thru them and
then have enough power to domain the vorlon .
And now
the vorlon sent one of the races they trained , the Borg, to investigate the
whereabouts and the status of the ongoing process with the humans .
Meanwhile
the Imperial Remnant separates in several clans led some of them by warlords
making what’s left of the official Empire even more weak . Mendoza’s people
accepted to have high command positions and the Imperial Remnant went know also
with the name Mendoza’s people took …this name sounds like supporting the
official Empire but admitting that they’re no longer the official Empire because
they arent the biggest imperial faction although they're official Empire
supporters .The official Empire is dead they’re just a small group ,so the new name was Imperial Armada.
