Beyond the Saga Juggernaut: A crossover novel

This is my first attempt at a crossover novel, all written material posted by me are my own creation and may not be copied or recreated without my express permission. Thank you.


Dust swirled silently, and invisibly in the darkness of interstellar space, three thousandths of a light-year outside the Vezeroth system. A small unremarkable system in the deep rim, on the edge of wild space, far from even the marginal civilization of the mid rim. The system contained only three planets of almost no material value in extended orbits around it's binary stars, this morning for course made it.a perfect hiding place for smugglers and mercenary scum.
The problem was, that when you leave them unattended, such bands tended to get large and nasty very quickly. The Val-Shok mercenaries were no exception to this rule, having preyed on surrounding worlds, and grown to the point they posessed a fifty ship battle fleet. They were known for their brutality and mercilessness, and prided themselves on maximum casualties.

Groups like this were the reason the Emperor created this task force, the reason he created a new rank within the imperial fleet to lead it, and the reason Captain Abel Tannin volunteered for the ten year assignment to command the task forces flagship on the fringes of the galaxy. He could have stayed in the core and mid rim, helping the fleet battle the rebellion, but this called to him, visiting imperial justice on murdering vagrants seemed the ideal way to serve.

The two hundred and fifty ships of task force twenty seven, were broken up into five fifty ship battle groups, and arrayed at the same distance all around the system, a noose waiting for the return of the Marauder's that were plaguing this sector like a disease. Of course the Razors Kiss was the ship most sought after in the fleet, one of the few super destroyers in service, it served as the fleet command post and the flagship for the task force commander.

Tannin looked at the Chrono on his command chair, 11:43 ship time, the admiral would be entering the bridge in two minutes, Tannin began calling up the status report to brief his superior when he arrived. Flag Admiral Jarred Celarr was nothing if not precise, when the Emperor began searching for genius tacticians to fill the ranks of the Grand Admirals, Celarr stood out amongst the crowd. Rumored to have been the only candidate to beat the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn at virtually every tactical test, he was the youngest imperial officer ever to hold the rank of warlord. The Emperor personally offered him the newly created rank of flag Admiral, and tasked him using this fleet to bring an end to lawless factions in the deep rim.

The sound of the turbolift door drew Tannins thoughts back to the here and now, as the admiral stepped onto the bridge, the Stormtroopers flanking the turbolift snapped immediately to attention. Celarr was a nondescript man of two meters in height, his hair was a slightly lighter shade of black than his admirals uniform, which was trimmed in red, he walked with the weight of a leader, and his Cobalt blue eyes burned with a fierce intelligence. He was the kind.of leader who could inspire the best in all around him, even Tannin was impressed on several occasions by his cool demeanor in extreme situations.

"Good morning, Captain, I trust the night was uneventful?" Celarr said as he reached the command chair opposite Tannins.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, sir." Abel replied, picking up the datapad as he Rose from his chair. It took a few months for the captain to get used to doing this. Celarr never immediately sat down, but rather listened to the captains report as he walked the crew pits, doing a visual check on ships systems. "We had a couple of small supply freighters make a run to the base during the night, our bomber patrols took care of them. The Fury and her task force completed the planetary bombardment on schedule, and our system jammers are making sure nothing gets out of the system. Comscan has confirmed the report that the enemy fleet will be arriving within a few minutes, and all ships stand ready to engage on your command."

"Excellent, captain, most excellent." Celarr replied as they passed the shield control station. "We certainly don't want our friends to have to entertain the shock of their losses for very long."

"We did have one anomaly, though admiral, the sensor officer sent a report of a Strange reading from within the system." Tannin would have ordinarily.dismissed such reports prior to a battle, but Celarr was a tickler for details.

"What kind of anomaly?" Celarr asked, with a slight frown.

"I'm not certain, sir, I didn't really inquire too deeply, we were dealing with the freighters at the time." Abel replied, moving to keep step as the admiral me very toward comscan.

 

Good beginnings, and backgrounds on your protagonists so far.

Stickler for details.

 

Celarr moved to the comscan pit, with purposeful strides, the lieutenant in charge Velis, snapped to rigid attention as the admiral stepped into the station. Velis was the epitome of imperial recruitment posters, a young man of twenty five with strong features and well kept uniform. The ensign he oversaw, Calicia was all of twenty, with brown hair tied back in a military style bun, was his match in terms of appearance, but had a much softer demeanor.

"Good morning, sir." Velis greeted his superior with a bit of a nervous edge to his voice, it took Tannins a moment to remember the lieutenant had been hesitant to even bring the report to his attention given the battle preparations.

"At ease, lieutenant." Celarr replied to his greeting. "I understand there was an anomaly that occured earlier on the sensors, I would like a briefing."

"I was reluctant to bring it up admiral, but ensign Calicia was insistent." The leiutenant said hurriedly to point out the ensigns guilt, before explaining. "She detected a minor power fluctuation during the bombardment of the mercenary base."

" A minor power fluctuation, during the bombardment..." Celarr repeated, the admiral studied the clearly nervous lieutenant for a moment, before turning to Calicia. "Is that how you would sum up this anomaly ensign?"

The girl pursed her lips for moment, glancing briefly to her officer, before speaking. "I would not, sir. The reading was very strange."

"Do elaborate, ensign." Celarr arched an eyebrow expectantly.

"It was actually two readings, sir." The girl explained. "I detected the first one when the bombardment began, it was almost as if something powered up when our destroyers began firing at the surface. I didn't recognize the energy pattern, but records say there has never been an advanced civilization on this world. I checked the energy signature against the database, and found a match, to siphon generators employed by the Sith empire of three thousand years ago."

"Siphon generators..." The admiral paused the girls explanation by holding up a hand. He was familiar with technology though it had been lost to the galaxy for centuries, the ancient Sith empire had launched a war against the republic, from their capitol on Dromund kaas, among the myriads of technologies they created throughout the conflict, came to be known as a siphon generator. The technology allowed a ship or base to absorb incoming fire, and redirect that energy into a massive generator, usually linked to a weapons system of some kind that required massive amount of power. This had the effect of turning the enemies own weapons against them, yolking the enemies own strength to their advantage.

After a moment of thought the admiral lowered his hand. "You said there was a.second reading, was it the same?"

"No sir, the second reading was even more strange, for just moments after the bombardment I detected a class two stellar anomaly in the Vezeroth system." The ensign replied.

"A class two, you say?" Tannin asked her. Class two stellar anomalies were black holes or wormholes neither of which simply develop spontaneously.

"Yes sir." She replied "Triangulating the readings indicate the generator is below the surface of the planet, possibly in some kind of subterranean facility."

Celarrs brow wrinkled in thought, this information changed things significantly, it was one thing to take on the mercenary fleet above a useless world, where ships could be destroyed with impunity without regard for damage to the planets surface. With ancient sith empire facility hidden away, a siphon generator of immense value, and possibly hundreds more secrets on the surface, damage to the planet became a much bigger problem. Celarr original plan had been to let the enemy fleet arrive in high orbit of the planet, then jump in and trap the enemy against the planets gravity well. This revelation made that plan impossible.

"Captain we will need to rethink or plan of attack." Celarr turned to him. " A sith facility on the surface is wealth of technology and secrets that cannot be out at risk. Deploy the Constrictor and her sister interdictors in system immediately, and set up gravity field trap. Our battle group will jump on station to defend them while battle groups two and three reposition jump in on their act and trap them."

Abel was furiously tapping keys to relay the new orders to the fleet, exasperated that the admiral had changed the plan so close to execution. "Interdictors are moving, sir. They will be instation in two minutes"

"Very well, bring us up to speed align to our entry vector." Celarr answered. Precariously aware that they had precious little time before the Val Shok fleet would be in system.

 

High admiral Gorith sat in his command chair aboard the bulwark class battle cruiser Tal Varoth, the lead ship of the Val Shok battle fleet, heading home after a profitable day. The fleet had just a few hours earlier launched a raid on a small settlement colony, a few light-years away, stupid settlers. Everyone in the sector knew that this was Val Shok space, you wanted to settle a world in their territory, you had pay to tribute, if you didn't you died.

"Six minutes to home, Gorith." His first officer Melthrine spoke from the forward command console. Ordinarily Gorith would reprimand people for not using his title, even if it was self granted, but the xo was different. A person he trusted, which in a pirate group was almost unheard of, so he gave Melthrine a wide latitude.

"Good, can't wait to get home and split up the spoils, those settlers had an impressive haul." He replied with self satisfied grin. The food stuffs alone would feed them for over a year, they were really set up for a huge effort. Too bad for them they were all dead.

Milthine chuckled to himself, as the timer hit three minutes then replied. "I'm looking forward to claiming a bottle of that corellian whiskey, I havent-"

He was cut off as he thrown forward out of the chair, outside the viewport the mottled sky of hyperspace collapsed into a million lines of white and then snapped back into the stars, as the hyperdrive shut down.

"What in the blazes?!" Gorith began to snap, if the engineer hadn't fixed that instability and his flag ship was left hanging in space, while the fleet made it home without him in the lead... "Gorith, three imperial interdictor cruisers directly ahead!" The crewman at the helm shouted. "The whole fleets been pulled out of hyperspace just short of the planet!"

"Interdictors." Gorith replied, the celebratory tone gone from his voice, as he turned his eyes to the view port, there were multiple flickers of pseudomotion. Ten Lancer Anti- Starfighter frigates shot in from hyperspace in a perfect skirmish line in front of the interdictors above and to their right a half dozen Carrack class light cruisers, then ten Victory class II star destroyers. Then they arrived too quickly and too many to count, the mighty arrowhead shapes of imperial star destroyers. And as if to add insult to in jury a single massive ship flickered in behind the formation of warships, an executor class super star destroyer. Dimly he heard his sensor chief reporting the arrival of even more attack groups, all around them, they were trapped like rats in a net.

Jarred Celarr, looked out on the enemy fleet, with cold eyes as waves of fighters and bombers emerged form the belly of every star destroyer in the formation, the blackness of space began illuminating with turbolaser fire, as the panicked pirates began shooting.

"All ships on station, admiral, the pirate fleet is responding slowly, we definitely caught them by surprise." Captain Tannin spoke into the quiet of imperial bridge operations.

"Of that there can be no doubt, captain." Celarr replied, then issued his orders. "All ships may fire at will, star destroyers are to concentrate on the bulwarks, they represent the greatest fire power. Detail some Carrack cruisers to deal with those hammerhead Corvettes, we don't need them ramming ships. Forward gun crews may engage the enemy flag ship."

Abel dutifully relayed the orders, out the viewport along the forward superstructure, turbo laser bolts by the hundreds streaked out from the Razors Kiss, crossing the distance between the two fleets to the lead bulwark, ten thousand kilometers distant. The bulwarks deflectors held against the first dozen or so shots before it began to fail, over twenty turbolaser blasts struck the ship, piercing it's armor plates, vaporizing the hull before expending their energy inside the ship. Viewports around the penetration point erupted with flames and a section of the hull warped with the destructive force of the blast. The bulwark began to manuever bring it's broadside around, facing the damaged deflectors away from the super star destroyers guns.

" The commander of their force is no fool, he knows they can't match our firepower, he's trying to barricade the fleet so they can maneuver." Celarr commented, watching the bulwark open fire on his ship.

Out beyond the bulwark, two of the hammerhead Corvettes snapped under the concentrated fire of the Carrack class cruisers, three star destroyers from task force two were pummeling a dreadnought with withering volleys of turbolaser fire, even as he watched three more of the dreadnoughts guns flared and went dark. The battle was all but won, in reality, the pirate fleet had no way to escape the firepower arrayed against it.

"Admiral." Tannins voice reached his ears. "Ensign Calicia sent an urgent request for our attention."

"Did she now?" Celarr frowned. It was highly unorthodox for crew to request command officers attention during a battle, he noted the deep frown on the captions face. Rising from his chair, he moved towards comscan. "Let's see what our brazen ensign has to say."

As they approached, Tannin was clearly ready for a reprimand, but Celarr held out a calming hand as the ensign stood to attention. "Sorry for the request, sir, but something is happening." Calicia said with an urgent tone. " Shots from the pirates are entering the atmosphere of Vezeroth, and they are being absorbed, it almost like the siphon generators range has expanded."

Any reprimand from the captain died as he moved to the comscan station frowning, he tapped several keys, studying the reading as the admiral frowned behind him. Siphon generators we're usually recorded as.working in conjunction with shields, yet this seemed to be drawing power from energy sources across the entire planet.

"She's right admiral, the generator is siphoning off every shot that breaches the atmosphere, with pirates firing wildly, it's absorbing thousands of terajoules." The captain confirmed, turning back to him.

"The question is captain, what is the generator drawing energy to power, to require so much." Celarr replied, looking at the display himself.

"Some kind of super weapon perhaps?" Tannin offered, hoping against the likelyhood of an ancient Sith superweapon going off in this system in the middle of a battle.

Ensign Calicia spoke next, and the words were definitely not what Celarr wanted to hear. "We will find out in a few seconds, the generators power absorption is rapidly scaling down, whatever it's drawing energy power is nearly charged."

 

Thanks I appreciate the comment. Always looking for constructive criticism. Lol I know, I'm typing on a phone keyboard, not exactly conducive to quick fingers.