The art of war. An unforeseen factor. part 1. chapter 4-1

"until arrival Five... four... three... two... one... hyperspace jump complete!" the voice of one of the operators monotonously reported the situation.

We emerged from hyperspace somewhere in the center of the system, which was kindly reported by the holographic panel, which instantly unfolded a map of space with our position in it. The bustle on the bridge avalanched and reports poured in.

Someone has already put up an image of the planet we need on the screen — a reddish-brown ball surrounded by a green atmosphere, with huge seas spread across its entire surface, and small ice caps at the poles.

A second later, a dot appeared in its orbit, quickly enlarged by the eager clones and taking on the appearance of a half-donut of the "Baryshnik," complete with lines of parameters captured by the scanners. Several small vessels were swarming around the ship, but most importantly, the sphere inside was missing-meaning the central section, a completely independent vessel about four hundred meters in diameter, had clearly landed on the planet.

"General?" the Zabrak turned to me.

"Command the fleet, Captain" I had no intention of interfering with the professionals' work with my amateurish notions. But observing and learning from them-that was quite something.

"We're approaching the station!" Ntor nodded abruptly and began barking out orders. "Corvettes, attack the small fry! Launch fighters!"

The Marat was rapidly approaching the Separatist ship. Fighters poured out of our hangar in droves, spreading their wings into combat mode and beginning to accelerate.

At first, the enemy ship did not react to our presence, but soon we were noticed and a couple of points near the Baryshnik's side, identified by the computer as small transport ships, suddenly rushed away. After which, the strokes of turbolaser and laser shots reached out towards us.

"We have entered into fire contact!"

Boom! A bluish flash flashed across the overview screens.

"Hit! Shields at seventy-six percent! No damage!" reported one of the operators.

However, our gunfire was more intense than the enemy ship's, despite its massive armament of forty-eight turbolasers, one hundred and ninety-two laser cannons, and one hundred and twenty-four quad laser batteries, which were helpfully highlighted by the scanners on the holographic panel. We could fire from ninety percent of our guns (the wedge-shaped form of our ship itself contributed to this), while the enemy ship could only respond with thirty percent of its guns, which was also determined by the shape of the hull and the arrangement of the latter. But we still didn't have enough firepower to quickly break through its shields-after all, this bandura has powerful reactors.

"Ready the torpedo tubes!" the captain gave another order.

"Shields at thirty-four percent!" the operator continued to broadcast.

Having approached the station to within twenty kilometers, if I interpret the local system of measurement correctly, the Marat began braking and simultaneously launched its torpedoes. Four fifteen-meter-long torpedoes quickly penetrated the barrage of the few anti-aircraft guns and slammed into the station. Three of them scattered powerlessly across the shield as plasma, while the fourth, having breached the overloaded shield, slammed into the station's left hangar. A monstrous explosion bulged the station's hull, after which the ship began to shake with internal detonations.

"Keep firing! Shoot down this misunderstanding!"

Corvettes and fighters maneuvered near the Baryshnik hangars, picking off the departing Vultures. A brawl erupted.

"Yellow-six, I've got two on my tail!"

"Yellow-six, this is Yellow-seven, thirty degrees up, I'll take them out!"

"Two Vultures down!"

"I'm down, I repeat, I'm under... shhh."

"Hold on, boys! Cover the ships!"

The pilots' communications were being transmitted to the control room. Glancing at Ahsoka, I noticed her clenching and unclenching her fists. Without a doubt, what she wants most now is to be there, in the thick of the battle, at the controls of a fighter jet.

Less than ten minutes after the battle began, the heap of twisted metal that had been the station began to collapse into the atmosphere.

"Well, the natives will have a field day — so many freebies will fall from the sky," I commented on this action. Not so much because he thought the joke was witty, but because he wanted to relieve tension.

But one of the operators hastened to report, clearly taking my words seriously:

"Sir, the debris is expected to fall into one of the inland seas."

"Really? Well, then it wasn't meant to be."

* * *

Meanwhile, on the planet's surface, a skinny Neimoidian-one of the thirty surviving crew members-reported to the "Master Trader":

"Lord Herald, we are under attack by Republic forces. A ship of unknown design has attacked an orbital platform! It's practically destroyed!"

"Where did they come from? Raise all fighters! Activate battle droids! We won't give them this planet!"

The Chief Trader leaned back in his chair. The war, years in the making, had begun, but he hadn't expected it to reach him so quickly. The bad news was that most of the droids, both fighters and ground-based, were in orbital holds-thirty thousand units out of more than one hundred and forty were enough to control the planet, whose inhabitants were few and scattered. There were only four C-9979 transports, fifty of the massive MTTs, and five hundred of the more than six AAT tanks. The small hangar could only accommodate a hundred droid fighters.

"Send a message to the Regional Trading Node immediately via an encrypted channel! We need help immediately!"

* * *

I wouldn't mind destroying the Separatist base with an orbital bombardment, but Captain Ragnos rejected the idea. According to him, it turned out that while the ship itself might be more vulnerable on the surface, its shield was functional, and its weapons were more than capable of fighting back. It was also completely unknown whether the Separatists had managed to deploy anti-space defense systems, and testing this by deploying a transport with all the troops allocated for the operation was far from the best idea. Plus, the planet's atmosphere, while not greatly affecting the accuracy and energy of the shot, did have an effect.

So it was necessary to organize a ground operation.

The landing on the planet went off without a hitch. Under cover of a fighter attack, the gunboats deployed the first wave of infantry, supported by ten tanks, within virtually direct line of sight of the enemy ship. The Separatists were extremely sluggish, reacting noticeably late. A measly hundred Vultures were shot down almost immediately-they were no match for the pilots, albeit inexperienced but still alive, especially given their relatively equal numbers.

It immediately turned out that there were no anti-ship missile defense systems on the planet, except for the guns of the ball base itself, more precisely, the LH-1740 type ship, but even there there were only three full-fledged turbolasers that were really dangerous for the shields of large ships and about four dozen heavy laser cannons distributed over the entire surface of the round hull, and this means that they are not capable of firing simultaneously in one direction, the rest was designed solely to resist fighters, and even then... Shar, what can I say? We took care of the fighters and were in no hurry to throw them into a frontal attack on the shields and anti-aircraft guns of the base.

Nevertheless, the opportunities were taken advantage of, and the Approving landed neatly ten kilometers from the merchant ship, releasing the loading ramps. The corvettes patrolled space, in case the merchants tried to run away on their "balloon". Although he did not think to take off, snapping at our fighters from his defensive guns.