Watching Heir To The Empire

Chapter 9

A/N: Some Mara action for you in this chapter LarinzMultifandom

The tactical officer stepped up to the ship's bridge command centre, bringing his heals smartly together.
"All units signal ready, Admiral," he reported.

"Excellent,"Thrawn said, his voice glacially calm.
"Prepare for lightspeed."

Pellaeon threw a glance at the Grand Admiral, then returned his attention to the bank of tactical and status readouts facing him. To the readouts, and to the blackness outside that seemed to have swallowed up the rest of Pellaeon's five-ship task force. Three-thousandths of a light-year away, the Bpfassh system's sun was a mere pinprick, indistinguishable from the other stars blazing all
around them.

"Captain? Is my flagship ready?"
Pellaeon brought his mind back to the business at hand. All ship defenses showed ready; the TIE fighters in their bays were manned and poised. "The Chimaera is fully at your command, Admiral," he said, the formal question and response a ghostly remembrance of the
days when proper military protocol was the order of the day throughout the galaxy.

"Excellent," Thrawn said. He swiveled in his chair to face the figure seated near the rear of the bridge. "Master C'baoth," he nodded. "Are my other two task forces ready?"

"They are," C'baoth said gravely.
"They await merely my command."

Pellaeon winced and threw another glance at Thrawn. But the Grand Admiral had apparently decided to let the comment pass.

"Then command them," he told C'baoth,
reaching up to stroke the ysalamir draped across the framework fastened to his chair.
"Captain: begin the count."

"Yes, sir." Pellaeon reached to his board, touched the timer switch. Scattered around them, the other ships would be locking onto that signal, all of them counting down together .
The timer went to zero, and with a flare of starlines through the forward ports, the Chimaera jumped. Ahead, the starlines faded into the mottling of hyperspace.

"Speed, Point Three," the helmsman in the crew
pit below called out, confirming the readout on the displays.

'"Acknowledged," Pellaeon said, flexing his fingers once and settling his mind into combat mode as he watched the timer now counting up from zero. Seventy seconds; seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six-

The starlines flared again through the mottled sky, and shrank back into stars, and the Chimaera had arrived.
"All fighters: launch," Pellaeon called, throwing a
quick look at the tactical holo floating over his display bank. They had come out of hyperspace exactly as planned, within easy striking range of the double planet of Bpfassh and its complicated system of moons.

"Response?" he called to the tactical officer.

"Defending fighters launching from the third moon," the other reported. "Nothing larger visible as yet."

"Get a location on that fighter base," Thrawn ordered, "and detail the Inexorable to move in and destroy it."

"Yes; sir." Pellaeon could see the fighters now, coming at them like a swarm of angry insects. Off on the Chimaera's starboard flank, the Star Destroyer Inexorable was moving toward their base, its TIE fighter wedge sweeping ahead of it to engage the defenders.

"Change course " he ordered the helmsman.
"TIE fighters to set up an advance screen. The Judicator will take the other planet." He looked at Thrawn.
"Any special orders, Admiral?"

Thrawn was gazing at a mid distance scan of the twin planets.
"Stay with the program for now, Captain. Our preliminary data appear to have been adequate; you may choose targets at will. Remind your gunners once again that the plan is to hurt and frighten, not obliterate."