Chapter 12- Sudden Change
(July 9, 2041)
On the surface of New Callistan, in a small home outside the capitol, Iden Versio is carefully cleaning her weapon. Though now in her 50s, Iden still tries to stay current with her weapons and still takes part in training exercises regularly to keep herself combat ready.
Suddenly, Iden hears feet running into the living room. Setting her weapon down, she smiles as she sees her daughter Zay come running into the room, followed by Del Meeko. Iden and Del had actually married during the time the Hood had spent on Zallin. However, it was not until they came to New Callistan that they decided to try and settle down and raise a family. They had built their home just outside the capitol, and in early 2027, Iden had given birth to their daughter, Zay. The family now lived a relatively quiet life on New Callistan, happy to have each other.
"Someone sure seems excited," Iden says with a smile, pulling her daughter into an embrace.
"I sure am. I hit bullseyes on every target on the firing range!" Zay says excitedly. Although they wanted to live a nice, relatively quiet life, Iden and Del had of course insisted on training Zay how to defend herself, training her in hand to hand combat, combat manuevers, and use of weapons.
"Well done, sweetheart," Iden says, squeezing Zay a little tighter before letting her go. Zay grins brightly before she prances into the kitchen to grab something to eat.
Del chuckles as he watches his daughter before turning to Iden. He gives her a quick kiss and says, "We are raising a remarkable daughter."
"Yes, we are." Iden says, smiling brightly. She pauses, then says, "I am so grateful we finally chose to leave the Empire. If we had not...perhaps we never would have been able to be together and have this life." Del just smiles, and the two share another kiss.
(TAS Hood)
On the bridge of the Hood, Moorhouse, now a Rear Admiral by Pellaeon's orders, is looking out of the window ahead. He is now in his late 60s, but he is still as active as ever, and still takes his duties as captain seriously.
Moorhouse currently has the conn, as Pellaeon is down on the surface for a meeting with the Ruling Council of New Callistan. Of course, nothing big is happening today, so he's mostly just up here to make sure no emergency happens on board.
As he's looking out of the viewport, he suddenly hears a voice call from behind him in a distinct Ukrainian accent, "Hey, captain!" Moorhouse turns around and sees Colonel Shevchenko standing a few feet behind him.
As Moorhouse turns to him, Shevchenko grins and holds up his right hand, a deck of cards held between two fingers. "Want to play a round of spades?"
Moorhouse grins a bit. "Sure. Why not?"
The two men start walking over towards the holotable, which has also served before as a card table for people on the bridge during periods of downtime.
Suddenly, without warning, an alarm starts blaring through the bridge. Moorhouse and Shevchenko freeze in place, stunned at hearing the alarm. It takes Moorhouse a moment before he whips around, looking at the few officers manning their consoles, most of whom had been chatting or playing card games themselves before the alarm sounded, but who are now scrambling to figure out the source of the alarm.
"What's going on?!" Moorhouse demands loudly. However, he knows what that alarm means. Of course, he hasn't forgotten it. It's just that it's been about 2 decades since he last heard it, and he never expected to hear it again.
One of the officers manning a console looks intently at his screen, typing furiously at his keyboard. Then, a new look comes over his face, and he looks at Moorhouse in complete shock. "Admiral, sensors show a ship coming out of hyperspace on the opposite side of the planet!"
"ID codes?!" Moorhouse demands.
"Unknown, sir. Do not recognize the codes," the officer responds.
Moorhouse thinks quickly. Right now, only about a quarter of the crew is aboard the ship and most are on downtime right now. However, if this ship could potentially pose a danger to the Hood, he doesn't have a choice. It takes him only a second before he starts shouting orders, "Sound the alarm! Sound general quarters! Alert Admiral Pellaeon! Retract the solar panel array and ready all weapons!"
The bridge crew races to follow Moorhouse's orders. As the solar panel array is retracted into the ship, general quarters alarms begin to sound on the ship. Throughout the ship, crewmembers freeze as they hear that alarm. Then, they hear Moorhouse's voice calling over the PA, "General quarters, general quarters! All hands man your battlestations! This is not a drill!"
The entire crew stays frozen for a moment before they put aside their surprise at what's happening and revert to their training. Despite some of the crew being in their 50s or even 60s, they drop what they're doing and race to their battlestations. The pilots start racing for their ready rooms to get ready to scramble.
With only a quarter of her crew and most of the crew far from ready to assume battlestations before the alarm started, it takes minutes longer than usual for the crew to man their battlestations. All the while, in the engineering spaces, the ship's engineers are trying their best to get the reactor up to full power and get the engines running. Within minutes, the reactor is up and running, while the engines are slowly powering up, beginning to driving the ship forward at greater speed.
On the bridge, Moorhouse watches as the ship slowly comes around New Callistan, waiting anxiously to see what ship caused the alarms to go off.
Finally, after almost 20 minutes after the ship started moving, Moorhouse sees something appearing in the distance from around the planet. As he comes around the planet, Moorhouse, holding his binocks tightly to his eyes, finally gets a clear look at the ship that triggered the alarm. Sure enough, his body floods with various reactions as he realizes that the vessel in question is an Imperial-II class Star Destroyer.
"Holy s***," Moorhouse says. He knows this isn't a Terran or Republic Star Destroyer, as Star Destroyers in Terran or Republic service have markings painted on their hulls to distinguish themselves from Imperial ones. He knows immediately this is a former Imperial ship. But what is it doing here?
However, the question of what the ship is doing in the system can wait. Moorhouse's immediate concern is stopping it before it can cause damage. "Scramble all available fighters and ready all weapons batteries that have been manned," Moorhosue orders.
As the Hood closes on the mysterious Star Destroyer, a handful of fighters scramble from the hangar bay. Given only a handful of pilots are currently aboard, and some take longer to get ready due to their age, the Hood can only muster a dozen Su-36s and 8 X-Wings. As the fighters form up in front of the battlecruiser and streak towards the Star Destroyer, they see some TIE fighters begin to fly out of the Star Destroyer's hangar.
In the cockpit of the leader Su-36, Commander Illich, a veteran of the Galactic Civil War, including the Battle of Yavin, calls out on the radio, "Alright. All fighters, clear to engage any and all targets. Weapons free!" He then locks up one of the incoming fighters and fires a long range missile.
Soon enough, several dozen missiles are flying through space to meet the incoming TIE fighters. Most of the TIEs are shot down before they are even within laser cannon range. The few remaining ones move to engage the Terran fighters, but the X-Wings move ahead to engage them, leaving the Su-36s free to attack the Star Destroyer.
The Su-36s streak in towards the Star Destroyer, firing their laser cannons into the hull and focusing on the turbolaser batteries. The Star Destroyer tries to fire back, but the fighters easily manage to evade the turbolaser fire, twisting and turning to evade the bolts as they turn around for another run, now adding missiles to their attack.
Meanwhile, the Hood has managed to close within weapons range of the Star Destroyer. On the bridge, Moorhouse orders, "Open fire!"
For the first time since the attack on the Bloodfangs, the Hood's weapons batteries fire in anger. With so few of the crew aboard, the battlecruiser is only able to muster fire from about 300 turbolaser batteries. However, even this number is enough to begin overwhelming the Star Destroyer's shields and causing damage to the ship.
As he watches the bolts from his ship's weapons impacting the Star Destroyer, Moorhouse thinks of something. It will be highly useful if they can keep this Star Destroyer mostly intact, both for intelligence and for parts. Therefore, a few minutes into the battle, Moorhouse orders, "Order all gunners! Focus fire on the bridge. Signal all fighters to focus their attacks on the engines."
The Hood's turbolasers quickly begin to focus on the bridge, while the fighters, now joined by 4 SFA-18s that have managed to scramble. The starfighters begin pounding the Star Destroyer's engines with missiles and proton torpedoes.
The Star Destroyer is desperately trying to fight back against the Hood, but is woefully outmatched by the battlecruiser even when the Hood is underperforming compared to its full potential. Their turbolaser bolts are hardly affecting the ship's shields, and the TIE fighters are unable to even touch it. Most of the TIE fighters fail to even get past the X-Wings protecting it, and the few that do get through are vaporized by the Hood's laser CIWS mounts.
Soon enough, as several Flankers fire their remaining proton torpedoes into the Star Destroyer's engines, a massive explosion tears through the rear of the ship, destroying the engines, although the reactor and fuel tanks are thankfully undamaged. However, with the engines destroyed and the bridge damaged, the ship begins to lose power and fall towards the planet, unable to resist the planet's gravity.
As Moorhouse watches the Star Destroyer begin to plummet towards the planet below, he calls out to his radio operator, "Signal the admiral and all forces on the ground. We've disabled an Imperial-II class Star Destroyer that is now falling towards the planet. Recommend a strike be made against the wreck to recover intelligence and possibly fuel."
The message is quickly flashed down to the surface. By the time the Star Destroyer impacts the ground about a hundred miles from the capitol city, the entire population of New Callistan knows what is happening.
As the Star Destroyer impacts on the ground, down in the capitol, General Strickland is already assembling the 6th Armoured Division. Although the youngest members of the division are now at least 40 years old, the division has still maintained their combat readiness throughout the years in case combat ever came again. Now, within minutes of the Star Destroyer hitting the ground, the 6th Armoured Division begins heading in its direction, ready to launch an attack on the Star Destroyer and capture the wreck.
It takes just over 4 hours for the 6th Armoured to reach the crashed Star Destroyer. Thankfully, the Star Destroyer's weapons are no longer working. However, the Star Destroyer has marshalled what has survived of its garrison of stormtroopers, including a number of walkers, to defend itself.
The battle for the Star Destroyer's wreck begins as several AT-AT walkers and the 6th's Challengers begin exchanging fire. However, the AT-ATs are vastly outnumbered. Although they succeed in damaging a single tank, they are all soon destroyed by anti-tank rounds fired by the Challengers. The rest of the division's artillery then joins the tanks in beginning a bombardment of the outer hull of the Star Destroyer and the stormtroopers that have already gathered outside the ship.
The stormtroopers try to resist, but are unable to stand in the face of such a determined artillery bombardment, especially once a pair of SFA-18s come swooping in, strafing the stormtroopers with their laser cannons. Within 20 minutes, the 6thh Armoured is able to breach the stormtroopers' lines and enter the Star Destroyer.
Once inside, it's a fierce battle, with the crew of the Star Destroyer resisting at every turn. However, many of the remaining crew have limited training in ground combat, and are no match for the experienced troops of the 6th Armoured.
In a few hours, the battle is over. Almost the entire crew of the Star Destroyer has been wiped out, and the wreck is under control of the 6th Armoured. The few prisoners that had been taken are being transported back to the capitol for interrogation.
In the capitol, Admiral Pellaeon has been monitoring this whole affair. Although he feels a little excited at the possibility of scavenging the wreck for the parts and fuel they need to fully repair the Hood, the more pressing question is where this Star Destroyer came from and why they came. Hopefully, their new prisoners can give them that information.