Belkadan system. (contested)

8 BBY

Half of the planet is on fire. The other half is about to be on fire soon, as rolling waves of Vong bioforms, supported by warriors and Shapers are contesting our mechanized Legions on the ground.

The Army loses are... huge, more than huge. In the trillions, if mostly droids or vehicles. I still need to recover the pilots though.

There's two worldships landed on the planet, disgorging troops by the billions, every minute. The planetary shields are long gone, crushed by plunging asteroids and catacysmic bombardments.

Two more Vong worldships are holding station in low orbit, and bombard the front lines with torrents of lava bombs and volcanic cannons. We still have a thousand theater shields covering most of the ground armies, but they get overwhelmed every minute by concentrated firepower.

There should be four more Vong worldships, that I know of, but they are not present, or at least not visible.

In space and around the fleets, there's a beehive of starfighter combat, billions of corral skippers dogfighting our Biplane droids, lasers, masers and missiles chasing after the nimble Vong bio-fighters, gliding on their dovin basal bio-gravity engines.

The remains of the Sparta fleet have retreated in an armored cocoon made of a thousand Mountain battleships, most of them glowing red and melting from all the damage they endured. Two thousand Hammers battlecruisers continue firing from within the fortified sphere, if only with masers and proton beams. Missiles and torpedoes have been expended already.

The smaller escort ships are scrap or worse. They died well.The Thermopylae plan worked, somewhat better than expected.

Then again, most of the Vong armada is still en route.

My Phantom projection steps onto the bridge of HMS Meteor One, looking like a silver and grey Centurion droid. This is the flagship of the Athena fleet, and the command center for organic officers.

"What do you see?" I ask rhetorically.

Admiral Thrawn glances at me for second, then returns to study the holomap, and scrolling through camera angles from our various strongpoints.

"Well. I'll do my best, Emperor. But I'm afraid the planet is lost for certain. And our fleet might not survive anyway." he answers in a calculated voice. His command staff seems a lot more tense, even sweating.

Organics however, cannot really deal with the Vong. Their minds are pretty much open to the Yammosk telepaths, strategies and plans stolen and countered in mere seconds. But they do make a great distraction for my real plans. Thrawn might be a little pissed once he finds out how I used him, but needs must.

Clouds of angry droidfighters emerge from our Mountain-class carriers, and join the slaughter.Wing after wing, the carrier launch bays get emptied out, turning the starfighter numbers in our favor, for the moment.

Compared to the estimated two billion corral skippers, we have nine billion droid Biplanes, and millions of piloted starfighters.

Then again, the Vong corral skippers are controlled via cognition hoods, and coordinated by telepathic super brains in a semblance of battle meditation with millions of years of war experience.

I'll add my own Force abilities to help, but the chaos of combat is rather high now. The odds are kinda equal in my mind.

Other is trying to cloak a few Narwals for a suicide run into the worldships, but even with the Silentium tech, the volume is so saturated with fighter and ship weapon fire that's impossible to drive a 25 kilometer long behemoth through, without getting hit accidentally by something.

However, even if the Narwhals do get detected, stopping a trillion tons torpedo is another matter. And worldships are not known for their ability to dodge. I give the Lancer plan 50 percent odds, and hope.

Still, it's time to recall the organics manning the ground tanks and titans. Experienced cyborg pilots are hard to find, even a war infested galaxy like mine.

My A.I. friend, Core is beginning his run with the Athena fleet Hammers, trying to come in a semicircle and envelop the stationary Vong vessels in orbit around Belkadan. It's not a bright maneuver, but it should work anyway. The Hammers are very fast.

Thrawn sends our Mountains and the Nebula escorts straight at the glowing ball of metal, to relieve the besieged forces of the Sparta fleet and combine our strength.

Our frigates and corvettes hide in the fleet's shadow, trying to make themselves a smaller target. It's kinda rough on the small guys, I know. A single stray shot from a Vong dreanought can pierce through five corvettes in row, and keep going.

A few thousand Strike cruisers cover the Hammers for their run, while the Mountains will serve as an anvil. The cruisers will likely die...who am I kidding? They will die in 28 minutes tops, but they should screen the fleet until it gets in position.

Overall, not a bad plan, considering we're still outnumbered a hundred to one in capital vessel numbers.

Yeah, someone will come at me and yell. Why isn't the whole Pef Navy here?

Duh, even bringing 20 percent here,at the edge of the galaxy, was a miracle of galactic logistics and maneuvering. We aren't an exodus fleet, departing the galaxy forever, and burning all bridges behind.

The Navy is still enforcing peace and patrolling a dozen million inhabited systems behind us.

Four thousand Mountains and forty thousand Hammers also take colossal amounts of hypermatter just to move. Like half of the strategic fuel reserves.

We already lost a tenth of those ships, while another tenth is barely hanging on. Galactic scale wars are nasty business, and expensive too. Fortunatelly I am quite rich, and can print more money if I have to.

And now, let's start our own part in this tragedy. Acceleration: times six. Battle meditation, vigor, reinforcement, valor. Hide in light. Mind shield, mind fog and a dozen other abilities. I can feel the fleet move like my own fingers.

I draw immensely from the Force, helping our crews fight better, faster, harder.

The Force Phantom scatters and reforms into a classic Fallanassi Simulfutur projection. Less drain now.

Solana pats my back gently, and fatigue just evaporates. Thanks, love.

Wait, that's not! The worldships in orbit spun, and blinked back a dozen kilometers, avoiding the Narwhals.

Damn it. They can dodge now!

Still, the landed worldships should not be able to avoid their fate so easily. Even if...well. Don't push asteroids in front of my former meteors! That's just rude!

Nevermind. The Narwhals simply pierced through rock and ice and continued on their ballistic trajectories.

And let's teleport the expensive Baneblades and the Titans back on board my station. No point losing them when...the other half of the planet bursts into flames and volcanic eruptions.

Sigh. The planet is toast now. And well done, on both sides. And guess who will be called to repair it back to life when we win the war. If we win.

Anyways, there go two more worldships, and all their ground armies. Ours as well.

Still, that's about 30 trillion Vong that won't bother my galaxy in the future.

Core is engaging the Vong fleet vanguard now, while Thrawn reached the besieged defenders and took overall command over the recovered ships.

The Athena fleet reshapes itself into a cylinder, protecting the damaged vessels in the interior.

Now, what will you do, smart Shapers?

Converging into a single fleet, the outer Vong elements closing in, to save the two worldships?

Perfect! These two worldships are now hostages of a sort, until they are liberated or destroyed.

However, they still have three times more dreadnoughts and battleships to bring into battle.

What is Thrawn doing? Why are you retreating the Hammers?

Oh. Four more worldships are descending on him from high above the system's plane.

Okay. Makes sense then.

Now. Other said he had a plan...a flash of bright light, infused with the Force too, blinds everyone.

Maniac! That was Meteor Two! You detonated my Rakata forcefield! And my beloved Meteor, that served with honor in the Clone Wars... Sigh.

I know they say a man can have everything if he's willing to sacrifice...but really? My Meteor?

'Stop sulking, Pef. You lost thousands of ships and never cared till now.' Wialu admonished me from half a galaxy away.

I sob one last time. Women just don't understand! Ships aren't just toys.

I force myself to open my eyes and look. Not that a rock has eyes.

A supernova-class beam flared into the path of the four worldships, leaving behind only glowing hulks, devoid of life and souls. So, Other used the Rakata forcefield as an amplifier for the force beam that my numbered Meteors copied from the CIS' Devastation.

Okay, perhaps losing one numbered Meteor wasn't that bad...

Another flash blinds me. Not again!

I peer through my fingers, actually afraid of...not Meteor Three!

No! The pain is immense. And, not just the Force crushing my chest into a black hole of hate and anger.

That's it! I'm officially pissed now!

"Let today be known as a day of infamy! Two irreplaceable relics from the Rakata Era have been sacrificed for the betterment of the galaxy! For Freedom!" I proclaimed on the Pefnet, while arranging for promotional holocasts(with real footage) to be sent to war academies and news stations all over the galaxy.

A tragedy like this had to be commemorated in the annals of history!

'You know, I can make primitive Force Soulbarriers like this quite easily. Prismatic folding is a rather classic method, but you only need a million souls to do it. Criminals would suffice.' Other said in a rather contemptuous tone.

Wait! He can make more? Hmmm, perhaps I should give him a medal or something...keep him happy while he teaches me how to construct Rakata type tech.

While I debated with myself how many criminals a galaxy the size of Corsca had, and how many I could sacrifice without appearing as soul sucking monster, Thrawn took advantage of the panic and loss of coordinators from the Vong fleet and resumed his attack run, focusing down the dreadnoughts.

I followed the battle with detachment, even as both fleets ground each other out to nothing. Our forces were rather equal now, due to the loss of Vong worldships and their yammosk telepaths.

Parity of force is a rather nasty form of self-flagelation. Especially when involving ships measured in tens of kilometers.

My cyborg Raptor pilots reached kills into thousands, while the Biplanes fared evenly with the Vong pilots.

The Orions moved in to help reduce the numbers of corral skippers, while frigates and cruisers mopped up the smaller Vong vessels, with not so pleasant results.

However, the Hammers and the Nebulas did great, each class proving their worth and the expense invested in their armor and weapons.

A week later, the survivors of the Sparta and Athena fleets, about 20 percent of their original numbers, returned to their bases for repairs.

The rest litter the Belkadan system with dead carcasses and hulks.

And thus, the Vong Wars had ended!

I mean, there should be a few thousand ships that survived and ran, but nothing bigger than a cruiser.

The Navy will hunt them down in time, during regular patrols.

The loss of my two numbered Meteors still hurts, but I'll learn to live with it.

Such is life, in the Star Wars universe.