“Hrrhm,” Torlak mumbled as the battle unfolded on a screen at the front of the bridge.

“Something the matter, Chief-General?” a bridge crewman asked.

“I find our campaign…too easy. I expected more resistance. The video we had of their navy exhumed…might. Not whatever this is!” He said with a raised tone.

The fighters at the front line re-engaged the rag-tag team of enemy fighters and met a force of the least resistance.

“Those sentries are doing work on our fighters. Order the fighters to disengage and have the corvettes prepare a final volley against the station.” Ordered Torlak.

“Yes, general.” Complied a lowly helmsman.

The corvettes positioned themselves to not fire on one another and sent one final volley of cannons. The shells themselves were small and so was the yield but focus fire proved effective. Even more so against a vulnerable orbital station. It detonated spectacularly, throwing debris in all directions, with some station debris even smashing directly into his ships. With that, came the deaths of all who still lived aboard the station. He knew how many lives would be lost to a station of that size, knowing full well that families most likely lived aboard that station, along with any other bystander that was unfortunate enough to remain when his fleet attacked.

“Make sure all fighters are clear, we can't lose them to pieces of the station,” He analyzed the battlefield and noticed a standstill with a collection of enemy forces that gathered away from the station.

“What of these forces here?” he motioned to an analyst who was scanning the opposite side of the holo-display.

“It says here there's only around 50 enemy ships and are holding back our forces, which has brought us to the current standstill. I fear that the enemy has been organized, even with our jammer in place. I find it most curious,” replied the field analyst.

“I understand your concern,” the Chief-General began, “We did some focused scans and most of them are boasting what looks to be newer models of ships compared to the previously perished. They're not going down as easy.”

Torlak looked in dismay, “What of the ship with the larger signature? Looks to me that it's keeping most of our ships at bay.”

He pointed to the larger icon and a visual was brought up upon request. It was a large ship relative to the others surrounding it. It was long that came to a tapered point. The dorsal portion of the ship had a series of guns on the left and right with a dual set of single-barrel cannons that lined the spine. Some of the enemy fighters baited his fighters, and when they came into range, were promptly decimated with well-placed shots. Several piercing blue beams originating from the spinal cannons, that lasted for fractions of a second, made contact with the nearest fighter, resulting in its destruction.

Torlak's body alarms rang and ordered various corvettes and his fighters to swarm the group. The closer they approached, his fighters would be picked off by the enemy’s cannons, and his larger sized fighters would be swarmed by enemy light fighter and summarily executed with was seemed like an excessive amount of ordnance. He felt some pride in the enemy’s drive to survive but continued with their ordered execution. Four corvettes made their way to the enemy's location and awaited their report. He returned to the holo-display and on it showed his forces evenly divided as they approached the enemy cluster.

He initially arrived with four carriers, five cruisers, and fifteen frigates, which were a mix of the small and heavy class. In addition, he sported around twenty corvettes. The rest were fighters that each found a home with their ships. Most were stationed on the carriers and cruisers and some were placed on frigates and the rest escorted the frigates. With four carriers, he had at minimum, approximately five-hundred-and-twenty if they were all small-class fighters. Less if there was a mix of differing classes. Many fighters were also distributed among the cruisers and frigates, making a grand total of roughly a fifteen-hundred fighters for his current fleet.

As soon as they entered the system, he made it essential that they jammed all signals for Intra-system communication, and divided his forces to likely prospects of alien information.

“Gotta hand it to the science depot for the jammer. It's working wonders.” Torlak commented, to which Krio agreed.

“We figured it would do well against the Union, but it needed some…field tests. We were about to use it in the Halen System, but then the War Council commenced this invasion,” he said without lifting his head from a data pad.

“My statement still stands,” Torlak replied before he received a report from the field strategist.

“Chief-General,” he said, “We finally have reports from the other assault groups. The ships from the mining planets suffered minor losses and the group that made its way to the gas giant is meeting resistance.”

“What do they report?” Torlak commanded.

“Surface defenses, we've already lost multiple corvettes and frigates.” the field strategist reported.

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He expected total annihilation for the enemy, but this colony was fighting fiercely. We weren't given an exact number, but the fact that they reported losses instead of conquest was cause for concern.

“Sir, the enemy is moving!” a shout came from the previous field strategist. They're headed planet side.”

“Perhaps they plan to evacuate the non-combatants,” he studied the view before him, “Issue orders to Chief-Commander Brallo and have him and his soldiers descend onto the planet. Take a group of corvettes and frigates to assist.”

“Chief-General, with only his fleet of a single carrier and escort corvettes?” the field analyst responded, “would it not be best to bombard the surface?”

“And risk what knowledge they have? No,” he ordered, “Prepare support for a ground invasion of Brallo's forces.”

“Yes Chief.” said the strategist as he began issuing orders to the multitude of ships as his fleet began towards the planet.

Reports born of chaos flooded his bridge. Many ships made it to the surface following the insignificant fleet that fought them earlier, but a new case of chaos flooded the ship.

“Chief-General,” A visual came online that took a spot on the forward-facing view port.

It was Brallo.

“What's wrong? We're getting reports of mass casualties!” Torlak commanded a response.

“Did you not properly survey the planet?” he snarled.

“We did proper scans of your landing zones, there was no evidence of their being defenses,” he pointed to a scanner officer.

“Y-yes sir! The planet showed no signs of armed defenses. We thought it was safe for landing,” he cowered behind the Chief-General.

“You thought wrong,” Brallo retorted.

“What happened?” then beckoned Torlak.

“The planet is swarming with an increased force of fighters not seen orbit side. Not to mention that nearly all of my accompanied fighters were assaulted and now lay in the dirt or in the waters.

Torlak thought for a moment,“This is fine,” he garnered surprise from both the Scanner and Brallo.

“They have no way to call for reinforcements,” he began.

“But sir, the Data-” started the scanner but was promptly hushed by Torlak.

He continued, “They have no reinforcements, so we must take this chance to strike. Just focus on striking at their military installations and city centers. We have Slaver ships inbound to this system.”

“Yes, General,” he replied, and the call was cut.

The scanner resurfaced his earlier remark. “But sir, what about that Data ship? Surely, they've made their way to the edge of the system for a jump.”

“Don't worry, I've sent a ship ahead to intercept them in the next system.”

“With what orders?” He asked.

“To capture.”

Torlak turned his attention back to the large display centered at the center of his bridge below his command chair.

The reports of losses slowed and with a view on his holo-display, showed that both forces were at a standstill. While he could very well just bombard the planet from orbit, he decided against it. He found that information on the enemy would greatly provide an insight into their greater community. While awaiting on the bridge, Torlak received a call from one of the forces below. It was Dalogon.

“Chief-General,” He said, “My fleet is ready for a second assault on the planet. We await your orders.”

When the combat stalled, he ordered all available forces to pull back and maintain vigilance around their impromptu field base. The ground teams suffered severe losses and without guaranteed air support, they couldn't support their request for targeted strikes.

The enemy was recovering and Torlak didn't like where that would lead.

“Hold fast, young captain.” He ordered, “Regroup with the nearest group and await my orders,” Dalogon nodded and ended the call.

Torlak knew he was eager to prove himself, but he couldn't allow that. Not when they knew so little about the enemy.

“Have you calculated the populace of the planet?” Torlak inquired.

The scanner manipulated his station a moment before answering. “From some data recovered by ground teams, approximately 10 million. It seems like a relatively lightly populated colony. Most seem to have been taken to bunkers.”

“Can you locate them?” Torlak probed, to which the scanner shook his head in the negative.

“There's strong interference from the city centers, so it is difficult to tell.”

“We will focus on that at another time,” he said before returning to the holo-display that revealed the planets and his collective forces. Torlak studied the information and scanned the field once more when he was notified of a likely target by his strategist.

“How about here, General?” the strategist showed an isolated compound away from the city's defenses, “From what we've learned from the rest of the planet's defenses, this compound is lightly defended and scans indicate it is lightly populated. Forward scouts believe it to be an intelligence base.”

Torlak was pleased. “Then we'll strike there. Good work.” The scanner bowed and returned to his station. He then turned to the strategist and issued his new commands, “Contact Dalogon and the rest of the fleet planet side to attack these targets.”

He pointed at several large city centers that boasted many of the defenses that took down the first wave.

“This time keep them out of effective range and just maintain on drawing their fire.” He ordered.

“Contact Brallo and notify him of our target.”

“Yes, General!” responded the strategist.