Star Wars: The Hidden Empire

Chapter Three ~ Glory to the Empire

"Ha! The cowards! They've already called a retreat, now that their big guns have become stardust." Announced Commodore Colt victoriously, looking down at a holo-image of his superior. Admiral Ackbar displayed no such excitement however. "Already, more than half of their forces have fled the battlegrounds, leaving the rest to die by our fighters. Like all imperial scum, their commander is a fool."

"Yet the deadlier part of their forces still remain. Either to cover the ships that are disengaging, or perhaps a distraction. I can't shake the feeling that this may be another trap."

"You and your traps. Their intentions are clearly to flee. We've sliced into their channels, a . . . Commander, Sylvester Myron, has issued a full retreat."

"Sirs, we've detected another ship." A tactical officer called. Ackbar's ghastly head flickered to face his direction.

"What kind of ship."

"It's an imperial dreadnaught of some kind. I've never seen anything like it before."

"They've called for support?"

"I believe so, we've intercepted several SOS signals already- the ship's coming around now sir, you should be able to see it outside of the view ports."

With that, many rebel officers glanced nervously at the transperasteel sheets that separated them from the vacuum of space. On one side was the retreating Death Squadron as well as large chunks of death star debris. On the other side was the rising sun, looming over Endor and its forest moon. Nothing of notice at all, until the light dimmed ever so slightly.

For that to occur something very large had to have placed itself in front of the sun, something big enough to eclipse its light. Those were the thoughts that raced through Jerrus Colt's mind, as he squinted his eyes to better identify the shape of the object that sought cover in the star's blinding rays.

"Place the object on screen" A coloured image of Endor's sun appeared before him, replacing the viewports of the bridge.

"Magnify." The blurred shadow became a massive ship. Wedged shape like most star destroyers, however the bow extended downwards, appearing much like the keel of the sea ships of old. Colt's eyes widened drastically when he realised just how large the dreadnought must have been to obscure the light emitted by a nearby star.

"What the bloody hell is that thing?"

"We don't have any records pertaining to its identification sir. It must be a prototype of some kind."

"Is there any information we can ascertain? Use the scanners, check its armament."

"Its 17.5 kilometres in length. 550 heavy laser cannons, 500 turbolaser cannons, ion cannons, gravity well projectors, many hundreds of TIEs and interceptors. It might as well be a battle station!" Colt swore under his breath.

"Sir the ship's disappeared." Colt looked at the screen again, and low behold the black ship that tarnished the sun's light had vanished. With the crises apparently averted, he deactivated the screen releasing a sigh of relief.

"Holy-!" Colt jumped in fright as he stared at the stem of the onyx ship that now blocked out their view entirely, unveiled by the now absent screen, the ship having micro-jumped to position itself directly in front of the rebel fleet. Powerful interdiction fields made themselves known as alarms blared in the background and the many ships that composed the rebel complement came to a grinding halt to avoid collision. Fleeing will be impossible now.

It was in that moment that all of the excitement of their immanent victory faltered and disappeared altogether. It was clear that this new foe severely outclassed them, Colt could only hope that whomever the person was that commanded the bridge of the technological terror, was just as incompetent as most imperial leaders.