Tingel Arm

Garrick gestured for all shields to be set to full front. He had expected this sort of move. While it was ideal that they would have stayed in its original position, taking the brunt of the immense firepower of the Crusader, this worked just as well. The Admiral has prepared for a move like this.

Ordering his ships to allow the Nebulas to pass and instead focus on the support ships, he prepared for attack. He knew that the alien ships would not attack the support vessels, as that would leave them vulnerable to a slash from the rear by the Star Destroyer. No, they would focus down the command ships. The admiral of the enemy fleet was, clearly, not particularly good at his job. He would pay for that arrogance today, however. The hard edge of the strike force penetrated through the enemy lines in an Ackbar Slash, but with an arrowhead style formation brought into it. This allowed for them to begin the final destruction of the cruisers and gunboats. On the bridge of the Crusader, Garrick faced down the two Nebulas, biding his time until they got close enough.

Not yet... not yet... not yet...

He watched as crewmen had their fingers on the buttons to order the firing of the guns. In the gun turrets, gunners had their sights trained on the pale yellow light eminating front the enemy bridge. The massive red and white hulls of the enemy ships blocked out Garrick’s view of Chistoria, as he waited for the right moment.

Not yet.. not yet... now!

Suddenly, two more Imperial Star Destroyers jumped in from behind the Nebulas in a Thrawn Pincer style maneuver. Africanus had failed to anticipate such a tactic, and had his deflector shields concetrated to the front of the ship. A second later, Garrick gave the command to open fire. A cloud of green lasers began dancing around the enemy ships as the combined might of three star Destroyers began hammering into them, obliterating their shields and tearing at their hulls. Due to the quantity of firepower and the way the fire was concentrated, sheilds were destroyed in mere minutes, with the hulls of the enemy ships soon after. The secondary command ship was blown to pieces, and Garrick gave his typical emotionless stare as the fire began to concentrate on the remaining capital ship. Closer to Chistoria, meanwhile, the three Vindicator-Class Heavy Cruisers and the Procursator-Class Star Destroyer were hunting down the last remaining cruisers, deploying fighters to search and destroy life pods. On the bridge of the Crusader, Garrick gave his orders.

“Bring in the rest of the fleet. Prepare the fighters and gunships.”

The battle in space had been all but won. The pincer attack had left the forces in orbit either destroyed or routed. The one or two cruisers whose captains were wise and saw the trap for what it was were now under heavy fire by the support vessels of the fleet. Anyone who surrendered would be brought aboard the Star Destroyers, but otherwise, the ships would be disabled, then boarded and searched for information. TIE fighters moved to secure the wreckage, while a lone Acclamator-Class Assault ship jumped into orbit, in line with the three Imperial-Class destroyers. It was from this vessel that the majority of the ground landings would be taking place; in many ways, it was the heart of the ground phase of the plan. However, not everything was in place for that phase to begin. On the bridge of the Crusader, Garrick and his officers stood around a holotable, with a map of Chistoria laid out before them. Yellow markers pinpointed locations of cities, while red markers denoted possible areas of egress. Garrick moved forward and gestured to the map in order to start his briefing.

"Gentlemen, the first stage of our assault on this planet has proceeded quite well. We have nearly completely routed the enemy in orbit, and have established firm control of the space around the planet. However, we cannot rest, for the second phase of our plan is now. This operation will have two primary targets. The capital city, here, is the most important. We have credible evidence to believe that the current planetary government is still within the city, in spite of our attack. The other is the Plains military base just outside the city, and more specifically the anti-air cannons housed there."

Garrick gestured to the two spots on the map, as the rest of the planet disappeared and a more comprehensive plan of the hot zones was brought up. The anti-air cannons housed at the base were the sole thing powerful enough to bring down the Acclamator as it tried to land, and so they had to go by any means necessary. Likewise, the city housed cannons, but they were designed primarily to defend against starfighters and gunships, with the assumption that the military base would remain standing. Clearly, whoever designed that base either had great faith in their work or were very pompous and assumed themselves to be infallible, and given the lackluster defense of the planet, Garrick would have to guess it was the second. That assumption would be put to the test with this invasion.

"Forces will be split into two groups; Force Alpha and Force Beta. Force Alpha's primary directive is to attack and destroy the shield generators and anti-air stations at the military base. Once these two have been destroyed, the fleet in orbit can raze the base to the ground and land our Acclamator in the desert near the base to launch our mechanized infantry to take the city. To that end, the naval forces that comprise this task force will be given access to the new Demolisher Bombers that have recently been delivered. These crafts have the ordinance necessary to destroy the base. The ground forces of Alpha will be charged with engaging the light anti-air weapons at the base so the bombers can get through.

The new ships, while untested in live combat, had been initially conceptualized by Bilbringi Shipyards, which was under the direct supervision of Garrick himself, giving him some degree of confidence in their work.

Meanwhile, Force Beta's objective will be to prevent the escape of the leaders of the planet from the Capital City. They will doubtless attempt to escape via the Nebula-Class Destroyers nearby; their role will be to prevent them from leaving the city. Gunships will drop the soldiers in, and will then provide directed fire support alongside fighters and light bombers. The lighter vessels in the fleet will also provide strikes should it be deemed necessary."

This would hopefully allow this to be a quick war, with minimal civilian casualties. The last thing they needed was a repeat of the incident that occurred at Naboo. Following this brief, all the troops, who had already reported to station, were informed of what was going to happen. After a salute, all the craft launched, a swarm that would engulf Chistoria. LAAT/c and Titan dropships, TIE Demolishers and TIE/fo fighters sped towards the military base, while LAAT/is, fighters, and TIE bombers descended on the capital. As gunnery crews sat on the edges of their seats, waiting for any calls for orbital strikes, Garrick stood at the forward viewport of the bridge of the Crusader as his forces broke into the atmosphere.