Polar Star reapears

[MikDaTv]

The RNS Polar Star exits hyperspace over the planet Corellia and Deploys it's two Kappa class shuttles. Corellian Air Control contacts the ship but is answered only with silence. The Kappa Class shuttles go into low orbit on opposite sides of the planet and open their vehicle doors.

The Polar Star itself stayed in high orbit scanning other ships within the system. It's outer hull is covered in strange organic bulbs and the ship itself was giving off an unusual amount of gamma radiation.

A squadron of Y-35 Cobras were launched from the surface up to high orbit to investigate the return of the ship that had gone missing nearly 6 months ago.

[MikDaTv]

The Polar Star suddenly springs to life. It's maneuvering thrusters fired, turning the ships bow towards one of the massive orbital shipyards.

Suddenly a broad band transmission across all frequencies began. It was a recorded message of a hypnotic female voice.

Corellians, your culture of self reliance and independence is a threat to the new galactic order. This being such, you have been chosen to be culled from the herd. Your lives are forfeit.

the message repeated three times before the Polar Star suddenly shuddered as it's main cannon fired. The magnetically accelerated shell rocketed through space and struck the orbital shipyard, exploding within it like a flaming blossom.

The organic pods that had covered the Polar Star began shedding from it's hull turning into dozens of dartships which spread out over Corellias high orbit, shooting down small ships within their paths, and damaging larger ones in strafing runs. Polar Star's turrets opened up, firing on all the ships surrounding her while at the same time her missile tubes opened. 24 warheads launched from he ship and headed towards the surface of the planet.

Every radiological alarm on the planet must have gone off as the 24 warheads entered the atmosphere and blossomed each into 10 individual missiles, with each missile carrying a 50 megaton nuclear device. 240 50 megaton explosions rippled along the surface of the planet, striking major cities, bodies of water, and areas of great natural resources. 700,000,000 people died in the opening moments of the attack.

The kappa class shuttles, with their vehicle doors wide open, deployed giant 50 ton chunks of plutonium which they pushed towards the planet. The chunks burned up in the atmosphere spreading their deadly radioactive material through the upper atmosphere. The Kappa shuttles themselves then headed to the surface.

One kappa landed in a smaller town that had managed to escape the nuclear holocaust. droids deployed from it's doors which began slaughtering the populace.

The other kappa crash landed into one of Corellias oceans and exploded, sending poisonous fuel and debris into the water table. This kappa had been holding huge tanks of radioactive selenium which was now drifting through the water freely.

Back in orbit, the Polar Star continues to fire on the orbital shipyards. One of the shipyard rings begins to plummet towards the planet burning up as it goes. Large chunks of it break off and smash into ships trying to flee the destruction on the surface.

The RNS Blade, and the RNS Widget two Warbird-class republic cruisers move out of their defensive positions and move into an attack vector on Polar Star. The dartships change coarse and begin peppering the two cruisers with laser fire. The Polar Star shifts to present a broadside to the Blade. 160 proton torpedos launched and struck against the Blades forward decks. multiple hull breaches and power coupling ruptures occurred in the first few seconds. secondary explosions ripped through the ships thin midsection and 80% of the cruiser lost power before firing a shot.

The Widget suffered an attack from the dartships. there were dozens off them all peppering the cruiser with laser fire. her shields were powerful but against so many attackers from so many angles it was only a matter of time. It was then that the first of the Polar Star's turbolaser fire struck the Widget. Her already strained forward shields collapsed and her hull started taking damage.

Thats when the dartships started ramming her. first just a few, but then in mass they collided with the ship like missiles. Explosions rippled along the Warbirds hull. Dartships penetrated into her superstructure and damaged her sensors. One Dartship struck her engine system causing it to sputter and die. Her sudden loss in maneuverability gave Polar Star the chance to fire a cluster of concussion missiles at her. The missiles hit her port side, along the wing causing multiple hull breaches and even doing through hull damage in some spots.

The wounded Widget put emergency power to shields and limped off using her maneuvering thrusters. attempting to make some time for her engineers to fix her engines and allow her to make the jump to hyperspace. Polar Star maintained its position and let the warbird flee. It went back on it's original coarse of action, shooting down anything within it's weapons range larger then a few dozen meters.

[MikDaTv]

The RNSX Lysander entered the Corellian system followed quickly by the Memory of Corellia. Lysander's sensors quickly discovered Corellia's fate and began launching fighters.

The Polar Star turned her bow to Lysander and started charging her rail gun's capacitors. Captain Walton stood on the bridge closely examining the holographic representation of the field of battle.

"My god." he muttered. "Whats the status of the orbital shipyards?"

The sensor officer turned in his chair. "Most of them are severely damaged. several of them have crashed into the planets surface. Only one remains in full operation, no life signs aboard... wait, correction. There's life but none humanoid in size. reading 100, maybe 120 individual life forms of varying size."

"Any response to hails from the Polar Star?" Walton asked.

"Negative Captain, she's powering her shields though and her capacitors are nearly fully charged." The sensor officer said.

"Helm, plot us coarse to swing us closer to the planet, evasive maneuvers and make them good. Weapons, begin power up and take the safeties off the warheads. Keep your fingers off the triggers i don't want to fire on our own ship unless necessary." Walton ordered.

The Lysander began moving along a general coarse, but moved along that coarse erratically, slightly changing her speed and coarse to remain unpredictable.

[MikDaTv]

Jor and Kell looked at the planet in awe at the destruction. Jor felt especially angry at what had happened to his homeworld. But reaching out, he could still feel life on the planet. Distressed and desperate life but it was still alive, and much of it was dying.

"Lysander's moving" Kell said, breaking Jor out of his despair induced trance.

"Plot us a direct coarse for Corellia. Lysander can deal with Polar Star, i want to see if we can find whatever's left of Corellia's fighting force." Jor responded.

Kell buckled himself into the pilots seat and started flying as Jor sat in the co-pilots seat and meditated.

"What makes you think there will be any Corellian forces left, the military got hammered hardest of all" Kell asked.

"There's at least one squadron of starfighters still out there somewhere. They didn't get all of it." Jor insisted.

"Again, how do you know?"

"Because Polar Star doesn't have a scratch on her. If this squadron had been destroyed, they would have taken the Star out with them." Jor responded with a smile.

"Thats a little overconfident don't you think?" Kell asked.

Jor snorted a little. "So are they."

[Odan Thos]

Cele's programming had infected the entire HoloNet and many of the major government and military computer systems. As a rule, it did not show itself but instead only passively gathered information. When the reports of communications came to Corellia, the viruses sent alerts to Celestial and she quickly took off for Corellia.

A single Y-35 Cobra jumped into the system and began to take scans. It headed straight for the planet at full speed with its shields down. On board was the human replica body version of Cele. She was assimilating the sensor information directly and communicating with several computer systems through hyperspace communication. The more she gathered information the more she realized she would need to break a few rules in order to insure Corellia's surviving population to survive. She knew that the ship, RNSX Lysander was by far capable of dealing with the RNS Polar Star but it did not have the needed materials on board to treat the population.

As the Y-35 headed towards the planet, a small part of Cele's programming detected itself and transferred itself into the HoloNet. Acting in many ways to a computer virus it broke down the firewalls of several major pharmaceutical corporations and bulk transport enterprises. The program rewrote shipping and movement orders, directing large shipments of medical supplies; which include the majority of galaxies anti-radiation piles to be sent to the Corellia System.

Cele did not like abusing her programming’s power, but she knew relief efforts for the Galactic Senate would not reach the planet quick enough. She continued on her way towards the planet, hopping to discover the source of the attack and the reason someone could do such an act.

[MikDaTv]

The Memory of Corellia touched down on the airfield 10 miles south of Coronet city. The city itself had colapsed upon itself, it's one mighty skyscrapers now piles of rubble. Jor and Kell had picked up about thirty survivors from the city that needed critical care and airlifted them to the military airfield.

The hangers, which should have had 12 shiny new Y-35 cobras in them were empty and most of the military personnel were not present on the base, but it still had an operational medical building manned by Droids.

after offloading the wounded, Jor went to the ops center and used his Jedi Military pass to access the bases network. Apparently the fighters here were out on a war games mission before the attack happened. He looked at their last reported position which put them near the outside the system, within the Kiris Asteroid Cluster.

Jor was puzzled by that, since most war games wouldn't take place in such a hazardous area of space but he knew through the Force that is where he would find his friends.

Running back to the Memory, he and Kell took off and made for the Asteroid Cluster, activating the Memories cloaking device as soon as they hit low orbit.

[MikDaTv]

The Lysander and Polar Star moved into standoff positions. The Star with her starboard missile pods pointed towards lysander, and with Lysanders rapid fire turbolasers ready to fire.

Lysander tried to hail Polar Star repeatedly but got no answer. 20 minutes later, the Polar Star jumped to hyperspace. Just as quietly as it had arrived, the ship that had doomed the planet Corellia to decades of recovery had left. Lysander powered down her weapons and dispatched medical teams to the surface while the ship itself tractored the RNS Blade to the last remaining shipyard.

The Widget soon arrived on scene again, with it's engines back online. It too docked at the last remaining orbital shipyard for extensive repairs. Lysander remained on station in high orbit to maintain a the planets defenses against another attack.

[MikDaTv]

The Memory of Corellia exited hyperspace. It had done a microjump from Corellia to the edge of the Kiris Asteroid Cluster. Jor sat in the pilots seat for this round. flying through the cluster would require a more steady hand and more experience, so Kell sat in the co-pilots seat reaching out with the Force to sense any incoming danger.

The Memory slipped into the cluster, dodging this way and that to avoid the large asteroids within. It wasn't long before they received a hail.

"unidentified ship, this is the Corellian defense force. identify yourself and state your business!"

"This is the Memory of Corellia, Jedi Knight Jor Halcyon speaking. We're here looking for anyone who could tell us what happened in this system." Jor respondd quickly.

Suddenly two Cobras flashed past the cockpit. The sensors hadn't been able to pick them out from the rest of the asteroids, and Kell hadn't felt an ounce of danger coming towards them. The fighters bore the symbol of a yellow Spade on their vertical wing.

"Understood Memory of Corellia. You've been given docking clearance, standby... ok, follow your escorts in."

Jor put the Memory in behind the two cobras and followed them in. five minutes later and Jor saw what was so important out here. There was a large shipyard structure out here. Three massive berths which could be used to build large capitol ships were already filled with two Warbird class cruisers and an Interdictor cruiser. Apparently the Corellian Defense force had been busy since the Jedi Civil war.

Jor docked to one of the outer docking rings and stepped onto the shipyard structure with Kell following right behind.

[MikDaTv]

"Greetings Jor!" A woman in a white flightsuit shouted from down the corridor.

Jor turned and saw a familiar face. "Kall'ith'ra! What are you doing here?"

The red skinned Twi'lek Jedi ran over to Jor and hugged him around his armor. "Welcome to the Corellian Defense fleet shipyard. We didn't think we could be found, but i guess you proved that wrong."

"I used my ID to find out where you guys were. It said a wargames simulation." Jor said with a raised eyebrow.

She smiled "Yeah, it got us out here without anyone questioning us. Been coming here for the past 2 years and not even top republic brass has a clue."

Jor frowned. "Your using a Republic fighter squadron to help protect a local government military force?"

She frowned back at him. "Jor, I'm a Jedi, a Corellian Jedi at that. My loyalties are to Corellia and the Order, not to the Republic."

"Even so, your stealing a squadron of fighters to protect a military force that doesn't answer to the Republic. That's a bit shady if you ask me." Jor said.

"Water which is too pure bears no fish. Besides, if they hadn't done this, then we wouldn't be prepared for what happened." Kall'ith'ra said. "We were just about ready to surprise attack the Star but then the Lysander showed up."

"These shipyards could help repair the Blade, it suffered massive damage during the attack." Jor said.

"But that would give this position away." Kall'ith'ra replied. "As much as i want to help, i want to preserve all we've worked here for."

"Fine, send shuttles with supplies. You don't need to bring the Blade here to make sure she gets all the spare parts i'm sure she needs. The shipyard in orbit is running low on supplies, i'm sure." Jor said.

Kall'ith'ra frowned and considered what jor was asking. "Fine, but only because it's you asking." She smiled again, "now, what can the Corellian Yellow Aces do to help bring the Polar Star in?"

[MikDaTv]

The RNS Widget left space dock under it's own power, energy being restored to most of the ship thanks to the work done by the last Corellian shipyard. Widget moved out to a far outer orbit to form up with Lysander.

The RNS Blade had required a lot more work to be done and had spent nearly two weeks restoring main power, but she was also formed up with Lysander. The two warbirds maintained the orbital defense. The shuttles sent from the secret Corellian shipyards also departed for their secret hideout, without ever giving away their true purpose.

The RNS Martok entered the system. It was a Hammerhead class cruiser that had been pulled off it's pirate patrol in wild space in order to aid in Corellia's defense. Once the defensive patrol had been established, Lysander departed for Ilium. With most of the Corellian refugees being there, it was logical that it might be another target.

[MikDaTv]

Jor watched the construction on the Corellian ships go forward. The three Warbirds under construction were nearly completed but because the location was so secret that finding sufficient crew to man the ships was becoming difficult. Corellia was still reeling from the attack on it's surface, the refugees at Ilium still taking stock.

The other planets in the Corellian system had a few pools of volunteers but most of them wanted to avoid Corellias fate, so they avoided militarizing. Jor had contacted a group whom he knew would be interested in a good fight, the Mandalorians. He spoke with a representative of the Skirata clan but they refused to come to the republics aid because they were too few and even though they could crew the ships, should they perish the Skirata clan could become so few that it might disappear entirely.

Jor was disheartened by this but he understood their reasoning. They were proud but they weren't stupid. they wouldn't risk their very culture for a fight they don't have any stake in yet. So, Jor put out an advertisement to several mercenary groups looking for men competent enough to crew a starship.

[MikDaTv]

Dorian Skirata's ship, a Telosian shuttle modified to carry a hyperdrive, arrived in the Corellian system and immediately landed on the surface. He was horrified by the destruction of his homeworld. The cowards who did this would be met with fierce opposition by Dorian and his friends.

His leg ached as he walked the ruins of Coronet city. The survivors were either wallowing in self pity, struggling to pull whatever remains of the past life they could form the wreckage, or spoiling for a fight. Dorian was sure those spoiling for a fight would make themselves useful in the upcoming weeks.

He came upon a group of self proclaimed militia who'd armed themselves with the spare guns they could find in a ruined police station plus whatever civilian weapons they could get their hands on. Dorian approached them quietly with his hands up. he didn't want to upset them, he wanted to give them a chance to fight back.

[MikDaTv]

Dorians new group of 15 disillusioned, angry and ready to fight Corellians piled into Dorians ship. With there help, Dorian planned to steal the key to his revenge for the harm done to his home world, and these men would willingly help him do it because they wanted the same revenge.

Once inside he brought the men to the cargo bay and pulled the tarp off the device which had cost him nearly his entire savings and every favor he had. A working cloaking device. With their help, he'd install it on his ship and use it to pirate another ship, one he knew was isolated.

Then he'd find the Polar Star and destroy it. Blaze hefted the cloaking device and brought it to the engineering space while Dorian organized his new "crew" to install it.

[MikDaTv]

Dorian's ship left Corellia for high orbit and jumped to hyperspace. The cloaking device was installed and Dorian's crew were going over their plans. It would be risky, and Dorian was sure he'd lose most of his makeshift militia, but he was confident he'd win the day.

Blaze loaded fuel into his plasma projectors and sat like a silent statue in his custom built chair in the cockpit. Dorian was also confident in his robotic friend. over the years he'd grown quite attached to Blaze, his ever present companion and protector.

Dorian turned from his droid friend to look out the front viewport at the hyperspace tunnel before them. Soon they would arrive at their destination, Kuat.

[MikDaTv]

Jor and Kall'ith'ra watched the cruisers from the vantage point of a Y-35 cockpit. It had been at least a year since Jor had last piloted a starfighter, and it felt good to be behind the stick again.

His black Y-35 belonged to the Corellian defense squadron known as the Knights. Kall'ith'ra had put in a good word for him and Corellian authorities saw fit to give him temporary command of the squadron. Kell flew behind them in the Memory of Corellia.

"So where too boss?" Kall'ith'ra said over the com.

Jor examined his navigational charts for a short time before coming to a decision. "The Corellian people were targeted not because of the planet, but because of their very reputation. I don't think another attack is imminent on the planet, but on the planets people. Right now the largest contingent of Corellians, other then the survivers on the planet, is in the Ilium system."

Kall'ith'ra began inputting the data required for a jump to Ilium. "roger that Jor. The Yellow Aces will link up with the Republic forces in the area."

"Corellian high command has given me the ok to bring the Knights there too. They feel the need to protect the refugees as well. Kell, you stay here with the Memory. as soon as these ships are ready to move, send them to Corellia, i'm not sure what republic ships we can trust in the fleet." Jor said.

Kell gave a double click over the com and the Memory turned back to the secret shipyards. the cruisers were nearly finished but they still needed crews. Kell started going down the list again, calling anyone who could supply a crew to please do so.

Meanwhile, the 24 fighters that made up the Yellow Aces and Knights jumped to hyperspace, bound for Ilium.