Star Wars - Dark Trooper Campaign

Chapter 2: Little Furballs

Strike-team Aurek were the first to take off. While most members of the team were seated in the passenger compartment, Cookie and Baran were assigned flight duty, supported by Han Solo and Chewbacca. When they emerged from hyperspace close to the imperial fleet over Farnid III they experienced some turbulences and Cookie and Baran had a hard time stabilizing the Kappa-shuttle again. All passengers were shaken and Grampclutch even managed to bend one of the support struts that held the seats in place while holding on to something. Luckily, their imperial pass-code was still valid, and they reported to the inquiring flight attendant that they just narrowly escaped an enemy ambush by Jedi. This sounded quite plausible with the wild maneuvers and so they were granted permission to land on the planet.

The team disembarked and a scout-group made a short trip in the “Dirt Digger” to scout the territory while the rest took shelter in a nearby forest. The temporary imperial field garrison that had been erected around the ritual site was clearly visible, and so the scouts reported back to the main group that had advanced to a clearing that was halfway to the garrison. But then Cookie and Larson discovered something that nobody had expected: An aboriginal village inhabited by a tribe of small, furry creatures that vaguely resembled Ewoks. Cookies first attempts at communicating with her remote “cousins” were successful, although these natives, who called themselves “Kewo”, spoke a very old and almost forgotten dialect of the Ewok-language. Despite that, Cookie was very surprised that her friend Dr. Ravak managed to perfectly speak and understand the Kewo language after only a few minutes.

The group explained that they were here to fight against the evil men in the hard, white suits that had driven off the Kewo and erected a metal hut over one of the Kewo’s most sacred places. The natives were happy to hear that and accepted their new friends into their tribe as well as promised to aid in the upcoming battle. So team Aurek spent the time until the attack with their new friends in their village.

Chapter 3: Surprise Attack

Meanwhile the fleet of Admiral Ackbar moved into position for their attack. As planned, all ships entered theTagrom-system at a specific location. While the imperial fleet moved to intercept a massive ion bomb was launched, and at the exact moment of detonation one of Lando Calrissians shield ships emerged from hyperspace to protect their own fleet, while the ion bomb disabled a large number of imperial ships.

In the ensuing battle starfighter squadrons fought off hundreds of TIE-fighters while the capital ships moved in a tight formation into the imperial defense line. Some of the smaller flanking ships were torn apart by Victory destroyers, which were in turn scrapped by cruisers and dreadnaughts, that were under heavy fire from the Imperial Star Destroyers. But this left the core line vulnerable to the Mon Calamari cruisers which ultimately broke through the front lines. The rear, consisting of several Imperial class and their Vitiation class flagship “Harbinger of Doom”, held the line, though.

At the same time strike-team Dorn launched their surprise attack on the support fleet of the “Heart of the Eclipse”. Admiral Kilsin just received the concerning message from Admirall Vorrk about an attack of the republic fleet that managed to disable half his ships with one shot when the second republic fleet commanded by General Shore repeated the very same maneuver right in front of his bow. As in the Tagrom-system a second shield ship came out of hyperspace to block the ion pulse from reaching the republic fleet while almost half of the defenders of the imperial flagship were rendered helpless. This enabled the republic fleet to blast their way through the enemy lines toward the “Heart of the Eclipse”. There were a number of smaller capital ships lost due to the firepower of the Imperial class Star Destroyers, while the starfighter squadrons kept the TIEs busy.

The boarding crews manned their four assault-shuttles which were equipped with boarding rams up front. Vengalor was not particularly amused that he was forced into the same vessel as Luke Skywalker, but the Jedi master was too concentrated on the upcoming fight to notice the slight rouse of the dark side on his boat. Randrack, Su, Raffael and Nick teamed up in pairs to pilot two of the assault ships while the others were crewed by experienced navy pilots. They took off and waited behind their cruiser for the enemy shields to drop, so they could start their attack run.

Captain Kima N’yarr brought the “Renewal” and the other two frigates in position and started penetrating the shields of the “Heart of the Eclipse” with their ion-cannons. After a few minutes the faint blue glow of the shields fizzled and disappeared and the assault shuttles started their attack run. But Luke Skywalker and Trance Killian both sensed with the force that something was wrong, and so they ordered their ships to break off the attack. Their pilots managed to pull away effortlessly, as did the third ship, but number four was too slow and smashed into the renewed and reinforced shield, pulverizing the shuttle in an instant. At the same time a group of TIE-hunters concentrated their fire on one of the frigates while the turbolaser turrets of the flagship fired broadsides on the other one. Both blew up with fireballs that also damaged the “Renewal”.

Captain N’yarr ordered her crew to abandon ship, but stayed behind herself. The bridge crew also refused to leave and stayed at their posts. When the rest of the crew had jettisoned in the escape pods the Cathar gave the order to overload the ion cannons and fly directly into the shields. She thanked her brave crew for the honor of having served together, and when the frigate hit the shields her overloaded ion cannons sent out an ion-wave that managed to disrupt the enemy shields for a few seconds. The “Renewal” perished with a fireball, but the remaining assault shuttles had managed to pass through the shield at the right time. Shuttle three was destroyed by TIEs, but the other two managed to ram into the hull of the “Heart of the Eclipse”. Then they used their boarding mechanisms to deploy all their troops and crew into the enemy ship.