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Stella NovaDreamSpace Three |
The Essex sped around the night side of the planet and began her braking manoeuver. Beta Corellia rose over the rim of the rocky world in a orange-red burst of light. And as the Essex slowed to a relative halt on the fringes of the battle, Walters and his crew truly saw for the first time what the Rebel Alliance was up against.
Surrounded by a cluster of construction modules, sheds and scaffolding was the mightiest warship Walters had ever seen. Although incomplete, its grey and ebony spear-point hull stretched over eight kilometres end to end. It dwarfed the Essex like an ocean liner would a rowboat. The Super Star Destroyer was monstrous, a bloated obscenity that Walters both loathed and admired simultaneously. It represented technology and economies run amok. An evil, shameful waste of resources and manpower that could have fed and housed a dozen inhabited worlds.
Captain Walters glanced around at his crew. They were as awed and appalled as he by the huge vessel.
"Look at the size of that thing!" Clemance exclaimed.
"Alright, that's enough sightseeing, everybody. We came here for a reason, so let's get on with it. Mister Qhu'Varr, log us onto the Alliance battle-comm frequencies and see if you can help jam the Imperial transmissions."
Dozens of starfighters dived and turned and duelled in the X, Y, and Z planes, their energy beams criss-crossing space around the dockyards and surrounding planetary orbit. Occasional bright and brief explosions lit the black sky when pilots from both sides met violent ends. But the one-man ships weren't the only ones seeing action. The two mighty arrowhead shapes of the Imperial Star Destroyers traded gigawatts of destructive energies with the Alliance warships.