A travel injunction was also transmitted to all nearby worlds to prevent cargo wastage. All nearby cargo vessels simply scattered in the diverse directions space allowed and jumped to hyperspace, this included the Lucrehulk standing in outer orbit.

Signals were sent out for the Viceroy Kruus and finally the shields were activated, shimmering into life across the whole sky of Neimoidia as the Imperial Fleet was seen to The Imperials had apparently forgot Neimoidia was well shielded and protected thanks to the Planetary Shield Generator which had been installed some years ago.

She smiled at Cross' show of confidence. It was rare when Cross showed emotion these days, although he was an expert at when to show it. No one knew what had chilled the man, for he was known well by his previous subordinates as a very friendly man. He was very fatherly towards his crew however, despite his emotionless state, and cared for each and every one of them, and mourned their loss. Many among the crew believed him to be what the Empire needed... he wasn't a zealot, nor an opportunist. He didn't plot to advance himself by betraying his fellow Imperials, but by skill, ability, and accomplishment. He did not hate non-Humans, but believed in Human High Culture out of belief that it protected the non-Humans and relieve them of the pressures of governance, and to focus on their lives and families. He did not execute his men for simple mistakes, only when necesarry, and believed in learning from one's errors. The same went for his enemies, for he respected the Rebels. Their standing as the current galactic government was a testament to this deserved respect. He took his time in planning, and tried to prevent loss of life as much as possible for all sides of a conflict. He despised collatoral damage and civilian casualties, but knew it was a facet of war and sometimes was unavoidable, as was likely today.

All conversation though was interrupted by the comm message from Admiral Hines. Immediatly, they made the jump into hyperspace, and within a minute, the Imperial-II Star Destroyer Merciless along with the Lancer Frigates Reaper and Angel of Death dropped out of hyperspace over Cato Neimoidia. Immediatly, the Merciless launched its fighters and the Lancer Frigates took up a anti-starfighter position ahead of the Merciless. The transports immediatly began prepping for launch. Along with all of this commotion and movement, they began immedaite aggressive scanning of the planet and system for defenses and any signs of opposition.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

A distress beacon was activated as Cross' ship approached. Detecting this beacon the battleship Viceroy Kruus sent a confirmation signal, already having heard the one from Neimoidia and re-aligned its hull for battle, weapons carousels orbiting out to the outside of the ship and clearing its flight decks for a quick takeoff. Before jumping to Hyperspace setting course for the colonies at full hyperspace, the battleship, cheated of a chance of engaging Cross before was keen, ready and able to engage. The Captain laughed to himself, and ordered in reply the Cato Neimoidian forces hold Cross' shipthere but not destroy it.. he wanted his sport.

The first station with a warning of the approaching Star Destroyer was an XQ6, Strata Station, its Turbolaser turrets swiveled into a firing position as its colleagues, the two assigned armed freighters this month approached. Its fighters launched sending 36 X-Wings into the void which manouvred behind the station.

Over Cato Neimoidia the ageing but well maintained Lucrehulk-class battleships "Dhow" and "Dromon" turned to engage the approaching star destroyer with its piffling escorts, each of them launched but a small fraction of their fighter wings, filling the space around them with 750 Vulture Droids as they moved up to the Defense Platform which orbited the world. Forming an immovable shield for Cato Neimoidia. The fighters took care to stay close to the Lucrehulks and Platform, relying on this proximity to keep away the lancers who would risk their turbolaser batteries. The three vessels had their shields and weapons fully charged and waited for the approach of the Imperial Ships, allowing them to make the first move and thus the first mistake.

Civilian freighters also scattered from Cato into deep space, several dozen which had been standing off in orbit did so, not wanting to get involved with an engagement with an Imperial Star Destroyer.

The Imperial Fleet, much less than being faced with a weak unguarded world would find itself presented with a pair of giant battleships and a well armed and prepared station.. Cato Neimoidia central command named the flotilla "Anvil Group"... and already the Hammer in the shape of the Viceroy Kruus was speeding faster than light towards the Anvil.. and woe betide the Imperial Ships in the middle.

Cross stood up now, and walked to the viewport, observing the planet. In his mind, he was recalling his knowledge on the Neimoidians. 'Neimoidians, off-shoots of Duros, but far different psychologically. Where Duros tend to be aggressive, confident, and adventurous, Neimoidans are passive, usually, as well as pompous and more or less concerned with only financial gain. Another marked difference is where Duros prefer to fight their own battles, most Neimoidians avoid physical confrontation, from minor to the most extreme, at all costs...prefering the use of droids in combat. This psychological profile is seen in their combat tactics. Neimoidian capital ships tend to have a high force projection capability, but the entirety of force is almost never used, and certainly never at the same time. The prefered use of all forces is a wave tactic rather than swarm. In general however, surface combat tends to be mroe variable, but space combat, both capital ship and fighter, tends to be conservative and defensive oriented. They tend to keep their capital ships close to a planet when available, and not venture far from it, seeming to prefer landing on the surface if in danger, where most capital ships can not follow, or flee should they be at risk of a damaging orbital bombardment. Starfighters may venture out and confront an opposing force, but a majority of fighters are more often than not held close to the capital ships to screen incoming fighter threats. This tactic has been almost never broken since the debacle at Naboo where a single squadron of volunteer security force fighter pilots, with no planning or simulation time, took down a droid control ship single handedly. It also of note the weakness of the shields of the Lucrehulk-class, the primary Neimoidian capital ship, which have been known to be destroyed after only a few barrages from only the starboard batteries of two Acclamator I-class Assault Ships.' he thought to himself.

He then moved about the bridge barking orders. "Launch all fighters, and have them form up on the far side of the ship. Prep all ground troops for deployment, but hold on any transports launching. Continue circling the planet until we are clear of the Neimoidian forces, open fire on any ships that get in range." he said, now walking over to a tactical holo display of the planet. Another was on the other side of the catwalk which display the read out on their main target on the surface.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

24 Vulture Droids from each Lucrehulk launched themself in an assault on the Star Destroyer, the 48 fighters manouvering in pairs of two and moving in to attack the top Lancer with their numbers, each launching a pair of their small proton torpedoes at the Lancer's hull.

Now within range of the Star Destroyer as it attempted to outmanouvre them, the Lucrehulks opened up with their quad turbolaser batteries on the smaller star destroyer, each only being able to bring 1/3rd of their firepower onto the Star Destroyer, this still equated to 14 Quad Turbolaser batteries, a withering barrage which was kept up aggressively by the well programmed droid gunners, perhaps not adept against fighters, but more than a match for the smaller Imperial-class. The Imperial-class had its attempts at evasion further frustrated by the exremely slow speed of the lancer-class which was easily overtaken by even the ponderous lucrehulks.

The Lucrehulk's relayed communications to the Kruus-class which replied with an unencrypted transmission for speed "Hold the Imperial ships still. Viceroy Kruus inbound." it adjusted its hyperspace course quickly to adjust for the relayed telemmetry.

Added (05 Jul 2010, 10:26 PM)
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It appeared that Cross' men had lost their nerve as they found themselves outmanouvred by the Neimoidian ships. The Gunnery of the Lucrehulk's struck home on the Star Destroyer, lighting up space with the intensity of their directed fire. The Vulture Droids found themselves deadly effective against the top Lancer, with no attempt at defensive fire their torpedoes all struck home, 96 minature proton torpedoes struck the slow lancer in a manouvre known as the Loran Spitball, causing an overwhelming volley towards the Lancer's bridge, taking down its shields quickly and crippling the vessel as its bridge was destroyed.

The Lucrehulks continued to move closer to the Star Destroyer, raining down fire upon it with deadly effect, spinning gently as they moved to maximise the fire that could be brought to bear on it. If this was the "Imperial Genius" Cross, then the Neimoidians were not impressed.

The remaining Lancer opened fire with its entire arsenal it could bring to bear upon the Vulture Droids with precise firing solutions. The many, many turbolasers of the Star Destroyer also began to fire upon the Vultures for a brief time, while its fighters remained out of range of the Lucrehulks and the Vultures, while it began to turn into the Lucrehulks and underneath them. The major flaw of the Lucrehulks was their gun positions. Especially a pre-Clone Wars model. A Battleship model of the Lucrehulk class was limited to fourty two Quad turbolasers, organized into batteries of three across the equatorial band of the outer ring. They were fixed into place, and limited in their movement of their turrets, thus bow and stern firing arcs were relatively weak, where as port and starboard firing arcs were strong. However, there was a non existant ventral firing arc and comparatively weak dorsal firing arc on the ship.

The incident in which Cross was refering to in his head was the case of the Second Battle of the Corvantis System, in which a Droid Control Ship, no different from these two Battleships, attempted to take the Acclamator-I Assault Ship Prosecutor. In the end, a mere minute of combined fire from the starboard guns of both the Prosecutor and sister ship Arrestor following a minute of steady fire from the Arrestor, brought down a shielded and fighting Droid Control Ship. The two particular models toe-to-toe, more so in that the Arrestor was forced into a disadventageous broadside battle where as the Prosecutor was under fire from the bow guns, were evenly matched if not the Lucrehulk having the upper hand. However combined firepower on the ship brought it down quickly, as the mere eveidence from that battle showed. At the time, the Acclamators had the most advanced guns in the galaxy. The far more advanced, and far more heavily armed, Imperial II-class Star Destroyer was now going into the fray. As his ship began to go underneath the two Lucrehulks, every gun that could be brought to bear in the dorsal firing arc began firing into the underside of both Lucrehulks, bringing to bear four Octuple Barbette Turbolasers, twenty five heavy turbolasers, and one hundred and fifty turbolasers into the the two ships eachs. With these guns being more advanced, and in the case of the octuple barbettes and heavy turbolasers, more powerful, than the mere six to nine Quad Turbolasers of the Prosecutor and Arrestor so long ago, this was going to be a very short battle.

Added (12 Jul 2010, 1:03 PM)
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As his ship, which had been recently renamed the Vanguard, fired into the Lucrehulks, they ceased to respond to the manuevere, leaving their vulnerable underside open to full bombardment. Within one minute, their shields were down and hulls taking damage. The Vulture Droids, that were guarding the ships and not making any other move other than a close defense orbit, were quickly devestated by the firing solutions of Vanguard, as they were caught in the middle of several firing arcs, down to a mere one hundred combined. The fighters remained safely out of harms way, while the Lancer Blue Hawk finished off the twenty four attacking Vulture Droids, which had ceased to manuevere, likely due to a short in the control signal due to damage sustained Vanguard's bombardment of Dhow and Dromon.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the planet, right above their primary target, the Iron Fist dropped out of hyperspace and into close orbit. Immediatly, it began the tactical bombardment of its target arch city, hitting defensive positions but avoiding any strikes that would render it structurally unstable. Its fighter complement launched after a five minute bombardment period, and proceeded to enter the atmosphere and test what defenses a remote arch city would have before the begining of the next phase of the operation, which was preparred for by the transports being at the ready at the very begining of the atmosphere. Thankfully, the city was rather distant from the surrounding area, leaving it on its own for a very own for a extended period of time.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

telemetry had shown that the imperial vessels were approaching dangerously close to the bride city upon which facility g held the precious cargo requested by lim hejin. it wasn't riches or ingots they were after; it was knowledge: an ancient holocron belonging to a long-dead sith lord.

there wasn't much time to work, but the fight between the titan vessels might well mask the approach of the smaller ships as they hurtled towards their destination.

The local defenses of the Iron Fist's target bridge city were wiped out by the tactical bombardment, leaving the road open for it's fighter complement and transports to land untouched. Presumably most of the planet's surface defenses would be in preparation for Vanguard's assault, with any shift in positioning taking time and leaving them vulnerable to the Vanguard. Unloading quickly, the Iron Fist's first wave of ground troops began an assault of their own upon Facility G, with five AT-ATs, ten AT-STs, and 1,258 Stormtroopers with an additional 200 Stormtroopers deployed from the AT-ATs, as well as an unexpected supporting unit...40 Spacetroopers, which were deing deployed to operate as heavy artillery. While there was a shield, the surface forces merely circumvented that by walking through them as the walkers, fighters, and transports that were capable of doing so, began to bombard the shield, which was already weakened by the Iron Fist's opening bombardment.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

And indeed there would be quite a lot of debris—it was common to assume that large capital ships would envelop themselves in their own explosion and be consequently vaporized. This assumed an oxygen rich environment, however. While the cores of the Dhow and Dromon had indeed been filled with oxygen to accomodate its Neimoidian crew, the droids who operated throughout the rest of the ship required no such luxury. To cut costs (as Neimoidians were known to do) the massive hangar arms had been voided of air and would not explode quite as spectacularly as the Vanguard might have supposed. Fragmented would be the proper word. With the Vanguard itself now deep in Cato Neimoidia's gravity well, it would be no simple task to avoid the debris.

The XQ6 platform, meanwhile, had been preparing for the worst throughout the encounter. That is, evacuation. The Neimoidians in command gathered their possessions and had their shuttles fueled and prepared to leave, while many other innocent beings who happened to be occupying the station did the same, as best they could. Ships that were leaving with valuable cargo were assigned priority over simple transports. By the time the Vanguard and its fighter screen would come near the platform, it was mostly these transports and their innocent passengers that remained, waiting furiously for clearance. The platform did make a show of fighting back—its lasers and turbolaser batteries opened up on the Vanguard's fighter screen even before it was within range. It wouldn't destroy more than a half dozen of the fighters, however, until the gunners abandoned their stations. They simply weren't going to give their lives on a fool's errand.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the Star Destroyer Iron Fist was operating on some mistaken assumptions. For instance, the very first of their ranging shots at the city would demonstrate that it would, in fact, cause immense collateral and structural damage, as the turbolaser missed its target¹ and hit an adjacent building, continued through it, punched through the entire bridge, and illuminated the mists a bright green as it disappeared below. The entire city would shudder from the impact, as would the massive granite arch from which it was suspended. Clouds of dust were thrown into the air, and water from ruptured manes cascaded through the prominent hole in the supporting bridge, along with debris from the collapsed building. If the Iron Fist decided to continue its bombardment, the city would collapse in mere moments, destroying everyone and everything in it—a tactical bombardment simply would not accomplish what the Iron Fist hoped it would.

Thus, when the TIEs approached the city to probe its defenses, they would find them formidable indeed. A bank of AATs opened up with ranging shots, followed by the laser defense grid throughout the city itself. The grey buildings glowed red as hundreds of lasers lanced into the misty sky at the approaching fighters. It was a salvo that was certain to thin their numbers. Not even a bird could fly over the city, under this barrage. It was the Nevermore, however, that attracted most of the attention. After all, it was an Imperial model Sentinel-class landing craft, and the defenses would naturally assign target priority to Imperial landing ships. The Nevermore, pummelled by point defense fire, might manage to land in one piece, but it wouldn't be landing voluntarily and wherever it did land was no doubt going to be the last place it ever would.

Facility G, meanwhile, was equipped with its own dedicated shield generators—both ray and particle shielding,² to stop energy blasts as well as projectiles and, of course, enemy vehicles (although not individual soldiers). Inside the shield, four AATs stood guard at the main entrance, while B1, B2, and destroyer droids fortified all entrances and, inside the building itself, Neimoidian warriors and brutes barricaded the corridors, some with repeater rifles, while Neimoidian snipers set themselves up in windows near the top of the structure. Outside the shield, droids and AATs patrolled the streets along with the local police. These would be the first forces to encounter the Imperials.

With the defenses intact, however, there would be fewer of them, too, than the Iron Fist would have hoped. Far from landing "untouched," the Imperial transports would come under heavy fire from the city's defense laser grid. Meanwhile, unfortunately for the Imperials and other would be thieves, the best way to bring down Facility G's shields without destroying the fortress from orbit was with sustained fire from starfighters.

—————————

¹ From Outbound Flight, page 357 (paperback):
"Look at the warships," Ma'Ning said. "See all those plastic bubbles on the hulls?"
Lorana felt her chest tighten. "There are people in there!"
"Living shields," C'baoth confirmed, his voice thick with contempt. "The most evil and cowardly defense concept ever created."
"What do we do?" Lorana asked, a sudden trembling in her voice. "We can't just slaughter them."
"Courage, Jedi Jinzler," C'baoth said. "We'll simply shoot between the hostages."
"Impossible," Ma'Ning insisted. "Not even with Jedi gunners. Turbolasers simply aren't accurate enough."

² From "Deflector shield," on Wookieepedia: "Commonly, larger ships and structures were protected by both types of shield." That is, ray shields and particle shields.

dropping far down, the pilot engaged the engines and the highly-modified craft sped forwards, well away from the imperial ships and neimoidian defenses alike. there was, however, a hole had been blasted in the bridge, not far from facility g's location. perhaps entrance would be possible after all.

with swift and expert piloting the pilot backed up, giving the passengers, forty-five expert infiltrators with their gear and the eight pawn droids that had been salvaged (discounting the few stolen by jawas and those who were irreperable) to emerge in the rubble around the hole and then depart.

the crack team of former imperial commandos, insurgents and even a few former rebel alliance demolitionn experts were armed to the teeth. it wasn't likely the neimoidians were expecting an entrance from this point. there were only a few blocks from the facility entrance. now was the time to begin moving in.

Meanwhile, the Iron Fist had indeed ceased it's tactical bombardment of the bridge city, instead opting to drop into the atmosphere above the city, to give close support if need be. While the transports descended and the bridge city defenses lit up, the AT-AT Barges broke off, ascending upwards, in a move that seemed to suggest the would land on the other end of the city, while the main group dropped below the angle of fire the city could take until they came upon it and screamed upwards into the city and landing low. It was helped by the city's guns focusing on another group of transports, apparently assuming they were a special team, but the Imperials having no idea who the others were, continued on as normal, disregarding the third party.

The AT-AT Barges now out of effective range of the lasers, immediatly cut their repulsorlifts, causing a sudden and rapid drop into the city, while the fighters began the process of breaking up into their various flight groups and systematically taking out the power generators for the laser defense grid. As the lasers would be distracted by the swarming fighters, the AT-AT Barges, bringing their repulsorlifts back on, landed in the city with the rest of the transports and began immediate depoloyment. The surface forces were led by Colonel Carson Netus. He was young for a Colonel, only twenty-eight, and some of his peers said that his rise to such was only due to lack of an other canidates, other said it was only because of his family's long line of Army service that spanned thousands of years, but gossip and reality were two different things. Netus was probably the most skilled, effective, and natural leader in the Crimson Fleet's surface forces. He wasn't in one of the walkers or one of the Spacetroooper suits, but among the Stormtroopers. While they were receiving direction from Lieutenant General Gunner Stone, the commanding officer of the fleet's surface forces, however General Stone preferred to allow his men to operate on their own initiative, so this was indeed Netus' operation.

While the AT-ATs were easily seen, and the AT-STs were easily heard, he had sent them down two avenues that lead towards Facility G. In between these avenues were four streets, and this was where he and his troops were. In each street was ten Spacetroopers, and behind them were 565 Stormtroopers, with only 564 on the center two streets. The AT-ATs were swiveling their heads, watching for any opposition in their paths on the way to Facility G and using their heavy laser cannons to devestate, if not eliminate, the enemy patrols. Any patrols that were coming along the Stormtroopers were hit by the Spacetroopers with either their blaster cannon or miniature proton torpedo launcher as appropriate.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

Then he saw an opportunity, and a smile began to creep across his green, noseless face. "These two AATs," he pointed at one of the patrols on the holographic display, selecting them and displaying their unit numbers. "112887C and 112887D, I want them here." He pointed at the intended destination, and it, too, was selected. "And this MTT, unit 72281F, I want it here, then here." His subordinate glanced at the map and he, too, smiled.

A few moments later, in Koto To, two AATs swung gracefully around a corner onto one of the broad avenues that converged, eventually, on Facility G. From here, they would be in the path of the approaching Imperial walkers, and opened up at a distance with their formidable array of weapons—six energized shell projectile launchers each, two laser blasters, and, of course, one heavy laser cannon. It was the last of these that would do the most damage, while the energized projectiles would enjoy particular success against the AT-STs which would, no doubt, be unable to stay balanced while being shelled. This barrage wouldn't last long, of course, before the AATs were blown apart by the approaching AT-ATs. But Dowry didn't expect it to last long.

With the walker force distracted, a mammoth MTT lumbered up the other end of the avenue, approaching the rear of the Imperial formation. Some of the walkers might have picked it up on sensors, but the MTT, moving over 20 miles an hour, would get to them long before the cumbersome walkers could turn around. The AT-STs would be the easiest to topple, and the AT-ATs wouldn't be too much harder. The MTT, it should be noted, was designed specifically for ramming. Back in Koto San, Kav Dowry laughed. It would not be unreasonable to expect a single MTT to topple all 5 AT-STs and 2 AT-ATs on this avenue, each one clattering to the street below in a horrible crunching of durasteel. But regardless, when the MTT passed undaunted through the Imperial formation and eventually cruised the distance to Facility G, it would turn about and then proceed down the other avenue. This time, the maneuver was reversed—the MTT barreled at the Imperial walkers head on, while two AATs swung in behind the enemy formation and pelted them with full barrages.

The Imperial troops, sandwiched in the narrow streets between the two large avenues, were left mostly alone as they advanced. The defenders at Facility G remained in position, leaving only the few isolated patrols to deter the stormtroopers and spacetroopers. One AAT would manage to round a corner at 35 miles an hour and plow into one of the columns of stormtroopers, killing perhaps a dozen before an intrepid spacetrooper would, no doubt, put the tank out of commission with a well placed proton torpedo. Other than this, however, battle droids in the streets would be easily dispensed with, as would the few landspeeders with their Neimoidian pilots and gunners that would encounter the Imperial troops. For now, Facility G watched and waited—except for its snipers, which would open up on the approaching stormtroopers and especially the spacetroopers the instant they wandered within the impressive range of their rifles. With Facility G's shields still up, the snipers could shoot out with the confidence of knowing that the enemy couldn't shoot in.

It was the TIE fighters, however, that would be dealt the most terrible casualties. A power plant at the center of Koto To provided power to a number of capacitors which, in turn, provided power to the laser defense grid. Knocking out the power plant would accomplish nothing, while knocking out a capacitor in a particular area of the city would shut down the defense grid in that particular area. However, the capacitors were difficult to hit—they were partially underground, visible from the air by the small, windowless duracrete buildings that housed them. These buildings could be penetrated with persistent enough fire, and the capacitors inside were quite delicate, but getting to them was difficult with the highrises in Koto To packed as tightly as they were. The best way to hit them was straight from above which, of course, was also the most dangerous way to hit them.

Experienced or not, it was something that TIE pilots didn't train for. The capacitors would make easy targets for the walkers, of course, if the walkers weren't already under seige and also too slow to move from one capacitor to the next in a timely manner.

With all of this activity, the Nevermore had indeed gone unnoticed as it ascended through the cascading water from ruptured manes and unloaded its team through the smoldering hole that the Iron Fist had blasted in the bridge. With the Neimoidians' eyes on the skies, none had thought to look below. Smoke and dust from the collapsed building also still continued to linger in the area and covered some of the Ebon Fist's movement. But even when Kav Dowry was informed of this other team advancing on Facility G, he hadn't thought it especially important. It was simply one landing party that was more industrious than the others, perhaps, or it was a weak diversion. The PAWN droids, however, convinced Dowry that it might be some kind of special operations team. Saboteurs, probably, attempting to sneak around while the Neimoidian forces were distracted.

The Ebon Fist's team advanced about three blocks—half the distance to Facility G—before it encountered any opposition. It came first in the form of a half dozen STAPs, which harried the team and slowed its progress long enough for an AAT to amble down the street in their direction with a squad of B1 battle droids marching behind it. The AAT would open up on them with its characteristically merciless barrage of fire, showing no concern for collateral damage to the surrounding buildings in the process. The droids, taking cover behind the tank, added their fire to its.

Belatedly, the air raid siren in Koto To finally came on and added its noise to the thunder of blasters throughout the city.

On the other side of the planet, the X-wings formed up and seemed for a moment to be deciding what to do until, apparently, they decided to circumvent the TIEs entirely and gun it for the Vanguard, with the intention of compelling the TIEs to break off the attack on the XQ6 platform and defend the Star Destroyer instead. It was half shrewd, perhaps, but also half foolish since the X-wings couldn't possibly expect to last long against the Vanguard. They did their best, however, flying as close as possible to the Star Destroyer to confound its point defense guns and converging all of their laser and proton torpedo fire on the base of the superstructure—about the only target they could hit while skimming so low to the ship's hull.

With any luck, they could punch through the shields enough to do some minor damage to the superstructure, perhaps destroying some power lines or turbolifts. More importantly, however, it would buy more time for the innocent civilians on the XQ6 platform to evacuate.