The three small vessels were posted alongside the Mc-40 Cruiser, the NRS Defiant, en-route to Eriadu and acompanying the Convoy out of courtesy. The group split up, the MC-40 launching its fighters before the star destroyer came into weapons range. Its 12 E-Wings of the Elite Cloud squadron, lead by their Charismatic Rake of a Leader, General Pellinore, moved into the convoy, alongside the Buzzard and Hawk, intercepting any fighters coming their way. The vastly superior E-Wings spiralling and manouvering deftly in amongst the freighters, aided by the Blastboats turrets and fire to efficiently eliminate any fighters moving in and amongst the threatened freighters.

The MC-40 manouvred into an attack vector, raining fire from its turbolasers and ion cannons down on the Star Destroyer's hull, its twin warhead launchers sending their deadly fire down upon the vessel's shield generators. The Assassin-class corvette quickly manovering around the Star Destroyer, taking pot-shots with its weapon systems at the destroyer. The two vessels providing an ample distraction, while one order had been broadcast to the convoy.

"Procede for the jump to Eriadu. I know sterling chaps like you have fought worse than a few Imperial Rogues." was the order which crackled over the comms network from Pellinore, the vessels proceding quickly in good order towards the jump point under the escort of the Skiprays and the Fighters of Cloud Squadron.

A distress call was transmitted on all frequencies to the nearby Eriadu Defense Fleet from the freighters and the Escorts, expecting a reinforcement soon.

As the enemy moved, the Merciless dipped its bow downward, coming into range of the MC40 and bringing to bear its heavy guns and 3/5ths of the rest of its weaponry to bear upon the MC40. It would not last long for its shields were under barrage from the many turbolasers and its systems under the barrage of its heavy ion cannons. Meanwhile, the fighters, consisting of 24 TIE Interceptors, 36 TIE Fighters, 5 Assault Gunboats and 3 Skipray Blastboats of their own focused on the E-Wings. The design was indeed more advanced, and the pilots were skilled... but when one had to face a 5 to 1 margin of opposition, not including eight heavy fighters who were each targetting at their will a already engaged fighter, forcing eight of the E-Wings into a 6 to 1 margin of opposition, the odds just became overwhelming. On top of that, they had reinforcements at the ready nearby should the situation get out of hand, and within a moment's notice, they would be on the scene to take control of the situation. The convoy was several minutes from reaching its next jump point, which was why this attack was timed as such, and right now, the Imperial force stood in between the convoy and its jump point.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard

The Defiant was indeed not a match for the Imperial Star Destroyer, but was able to trade volleys with it for a long time thanks to the classic mon-calamari trait of having multiple layers of redundant shielding, this acted in its favour as its Torpedoes began to slam lethally home against the shields of the Star Destroyer. While suffering from the withering return fire, it managed to maintain its shields in reasonable condition while moving over the Star Destroyer, being subjected to a lethal volley it rolled as it passed over the top of the ship, keeping close in to the larger vessel. As it rolled this assured the firepower was spread evenly across the ships shields, causing a significant, but not overly significant lowering of shields.

This placed the Defiant upside down behind the Star Destroyer, pulling its nose up slowly it directed its torpedoes and batteries once more upon the vunerable rear quarter of the Star Destroyer, which presumably was not in the best condition after 8 years out of a port.

While the E-Wings of Cloud Squadron, all (except perhaps FA) were pilots of the very top caliber, having spent the last 20 years flying combat missions in many cases, and in some, longer, they manouvered deftly around the convoy, the fighters acting as an extension of their bodies. Pellinore and his section were the foremost killing group, slicing through the fighters and interceptors with lethal effect like a knife through butter, while the laser-cannons on the convoy added their pressure on them and the larger gunships and blastboats, while the torpedoes from cloud squadron were also targeted that way. The friendly blastboats also adding their fire to the assault on the opposing blastboard and fighters, intermingling so that the lancers fire would fall upon them, however, one (the Buzzard) was hit by a friendly laser cannon barrage from a friendly freighter, bringing down its shields.

The NRS Brian was also now behind the Star Destroyer, raining fire down upon its rear quarter and bridge tower, its torpedoes targeting the bridge shields, along with much of the Defiants fire.

Pellinore spoke over the comm to the contingent "Better odds than the rebel days boys and girls" he said rolling his fighter to the left and spinning around behind a Gunboat, firing a proton torpedo up its tailpipe before re-designating another target and leaving it to his wingman to finish the gunboat. While Cloud Squadron was outnumbered, it was amongst friendly freighters, and fighting like the elite unit it was, against far worse craft, suffering nothing but the most glancing hits.

The convoy itself continued to move on, streaming towards the jump point past the Star Destroyer, as they were largely being ignored by it they had little fear as they did so. Also in the knowledge that since they were a large convoy, the star destroyer would have to spread its fire over a score of vessels to target them all, which would not result in their destruction, or target a single one or group, resulting in the escape of the majority. Unfortunately though, two of the freighters were automated Neimoidian cargo haulers, and simply made the calculation that they could make the jump from their present position, so rather than manouvering had lined up their bows with the star destroyer (which was obstructing their route) and jumped to hyperspace. One would glance off one side of the bridge tower, causing little major damage as it battered its way through, the other, however, would strike it full on at the bottom of the command tower (thanks to its forward facing angle) and likely cause greivous damage.

At Nearby Eriadu the signal was recieved by the Defense Fleet.

The ship was now without its primary command deck, as well as without shields and thus was crippled for the meantime, while its weapons and propulsion systems were technically intact, they were unshielded and vunerable.

However, the arrival of the New Star Destroyer again changed things in favour of the Imperial Rebels.. for now... however, some distance away the Battleship Kruus, the famed Star Destroyer-Killer vessel recieved the distress signal and replied "Battleship Kruus underway for Battlezone, hold enemy in position, Battleship Kruus will be more than a match for these pirates.". Aboard the Kruus was activity as hundreds of droids moved into life, alongside thousands of automated subsystems, prepping the fighter squadrons, running tests on the weapons arrays. The gunnery gantries of the Kruus rotated out on their carousels from the inside of the battleship, running pre-battle checks. Capital-ship grade torpedoes were loaded into its tubes, and then, suddenly, it jumped to hyperspace, speeding at maximum speed towards the convoy.

The MC-40 and the Assassin-class corvette detected the other incoming star destroyer and manouvered quickly around the crippled Merciless, so that in order for the Iron fist to direct fire onto them it would have to bombard its crippled companion. Also unfortunately for the Iron Fist.. several freighters were manouvering underneath the Star Destroyer Merciless as it jumped in, resulting in one major colission with the terrace of the Star Destroyer from a YT-2000, likely causing severe damage to the undefended ship as it was unsheilded hyperspacing in and launching fighters.

All the Ion-Cannons, Turbolasers and Torpedoes rained down on the crippled Merciless, gouging massive holes in the hull, and disabling many of its systems as their weapon systems took lethal effect.

The convoy was struck to a varying degree by the Ion cannons and fighter fire, two exploding outright and their cargoes being lost, another six being crippled to varying degrees, suffering hits on their engines. However, the other section of the convoy made the jump for Hyperspace, sucessfully, more than half of the convoy making its escape. The Blastboats jumped with them, to afford them some escort if there was a problem later on.

The much depleted TIE stock attempting to disengage and combat the fighters found themselves in a right pickle as the E-Wings slashed again into them lethally causing many casualties to the mixed group of fighters which it outpaced and outmanouvred, before allowing them to move away towards the already crippled ships and re-designating targets on the ailing Merciless, as it attempted manouvers. Firing a brace of torpedoes each towards the bridge, before moving around and engaging vunerable points across the ship with laser cannon fire, moving around in pairs in nigh-impossible manouvers, making it almost impossible to lock on to them amongst the chaos of torpedoes and other fire. General Pellinore's famous destruction of a Star Destroyer at Endor being re-created as his pilots wreaked havoc.

With the convoy mostly gone, and only 6 crippled ships and 2 hulks left, the uncoordinated fire now from the merciless mostly met only space, and was poorly coordinated as multiple gunnery captains attempted to gain new orders from the severed bridge.

Added (16 Feb 2010, 6:52 Pm)
---------------------------------------------
The Freighters escaped, while Cross' flagship became completely crippled under the sustained fire from the combined MC-40, Assassin-class and the fighters poured fire down on it, all the armorment on its main terraces being destroyed or disabled. The fire sucessfully disabling the power lines to the engines also thanks to a few lucky torpedo hits from cloud squadron. The lights across much of the ship were now dark, and confusion and panic were widespread. The Merciless was out of the fight.

The Iron Fist was also in trouble, badly, its shields had not been active as it launched its fighters and simultaniously with this event the YT-2000 slammed into the terrace, through the terrace, down down through the decks, through the reactor core, through the other side of the reactor core and only then did it disintegrate. Panic would spread aboard the bridge of the Iron Fist, an officer would speak to the captain urgently.

"Sir, Primary Reactor is breached, radiation is spreading through decks, standard containment measures are proving in-effective" another explosion would shake the ship, blasting another massive gouge out of the hull, before we lost contact with engineering they estimated we had 5 minutes before the reactor overloads... with catastrophic effect" said a nervous officer to the Captain of the Iron Fist. The Iron Fist was dead in space.. explosions wracking its terrace and hull.

Cloud Squadron, the MC-40 and the Assassin-class corvette all then continued their fire on the Merciless, the E-Wings breaking off from around it and moving away, maintaining a distance between them and the slower TIE's if they chose to come in their direction and engage. Instead they orbited the battlefield, maintaining their distance and waiting for further developments.

The 6 crippled freighters sat immobile with compliments of 2 ISD's moving around them and engaging them if they started up again, but really having relatively little effect.

The Merciless was disabled, the Iron Fist had a major primary reactor breach and was in the process of tearing itself apart, and their enemies were still intact.

And all the while, the Battleship Kruus drew closer...

Cross prefered to capture some supplies, but not all things were perfect, and the previous convoy they hit would suffice, and at least some of these supplies would never make it to Eraidu. Lessons were learned as well. New tactics and strategies would be used next time to avoid the damage they had taken. A cummulative loss of fifteen TIE Fighters and three TIE Interceptors was a hard thing to swallow, but they would be replaced, and new pilots trained. Such were how things went in the Empire. As soon as the last fighter had hit the magcon field of the hangar, the Star Destroyers were clear of enemy vessels as by this time the convoy had made the jump, and both jumped to hyperspace, headed towards the edge of the galaxy, targeting the Kathol Sector. They would not make it however, due to their damage. Along the way, both ships dropped out of hyperspace at two different and random points along the way, both somewhere in Deep Space. Both ships would deploy fighter patrols and begin making repairs and restoring their energy shields. It was extremely unlikely the Republic would find them, as the two Lancers, once dropping out in the Kathol sector, proceeded to jump towards the final destination for Cross, to which the two Star Destroyers would proceed too, once repairs were complete enough for safe travel.

Captain Augustus Valerian
Star Destroyer Vanguard