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(Ok, let's see if this works)

So far, their ploy at trying not to engage the enemy fleet was proving pointless. Elladan didn't want to take on the other ships until the business on Dxun had been settled, but things had taken a terribly ill turn. Ordo was dead, and the Dxun Mandalorians that'd survived were beginning to erupt into rebellion. He quickly patched open a comm channel to MtC.

"Mandalore the Conquerer, I think you just made a very bad mistake," the chiss said cooly. "If you have any desire of maintaining what grip you have, I suggest you get your ships to shut off all incoming communications, and stick to the comm between only our ships. There's a chance the damn Bothan may try turning your crew into a bunch of zealots."

"I don't need you to tell me these things," the man said with disdain. "But your wisdom is sound." He turned to his first officer, and within moments, all communications from all craft not in their fleet was disabled. "What now?"

"That little fireworks show you orchestrated has made Dxun almost irrelevant to our cause. You may have killed your rival and every other being near that city, but none of them will follow you. Combined with those ships being parked in Onderon airspace, we have a bunch of little problems to deal with."

He glowered, cursing openly into the comm unit. "Damn you man, I want him dead, and every other Dar'manda with him! I'll kill each and every one of them if I must.!"

"All in good time..." Elladan replied, barely audible. "But for now, transfer command to your first officer, and give your crews time to get over what just happened. Meanwhile, we have some nuisances."

He gave the command to bring all ships within medial firing range, mere meters away from the decoy fleet Borril was using. Once they were easily within effective range, they began firing.

"Sir, we've got a feed lock," the chief comm officer from the Mandalia spoke.

"Report," First Officer Drakel demanded.

"Network Intel has pinpointed a transmission under friendly codes transmitting the feed from the Dxun slaughter." He said the last word with venom. "The feed's originating from one of Borrill's ships."

"Can you cut the feed?"

"Yes sir, however that'd take time." He frowned. "I'd have to get all comm disabled between ships, then get a new feed established that he or she can't hack so quickly. I'd need five minutes."

"Given," Drakel replied. He sent the message to Kenet. "Might want to invest in some better comm systems, or a better protection grid. There's not much we can do now, other than disable comm completely, and let all orders stand."

The holoproj of the chiss nodded. "Done. Disable all feed and all HUD units. The ships will be deaf, but it's better than having a mass revolt."

The chiss disapeered briefly, as their warships closed in on the Wombat, and began unloading missles on the frigate's engines. In a matter of seconds, two of the three primary engines were severely wounded, and the other was aflame.

"Sir, incoming bombers!"

Drakel nodded. "Move in the Crusaders, and deploy the fighters. I want the skies cleared."

"Report?" Elladan called after the timetable expired.

"The Network reports all links are closed," Sven answered. "We can't contact them back, but they've effectively lost contact with the rest of Mandalore space for the next few hours, assuming they live that long."

"Any damage done other than what was already done."

"Unsure sir. There's no way to tell if they got any information out of the feeds, but if they did, we can find out in an engagement."

"What are you suggesting?" he asked.

Sven shrugged. "They could've taken any information out, but the one I'd worry about is our EMP codes. If they catch onto what that is, they could get the defense codes we use, and make the device about useless untill we change the setting."

"And that'll take a while," he surmised, frowning, as he watched the Crusaders slicethrough the first squadrons of bombers with ease. Some got past, but his own fighters were quickly on top of them. "What else?"

"Not much sir. I'll primary weapon has been denied from us, but for the time being we can guarantee they won't beable to get anything else, short of actually coming on board and stealing our passcards." He smiled grimly. "Otherwise, I'd say we should just fight them."

Elladan nodded, turning back to the tactical, thinking to himself. "If they did get the codes, they might risk coming out... then we can hit them, and find out just for sure..."

After a while, Elladan got a strange question from one of his bridge gunners. "What do you mean the bomber didn't blow up? They don't have shields!"

He went and paid closer attention to the battle, until he saw one of his own Predatos come buy and shoot at a bomber. Not only did the bomber go on as if nothing happened, but their own shields absorbed the blast.

"Holograms," he answered. "They're all holograms. Clever, but a waste of time." He turned to Sven. "Order them to ignore the bombers already out, and focus all fire on that Wombat frig. Turn it to ash."

Elladan brought the ships in closer, as his Crusaders picked off the actual fighters that had scrambled in vain. "All ships, close in."

After the initial barrage, Elladan began scrambling his forces. None could hear his voice or get direct commands, but he had ways of telling the officers what to do.

"Doing fine, Detre?" he asked his body guard, who was manning a beacon switch.

"Yes sir. The other operatives acknowledge." The beacon activated a seemingly random series of lights, then dissipated: an ancient Noghri Commando light code.

"Good." He turned his attention to the bombers. "The Crusaders and Lancers are all but gone, but we still have 70% of the bombers. Shame we lost so much of them in the initial volley." He turned to Sven. "Have the squadrons spread out and focus on those bombers. Concentrate remaining fire on those Wombats."

He looked at his tactical. "The Revenge is the biggest of our problems, but we should be able to handle it without most problems."

~

The Mandalorian detail team was patrolling through the corridors, mildly humming, as a ramship slammed into the hull and breached the hallway. Immediately, ten commandos piled out and unloaded themselves into the hallway, killing two of the three guards. "We have hull breach in Corridor D5!"

Drakel acknowleged. "Deploy our own commandos, and the Noghri."

The alien assasin silently nodded, drew his blade, and disappeared into the shadows of the ship.

(You tell me. I gave you the Order. But you should know, his Acc his seriously overhauled. You might as well consider it a strong Victory with awesome shields, but Acc-class weps.)

Elladan grimaced as his second Acclamantor became a brief star, and disappeared into nothingness. If anything, this served to piss off his own forces. "Continue concentration."

A few seconds later, the remaining Canderouse and Mandalia broke through the first Wombat's shields, nailing the shield reactor, engines, and starboard ridge. A second volley of missles later, and it joined the recently departed Acclamantor.

They were now down to just shy over a wing of predators, and three lone Crusaders, plus his ship, the Mandalia, but both Victories were still ready to duel, especially when the damaged one managed to bring one of it's two layers of shielding back up using the spare reactor. Combined with the only other working Canderous, and the four sitting still and playing siege weapons, things were still decent.

Until he heard the Canderouses had been boarded.

~

The only other of the guards managed to fall abck, and ran in with reinforcements. "There's a squad down the hall. I need back-up.'

The other captain nodded, commed into his HUD, and replied. "Reinforcements are already deploying against three other breaches into the ship. Of the twenty ramships that launched, sixteen got through our hulls. The Dar'manda are being dealt with."

As he gave the order, an automatic turrent popped out of the wall, and unloaded onto the boarders. Immediately, five of the ten were dropped, and another wounded before they blew it off it's socket. They deployed another turrent, which nailed two this time, then went in to finish the rest. On this ship, a total of sixteen guards were killed, and four turrents disabled. Four were wounded.

~

The three Noghri commandos slipped through the ship Ner and Dem had landed on, easing through the shadows. They stumbled onto one of five landing parties, and removed their knives. A few moments later, they were all dead.

"These warriors aren't worth the effort," the accomplice spoke. "These 'dar'manda' are weak."

"These are not evidently the super-commandos that broke into the stations at Junction," his leader replied. "Their weapons aren't as powerful, and they have obviously less training." He pointed back into the shadows. "We must continue though; there are other parties."

"Ready to launch ma'am?" the officer asked Kalleen as she stood at the Canderous's bridge.

"Ready when the ion mines are ."

The captain nodded. Moments later, a huge bulk carrier appeared along the hyperspace lane, disabled by the mines as it screeched to a halt along with the frigate, corvettes, and fighters guarding it.

Kalleen nodded with satisfaction and turned on the comm unit. "Attention vessels. You are being raided by the Loyalist Empire. Your ships and vessels are hereby under our jurisdiction, and you will turn over to us immediately."

There was a pause before her comm officer replied. "They've sent out a distress call to the local blockade ships. They'll respond in the next few minutes."

She nodded, and took the five Force witches with her into the hangar bay to board the assault ship, while their small raiding band blew apart the ancient Correlian Corvettes and Nebulon B. Within moments, she and several boarding parties were landed inside the poorly manned, nd even worse-defended carrier.