Captain Countess Isla Marsh sat in the command chair of ISD Counterthrust as it made a perfect jump from hyperspace. She allowed a short proud smile to cross her face when she reviewed her tactical display and saw that almost all her ships did just as well. 346th Battle squadron trained manoeuvres only in real space, not on the simulators...

Her bridge crew remained as concentrated on their tasks as ever, but she could feel them sitting up just a bit straighter at the smile from the old lady...

Conqueror and Crazy Horse, the second division, formed up to her relative left and join their shields. With just a few minor corrections using reactive engines.

Counterthrusts own division mate, the Berserker, older by a good decade, but still just as formidable, assumed its position bellow the flagship...

the third division took almost eight minutes to assemble between and "bellow the other two... That was to be expected and forgiven as ISD Cinder joined the squadron on short notice and she only got ISD Caledon from the dock rats in time for this operation by near enough pointing turbo lasers on their station...

"Madam, Captain Novik from Cinder is on the comm laser" her comm officer announced in the even tone of one used to talk to and on behalf of those with much bigger paychecks that mere Lieutenant...

"Put him on Alexander" Marsh answered and looked at her communication display. Soon enough thin face of Captain Novik greeted her with a respectful bow. She inclined her own head.

"Milady, I apologize for less than ideal performance of my ship," he started dead serious. "I have put our assistant astrogator in the hot chair for this jump. Ensign Gray was assigned to us fresh from the academy. She needs all the experience she can get, but the responsibility is all mine" he finished with a hard even look.

Isla fought back the urge to sight, she always had to break any new subordinate in from the "Do any minor mistake and you get force choked syndrome" WHY? Was she six foot six inches tall and dressed in black life support suit? No... Instead, she nodded.

"Captain, a bit of over-caution is to be expected and understandable, as is your choice to give Ensign Gray more flight time to get the experience needed." she fell silent for a moment.

"Under the circumstances, Gray made a good job, as did your crew, My compliment to Ensign Gray and please tell her that I have a full confidence in her learning fast and make much better jumps than merely acceptable in the future..." she added with a smile.

The smile took a wistful tone as Captain Novik bowed again and she ended the transmission, she got a fair deal of those backhanded compliments and if the rookie could jump Star Destroyer mere five light seconds of the mark, on twenty light years jump, she would do just fine...

Counterthrust and her entire squadron lit its engines for ninety-six seconds achieving speed that would bring them to their intended destination in less than six hours. Then every emission except tight bands of comm lasers between the ships ceased.

Isla smiled again, it wasn't a very nice smile.

The Rebel Space station orbiting Corax, a fourth-rate mining moon of a forgettable gas giant she never heard of before, had no way of knowing what was coming for them...

"Alexander, make ready to pre-record a message for our rebel friends," she said and when the comm officer nodded she looked in the camera "Unknown Rebel base, this is a Captain Isla Marsh of Imperial Navy. I am under orders to proceed to moon Corax and destroy your base. Whether that will also include deaths of every one of your personnel is now up to you. Raise shields, you all die. Fire upon any of my ships, shuttles or personnel, you all die. Try to escape in any way, you all die..." she said with the solemnity she usually reserved for when she was made to sit on a court-martial "Obey every one of my instructions, immediately when and as given, and you will all live. I also promise to hand you over to Office of Naval Intelligence and not the ISB." she made a short pause... "Commander, as of the time you will be receiving this message I will be positioned to immediately, at first sight of non-compliance destroy your base. I suggest in strongest terms possible, that you do not force me to execute every single life form on your base. Marsh Out." There was a moment of dead silence thereafter, as everybody was once again made to remind themselves they were here to fire on what at one point or another were loyal imperial citizens. 'Then again' Isla thought 'I did not force them to become terrorists.'

She watched how a look of grim determination settled in every face on the bridge, her crew felt the same way. It would not matter if they did not, but deep down Isla was moved by the silent show of support.

"Record complete and ready to broadcast at your command, Madam," said the comm with more of a military precision than Lieutenant Alexander Waters used in any time outside the heat of battle. Isla nodded her thanks and gave one last look to the tactical display. Satisfied with her squadron she looked to her tactical officer "Commander Igen, You Have the bridge" as she waited for customary response Isla though 'They would have to literally stumble over us...'

she got up and walked off the bridge to get some tea and fight the paperwork...

***Five standard hours later***

Isla was once again seated on the bridge and watched how the magnetic launcher spat the tie fighters and tie bombers. The small crafts formed on the flanks of her formation and kept their propulsion to the minimum needed for station keeping.

This time no one had any trouble executing orders from the flagship exactly right, Isla allowed one more of her proud smiles. Her boys and girls did just right...

And then, thirty minutes past hyper limit at maximum power, everything went to shit...

"Multiple new contacts! Rebel Cruisers, Madam, dozen of them, they emerged from behind the Corax. CIC has them all as Mon Cala designs, most MC80s, Designing the contact as Bandit one. They will see us in less than twenty minutes if the intelligence is right about their sensor suite." Said her tactical officer Lieutenant Commander Igen.

"Understood commander" Isla intoned in her command voice "can we board the Ties and get out of the limit before they catch with us?" At least she got a moment to form a plan, Thanks to the Emperor for small mercies...

Isla ran her own calculation as Igen and his assistants formed a solution... She watched over defeated faces on her bridge. They were not used to run with their tails between their legs.

But Bandit One had the firepower to destroy them, she could put them out of commission in turn, but Isla March held a dim opinion of the officers who threw away their command for a glorious last stand...

"We can do it, Madam. We will come in the firing range of the base, and we don't have a clue as to what firepower they have there, but we can do it. We will have to come to full power the moment ties are docked and run straight from them," said Igen and projected his new course on the tactical display.

Isla ran his numbers against her own and nodded. Igen was perhaps a bit too pessimistic on how fast they could get the ties in, using the by the book's procedure for his calculation.

But neither of the estimates gave them enough time to do anything else than to run in a straight line out of the limit...

"Very well, Tactical, send the course to the squadron and recall the Ties, once they are docked, execute when ready" she shifted into a more comfortable position and folded her fingers... Then as if an afterthought she added "If I am correct we will sling past the base within the turbo laser range... Prepare a firing solution for a flyby. It would be rude to leave without at least a parting gift" She could feel the defeated spirit lifted a bit. Sure the base had shields, but even a flyby by an entire squadron of ISDs could do a nasty job on it anyway.

Twenty-two minutes later and with only two dozen Tie fighters still to dock the Bandit One noticed the squadron and within three minutes thereafter set on the intercept course and went to the full power...

Marsh made a grimace, she would not be this obvious for at least an hour longer until she would be able to count the turbo lasers on the ISD with optics. But when the enemy is making a mistake...

Twenty-three seconds after the last Tie fighter docked in the Berserkers hangar the Squadron oriented itself on the new course and fired up its main engines making full acceleration for the hyper limit.

Bandit one took almost four minutes to make a course correction, this time Isla openly sneered, they got her by a dumb chance, there was no way a commander so incompetent as to not assume that his query will make a run for it, could also lay a successful trap...

"Madam the base is scrambling fighters, we have around twenty individual contacts. Two formations. Calling them bandit Two and three." this time there was only professionalism in Igen's voice and rightly so, twenty Starfighters were a nuisance not a legit threat to Isla's squadron.

She looked at the comm officer "Alexander, get me Commander Graham" she said and waited a moment before the bulky man in Tie pilot getup appeared on her display.

"Mylady," he inclined his head a fraction then he frowned "I know what you are going to ask and the answer is no. Any Ties we deploy now would not be able to deal with the rebs before the fighters from the cruiser could join the show." he finished with a bluntness that might be disrespectful if it comes from another officer. Yet Commander Graham had three hundred combat missions against the rebs, twenty kills, six of them A-wings and two prosthetics to his credentials. He earned that bluntness and Isla understood that well.

She nodded "Very well, we deal with them using the guns, thank you for allowing us to get underway out sooner than the projection." she finished with a respectful nod herself. She killed the com and focused on tactical display again...

Bandit two would definitely get a shot on her force, at the kind of speed they were making. Bandit three was slower, probably Y-wings and if they did no put on much more speed fast, they would get maybe a few minutes before the 346th squadron made the jump to Hyperspace...

"New contact, multiple contacts! Dead ahead. Jumped from Hyperspace. Designating bandit four, at least two cruisers and four frigates, cruisers are in the range of MD-80s, frigates looks like hammerheads" Said Igen voice still professional but Marsh was with Igen for long enough to pick on his body language and he was not as calm as he tried to project... Not that she blamed him...

"Options tactical?" She asked in even tone as her sensor crews were doing their darnedest to get a positive IDs on the Bandit four.

Igen looked at her and took a moment to compose himself and run his numbers "We ride it out on the current course, which gives us passing engagement with Bandit four, or we pitch directly up from the planet, we will escape Bandit Four but it will get us dangerously close to Bandit One..."

March shook her head "No, we can't risk that, we take our chances with Bandit Four, Richard. Focus fire on the Hammerheads in the beginning, after you have wiped them out, by all means, have a go at cruisers, but focus on the smaller ones first."

He nodded and fleshed out her instructions into a complete battle plan as Isla crossed her legs and allowed herself a moment contemplation as to how she would deal with whoever talked about her operation... She did not believe in this much bad luck...

It was thirty-seven minutes of tension before Counterthrusts Turbolasers spoke, and only seven minutes more before it all was over...

In the first two minutes of that "battle", the Hammerheads ceased to exist...

In turn one of the engines on the Counterthrust suffered major damage and ship suffered two dozen causalities...

In the four more minutes one MD-80 went up in a nuclear explosion as concentrated fire from six ISD overwhelmed its shields and armour...

In the last minute, they mauled the remaining MD-80 into a wreck losing air and slabs of durasteel in the space...

All that time Berserker was keeping station closest to the enemy, an true to its namesake it took everything the enemy had to throw at it and dished out at least as much death and destruction...

Its shields held, for the most part, supported by the shields of the Counterthrust. But they failed, in the end, they failed and for forty-nine seconds all that stood between Berserkers crew and death was the ships durasteel.

It held up valiantly against Rebel lasers, Berserker defied the reality, or so it would seem for a moment. Then the first laser got through, and then another one, and sixteen more to come before the Rebels were silenced...

Berserker momentarily veered off the course before its helmsman countered the "reactive engines" of the atmosphere escaping the ship. But by then it was all over, the starfighters lost their will to fight and ran in the way of Bandit one.

Isla did not smile, she hoped against hope that when the causality report comes from Berserker, it will be short...

***Six standard hours later in the hyperspace***

It was not. Captain Marsh immediately handed the bombardment to Igen and marshalled every ship in the squadron to send medical and engineering detachments to Berserker...

Now, having read the preliminary causality reports she was torn between pride, amazement and sorrow. Berserker would spend next year in Dock if she was not towed to breakers, but its crew fought for their ship just as hard as they fought against the rebels.

Captain Dade initially reported twenty thousands of his people missing, dead and wounded that was half of the crew...

The shuttles soon started coming back with the wounded. Berserker simply could not handle them all, not even with the additional medical personnel.

Isla looked at the list of the wounded that arrived on Counterthrust two thousand and most should go to Bacta tank, and she had three hundreds of those...

There was almost a morbid sort of game between cold dead vacuum and Berserker's search and rescue teams. Even after six hours, there were still eighteen hundred undecided cases. One thousand and eight hundred unclaimed points.

Isla was pacing across her palatial stateroom. She knew that miracles will happen that some of those spacers will be found hours, days, maybe a week from now, somehow still alive...

"Yes, and you know just as damn well that most of them are dead already..." she chided herself. She has lost seven thousand spacers and storm troopers dead, in less than that many minutes, and that was if none of the eleven-ish thousand wounded died of their wounds, not bloody likely...

In turn, she destroyed the rebel task force. It was a qualified success.

She wondered if other commanders who achieved qualified successes felt just as shit as she felt at the moment, somehow she hoped that yes, they did.

Isla finished her cup of tea, finished the report and look at her Chrono, she had a briefing in ten minutes. Maybe they could do something more for Berserker yet...

She stood up, straighten her jacket, and put on her Cap.

Isla might afford herself to break down and mourn seven thousands of her comrades in arms...

Isla Marsh might afford to feel like a piece of Bantha shit for not doing better.

Countess Isla Marsh might afford to be absolute selfish bitch and leave two hundred eighty thousand souls in 346th to fend for themselves as best as they could.

Captain Countess Isla March, lately of ISD Counterthrust, could afford neither, she had a mission to finish, spacers to rescue and squadron to command.

She stopped before the hatch and draw a deep breath, then she pushed the button and step out every inch an Imperial Navy Captain...

There were 1800 spacers trapped in a shipwreck, and Captain Countess Isla Marsh set out to do whatever more she could do to wrestle each one of them back to life...