Three Lucrehulk battleships appeared out of hyperspace, with twenty Munificent class frigates, flanking them. They had arrived over a verdant world, with a few ships docked in orbit.

Gazing out the viewport from the lead Lucrehulk, Commander Fredrick surveyed the planet, and noted a pronounced lack of defenses. Gesturing to a tactical droid, he said

"This is odd, I was told to expect Republic Star Destroyers, resistance of some kind. Is this the wrong planet?"

"Sir," the droid responded in dull monotone voice, "we went through some hyperspace anomalies en route. I conclude that this is not the same system."

"Thank you, either way I have my orders, we are to lay siege to this planet, establish droid factories and continue for there."

The droid gave a short burst of static in response, which Fredrick took as compliance. Turning to face the droid pilots, he said,

"Send a message to the other commanders, activate your droids and send landing craft down onto the surface, and…"

"Commander we are being hailed, two vessels from the orbital docks have detached themselves from the orbital docks."

"We will hear them out."

The communication screen opened and he walked over, the various droids continuing with their work. A portly man appeared on the screen, wearing some sort of officer's uniform and carrying an odd type of sword sheathed at his side.

"This is an imperial world, you have one chance to leave, then the forces of the Holy Emperor shall descend upon you."

"Holy Emperor?"

The man appeared temporarily puzzled until he noticed the droids behind him.

"What foul xenos tech do you use, heretic?" Fredrick looked at the commander and cocked his head, confused at the accusation.

"Bring all weapons online, we will engage them!" The vessel's communication screen deactivated as they closed the transmission.

"Open fire on the larger vessel, have the frigates strike the orbital docks, cripple their abilities to call for reinforcements, we don't want a large engagement."

"Yes sir," the tactical droid responded. Fredrick returned to his command chair, and pressed a button, bringing the other battleship commanders into conference.

"Captain Carlous destroy the larger vessel, and Captain Roidic launch your fighter complement, we'll need a large amount of vulture droids to deny their fighters, space superiority. Once we have defeated them in space, deploy your C-9979 transports, we will begin invasion per our orders."

"Yes commander!"

The Munificent frigates started firing their prow mounted cannons at the orbital docks. Cannon fire hit their shields and dissipated on them, and few anti-ship torpedoes could be seen on the sensors flying towards them.

"Launch our vulture droids, and concentrate fire on those torpedoes!"

Turbo-laser fire from the battleships struck the two warships and a droid shouted, "Sir, we have detected twenty small vessels in the system headed towards us. They will be here in several minutes."

"To all battleships, concentrate fire on the larger of the two vessels, frigates disable the orbital docks, do not destroy them."

Two torpedoes struck the Lurcehulk, and detonated on its shields, the others shot down by flak. The fighters had been launched and Fredrick watched several thousand of them go streaking towards the enemy. The destroyer was taking heavy damage from the other battleships, and the frigate was in his ship's sights. "Concentrate fire on the outcropping on the dorsal ridge. That is the bridge!"

"Deploy C-9799s to board the docks. Have them equipped with Super Battle Droids and Destroyers alongside the regular B1s"

He turned his attention to the battlefield in front of him, just in time to see the smaller vessel explode, its hull ripped apart by the volleys of turbo laser fire. The larger vessel was trailing a smoke cloud as it middle deck smoked.

The master gunner was giving orders to the battery directors.

"Turn our cannons on the other ship, its giving us its flank, target it engines."

He watched as the Quadruplet turbo laser cannons pulverized the enemy vessel, it's engines taking massive damage as the Lucrehulk battered down its rear shields. Then the Vulture Droids swept in, firing their ordinance into the Frigate, doing superficial damage to its armor plating but serving to distract its crew long enough for the other two battleships to fire a massive barrage into it, heavily damaging the warship.

"Sir, the other ships are arriving, they are preparing to engage us, a scan shows them to be extremely heavily armed, while slow."

He looked over from his chair, the green circles and triangles representing his ships, while the red triangles were the enemy. He clicked a button that brought him into communication with the other captains,

"Captains we need to destroy these new arrivals and prevent any jumps to hyperspace. Once we have swept them from orbit, launch landing craft planetward."

"Yes commander!"

The heavy prow mounted turbo lasers on the frigates had badly damaged the orbital docks of the world, and had caught several system monitors with their shields down, dealing crippling damage to their hulls, and preventing them from leaving their docks.

"Excellent work captains, now fire on the reinforcements."

The frigates turned to face the incoming ships, their prow cannons taking a precious two minutes to recharge, then they started firing on the incoming ships, who in turn, turned to give them a broadside. Lance and Macrocannon fire filled the space around the CIS fleet, the vast amount of firepower causing one of the frigates to lose its shields and the rest to have to take shelter behind the bulk of the battleships.

The Lucrehulks responded, their long and heavy guns firing directly into the monitors, hitting several times and heavily damaging two, downing their void shields and causing severe damage to their hulls. Several minutes of trading volleys began, as the three battleships fired into the system's ships destroying five out of the original twenty and doing disabling damage to three more.

"Munificents engage the enemy in a flanking maneuver, they appear to have large weapons batteries on their sides so hit them from the aft or front, avoid engaging them on the port and starboard sides."

"Roger sir," responded the droid captains.

The system monitors were intent on engaging the three battleships, with only three turning to engage the damaged frigates.

"Flotilla commanders, execute the pincer maneuver."

Acknowledgement pulses reached him, and Fredrick watched from the Admiral's chair as the battle unfolded anew.

Taking several seconds to turn their main guns towards the planet's ship. The frontal weapons of the system monitors opened fire on their new targets, and slowly over the next few minutes their weapons fire was split between the multiple targets.

The prow cannons fired into the fronts and rears of the systems ships, and while the fronts were heavily armored, they had difficulty standing up to the prow cannons of the Munificents taking heavy damage from the frigates heavy turbo lasers. The system's ships had taken a beating, and at least seven were still slugging it out with both his battleships and frigates, but it was very clear to Fredrick who would win, yet none of the ships gave signs that they would jump to hyperspace.

"Deploy your landers, the day is ours!" shouted Fredrick as after a massive barrage of laser fire crushed the surviving ships with an overwhelming volume of fire. Then he watched as one of the ships stopped firing and it engines roared as it start accelerating towards one of the Munificents. Its battle scarred hull, was extremely damaged and borderline critical as it sped towards the most damaged frigate in his battle group.

The droid commander responded as Fredrick expected, firing as many of the Frigates cannons into the ship as it could. Had the distance been greater it would have succeeded as well.

Hyena Bomber and Vulture droid squadrons pummeled the ship, proton torpedoes impacting its all the effort was in vain.

The ship hit his frigate in the bridge, craving a massive hole in the frigate as it attempted to maneuver out of the way. The systems monitor exploded, destroying the frigate along with it. The orbiting fleet destroyed, the landers disembarked from the battleships, and accompanied by two of the frigates, started their descent to the planet's surface.

"Gunnery master, begin preparatory bombardments on any major troop concentrations, Comms officer, broadcast the message of invasion. Any who submit will be spared, those who fight will be put the sword."