Star Wars: A clash of lords

Chapter five

Leyl awoke suddenly by the sound of alarms ringing through the base. As she prepared herself for the oncoming prospect of battle she realised there were no shock waves coming from aerial bombardment. Are we too deep underground to feel them or are they trying a pure ground assault on us. She pondered to herself while buttoning the last button of her uniform.
The door to the passage opened with such haste she wasn't sure if it ever close again, but she had no time to find out she had to get to the command centre to be debriefed on what was happening upside.As she ran down the corridor she was met by a heavy crowd all heading the same direction for their own debriefing. She blended into the horde and felt a sudden nudge to her side it was the man from the bar, she could never remember his name so always addressed him as angel due to the pick up line he used "hey angel, what's happening? Are we under attack?" Leyl asked.
"We found them," angel said. Leyl was still half asleep and just looked at him with utter bewilderment.
"Found who?" Leyl requested while rubbing the last of the sleep out of her eyes.
"The empire, Leyl, they been spotted fifty clicks out from the lookout they've amassed quite the camp there in the past few months, roumors have it that there's 20,000 troopers there with sith members bolstering their numbers" angel's hatred for the emperor added extra venom to his words.
The crowd began to dissipate as they filed into the command centre the masses divided left and right as the climbed the seating areas surrounding the outer perimeter of the room. The members of high command with the force sat at the bottom closest to the debriefing area. And then the commanders were situated behind them elevated half a foot high. As the ranks decreased the higher they sat. Leyl had been promoted shortly after the battle in the valley to commander of the 9th legion which she felt proud of but many under her rank who were lieutenants with more battles under them felt she did not deserve it and have tried and failed to make an example of her and her naivety.
They of course failed and a few of them were demoted heavily for insubordination. This allowed Commander Leyl to promote more loyal officers to lieutenant although to anyone who questioned why those officers she'd say "they earned it by merit and bravery".
As Leyl took her seat she couldn't believe how close to the ground she had gotten and felt an eerie sense of presence from those in the front row as if their being emitted power that made your hairs stand on end.
"Welcome troopers, we have located the emperors forces here" General Ilam began to announce as the holographic planet changed into a cartography of land with valleys and revines spiralling out and up, as if the centre scared them away, a blue dome grew and shrunk from the centre of one of the valleys. Ilam continued "this is where the imps have taken camp from our low flight squads reckoning the area we believe the emperor has hidden most his forces in the forestry.This will be a bombing operation so pilots pay close attention to this next part," the cartography started showing yellow arrows five five wide moving in a column up the the valley. "You will all be up in the sky today no one is grounded and you will all fly in close proximity of each other along the top of the trees so they will have a hard time locking on to you with AA-guns, you will start bombing one click out of the target zone and continue through it and stop bombing one click out again you are to then circle around immediately and bomb from the one click out back down to where the bombing started you will repeat this until nothing is left but charred ground, some of you will not make it home again so say your fair wells and update your letters home for if you are K.I.A. Lord Shyr will continue this debriefing for the second assault." Ilam looked unfazed by what he had asked of the bombers as he raised an arm to Welcome Lord Shyr to the podium.
"We will take the fight to the capital and to the throne that the mad emperor sits upon" Shyr said as the hologram changed again to show the map of the capital and the emperors fortress. "We shall be assaulting from many different fronts to cause as much confusion as possible since the emperor has relocated the majority of the planets ground troops to the valley, we can expect less resistance this does not mean we will just walk in and take the throne we will still have to fight and we may even have to kill civilians if they choose to take up arms against us" the map suddenly added 6 different colour domes to it representing the staging areas for attack "Legion commanders listen carefully for your orders, legions 3,10 and 24 will be deployed at the south of the capital at rally point blue, legions 12,13 and 14 will be deployed north east at rally point pink, legions 4,9 and 18 will be deployed west at rally point red..." as Lord shyr continued her deployments Leyl looked at the map studying every strategical strength and weakness in their path to the emperors fortress of course this map did not have current forces locations on it nor if any of the roads still linked but she knew if she dropped the ball here she'd loose everything there.
Once Shyr had finished relaying everyone's deployment she added "Each legion will be accompanied by 10 force generals they are not there to hold your hand in this battle they have had their own directives and are not to be interfered with is that understood"
The room filled up with the sound of troopers acknowledging the orders and hurrahing the prospect of toppling the emperor at last.