An Imperial Occupation

by part time pony

Operations

A year would pass since the small skirmish near the Ghastly Gorge, a year Equestria has been under the control of the tyrannical Galactic Empire.
The Battle of Hoth had weakened the Rebellion massively, almost destroying the entire ground forces and with some of the rebellion's leaders going missing and presumed to at the gas planet Bespin before escaping at the cost of Captain Solo being captured. Still, to this day he remains captured but the rebels are saying he's been found and a rescue operation has been planned.

The group of ponies that had barely escaped their planet of birth, Equestria, were currently onboard a Corvette, a similar one to the one that crashed and almost killed them a year ago.
The Corellian Corvette "Admirable II", named after Admiral Juno's Venator 'Admirable' and his heroic crew during the Clone Wars, was currently patrolling the area at The Wheel for Imperial Activity, which had been high lately. Fortunately, the Corvette wasn't alone and was escorted by another Corvette and a squadron of X-Wing Fighters along with three Ace A-Wing Pilots and the small fleet's flagship being a Nebulon-B Frigate 'Aldeeran Sky' which was named in honor of Aldeeran after it's destruction.

Twilight and her friends had been giving rooms onboard the Admirable II for as long as they'd be needed, the rooms were quite simple: One bed, a small writing desk, a closet and a washroom, not to mention it was quite cramped but so far all of them had managed it.
In command of the small fleet was Commander Fogles, a member of the Twi'Lek species.

| - - - - - - - |

Ponyville and all the other cities and villages destroyed in the invasion were now rebuilt and looked just like they used to, however the pony population had been fortunate as the Empire usually built grey depressing small huts that usually were about the size of an X-Wing, they didn't this time because the Empire was seeking to keep the system a secret, just like the world of Byss.
Therefore it couldn't employ its contractors for building materials.

On the marketplace of Ponyville business was back to normal, or so it seemed.
In the middle of the marketplace were three Stormtroopers, one of them being a Sergeant.
In one of the corners was a hidden AT-ST, waiting for the slightest sight of a rebellious pony.

"There's nothing here, move to Sector G17." The Sergeant said.

The three Stormtroopers began leaving the marketplace, shortly after the previously hidden AT-ST began moving, following them and at the same time nearly crushing a shop.

In another part of town was a red-coated stallion, going by the name of Big Macintosh. He was transporting some apples to the Sugar Cube Corner.
Just when he was about to enter the small town that was Ponyville he was stopped by two Stormtroopers, one of them being a Commander.
To the left was a flagpole with the Imperial Flag and to the right was a small building and a parking space for speeder bikes.

"What's your cargo?" The Stormtrooper asked.
Shortly after the Stormtrooper Commander went over the small cart to check what it was.

"Apples." The stallion answered with.

The Commander looked thoroughly through the cart for any contraband or outlawed items.

"He's clear." The Commander said.

"Alright, let me see some identification." The Stormtrooper said.

Big Mac looked back at the cart and made a gesture with his head.
The Stormtrooper looked confused and switching off the safety of his gun just in case.

"What are you doing?"

"In there." The stallion responded.

Still confused, the stormtrooper raised and aimed his E-11 Blaster at the red pony.
The Commander, being smart decided to listen to the pony and looked around in the cart again, finding the ID card.

"Oh, he meant it was in there." The Stormtrooper lowered his blaster and turned safety back on.

The Commander looked at the card to see if the information checked out.
Unsurprisingly it did.
"Move along, move along." The Commander said.

| - - - - - - - |

"Alert, A rebel fleet has come out of hyperspace, man your battle stations now. This is a drill." The speakers onboard the Chimaera were saying.

Squads of Stormtrooper were running slowly towards their battle stations, which often was either helping the crew or providing security in case the ship was to be boarded.

Officers and crew ran at the same time to their posts, which obviously were the command centers onboard, every post had to be fully manned for a successful battle.

"Time them," Thrawn said.

"Yes, sir." The Lieutenant answered.

The Lieutenant quickly pressed a few buttons to start a timer.
Thrawn wanted to obviously time how fast it'd take for all the men onboard to reach their battle stations.
But this wasn't the only drill planned for today, he still planned for an engine destruction drill and a fire in the main reactor drill. All of this to make sure his crew would be ready at all times and to have them prepared for anything, even when faced with death.

"Sir, it took 4 minutes and 37 seconds for all crew to reach mission-critical stations and 5 minutes and 14 seconds to reach all other stations."
The Lieutenant said.

"Good, but not good enough, schedule a second rebel attack drill for tomorrow," Thrawn ordered.

Thrawn would stand up and walk away, away to his personal quarters before stopping abruptly.
"On second thought. Prepare for the jump to lightspeed, destination Csilla. Have High Admiral Vosh take over the planet's planetary defense under my supervision while I am at my homeworld. I need to complete my mapping of the Unknown Regions." Thrawn said, walking away shortly after.

"Yes, sir." The Lieutenant said.

| - - - - - - - |

"We should hurry up Twilight, we don't want to miss this," Cadance said to her sister in law.

"You're right, don't wanna miss this." the alicorn said in response and began following the older alicorn.

What Cadance was referring to was something big, something that they've all been waiting for. A possible liberation of Equestria.
Luna and Twilight's friends were already in the briefing room, sitting there and waiting for the two royalties to arrive.
In the middle of the room was a hologram projector that projected the live image of Admiral Ackbar.

Just when Ackbar was to commence his briefing did the two ponies arrive in the room, they looked for a place to sit down and saw two available spots near Rarity where they would sit down, ready to listen what the Admiral had to say.

"Members of the Rebel Alliance, we recognize that the war against the Galactic Empire has slowed down recently, we are at the moment losing wars on crucial planets to the rebellion such as Mon Calamari where the Empire is willing to stop our capital ship production."

"But in this time, we are a mobile, mobile enough to avoid the Imperial Navy and start supporting and liberating worlds that don't wish to be under the Empire's control."

"I've spoken with Princess Leia and Mon Mothma and we have decided to launch a full-scale assault to liberate the world known as Equestria from the Empire."

"But our rebel spies have informed us that Grand Admiral Thrawn may be present, we all know what a deadly commander he is and how he destroys Rebel Fleets for fun."

"But we will prevail, we have the strength, the morale, the soldiers to win, and show that we are are a threat to the Empire and defeat them!"

"This fleet, commanded by Commander Fogles will be reinforced with capital ships, support vessels and additional starfighters including Y-Wing Bombers to complete this task."

"May the force be with you."
The hologram projector switched off and up stepped Commander Fogles, the highest ranked rebel in this fleet for what everyone guessed was to be a short speech or a motivational talk, while they were sort of-right it wasn't really what they had guessed.

"We will be launching this attack next week, I want you all to be ready because this may a battle bigger than Hoth, Yavin IV or any upcoming battles with the Empire.
It will not be easy, there will be death, suffering, and sacrifices. But we shall prevail victoriously."

| - - - - - - - |

With the announcement of the attack and liberation of Equestria confirmed, there was nothing else to worry about. Equestria was soon to become free and they'd get to return home where they could live in peace and harmony. The day was to come, it had to. What else was there to attack? The Imperial Factories and Refineries on Sullust were too heavily defended for the rebels, the Fondor and Kuat Shipyards had powerful defenses that could rip apart an MC80 Cruiser in mere seconds and Coruscant being the heart of the Empire had at least two Super Star Destroyers and 30+ Star Destroyers guarding it. Equestria only had about 4-6 Star Destroyers guarding it so it'd be a well-matched target for the Rebellion's capable fleet.
Equestria's time for liberation has come.

Author's Note:

Apologies for the short chapter, I will make the next one longer, much longer.
As for my second story, it's release will have to be delayed so it'll likely come out next week or so.
Oh and don't be shy to post constructive criticism, I won't send you to the dungeons for that.
One more thing, I've changed the story's picture to better fit the fanfic, it doesn't feel right to have Darth Vader on there but only having him so far in three chapters.

Comments

[part time pony]

For thosse who didn't understand the Author's note at the end of Chapter 4 "Operations" this is what I meant:

I decided to change the picture of the fanfiction because I never intended on Darth Vader becoming the main character of this fanfiction. He only was there as a plot device you could say. Originally Darth Vader was only going to be in the first two chapters and that's it, but due to running out of ideas I put him in the third chapter "Skirmish" as well, none the less I think that the new picture represents the this piece of fiction much better than the Vader one.

Oh and while I'm here I might as well say that work on Chapter 5 is almost done and the Chapter will be released this weekend or next week.