The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2299: The Disappearing Fleet
August 11, 8 BBY. Dawn, the capital of the Principality of Dawn, the Supreme Operations Command, Conference Room 3.

"Planet Rendili! It's Planet Rendili!" Defense Minister Cheng Shitao poked hard on the holographic star map and said in a deep voice: "We can't detect the military deployment of the Galactic Empire because their fleets are now all assembled in the center of the empire!!"

"This matter has basically been confirmed. But the question is, how do they plan to fight? And how many warships have they mobilized?" Acting Navy Commander-in-Chief Carls Walton frowned, "Did the hyperspace outpost react?"

Saratan Moss, the head of the Military Intelligence Department, said: "It is very difficult to monitor the hyperspace fluctuations in the Imperial Center. Fortunately, the Imperial Center has a population of 1 trillion, so we still have a lot of informants inside. According to the information we have so far, there are no signs of large-scale fleets gathering around the Imperial Center."

"Where did the fleet withdrawn from the Trade Federation go?" asked Volgograd-Canidi, the Governor of the Model Star Region.

"After completing the repairs at the dock in the center of the empire, they left immediately. The severely damaged warships also went to the planet Kuat for repairs, and left immediately after completion. There was no sign of assembly at all." Saratan Moss's face looked very ugly. As the Minister of Intelligence, he had lost control of the location of the Empire's main fleet, which was a serious dereliction of duty.

"So, where did their fleet go? The Empire has recently reduced the strength of its border garrisons, so where are those withdrawn warships?" Army Chief Xian Hui rubbed his nose and put out his cigarette butt forcefully on the ashtray.

The ashtray is full of cigarette butts.

"It could be anywhere. But... it is definitely not among the currently known military bases." Saratan Moss replied.

"What about the rebels? How many imperial warships are now involved in suppressing the rebels?" Ling Liang asked.

"The rebels are unwilling to share military intelligence with us, so we can only calculate based on the existing intelligence. At present, there are about 1400 Imperial battleships participating in the suppression operations in various places. The number of battleships stationed in the north to resist the Geth has decreased, and is about 2500. There are 1000 garrisons on the planets of Fangduo and Kira respectively. There are about 3900 battleships used for training and being repaired. There are about 1800 battleships in garrison. Therefore, the number of battleships that have lost their traces now is about 3000." Saratan-Moss replied, "Even if we exclude the parts that are inaccurate in our monitoring, the Empire is afraid that at least 1000 battleships are missing now."

Chief of General Staff Qi Jian shook his head, looked at Severance Tann who had arrived at the Dawn Planet to attend the meeting, and asked, "What do you think, General Tann?"

"If I were in command, my fleet would have already started attacking while you were suspicious." Severance Tann said coldly, "And the enemy's commander-in-chief is Darth Vader. Given his style, he would make the same choice. Attack, and attack again."

"If the Empire has already launched an attack, then where are they?" Qi Jian knocked on the table again and again, feeling very annoyed. "To what extent has the defense preparation of the planet Lundili reached?"

"Admiral Trench has arrived at the planet Lundili, and all warships and defense systems have entered combat mode." Cheng Shitao replied, "The only question left now is where the enemy is. I have asked Admiral Trench to expand the scope of the exploration."

Severance Tann suddenly said: "Keep expanding! Expand the scope of exploration to several uninhabited star systems around the Rendili star system!"

Cheng Shitao nodded, "Okay. I'll make the arrangements."

……

On the afternoon of August 8, at the command center of the planet Lundili.

"I need... the reconnaissance troops to report... every hour! Tsk tsk tsk tsk..." Admiral Trench stroked the claws on the side of his mouth with both hands, and tapped his palm lightly with a pointer in the other hand, "Hyperspace outpost, report... every 10 minutes. Tsk tsk tsk tsk..."

Sometimes his actions always make people feel that having six hands is willful. "Yes!" A naval officer of the Principality of Dawn saluted and immediately made arrangements.

"Hmm..." Admiral Trench narrowed his eyes, looked at the holographic combat star map, and fell into deep thought.

The planet of Rendili has been heavily fortified since Rendili Interstellar Dynamics betrayed the Galactic Republic and joined the Fourth Civilization. The outermost part of this line of defense is a large number of hyperspace blockers.

These hyperspace blockers first block all the main hyperspace routes connected to the planet. All ships that want to enter the planet of Rendili must first leave the hyperspace in front of the hyperspace blocker, and only after applying will they be temporarily authorized to enter the blocker range. Then they will make an ultra-short distance jump to the periphery of the planet.

In order to prevent enemy fleets from emerging from some temporary hyperspace channels, more than 10 billion blockers have been deployed on the periphery of the entire galaxy, almost surrounding the entire galaxy.

Coupled with the deployment of more than 70000 hyperspace outposts in the surrounding area, it can be said that any fluctuations will be difficult to escape monitoring.

These outer defense facilities can buy at least three to seven days for the planet of Rendili and make it impossible for the enemy to escape.

Then inside the galaxy, there are up to 150000 vulture robot fighters equipped with special reconnaissance equipment patrolling. These robot fighters do not have hyperspace engines, and rely entirely on sublight speed engines to slowly fly to the patrol position. Anyway, they are all robots, so time does not matter at all.

After that, monitoring and defense facilities were built on those planets.

There are a total of 9 planets in the Rendili system, and Rendili is the third one. The 6 outer planets have monitoring equipment and even certain orbital defense weapons.

Finally, there is the final defense system around the planet Rendili.

It can be said that with this chain of defenses, the planet of Lundili is completely indestructible. It is impossible to imagine that any fleet is capable of conquering this place! And with the combined effect of these defense systems, the planet of Lundili will always have sufficient preparation time.

But the problem is... the enemy is there...

Admiral Trench looked at the galaxy's defense system over and over again, thinking over and over again.

Suddenly, his eyes fell on the vulture robot fighters that were patrolling the galaxy with sublight engines. His eyes suddenly shrank, and he slammed the table and shouted: "Not good! The Imperial Fleet is not attacking through the hyperspace channel! Notify the Dawn Planet immediately!!"

……

At the same time, in an unknown space, an extremely large fleet was sailing silently.

The fleet was extremely large, and all of them were capital ships, with a terrifying number of 700 ships! At least half of them were powerful Imperial-class Star Destroyers, and there were also warships such as the Tracer-class aircraft carrier and the Victory II-class Star Destroyer. There were even Commander II-class dreadnoughts, and an extremely large flat battleship - the Executor-class Super Star Destroyer!
On the luxurious bridge of this Executor-class Super Star Destroyer, a man in black armor and a black cloak stood quietly in the center. Under the completely enclosed helmet, heavy breathing could be heard...

“Hu…chi…hu…chi…hu…chi…” (End of this chapter)