The Empire begins with the Fourth Scourge.

2538: Eye Storm

Gideon Tarkin immediately dispatched a large number of spaceships to explore along the hyperspace channel between the Kashyyyk system and the Hutt space, trying to find traces of the battleship Destroyer.

However, he was destined to be disappointed. General Grievous's battleship Destroyer seemed to have disappeared, and he could not find it at all.

Not only that, but the Eye of Palpatine was not found either. No matter how the research team adjusted the settings of the remote control system, they even tried to use the energy of a star to enhance the power of the remote control, but all failed.

The Eye of Palpatine also seemed to have disappeared, and no one knew where it was. No response, no trace, nothing.

Gideon Tarkin now wanted to drag out every member of this scientific research team and skin them alive, but although he was angry, he knew that there was no other way but to let them continue to suffer.

He knew very well how difficult it was to lock onto the Eye of Palpatine, because in addition to its own excellent concealment performance, it also had another feature - it was equipped with a more advanced warp engine!!

Just as Darth Vader once used the warp engine to raid the Rendili galaxy, the Galactic Empire now also attaches great importance to this means of superluminal navigation in addition to hyperspace navigation, and has also conducted very in-depth research. As a warship controlled by AI, the Eye of Palpatine is naturally equipped with a warp engine.

What does this mean? It means that the Eye of Palpatine, which has no living creatures on the battleship, can use the warp engine to cross the entire galaxy without anyone being able to track it and appear in another place!

And you have no idea what this super AI is thinking, what it wants, what its goals are, so you can't predict what it is going to do.

And such a super battleship has enough firepower to burn a planet into glass!

But what else can be done? The Eye of Palpatine, as the name suggests, is a project that Emperor Palpatine personally pays attention to, and this project is also supervised by Wilhuff Tarkin himself. At that time, Wilhuff Tarkin was accidentally framed by Orson Krennic on the DS-1 project, and Palpatine dropped him on the Eye of Palpatine project to protect him.

Not only could it allow Wilhuff Tarkin to temporarily stay away from the center of the storm, but the achievement of building the Eye of Palpatine could also offset the guilt that had been framed on him before.

So it can be said that the Eye of Palpatine is actually deeply tied to the interests of the Tarkin family. Once they lose this super battleship, the Tarkin family is likely to lose the trust of His Majesty the Emperor!

Gideon Tarkin could only report the incident to his brother, Wilhuff Tarkin, as soon as possible. At the same time, he also reported to the Imperial military, claiming that Palpatine's Eye had entered combat mode, that it had locked onto the battleship Destroy, and was pursuing it resolutely, without stopping until death.

Wilhuff Tarkin had no choice but to continue to conceal the current situation. At the same time, he sent an escort fleet to send the entire technical team that developed the Eye of Palpatine, a total of 4000 scientists and technicians, to the planet Bonta.

Gideon Tarkin even directly implemented militarized management of this team. If there was any failure with the Eye of Palpatine, then every one of them, even their families, would be implicated!

At the same time, in order to prevent the news of Palpatine's Eye getting out of control from being known to the Kingdom of Dawn, Gideon Tarkin asked the Imperial Intelligence Agency to cooperate in the intelligence blockade. On the other hand, he began to let Garrosh Tarkin seriously consider the plan to attack the planet Lothal.

……

At the same time, in the eastern part of the galaxy, on the planet Boz Pity.

There is a military base of the Galactic Empire here. Normally, this military base has basically no strategic value and usually only serves as an emergency supply and hyperspace monitoring base.

However, today, a very strong hyperspace fluctuation came in. After the monitoring personnel received the alarm, they immediately received an authorization message indicating that the jump was made by friendly forces.

Then, an extremely huge warship appeared here like a ghost.

Seeing the huge figure on the sensor, the base commander frowned. He pressed the communication button and said, "This is Boz-Pitt Military Base. Please explain your purpose."

However, the only response he got was the rustling sound of electricity. The commander frowned, tapped the microphone, and continued: "This is Boz-Pitt Military Base. Please explain your purpose."

[…Listen, command. Assist, fight…] A hoarse, low, electronic synthesized voice came from the other end of the communication. Following it, there was an authorization order equivalent to the governor level of a star region.

"Uh... Yes, sir. But we don't have much military power here. There are only four CR-70 frigates..." said the base commander.

[Take off, frigate, assist, fight...] The huge battleship was still repeating this sentence, and it flew straight towards the planet.

"Okay. I'll send the frigate out to join your formation right away, sir," the commander replied.

[You, come too. Everyone, come.] said the huge battleship.

"Can we confirm with headquarters?" the commander asked tentatively.

[Come here immediately. Follow my orders.] The voice of the huge battleship suddenly became distorted and strange.

The commander was in a trance, then said, "Okay, I'll get everyone in the base to come over."

He turned around and gave the order: "Everyone in the base, get out! Take off on the spacecraft!"

No one in the base was sure what was going on, but there was a huge battleship here, and the other party was a high-level star zone governor. In addition, the commander of their own base had also spoken, so of course they could only obey.

So the forces of the base, including 4 frigates, 20 fighters, and 11 cargo ships, all took off and came to the side of the giant battleship that looked like a meteorite. As they approached, their battleship systems were suddenly taken over, and they couldn't even control the battleship to turn!

At the same time, the Eye of Palpatine suddenly emitted an invisible electromagnetic wave in all directions! Under the continuous influence of the electromagnetic wave, those who were in a mess in the spacecraft suddenly quieted down one by one.

"Comply, order." The base commander murmured, and he personally walked to the control console of the CR-70 frigate he was on, and controlled the warship to fly towards the gradually unfolding hangar platform of the Eye of Palpatine.

"Comply, order." A V-wing fighter pilot also murmured and followed in his fighter.

Everyone here, as long as they come near the Eye of Palpatine and are affected by the electromagnetic waves, will be forcibly brainwashed by this electromagnetic wave and turned into zombies who can only obey the orders of the Eye of Palpatine!

After loading all the personnel and spacecraft into its huge hangar, Palpatine's Eye turned around and started the hyperspace engine.

On the battleship's bridge, the giant mechanical eyeball with a diameter of more than ten meters was still twitching and trembling. This time, it was repeating a sentence:

[Destroy the Destruction... Destroy the Destruction... Destroy the Destruction...]

……

The news that General Grievous and the USS Doom had encountered the Galactic Empire's super battleships reached the Kingdom of Dawn immediately. Chief of Staff Qi Jian immediately convened a high-level military operations meeting, and this meeting also specially invited the Minister of Engineering of the Kingdom of Dawn, who was also an authority on battleship design and manufacturing, the Salarian Arroyo Barro.

"This is the combat report sent back by General Grievous, and there is also a battle video. However, due to the long distance, we can't see much in this video...but the combat record data on the Destroyer can reveal a lot of things." Qi Jian raised the memory in his hand and projected the contents onto the projector in the center of the venue.

"A super battleship that looks like an asteroid and is extremely large... and it took less than 10 minutes to penetrate the deflector shield of the battleship Destroy? At the same time, there was also very strong electromagnetic interference and Trojan virus invasion. During the battle, the opponent was suspected of controlling the battleships of the Galactic Empire..." Matt Horner read out the intelligence with an extremely solemn expression. He folded his arms, leaned back and fell into deep thought.

"Is the Titan battleship, the Messenger of God, capable of defeating it?" Qi Jian turned his head and asked.

"It's difficult," Arroyo-Barro said. "Even according to preliminary estimates, the size of this super battleship is about 20 times that of the Titan battleship. If the Galactic Empire is not crazy and installed an outdated energy system on it, the energy supply provided by this size alone is not comparable to that of the Titan battleship. I think that even a doomsday weapon would need multiple shots to cause enough damage to this super battleship... As for whether it can be sunk, it is unknown."

General Ling Liang also said: "If this super battleship is allowed to wreak havoc in the East Territory, I can't think of any force that can stop it. Don't forget that the Galactic Empire has also dispatched a main fleet, which is right there."

"This is also what I find very strange. First of all, why is it the East Territory? Does it make sense to deploy heavy troops there? The planets of Felucia, Pike, Laxus... these core members of the former Confederation of Independent Systems are simply two-faced. They surrender when the fleet comes and rebel when the fleet leaves. It's not worth it to burn their planets into glass." Qi Jian frowned.

"Could it be the planet Lothal?" The speaker was Volgograd-Canidi, the governor of the Model star zone.

"Star Gate?" Ling Liang also fell into deep thought.

"Does the Empire want to force us to have a fleet decisive battle in the eastern part of the Milky Way?" Qi Jian asked, "That doesn't make sense. Since they know that we have a stargate on Losar, they should understand that our logistics supply is much more convenient than theirs. It is impossible to guarantee the safety of their large amount of supplies to support the attack on Losar."

"What if we take the Mon Calamari and this asteroid-class super battleship into consideration?" Ling Liang looked up and said.

"If that's the case, I'm worried that we will lose the Jiwen people." Qi Jian said, "Because the Jiwen people will think that Your Majesty placed them on the planet Losar on purpose to let them take the blame."

"If even the Jiwen people rebel, you can imagine how chaotic the Eastern Territory will be. I'm afraid that a unified regime will not emerge there in the next thousand years." Ling Liang shook his head.

Qi Jian knocked on the table and said, "Then we only have one choice - how to fight against this super battleship. Do we need to concentrate the power of all three Titan battleships we have to attack?"

"This level of mobilization is likely to cause loopholes in our defense lines in other directions. For example, if Darth Vader's Death Squadron seizes the opportunity to break through the border, even the planet Fangduo may be recaptured." Cheng Shitao shook his head and said.

"Indeed, without the support of the Titan battleships, each of our battle fronts will suffer greater losses in battle due to the disadvantage in the number of battleships. It's not that we cannot accept failure, but we cannot accept losses." said Daphne Clement, the current Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Dawn.

The scene fell into a long silence again, and everyone had a serious expression.

Indeed, the sudden appearance of such an almost invincible super battleship brought unparalleled pressure to the Kingdom of Dawn.

However, Matt Horner stood up and said, "Gentlemen, I think it is you who are in the wrong thinking."

"Do you have any good ideas, Marshal Horner?" Qi Jian nodded and asked.

Matt Horner shook his head and said, "I don't have any brilliant ideas. I just want to remind you of a question - why do we have to use super battleships to fight super battleships? Who stipulated this?"

Everyone present looked at each other, and their expressions clearly said: Isn’t it?

Matt Horner took a deep breath and said in a loud voice: "Think about our current fleet structure! There are Hell Angels as the vanguard of close combat, which can absorb a lot of damage; there are Disaster and Paladin class particle lances to provide ultra-long-range firepower output at galaxy distances; there are Typhoon class phase cruise missiles to provide direct damage through shields; there are Revelation class battleships as the backbone; there are Doomsday Battlefield class to damage the energy system of enemy ships; there are Dunov class to assist our shields and reactors; there are swarm drones of Archon class aircraft carriers; there are front-line link command of Blue Sky class command ships; there are Star Child class repair drone motherships for battlefield maintenance; there are Double Blade class electronic warfare cruisers for electronic warfare... and many other warships, all performing their duties on the battlefield..."

He looked around and said, "With the Stargate to solve the logistical problems caused by such a complex fleet, isn't this an invincible fleet? Why do we still have to rely on super battleships to solve the problem?" (End of this chapter)