Death of Mal-Tuk (Part 2)
The appearance of the Planetary Shield dealt Mal-Tuk a crushing blow!
When he had decided to force an assault on Arkania Planet, there had been one prerequisite: he had to capture Arkania Planet within a short period of time. Only then could he redeploy his fleet as quickly as possible and use Arkania Planet as a new base.
With Arkania Planet's logistical support, he could fight Thrawn's fleet to the death.
Because even if he could only obtain partial supplies from Arkania Planet, the Commerce Guild Fleet under his command would still be stronger than Thrawn's battered fleet.
Arkania Planet was a mining world. Generally speaking, such planets could not possibly have a Planetary Shield installed; it was merely a resource planet. Even if it had some factories, they existed only to process materials locally and save transportation costs. The planet also had reserves of weapons and military supplies, as well as armories, but their primary purpose was to suppress miner uprisings.
The results of the reconnaissance and scans conducted by scout craft sent to Arkania Planet earlier had confirmed this. The planet indeed had no Planetary Shield, nor any defensive facilities such as armed space stations.
Therefore, Mal-Tuk believed that capturing Arkania would take no more than three days. Once his elite Marines launched their landing operation, they could swiftly destroy the planet's highest administrative authority. They could even incite a miner uprising, allowing those oppressed miners to join them in rebelling against the Empire's rule.
Among Mal-Tuk's Marines were more than 2,000 elite Caladanian warriors and 100 Indjori warriors. These were all elite forces ranked among the best in the Milky Way Galaxy! The Imperial Guard units assembled to suppress the miners were simply no match for them.
But now, everything had turned