2769, The Hammer That Broke the Balance
Over the past month, the Kingdom of Dawn had settled into calm across multiple fronts, with no major moves. The only place where military operations continued was on the outskirts of Chiss territory, where the fleet led by Sefrans-Tann was still locked in fierce combat with the Kilik Swarm.
However, the Galactic Empire knew nothing of what was happening in the Unknown Regions, so from their perspective, the Kingdom of Dawn appeared to have lowered its banners and ceased hostilities.
Even the ground fighting on Dantooine had stalled after the Kingdom of Dawn broke through and captured Black Mountain Base with overwhelming momentum, without pressing their advantage.
Lieutenant General Zel-Johnson, the current supreme operational commander in the Dantooine theater, also noted in his report that judging by the total volume of supplies recently transported by the Kingdom of Dawn, their ground forces were indeed constrained by supply shortages and had no way to launch another large-scale offensive like the previous one.
That was true enough.
After all, the Kingdom of Dawn had only been reinforcing Dantooine for a short time, and on this remote planet with its obscure hyperspace routes, supplies had to be accumulated gradually. Once enough supplies had been stockpiled, they launched an offensive. When the supplies ran out, they stopped and defended. Then supplies accumulated again, and they launched another counterattack. The cycle repeated itself.
But what was different this time was that the Kingdom of Dawn had four terrifying Golden Beetles. Carried by those rounded golden transport aircraft, they appeared and vanished unpredictably, harassing Galactic Empire positions everywhere. At the same time, the Caladanian forces were watching like tigers. Rather than launching large-scale sneak attacks, they broke their units into smaller groups and waged guerrilla warfare over a vast