The Force Wills - Chapter 124

(A/N: Suggest listening to your fav Star Wars space battle music whilst reading. I suggest Samuel Kim Music: 'Clone Wars Season 7 Cinematic Soundtrack Mix' on YouTube for best results. Listening at the 10:15 mark is especially moving near the end of the chapter :-)

“Are we really doing this, commander?”

I tore my eyes away from the forward viewscreen as the Separatist Dawn cruised through hyper in formation with the rest of the CIS fleet.

Hunter had taken a place at the ship’s helm for the coming battle, as it would look rather suspicious for Thalor to be actually flying his own ship. The specialized clone had so far shown he was decent at it in simulations, especially after a recalibration of the interface.

“Walk me through the chain of events if we don’t do this, Hunter? What would you imagine the CIS fleet would do if the Dawn doesn’t open fire when the battle is joined?”

His fists clenched on the helm station and he didn’t answer, but I could see in his eyes the realization and the conflict taking place. “We die under every gun in the CIS fleet to no effect on the outcome of the battle.”

“Precisely. We must act as a loyal Separatist crew, even if that means firing our guns, torpedoes and Vulture starfighters at our own fleet and potentially killing them. Know that if we weren’t here, the same would happen anyway.”

“We must choose our moment carefully,” Crosshair said from the weapons station.

“Yes, understand that the Republic Navy and my master has not been idle in just waiting for this fleet to land on Eriadu’s doorstep. They have a few surprises of their own to deliver to our dear Admiral Trench,” I said with a satisfied grin.

“Will it be enough to deal with that dreadnought?” Wrecker asked with a worried frown.

“Maybe, it will depend on how well General Skywalker and Brigadier Tarkin can maneuver the defensive fleet. If we give Trench too much time to study our forces then he’ll figure it out and we may lose the opportunity of destroying one of the few dreads in the southern battlespaces.”

I looked at the CIS fleet again, feeling the weight of the forces that would collide within less than an hour.

76 ships including the dreadnought, combined they had enough firepower to lay waste to entire star systems and this was just a single attack fleet. Peeled off from the main wall of battle waiting in Bith.

Anakin had briefed me on what the navy had waiting to greet this fleet and the general plan he and Tarkin had devised.

Naturally, no plan would survive first contact with the enemy and we would just have to ‘play’ by ear.

First to consider was my own situation in this Lucrehulk. The Dawn had an alternative weapons layout than what I generally considered normal. It had 24 heavy quad turbolasers as opposed to the standard 51 quad turbolasers, four twin heavy turbolasers, 185 point defense batteries and 400 twin heavy laser cannons, with the final touch being eight capital class torpedo launchers. A further 1500 Vulture droids could be launched out of the hangars if the battle lasted long enough.

It was clearly a response to survive in the torpedo and bomber heavy Yularen-Tano doctrine.

For the Dawn to survive my own doctrine long enough to matter, it was going to require some tweaking to tactics that I knew was Thalor’s usual bread and butter. It would raise some eyebrows from Trench, but I hoped that the harch would be too busy worrying about the Republic fleet as a whole.

“DT, is everything ready?”

“All tactical paradigms have been loaded to our forces, commander.”

“We’ve done all we can then, our lot has been cast.”

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Anakin stood in a transformed Briefing One, which was now Command One.

The projective silvery haze under his feet was the only visual clue that he was not truly standing unprotected in the orbital space of Tarastra and its many moons.

Surrounding him was the fleet that had been assembled together to meet the coming attack. It was far fewer than he’d like, but he understood that he was just the outermost layer of the defense. It would be his job to make sure that the enemy didn’t make it beyond the orbit of the gas giant and penetrate into the inner system.

To do that he had just sixteen Venators, twelve Acclamators, Resolute, Tempest and Avenger, with nine Bastion cruisers in support.

All of which he had arrayed in a wall formation over one of the outer moons of Tarastra, which the locals called Velthara.

He had chosen it for no other reason in that its orbital period around the gas giant was currently facing the common emergence point from Bith.

Yet it seemed fate and the Force had decided that the battle should have a beautiful backdrop, for Velthara was known as the Ghost Veil among the spacers of Eriadu. The moon was enveloped in a thin, shimmering atmosphere that its own gravity could barely hold onto. It was perpetually cloaked in silvery, shimmering mists which refracted the distant light from Eriadu’s sun. The mists were the result of a mix of volatile mineral deposits deep within the moon’s crust that was brought to the surface by Tarastra and the other moon's gravitational influence.

“General? It’s time.”

Anakin tore his eyes away from the haunting beauty below. “Yes, I know,” he nodded at the holo of Brigadier Tarkin standing next to him.

The theater commander would’ve liked nothing better than to truly be at the front lines, but Anakin had pulled the ruthless card of logic and military prudence. If his defense fleet failed, then Tarkin had to be there to command the rest of the system and sector’s defenses.

He raised his hand manipulating the holo controls at his side, “Skywalker to Task Force, launch fighters.”

The first ready wave of 456 fighters emerged as the segmented dorsal doors of every Venator briefly opened. It was a mix of Z95s with only three ARC170 squadrons in between.

Every fighter at this scale soon enough became like a tiny star of light and energy that zoomed out, combining into a cloud that streamed out at thousands of Gs acceleration.

Soon his view was filled with numerous large holo crosshairs which flashed green, allowing him to keep track of every fighter with a single glance even without magnifying the view. Each squadron and fighter signaling their readiness and status.

With a gesture of his hand, he selected half of his Venators, then twisted with the other hand in another holo control.

In moments, each Venator captain received his relayed order, interpreted by the encrypted network.

The ships twisted on the spot, presenting their ventral sides to where the enemy would be coming from.

“Mass hyper signatures detected. Here they come,” Gideon reported.

One moment, nothing…

The next, the CIS fleet came streaming out of hyper in a perfect formation that seemed to resemble the design of a Venator. 

Munificents formed the bulk of the outer edges, Recusants on either side, whilst the three Lucrehulks were in the rear and at the core of everything was the Providence-class dreadnought Invincible.

“Skywalker to Task Force. You know the job. We can’t let that fleet penetrate deeper into the system. The line is drawn here! Fighters, break and attack!”

Every Republic fighter streamed forward at maximum acceleration, their individual targets designated by local commanders.

Both sides' effective ranges were closing steadily together.

“Not a single enemy fighter launch,” commented Tarkin. “They must want clean space.”

“Less tracking problems for their mass missile launch.”

“They must know we know about the missile Recusant, so why-”

Anakin held up a finger to interrupt, “Trench wants to see what we’ve cooked up to counter it. If there’s one thing Admiral Yularen told me about this enemy, is that he is a ruthless military genius, thrives on aggressive tactical maneuvers. Very clever, but has a tendency to get caught up in himself and his own ego when things go his way.”

The sheer destiny of it. That Yularen had been in a Jedi escorted Republic Judicial Force and had fought against a corporate fleet blockading Malastare less than twenty years ago, which Trench had been commanding. 

Now thanks to Ahsoka, they knew he was the commander of this fleet. Speaking of which…

‘Ready on my end, master, beginning now.’ She said through the Bond.

Through the Force, he felt the slightest touch and then the blanket of her Battle Meditation settled on the entire Republic fleet.

For the slightest of moments, he basked in its reassuring presence before focusing back to the moment at hand.

“Ranges closing…”

The distant enemy fleet was highlighted by the command room’s systems, zooming in and holos were overlaid as targeting emissions erupted and energy spikes were detected.

A storm of concussion missile fire erupted from twelve Recusants, bearing down on the incoming Republic fighters.

Anakin blinked in slight momentary disbelief as the command holo computer displayed the total to him - 11,968.

Visually, in Command One, it was a spectacular display of blue streaks that spiraled up from the enemy fleet and screamed towards his fighters.

Anyone sane would not charge directly into that amount of missiles bearing down on you in a fighter, yet the pilots of the Republic task force did just that. Buoyed by both the inexplicable surge in their spirits and morale, the tiny hints and instinct of what to do, to not fear the enemy and their weapons, and finally the knowledge of what they had to counter the terrifying number of missiles.

“Furor squad, you are a go. All pilots, fire at will!” Anakin commanded at the precise moment.

Two events happened at once.

The two Furor’s charged out of hyperspace, their pinpoint emergence putting them on either flank of the advancing Republic fighters.

The fighters in turn fired missiles of their own.

The Furor’s immediately began blanketing the enemy missile swarm with every erg of jamming power they could produce, whilst the Republic concussion missiles spread themselves out into carefully calculated positions, creating an advancing wall targeting the CIS missile swarm.

Anakin had not been the only one to devise and advance a solution to the new Separatist weapon. A number of vetted think tanks with direction from Captain Wilhuff Tarkin had spent days working out what could be done with what was readily on hand or which could be made given the time available.

And so the Proton Wall had been devised.

Thousands of CIS missiles had already spun out of control thanks to the jamming from the two Furors and every fighter’s EW systems, but it was the simultaneous detonation of 912 missiles with their proton warheads given precisely adjusted fuse timing and geometries that created the true defense.

Mere seconds before the two missile swarms would’ve merged and passed each other, the concussion missile explosions sent expanding cones of proton particles outward at near light speed that interlaced with each other.

In mere nanoseconds before Anakin could even process it happening, nearly two thirds of the enemy missiles ran into the expanding wall of protons and detonated.

Moments later, space was lit up with rapid fire blaster bolts that tore into the remaining enemy missiles that had made it through the Proton Wall as it lost cohesion over time.  

More missiles died and lost locks as the Furors swept their jamming across the survivors.

Anakin winced as enemy missiles, despite all the odds, began finding targets and detonating on his fighters.

Most managed to get their shields into double-front mode where survival was possible, but the missiles themselves had enough smarts to always jink or try and go for the aft section of a fighter.

Eight Z95 fighters exploded, disintegrating into a ball of brief blue flame as volatiles cooked off and debris expanded outward in a forward cone, travelling with all the velocity the fighter had towards the enemy fleet.

It was in all military calculations a fantastic result in the face of the odds.

“Let’s not give Trench time to process that. Skywalker to all commands and squadrons, launch wave two!”

Even as another wave of 456 fighters were launched into space, the Republic fleet began its torpedo attacks.

From the first fighter group alone 896 torpedoes streaked out towards the enemy, whilst the Republic fleet filled space with anti-capital long range torpedoes as fast their launchers could cycle.

Anakin didn’t even bother looking at the computer readout for just how many torpedoes were now streaking through the void towards the enemy. The sight of it rendered in the command room was awe inspiring.

‘We’re being ordered to launch Vultures.’ Ahsoka informed him. ‘Expect another missile swarm, he’s going to test how well we can deploy the Proton Wall, see if he can’t sneak it through.’

1800 Vulture droids detached from the hulls of the enemy or were launched from the bays of the Lucrehulks.

“That’s a rather conservative launch,” Anakin muttered.

‘You’ve surprised him, he won’t go with his usual aggressive tactics. He wants to know what our cards are first before he tries to roll us over. Incoming torpedoes!’

The CIS fleet fired their own salvo in response, meeting the challenge of their opponents.

He considered for a moment using Fighter Group Two’s Proton Wall in combination with Group One’s interception fire.

No, he needed to save the defense to keep his fighters alive.

“Group One, intercept as enemy torpedoes pass you.”

Space lit up again in directed streams of brilliant blue dots of light that stuttered and swept.

He watched the enemy torpedo count plummet, even as his own torpedo count suffered as the Vulture droids also began their long range forward interception.

Mass concussion missile fire emerged from the Republic fighters, this time targeting the opposing Vulture droids.

The range was now so close that kill counts began racketing up.

Small flashes of distant light heralding the death of Vulture droid and Z95 fighter.

Then the two opposing fighter formations merged and began a mass dogfight of such scale that it would have potentially been a disaster without Ahsoka’s battle meditation to keep morale, squadron cohesion and the danger of target saturation at bay.

The Republic fleet now fired their own anti-torpedo missiles as the range on the incoming weapons reached close enough for proper targeting solutions.

He watched the projected symbols for each AT missile crept towards their torpedo target.

First dozens, then hundreds of enemy torpedoes died over seconds in a long stippling wall of fire.

Mere seconds later the point defenses on both fleets erupted and the space around the Republic fleet became a maelstrom of plasma flak and conventional blaster fire.

An Acclamator on the right flank of the formation suffered hit and after hit, bright flashes of protons hammering the shields.

“Bastions!”

The nine shield repairing cruisers were already springing into action. The emanations were invisible to the naked eye, but rendered by Command One for him to clearly see.

The Acclamator bathed in fire as torpedo after torpedo erupted and slammed into the shields.

It seemed as if every enemy weapon that had made it through on the right flank had decided to target this one ship.

Anakin watched as the shield readouts from the Acclamator dipped then rose again, dipped and rose.

“Come on, come on!” he gritted his teeth.

The Venators and Acclamators nearby intensified their defensive fire, rushing to swat more and more incoming torpedoes off their targeted comrade.

So intense was their zeal that they let a few torpedoes through to hit their own shields.  

Finally, the wave was over and the last enemy weapon died to a sweeping burst of point defense fire from a neighboring Acclamator.

The original Acclamator, which only had a serial number for a name, AV3434, was clearly still there.

It had a scorched hull on the ventral side, numerous points of exterior damage that had bit into the hull armor all over from bleed through as its shields had fluctuated, but it was still intact and had only suffered a loss of 30% of its exterior facing weaponry.

‘Ashoka…’

‘I see it, master. Now the question remains what is Trench going to do when presented with the true potential of Bastion cruisers working together.’

Republic torpedoes arrived among the CIS fleet and a repeat of the deadly game was played out. Torpedoes died en masse with overwhelming defensive fire from the Recusants but the penetration aids and EW torpedoes helped entire batches make it through.

A Munificent was bracketed by one such flight of torpedoes and detonated simultaneously on the shields, stripping it completely before two more under the control of the R2 unit pounced on the opportunity to drive them straight into the ventral side.

Its death was heralded by a huge flash of light and an expanding shockwave of debris and energy that wiped out three squadrons of Vulture droids which had been kept close to aid in the defensive fire.

Another Recusant and Munificent died simultaneously to similar attacks.

“Three down against one damaged, in that exchange,” Brigadier Tarkin commented with satisfaction. “Those Bastions are amazing.”

Trench’s response to the lopsided exchange was to release another ‘missile massacre’ from his Recusants directly towards the entangled Fighter Group One who was by this point crossing into the enemy fleet’s exterior perimeter and threatening to intermingle at close range with the capital ships.

“Now that is the Trench I know,” commented Admiral Yularen in disgust from the Resolute bridge, his holo popping up in Command One.

Fighter Group One barely had time to react given the close range the concussion missiles had to travel.

That area of space became a blurred mess as last ditch countermeasures and defensive blaster fire erupted, not just from the Republic fighters but also from the Vultures as their own side’s missiles grabbed any target lock it could in the chaotic mess of the EM spectrum.

Spoofed missiles turned around or flung themselves into empty space or were even turned around to detonate against the shields of the ship that had launched them.

It was a massacre of both sides and only 150 fighters from Group One survived to fly into point blank range with the enemy fleet and began delivering torpedoes when they could and evading flak fire.

Fighter Group Two reached range and another round of torpedo fire erupted from the entire Republic fleet.

Anakin grabbed a set of holo controls, taking direct control of the entire torpedo swarm.

He divided them into two groups and sent one on an upward trajectory on a course that would plunge down on the CIS fleet, whilst the other would approach from below and aim for their ventral facings.

Within moments the separation was clear on sensors as the two clouds of torpedoes diverged, he also gave three hundred the specific job of going after the Invincible.

The CIS fleet responded with a standard torpedo volley in response, but also added another Recusant missile swarm to go after Fighter Group Two.

He winced as he saw Fighter Group One’s status.

“Group One, break off and microjump, you’re combat ineffective,” he ordered.

Thankfully, they obeyed and both Furors who’d also survived so far, shot upward and blurred into the precalculated escape hyper jumps.

They didn’t leave without giving the Separatists their regards, as ninety point blank torpedoes left in their wake destroyed a Recusant-II and a Munificent.

A Proton Wall was launched and withered away the missile swarm, but without the presence of the Furors, the difference was immediately evident as almost six squadrons worth of fighters were damaged or destroyed.

The Republic fleet began firing AT missiles at the fresh incoming volley.  

“Bastion wing, they’ll be targeting multiple ships throughout the fleet in this attack wave. Triage your repairs appropriately.”

“Roger, General.”

Both opposing fleets point defense erupted near simultaneously as they contested and sought to parry the weapons they had flung at each other. EW emissions from Resolute, Tempest and Avenger and a dozen other Venators who had the latest hardware upgrades, were added to the effort.    

On the left flank, an Acclamator’s shields withered and the ship died in a flash of light and expanding debris, despite the Bastions attempt to save it.

The same happened to a Venator in the upper row of the fleet’s center as multiple enemy torpedoes bracketed it.

Three Munificents and two Recusant-II’s died from the combined barrage of torpedoes from Group Two and the Republic fleet.

The Invincible also suffered multiple direct hits from torpedoes that snuck through, but the dreadnought’s shields seemed to hold and shrug them off with negligible drain.

‘Master, we’re being ordered to launch tri-fighters,’ Ahsoka warned.

‘He’s anticipating Group Three’s launch. Let’s not disappoint him.’

‘He’s also going to charge his fleet into us.’

‘I would too, since we’re proving to be better at torpedo dueling and he’s still outside the safety of the mass shadow.’

“Group Three launch!”

This fighter group was completely made up of Z95s and screamed into space as 300 tri-fighters were launched by the enemy.

“Bomber group, begin your runs.”

Y-Wing squadrons surged out of hyperspace from their orbits of the system, launching their torpedoes on the flanks of the enemy fleet at almost point blank range.

The CIS fleet erupted into a cacophony of defensive fire and the tri-fighters surged towards the bombers. A mass concussion missile volley also streamed out from the Recusant-IIs, targeting not just the Y-Wings but also trying to intercept the torpedoes.

The bombers surged through space as they engaged their hyperdrives again, leaving havoc and exploding Munificents and Recusant-IIs in their wake.

One of the squadrons had also targeted the Lucrehulks and Anakin winced as he watched Ahsoka’s ship take three torpedoes on its port shields.

‘Ahsoka, are you all right?’

‘Relax, master. It’s a relative scratch under the circumstances.’

Trench was not one to endure this lying down, his entire fleet’s engines ramped to full acceleration, driving its formation for the center of the Republic fleet and the safety of the mass shadow.

“He wants to turn this into a gun duel.”

“We’ll lose a lot of ships before we can destroy the Invincible in a conventional battle,” Yularen warned.

Anakin nodded, his hands danced on the holocontrols and he layed in a course for the fleet to pull back deeper into Tarastra’s gravity well on thrusters only, whilst keeping their hull orientation towards the enemy for maximum firepower on target.

“Bastions you are to remain outside enemy gun range at all costs.”

With a gesture and tap of the holo he sent another volley of torpedo fire as the Republic fleet moved in retreat.

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“Recall our Vulture droids, launch two fresh squadrons, have them group on our port side for extra point defense capacity.”

My eyes glared at the giant backside of the Invincible as the Dawn advanced in formation. The battle had so far gone quite well, but that was going to change as the ranges tightened. The Republic fleet was retreating far slower than the CIS fleet was advancing. Extreme gun range would be reached in less than four minutes.

“Tech, what’s the progress on contingency delta?”

“Seven Recusant-IIs remain, sixty percent complete.”

“Can you go any faster?”

The genius clone shook his head, “Any faster and we risk discovery.”

“Torpedoes coming into range,” Hunter warned.

“All point defense and Vultures open fire!”

The Dawn almost became like a sun as her 160 point defense guns and every twin heavy laser cannon that could be brought to bear against the torpedoes erupted. Added to this was six squadrons of Vulture droids that I wielded as an active secondary shield that I positioned around the ship. Our higher speed also definitely added both help and hindrance.

It added another complication for the Republic torpedoes but also affected the Dawn’s PD accuracy.

The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was now fighting against the weapon systems and tactics that I had partially helped to design and that if I wasn’t careful, could end up killing me.

The Dawn shuddered as a torpedo made it through to hit the ventral shields, in the process wiping out twenty Vultures from the residual proton wave deflection.

“All torpedoes targeted at us are down,” reported Hunter.

“How many of our Vultures are close to the Invincible?”

“Nine have been folded into defensive squadrons in that sector,” DT22 answered.

My hand slammed on the armrest of the captain’s chair, this was going too slowly!

The forward edges of the CIS fleet had reached gun range, and turbolaser shots began being traded.

“Trench to fleet, Formation Sigma One.”

Frak!

Sigma One called for the rear and middle elements of the fleet to turn and speed ahead of the central core formed around the Invincible, essentially molding the entire CIS fleet against breadth and height of the Republic wall formation.

“Hunter, bring us to the Invincible’s port side, quickly.”

“Going to max burn, Tech, make sure the Vulture’s keep up with it.”

“Commander…” Crosshair’s tone was clear.

“Crosshair, this has to count for something. The Invincible’s shields need to be weakened much more before we can move, otherwise any move we make will be pointless.”

I leaned back in the chair, returning to a complete battle meditation. My awareness surging with the ten of thousands of souls across the Republic fleet, and the hundreds spread among each ship of the CIS.

A last mass wave of Republic fighters were launched as the majority of the Venators were buttoned up and reorientated for the coming fight.

There was a brief pause and as one, Anakin had the entire core Republic fleet launch an alpha strike with their turbolasers.

One moment there was a Munificent, and the next it was just an expanding fiery cloud of debris and expanding gasses.

Not to be outdone, Trench fired back with the core of his own fleet and the Invincible’s guns spoke for the first time.

The targeted Venator’s shields held for the slightest of moments, the targeting spikes and Anakin’s prescience had given the Bastions crucial advanced warning.

All nine cruisers streamed their laced graviton energies towards the Venator to shore up its shields under the bombardment.

The forward shields were gone, then pushed back into existence.

I focused on the crews of the Venator’s Interceptors, as they fired rapidly as fast their emitters could cycle to stifle the incoming damage.

Come on. Come on! I thought. Pushing every bit of coordination, morale and even some light prescience onto the clones of that Venator.

More fire from the CIS was poured in, as more and more of their fleet entered range. My focus shifted to the Bastions, as their crews managed the crucial power outputs and emitters in real time. Compensating for irregularities in the shield grid they were repairing and any power spikes on their own end which could spell disaster if it wasn’t managed properly. 

The Venator held… and held…

For nearly 51 seconds it held the attention of all the guns in the CIS fleet.

Crosshair uncharacteristically gaped at his gunnery sensors as he saw that lone Venator absorb turbolaser volley after volley from the Dawn’s guns.

Anakin made full use of those seconds.

The entire Republic fleet threw coordinated alpha strikes that turned Munificent after Munificent into rapidly expanding spheres of debris.

The fighter battle which was now fully raged between the ships of both fleets only added to the stunning chaos.

I could feel Trench’s shock as he was educated on what a properly coordinated Bastion wing attached to a fleet could do. It was clear he had been part of the camp among strategic thinkers who considered the Bastions a niche gimmick that worked only in limited numbers and would be of no use in huge fleet engagements.

He paid for that assumption by losing nine Munificents and a Lucrehulk.

Finally, sheer physics and timing that went beyond even computer reaction time to manage gave way to the inevitable.

Venator V-04219, a ship which couldn’t even get a proper name, which had endured for a miraculous length of time under fire, lost its shields and the strained grid which had been reinforced time and again, exploded under the punishment.

I felt CT99s anguish and that of thousands of other souls, even as I felt over seven thousand lives being snuffed out to pass explosively into the Force.

Trench felt a sadistic triumph even as Anakin shot more of his fleet away in concentrated alpha strikes.

Let it not be said that the harch was stupid. He divided his fleet into three sections and had each fire on a separate target. He recognized immediately that the nine Bastion’s had achieved their effect because they could focus on a single target. Now they would have to split their repairs between the fourteen remaining Venators and twelve Acclamators.

That didn’t work as well as Trench hoped it would. Spreading the damage between three targets would certainly divide the efforts of the Bastions, dulling their effectiveness in keeping the ship alive with shield repairs.

Even two or three Bastions helping a single ship went a long way to ensuring its survival. The two Venators and single Acclamator that were targeted endured salvo after salvo, yet their shields were only reduced to half effectiveness after a full minute of bombardment.

Anakin used the time to finally give the Invincible a full barrage from the fleet, practically slicing a significant chunk from the dreadnought’s forward shields. I could feel Trench’s growl of frustration as I worked on pushing down his morale and spirit. A task that was proving surprisingly difficult.

His own ego and self-confidence, combined with the non-standard alien mind was fighting against it, especially because it seemed ‘morale’ had an entirely different expression in his species. Far from sapping his will to fight, he pushed away all despair, containing and compartmentalizing it. Then methodically thought of an entirely new strategy to try.

He ordered the entire CIS fleet to split their fire even further and launch waves of Hyena bombers at individual Republic ships.

Anakin in reply, released torpedo firing to the individual captain’s discretion and in moments the ever shrinking space between the two fleets streaked with the energetic white-blue weapons.

In this chaos it was inevitable that the call for Bastion repairs would begin to overwhelm the capacity of the nine cruisers to respond.

A Venator erupted into an expanding sphere of gaseous hypermatter energy, ripping its own superstructure in half, whilst further secondary explosions sent the debris tumbling and dispersing into a glittering constellation of light that reflected starlight and was immediately pulled into the gravity well of the moon below.

An Acclamator as its last defiant act, with great wounds rent in its hull, went to ramming speed whilst trailing energetic gas, bodies and escape pods.

The Munificent that was the target frantically tried to get out of the way, but it was simply too late.

What little shields it had left was no obstacle and only offered token resistance as both ships crashed into each other and became an ever increasing mish-mash of crumpling hulls as the materials obeyed the merciless laws of physics.

The Munificent’s reactor was the first to go and lit up the battlespace in a brief new artificial star that shredded and vaporized kilotons of durasteel in an instant.

Even the Dawn began shuddering as the Republic fleet began throwing turbolaser fire the way of the two remaining Lucrehulks.

I partially pulled away from the Battle Meditation.

“Tech?”

He knew what I was asking and gave me a nod. “We have all the remaining Recusant-IIs.”

“The chaos of battle clearly helped. Is the entire enemy fleet within the mass shadow?”

“Yes, commander,” Tech smirked.

“Do it.”

“Sending the signal, commander.”

The five remaining Recusant-IIs suddenly found themselves locked out of all helm control as all the newly assimilated Republic droids in their engineering departments showed their true colors and began their task.

Maneuvering thrusters began firing and all ships adjusted their course inward towards the core of the CIS fleet and pushed their engines in a redline burn.

Their target…

“Sur-prise,” I said with a huge smirk of satisfaction as I felt Trench’s absolute shock as the light destroyers bore down on his flagship with ever increasing speed.

Due to his fleet positioning against the retreating Republic wall of battle there was little obstacle to all the destroyers making a run straight for the giant dreadnought.

One usurped destroyer did collide with a Munificent as the Republic droids didn’t actually have the best controls over the ship’s movement from the engineering spaces. Neither ship’s shields were in any condition anymore to resist so much sheer mass moving at that speed and another conglomeration of metal formed as the two ships crashed into each other.

Nine seconds since the danger had been revealed and Trench had only barely given the order for his dreadnought guns to open fire…

Four Recusant-IIs shields briefly flashed into visibility against the Invincible’s, before utterly collapsing and ramming themselves into the dreadnought’s port and starboard shields.

It was like watching a 150 meter wide and one kilometer long concertina of durasteel crushing against the brilliant blue scintillating energies of the Providence’s shields as it was pushed into the visible spectrum resisting the sheer kinetic energy and mass.  

That lasted until volatile munitions and fuel began cooking off, causing secondary explosions that erupted along the remaining length of each Recusant-II’s hull.

The reactor cores also finally gave up the ghost as they smashed into the titanic shields and the hypermatter lost containment.

Every eye and sensor lost sight of the Invincible as it was engulfed in multiple blinding flashes of white light.

When it faded, the massive dreadnought was still there, pushing its way through the mass of expanding debris, still powering forward through space like the predator it was.

It had not emerged unscathed from the maelstrom of energies and suicidal impacts of the Recusant-IIs. Numerous shield sectors were flickering in clear weakness before coming back online in stuttering bursts.

“Crosshair, it’s time we show our colors.”

“With pleasure, commander.”

‘Anakin, do stop shooting at me please.’

‘The order is already given.’

The Seperatists’ Dawn turned eighteen of its heavy quad turbolasers it could bring to bear on the aft section of the Invincible.

“Fire,” I ordered.

Crosshair unleashed the full might of the battleship, pouring heavy turbolaser fire and every torpedo that the Dawn could fire in as short a time as possible, emptying the ready magazines.

The Dawn’s Vulture droids abruptly whipped around in their various dogfights around the intermingled fleet and started firing on the CIS droids, firing off concussion missiles that had been carefully saved for this exact moment.

All four of the Dawn’s twin heavy turbolaser batteries and three hundred heavy laser cannons unleashed their fury on the nearest neighboring Munificent.

Its shields were battered down in seconds and a freshly launched Hyena bomber wing from the Dawn delivered the final blow, shattering the aft section and sending its engine module spinning off into space whilst the rest of the ship tumbled out of control with secondary explosions erupting.

The aft shield of the Invincible collapsed entirely under the full alpha strike bombardment of the battleship. 

The Republic fleet pounced on the moment, turning every turbolaser on the forward shields as well with another simultaneous strike.

Trench took the unbelievable betrayal of Thalor against him with only momentary shock and pivoted his thinking.

A dreadnought’s shields, with the effective strength of a militarized Golan space station, were not the only formidable defenses it had. Free Dac Engineering and Rendili had proven with the armoring of the Malevolence earlier in the war, that they knew what they were doing in rendering these ships not only reliant on their shields in a fight.

Even as the combined turbolaser fire from Venators and a Lucrehulk poured into the gaps in the shields, the armor simply ate the damage, shedding ablative layers and the dreadnought kept going.

Trench unleashed an alpha strike of his own against a nearby Acclamator, reducing it to an exploding cloud of debris and bodies within seconds.

I could feel Crosshair’s controlled rage, which he viciously clamped down on, before simply adjusting and fine tuning the aim of the Dawn’s guns.

The next volley from the heavy turbolasers narrowed down to a point and terminated perfectly in the massive circular maw of one of the three radial ion drives on the Invincible’s aft section.

The explosion blew out the main engine bell into fragments and the entire ship shuddered as the drive shattered under the blow.

I had to give the Free Dac and Rendili their due on this, they built a ship to last. As the damage was largely contained and channeled by the design of the surrounding hull. Only one drive was lost and the other two only suffered minor damage.

The dogged determination of Trench, the unfeeling droids only obeying orders and the few organic volunteers in the CIS Navy rallied behind their fleet commander.

Seventeen ships continued their charge forward against the dwindling numbers of the Republic fleet.

13 Venators and eight Acclamators remained in the battle.

Separatists Dawn began to be hammered by the aft bearing weapons of the CIS fleet and every Hyena bomber streaked towards us.

“Recall every fighter to orbit the Dawn, direct our Vulture’s on PD duty to intercept,” I ordered as the bridge’s lights around me began to flicker, the hull shuddering as our forward shields were hit with turbolaser volleys. The probability lines of the future were extremely chaotic and it was an utter mess to sort through, but one thing was clear. “Frak it. Launch everything we have! And don’t stop until I have a sphere of droids surrounding the Dawn!”

“Shield grid fluctuation in dorsal quadrant 31, compensating!” Tech had stopped using his hands at the engineering consoles and stabbed his armor’s logic probe into the system, interfacing directly for more speed.

“Hunter, keep our forward momentum, yaw the ship to port full 180 degrees.”

“Yaw port full 180, roger!”

I probably could’ve just transferred aft shields forward, but the number of probability lines showing the Dawn’s strained shield grid utterly failing when that was done was just too high at the moment.

Instead I did the first ever drift of a Lucrehulk in mid-battle whilst under heavy fire, a maneuver that really should’ve only been done on a fighter.

“Point our engines directly at the Invincible. Crosshair you will have every heavy turbolaser to bear, make it count!”

On scan holo, the Dawn was looking more and more like a spheroid ship as more and more Vulture droids poured out into space and into a formation around it. The only clue to the naked eye that it was happening was when heavy blaster cannon fire from the Vultures streaked out into space to intercept a torpedo or when a droid fighter exploded from incoming turbolaser fire.

Using them as an extra layer of literal ablative shields wasn’t exactly efficient but every little bit helped at this point.

The fresh aft shields were now taking the strain and I didn’t even have to order Tech to begin pouring every spare erg of power to regenerate the badly depleted forward facings.

Another Venator died as Trench, with the benefit of droid networked coordination, quickly switched the target of his entire surviving fleet towards it, before strained Bastion repairs could even land.

I shook my head in disbelief even as I admired how quickly my enemy adapted to a literal game changer level paradigm shift in fleet warfare.

The two fleets were now two figuratively two martial artists holding each other by the collars and slamming punches and knees home into their opponent.

The battle was now moving beyond Velthara, deeper into the gas giant’s radiation belts.

I gritted my teeth as the Dawn’s aft shields were worn down.

‘Anakin, any time now, please.’

‘Not yet. Just a little-’

A volley from the Invincible’s aft guns went straight through our Vulture droid screen and into a newly opened gap in the Dawn’s shields.

The hit crashed on the dorsal aft armor of the Lucrehulk sending a fountain of debris upward and a brief gout of flame.

I had seen it coming and flung myself to the deck and Force Pulled the rest of CT99 out of their chairs.

Dawn rocked violently from the blow and the bridge became a cacophony of sparking systems, flame, shooting debris and smoke.

Tech jumped up to his station, “Direct hit to center sector 39! Reactor scrammed successfully. We’re down to only one in the main hull and those in the centersphere are straining to take the load!”

“Damage control!” I snapped.

“Responding!”

“Crosshair, can you still fire?”

The clone was already back in his seat, “Yes, commander.”

“Fire on the Invincible’s engines, take them all out!”

Crosshair viciously jabbed at his controls.

The wounded Dawn lashed out with every weapon that could be brought to bear, even turning its PD weapons that just barely had the range to reach.

588 weapons, ranging from anti-fighter all the way up to capital scale heavy turbolaser erupted from the ship and reached out towards the Invincible’s aft.

The barely recovering shields were hammered away and in mere seconds both remaining sublight drives of the dreadnought shattered into debris and radiating energies.

The Invincible’s engines were gone, the dreadnought would not be going anywhere no matter what happened in the rest of the battle. Even if the rest of the Republic fleet was destroyed, the remaining forces in Eriadu would be enough to end the threat.

“Targeting spikes from the CIS fleet, they’re turning to bring all guns to bear on us!” shouted Hunter.

I stared at each member of CT99 even as I felt Trench’s rage that had overcome even his self-control. He’d had enough of the traitor harassing his back and now had even stopped firing on the Republic fleet.

“Vode*… whatever happens in the next few minutes, it’s been an honor. Yaw the ship around, maximum burn for the Invincible.”

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Mandalorian- *Vode - brothers

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A/N: Whew, that was a fun blast to write. Enjoy your weekend and stay awesome folks.