As soon as Mardici entered the galley, Kalana looked at him worriedly. "Admiral, I'm sorry about earlier, our faith was shaken by the betrayal of our clones. However I still have a request to make of you."
"Name it."
"We have to leave orbit and head for Coruscant."
"What? Why?"
"We received a coded message. It requests all Jedi return home, saying the war is over."
"If the war is over, how are clones and droids fighting right now."
"I don't know."
"Speaking of clones and droids, what happened down there? I only saw you almost get blown out of space."
"We were winning, but the droids had a gun emplacement that was causing massive problems. Me and Jenso eliminated it. As we returned to our unit, they started firing on us. We retreated, but then the droids started shooting at us. We managed to get to our ships in one piece. As we launched, 4 fighters broke off and pursued us."
"I guess in a way I was wiser then you. If you remember, I refused a clone crew. Jango Fett was the original, and he fought for the droids on Geonosis. I wasn't sure they could be trusted."
Kalana nodded. "We aren't warriors. We had little choice but to trust them. I'm glad that you don't have clones, though, otherwise we'd be dead now."
At that moment klaxons started wailing and a voice echoed through the ship. "All pilots to the hanger, everyone to battle stations, Admiral Guro to the bridge immediately."
"I'll be back." He said and tore off for the bridge. He rushed in and looked out, a CIS cruiser was closing, but was out of range of their guns. As he watched, several droid fighters jumped off the ship and raced towards his. "Make sure shields are raised."
"Already up."
"Where are our fighters?"
"Almost ready."
"They should be launched, I ordered a third our pilots be ready at any second. If we survive this, they're going to get a severe reprimand." He watched the enemy fighters closing and said, "May the Force be with us." The fighters came in range of the anti-fighter guns and several were destroyed, the rest dropped ion bombs, the whole ship shook, throwing several people to the floor. "What in theā¦those fighters don't carry ion bombs."
"Shields are down! Sending repair crews to shield generator." The damage control officer yelled.
At that moment, Z-95 headhunters started flying out of the hanger. The droid star fighters wheeled around and engaged them. Several shot directly at the fighters just emerging, but the headhunter pilots seemed aware and dodged the shots. His pilots flew in lasers flashing. The droids lost several, but quickly fell on his headhunter's tails, returning fire. To Guro's amazement, he didn't lose a single fighter, they managed to dodge all shots, shake the fighters and destroy them. Mouth hanging open, he watched the destruction of every enemy fighter in a matter of minutes. His ship shook again as the CIS cruiser opened fire. They replied in kind, but without shields, his ship was taking the worst, but then his fighters attacked their ship, and again, they were flying unbelievably, dodging fire, hitting the shields perfectly, soon the CIS ship lost its shields to, and all shots from his fighters and heavy guns seemed to be hitting critical parts of the ship.
In less then an hour, the CIS ship was a cloud of ionized gas that was floating towards the moon's atmosphere. "How many fighters did we lose?"
"None, sir."
"I thought so." Madici shook his head. "Clearly there is much to talk about, but it will have to wait. Those pilots had better be glad that they flew so well, or I'd be giving them a severe reprimand." He turned to the damage control officer. "Are shields up yet?"
"No sir, but it won't be much longer."
"When they're up, get the rest of the ship repaired as soon as humanly possible." He left the bridge and headed for the hanger, wondering if those upgraded weapons on the droid fighters had weakened there dog-fighting techniques. As soon as he entered the hanger, a huge silence fell and everyone sprang to attention. "Who here was on duty?" Fourteen pilots slowly raised there hands. "Well, were you? You should have been in the hanger ready to scramble at a moments notice."
One replied. "We were hungry, sir, we thought it would be all right to leave the hanger alone for a moment."
"It's not. In fact, if you hadn't flown so well, you would be receiving a huge reprimand at least. Provided we managed to win at all."
"Request permission to speak, sir." One pilot said.
"Go ahead."
"We're not sure that was all our doing."
"What do you mean?"
"We felt as though something was telling us where to go when to shoot. I would have to describe it as how the Jedi feel. I talked with Kalana on the way here and she said the Force told her how to move."
"What are you saying?"
"I think the Jedi Kalana was guiding us in that battle."
Mardici was silent for a moment, then said. "Very well. Don't ever let me catch any on-duty pilots outside of the hanger. But you can continue celebrating the victory." He headed for the galley, wondering if Jedi were really that powerful. As soon as he entered, he noticed the Jedi Master was sitting cross-legged in a seat her eye's closed while her apprentice stood nearby watching.
"Congratulations on your victory, Admiral." Kalana said, not opening her eyes.
"Thanks to you, I suppose. May I ask how you did that?"
"I'm not sure how she does it, she's been teaching me though, but she can sort of influence there movements. It's sort of like our mind-control, but in a good way." Jenso said.
"Master Kalana?"
"Please, sir, she's meditating, I'm surprised she spoke to you at all."
At that moment, Kalana came to. "I'm not getting anything."
"What's going on? Actually, I'll ask that in a minute. I think I owe you a favor. I'll give the order to head for Coruscant."
"Don't. We can't go back."
"But you told me that you received a coded message saying-"
"We received another, it orders all Jedi go into hiding and stay away from the capital. In answer to what going on, we don't have a clue. But I think that the three events are related, the betrayal of the clones, the contradicting message. But I have a suspicion."
"What."
"When we were on the planet, hiding from both clones and droids, I stated feeling pain allover me, and the dark side of the force was growing like a mountain. For a minute I thought there was a Sith Lord on the planet, but now I think I was feeling something far worse." Mardici gave a start, as Kalana looked at him, her eyes were full of tears. "As we hid all over the galaxy Jedi were dying. I don't think we're the only ones left though, someone must have changed the beacon to keep us away. Even more disturbing is the beacon calling us home. Only a Jedi can gain access to it. I think a Jedi may have betrayed us."
