Sword of Change
Chapter 7
System THX-1138
In space there is no atmosphere, no sound, just more space, and today the THX-1138 system had been the witness to a battle that was still raging on. Republic fighters and Separatist droid fighters fought and died in brilliant soundless explosions, the quick flashes being their engine cores being breached and their fuel ignited. This system was supposed to be the sight of a new peaceful First Contact with a race from the Unknown Regions, but had now drawn a new faction into the war, and now the Republic cruiser Vigilance and the UNSC destroyer Will of Iron was staring down a fleet of Separatist warships that were now bearing down on them, but the day was far from over.
A huge swarm of fresh droid fighters were closing in on the two allied ships, the Will of Iron spewed out huge amounts of weapons fire, trying to down as many enemy fighters as possible while the Vigilance concentrated on the enemy frigates which had moved forward as a spearhead for the Separatist general's counterattack.
Meanwhile Ahsoka was flying in her very own customized silver and red Jedi Interceptor, commanding the Vigilance's fighter squadrons in a desperate life and death dance in space, dodging weapons fire like a madwoman, while simultaneously barking out orders.
"Blue squadron, loosen up, split up into pairs and engage the fighters, don't get separated from your wingman," she barked out as she and her wingman in a V-wing cut through another squadron of Vulture droids, scrapping them in seconds, with a quick spread of concussion missiles and laser fire from both of them. She sensed more than saw the battlefield, keeping her senses attuned to the moment and where an attack could come from. With a sharp turn she avoided a violent volley of weapons fire from a pair of Tri-droids, her wingman wasn't so fortunate. He was just one half second too slow when a fully powered laser hit clipped his starboard wing, sending him tumbling through space to be destroyed by another droid fighter.
Ahsoka felt the instant that her wingman died, but pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on the task at hand, scrapping as many droid fighters as possible. She took a quick look around the battlefield, but all she saw was a crowd of droid fighters with only a small number of friendly fighters that she could see, fighting bravely, but there were just too many of them. Suddenly space was lit up with thousands of brilliant explosions of droid fighters exploding all around her, clearing the area around Ahsoka's fighter and her comrades. The cavalry had arrived.
Just three light seconds away from the main fight a bright rip in space unfolded, disgorging a number of big blocky warships, consisting of the UNSC Super Carrier Kitty Hawk, the Marathon class heavy cruiser Napoleon, and four UNSC destroyers. From the Kitty Hawk several squadrons of the new YSS-2000 Sabre II space superiority fighters launched. It looked similar to the older Sabre, but underneath the hood everything was different. Its engines were far more powerful and all four engines were capable of vectoring their thrust, and could pull extreme high G manoeuvres without killing its flight crew. Armed with a pair rapid fire Gatling laser cannons, a pair of missile pods on top of the fuselage just ahead of the main engines, and built into the lower fuselage was a missile bay with two rotating missile racks, capable of carrying various different munitions, from Shiva nuclear missiles to Phoenix cluster missiles, which was what they were equipped with today.
Gina 'Tuna' Torres, the commander of the Black Badger squadron didn't feel much of the acceleration as she and the eleven other Sabre IIs in her squadron were launched off the deck of the Kitty Hawk then hit maximum burn on the engines to get clear from the ship for the next squadron to sortie.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen, we have a target rich environment in front of us, so let's get to work. Arm your Phoenixes and standby for my order to launch," she said over the squadron frequency and got several confirmation signals in return.
Following behind them an EW Longsword was busily assigning each fighter its targets, it was responsible for managing the combat network for the fighters, relaying up to date targeting data.
Tuna's HUD lit up as her targeting system came alive with confirmed lock-on's, each one painted red, while the ones targeted by the rest of the squadron were painted orange while friendlies were painted blue.
"Badgers we are clear to engage. Black Badger 1, Fox 3, Fox 3," she called out and two Phoenix missiles dropped from their respective racks in her lower missile bay, then accelerated to 40% of light speed in seconds, riding their main ion rocket motor for most of the distance. At a predetermined time and place the missiles shed their outer coverings, revealing a score of smaller anti-fighter missiles hidden inside, each one going active the moment they were unleashed and homed in on the closest hostile target. The droid fighters had seen the missiles, their electronic droid brains relayed the information instantly back to their mothership to request instructions, but before they could act the small number of missiles had split up into hundreds of smaller ones and there were too many of them for the droids to effectively track and destroy.
All of local space was lit up as the enemy droid fighters exploded spectacularly all over the battlefield, relieving the battle worn Republic fighter squadrons from the Vigilance.
Admiral Diego Garcia stood in the CIC of the Kitty Hawk, paying close attention to the battlefield he and his task force had just entered. He had ordered his fighter squadrons to launch the moment they had exited Slipspace, and already the fighters were engaging.
"Analysis of enemy combatants?" the admiral asked.
"Four Munificent class frigates, two Recusant class destroyers, one Providence class cruiser and one Lucrehulk class battleship. The cruiser appears to be damaged and is heading out of the system, the rest seem to be concentrating on the Republic warship and the Will of Iron," reported one of the sensor operators.
"All ships begin spinning up MAC guns for firing, plot solutions on all seven remaining warships..."
"Sir, positive ID on the cruiser, it's the Invisible Hand, General Grievous' flagship."
"Belay my last order," Admiral Garcia said quickly. "Destroyers Archer and Dillinger are to intercept the Invisible hand and either board it and capture that ship or destroy it, the rest of us will continue to engage the rest."
Confirmation of orders were quickly given and the two destroyers quickly changed course to intercept the Invisible Hand, gunning their engines to catch up to the enemy warship, while the Kitty Hawk, Napoleon and the two remaining destroyers Galahad and Cool under Fire dealt with the Separatist fleet. The first shots that were fired by the Kitty Hawk task force was the MAC guns, the destroyers and Napoleon fired their dual guns, sending 600 ton heavy penetrator rounds directly at the separatists, while the Kitty Hawk fired a single 1200 ton shell. The effects were as predictable as they were terrible. Every enemy ship felt the effects of the heavy kinetic strikes that came from well beyond the effective range of their own weapons, Turbolasers were limited to roughly 100 000 kilometres due to particle dispersion, rendering the turbolaser bolts ineffective even against low-grade civilian shields, while a solid bullet fired from a magnetic accelerator will keep on going until it hits something, and that something was seven Separatist warships that lost their shields, the sheer kinetic force of the hits caused overloads in their shield grids, rendering them defenceless against the follow up shots.
Meanwhile the Invisible Hand was desperately trying to get away from the two destroyers that were right on its tail. General Grievous could already hear the chastising remarks that were in store for him from Count Dooku, another humiliating defeat, and it wasn't even against Jedi, but some unknown warship from the Unknown Regions, and the worst part was that the B1 engineering droid had just told him that the hyperdrive was disabled.
"WHAT," he yelled in rage. "How did this happen?"
"The navigational array was damaged by the small enemy vessel's kinetic strike weapon, rendering it impossible to plot accurate hyperspace jumps, we are currently working to repair the damage now and we should be able to jump momentarily," the B1 engineering droid said quickly, cowering at its station as it hoped that the general wouldn't take its head off as he was notorious for.
The General sighed heavily and turned towards the ship's Neimoidian captain. "Keep the sub-lights going at maximum acceleration, I don't want those ships to catch up to us before we're ready to jump," he said menacingly, the captains skin was even moister than usual from nervous perspiration, not just from fear of the general, but also the fear of those ships catching up to them.
A minute later the ship began shaking as ranging shots from the two destroyers' turbolaser batteries hit, at this range they were not powerful enough to weaken their shields significantly, all they would do was shake them up a little, but it was unnerving.
The two destroyers were quickly closing the distance, their engines burning brightly as they fired their turbolasers, sending tightly packed blue bursts of energy at the Invisible Hand, both ships captains were not about to let this mass murderer get away from them, even if they had to burn out their own engines to do it. However as they closed in on their target another ship came out of hyperspace, a Providence class heavy cruiser, weapons blazing and not slowing down, forcing the two UNSC destroyers to break off pursuit or be run over.
On the ship's command bridge Count Dooku smiled grimly as he watched the two unknown warships change course to avoid his ship. "General Grievous, I strongly recommend you leave the battlefield now," the Count ordered, as his own ship turned in preparation for its own jump to hyperspace.
"Yes my lord," responded the mechanical general, the arrival of Dooku had given his ships repair droids the time needed to fix the navigation system, and within the blink of an eye both ships jumped, both UNSC captains and crews berated themselves for loosing such a prize.
Meanwhile back on the Vigilance General Kenobi watched as the battle unfolded before his eyes. The UNSC was clearly a very strong opponent and its fighters had shown to be vastly superior to droid fighter, both in technology and in the training of their pilots. He had been worried about Anakin's padawan when the droids had started to overwhelm her and the fighter squadrons she commanded, and with their hyperdrive offline they couldn't withdraw.
"I believe that this little impromptu demonstration of our military shows that while we may not have the numbers of the CIS or the Republic our teeth are plenty big and sharp enough," said Ambassador Weir neutrally. While she had never been a fan of the military she certainly understood that it was a necessary evil.
"You certainly have a strong military. What will the reaction of the UTG be after this?"
"Most likely a declaration of war, followed up by several deep strikes on their main military bases, almost immediately," Ambassador Weir responded.
"Then how about an alliance with the Republic, if we combine our forces we could end this war much more quickly," said General Kenobi, hoping that her answer would be positive.
"I will have to speak to my government; this attack has changed a lot of things, but we are not fully prepared for another sustained conflict, even a short one," she said. She had been briefed by ONI about the Separatists endgame, but that was months away and before that the UNSC would have been all too happy to just let the two giants slug it out, but now that they knew of the existence of the Unified Terrans it would only be a matter of time before they were forced to choose between the two, and an alliance with the Republic would allow the UNSC to put its own pieces into play, without arousing too much suspicion.
The battle outside was quickly coming to a close. The Separatist fleet had no choice but to withdraw when the two destroyers that had been chasing the Invisible Hand came back and added their own strength to the battle, catching most of the fleet in a deadly crossfire of blue turbolaser fire, Longbow missiles and silvery 600 and 1200 ton MAC shells. In short order all four Munificent class frigates were destroyed, mercilessly gunned down by the four destroyers in the carrier group.
The neimoidian admiral in command of the Lucrehulk watched as his fleet was torn apart around him then gave the order to retreat.
The Lucrehulk began manoeuvring its massive bulk around for a jump to hyperspace, its shields flaring from impacts from powerful kinetic strike impacts and a torrent of turbolaser fire, steadily weakening the battleship's shields. One of the escorting Recusant class destroyers got gutted by a MAC round from the carrier. The MAC round struck the bow at the lower decks and travelled the length of the ship, coring straight through the lower decks and vented those sections to space. It also managed to hit one of the ships reactors, causing extreme damage and resulted in an overload that destroyed the ship.
"Admiral we have lost another vessel," reported one of the B1 battle droid controllers.
"What is taking so long?" the admiral asked angrily, and also a little fearfully. "We should have jumped by now."
"Sorry sir, the navi-computer is having difficulty plotting a hyperspace jump due to battle damage to the computer systems."
"Just get us out of here," the admiral ordered weakly, thankful that the crew were emotionless droids, no doubt an organic crew would have mutinied by now and surrendered the ship, and the admiral had no wish to be on the receiving end of the wrath of either General Grievous or Count Dooku, having heard the stories of what happened to anyone who disappointed them.
A powerful sounding boom was both heard and felt throughout the ship. The ship was shaken so hard by the impact that the admiral and every droid on the bridge were thrown from their stations. It had to be a heavy kinetic round that hit them.
"Damage report," the admiral requested.
"Our ship has suffered extreme structural damage along the starboard arm, it's breaking off," reported on of the B1s and the admiral took a look through the bridge view ports. As the Lucrehulk was turning when the Heavy MAC round hit it hit them at an angle, and the round passed straight through the thick armoured plating and destroyed parts of the internal space frame, which made a large chunk of the ship break off, exposing a large amount of the battleship's internal structure to space and sucked everything within the exposed sections.
Another B1 came forward with another report. "We are now unable to enter hyperspace sir, there has been too much structural damage to the ship, and if we attempt to jump to light speed we'd be torn apart."
The Neimoidian admiral could feel his little world crashing down around him, even if he escaped this somehow, he would be extremely punished for this failure, and all the prestige, power and money he had received as an admiral in the Confederate Navy would be stripped from him, leaving him with nothing, but it was better to run and live than fight futilely and die.
"Ready a shuttle for launch, and have all droid squads begin preparations for an enemy boarding action, I'm leaving the ship."
A T1 Tactical Droid barred his way from the bridge turbolift. "I am sorry admiral, but our programming will not allow you to leave the ship during a battle, you must stay and command us until victory or defeat, and I must tell you that our chances of success are now less than twenty percent."
Another heavy hit rocked the ship as the admiral could only stare in shock at the tactical droid in front of him.
"This is absurd, droid move aside now or I will shoot you," he said as he drew a small handout blaster from his side holster, but got blasted by the tactical droid before he could even blink, falling dead instantly.
"That was a mistake on your part admiral. To prevent capture all high ranking organic commanders must be eliminated to prevent important strategic intelligence to fall into enemy hands."
The Tactical droid took a command console and began organising the droid army onboard, preparing for the moment the enemy would board the ship, and began the process of erasing all data in the ship's computer banks.
As the last Recusant class destroyer jumped to hyperspace Admiral Garcia decided to just destroy the enemy Lucrehulk instead of risking his marines in a boarding action.
"Captain, I want that enemy battleship removed from my space," he ordered Captain Even Tyler on the bridge ahead of the CIC.
"Aye admiral, tactical officer prime main MAC gun for a triple shot barrage, and prime all Longbow missile pods and turbolasers for firing," the captain ordered.
"Aye sir, priming main MAC gun for triple shot barrage and Longbow missile and turbolaser barrage, turning over fire control to Smart AI, she's all yours Cat," said the tactical officer. Just to the side of the tactical officer's console a small hologram of a woman coloured blood red with turquoise computer script flowing on the surface.
"Target acquired, aligning the ship for barrage fire, firing," the Smart AI intoned.
The Kitty Hawk moved began manoeuvring its 3.5 kilometre bulk and lined up for a barrage with its main MAC gun, while the missile pods opened up their doors and turbolaser turrets took aim at the heavily damaged Lucrehulk battleship.
The first to weapon to fire was the Longbow missile pods, quickly ejecting missiles into space and accelerated to 30% of light speed. Once they were clear of the pods they fired their ion rocket thrusters, boosting their acceleration even further. Soon after it was the MAC gun's turn, the firing of which sent massive vibrations through the ship as it fired once, twice then a third time, all of the rounds were 1200 ton shells and accelerated to 60% of light speed with the turbolasers firing right after the MAC shells left the mouth of the guns. Almost exactly the same time all three different weapon systems hit the heavily damaged and listing Separatist warship, the Longbow fusion missiles hit first and detonated either against the hull or penetrated it and detonated on the inside, a few even went through the giant breach in the starboard arm, blowing it wide open. The MAC shells penetrated and shot straight through the centre sphere, blasting clean through the sphere's own fusion reactors and the main reactors in the primary hull, setting off a chain reaction that made the fusion reactors blow up spectacularly at the same time as the turbolaser barrage hit, adding more fuel to the fire and vaporised whatever was left of the ship.
"Target has been destroyed, transferring fire control back to tactical officer," said Cat and her avatar winked out from the holo-pedestal.
"Begin recalling our fighters and hail the Republic vessel, I need to speak with Ambassador Weir," said Admiral Garcia.
Soon enough communication was established with the Vigilance, an image of the ambassador and a Jedi General that Admiral Garcia recognised as General Kenobi from the ONI files he had read earlier about the Clone Wars.
"Admiral, on behalf of myself and my crew I thank you for your timely intervention," said General Kenobi.
"Think nothing of it sir, we were responding to the Will of Iron's distress call and we were on standby in case something was to go wrong. Ambassador is your delegation in one piece?"
"We are fine admiral, just a few bumps and bruises, nothing permanent, however I would appreciate a lift back to Earth, General Kenobi has formally requested an alliance with us, and I need to get back to Earth to present the request to the UTG," said Ambassador Weir.
"Very well, General Kenobi does your ship require assistance to get home?"
"No admiral, we have already sent a request for a ship to come and replace our hyperdrive, it was destroyed in General Grievous' opening attack, but it shouldn't take long to have this ship ready again for Hyperspace again."
"Very well, good luck to you and I hope we see each other again, perhaps while under not such dire circumstances."
The comm. channel was closed and soon the ambassador's Pelican was en-route to the Kitty Hawk.
AN: I know that this is a shorter chapter than normal, but I couldn't find a way of continuing this chapter, but don't worry, the story is most definitely not abandoned, just had to take a break from it.