Disclaimer - I didn't come up with either Harry Potter or Starwars, but if I did, I'd still write a crossover because they're cool.
Chapter Twelve
Surrender
+04:10
The Executor and her fleet entered the Korriban system and raised their shields, expecting the rebel ships to open fire. What Admiral Piett of the largest ship of the Imperial fleet did not expect, was for the entire group of stolen Star Destroyers to jump from the system almost immediately. A Lieutenant handed him the immediate scan of the system and Piett frowned at the destruction of the previous Korriban fleet.
It had been planned by the Emperor himself to withdraw the main fleet from the planet and then trap them after they had landed their troops on the surface. The plan had been easy, assault the rebel ships and effectively destroy them, cutting off any escape or support for the ground assault that the rebels were sure to mount. He would arrive later in the battle to ensure the victory and then send General Veers to the surface with the entire strike force of the sector fleet as the Emperor had issued a direct order forbidding any orbital bombardments.
Piett certainly did not expect nearly eighty percent of the Korriban fleet already destroyed with only one rebel ship casualty, and then seeing the surperior numbers escape so easily, "Admiral, we just recceived word that the Jedi are still on the planet. General Veers is standing by to begin landing troops."
With a nod, Piett turned to his aide, "Inform General Veers to begin landing troops. I want the staging area completely secure before we begin to attack."
x x x
+06:45
Leia and Luke Skywalker overlooked the space port where thousands of Imperial Stormtroopers had already assembled. Most were being pushed outside the back of the port, as if waiting in line for their chance to attack the Jedi. Luke looked over at his sister and then back to the platoon of Knights who had volunteered to accompany them on this recon-assault mission.
They had been directed to not initiate contact, but the order had been given by their father so haphazordously that they had immediately questioned the real fortitude behind it. From what they could tell and sense, there were no Sith down on the ground to prevent them from apparating to the Imperial command center. Both siblings had bounced the idea off their clone Lieutenant who had agreed with their idea almost immediately, hit and run their headquarters and delay the Imperials even more.
On command, the thirty Knigths and two Jedi turned on spot and vanished with a combined crack. Stormtroopers that heard the sound tried to determine what had just happened, but they were too far away from their armies center to discover what had happened in time. All thirty-two rebels appeared in the center of the space port where a cluster of Stormtroopers were just beginning to disembark from a troop transport that had just landed. Lightsabers ignited and spells were launched as the Imperials were caught by surprise with the strike.
Luke and Leia remained at one another's side, weaving and ducking between the red laser fire, directing shots back at their senders while unleashing their Force powers into the unsuspecting troopers. Around them, the Knights were using every type of offensive magic and lightsaber skills that they were trained with and dozens of the Imperial clones were brought down within minutes. Leia saw a shield fail for one of the defensive Knights and a blaster bolt snuck through and brought him down. Two more Knights fell and the Skywalker twins realized that the surprise was over and on the planned signal, they all disapparated from the chaos that now reigned among the Imperial soldiers.
x x x
+08:00
"Have you found anything, Dad?"
Harry looked up from his computer terminal and saw Sirius and Lily enter the temporary command center, in which he was the only occupant at the time, "Nothing. Haven't found anything on Darth Banis either. If it weren't for our mission to Coruscant, we wouldn't have even gotten his name and we'd still know nothing about who took her or where she disappeared to."
"We weren't able to capture any of the Sith either." Sirius sighed and plopped himself in one of the chairs while Lily took up a position behind her father with a hand on his shoulder, "You can still sense her, right?"
Harry nodded, though he wore a grim smile on his face, "She's alive, yes. I mean, I'd know if she wasn't because we're bonded. When a wizard and witch are married, it's for life and after we were brought here, that bond turned into what the Jedi called a Force bond. But the Emperor's found a way to supress it and I can only tell that she's alive."
Sirius reached over to the terminal and picked up a datapad, scanned it without really looking at it before he asked, "How bad was it really today?"
"We lost twenty-five percent of our Knights and fifty percent are seriously wounded. We managed to evacuate quite a few before the fleet had to escape, but..." Harry trailed off.
Lily glanced at the datapad, "What about the Order?"
"Forty-eight dead, six wounded and six are missing." Harry answered quickly, "There are several companies from Second Battalion with Ahsoka missing. We received a report from them four hours ago that they were nearing who they believed responsible for the battlefield meditation, but after that, nothing."
"You think it's a comm error? Or that there's more going on down there than we realize?"
"There's still fighting down there." Harry nodded, "But the caves are so clouded with the darkness, that we won't be able to tell when somebody is killed."
"Our wounded?" Lily asked.
"Ulundi's wounded. Took a lightsaber to her arm, but from what I heard, she's in a healing trance. Our medics did all they could, but we really could have used Ginny there because she's the most knowledgable."
"I can see what I can do." Lily grinned, "Mum began to teach me after the Death Star and she loaned me a lot of her medical training memories."
"So that's why you needed my pensieve?"
Lily nodded, "Yup, so where's Master Ulundi?"
"On the bottom floor, in what I believe are some sleeping quarters. It's where we managed to set up most of the wounded in case there's a bombardment, it's the safest."
Lily thanked him and kissed him on the cheek before heading down to see the medics and determine if there was anything else she could do. Sirius waited until the door was shut again before he turned back to his dad, "How bad do you think it's going to get?"
Harry ran a frustrating hand through his hair and blew out a heavy sigh, "It's very strange that the Imperials haven't started their attacks yet. Normally they come in waves, trying to keep their enemies off balance. This is a different tactic and from what Anakin, Obi-wan and myself can determine is that they're going to hit us with everything at once, unrelenting and without a break. You did manage some sleep, right?" Sirius nodded and Harry continued, "We haven't seen any more ships land for about a half hour so we're actually expecting something to happen soon. Or they might just settle for a siege and wait us out."
"What about reinforcements?"
"Our contingency was to drop a probe and retreat from the system." Harry tapped something into the console, "The plan was that they would return to the fleet, gather twice as many ships and then return. We were hoping to destroy not just the primary force, but the rest of this sector's fleet at the same time, crippling this sector."
"Then we really only have to wait for them to return?" Sirius asked.
"We weren't planning on the Executor being part of the reinforcements." Harry sighed, "On top of that, we're going to have to wait for the Alliance Council to approve the rescue, even though the Jedi Council approved it."
"Then we're here for a long haul?" Sirius closed his eyes as he thought about the implications, "Mothma's going to be the hard one to convince. Garm and Organa have always been supporters of the Jedi, right? And Ackbar isn't going to just sacrifice us."
"I don't think Ackbar will have trouble agreeing. But the rest of the Council will be more cautious about further casualties to rescue what might be viewed as insignificant numbers. They won't want to risk our newly requisitioned Destroyers and Frigates."
"But those are the Orders. We took them for the Jedi and our Knights to be used for the Alliance!" Sirius exclaimed as he began to pace, "Besides, the ships of the rest of the Alliance has are more numerous than our own."
"The Alliance believes that we aquired them for them on the whole, not just the Jedi."
"But the crews are all ours." Sirius leaned over the console and lowered his voice, "Is that the reason we weren't give more than six ships for the primary assault? Because of the Alliance Council?"
"We only took six ships because they were the only ones that had the full upgrades. The rest are roughly three months away from being ready. Our Assault Frigates though are more than ready to extract us from the Imperials. I actually recommended we use our full compliment of those rather than our Destroyers but I was voted down." Harry flipped through several more rows of data on the screen and looked back at his son, "The real problem is going to be convincing the Alliance that we're worth those extra lives being risked."
"Then we might not even have a rescue mounted?"
"Oh, Admiral Rese will come back. It just might be him and our Knights though."
Sirius relaxed a little and nodding once, he left for the door, "I'm going to see if Luke can think of anything else for the defenses here. Maybe add a couple more protection wards to the entrances."
x x x
+09:30
Anakin entered the control room at a fast pace causing Harry and the few others in there to look up from their consoles, "Harry, you seeing this?"
"What?"
Punching up the security feed onto Harry's console, Anakin pointed to the entrance feed showing the ground between the academy and space port, "They're sending a group out to meet with us."
"That's...unexpected." Harry reached out with his senses and found them in the Force, "You and Kenobi already scan for others?"
Anakin nodded, "Who should go?"
"You, me and Commander Saide."
"Saide?"
"Yeah, we might need a Knight rep and she's senior for our troops."
"And me?"
"You were apart of meet and greets all the time during the war, you have plenty of experience."
They left the control room and apparated to the front door where they discovered Kenobi, Commander Saide and Jedi Katarn, "You going then?"
"We're going to take Saide with us."
"Me?"
"We'll need a Knight for negotiations." Harry opened the main door and saw the picket of troops acknowledging him as they temporarily vanished a barrier to create enough room for them to fit through, Kenobi conjuring up another barrier to replace it, "Keep your senses sharp for us, Obi-Wan."
"Will do!" Kenobi called out and then glanced at Kyle, "Twenty credits says they start some aggressive negotiating."
Kyle eyed the Imperial party for a second and then shook his head, "You're on. I don't think Master Potter's in the mood."
"But he's not taking point on the meeting, see? Anakin's in the middle."
"Sithspit!"
Both Jedi and the Knight could immediately sense that the Imperial on the right was a dark user, reguard of the Imperial dress uniform. He was bearing a General's rank, as well as the other man on the left, both were male with dark hair, and the Sith glaring at the Jedi with twin yellow-reddish eyes. In the middle of the group, a man of equal stature to Harry bore an Admiral rank and even though he was in the middle of a battlefield with hundreds of dead Stormtroopers, he generated a confidence that impressed Harry.
"Master Jedi, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Admiral Piett, commanding officer of the fleet in orbit. To my left is General Veers and on my right is Lord Melac."
Anakin nodded respectfully, "Master Anakin Skywalker. On my right is Master Harry Potter and on my left is Knight Commander Saide. I must admit, Admiral, that your request for a parley is very surprising, but you may begin."
"Thank you, Master Skywalker." Piett was able to quell is surprise and enthusiasm for being in the presence of two Clone War heroes, even if they were on opposite sides of the battlefield and he continued, "Your men have fought bravely. But all of your transports have been destroyed and your ships have withdrawn without contest. We severely outnumber you and I have come to offer you terms for your surrender to cease all hostilities against the Empire."
Anakin raised an eyebrow to Harry as he felt some amusement from him before adopting a very neutral face and anwering quickly, "You're certainly being generous to offer this, Admiral. Please state the terms that we can return to our men and discuss it with them to decide our next course of action."
Piett pulled out a datapad, "I'll summerize the terms and then hand you the datapad. All Knights are to surrender all weapons and gear immediately and sign an agreement with the Empire to never against bear arms against any Imperial forces. In addiction, they'll be cleared of treason as they're recognized to be clones and conditioned to fight against the Empire.
"All known members of the Jedi Order are to be taken to the Imperial Center and brought before an Emperical jury to decide their allegiances. All weapons are to be turned over. If you're found innocent of treason, all other charges will be dropped and you'll be cleared in exchange for an oath to the Empire and to never bear arms, join or aide in any anti-Imperial groups."
"And if we're found guilty?" Harry asked.
"Death." There was a pause as Piett found his place again, "Until said trail, those who have surrendered and agreed to the terms will be placed in Force binders."
"What about those who were never a part of the Jedi Order?"
"What other Order is there?" Piett asked, confused at the question.
"Since Order Sixty-six and the Jedi were betrayed by the Republic, the Jedi Order that existed then, was disbanded."
"Any man or woman considered Jedi are to be treated as if they were part of the Order. The Empire has not distinguished between your old Order or whatever your new one is. If they weren't apart of the Old Order, there might be leniency during their trail if they mention this fact." Lord Melac answered, though he knew as much as the others that the Emperor would not distinguish between the two.
"In light of these terms," Anakin began, "I feel the need to return to our camp and notify our people of this in case some feel differently from the main group. Commander Saide, do you have any questions?"
"What about our wounded?" Saide asked, "Will they be treated and cared for?"
General Veers fielded that question, "Any injured party who agrees to our terms will be sent to our medical ships in orbit for treatment until they are physically able to carry out the terms."
"We will give you two hours, Master Skywalker." Piett added, "I believe that time sufficient for a decision to be reached?"
"A very generous time frame, Admiral." Anakin gave a curt salute and the three Phoenix members turned and, with a quickened pace, returned to the Academy.
Questions were staved off as Anakin and Harry called for the Jedi to assemble. Commander Saide received permission to brief the Knights at this time and Anakin waited until all of the Jedi were there before beginning the brief of the terms. In the end, everybody understood that no justice would be given if they were to surrender and even with the generous offer for the Knights, they also refused to surrender, even those critically wounded.
The three returned to the neutral field and Piett seemed disappointed that there were not more with them, "Has a decision been reached?"
Anakin nodded, "Yes, we have. We wish to tell you that we understand how generous this offer is, but at this time, those of the Jedi Order are unable to accept."
Piett nodded and then looked at Commander Saide, "Commander?"
"I have discussed your terms thoroughly with our troops and we can't agree to turn away from our companions, but we appreciate the offer."
"Very well." Piett said, "I'm saddened we remain on oposing sides of the field, Master Skywalker. I have heard of your exploits during the Clone Wars and was rather saddened at the betrayal of the Jedi. Know that I don't order this battle lightly and it isn't personal for me, I'm following orders."
"I understand." Anakin grimly rendered a respectful salute, "When we meet again, Admiral, I'll extend you every bit of courtesy as you've shown us today."
Piett returned the salute and the Imperials turned at once, though Malec tried to stare down Harry. Harry merely smirked at the man and tapped the man's mental shields sharply and Malec's eyes widened before he followed after the other officers, trying to keep himself from rubbing his head where Harry had struck him.
