Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.
AN: This part was betaed by Gatemaster on the Space Battle's forums. Thank you very much!
Chapter 19: Operation Anvil
Part 4
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Droid Command Ship "Deathdealer"
High Orbit over Geonosis
General Grievous stood on the bridge of his new ship resembling a statue made of gleaming durasteel. He was surrounded by a veritable host of B1 droids, the fragile machines hunched over their stations. He would have grit his teeth if he could. If he wasn't a cyborg, more machine than man, Grievous would be shaking with unrestrained fury.
He had been outmaneuvered. Outfought. Captured and kept in a jar like an insect by the Republic.
That grated on parts of his psyche he had thought long dead. Even now, when he was surrounded by a veritable armada, clad in new and improved combat chassis, the CIS bogyman couldn't help it. The Republic fleet was approaching and part of him shivered with emotion he had forgotten. Oh, there was the excitement of the impending battle. A drive for vengeance he had never felt before. Nevertheless, there was that small, treacherous voice in the back of his head. The one which was born while he was helpless, crippled prisoner.
It wasn't a fear of death. That hadn't scared him ever since he was an adolescent warrior who had tasted the thrill of battle. But this was something new. The feeling of being helpless. Useless. Something he hadn't felt after he had been rebuild as a cyborg for the first time.
He hated that feeling, almost as much as the Jedi who captured him. That bitch of a Togruta. Oh, how he despised that damned woman! He couldn't wait to get his claws on her, he swore. He would deal with her in due time. Perhaps before the coming battle was resolved if he was really lucky for once.
"Contact!" exclaimed one of the droids monitoring the sensor station.
"Details!" Grievous spat. A tingle of excitement ran up what little nerves he still had functioning. It was time!
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Venator Cruiser "Coruscant's Pride"
Hyperspace
En route to Geonosis
Anakin Skywalker stood alone on the command tower of his new flagship. What he did for Padme. For a forlorn hope at best… It would be viewed as a dereliction of duty if he was lucky. Outright treason if not.
Yet the young Jedi found that he didn't care. Like at all. In the end Padme was all that mattered to him, the whole galaxy could burn in that kriffing war as far as he was concerned. No price was to high to pay for a chance to help his wife. Indeed, he would face the consequences gladly!
Anakin smiled gently and sat on the cool floor, ready to meditate. For a first time in a long, long while he was content. Suddenly his life had become very simple. Very soon, there won't be a need for any more lies and in a sense he would be free. Well, as "free" as someone who was likely to spent a lot of time behind bars, provided he lived through the maelstrom which awaited him at the end of the hyperspace jump.
He had no illusions left.
Anakin closed his eyes and slowly submerged himself within the Force. For some time he simply reveled in the sense of drifting upon the vast ocean of untamed power. Skywalker took the time necessary to center himself, to expand his senses until he could feel all eleven capital ships under his command. He felt the furnaces of their reactors, a cluster of stars drifting through hyperspace. The Jedi concentrated, finding every last one of the clones crewing the ships. Patiently he weaved a web of energy so he was connected with every last one of them. He took a deep breath. He was almost ready.
It wouldn't be long now. Anakin gritted his teeth and bent the Force to his will, substituting raw power where his lack of skill found him wanting. He opened himself to the minds of his men, becoming a nexus. A control hub coordinating their actions and a source of inspiration, breathing courage within their hearts.
It was time. He could feel it with every fiber of his being. Instant later, the captains of his ships knew it too, so did the helmsmen. A single press of a button was all it took and the fleet dropped from FTL, crashing back in real space.
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Droid Command Ship "Deathdealer"
High Orbit over Geonosis
Grievous stared at the eleven ships that dropped from hyperspace almost on top of his formation. If he was in a part of the ships with viewing ports he would be able to see them.
"Open Fir-" his angry order was interrupted by a hammer blow throwing him to the ground. Sirens shrieked across the bridge, announcing that the shields had failed. "Return fire!" shouted the cyborg. He used his metal claws to anchor himself to the deck and stood up. His eyes darted towards the holotank, showing the disposition of his forces.
The Republic ships were deployed in three rings, each made by a trio of Venators, with two more cruisers in the center. The unconventional formation resembled a drill of all things, the impression made more striking by the way the enemy craft were rotating. The CIS commander made the connection almost immediately. The Venators were maneuvering in such a way that each of them would be exposed to concentrated weapon's fire for a short amount of time. It wouldn't last long. Not with Grievous having such an overwhelming advantage in firepower and numbers.
Not that the kriffing Republic scum seemed to care. What was worse, they were inflicting damage vastly out of proportion. His ship was crippled, the alpha strike had breached the shields in multiple places, slagging all the heavy weapons "Deathdealer" could bring to bear without rotating on 180 degrees.
They didn't waste time on delivering a killing blow, instead with unnatural precision, the enemy cruisers were concentrating their fire from one target to the next, leaving crippled hulks in their wake. Grievous seethed. The battle group accompanying his flagship should have been more than enough to deal with eleven Venators. Yet, in the span of few minutes, four Battleships were crippled, their shields locally overwhelmed, their heavy weapons slagged.
"Tactical! Move Third, Seventh and Eight wings in an englobement maneuver!" Grievous snarled. He needed to deal with this distraction before the rest of the Republic fleet came calling.
"Roger, roger!"
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Venator Cruiser "Coruscant's Pride"
High Orbit over Geonosis
Anakin hissed in pain as he felt more of his men die. Under different circumstances he might have patted himself on the back for the decision not to come directly to Geonosis, but to stop halfway and leave most of his ships with only skeleton crews. If the nine Venators in the outer shell of his formation were manned as usual, Skywalker had no doubt that he would have passed out from the backslash, dooming them all.
As it was, his body was on fire, his head was doing its best to split open in pain. The Force itself was struggling against his grasp, while he was doing his best to channel it to fuel his Battle Meditation. The technique was harder than anything he had ever attempted. He had to strain his senses to their limits, careful to influence only those of the crew who were actually fighting his ships, doing anything more and he would be a helpless heap twitching on the deck.
Anakin swayed, almost planting his face in the metal floor as a wave of dizziness hit him, yet he persevered. By this point it was his sheer stubbornness that kept him going. That and his love for Padme, which he was using as a fuel to keep his technique going for as long as his body would last.
Skywalker grinned, paying no attention to the thin streams of blood leaking from his eyes and ears. Anakin was an embodiment of his fleet, wielding it with the precision of a laser scalpel.
Another alpha strike and the fifth and last battleship between him and the planet was a drifting cripple, leaving twenty odd frigates in his way, with twice that number left as burning wrecks behind him. Now he needed to dispose of those before the three battle groups racing to intercept his formation were in effective range.
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Venator Cruiser "Chimera"
First Assault Fleet Flag ship
Hyperspace
En route to Geonosis
The pieces were slowly falling into place. Soon enough I will practically own Skywalker or he would be neutered as a long term threat. Or he'll just die at Geonosis. Either way, another step of my plan will be complete. That left the battle.
In few minutes the fleet will drop from hyperspace, engaging hopefully disrupted enemy formations. I expected that Skywalker's mad rush would accomplish that much at least, balancing the scales with the ships and people he led in his suicidal dash towards Geonosis. I shook my head. While I planned for him doing something stupid, just appropriating a task force and going to do his own thing was particularly dumb. Unless I led the rest of the fleet on his heels, he and the men who followed him were dead, period.
Oh, I could understand where he was coming from. I wouldn't, couldn't just stand by and do nothing, if my deceased wife was the one suffering. Of course, there were many smarter ways to do it, which incidentally would increase her chances of getting the antidote by a large degree.
Now it was all academic anyway. Anakin had gotten himself in a bind I might be able to extract him from, in which case it would be easy to tie his fortunes to my own. After all, you didn't need to be a fortune teller to know how the Jedi would act once the current unpleasantries were resolved. Hell, as a General of the Republic, even my hands were tied as far as Skywalker's stunt was concerned. Officially at least. Once the battle was over, and provided that he was still somewhat in one piece, Anakin was going to be facing a court martial.
Serves him right for acting like an idiot.
But he was a problem for another time. Now I had a space battle to win.
I closed my eyes and relaxed, letting the Force flow through me. I gently moulted the energies of the Light Side, making sure that they will be healing some of the strain I was about to put on my body. I let my senses float, first touching the command personnel on my ship and slowly spreading out to the fleet. The fact that we were in hyperspace was no hindrance at all. You got to love the Force and the way it bind all things in the universe together.
I extended my will and grasped the raging torrent that was the Dark Side, fueling my powers. Raw energy raced through my veins, the edge of searing pain I should have felt taken away by the light energies saturating my body. Now I had the power in my hand to back up the skills Ashara taught me all those years ago.
One after another, whole ships and their crews fell under my sway. We were a single organism, bound by my will and purpose. I inspired courage and raw determination in my soldiers, leaving no place for doubt or fear in their hearts. They knew what their mates were about to do, whole fighter wings, destroyer and frigate squadrons, even cruiser divisions acting as one. A level of coordination making the best fleet command and control system appear as a joke, in the face of the coordination possible thanks my Battle Meditation.
I grinned. Most people, both enemy and ally,expected Geonosis to be a stand up battle, two of the greatest fleets assembled in millennia slugging it out.
To hell with that! It wasn't to be a fair fight. I was going to cheat as the sneaky bastard I was. And the Battle Meditation was only the tip of the iceberg.
It was time.
"Begin." I whispered in the heads of my Flag officers and captains.
A brief lurch and my fleet was back in real space. A holographic tank came to life in front of me, showing a picture of Geonosis and every enemy ship in sensor range. My grin widened. Skywalker had done his job, even better than expected. What was left from his task force, four operational Venators, were being pounded to pieces by three whole battle groups. Another CIS flotilla was crippled in Anakin's wake, only four half operational battleships left amidst the wreckage of one of their sisters and scores of frigates.
I whistled with appreciation. I really didn't believe that the little I taught Skywalker about tactical use of Battle Mediation could culminate into this.
My smile turned feral. A significant portion of the enemy fleet was out of position. Even using tactical hyperspace jump, two thirds of the enemy forces won't get into range as a cohesive group for anything between five to seven minutes.
"Advance." All I needed was to think it and my men would follow the order.
Frigate squadrons led the way, supported by destroyers and followed by light cruisers; paving the way for the heavy hitters of my fleet. A swarm of fighters buzzed around the capital ships, waiting to intercept anything that might survive the battle christening of the fully operational Guardian system integrated into every one of my ships.
=RK=
Droid Command Ship "Deathdealer"
High Orbit over Geonosis
Grievous took one look at the rest of the enemy fleet which just arrived, and then turned around and sprinted towards the hangar.
"TK i8, you have tactical command. Contingency Gamma, execute." the cyborg shouted a moment before leaving the bridge. He could scarcely believe it. According to all Intel, the main body of the Republic fleet should have been a few hours out! He knew that Skywalker had went ahead, basically going rogue with the ships that attacked a few minutes ago. But for Veil to have the rest of the fleet follow so fast...
A chill went through what little organic flesh Grievous still possessed. It was a setup. It had to be. You didn't get such a massive fleet moving in the same direction without a notice. Not that fast. No matter how good they were trained. It didn't matter if Skywalker was acting as a distraction by his own will or he was set up as well.
Veil, the kriffing bastard had deceived everyone. Both his chain of command and the CIS intelligence types. It was almost admirable in a way. Which of course meant, Grievous had to kill him before he pulled something else from his bag of tricks.
Meanwhile, he needed to get the kriff away from Deathdealer, which would soon enough be used for target practice by the advancing enemy. The battleship and her crippled sisters wouldn't even be able to slow down that many ships. Not with half their heavy weapons gone. On the other hand, they would be able to make the enemy light elements bleed before being destroyed themselves. It wasn't as if Veil could keep his light ships out of range and maintain formation.
