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 for the great work!

Phase 19: Operation Anvil

=RK=

Part 5

Droid Command Ship "Nemesis"
Third Wing Flagship
High Orbit over Geonosis

Admiral Dua Ningo, the second in command of the Geonosis Defense Fleet sneered at the holo display. As expected, that beast Grievous kriffed up. The old Sullustan would never understand why his leaders let that tin can command fleets. Granted, the cyborg was good at killing Jedi and terrorizing the enemy but in space, where it really mattered, the half-man, half-machine was found lacking.

No matter. Grievous was out of the picture for the moment, no doubt busy running for his life while the enemy fleet was advancing towards his crippled flagship.

"All Wings, converge at the closest staging point. All units do not engage the enemy before we've consolidated our forces at points Fell and Trinity." Ningo cut off the general comm channel and tuned his head towards one of the tactical droids acting as his staff. At least those weren't as useless as the run of the mill machines employed by the Confederacy. The damn money punchers in charge simply refused to learn that the war was very hard to win with such inferior equipment, no matter the numbers.

"Give me a time estimate. How long before our forces can consolidate for an attack?"

The droid froze for a few seconds, apparently the strain of computing the information almost overwhelming it. Then it tilted its head and reported. "Within ten minutes we'll have about sixty percent of all available forces. Seven minutes later the rest of the fleet will be in position."

The diminutive Admiral glared at the droid. "That's too long. We need to hit them before they are done with the rest of Grievous' command. We won't get a better chance unless they kriff up by the numbers." Ningo took a deep breath and glared at the holographic display. "We need to slow them down. Launch all fighters and bombers, both on the planet and in the fleet. They will have the acceleration to hit the enemy in the next five to seven minutes. Given the estimate of their new Guardian system, that won't be enough to cripple their fleet but it might do enough damage to slow them down and disrupt their formation."

Admiral Ningo glared at the tactical droid.

"What the kriff are you waiting for?! Do as ordered!"

"Roger, roger."

=RK=

Republic Cruiser "Chimera"
First Assault Fleet Flagship
High Orbit over Geonosis

Admiral Yularen calmly stared at the holographic display showing the disposition of his fleet. It was arrayed in a V formation, made up by three separate battle groups, each build around a single Corellian cruiser. Those three behemoths were the true heavy hitters of his temporary command. Each was a nearly kilometer and half long titan, bristling with weapons and protected by vast armor belts and powerful shields. The Corellian cruisers were leading divisions of Venators, each with their own escort of lighter ships.

The Admiral smiled. This was the greatest concentration of Republic military might in more than a thousand years, and it was under his command. While general Veil was busy, using the Force to somehow boost the morale and coordination of his forces, it was up to Yularen to command the battle.

"Time?" he asked. There was no need to elaborate. He's been working with his staff long enough that they were almost able to read his mind.

"Five point three minutes until Rogue One is in position. We estimate two more minutes for Rogue Two to reform and head our way. Three more minutes until they are in effective range."

"Long enough." Rogue One and Two were the designation of the two groups in which the remaining Separatists forces were forming for counterattack. Unfortunately someone with a brain was in command over there so they declined to send in their ships piecemeal. Which was all right with the Admiral. That left him more than enough time to dispose of the enemy task force that Skywalker had decimated, before engaging the main enemy forces in system.

Even better, the Separatists were granting him a golden opportunity to implement one of the General's underhanded plans for this battle.
"Take out the weapons of those battleships and execute operation Overlord." Yularen highlighted the targets in question on the holo display. Personally he thought that it was a long shot, but given the potential reward it was worth the risk.

His orders went down the chain of command and new targeting priorities were sent to Invincible's battle group. That particular Corellian cruiser was leading the Vanguard of the fleet and was already in range of the closest enemy units. A Light cruiser squadron, carrying the ONI specialists and their commando escort, sped up, slowly moving forward.

"Now what a competent enemy would do to kriff up our day?" The Admiral smiled and looked at his staff.

"Unless they have heavy reinforcements we don't know about, attacking us before their units are concentrate invites defeat in detail." Lieutenant Felix Olen, Yularen's aide thought aloud.

"True, true. Is there anyone else who wants to try?"

"Hyperspace jumps to form up and then attack us from point blank range?" asked Captain Jaiden Lor, the liaison with the Corellian Defense Force.

"If they were using your ships and crews it would be possible. With Munificents and those ponderous battleships of theirs? And cheap droids as crews? Well, let's hope they try it."

"Send massed bomber strikes with as much fighter cover as they can. It almost worked at Ryloth." Pellaeon spoke from his station where he was commanding his ship and attached Venator division.

"It won't work. Not with the Guardian installed on every capital ship and all our fighters flying CSP*! Even with the software glitches still unresolved..."

"Unless you have tens of thousands expendable fighters to throw at the problem." the Admiral said quietly. "Don't forget that we expect to be outnumbered in fighters alone by a factor of at least ten."

As if Yularen's words were prophetic, the holographic display chose that moment to lit up with red dots. Countless of them.

"I owe the General a hundred credits." Pellaeon chuckled. "His spook buddies did their job for once."

Most of the flag staff looked at the Commodore and Admiral with confusion.

"In every written report after Ryloth, it was stated that the only reason why the Guardian worked as well as it did was because the enemy fighters came in ballistic, greatly diminishing the vectors on which they could evade and still be able to kamikaze the fleet. It was said that the system would have problems tracking and hitting wildly evasive targets and it could glitch if it had to track too many enemy contacts." Yularen explained.

"Well, that's..." Felix was at loss for words.

"What we have installed on this fleet is orders of magnitude better than the prototypes we used at Ryloth." Pellaeon cracked a small smile. "That system is build with this exact scenario in mind." He pointed at the swarms of red dots that obscured Geonosis and the enemy fleet's staging points.

"By the spirits…" one of the sensor operators muttered aloud.

"By all means, enlighten us, Lieutenant."

The human woman gulped. "Sir, that can't be right!" Yularen's smile widened a bit.

"I can assure you, the sensor's are in working order, Silva. Report." Pellaeon added.

"Sorry, sirs. We are detecting in excess of one hundred thousand vultures… and their numbers keep rising."

"Just as planned. Execute Lacoon. Let's prepare a warm welcome for those birds." Yularen ordered.

=RK=

Republic Cruiser "Chimera"
First Assault Fleet Flagship
High Orbit over Geonosis

I allowed myself a tiny smile. That many enemy small craft… If the CIS commander wasn't caught out of position, he could have used them as a hammer to shatter my fleet. He might have very well succeeded.

Now whoever was in charge over there had to make some hard decisions. Either throw most of his fighters and bombers at us to buy time until he had consolidated, or let us dictated the tempo of the battle. Right now we had the initiative and left unchecked could further wreck the Confed's day. I didn't need to look at the holo display in front of me to know the relative dispositions of the fleets. I could feel them in the Force.

Left unchecked we could either make a pass over the planet, bombarding it, a possibility the enemy commander had to defend against, or pounce on one of their two main staging points in which case we could inflict heavy casualties before the rest of the enemy forces caught up with us. Our third main option was to finish mopping up the enemy battle group which Anakin wrecked, hit the orbital defenses and slug it over Geonosis while simultaneously deploying ground forces. It was something often done in this war, sending in the ground pounders while the orbitals were still contested. However that wasn't something I planned to do today, no matter what the official battle plans submitted to the Chancellor said.
There was a reason why I stripped most of the various fleets currently not actively engaged in combat from most of their light warships and concentrated them as escorts for this operation.

My soldiers were ready. Trained and experienced in the fires of this war. Now it was time to see if my plan was up to the task.

I submerged myself fully in the Force and became a nexus coordinating my fleet's actions.

=RK=

Light Cruiser "Corellian Fury"
Task Force Lacoon Flagship
First Assault Fleet
High Orbit over Geonosis

"Lacoon. I repeat Lacoon." the Comm officer shouted, unable to contain her excitement.

"You heard the Admiral, boys and girls. Give the word to the freighters. I want the cargo deployed yesterday. The Escort Carriers are to move forward and punch it. I want all birds in the air and in position before those swarms hit us." Commodore Jole Solo ordered.

The grizzled Corellian had enlisted after his ship was shot out from under him at Ryloth. Someone among the Fleet brass had liked what he did during that battle, because he got the rank of Commodore and a vital part to play in kriffing up the CIS bastards. Probably thanks to the General, who had recruited him for Ryloth in the first place.

He owed that scoundrel one. Perhaps two. For a moment, Jole thought about the kid he had been contacted about. An orphan, one Han Solo, a possible relative. If the offensive hadn't been kicked up earlier than planned he would have been back home right now, meeting the lad. Well, that was the plan, just put on hold until some well deserved kicking of Separatist's asses.

"Graawrg!" Traaw confirmed and started growling at the comm officer.

Jole straightened and stared at the holo display. He felt energized, the growing enemy swarm was becoming less and less threatening by the minute. His carriers started launching fighters and the twenty cargo ships attached to his command began releasing their payloads. Each of those behemoths had their holds full with weapons platforms. They were small things, half the size of a snub fighter. However, the platforms packed a mean punch. Each had four small racks with concussion missiles attached as well as dual laser cannons. Great for anti fighter work.

The platforms were caught by the tractor beams of Solo's light ships and carriers, which then made their way to the outer layer of the Fleet's formation. The ships moved as if they had practiced the maneuvers long enough to be instinctive. There were no mistakes, no units or even single craft lagging because they moved too early or late. It was a thing of beauty, which only an experienced spacer could really appreciate. Because only such a person would know how hard it was to pull off that kind of precise maneuvering on a fleet scale.

The Corellian glared at the enemy forces on the display. Soon enough he would extract another pound of flesh from the kriffing bastards that murdered his kin.

"Data-links are online and clear. We are patched into the Guardian Network."

"All birds are in the air and forming in their designated zones."

"Enemy fighters will be entering missile range in sixty seconds."

Three distinct waves of vultures were converging upon the Republic fleet from separate vectors. Their timing was impeccable. The Separatists small craft were going to strike their adversaries within moments of each other.

"Give me estimated numbers on those nuisances." Solo's voice was calm, not betraying what he was feeling, if anything.

"Estimates are on hundred and fifty thousand plus." the sensor officer reported.

His voice was calm, too calm. Jole frowned. For that matter so was he. Even someone like him, who didn't particularly care if he lived or died as long as he avenged his family, should have felt at least some pang of dread at facing that many enemies with untested doctrine and new weaponry, barely out of the experimental stage.

Yet there was no fear. Just durasteel determination to see the mission through. He smiled. 'Perhaps we are all driven mad by the Sep's atrocities and don't care anymore as long as we drag them to the Nine hells with us.' the Corellian thought.

"All fleet elements, weapons free." Yularen ordered.

"Wraaarg!" Traaw roared a battle cry.

The Vulture swarms crossed an invisible line. The Republic fleet lit up, disappearing behind a wave after wave of concussion missiles.