Chapter 8: Gulomi Merai

Kamino

Seven minutes earlier…

The golden eyed Mon Calamari Separatist smirked triumphantly as he descended through Tipoca City's shields, blending in with a wave of Vulture droids and gunships. The arrogant fools probably didn't even notice my ship.

His T-shaped Mon Calamari Amphib Fighter was covered in bulbous structures, typical of Mon Calamari engineering. The five transparisteel cockpit windows were not only asymmetric, but different sizes.

Swooping his eccentric fighter in a wide oval over the city, the Mon Calamari looked at his surroundings. His forces had achieved air superiority over the outskirts of the city. The Republic fighters were bunched in the centre, struggling to keep the droid gunships from landing directly on the Cloning Center and administrative buildings.

For a brief flash, on a pedestrian bridge below, Merai saw four lightsabers illuminated in the rainy night sky; three blue and one green. Jedi, ironically defending this vile facility. Defending absurd government overreach. Defending cloning sentient beings to be used as slaves. 'Just following orders.'

As he frowned, the Mon Calamari decided he would be doing the Galaxy a favour by eliminating those four Jedi. Merai angled his starfighter down towards the walkway.

"Sir! You are off target!" A panicky Mon Calamari voice yelled into Merai's ship comm. "Don't worry about that," Merai grunted. He squeezed the trigger, sending a ruthless spray of red laserfire down onto the bridge. One of the blades disappeared in an explosion, the other three descended into the waves, their holders no doubt jumping from the bridge for cover.

Merai pulled up from the waves and began flying low, under Tipoca City's structure. "Getting back on target now. Do not worry about me. What is the status of the Tipoca shields?"

"88 percent sir."

Eighty-eight percent after nearly an hour of bombardment. Well, lucky I am about to take out the city's reactor. "Very well, I am proceeding to target. Keep me apprised of any updates and—"

"—Sir! You have five—"

"—I see them!" Merai grunted, noticing five V-19 Torrents appearing on his scanners. Damn I got them angry. "I need cover!"

"Directing Vulture droids already," the voice on the comm said.

Merai's Amphib circled around, struggling to stay ahead of the spray of Republic blasterfire. Red blasts reflected from his bulbous eyes as stray shots impacted the grey Kaminoan durasteel. Well, flying close to the city structure did not stop them from shooting… Plan B.

The Amphib fighter descended towards the waves. As expected, the V-19 Torrents continued their pursuit. Fools.

A particularly large wave rose from the sea. Rather than dodging it, as most pilots would, Commander Merai flew right through the wave. His Amphib was completely unaffected, save for ripples of water now running down his transparisteel windows.

The V-19 Torrents were not so lucky. After emerging from the wave, their engines sparked. Bluish electric arcs sparked from all of their systems as they rose, desperate to escape the waves. Soon, the hapless fighters dropped from the sky, slamming into the water at well over 100 km/h.

Merai laughed gleefully. What type of idiotic force does battle on a water planet with vessels like those!? The Republic simply has no amphibious craft at all! The fools! They will be helpless once I get to my target.

To his surprise, Passel Argente himself found Merai's plan strategically inadvisable, despite the fact the Koorivar had no military experience at all. The reason the Mon Calamari gave to Passel Argente for his eccentric flight plan—a flight plan that included seven clicks over the surface of the ocean, instead of diving into the sea, was the potential for sea mines. "There may be traps and sea mines placed to protect the reactor," he had told the Koorivar. In truth however, Merai really wanted to try that trick—to drown the arrogant Republic landlubbers in their ships.

He continued cackling with joy for another twenty seconds, shaking with adrenaline as he sped up, bouncing through wave after wave.

"SIR!" a desperate voice yelled into his comm. "THREE REPUBLIC SHIPS—VENATOR CLASS! THEY'RE FIRING!"

"I'm almost to the target!" Merai yelled, elevating from the ocean, accelerating his Amphib beyond the speed of sound. Blast it. I really wanted to keep wave-skipping. The waves here are far rougher than what we have anywhere on Mon Cala.

Merai was no longer paying attention to the battle. His only focus was his goal.

"Our shields are at 80%! We can't take more than five or ten more minutes of this!"

"I'll be on target in… Now, descending as planned!" Merai yelled, decelerating his Amphib to a safe entry velocity.

The cloudy night-time light became even darker as the familiar swoosh-sound of water rang out. Merai brightened his headlights as he dove his Amphib deeper.

In this murky water under the city, his visibility was less than ten meters. Switching to sonar, he scanned ahead towards his target. Three large pings appeared on is screen.

Aha! That must be the reactor! He gunned his propeller propulsion system, accelerating deep towards the pings. As he got closer, the pings became huge on his screen. The reactor complex is far bigger than our intelligence predicted…

Suddenly, the Mon Calamari jolted forward against his seatbelt. His neck was jarred as he whiplashed back into his seat. System alarms went off and yellow red light flashed.

In a daze, Merai looked forwards, blinking his bulbous eyes sleepily. He had hit some sort of criss-cross checker marks that now crossed his screen. No wait, that's not my screen. That's my cockpit window… And those are… rope. Huh? I hit a net.

On his screen, his ship was moving forwards at a slow speed of just 5 km/h. If I hit a net how am I moving?

The Mon Calamari began fiddling with his controls, looking at his instruments. Then a bright light illuminated his cockpit.

He looked up and saw the front of a massive Jedi Consular-class cruiser, underwater, shining spotlights on him. The front of yet another Consular-class emerged through the murky water, joining the first in illuminating his cockpit.

At that moment, the severely concussed Mon Calamari came to the realisation that, in fact, the Republic did have amphibious craft.