Anakin eyed the old freighter as it slowly lowered itself to the ground. Built in the Mon-Cala style, the master shipwrights would probably consider the contraption an insult to their star system. Panels were missing from its hull, the paintwork was positively antique and the unholy howl of the engines made him question how many decades had passed since its last space-worthiness certification. With several thrusters misfiring, the landing could be best described as hard and wobbly.

Rather than a loading ramp, it looked as if a ladder fell from a hatch, followed by a lean, cloaked figure, which had both former Jedi reach for their lightsabers.

"Fancy meeting you two here."

"Ventress!"

"Awww, you still recognised me. I wasn't so sure with the hair and the new clothes," she replied to Anakin's hiss and gestured at her red coat.

"We are not in the mood for games," Ahsoka hissed, one hand on her lightsaber. Her words were underlined by a score of troopers which took positions surrounding the derelict freighter.

"I'm not here to cause trouble for you - "

"You shouldn't be here in the first place."

"Some of us don't have friends in high places and actually have to earn their credits. And a woman with my history and qualifications does not have many options."

"So you are still in the bounty hunting business?" Anakin demanded, faintly remembering that she had been in that line of work when the mess with Barriss Offee went down.

"Yes, and there's a fat prize which led me out to this shithole. I'm looking for a Mandalorian."

"Mandalorian?"

"Yeah, a certain Ise Brend. Supposedly in command here. Do you have any idea where my former friends have pitched their tents?"

"I think that there's been a misunderstanding," Ahsoka said carefully. "Brend is an utter pain in the ass, even compared to you, but she's in command here, not with the clankers."

"Not you?"

"We could probably take over, but that damned bitch is pretty good at what she does. So we let her deal with logistics, which gives us more time for force healing and the occasional bit of fighting."

"You? Healers? Not to be rude, but - "

"We aren't good at it, but it's better than nothing."

"So let me put this straight, my target is actually on your side," Ventress trailed off and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Yes."

"And you would actually mind if I killed the woman?"

"It's probably better if you don't."

"Damn. Another week where I don't get paid."

"What if we paid you to fight?" Ahsoka suggested and it was difficult to say who was more surprised by the offer.

"I'm not a mercenary."

"And we don't use mercenaries, yet here we are."

Anakin looked up from the workbench and turned the heater up another degree. On Tatooine, rain had been rare enough to cause a minor celebration in the slave quarters, a welcome respite from the smouldering heat. But on Kinrah, it ran in every opening, tenaciously fighting its way through layers upon layers of protective clothing.

The only way to keep the water out was to wear gear suited for space, one of the few occasions where he had envied the armour the Clones wore. With temperatures barely above freezing, two hours in the forward trenches had chilled him to the bones and he was glad that his watch was over.

"R2, run the simulation again."

Due to the disparity of forces, winning through sheer force was impossible. It seemed as if for every droid they destroyed, two more stepped forward. And the 303rd was undoubtedly one of the best squadrons in the galaxy and if given the opportunity, they could cull the enemy's line with relative ease. However, they could do little until the Separatists' AA defences were taken care of, which required a ground assault to do so. And a ground assault against such defences needed air support or ten times their number of heavy weapons. So if the defences were the problem, eliminating them was the answer.

And the Battle of Grimwald had given him an idea on how to break the stalemate. Back there, the ARC-170s had guided them by watching the Confederate sensors and then estimating their positions based on their source. Similarly, almost every air defence system had its own sensor suite to allow it to track and engage targets individually. And concussion missiles had a seeker head which was guided by the return of their own sensors.

Anakin checked the sensor inputs as the concussion missile went through its simulated flight. If they couldn't win through force, they would have to do it through cunning. They had thousands of concussion missiles, but no weapon against air defence. However, throughout the past three weeks on this hellish planet, he had more than enough time to tinker. Reprogramming the seeker heads had not been difficult, but giving them the ability to lock onto active sensors rather than their own meant overwriting their original code. They would thus follow the sensors to their source and, hopefully, hit the emplacements and AA platforms.

These changes made the missiles almost useless against starfighters since their memory chips were rather lacklustre. And Anakin still had no solution for the target simply shutting down its sensor suit. But he had a weapon which could take of stationary AA emplacements. If given enough time and manpower, he could develop this into a fully functional weapon system, but stuck on a remote battlefield there was no way he could integrate it into the targeting computer of their starfighters. It was a weapon almost perfectly suited for the ARC-170, but they only had a dozen from the 474th Reconnaissance Group.

The whole workshop shook under the impacts above, which nearly made him spill the field ration tea across the disassembled seeker. The modified concussion missile had to be field-tested, but doing so would alert the enemy of the new danger they faced. Which in the end meant more simulations for R2… Although maybe he could modify the missile so that an Astromech could aim them -

During the lull caused by their trench raid, Ahsoka had ordered the construction of forwarding dugouts connected by their own network of trenches. But as the Separatists received reinforcements and regained their strength, they pushed the 501st out of their forward lines. It was not a sudden breakthrough but rather the result of a five-day slugging match which wore the Clones down after almost a week of nonstop assaults. On the 6th night, Anakin ordered a general retreat to stop his men from collapsing on the spot.

It had not been a rout so they had the time to place mines and booby trap the abandoned positions, which, together with a few well-timed artillery barrages, had stalled the Separatists for twenty hours and given the remnants of the 501st a much-needed break.

However, the Separatists had used the same break to concentrate and reorganise their forces, bring more supplies forwards and move up their remaining artillery. Their attack the next morning was hardly a surprise, but the second one launched at noon turned out to be a problem. The Confederate artillery had been silenced with counter-battery fire, but until then the damage had been done. The strongest fortifications of the 501st were reduced to little more than rubble in the mud and the 303rd took to the skies to blunt the assault. Anakin's modified missiles weren't perfected yet, but since it was a simple chip update, it had been easy to prepare a few hundred to make up for all which failed.

Within a few minutes, the Separatists had lost their air defence and their last few Vulture droids. This left the sky to the Naboo squadron, who fell upon the battle droids like a hungry pack of Loth-wolves. Tanks were destroyed by accurate missile fire, entire brigades disappeared beneath carpets of proton bombs, torpedoes turned transports into craters and plasma rained from the skies. However, the R-22s were flying low to inflict their carnage, which meant that they had to expose themselves to ground fire. A single B-1 had no chance of even scratching the paint of a starfighter, but an entire army could do a lot more than that by simply saturating the skies with red death from their heavier weapon platforms.

After half an hour, Anakin called off the attack and ordered his remaining pilots back to their base. During that time, he had seen 31 starfighters shot down, maybe a third of which had managed to crash behind friendly lines. Another eight R-22s had already retreated before they shared that fate. Which left him with White Flight, the inexperienced pilots who had been assigned to patrols and reconnaissance. And given that whoever commanded the Separatists might have another ace up his sleeve, it was for the best that there was a reserve not committed to the battle below.

The airstrikes had wiped out several divisions worth of droids, but the machines kept coming. They stepped over the remnants of the first and second waves and marched on. They were welcomed by carefully prepared positions, most of which had been reinforced by the armaments taken from the Varykino. Torpedo and missile racks substituted artillery, composite beam lasers evaporated entire droid companies in the blink of an eye while gunpods served as support weapons for the Clones in the trenches. Half a dozen damaged AT-TE's were dug in behind the second trench, and while they could not move anymore, they added their considerable firepower to the defenders. And yet, the droids kept coming, a tidal wave of B-1s with more advanced models in between, their mechanical lockstep undisturbed by the destruction of tens of thousands of their brethren.

In the end, the Confederate assault had ground to a halt just a few feet from the trenches. Ventress had long since resorted to her lightsaber and Ahsoka led a well-timed counter-charge once it became apparent that Separatists had lost their momentum. Anakin had been itching to join the fight, but at first, he had been busy coordinating the use of his experimental weapons and then juggling reserves and medics. However, he would get his chance sooner than he had hoped for. As the sun was setting, the droids came again.

Looking through his night-vision scope, Anakin could see a wall of machines marching their way over the smouldering remnants of the previous assaults. This time, there were no airstrikes to coordinate or reserves to call upon. So as soon as the 501st was manning the trenches, he drew his sabre and rushed towards the centre of the line.

There were fewer tanks or advanced droids than during the previous assault, but as Geonosis had so aptly demonstrated even the primitive, cheap B-1s were lethal in sufficient numbers. And given that a never-ending supply of droids was spilling over the parapet, it quickly became a fight until the bitter end. After twenty minutes of fighting, Anakin noticed that the battalion to his left was losing ground, badly. They had been thrown out of their first and second line of trenches, reeling from the unending flood of battle droids.

"Overrun - reinforcements - can't hold them much longer - "

Ahsoka's voice was strained, a stark contrast to the situation on the other flank. On the right, Ventress was holding her original position, waltzing throughout the attacking force with an almost suicidal disregard for her own safety. She jumped onto one of the few tanks, tore its hatch wide open and dropped a grenade down the turret, somersaulting off the exploding vehicle and cleaving through a B2 before her feet touched the ground.

The Dathomirian used the force liberally, and even though she did not delve into the dark side, she lacked the discipline of a Jedi, instead utilising brute power. But then again, with the assault concentrated elsewhere, she was free to do so. Ahsoka on the other hand was hard-pressed, her forces split in two with a breakthrough imminent. She was holding her own, but the same could not be said about the remnants of her battalion.

A concentrated volley drew Anakin's attention, the blue plasma giving his men a welcome breather as a wave of droids fell to well-aimed fire. Another company arrived and laid down covering fire, rushing past them towards the enemy. The Clones grabbed canteens and ration bars, medical kits and armour seals, a few venturing into the abandoned trench in front of them to look for stragglers or get flanking fire in. The initial artillery barrage had done a lot of damage to pillboxes and makeshift forts, but most of the lesser fortifications were intact.

Another wave of droids washed over the already overrun lines, increasing the pressure on the few remaining Clones in the last trench. Anakin knew he had to do something quickly or the Confederacy would break through and then roll up what was left of the 501st.

"Raise White flight and direct them towards hill 23, priority 02. And see if you can get me some artillery."

"Yes, Sir!" Stray, the forward air controller of Fives' battalion, confirmed and began to relay orders while Anakin ducked back into the command outpost. Calling the dugout headquarters would be too much since it was little more than a battery of communication gear jammed into an alcove.

"Companies 1 and 8 will remain in the line and provide covering fire while 2, 6, 7 and 9 advance to the stream in front of our trenches. Its northern bank should give the men enough cover. I will lead the remaining companies against the Seppies on our left. We will be getting one airstrike and hopefully some artillery, but both are meant to cut off further reinforcements. We will have to deal with what we see the old-fashioned way," Anakin summarized the plan he had just come up with. It was far from perfect, but the best he could do under the circumstances. He needed more men, more air support, more heavy weapons. And he had to seize the initiative or else they would be overrun eventually. But there was still one ace up his sleeve.

"Heavy Rain is falling in Theed."

Upon hearing the code phrase, crews rushed to remove the covers from their weapons. The Varykino had been stripped of most of its secondary and tertiary batteries, and those had been hidden behind the trenches. As a converted freighter, the Varykino had lacked heavy turbolasers, but even the lighter weapons had been unsuitable for ground defence.

But the miners were handy people, and, with blowtorches and ingenuity, stripped the mounts of their heavy plating and allowed them to work with the weaker, makeshift power supply. The wiring was a mess and with little space to fit servos, the turrets had to be lightened significantly. Each mount ended up unique because both the workers who removed them and those who placed them had worked without a proper plan.

In the end, most turrets were not properly armoured anymore, quite a few reduced to little more than a gun shield, which left the crews and the critical components exposed. Yet those measures had allowed them to move the turrets without heavy machinery. And it made it easy to disguise them as miscellaneous scrap, craters and below camouflage nets. So when they began to fire on the droids, it made them run into a wall of plasma. The three AATs which had moved forwards to exploit the breakthrough ceased to exist, as did the battalions around them. The rapid-fire of the guns erased twenty minutes of progress, but without armour and the shields of their ship, they were not invincible. A company of tanks rushed forwards and traded their robotic existence for five turrets, which allowed more droids to charge the crumbling lines of the 501st. A group of super battle droids opened up with their rocket launchers and disabled more mounts while the regular models silenced guns by targeting the crews.

And yet, the gun crews had played their part and bought valuable time. Their sacrifice had allowed Anakin to prepare a motley collection of Clones. And simultaneously other subunits of the 501st were pressing forwards against the disarrayed line in front of them. Then their artillery shifted fire and concentrated every cannon on the advancing droids, delivering a creeping barrage which rolled over the battle droids and allowed him to advance rapidly.

"With me, men!"

After the last rockets and shells had fallen, Anakin rushed forward. His Clones followed, moving much faster than they had done under the cover of their artillery. With the remaining droids focused on Ahsoka's unit, it was a slaughter. Hundreds of them fell in rapid succession. Yet it did not seem to even slow them down. His battle group surged into the gap the artillery had carved, but resistance quickly stiffened. It was at this point when he realised that the Separatists had not just focused their attack on this flank, they had thrown everything they had this way. No matter how many fell, more rushed forwards to form a wall of droids.

In the distance, he could see Ahsoka's lightsabers, but their movement was not fluid. And for every yard he gained towards her, the Confederate lines got thicker. They were less than a klick apart, but Anakin could not gain more ground. Rapid-fire from a pair of droideka forced him to take a step back, then two and three. A few well-placed grenades took care of the destroyers, but their momentum had been lost. A detachment of B2s stormed forward, their grey bodies shining in the rain as their bursts of fire illuminated the night. They were pressing hard, disregarding their own losses as they tore into Anakin's unit with devastating volleys.

On the other flank, the battle had gone very differently. With the droid concentrated elsewhere, Asajj had an easy time repelling her part of the attack. So while the left was hard-pressed, she sent scouts forwards. And when those met no opposition, it quickly became reconnaissance in force. With the sea to her right and nothing but desolate, cratered wasteland to her left, she kept pushing forwards, although her ragtag collection of civilian speeders, a few recon walkers and the last pair of operational LAATs left her mobility severely limited.

Still, her scouts would push ahead and then fan out, tearing through any detachments they came across and leaving before a counterattack could be mounted. Like phantoms they swept through no-man's land and took down sentries wherever they found them. Strongholds were isolated and marked for artillery, which allowed for a rapid advance even with such a small force.

Her gunships fell upon a convoy of MTTs and its destruction, paired with the seemingly massive counterattack, threw the Confederate leadership into a frenzy. They had gambled on a breakthrough and while that still had a decent chance of success even against a pair of Jedi, they now had a gaping hole in their lines. A hole which was crawling with Clones. Therefore, parts of the third assault wave were diverted, but the damage was done.

Small Clone patrols deliberately started firefights they had no chance of winning and either retreated as quickly as they had struck or called for reinforcements, which allowed them to take on much stronger droid forces. And if they ran into superior numbers, they called for their commander. Asajj relished the challenge and was the first in the fray, jumping off her speeder and into the droid battalions, which she promptly demolished. It surprised her how well she worked with the Clones against whom she had fought against until recently. And her reckless abandon gave them plenty of opportunities to pick off the distracted droids.

Advancing without a proper plan, the tactical droids in charge of the redirected third wave decided to march to the sea and cut off the Republic spearhead. Against their calculations, they ran into the core of Asajj's battalion, which had been advancing on foot. Since that battalion was believed to be ten miles ahead with their scouts, they had to be reserves, which led to the Confederate commanders massively overstating the strength of their opponents. And when the scouts Anakin sent forth from his own battalion started to provide flanking fire, it seemed that there was another large clone unit advancing.

Yet there was one front where it looked like the 501st was facing defeat. Their reconnaissance elements might be sweeping ahead a few miles to the North-East, but the left flank had been broken. Ahsoka's battalion had been ground down to a few battered companies. Those had been pushed out of their trenches and back into the many craters which surrounded the frontlines. They could offer little more than sporadic fire or, in Ahsoka's case, force attacks.

And Anakin's relief attempt had been stopped short, close enough for him to see Ahsoka clearly, but yet infinitely far. He tried pressing on, but quickly noticed that his men could not keep up and he found himself overextended. The droids tried to exploit this, but they were no match for the former Jedi, who cut a way through them back to his unit.

Ever so slowly, they made progress and pushed the 501st back feet after feet. Their attack had been blunted, but they still had the weight of numbers.

"General, we need to fall back!"

"But Ahsoka - "

"The Commander is safe with her men, who are pulling back."

"But - "

Suddenly, volleys of aimed fire tore into the mass of droids. Anakin turned and saw hundreds of Mandalorians standing in a loose line, pouring shots into the flank of the Separatist force.

"It looked like you could use a hand," one of the Mandalorian officers quipped as he marched past the hunkered down Clones, which left Anakin torn between relief and the unexpected rescue and anger at their arrogance.

The Mandalorians charged into the thick of the fray, blasters blazing, their superior equipment allowing them to take a terrible toll on the Confederate troops. With almost reckless abandon and deep faith in their armour, they kept advancing, not deterred by the few who fell.

Anakin watched them for a moment and noticed that while, on an individual basis, they were not better soldiers than the clones, their armour made all the difference. He saw men take three or four hits which would have taken a clone down only to press further. One of the Mandalorians carried an actual banner into battle, the golden X on fields of red definitely flattering definitely in the nightly rain. The sight left Anakin questioning the sanity of the Mandalorians and wondering how many Clones would still be alive if they had been armoured like that.

The unexpected assault from an enemy which was believed to be defeated caused general chaos in the Separatist Army. With all attention on this newest threat, they did not notice a squad of infiltrators, who used the intense fighting to slip past the front lines. Only when their mobile command post was obliterated by demolition charges, the droids noticed that something else was amiss. And they might have had backup command protocols, the hardware of the B1s was not up for the task. They still fought where they stood, working together on a subunit level, but it was no match for the coordinated assault rolling up their lines and the rallied Clones which exploited the opening.

And when the Confederate command resorted to emergency protocols and tried to restore something which resembled a front line, they found themselves without the means to do so. The Mandalorians had driven a wedge into the Confederate army, which, despite vastly superior numbers, could not concentrate enough forces to break through the closing envelopment. And once they had sunk their teeth into the droids' metaphorical flesh, they refused to let go. With the help of their jetpacks, they spread out and attacked in all directions. It was a slaughter.

The scouts Anakin had sent out did not encounter significant Confederate forces so they pushed on further and further. The rest of the 501st rolled up the remaining battle droids, reducing the encircled foes one pocket at a time. Together with Ventress' battalion, they ended up retaking almost twenty klicks when dawn broke.

The pace continued for the day, the lack of mechanised vehicles or airborne transports slowed them down, but the lack of serious opposition meant that they advanced as fast as they could walk even with two-thirds of the Legion wounded or resting. By dusk, they had secured almost the entire peninsula before Anakin ordered a pause to rest his troops and allow their logistics to catch up. The Clones might have been able to push onwards through the next night, but he'd rather not force them on a diet of emergency ration bars and stim-packs. Especially since he didn't know when they would run into the Confederate line.

Food was brought up, wounds patched up, armour cleaned, repaired and maintained while ammunition was handed out. By the time Anakin had found a nice, dry spot for his sleeping bag, he read Ahsoka's report on the state of the 303rd. His wing had taken a beating, but only sixteen pilots had been lost. Almost all their craft had been damaged in the fighting, but after a day of frantic repairs and patching up small wounds, they would be able to resume flight operations the next morning, albeit with greatly reduced strength.

With air support and, more importantly, reconnaissance, available, the new day brought on a renewed offence. Any concentration of droids was spotted and either bombed to oblivion or bypassed. Leaving a company or two as blocking forces allowed the advance to continue unhindered. By nightfall, they were camped within sight of the spaceport, of rather, what was left of it. The charred ruins were crawling with droids and for the first time in three days, they were facing a coordinated, prepared defence. And after the Varykino had run the blockade, massive turbolaser turrets had been placed throughout the city. Those guns were too heavy and slow to take down a starfighter, but perfect to defend against anything bigger than a corvette.

"Can we take the port?" Ahsoka wanted to know as she handed the binoculars to Anakin. She needed a bacta tank and had to lean on his shoulder to stay upright, but she had insisted on coming to the front.

"I hope so. We don't have a lot to assault the city with. The 501st is down to half its regular strength, or a quarter of what they had when they landed here. Vehicles are even worse. Two AT-TEs, a dozen lighter walkers, two gunships - the only thing we are not short of is artillery. And even that is limited by our stocks of ammunition."

"What about the Mandalorians?"

"Brend is out for blood, but she said that they will not charge a hardened front without support."

"What do we know about the Seppies in the port?"

"The Clones made a couple of overflights with their 170s, and they found a solid ring of defences around. There are no reserves assembled in the open, but there could still be thousands of droids hidden in warehouses and under the ruins."

"The city was built on a hill, probably the only bit of dry land for miles. There are a few streams in small ravines flowing from there," Ahsoka pointed out, her eyes glued to the binoculars. "It's probably not an enjoyable trip, but that's the best cover around. In the East, two streams run almost to the foundation of a landing pad."

"You think we should attack through there?"

"The West is too open and I don't like the look of that ridgeline in front of us."

"Those ravines are too narrow for vehicles," Anakin objected after he got hold of the binoculars again.

"The City would be a deathtrap for them anyways. You could use them as a distraction force. Array them on the other side of the city, bombard the positions there - "

"Hmm, that sounds like a good idea. But the timing will be tricky."

"Maybe we could send a few scouts ahead, who look for important targets," Ahsoka was thinking aloud. "That way, we could have the bombardment targeted for maximum effect rather than just in the general direction of the defences."

Under the cover of darkness as well as dozens of AV-7s, the 501st executed Ahsoka's plan. While shells were raining on the Confederate fortifications, the Clones advanced through the ravines towards the city. The field guns worked their way through a third of their stocks before they shifted fire towards the real target.

The defence ring was cracked by the falling shells and his men rushed forwards, blocking detachments working their way into the trenches to widen the hole in the line. Anakin was in the second wave, keeping a low profile in order to hide the true importance of the attack. The longer the Confederate Command thought that the real danger was still waiting in front of their lines, the deeper the Clones could penetrate. And to help with that deception, the artillery shifted their fire back to the Western side, joined by the walkers there.

This time, Ahsoka was directing the battle while Anakin was in the thick of it, pressing into the city block by block. He was soon joined by the Mandalorians, who didn't wait for any signal. They seemed to channel all their efforts into one direction, something which wondered Anakin. But before he could get to the bottom of that mystery, it became obvious.

"Sir, we appear to have found the Seppie command post," a runner from Rex's battalion reported. "They took over one of the ore bunkers, but we should be able to crack that with a few demolition changes."

"Good, then we - " Anakin trailed off when he saw a group of Mandalorians assemble a device in the distance. It took him a moment to realise that he was watching them put together a stripped-down proton torpedo rack, which they somehow managed to make man-portable. They also wasted no time firing, so all he could do was to watch the weapon cover the short distance in a second before it struck home.

The ore bunker was just that, a storage facility to protect the mined materials from theft and rain. It would also do its job against small arms. Against a torpedo designed to defeat capital-grade armour, the walls might as well not have been there. There was a tense moment when the warhead fulfilled its purpose before a pillar of flames burst through the roof, quickly followed by thick smoke pouring out of the hole the torpedo had left. One moment, there had been a Confederate Headquarter, the next there was nothing but fire and death.

"Why did you do that? We could have collected intelligence from their headquarters, or - "

Ahsoka's question was cut off by Brend, who seemed annoyed that she even had to answer that question. A question Anakin had been about to ask himself.

"We don't care about your war, they spilt the blood of my brothers and sisters, which meant that their lives were forfeited. So they died."

The sheer arrogance made Anakin consider telling Ventress that she could carry out her contract. This was not how war was supposed to be waged and he feared what the retaliation would look like. But he owed them for saving his and Ahsoka's asses in the trenches, and it would probably not be smart to provoke the battle-hardened Mandalorians who sat on one of the Republic's largest titanium deposits.

With the Separatist command dead, their armies broken and their defences captured, Anakin decided that it was time to organise their trip home. Mopping up the last, cut-off droids could be left to the Mandalorians, the miners and their families were safe. Although it would take months, if not years until titanium production would reach the pre-invasion levels since most of the settlement and industry would have to be rebuilt. At least the mine itself was undamaged, so they could still produce ores and ship those, even if it was inefficient.

The Varykino returned, this time prepared to transport the wounded. There was also a detachment of mechanics aboard, who would try to salvage what was left of their starfighters. The Kuati also seemed interested in the R-22s which had to be written off, probably to find any potential weak spots.

They weren't even halfway to Naboo when an ensign came running to Anakin with a datapad. Little did he know which repercussions that communication would bring, far beyond what he would expect even given the explosive message. He read it once, twice and then a third time. Yet the content refused to change.

He went looking for Ahsoka, to get her opinion on this mess, but she was sleeping in the medbay, so he left her be. It was then that he missed Admiral Yularen and his wisdom. The old man had always been much better at politics than he was. Anakin looked down at his datapad and read the messages again. The first was straightforward, reinstating his old rank as a General of the Great Army of the Republic and granting him command of the 501st Legion. Pretty much what he had been hoping for since leaving the Order. But the second one was pure dynamite.

By order of the Chancellor,

the following units are to be removed from their current formations and, after being replenished, form Task Force 189:

- 501st Legion

- 14th Patrol Flotilla

- 303rd Space Wing (Naboo)

- 327th Star Corps

- 474th Reconnaissance Group

Task Force 189 will be based out of Selton, Naboo, Chommell Sector and commence operations at the discretion of its commander within 90 days of this transmission. Given his stalwart performance at Kinrah, the formation will be placed under the command of General Skywalker of the 501st Legion.

Furthermore, for defensive purposes, the following units are assigned to TF189:

- 2nd Royal Naboo Army Group

- 3rd Royal Naboo Army Group.

Due to the foreseeable shortage of clone units, TF189 will be solely responsible for defending the Chommell Sector. Despite its distance from the frontlines, the sector has been the target of several deep penetrations and is, therefore, to be fortified accordingly. Further reinforcements are unlikely to be forthcoming.

Supreme Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic

Sheev Palpatine

AN:

Beta'ed by LifeEquals42.

Anti-Radiation Missiles aren't my invention, but I have no idea if they exist in the SW universe. What Anakin came up with is comparable to the AGM-45 and therefore less capable than a modern weapon like the AGM-88, the ALARM or the Kh-58.

The overall Battle of Kinrah is based on WWI style trench warfare, common throughout the Western Front. The left flank was inspired by the charge of the Bayreuth Dragoons during the Battle of Hohenfriedberg (1745). Seeing their own infantry breaking, the regiment charged 20 Austrian battalions and routed them, taking twice their own number in prisoners in exchange for 32 killed. Ventress actions, on the other hand, were inspired by Erwin Rommel between Avesnes and Cateau (16th/17th May 1940) where he unexpectedly, and against orders, broke through the Maginot Line and raced ahead of his own unit, causing devastating confusion far beyond what should have been possible given the disposition of forces.

Lastly, measurements in Star Wars are a mess, there are examples of both metric and imperial units being used (ironically with an imperial standard meter).