A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Old Glory Episode 1
Lost Fleet of the Republic
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Four thousand years before the
rise of the Galactic Empire the
Old Republic launches a daring
attack against the STAR FORGE
in a desperate attempt to halt
the Sith war of conquest.
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The deposed Dark Lord REVAN
Embracing his new identity as
Jedi Padawan DANE AVERY
redeems rogue Jedi BASTILA SHAN
and slays DARTH MALAK his former
apprentice turned Sith Master.
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The breakthrough of several
fighter squadrons through the
Sith defensive perimeter paves
the way for the rest of the fleet to
launch its final assault against
the ancient space station…
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Unknown System - Republic Flagship Megalodon
The impact of a dozen green lasers burned through the weakened shields and armour of the ancient space station, producing brilliant explosions across a section of a tower-like structure as it buckled and shattered under the weight of overwhelming firepower. A final flash of light heralded this end when it came; the Star Forge quickly descending closer to its home star than in any point of its twenty thousand years of existence.
"Admiral Dodonna, we've hit their main orbital stabilizers!" announced one the flagship's captain, struggling to be heard, amid the cheers of the bridge command staff.
The admiral released a breath she'd held these past few seconds. Despite the Republic's complete lack of information on the ancient space station, despite the location of its orbital stabilizers remaining mere educated guesswork until the very moment of their destruction, despite everything, they'd won! This attack had been their last realistic hope to halt the Sith advance, and boy did its payoff.
Forn Dodonna quickly pushed aside her sense of profound relief and re-centred her thoughts on the responsibilities of the fleet commander. "Everyone, pull back, I don't want to lose any more ships when that space station goes down," she ordered, bringing the momentary lapse on the bridge to an end as the officers and crewmembers returned to their tasks.
By the book professionalism was as the proverbial call sign of admiral Dodonna's command and the reason why she, unlike most of Revan's admirals, chose to stick with the Republic at the onset of the Civil War. Her orange dark uniform and many distinguished service medals didn't have any obvious smears or imperfections, with the fleet admiral's hat, likewise concealing her carefully arranged locks of brown hair in the cause of the navy's regulatory modesty of appearance as well as simple practicality.
Nevertheless, even professionalism had its limits; the admiral turned to face the small faded green alien to her right and spoke with barely contained excitement, "We did it Master Vandar, the Sith are routed and the Star Forge destroyed!"
The Jedi gazed at the falling space station and the flashes of battle visible from the viewport, but seemed more resigned than excited at the prospect of victory, "But at what cost admiral, so many ships lost… where is the Ebon Hawk and her crew?"
Dodonna could not find a positive answer to this question, for the cost had been great indeed; almost a third of the fleet destroyed and more than a third reported serious damage. The situation was even worse for the Jedi Master, who'd not only lost most of his order in the war, most recently in the destruction of the Dantooine Jedi Enclave, but also sent those few surviving knights under his command to the infiltration mission. No communications were received from the Ebon Hawk since it landed on the station.
Could she risk the crew on-board her command vessel, let alone the fleet in a search for the missing freighter? The decision to send that bizarre combination of Jedi and misfits to what amounted to a textbook suicide mission weighed heavily on her conscious, but did she have the right to ask more from the brave men and women assigned to her fleet when they had already risked so much?
A glancing blow from a Sith Interdictor Cruiser well out of the effective firing range cut off this line of thought before it could run its course. "Ma'am, several Sith vessels are detaching from the main fleet, their intention appears to be a death or glory attack run," announced a member of the command staff.
For the first time in this battle, the admiral felt genuine anger; how dare these Sith prolong the agony of combat even a moment longer than necessary? The battle was over, they had lost, and any further hostilities would not change the strategic results of this engagement.
"It is too late to escape admiral, the Sith have cut us off," said Vandar, surprising the military professional with his quick grasp of the situation.
The admiral nodded, for the Jedi master was correct in his assessment; their fleet could not push forward, or if necessary, jump to hyperspace with enemy ships attacking to their front, their routed compatriots still obstructing the flanks, and the impending demise of the Star Forge to the rear.
With battle once again forced upon her, the Admiral opened the fleet-wide communications channel and spoke to all sixteen capital ships in her assault group and the rest of the fleet still in combat with the Sith defensive perimeter.
"Assault Group - clear out those incoming Sith ships, I want all our navicomputers to link up and calculate an emergency jump to hyperspace in the event we can't escape in time using sublight speed. The rest of the fleet - continue operating in your current command groups. Pursue the Sith fleet and prevent any more of their ships from re-joining the battle, but do not engage them in the projected blast radius of the Star Forge. Fleet command out."
Unknown System - Star Forge
The Sith warrior grasped as the two lightsabres slipped through her defences and delivered their mortal blows. Dane Avery did not have the willingness or the time to relish in the death of an enemy, for despite the fall of her master and the death of hundreds of their numbers, the Sith remained dogged in their pursuit of the intruders in their midst. Two Sith troopers immediately attacked the Jedi with their Vibroblades, but one was quickly beheaded by a strike from Dane's blue light sabre, while the other fell before his crimson, 'borrowed' from a defeated opponent when the Jedi's original yellow sabre was destroyed.
With all three immediate opponents vanquished, the way forward was now open. A simple military code hastily reprogramed into the locking mechanism opened the blast door, revealing two more lightsabre wielding warriors. One was an aged man of colour, while the other was a young woman of an unnaturally pale complexion that had not yet fully recovered from the physical effects of the Dark Side.
Bastila quickly emerged from her battle meditation once she sensed the other's return. "Re…Dane, you are alive, so, it is done? Is it over?" she asked, grasping at the hope that maybe with Malak's end and her assistance to the Republic's fleet in its hour of need a semblance of her former self could be redeemed. The blue lightsabre now in Dane's possession and the many Republic soldiers who had fallen to her battle meditation were both clear reminders that her journey to the Dark Side hadn't been without consequence.
Dane nodded, bringing his arms around Bastila in a reassuring embrace, "Yes, Malak is dead, it is over."
A distant but clearly felt explosion proved a useful reminder of their situation, "I hate to break up your reunion lovebirds, but I do not much like the idea of going down with this station," said Jolee Bindo, as always, unable to resist a wisecrack even in the most desperate of situations.
Bastila glanced at the various blast doors and picked out the one to the right of their group "That's the escape elevator to the hanger. It is locked down from the other side to prevent easy access to this level, but it should work from our end."
A short conflict between Dane's skill and the elevator's security systems ended with a rapid descent to the hanger bay. Just as the platform reached its destination, the power systems suddenly cut off, forcing the three Jedi to hack their way through the door. With this final obstacle to their escape gone, the chaos taking shape in the hanger bay became obvious; Sith soldiers and Dark Jedi where rushing to their various shuttles in a desperate attempt to escape the destruction of the station, but there were not enough of these to be had. Several units of the once united army even fought one another to defend or seize the various transports.
The Ebon Hawk, a Dynamic class freighter commandeered by Dane, Carth, and Canderous during their escape from Taris, was also a target for the fleeing soldiers and its crew fought tenaciously to protect it behind a hastily assembled barricade of debris and enemy corpses. The bodies of several Jedi Knights lay scattered and motionless, cut down by the sheer weight of numbers of their opponents. Several shots signalled the arrival of ever more Sith troopers in the hanger bay, forcing the trio into a fighting retreat; each working hard to deflect the seemingly endless gale of blasts coming their way.
A second explosion, much more violent than the last brought an entire section of the Star Forge walls crashing down on the narrow catwalk, but just before they could cut off the trio's only means of escape, Bindo managed to grab hold of the largest and most dangerous piece of debris and suspend it in mid-air with the force. Bastila soon supported Jolee's efforts by taking on the incoming blaster bolts with her double-edged red lightsabre. "Dane, go on! I will cover you!" said Bastila, but he seemed to hesitate, distrusting her intentions. Once their eyes locked, and Dane saw no argument would convince Bastila to retreat first, he reluctantly acquiesced and ran the short distance to the Ebon Hawk.
"Jolee, go, I will follow you," said Bastila, but the older and more experienced Jedi was not easily fooled; he knew that she knew that whoever stayed behind last would be hard-pressed to hold off the hundreds of barking Sith rifles.
"Kid, you have done enough redeeming for one day. I am an old man, and you have so much left to live for," he said, and with a supreme effort, pushed Bastila towards the Ebon Hawk.
Dane helped Bastila to her feet and the two Jedi brought their command of the force to bear against the debris in an attempt to give Jolee a chance to cross. The latter ceased his efforts and seemed about to reach out for his lightsabre when the blaster bolt hit his back. Two more rounds found their mark, and before long, the Jedi fell and did not rise again.
"No!" Shouted Dane and moved to try to rescue his compatriot. Bastila saw the incoming blasts and pulled Dane aside behind the makeshift barricade, letting the debris fall on top of the hapless Sith.
"He's dead, Revan, we have to get out of here now!" shouted Canderous as he and Mission got the rest of the crew on-board. Dane and Bastila likewise exploited the fall of the debris to emerge from cover and board their ship as it took off from the doomed station.
Unknown System - Republic Flagship Megalodon
"Attention Republic Fleet, this is captain Stazer of the Sith Warship Indomitable, admiral Gerard has been removed from command, and consequently, this fleet will cease combat operations against your forces in return for a general ceasefire in this system, "said the voice of the not quite so crazy opponent. In other words, the Sith got rid of the rabid dog in their midst and now wanted to bugger off without fear of a stab in the back.
Despite her by no means small desire to see the murderers, traitors, and thieves that made up the so-called Sith Empire pay for their transgressions, there was such a thing as glory, but first there was duty. The ships of the Star Forge assault group needed to retreat just as badly as the Sith did, even more so, since her ships where now closest to the predicted blast radius of the station once it hit the local star.
"Captain Stazer, the Republic fleet accepts these terms; our forces will not impede your retreat, so long as you do not hazard our own withdrawal, over and out. All ships of the assault group engage your ion engines in full emergency speed!
"Ma'am, the Ebon Hawk is hailing us, they've cleared the Star Forge and are on their way, Darth Malak is dead!" announced the communications officer.
"Open a channel to Red Squadron and after that, to the Ebon Hawk!" Ordered the admiral and spoke to the squadron first. "Red Leader, send two fighters to cover the Ebon Hawk, I don't want any of those stranded Sith fighters getting any funny ideas."
"Copy that Megalodon, Red 6, Red 5, break formation and cover the freighter on grid 230," confirmed the squadron leader.
The communications officer quickly changed frequencies and hailed the Ebon Hawk, "Carth, you made it!"
"We could not let you start the victory party without us admiral," answered Captain…no, Group Captain Onasi with a chuckle.
Dodonna sighed with relief; at least she did not lose one of the more promising surviving officers in the Republic Navy today. "I am sending an honour guard to escort you in; you'll be getting a hero's welcome when we get back home."
"Ma'am, the Star Forge is about to blow, we won't clear the explosion in time!" Shouted the Megalodon's captain.
'Blast and bother!' thought the admiral; she really did not want to attempt a fleet wide jump to hyperspace with such a cataclysmic event interfering with the accuracy of the calculations. The first lesson any ship captain learned was that strange, often terrible things happened when you screwed around with Hyperspace, but the fleet had no other choice.
"Carth, link in your navicomputer to the fleet's network, we are going to execute an emergency jump to hyperspace!"
Before Carth even confirmed he had done so, Dodonna opened a fleet-wide channel "All ships in the Assault Group, confirm coordinates and engage your hyperdrives in 10 secs. the rest of the fleet is to remain outside the blast zone and obey the orders of Vice-Admiral Cede." A few seconds after this command, more than half of the surviving ships in the Republic fleet disappeared from normal space. An almost nova-like explosion soon followed but hit only debris, a few Sith fighters, and empty space.
The soldiers that remained in the unknown system that would be later named Lehon would never again see the ships of the Assault Group in their lifetimes. Even decades later, when they'd turned old and grey, their thoughts would often return to their missing comrades, hoping against hope that they would turn up one day, perhaps comfortably settled on some unclaimed lush world in the unknown regions. In later years, history would come to refer to this detachment as The Lost Fleet of the Republic.
Note of the Amateur - Last edited on the 29/01/20: This Star Wars Sequel Trilogy – Knights of the Old Republic crossover is mostly a product of my exposure to two Star Wars adventures, one I know and adore, and the other I was surprised to discover I now partially enjoy, despite all of its flaws. I changed the chapter titles and order as a part of a general plan to clear up this story, along with some spelling and wording changes.
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A Lover of Nature.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Disney, Lucas Film and any organization empowered by them to that effect own the Star Wars title and its related products. Moreover, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed.