"Give me a fast ship, for I intend to go in harm's way"
-John Paul Jones
Tahan watched as the monster ship's bow disappeared into a kaleidoscope of explosions as torpedoes impacted against the shields and the armored hull. When he could at last see the damage, the signs were not encouraging.
The bow of the ship was twisted, broken, blackened, and holed in several places, with steams of fire jetting outward, fed by the escaping atmosphere. Several gun batteries could be seen, the turrets melted into slag, barrels twisted at strange angles. Yet the damage on a ship of that size was hardly critical, or even crippling, and now the battlecruiser was in range to fire her own weapons.
"Maximum reserve power to forward shields," Freedom's Captain ordered. A moment later, brilliant waves of light, bolts from hundreds of heavy turbolasers and ion cannons, erupted from the ship as it fired back.
The bow of the cruiser glowed, and the Admiral was nearly toppled from his feet by violent shudders, though he managed to grab onto a nearby sensor console.
Alarm claxons wailed, and sirens flashed at several bridge stations. Tahan looked back at the cruiser's bow and saw it a mass of twisted durasteel, smoke, and flames.
"Damage report!" the Captain said, recovering his footing.
"Massive hull breaches in forward compartments. Ten main turrets and twelve ion cannons are failing to respond. Forward shields completely down. Forward thruster arrays not responding. Bow tractor beams destroyed."
"Seal off the damaged areas, Commander. Bring us around 90 degrees starboard and put all power to starboard shields."
Tahan only half listened, instead preoccupied by the Dreadnaught Guardian visible ahead, the last 100 meters of stern the only remaining part of the vessel now recognizable as a warship.
**
"Freedom fighters, this is Freedom Control. Don't worry about us, your orders are to attack that ship."
Anakin felt a chill despite the heated cockpit. The situation was desperate enough that his home ship was refusing her fighter cover.
"Two flight, keep a tight formation, and don't waste your shots." Anakin said to the three pilots under his command, "Once we're past them, break hard to starboard."
A trio of clicks sounded in acknowledgement.
Blue Squadron was now coming into gun range with the enemy fighters. Anakin bled power to his forward shields and picked his target, which from its position slightly ahead of its group, looked to be a flight leader.
For a moment his mind drifted to a decade before, when he was nine years old and in the cockpit of a Naboo starfighter caught in the middle of a battle. It had been easier then - it seemed like an adventure, or a surreal experience, and it never really occurred to him that he might very well be killed.
As his target, bracketed in the glowing red of his gunsights, drew closer, he wished he had that youthful, naïve detachment now.
Laser fire rushed toward him from the enemy fighter's nose, but with impossibly fast reactions aided by the Force, Anakin twitched his ship downward and then back up, evading the shots. His targeting computer re- acquired the Mandalorian almost at once, and Anakin fired moments before the two ships collided head-on. The red starfighter vanished in an expanding ball of fire as Anakin wrenched the Headhunter around in a tight bank. He stretched out around him with the Force and searched with his eyes, finding only 3 enemy fighters had survived and were attempting to disengage, no longer a threat for the moment, and that Blue Seven was now nothing but molten alloy.
"Eight, form up on my other wing. If they catch you alone, you're dead."
"Copy, Five."
Anakin looked back at his sensors just as Blue Three shouted a warning.
"More inbounds, Sector Four, coming in fast!"
"Blue Leader, this is Red Leader, we'll take 'em this time if you want a shot at that big ugly ship over there."
"Sounds good, Red. Blue Squadron, we're going in."
Anakin's flight, now down to three, streaked ahead.
**
Admiral Haas turned his attention to the battle nearer at hand. His frigates had launched another devastating torpedo attack, severely mauling the enemy flanks, and were now racing around to the rear.
"Flanking groups, concentrate your fire on their engines," he said over the fleet comm. "We don't want them getting away."
Ahead, a group of Admiral Otti's ships traded volleys with the huge enemy command vessel. Although the Victories were numerous, the enemy ship was both powerful and well-handled by her commander and continued to hold her own. Cruiser captains along the line reported gaps and breakthroughs among the enemy line. It was the situation in the Fleet's rear, however, which concerned Haas the most.
He turned to a communications officer from his staff manning a nearby console.
"What's Tahan's situation, Commander?"
"Not good, Admiral," the blonde human female replied. "His force is massively outgunned and suffering heavy damage. If we don't do something quick, we'll lose the transports."
"Damn!" Haas said. "how long would it take for the transport fleet to clear Aldera's gravity and micro-jump out-system?"
"Ten minutes, Admiral, but I don't think they'll have that long."
Haas clamped down on his anger. If he sent more ships to the rear, many of the enemy in the main battleline might escape, preventing him from the total destruction of the Mandalore fleet. Yet his primary mission was clear: support the invasion, which meant that protecting the transports carrying the ground troops was more important.
Having made one mistake, he would not make another.
"Commander, I want status on any cruisers we have in good shape that can disengage. Order them to assist the Freedom task force."
"Yes, Sir."
**
It was like flying over a city, except that this particular city had anti- starfighter cannon mounted on many of its rooftops, and all of the inhabitants were trying to kill him. It was difficult to make out details as his fighter rushed by at full power, only meters above the seemingly unbroken stream of red durasteel.
Anakin weaved the Z-95 between superstructure towers, his two wingmates close behind him and to either side, forming a small triangle. Streams of cannon fire reached out towards him, and his flight path was dotted with small, erratic maneuvers intended to avoid enemy fire, or to confuse the targeting predictors.
Blue Leader, a few hundred meters ahead, was once again reminding his men of what they were supposed to be doing. Considering their training, it might have seemed superfluous, but Anakin knew the Commander was a veteran, and knew that in the excitement and terror of combat, unseasoned pilots might not always react in the proper manner. "Blue Squadron, don't waste your torps on hard targets. Aim for command and sensor structures."
Anakin spotted an antenna cluster ahead and opened fire with his cannon, melting the thin metal tubes and sending blue sparks arcing down to the deck below.
**
Admiral Hessko watched with satisfaction as the pitiful force of cruisers absorbed hit after hit from the Lord Maul's batteries. All of them were severely damaged, one was almost completely destroyed, and many knocked out of the fight. The Dreadnaughts had made quick work of his frigate escorts, and the enemy fought back as well as it was capable of, but it did not matter. It would take a force of at least twice that size, the Admiral reasoned, to deal with his battlecruiser without crippling losses. And soon, the enemy would be destroyed except for a few fighter squadrons, all but impotent against his vessel. Then he would turn on the transports, launching his own fighters held in reserve, and annihilate the enemy's invasion fleet.
By the time their reinforcements from the main battle line arrived, it would be too late.
He saw the most powerful Republic ship, one of the wedge-shaped heavy cruiser designs with a large section of her bow blown away, fire back at the Lord Maul.
"Captain," he ordered, "concentrate your firepower on that vessel. It is probably their command ship."
**
Tahan knew his force would fail, but it did not matter. Each second his own command suffered heavy casualties, yet in war, sometimes it became necessary to trade lives for time, and this was one of those occasions.
Around him, several of the bridge crew lie motionless and others, wounded, cried out in agony. An ion cannon blast had struck Freedom's bridge tower and an overloaded transformer connected to several instrument panels had exploded among a tightly-packed group of duty officers, flinging razor-like fragments of plasteel and transparisteel throughout the bridge. Tahan had only been spared when an Ensign beside him absorbed the main force of the explosion.
He pushed the Devonarian's body off of him and rose to his knees. The bridge was now filling with smoke from electrical fires, and his eyes watered uncontrollably as he struggled for breath. The fire suppression system did not appear to be working. Many of the overhead lights were destroyed, and those remaining began to flicker, plunging the command bridge further into darkness.
"Fire control? Fire control? Come in, Fire Control?"
The voice, distorted with static, sounded from a nearby command console. Tahan walked slowly toward the Chief Gunnery Officer's station where the man sat lifeless, arm and head hanging bloody and limp. The Admiral picked up the dangling comlink and tried not to notice the carnage around him, or that his hand was covered in blood.
"This is the Admiral to all hands" he said between gasps of acrid air. "The bridge is gone. All weapons stations, continue to fire. Captain Madrik now has command of the task force. "
Freedom's still-functional batteries fired again, wreaking havoc on the enemy ship, but once again failing to inflict a decisive blow.
Tahan felt strangely lightheaded, and he knew that he too had been injured. Peering through the haze and the bridge windows, he saw the enemy vessel's huge turrets rotating to face his stricken ship. He wondered if it were true that just before death, his life would flash before his eyes.
It did not.
**
Blue Squadron continued its strafing run. Just ahead of Anakin, a main turret, so large that a squadron of headhunters could easily land on its upper surface, swiveled with surprising speed toward a new target. Anakin saw the barrels of the weapon, several dozen meters long and with a diameter equal to a fighter's wingspan, and watched in horror as they began to cut directly into the path of Blue Leader and his wingman, Blue Two.
"Get clear, Lead!" he shouted, but it was too late. The fighters collided with the massive barrels at full speed and disappeared in bright explosions. Unfazed by the impact, the heavily armored turret fired a moment later.
Anakin pounded his instrument panel in his rage. That's exactly how much good we're doing against this thing, he thought. Good men are being killed and it isn't going to make any damn difference whatsoever.
And then the space around the battlecruiser was enveloped by a tiny supernova as Freedom exploded.
**
War cries erupted from the Mandalore bridge crew. Hessko thrust his fist in the air at an angle in the traditional Mandalorian victory gesture.
He turned to Lord Maul 's captain and relayed his next orders.
"Begin launching our fighters and have them cut off the transport fleet. We have them, men!"
**
"Sir, the Freedom has just been destroyed."
Admiral Haas looked as though he had been physically struck.
His cruisers would never make it in time.
He had failed.
**
Anakin felt nothing except another spike in his rage, and the overwhelming desire for revenge.
"Blue Squadron, this is Blue Five. Lead and the XO are dead. I'm assuming command."
"Copy, blue Five is now Blue Lead," the commander of Three Flight acknowledged.
"All fighters disengage and form up for another pass. We'll take the port side this time."
Anakin had little faith in another pass, or even another dozen. His squadron, now down to half strength, with the other fighter squadrons tangling with their enemy counterparts and unable to engage the battlecruiser, was nearly all that remained between the enemy and the transport fleet. Even with proton torpedoes, the task seemed hopeless. Yet he would not abandon the fight as long as he was still alive and possessing ammunition.
He turned back toward the enemy ship, approaching from the stern. He saw a fighter emerge from the vessel's port side, then another.
"Watch those fighters," he warned his pilots.
They would soon be caught between fighters and defensive fire from the cruiser.
As if to underscore the point, Blue Six, to his starboard rear, abruptly spun out of control, one of the stabilizing foils sheared off by a stream from an anti-fighter battery.
Several shots dissipated against his forward shields as he found himself once again flying only meters away from the enemy vessel's hull. Ahead he could see two more of the angular red fighters leaving what had to be the ship's main hangar. He tried to overcome the creeping feeling of inevitable doom and to channel the massive power within him.
Something nudged his mind in the Force, much like it had done just before he fired the torpedo into the Trade Federation battleship's reactor.
The next few seconds were a blur to him until he found his fighter, squadron mates fast on his tail, streaking away from the battlecruiser and into open space.
**
The Mandalore fighter, its genetically engineered pilot eager to engage the enemy and score a first kill, blasted from the hangar behind its squadmates.
The pilot did not see the proton torpedo.
Naval engineers and architects producing military designs had long known that hangar doors were a potential fatal weakness even in an otherwise well- armored warship. To counter this vulnerability, the Lord Maul's design incorporated polarized, selective shields in her huge hangar bay, which would permit relatively slow-moving starfighters to pass, but were rated as impervious to multiple proton torpedo or heavy turbolaser direct hits.
Anakin's shot, timed with a precision aided by the use of a Force no engineer had factored into the equation for what was believed to be an impossible scenario, had managed to subvert the battlecruiser's otherwise formidable defenses.
The proton torpedo impacted just forward of the fighter's canopy on the starboard side, just as the ship's nose emerged from the shield barrier. The ship's forward section exploded when the torpedo hit, and as the explosion travelled farther toward the ship's stern section, it reached the fuel tank just aft of the wings, and the fighter became in effect a conduit between the vacuum and Lord Maul's hangar.
One of the interceptor's ion engines, blown rearwards from its mounting, was flung onto the fighter immediately behind waiting to launch. The glowing mass of engine detonated the small craft and in turn, those nearby. In the tightly packed hangar full of over 750 fully-loaded starfighters, it was disastrous.
Ships, fuel carts, and ammunition carriers detonated one after another in a rippling chain reaction. The hangar shields now held fast against the high- velocity debris and expanding fireball. The crescendo of explosions was unable to vent through the hangar openings, and instead, turned its heat and pressure to the interior of the Maul herself. The blasts ripped through layers of decks and armored bulkheads, killing thousands and reaching other stores of explosive materials, including the vessel's fuel cells.
The stern half of the ship, larger than several Victory cruisers, vaporized in a sudden flash, leaving what remained of the bow a drifting, burning, glowing hulk of twisted durasteel floating helpless in space.
**
General Fett swore, trying to contain the overwhelming urge to destroy everything and everyone around him in his fury.
In a single instant, his strategy had literally vaporized.
The Bane continued exchanging volleys with enemy cruisers with little to show for either side. His battleline was starting to evaporate as Republic cruisers penetrated the gaps and frigates swarmed his flanks and rear.
"Orders, General?" one of his staff officers asked.
Fett whirled to face the man, resisting the temptation to send him flying across the bridge. He wanted to order his ships to charge in and take as many of the enemy with them as possible, as a fate befitting great warriors. Yet Sidious and Raptor had denied him this option. Their orders were clear: if the situation became untenable, escape, and the Sith Lords alone were the two beings in the galaxy Jango Fett truly feared.
"All ships, general withdrawal," he said, forcing the words between clenched teeth. "Use the prearranged rally point, each vessel is to plot a separate course with at least 4 waypoints."
"Yes, General."
**
One moment, a raging battle, and the next, almost nothing. Admiral Haas let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. Space in front of Victory was almost empty, the enemy command ship turning tail and vanishing into hyperspace with surprising speed.
The threat to his rear, too, vanished. Haas was uncertain as to the cause, only that several transport captains and fighter crews reported the after portion of the ship was obliterated, the rest a burning hulk.
Haas believed very little of fate or destiny, but it seemed that now, as he stood on the Victory's bridge, that events gave him pause.
Yet there was still a battle to run. Several Mandalore ships were too crippled to escape, yet continued to fight down to the last battery, refusing surrender. Fighters dueled with an enemy now low on fuel, mother ships gone, and with nothing to lose. Yet it was now merely a question of time and of mopping up the survivors. The main engagement was over, and the task force would redeploy and lick its wounds. Many ships were damaged or destroyed. Haas thought of Admiral Tahan and Freedom, with her 5,000-strong crew, none left alive but a scattering of fighter pilots, and the casualties on the other ships damaged or destroyed. He remembered the energetic young Rear Admiral who had shown so much promise in excercises, now dead when he should never had needed to face an overwhelming enemy. In the end it was he who gave the orders, and he who bore the final responsibility.
A part of his soul, some vestige perhaps of a more primal existence, seemed to thrive in the midst of combat, as though only on a bridge of a cruiser or frigate, he was in his element. He relished the rush of adrenaline, the battle of wits against a deadly enemy, the intricate maneuvers of massive fleets, yet he did not love war for its often terrible cost.
But now was not yet time to reflect.
"Comm, send to General Organa. Tell him to begin the assault."
-John Paul Jones
Tahan watched as the monster ship's bow disappeared into a kaleidoscope of explosions as torpedoes impacted against the shields and the armored hull. When he could at last see the damage, the signs were not encouraging.
The bow of the ship was twisted, broken, blackened, and holed in several places, with steams of fire jetting outward, fed by the escaping atmosphere. Several gun batteries could be seen, the turrets melted into slag, barrels twisted at strange angles. Yet the damage on a ship of that size was hardly critical, or even crippling, and now the battlecruiser was in range to fire her own weapons.
"Maximum reserve power to forward shields," Freedom's Captain ordered. A moment later, brilliant waves of light, bolts from hundreds of heavy turbolasers and ion cannons, erupted from the ship as it fired back.
The bow of the cruiser glowed, and the Admiral was nearly toppled from his feet by violent shudders, though he managed to grab onto a nearby sensor console.
Alarm claxons wailed, and sirens flashed at several bridge stations. Tahan looked back at the cruiser's bow and saw it a mass of twisted durasteel, smoke, and flames.
"Damage report!" the Captain said, recovering his footing.
"Massive hull breaches in forward compartments. Ten main turrets and twelve ion cannons are failing to respond. Forward shields completely down. Forward thruster arrays not responding. Bow tractor beams destroyed."
"Seal off the damaged areas, Commander. Bring us around 90 degrees starboard and put all power to starboard shields."
Tahan only half listened, instead preoccupied by the Dreadnaught Guardian visible ahead, the last 100 meters of stern the only remaining part of the vessel now recognizable as a warship.
**
"Freedom fighters, this is Freedom Control. Don't worry about us, your orders are to attack that ship."
Anakin felt a chill despite the heated cockpit. The situation was desperate enough that his home ship was refusing her fighter cover.
"Two flight, keep a tight formation, and don't waste your shots." Anakin said to the three pilots under his command, "Once we're past them, break hard to starboard."
A trio of clicks sounded in acknowledgement.
Blue Squadron was now coming into gun range with the enemy fighters. Anakin bled power to his forward shields and picked his target, which from its position slightly ahead of its group, looked to be a flight leader.
For a moment his mind drifted to a decade before, when he was nine years old and in the cockpit of a Naboo starfighter caught in the middle of a battle. It had been easier then - it seemed like an adventure, or a surreal experience, and it never really occurred to him that he might very well be killed.
As his target, bracketed in the glowing red of his gunsights, drew closer, he wished he had that youthful, naïve detachment now.
Laser fire rushed toward him from the enemy fighter's nose, but with impossibly fast reactions aided by the Force, Anakin twitched his ship downward and then back up, evading the shots. His targeting computer re- acquired the Mandalorian almost at once, and Anakin fired moments before the two ships collided head-on. The red starfighter vanished in an expanding ball of fire as Anakin wrenched the Headhunter around in a tight bank. He stretched out around him with the Force and searched with his eyes, finding only 3 enemy fighters had survived and were attempting to disengage, no longer a threat for the moment, and that Blue Seven was now nothing but molten alloy.
"Eight, form up on my other wing. If they catch you alone, you're dead."
"Copy, Five."
Anakin looked back at his sensors just as Blue Three shouted a warning.
"More inbounds, Sector Four, coming in fast!"
"Blue Leader, this is Red Leader, we'll take 'em this time if you want a shot at that big ugly ship over there."
"Sounds good, Red. Blue Squadron, we're going in."
Anakin's flight, now down to three, streaked ahead.
**
Admiral Haas turned his attention to the battle nearer at hand. His frigates had launched another devastating torpedo attack, severely mauling the enemy flanks, and were now racing around to the rear.
"Flanking groups, concentrate your fire on their engines," he said over the fleet comm. "We don't want them getting away."
Ahead, a group of Admiral Otti's ships traded volleys with the huge enemy command vessel. Although the Victories were numerous, the enemy ship was both powerful and well-handled by her commander and continued to hold her own. Cruiser captains along the line reported gaps and breakthroughs among the enemy line. It was the situation in the Fleet's rear, however, which concerned Haas the most.
He turned to a communications officer from his staff manning a nearby console.
"What's Tahan's situation, Commander?"
"Not good, Admiral," the blonde human female replied. "His force is massively outgunned and suffering heavy damage. If we don't do something quick, we'll lose the transports."
"Damn!" Haas said. "how long would it take for the transport fleet to clear Aldera's gravity and micro-jump out-system?"
"Ten minutes, Admiral, but I don't think they'll have that long."
Haas clamped down on his anger. If he sent more ships to the rear, many of the enemy in the main battleline might escape, preventing him from the total destruction of the Mandalore fleet. Yet his primary mission was clear: support the invasion, which meant that protecting the transports carrying the ground troops was more important.
Having made one mistake, he would not make another.
"Commander, I want status on any cruisers we have in good shape that can disengage. Order them to assist the Freedom task force."
"Yes, Sir."
**
It was like flying over a city, except that this particular city had anti- starfighter cannon mounted on many of its rooftops, and all of the inhabitants were trying to kill him. It was difficult to make out details as his fighter rushed by at full power, only meters above the seemingly unbroken stream of red durasteel.
Anakin weaved the Z-95 between superstructure towers, his two wingmates close behind him and to either side, forming a small triangle. Streams of cannon fire reached out towards him, and his flight path was dotted with small, erratic maneuvers intended to avoid enemy fire, or to confuse the targeting predictors.
Blue Leader, a few hundred meters ahead, was once again reminding his men of what they were supposed to be doing. Considering their training, it might have seemed superfluous, but Anakin knew the Commander was a veteran, and knew that in the excitement and terror of combat, unseasoned pilots might not always react in the proper manner. "Blue Squadron, don't waste your torps on hard targets. Aim for command and sensor structures."
Anakin spotted an antenna cluster ahead and opened fire with his cannon, melting the thin metal tubes and sending blue sparks arcing down to the deck below.
**
Admiral Hessko watched with satisfaction as the pitiful force of cruisers absorbed hit after hit from the Lord Maul's batteries. All of them were severely damaged, one was almost completely destroyed, and many knocked out of the fight. The Dreadnaughts had made quick work of his frigate escorts, and the enemy fought back as well as it was capable of, but it did not matter. It would take a force of at least twice that size, the Admiral reasoned, to deal with his battlecruiser without crippling losses. And soon, the enemy would be destroyed except for a few fighter squadrons, all but impotent against his vessel. Then he would turn on the transports, launching his own fighters held in reserve, and annihilate the enemy's invasion fleet.
By the time their reinforcements from the main battle line arrived, it would be too late.
He saw the most powerful Republic ship, one of the wedge-shaped heavy cruiser designs with a large section of her bow blown away, fire back at the Lord Maul.
"Captain," he ordered, "concentrate your firepower on that vessel. It is probably their command ship."
**
Tahan knew his force would fail, but it did not matter. Each second his own command suffered heavy casualties, yet in war, sometimes it became necessary to trade lives for time, and this was one of those occasions.
Around him, several of the bridge crew lie motionless and others, wounded, cried out in agony. An ion cannon blast had struck Freedom's bridge tower and an overloaded transformer connected to several instrument panels had exploded among a tightly-packed group of duty officers, flinging razor-like fragments of plasteel and transparisteel throughout the bridge. Tahan had only been spared when an Ensign beside him absorbed the main force of the explosion.
He pushed the Devonarian's body off of him and rose to his knees. The bridge was now filling with smoke from electrical fires, and his eyes watered uncontrollably as he struggled for breath. The fire suppression system did not appear to be working. Many of the overhead lights were destroyed, and those remaining began to flicker, plunging the command bridge further into darkness.
"Fire control? Fire control? Come in, Fire Control?"
The voice, distorted with static, sounded from a nearby command console. Tahan walked slowly toward the Chief Gunnery Officer's station where the man sat lifeless, arm and head hanging bloody and limp. The Admiral picked up the dangling comlink and tried not to notice the carnage around him, or that his hand was covered in blood.
"This is the Admiral to all hands" he said between gasps of acrid air. "The bridge is gone. All weapons stations, continue to fire. Captain Madrik now has command of the task force. "
Freedom's still-functional batteries fired again, wreaking havoc on the enemy ship, but once again failing to inflict a decisive blow.
Tahan felt strangely lightheaded, and he knew that he too had been injured. Peering through the haze and the bridge windows, he saw the enemy vessel's huge turrets rotating to face his stricken ship. He wondered if it were true that just before death, his life would flash before his eyes.
It did not.
**
Blue Squadron continued its strafing run. Just ahead of Anakin, a main turret, so large that a squadron of headhunters could easily land on its upper surface, swiveled with surprising speed toward a new target. Anakin saw the barrels of the weapon, several dozen meters long and with a diameter equal to a fighter's wingspan, and watched in horror as they began to cut directly into the path of Blue Leader and his wingman, Blue Two.
"Get clear, Lead!" he shouted, but it was too late. The fighters collided with the massive barrels at full speed and disappeared in bright explosions. Unfazed by the impact, the heavily armored turret fired a moment later.
Anakin pounded his instrument panel in his rage. That's exactly how much good we're doing against this thing, he thought. Good men are being killed and it isn't going to make any damn difference whatsoever.
And then the space around the battlecruiser was enveloped by a tiny supernova as Freedom exploded.
**
War cries erupted from the Mandalore bridge crew. Hessko thrust his fist in the air at an angle in the traditional Mandalorian victory gesture.
He turned to Lord Maul 's captain and relayed his next orders.
"Begin launching our fighters and have them cut off the transport fleet. We have them, men!"
**
"Sir, the Freedom has just been destroyed."
Admiral Haas looked as though he had been physically struck.
His cruisers would never make it in time.
He had failed.
**
Anakin felt nothing except another spike in his rage, and the overwhelming desire for revenge.
"Blue Squadron, this is Blue Five. Lead and the XO are dead. I'm assuming command."
"Copy, blue Five is now Blue Lead," the commander of Three Flight acknowledged.
"All fighters disengage and form up for another pass. We'll take the port side this time."
Anakin had little faith in another pass, or even another dozen. His squadron, now down to half strength, with the other fighter squadrons tangling with their enemy counterparts and unable to engage the battlecruiser, was nearly all that remained between the enemy and the transport fleet. Even with proton torpedoes, the task seemed hopeless. Yet he would not abandon the fight as long as he was still alive and possessing ammunition.
He turned back toward the enemy ship, approaching from the stern. He saw a fighter emerge from the vessel's port side, then another.
"Watch those fighters," he warned his pilots.
They would soon be caught between fighters and defensive fire from the cruiser.
As if to underscore the point, Blue Six, to his starboard rear, abruptly spun out of control, one of the stabilizing foils sheared off by a stream from an anti-fighter battery.
Several shots dissipated against his forward shields as he found himself once again flying only meters away from the enemy vessel's hull. Ahead he could see two more of the angular red fighters leaving what had to be the ship's main hangar. He tried to overcome the creeping feeling of inevitable doom and to channel the massive power within him.
Something nudged his mind in the Force, much like it had done just before he fired the torpedo into the Trade Federation battleship's reactor.
The next few seconds were a blur to him until he found his fighter, squadron mates fast on his tail, streaking away from the battlecruiser and into open space.
**
The Mandalore fighter, its genetically engineered pilot eager to engage the enemy and score a first kill, blasted from the hangar behind its squadmates.
The pilot did not see the proton torpedo.
Naval engineers and architects producing military designs had long known that hangar doors were a potential fatal weakness even in an otherwise well- armored warship. To counter this vulnerability, the Lord Maul's design incorporated polarized, selective shields in her huge hangar bay, which would permit relatively slow-moving starfighters to pass, but were rated as impervious to multiple proton torpedo or heavy turbolaser direct hits.
Anakin's shot, timed with a precision aided by the use of a Force no engineer had factored into the equation for what was believed to be an impossible scenario, had managed to subvert the battlecruiser's otherwise formidable defenses.
The proton torpedo impacted just forward of the fighter's canopy on the starboard side, just as the ship's nose emerged from the shield barrier. The ship's forward section exploded when the torpedo hit, and as the explosion travelled farther toward the ship's stern section, it reached the fuel tank just aft of the wings, and the fighter became in effect a conduit between the vacuum and Lord Maul's hangar.
One of the interceptor's ion engines, blown rearwards from its mounting, was flung onto the fighter immediately behind waiting to launch. The glowing mass of engine detonated the small craft and in turn, those nearby. In the tightly packed hangar full of over 750 fully-loaded starfighters, it was disastrous.
Ships, fuel carts, and ammunition carriers detonated one after another in a rippling chain reaction. The hangar shields now held fast against the high- velocity debris and expanding fireball. The crescendo of explosions was unable to vent through the hangar openings, and instead, turned its heat and pressure to the interior of the Maul herself. The blasts ripped through layers of decks and armored bulkheads, killing thousands and reaching other stores of explosive materials, including the vessel's fuel cells.
The stern half of the ship, larger than several Victory cruisers, vaporized in a sudden flash, leaving what remained of the bow a drifting, burning, glowing hulk of twisted durasteel floating helpless in space.
**
General Fett swore, trying to contain the overwhelming urge to destroy everything and everyone around him in his fury.
In a single instant, his strategy had literally vaporized.
The Bane continued exchanging volleys with enemy cruisers with little to show for either side. His battleline was starting to evaporate as Republic cruisers penetrated the gaps and frigates swarmed his flanks and rear.
"Orders, General?" one of his staff officers asked.
Fett whirled to face the man, resisting the temptation to send him flying across the bridge. He wanted to order his ships to charge in and take as many of the enemy with them as possible, as a fate befitting great warriors. Yet Sidious and Raptor had denied him this option. Their orders were clear: if the situation became untenable, escape, and the Sith Lords alone were the two beings in the galaxy Jango Fett truly feared.
"All ships, general withdrawal," he said, forcing the words between clenched teeth. "Use the prearranged rally point, each vessel is to plot a separate course with at least 4 waypoints."
"Yes, General."
**
One moment, a raging battle, and the next, almost nothing. Admiral Haas let out a breath he did not realize he was holding. Space in front of Victory was almost empty, the enemy command ship turning tail and vanishing into hyperspace with surprising speed.
The threat to his rear, too, vanished. Haas was uncertain as to the cause, only that several transport captains and fighter crews reported the after portion of the ship was obliterated, the rest a burning hulk.
Haas believed very little of fate or destiny, but it seemed that now, as he stood on the Victory's bridge, that events gave him pause.
Yet there was still a battle to run. Several Mandalore ships were too crippled to escape, yet continued to fight down to the last battery, refusing surrender. Fighters dueled with an enemy now low on fuel, mother ships gone, and with nothing to lose. Yet it was now merely a question of time and of mopping up the survivors. The main engagement was over, and the task force would redeploy and lick its wounds. Many ships were damaged or destroyed. Haas thought of Admiral Tahan and Freedom, with her 5,000-strong crew, none left alive but a scattering of fighter pilots, and the casualties on the other ships damaged or destroyed. He remembered the energetic young Rear Admiral who had shown so much promise in excercises, now dead when he should never had needed to face an overwhelming enemy. In the end it was he who gave the orders, and he who bore the final responsibility.
A part of his soul, some vestige perhaps of a more primal existence, seemed to thrive in the midst of combat, as though only on a bridge of a cruiser or frigate, he was in his element. He relished the rush of adrenaline, the battle of wits against a deadly enemy, the intricate maneuvers of massive fleets, yet he did not love war for its often terrible cost.
But now was not yet time to reflect.
"Comm, send to General Organa. Tell him to begin the assault."
