A day late, but not a dollar short! Much had demanded my attention, and I lost track of what I had done or not done yesterday, my bad. but we are here, and I hope that you enjoy! ~F

Chapter Twenty Five

Battle Over Ithor

Despite the inherent danger of the mission they were on, Hermione was actually somewhat excited to be out in the field once again. She may have had a stifling cadre of guards with her at all times, and outside her personal quarters when she wasn't about on the ship, but it wasn't that big a deal.

The fleet sped along swiftly toward Ithor, well within the time needed to intercept the fleet that would be docking there and holding in orbit while troops and supplies were shuttled down to the planet.

It meant that the fleet would be easily ambushed, and they would have plenty of time to initiate their strike before the Imperials rallied a defense to try and stop them. Hermione planned to be on one of the lead boarding shuttles for the command cruiser, and hack into the system within moments of setting foot on the ship.

If all went as she hoped, they would seize control of the command ship without even setting foot on the bridge, and she could remote hack the lesser ships one by one with a powerful new AI virus that she had modified to specifically target systems that she had used back in the war.

Adding to that her mechanical forces that were stored in the cargo hold of Havoc Squad's command cruiser, and Hermione felt confident that she could control multiple large ships in tandem.

There were risks with this plan, to be sure, but Hermione felt that keeping their one wild card, Shade, close to her, it would forestall any potential betrayal by the ex-Imperial guard.

Adding to that the dozen Jedi Knights that were with her, it was unlikely that she would be stopped before seizing at least the first fleet, even if the virus failed in its design. There was the chance that Veneficus modified her old codes and tech when he built his grand armada, but Hermione doubted it from the reports on the attack on the space station.

This Star Forge that they mentioned seemed to only reproduce exactly what it was programmed to, not modify and customize the thing produced by it. It was a good chance that nothing of her original internal designs was altered, and she would have free reign to control and redirect every automated part of any ship in the Empire.

"We have six hours left until the exit from Hyperspace." Meteor said over the ship-wide intercom, "make you last preparations now; all troops battle stations!"

"So it begins…" Hermione said, mentally calculating where and what she needed to gather for her attack. It all was prepared, and her shuttle was loaded, it was just down to what to bring on her person.

Striding around her personal cabin, she quickly ran through a checklist of what she might need in her mind. Blasters, all three different ones; grenades and mines, which she custom built; and an entire tool belt of gadgets, all for the purpose of cracking any security that they might encounter.

"Are you sure that it will be enough?" Shade asked, from his place at the doorway, flanked by two silent Jedi Knights.

"It has to be," Hermione replied, stifling her irritation at the Blaise clone. She wasn't angry at him, so to speak, but more upset that the person behind the mask was a clone and not the real Blaise, who had to have been killed when New Terra was destroyed by the Empire. She was furious at Harry for doing such a thing to anyone, especially someone who from what distant memories she recalled, had been romantically attached to the young man.

The tragedy of that Slytherin, wanting to be close to someone so dangerous and evil… then again, Draco and many others had suffered the same fate. Even Luna, who had for such a long time evaded the wrath of the now self proclaimed Emperor, had perished, leaving Hermione feeling alone of their generation to face off against this evil. Sure there were others, the scant few Hogwarts students who had been rescued along with Professor Flitwick and Snape, but there were next to none of their people left.

Veneficus had ushered a full genocide on his entire race, all for power. It was sick, and Hermione was filled to the brim with anger and rage at the man for this affront on everything that had been the magical world.

A hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned to see that Shade had moved next to her, clearly sensing her turmoil in the Force, "We will stop him… somehow… I swear it."

Hermione nodded. She could see the sincerity in the clone's words, something that not even Professor Snape could sense. This man was not the traitor in their midst, and yet he was the closest one they had to the way an Imperial might think, and therefore he was supremely valuable.

"It's time to depart, Director," one of the Jedi said respectfully.

Hermione nodded, stuffing her feelings down deep once again as she strapped her primary blaster to her hip and threw a shielding cloak around her shoulders. "Then let's get this over with," she replied, leading the way for the group of four down to the hangar, where their shuttle awaited.

The first wave of shuttles was there and prepared; six shuttles with all the assault forces they would need, along with Hermione and her guard. Strapped in to her seat and waiting for the green light that indicated the start of their attack, Hermione felt her heart start to pound.

This was the first strategic military event that she had participated in since the climax of the Neo-Sith War, and she was well aware of her age at this point. She was not as quick as she used to be, and it was a worry that she had.

"T-minus twenty minutes until exiting from Hyperspace," the automated voice declared over the entire hangar. The shuttles started prepping their engines and lifted their boarding ramps.

"May the Force be with us," Meteor's voice came over the intercom for the shuttles. The man was personally leading the boarding along with his elite troopers. Hermione had been surprised at that, but at the same time it made sense. Havoc Squad worked so closely in tandem that it would hinder them very little to have their leader in the field.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath as the time ticked down. With a shudder, Hermione felt the entire cruiser pulled out of Hyperspace, and knew that they were in range.

"Launch fighters, first wave of shuttles you are cleared for takeoff!" Meteor ordered.

The lights darkened in the shuttle area, switching to the red auxiliary power as everything went into the engines and shields. They lifted off, and through the small view screen, Hermione watched the cruiser fall away as they sped out into open space.

Her anxiety cropped up slightly as she saw the first hastily scrambled wave of Sith fighters start to dogfight with their own, but she was pleased to note that theirs, which she had been ruthlessly upgrading with whatever she could get her hands on, seemed to have the edge in the battle.

"Prepare docking procedures!" the pilot of their shuttle declared, and Hermione wondered how close they had pulled from Hyperspace to their target. It did not seem that they had been in open space for long, and nothing had even shot at them. It seemed far too simple.

The view of the blackness of space was obstructed by the steel-grey of the interior of a ship, and everyone in the hold removed their straps and got weaponry ready. It wasn't too likely that they'd meet heavy resistance, but Hermione was unwilling to risk anything at this point.

Everything went dark for a moment, and then the lights flooded on, and the ramp dropped like a stone. In a flash, six lightsabers flared to life and the Jedi guard poured out of the shuttle, spreading in a wedge formation and deflecting the scant blaster fire that was shot at their group.

Hermione scrambled to keep up with her guard, eyes peeled for a console to hack into. The other shuttles had all made it as well, and their occupants were moving to contain the area. Meteor was taking point as they charged the exit of the hangar, clearly to set up a boundary between them and the defenders of the ship.

Hermione spotted a console off to the side, clearly one that controlled the locks for the fighters still in the berths here, but it would still be connected to the overarching network. Running for the console, she pulled out the small drive that contained her virus.

The Jedi swarmed around her in a protective phalanx while she worked, inserting the drive into the astromech port and typing furiously. The drive spun a few times, mimicking the actions of a droid in order to fool the system into ignoring it.

Only a few moments, and she was into the central nervous system of the ship. Hermione smirked. Everything was as she had designed, not a single piece of code out of place or altered. "Uploading the virus now," she declared, typing out the commands.

A smooth bar started to fill, indicating the upload, and within moments she was in, and the virus started its work, tricking the system into believing that the console Hermione was using was the chief command console for the ship, and denying access to all others across the cruiser, started at the bridge.

Normally this would be a direly dangerous move, but Hermione knew these ships inside and out, and could automate many of the systems to function without external observation like life support. Meanwhile the important system: engines and weapons would fall directly under her control, and she would be able to change the course of the ship, and attack their enemies even as they worked to clear out the rest of the ship from Imperial control.

Even more importantly, she would have access to the communication array, and thereby transmit her virus to every nearby ship. The only limitation would be the capacity of the console that she was using, which arguable was a lot. To counter this, she pulled from an extended pouch at her waist a portable tablet, which would operate on a much more complex level than the low level maintenance console that she had selected to upload her virus through.

Soon enough, the virus started returning information to her, secure codes and access to smaller systems that wouldn't be noticed immediately. Hermione sorted through them quickly, mostly setting them to autonomous processes, and keeping the status quo going. Her legs started to get tired, and she hooked her tablet into the consol and sat upon the cool metal deck, watching the numbers and strings of code fly across the screen.

The ship rocked a few times when shots from the battle outside hit it, but Hermione scarcely noticed, being completely focused on the screen in front of her. "We have the communication array and the sensors," she declared, quickly taking control and eavesdropping on the Imperial chatter. She typed out the command for the virus to propagate and infect every large ship in the fleet. Once infected it would only be a matter of time before she controlled every ship in of the Imperial side.

"Sending out the order for fighters to recall to their cruisers," she informed those around her, sending out the command and using the recordings of the lead commander of the Imperial to relay it. Most beings seemed to heavily underestimate what the ships around them keep records of, and that was all ammunition for Hermione to make use of.

"I sense something…" Ist said near to Hermione, and all of the Jedi snapped to full readiness, sabers in hand and watching the hangar around them.

"Another fleet is entering the battle," Hermione said, somewhat annoyed at the interruption, but elated at the idea of sending another batch of the virus out to take control of a second fleet.

"Watch out!" one of the Jedi said, and Hermione's head snapped up as several black-clothed figured leapt down from the railings and catwalks above them.

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Kelrek stood on the bridge of their command ship as they pulled out of Hyperspace. The rebels were there, just as Lord Diábolis had said, attacking the fleet over Ithor when most of the soldiers were planet side for their rotational training.

"Launch fighters, and prepare a batch of shuttles to board the other Imperial command cruiser," Kelrek ordered, surprising both of his companions.

"Why would we board one of ours?" Jennah asked.

"Because that is where the main force of the rebels is," Kelrek said, allowing them to think he sensed it through the Force instead of having prior knowledge of the rebel's scheme.

"Do it," Jennah said to the commanding officer, enforcing the orders that Kelrek had already stated, which added to the frustration that the Sorcerer felt. He had no official control of the fleet, merely an advisor to Jennah who was the true authority in the fleet.

"I can sense Jedi…" Srilis said, eagerness in her voice.

"We ought to take the lead and counter them while our troopers handle their other forces," Kelrek suggested, knowing that they would be needed to stop the large Jedi guard of the rebel leader that they needed to capture.

"I agree," Jennah replied, ordering for a shuttle to be prepared for the three of them, along with their elite forces to counter the boarders.

Kelrek suppressed his smirk as he followed them to the hangar. This was the exact thing that he needed to show his worth to Diábolis. If he captured the rebel himself, defeating a large number of Jedi and possibly losing his unneeded baggage of companions at long last, he might at last be accepted by the Sith Lord as a worthy apprentice, or at least a trustworthy assistant.

The elite guard was ready by the time they arrived, and the shuttle launched without issue into the hastily escalating battle, with a full wing of fighters as escort.

"We will need to capture their leader," Kelrek said, "it would be wise to learn more of the rebels' secrets through a high level prisoner."

"I agree," Jennah said, turning to Srilis, "can you engage the Jedi guard by surprise so that we can isolate and capture the leader while still slaughtering the Jedi."

"It would be my pleasure," Srilis said, fingering her double bladed lightsaber as she tapped a foot in suppressed excitement for the sense of battle that was to come.

Fighters swarmed over them as they flew toward the other Imperial cruiser, slowly forcing their own escort to peel away and engage them. But the truly frightening moment was just before the shuttle arrived at the hangar entrance, when the entire cruiser started to turn sharply, narrowing their point of entry and focusing its cannons on the allied ship.

"They've taken command of the vessel," Jennah said, even as their shuttle had to veer away from the ship to avoid collision.

"We need to get in there and stop them," Kelrek demanded of the pilot, "turn about and prepare for a hot landing."

"Yes my Lord," the pilot replied, obey quickly. The shuttle lopped as quickly as it could, diving straight for the hangar, wherein Kelrek could already see the flash of Jedi lightsabers as they faced off against some opponents in black. He presumed that it was the remaining Dark Adepts from the other ship, and put them from his mind.

The shuttle barreled into the hangar, seeking for a clear landing spot among the others that the rebels must have taken to get here, and the three Dark Adepts leapt out before the shuttle had even fully landed.

His crossguard saber flared to life, and Kelrek started toward the knot of fighting Jedi, casually batting aside a couple of blaster bolts from the positioned rebel sharpshooters. Responding with a burst of lightning, he relished the scream as one of the troopers fell from the catwalk to their death on the cold deck of the hangar.

Srilis vanished, fading into the chaos to flank the Jedi and unleash chaos into their ranks, while Jennah activated her dual blades and charged. Looking over the combat ahead, Kelrek was puzzled by the other assailants of the Jedi. The black leather armor and cruel looking vibroblades were unknown to him, as well as the keen acrobatic skills while lacking any notion of the power of the Force within them.

Apparently Diábolis sent some insurance to make sure that Kelrek did not fail him. Gritting his teeth slightly, Kelrek stormed forward, ready to prove that he needed no help in fulfilling the wishes on his future master.

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Ist parried the sharp blade of one of the strangely dressed assassins, when she felt the presence of the Dark Side start to swell. "More incoming!" she shouted, signaling to the Jedi that their true opponents had arrived.

A shuttle sped through the air of the hangar, and three figures leapt from the opening ramp as it passed, red blades igniting.

Ist recognized the iconic Trio, three powerful Dark Adepts that had together won many battles and crushed their opposition ruthlessly through their combination of abilities. Contenting with them as well as these powerful assassins was going to be a challenge.

Director Granger was still hard at work operating her portable console, hijacking the ships around them and turning this fleet against the other that had arrived, but she quickly pressed a button on a wrist-mounted communication device. With several loud metallic clunks, compartments opened on all the rebel shuttles, and war droids launched out from them, blasters and lightsabers attached to their limbs as they rushed to reinforce the Jedi.

Ist dodged back as her own opponent was forced to withdraw from an attacking war droid. The Bothan Jedi sheathed her blade and concentrated on the Force, allowing it to flow through her completely. A massive burst of energy flew in all directions, and all those not prepared for it were thrown backward. The Jedi and Dark Adepts sensed it, and the droids and Director Granger were already magnetized to the floor.

The assassins however were thrown around like dust on the wind, scattering their overwhelming attack and allowing the Jedi to recover themselves and prepare for the larger threat. The leader of the Trio, the dual wielding Marauder charged in, and three Jedi Knights took to confronting her, their green and blue blades clashing violently with her red ones.

Ist heard a noise above them, and glanced up to see the second, with her double-bladed lightsaber dropping down into the midst of the remaining Jedi, and the other Jedi turned to face off against her devastating weapon.

A blast of Force energy turned Ist once more to the last of the Trio, the infamous Sorcerer, as he gloatingly shot at their troopers with lightning. His crossguard saber was of an ancient design, but the man swung it effortlessly as he stalked forward. Igniting her yellow blade, Ist stood to challenge him alone.

"Brave of you, young Jedi, to face me alone," the man said casually, before rushing her, swinging the massive weapon in an attempt to shake her nerves. But Ist was resolute, and parried the wild swing with a deft flick of her wrist.

"from what I've seen, there isn't much left to fear…" she replied coolly, before switching from defense to attack, and jabbed three times in quick succession, from the man's face to his left knee and back to his right shoulder.

The Sorcerer fell back, swatting her blade with his larger weapon, and Ist understood the flaw of his weapon. The crossguard was useful for intimidation, but the archaic weapon was terrible for lightsaber to lightsaber fighting. Likely it was the reason anciently that Makashi was invented, and Ist was more than ready to employ that style here and now.

Settling into a traditional stance, she advanced, alternating her blows from extremity to extremity, keeping her opponents blade moving the entire distance of his body over and over in effort to tire him, while keeping minimal movement in her own body to conserve energy.

At first, she started to gain a great deal of ground, pushing the Sorcerer well away from his allies, but the man ducked back from one of her thrusts with a smirk. Ist realized that he had allowed her to have the offensive advantage for that time being, as he wanted to separate her from her allies as well.

The split second crackle was the only warning she got before lightning flared out from the man's outstretched fingertips. Pain surged through her for her mistake, and she staggered back several steps and fell to one knee, trying to push through the pain and keep her weapon up. The force of the attack was pushing her arm down to prevent her from absorbing the bolts with the yellow blade, even as the man staked forward with his own saber.

"Weak… just as the Jedi always were…" he taunted.

Ist reached down deep into herself, trying to follow her master's old instruction, and find the calm center within the storm, the one place that could not be touched by the jarring sensation of every nerve flaring at once. She felt the pain start to din, still very much present, but diluted as she focused on other events.

Opening her eyes as she found the center of the Force within her, she rose, startling the Sorcerer. With a calm flick of her write, her saber swung through the bolts, intercepting and attracting them to the energized blade and away from Ist herself.

"Through the Force I have all the strength I need…" Ist said calmly, slapping the last of the lightning away as the Sorcerer took to a two-handed grip on his saber.

"You know nothing about strength through the Force…" he responded snidely, and lunged, swinging his saber at her head.

Ist ducked, parrying the blade upward and exposing the man's torso, but he kicked her away before she could strike and pressed with his flurry of attacks. Ist allow the ground she had gain to be forfeited, and backpedals back toward the rest of the melee, parrying and countering when she could, but mainly dodging the Sorcerer's attacks.

She was disheartened to find that a number of the other Jedi had fallen with various wounds - some lethal – as the other two Dark Adepts slowly closed in on the Director's position. There were many more of the droids that had been destroyed however, so that was a small mercy in comparison.

Director Granger had all but abandoned her datapad, clutching it at her side while her other hand fired her custom blaster, shooting jets of Wild Force across the room and picking off the Imperial Troopers that were trying to encircle the melee of sabers.

Thrusting out with both hands, Ist threw a wave of telekinesis at the Sorcerer, before leaping over the mass of combatants and landing beside the Director, using her yellow saber to block some of the incoming shots and give their leader more time to line up her own on the snipers trying to pick off the Jedi from afar.

"This had become something significantly more difficult than expected." Hermione said, and Ist agreed, although she saved her breath to keep moving her blade.

"Any extra tricks up your sleeves would help about now," Ist did comment, after a shot hit her in the shoulder, grazing her skin and singing her fur.

"There is one thing…" the woman said, holstering her blaster and fishing in a bag that somehow was large enough for her entire arm up to the shoulder. "Ah ha!" she cried, pulling out a collection of tiny remote droids.

Throwing them into the air with one hand, the Director pulled out her small wand and whispered an incantation.

The balls flashed to life, scattering through the air and started shooting spells of their own, aiming for the troopers over the melee fighters, "That'll provide us with covering fire for a few moments," the leader of the rebellion said, slamming a hand on her comlink, "and that will bring the cavalry running…"

Ist nodded, refocusing her effort toward the assassins and the Dark Adepts as the troopers were scattered in the flurry of spell-fire coming from seemingly random directions.

The staff wielder was causing the most chaos in their ranks, and Ist lunged in to that fray, blocking an attack that would have ended one of the Jedi had she not intervened.

The woman snarled at her, before throwing Ist's blade off of her weapon and focusing solely on the Bothan. But Ist had a plan. Circling the Dark Adept quickly, she lashed out with a quick succession of light blows, all easily parried by the staff.

"Such weak attacks have no hope against me," the woman taunted, but Ist just smirked.

"Try this one then!" the Director called from behind the adept, firing her weapon into the Darksider's back. She fell, whether unconscious or dead Ist did not have time to check. At the same moment that the staff wielder fell, the Marauder went into a rage, screaming out in the Force and becoming a living vortex of red plasma.

Ist moved to engage the highly dangerous being, when a cry rang out and froze all attackers.

The Sorcerer had slipped through their lines undetected and had an arm warped around Director Granger, the crimson of his blade sitting dangerously close to her skin.

"Enough of this, don't move Jedi, we have won here!" he shouted.

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Hermione struggled without success in the arms of her captor. This brute of a madman thought she was weak enough to manhandle. Straining, she did what she could to put up a front of resistance, while secretly reaching with one hand toward her wrist communicator.

She had had a feeling that something akin to this would happen, and therefore had brought something particularly special with them for such an occasion. From the opened cargo bay of the nearest shuttle her newest gadget powered on, accessing the situation.

Even as the Force user tried to pull Hermione back with him as he withdrew from the circle of Jedi defenders, a metallic arm shot out from the shadows of the shuttle, forcing the man to let go of Hermione in surprise and dodge away.

But the arm wasn't focused on him, and its metal claws latched gently around the Director of the former Magi-Tech industries. Hermione ducked as she was quickly pulled into the shadows of the hangar and released, before climbing into the newest devise that she had designed for her own protection.

"Mobil combat suit activated, how fares the battle mistress?" the metallic voice greeted her as she was sealed into the protective compartment of the heavily armored suit.

"Poorly, it's time for an unveiling and full field test of our weapon and combat systems…" Hermione instructed, taking hold of the controls and working in tandem with the artificial AI that powered this battle suit.

Stomping back out, she surveyed the battle from her new vantage. The melee had restarted with a fury, the Dark Adepts and the assassins struggling to overpower the remaining Jedi.

"Activate full suppression mode," Hermione ordered, and the hands of the suit transformed into massive blaster cannons. "Full automatic... Open fire!"

The momentary whirl of energy was followed quickly as the pair of arms locked on targets and unleashed a barrage of plasma bolts and spells, forcing the combatants to leap aside. Those who had the Force widened their eyes as they followed the energy projectiles to their source, while many of the assassins were mowed down effortlessly by the torrent of firepower.

"For the Republic!" Hermione shouted, activate the code phrase that would awaken all of her mechanical children.

Even as her battle suit led the charge, the remaining war droids appeared from the remaining shuttles, crowding the deck and quick reinforcing the line of Jedi defenders. Reaching her discarded datapad, Hermione activated a grappling hook from the suit's chest, which attached to the pad and drew it close, before a panel flipped around to deposit the device in her lap.

"Let's see them try to stop me now," Hermione said aloud, and her AI chuckled in reply as she allowed the combat matrix take automated control of the suit's actions. Sitting in the protective cavity on the suit's chest, she felt reasonable safe, as she had prepared this weapon specifically for battle against lightsabers and Force abilities.

She felt confident that there would be little that could actually touch her here. At the same moment, across the room doors leading out of the hangar burst open, and Meteor and his Force reappeared, charging into the fray and laying a suppressing fire from the opposite side of the room.

A pair of assassins tried to leap onto of the transparent dome covering Hermione, but she just smirked. They thought it was transparasteel or something else that was weaker to weapons than the rest of the magically reinforced metal of the suit, but they had no idea that it was just enchanted to be transparent for her vision. Their weapons clanged heavily off the armor of her suit, and they looked baffled at the phenomenon momentarily before a mechanical arm swept them roughly from on top of the suit.

"Dark Adept target isolated," the suit reported, and Hermione glanced up from her datapad's report of the space battle outside to see the dual wielding Adept charging at her.

"Activate program spell-sword," she instructed, and the heavily repeating blaster arms disappeared, one arm changing into an overlarge lightsaber of her own, while the other was replaced with a massive energy barrier to act as a shield.

Hermione had painstakingly requested for several lightsaber crystals to experiment with, and although Lord Berethon had been reluctant, eventually she had worn him down and acquired a scant few of the special crystals that the Jedi used for their weapons. The design was not complicated, and the finely tuned requirements that typically a Jedi alone could accomplish were child's play for her with the Wild Force at her command.

Hermione was quite proud of her accomplishment, the yellow beam of energy that the weapon produced giving her the ideal of a name for her war suit: the Sunlight Legionary. Provided a perfect success with this experiment, she had hopes of creative significantly more of these suits for their troopers, so that the Jedi alone would not have to contend with the near limitless armies of Dark Adepts that the Empire sported against them.

Charging at her new opponent, Hermione watched and took notes, as the suit confidently shield slammed the Dark Adept, blocking the heavy double strike that the Imperial warrior thought to use to carve through them, before slashed and stabbing with its own mechanical arm. Hermione had tailored her AI as carefully as she could with every recorded style and technique that the Jedi would share with her, which was saying quite a lot given that she had Lord Berethon and the remnant of the Teepo Paladins to help her.

Her machine was on par with at least the mainstay of Jedi Knights from what tests she had conducted, and Hermione was eager to see it put through the fullest of its motions.

The Dark Adept snarled at her through the dome, and Hermione refused to respond, looking down at her opponent with cold calculation, and adding notes silently to aid her machine in its battle.

"Run sequence alpha," she commanded, and the war suit attacked, its saber arm swinging in a perfect replica of the Shii-Cho form of lightsaber combat. The Dark Adept blocked and parried, dancing backward to avoid the equally nimble protective armor.

"You seem to handle the traditional forms quite well…" Hermione noted aloud, jotting down some more notes, "but what about the unorthodox… sequence gamma-delta-beta, go!" she ordered, and the suit radically changed, allowing the full capabilities of the machine suit to run rampant. Wrist-joint spinning in a full arc, the saber arm of the war-suit turned into a rotating disk of destruction, slashing back and forth to knock any possibility of defense away as the Dark Adept tried to tip the scales back into her favor.

Abruptly, the sabers locked once more, and the droid responded, small mirrors extending to reflect and change the integrity of the blade, splitting the beam into a "T" shape at the end. One end of the newly changed blade came dangerously close to striding the Dark Adept, but through the Force she jerked her head out of the way in time.

The new weapon did force her back once more, and the droid slammed the energy shield forward, charging with the energy barrier to try and slam the Imperial warrior into the far wall.

She tried to leap away with the Force, but Hermione's suit had jet propulsion, and bounded after her, swiping mid air to try and intercept her trajectory.

"We're running out of time," Hermione said, watching the energy levels of the ship around them, which was passively feeding her suit. What worried her was that sensors indicated that another fleet was coming, and soon.

"Activate pattern omega, passcode Veneficus!" she declared, removing all safety protocols from her droid, allowing it full parameters in order to destroy its current target.

The shield was forcefully ejected from the suit, even as a second blade-arm appeared, and the suit paused, judging the situation and rapidly calculating every avenue of victory.

A small grapple arm shot out at the Dark Adept, who batted it away with her sabers, but the momentary distraction was enough for the entire suit to propel itself forward with the jet launchers, rushing headlong at the dark warrior.

Blasters hidden in the chasse of the suit opened fire as it charged, preventing the Dark Adept from preparing a stance or blocking the oncoming tide of metal and plasma, and forcing her to dodge altogether. When she did unfortunately, the suit was prepared, and another grapple claw launched, clamping down on the ankle of the woman, and dragging her heavily to the ground.

Both sabers came down with tremendous force, colliding heavily on the crimson blades of the woman as she struggled to free her leg and keep the massive yellow plasma blades away from her body.

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Fury observed the progress of the battle as they arrived in orbit around Ithor. The rebels had come, just as they had reasoned from the information that they had acquired from the rebel spies. And to counter them, the Trio had appeared, almost immediately after.

It was too much of a coincidence to be accident, Fury was certain of it. It smelt of Diábolis and his personal brand of secrecy.

"Launch fighters, I want our position reinforced, and focus your fire on the hijacked ships," he declared, watching as the remnant of the Rebel Fleet appeared to back up their forces.

"Commander Filius Flitwick…" he breathed, impressed at such a showing. The diminutive commander of the rebel forces was a masterful tactician, and there was a high price from the Emperor for his head.

If Fury was to defeat him, he could be granted anything he wished, even placement in a position that would afford him every opportunity at his revenge against Zhar, or even unraveling the mystery that Diábolis was up to against the Emperor.

"Move into range of our weapons, and open fire on the Pursuit of Justice," he commanded, wondering what the small Mage-Born would do in response to this aggressive gambit.

The smaller hijacked Imperial vessels moved to get in the way of Fury's command cruiser, but several quick barrages of their weapons shattered their line. If the fools aboard allowed their ships to be so easily taken, then they deserved what they got.

"All weapons in range sir, opening fire now." The gunnery officer reported, and Fury nodded in acknowledgement.

"Let's see if this Commander is as self-sacrificing as the stories say…" he muttered, watching closely.

Predictably, the prismatic barrier came up to stop the initial blasts, but the ship continued moving closer to the controlled Imperial cruiser, taking a brunt of attacks on its personal shields as the barrier was forced to shut down.

"As expected," Fury said, "trying to save your friends over even your own lives…" he turned to the rest of the command crew, "prepare boarding craft, and my shuttle, we are ending the rebels here and now!"

He strode away amid the cheers of his soldiers. This would be a glorious battle to remember.