Chapter 4

The Stalemate on Kashyyyk

Yoda's gnarled green face creased even more in an expression of disappointment. he looked down at the ensuing battle with his large, oval brown eyes, tapping his gimer stick rhythmically against the wooden floor. Down below, on the beaches of Kachihro, clones ands Wookies fought desperately with the Separatist droid armies that raced across the murky grey waters of the Kachihro Lake and engaged the Republic forces. Yoda overlooked the battle from the carved out inside of a young Wroshyr tree. The tree, being young, was only a hundred metres tall, unlike fully grown trees, which were usually between four kilometres and a hundred kilometres tall.

The battle raged on, and in most areas of the conflict, the clones held their positions in the trenches dug in the white sand. Clone Artillery troopers, carrying Plex rocket launchers and proton grenades, held Separatist armoured vehicles at bay with the help of LAAT/I Republic gunships, Republic walkers, tanks, and heavy turrets. High above the ground battle, Separatist gunships, Tri-fighters, Vulture droids, and Scarab fighters were in a turning dogfight with Republic V-19s, Jedi Interceptors, ARC-170s, and V-wings.

But, in the area just below Yoda, the Separatists had advanced steadily, breaking through the clone trooper line with SBDs (super-battle droids) and Destroyer Droids. The weaker B1 Battle Droids followed in the wake of their more advanced counterparts.

Clone Commander Gree, wearing the camouflaged armour that the clones had chosen to wear to Kashyyyk, raced up beside Yoda and spoke quickly. "General. We've successfully held back the assault in all quadrants, with the exception of Alpha and Sarlaac," Alpha quadrant was the quadrant that Yoda and Gree were in. "The Sarlaac troops are recovering, but approximately two hundred SBDs, four hundred B1s, and fifty Destroyer Droids are at the base of the tree. We've ordered reinforcements, but all of our troops are still bogged down in the defence, and thee are no free gunships to use in an air-strike!"

"Hear, and understand, I do, Commander. Engage the droids personally, we must!" Yoda tapped his Gimer stick for emphasis. "Men, how many, do we have, Commander?"

"We've got two hundred troopers, ten Artillery Troopers, four Jet Troopers, and a commando squad. And a few Wookies," Gree added as an afterthought. "I suppose they count as about ten Artillery Troopers!"

"Indeed," said Yoda, and he turned to face the two Wookies who stood behind him. The tall inhabitants of Kashyyyk are all covered in fur, and these two were no exception. The tallest of the two, Tarrful, was covered in shaggy dark brown fur, and carried a Bowcaster. A Bowcaster is a unique weapon, used mainly be Wookies, that are similar to crossbows, and fire small metal quarrels, rimmed with laser energy, into targets. They're insanely powerful, but need reloading after just five shots.

The shorter Wookie, Chewbacca, had shorter fur that was light brown, dark green, and blonde. He wore a bandoleer of quarrels for his Bowcaster, and had startling blue eyes.

"Chewbacca, Tarrful. Accompany me to the bottom of the tree, please if you."

The Wookies roared an affirmative in their language, and shouldered their bowcasters. Yoda smiled, and opened himself to the Living Force, feeling its power energies flow through his small frame as he reached into his coarse white cloak, and produced a small lightsaber.

The sixty-six centimetre tall Jedi Master's face hardened as he ignited his sabre, sending brilliant slivers of green light dancing across the Wookies' fur.

Yoda screamed as he raced down the stairs cut into the middle of the tree. He bounded out of the carved doorway, and his green, three-toed feet landed on the white sand. The Jedi Master harnessing the power of the Force, flipped forward suddenly, his sabre whirling as it caught blaster bolts fired in his direction and pinged them back into the SBDs that fired them. Clone troopers, crouching in cover all around him, opened fire, downing a few SBDs and perhaps fifty B1 battle droids. No Destroyer Droid fell.

Yoda leapt forward into a spinning cartwheel, his short blade weaving a green pattern as he landed in front of the advanced SBDs. He advanced, cutting down ten SBDs with ever five strokes, dropping the imposing blue droids to the ground effortlessly as he dodged and deflecting laser fire.

Yoda dropped into a crouch as a blue blaster bolt shot over head, downing the last SBD. Now, all that was left were two Destroyer Droids (Artillery Troopers had taken care of the other Destroyers) and most of the B1s had been ripped apart by the Wookies. A final pair of blasts from Plex rocket launchers took out the Destroyer Droids, and the last battle droid's head had been ripped off by Chewbacca. Its body collapsed as its head, repeating 'Roger, roger' over and over, bounced away.

"Commander Gree!" Yoda turned just to see the Commander walking towards him.

"Yes, General?"

"Order all reserve forces to reinforce both here and Sarlaac quadrant. A status report, I would like, also."

"Yes sir," Gree paused to relay the orders with his helmet comlink, and then spoke again. "Quadrants Bacta through to Epsilon are secure. Sarlaac Quadrant is being reinforced, and all other positions are currently mopping up the remnants of the Sep' forces. We should be able to take the fight to the enemy in a few hours."

"Excellent, that is, Commander. Master Vos and Master Unduli to begin loading all troopers who are not needed in battle into gunships, instruct them; establish a forward command post near the enemy base in two hours, we will. Launch an attack in eight hours, we shall. Now, rest Commander. May the Force be with you."

"And with you, General."

Anakin's fighter's spin had slowed to a slight turn, and the LAAT/C (a cargo variant of the famous LAAT/I Republic Gunship) had flown through the battle to pick him up. The gunship had flown back through the battle, using metallic clamps to hold the Jedi Interceptor in place, and deposited Anakin in the flagship of the Republic fleet.

The battle with the Separatist Destroyers was ongoing, but the Republic seemed to have the edge. The enemy had already lost one of their Destroyers, whereas all five of the Republic's Star Destroyers were still intact. Now the Republic really had the edge. They outgunned the Separatists, and had more fighters than them. The only reason why the Separatists hadn't been destroyed was that the Providence class Destroyers that they fielded had incredibly thick armour. No Separatist reinforcements had been detected incoming, and a Republic fleet of ten six-hundred metre long Dreadnaught Heavy Cruisers were inbound. The Dreadnaught class of ships were old and quite small compared to modern battleships, but they had a large amount of firepower and were thickly armoured, although their shields were weak and their starfighter complement was small.

Anakin stepped onto the bridge, a grim set to his face. The Separatist shuttle had escaped, although a full squadron of ARC-170 fighter/bombers had jumped to hyperspace in pursuit. Anakin knew that the odds of finding the Separatist leaders in the shuttle, which was incredibly fast in hyperspace, indeed, twice as fast as the ARC-170s, were more than a hundred to one.

Obi-Wan smiled as Anakin surveyed the bridge. Anakin's grim expression loosened a little, but he was anything but cheery. So far, the battle was well in the favour of the Republic, and the Dreadnaughts' ETA was just five minutes, but Anakin felt a smouldering anger with himself because he'd allowed himself to take a hit, and Obi-Wan had had to come and save him, allowing the Separatists to escape. The thought made Anakin grind his teeth.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan smiled. "Look what one of our teams searching for General Grievous's corpse found," he thrown Anakin a familiar looking cylinder.

Anakin's lightsaber!

It brought a smile to Anakin's face, at least. "Thanks."

"Oh, don't thank me. It's the clones who found it you have to thank."

"Yeah…" Anakin said but his mind was elsewhere. Another of the Separatist's Destroyers had exploded, snapped in half by concentrated turbolaser bombardment. It reminded Anakin of how he'd managed to pilot the wreckage of the Invisible Hand safely down to Coruscant.

Just a few minutes later, there was a burst of white light from behind the Separatist ships, and ten Dreadnaught Heavy Cruisers with Republic markings appeared, opening fire on the Separatist ships. The Dreadnaughts were six hundred metres long, tube-shaped, and sturdy, with multiple 'weapons blisters' bulging out of the hull, home to many turbolaser batteries. The Dreadnaughts were using the element of surprise to their advantage; they concentrated all their fire on just one enemy Destroyer, catching it off guard and destroying it before it could react by shooting into the fuel chambers with a concentrated barrage. The remaining three Separatist Destroyers were now caught in a net; they couldn't retreat back into Separatist space, as the Dreadnaughts had moved into a net formation that would prevent the enemy ships from escaping without spending minutes going around the net, and probably losing their engines to concentrated bombardment as they fruitlessly tried to flee. Their only other viable escape route, into neutral space, was blocked by the Venator Star Destroyers. If the Separatists jumped to hyperspace in any other direction, they would go into Republic space, and would be tracked without a doubt.

The Separatists were well and truly beaten.

So they decided to take three Venators with them into death.

Yoda smiled a little upon hearing that the forward command post had been secured without a problem. The Separatist base was basically a landed Lucrehulk class Ring Carrier, with its core ship being used as a command centre. The forward command post had been established as an Acclamator class Republic Assault Ship, the Star Destroyer-like ships that had served with distinction on Geonosis. The Assault Ship was sheltered from enemy fire by a tall ridge, which the ship had landed right next to. It was also defended by ninety gunships, four hundred fighters, and nearly a thousand armoured vehicles, such as Juggernaut Tanks, and nine thousand clone troopers. The enemy droid strength at their command centre was believed to be about two million; the earlier droid assault had compromised of an equal number, so the Separatists had foolishly wasted half of their main Kashyyyk forces in a failed assault. Yoda had only two hundred thousand clone troopers on Kashyyyk, but their overall efficiency in combat meant that the Republic force and the Separatist army were evenly matched, despite the fact that the latter outnumbered the former ten to one. And, with the fifty thousand Wookies fighting with the Republic thrown into the equation, along with the vastly superior number of Republic fighters, and three Jedi Masters on the planet, the Republic were the firm favourites to win the battle.

"General Yoda!" Gree's voice was filled with frustration as he raced up to Yoda.

"Yes, Commander," The wise old Jedi said.

"The Separatists have activated at least a dozen Grade A shield generators around their Command Centre. We don't have any vehicles that can get through the shields and our Star Destroyers can't pierce the barrier with their turbolasers. An infantry assault would be useless; they've still got all their tanks inside the shield. We're in a stalemate, sir!"

"Heard and understood, that is. How many Republic Commandos are on Kashyyk, I ask?" said Yoda, frowning.

"Approximately nine squads of four."

"To take out the eight shield generators in the most strategic positions, assign eight of the squads. One in reserve, we must keep. With only four shield generators online, Star Destroyer bombardment, undeterred, it will be!" Yoda said, frowning.

"Roger, General!"