Chapter 24

"You want us to what?"

"Release a swarm of your pulse-gravity mines," Leia repeated dully for the fifth time, finally to the commander of the Hapan fleet. "The Mandalorian torpedoes are attracted to gravity mass and will ignore your ships for the mines."

"You do realize that dropping that many mines means we can't hyperspace out," The commanded pointed out.

"You'd abandon your queen, you skiving nerf herder?" Han shouted at the comm.

Glaring at Han, Leia replied. "I don't think we have much choice. Either we defend Hapes, or the whole cluster falls."

Leia checked her chronometer. "You'd better launch those mines quick; by our calculations they will launch the next salvo in thirty seconds."

"Acknowledged."

"All right," Han said, pursuing yet another Mandalorian fighter and driving it towards the Solo Quest. Han had worked his way through the fleet towards the front where Jaina was to make better use of the unique attributes of the modified freighters. So far, only one Miy'til fighter had kept up with the Solo pair, one Jaina referred to as Alpha Seven. "Heads up kid, got another one for you."

"How about I take the two on your back?" Jaina replied as Seven shot the one Han was following. A moment later all three fighters were destroyed, and the trio formed up to re-evaluate the fight.

"All Hapan ships between Mandalorian and Hapan fronts, withdrawal behind capital ships." The Hapan command carrier broadcasted. "Repeat: All ships return to friendly space."

"That's our cue to go," Leia said, and Han directed his miniature squadron back towards the Hapans at full throttle.

"Heads up," Jaina commed. "Mandos launching another volley!"

A moment later, hundreds of pulse mines were launched towards the Mandalorians, and another thousand yellow blips appeared on sensors near the Mandalorian ships. Following a pre-programmed course, the mines took up station between the opposing capital ships and activated their gravity fields while the torpedoes streaked towards their targets.

"Let's hope this works," Han said to nobody in particular as the torpedoes approached the line of mines.

"Dad, break!" Jaina called, snapping Han out of his revere. Focussed on the sensor display following the torpedoes, he failed to notice the squadron of Mandalorians he had set a course through. The Mandalorians opened fire as the Falcon slipped into a sharp dive and missed the battered freighter entirely. Karth and Nelani fired at the squadron, claiming a kill each before Jaina was forced to break off.

"Sev, how's it going?" Jaina asked.

"Winged one, took a few shots myself, but doing good. Got a couple on my tail, but no biggie."

"Head three-oh-five mark two; I'll clear your tail," Jaina replied, swinging the Quest around to line her gunners on target.

"Negative, Quest," Leia said. "Mando bombers are breaking off. They're attacking Hapes. Form up, we're going after them."

Sure enough, all the Mandalorian blips on radar among the Hapans appeared to be setting course for the planet below. A second glance at her display showed the Hapan mine line had worked. Half the mines were destroyed, and more were filling in their places. Finally without having to attack the torpedoes, the Hapan ships were able to redouble their attacks on the Mandalorian capital ships with their turbolasers and drive them back outside of effective range. A stalemate had finally been reached.

"Acknowledged," Jaina replied. "Let's go."

-! #$%^&*()

"I hate these things," Jacen examined the Mandalorian commander marching through the street using the scope of his new matte black Hapan sniper rifle. Tenel Ka had armed the Jedi with several more explosives, weapons, and sub-vocal comlinks before they left the palace.

"Indeed. It seems rather distasteful, striking down an enemy from afar without a fair fight," Tenel Ka agreed, tugging on her chest armour plate to make it sit better. She was wearing a shiny new set of Rancor skin armour and was still making adjustments so it fit properly. Jacen could sense her fatigue from emerging from the bacta tank early, but knew her resolve was strong as ever. She would not fail her people.

"True, but not what I meant," Jacen said. "It's hard to take prisoners that get incinerated."

"You never seemed to mind thermal detonators before," Eriana commented from behind her own rifle on a building across the street from Jacen and Tenel Ka.

"Yeah, Wraith Squadron 101: Big pretty explosions always make great distractions," Jacen said. "Good sniper rifles are meant to be almost impossible to detect. And how would you like to be walking down the street looking at a new dress then all of a sudden bang! You're gone."

"I suppose I really wouldn't be alive to care."

"Speaking of not alive," Jacen said grimly, "Shall we get this over with?"

"Might as well," Eriana said with equal grim. "Captain Stute, are your troops ready?"

"As we'll ever be," The Hapan captain replied. "I guess we'll owe you Jedi one after this."

"Just stay loyal to Tenel Ka and we'll call it even," Jacen replied. Switching to secondary encrypted communication frequencies allowed ground communication on Hapes to continue without the jamming interference. Womprat's mission was to deliver a recorded message of Tenel Ka detailing their plan, and to tell the troops to switch radio frequencies and use the encryption protocols he had developed to work against the jamming. Jacen's team met up with the first group Womprat had visited while Astro had gone along with Womprat to help in arriving at his destinations safely.

"You got it," Stute replied. "Just tell us when to start blasting those Mandos."

"Wait until the first 'detonator goes off," Eriana ordered. "Then attack like there's no tomorrow. Remember, aim for the joints in the armour."

"Understood,"

Jacen tried to ignore the painfully slow seconds that passed as the troops continued to march on. They had so far remained oblivious to the silver spheres trailing behind them. Rather than throwing the detonators in and risking some form of interdiction, the Jedi opted to sneak the explosives in among the Mandalorians with the Force and activate them at the opportune time.

"Okay, good enough," Eriana said when the last of the Mandalorians passed the point where the last of the Hapans were hiding. "Tenel Ka, bring 'em in and light 'em up."

Time slowed for Jacen. His mind continued at normal pace, but everything else moved at a fraction of the speed his mind did. From where he was he could see the shell of exploding detonators shatter from the heat and the deadly fireballs slowly expand. He could see the flames reach the nearest troops and begin to melt the weak spots of the armour. Mandalorian iron could withstand the blast of a thermal detonator, but the joints on the lower ranking troops did not enjoy such protection. The commander was slowly incinerated inside his own armour by a well-placed pair of blaster bolts from a sniper rifle on either side of the street. Time gradually sped up, and more troopers fell in slow motion from the onslaught of paired sniper blasts, the removal of their joints from the explosives, or from the blaster fire shot by Hapan troops that appeared behind the Mandalorians.

Once time resumed its normal pace, Jacen stood up and reloaded his rifle while surveying the scene below. The Hapans moved in and, under Eriana's orders, began to administer first aid to the Mandalorians that were still alive.

"Looks like we got them all," Eriana commented, looking at Jacen from across the street. "No losses on our side."

"Did I ever mention how much I hate this?" Jacen asked in disgust, collecting his supplies. "We should get going. We have another squad to stop."

-! #$%^&*()

Finally separated from the battle, Jaina was able to take stock of the toll the battle had on both sides. She estimated two hundred Mandalorian fighters were being followed by almost half as many Hapan fighters. With the Hapan bombers still in orbit, Jaina weighted the fleets at just about even, though she knew the upcoming skirmish was likely to be costly.

"Looks like they're planning a bombing run on the fighter production facilities on the other side of the ocean. Don't forget we have limited shields in atmosphere," The Hapan commander commented. "Defensive turrets are active, but we're their only real hope. There are a lot of civvies in that area so watch your fire and shoot down as many as you can over the water. For the Queen!"

"For the Queen!"

The Hapan ships raced forward on afterburners, and launched a volley of missiles at the Mandalorians.

"Um, what he said!" Han said on a private frequency to Jaina and Seven, and launched a pair of missiles himself.

Jaina rolled her eyes and started picking targets. Ship sensors showed fifty kilometres to the production facilities and they were closing at about a thousand clicks per hour.

"Three minutes to target," Jaina calculated. She launched a pair of torpedoes when a button on the controls she had not noticed before labelled Beam Weapon caught her eye. Curiously, she targeted another ship and hit the button. For a moment nothing happened then the enemy ship lurched and collided with two other fighters.

"Nice!" Jaina exclaimed.

"What was that?" Seven inquired.

"No idea!" Jaina replied. "But it worked! Heads up, fighters almost in laser range."

The Hapan ships launched another wave of missiles and started firing lasers. In response, the Mandalorian fighters started firing at the Hapans.

"How are they shooting at us?" Han exclaimed as a Hapan ship exploded nearby.

"Looks like their laser systems rotate," The Hapan commander announced. "Watch out, this is gonna get rough!"

The Hapan ground turrets started firing at the Mandalorians, but the fighters could gain no ground while pinned down by the rear-facing guns.

"Dad, I have an idea," Jaina called. "Follow me."

She sent the Solo Quest into a forty-five degree dive and accelerated as fast as she could. When she was a kilometre below the Mandalorian line, she pulled level, continued accelerating, and flipped the YT-2400 on its side.

"Brilliant!" Han exclaimed, following suit. Both Corellian ships fired their turrets straight up at the Mandalorians, skewering them from where the turrets could not rotate to aim at. Several fighters dropped bombs at the freighters, but the narrow profile of the ships and the battle-honed reflexes of the pilots made them extremely difficult targets to hit.

"Not going to be enough," Jaina saw land quickly approaching ahead. "Twenty seconds to target, and over a hundred and fifty ships left!"

"Break!" Han ordered, and decelerated. "We don't want to be under here when those bombs drop!"

"We can't just leave them!" Jaina shouted, jamming her hand against the already maxed out throttle.

Five seconds later, the Mandalorians dropped their bombs, and disappeared. Apparently the cloaks worked in atmosphere, too.

"Uh, oh," Jaina watched the bombs fall towards her, realizing she could not dodge that many bombs.

-! #$%^&*()

Luke and the kids ran as fast as they could towards the Jade Shadow as it raced towards them. Kyp aligned his squadron in a defensive perimeter trying to hold back the Sith ground forces with little success. After what seemed like an eternity, the Jade Shadow finally hovered over Luke and the kids. Mara and Cilghal appeared at the boarding ramp, urging Luke to get aboard. Together they began to levitate the kids into the ship.

"Luke, you have incoming!" Kyp announced.

Luke barely had time to activate his lightsaber and half the Sith flying through the air at him. Mara caught the child Luke was levitating and continued to pull the kids up. With two children remaining on the ground, Luke saw a dozen Sith racing towards them across the courtyard and some Mandalorians setting up portable anti-aircraft turrets behind them. Shield systems were already up, preventing Kyp or Lowbacca from destroying the turrets with laser canons. Suddenly, Luke recalled his vision. The Order leaving Ossus could be what he thought was the Order falling apart…perhaps it meant he had to stand alone against a dark enemy to save the Order. He made up his mind. His friends and family could not escape without a distraction.

It was my Order to build, he reflected, and it is my Order to save.

Luke looked up to Mara, caressing her presence in the Force.

"Evacuate, now!" he yelled into his comlink and charged off to face the Sith, lightsaber ablaze.