Vanguard
Chapter 15
"Machines and might"
[Republic Jedi Cruiser Vigilance, Null Sector]
[Seventeen hours later]
Obi-wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Commander Cody, and Captain Rex all stood around a central holotable in the war room showing a hologram of the massive separatist shipyard built around an even larger asteroid like a ring held in place by gravitational drives and a rather large defensive fleet consisting of eight Munificent-class Frigates, three Recusant-class Light Destroyers, and one Providence-class Carrier/Destroyer up scaled to dreadnought classifications and armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry well capable of ripping a Venator-class Star Destroyer with ease.
Kenobi had his hand over his beard as he ponders about where Ahsoka and Longarm could be with their supposedly 'heavy firepower' while Anakin lays out the plan to the two clone commanders "Alright we're here to take the shipyards that provides the separatists with their destroyers and use it for our own needs, the plan is simple, Obi-wan and I will engage the enemy fleet and clear the way for you to board the station via dropships."
Rex had to comment with his usual humorous tone "Sir when it comes to you, it's always a simple plan."
"That's how we get it done Rex, your jobs will be to secure the two main hangars, here and here" he says as he points out two massive hangar bays on opposite ends of the station "From there Obi-wan and I will join you in taking the rest of the station."
Cody comments "Seems solid enough . . . what about that backup I've heard about?"
Kenobi answers "It does seem they are running a little late."
Anakin states "Well, if I know snips then she'll pull through for us. Right now we got our orders."
"Right well then we best be underway" Kenobi says as he and Cody make their way through a hatch leading to the bridge's command center.
Anakin waves to the captain "Come on Rex."
"Right behind you General."
Once Anakin and Rex returned to their flagship via shuttle, the republic fleet, consisting of five Venator-class Star Destroyers and three Arquitens-class Escort Cruisers, jumped into hyperspace to finally engage the separatist fleet and claim the shipyards for the Republic.
[Twenty seven minutes later, Separatist flagship Abdominal]
Aboard the Providence-class Dreadnought, Captain Mar Tuuk, a neimoidian male with a light body build that was finally released back into service despite his failure to maintain a blockade over Ryloth after Skywalker rammed the damaged Jedi cruiser Defender into his Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship Procurer, was seated in his command chair of his new warship waiting for the anticipated Republic fleet to arrive out of hyperspace.
A B1 battle droid walks over to him and reports "Sir, we've detected republic ships coming out of hyperspace."
Tuuk asks "Good, what is their strength?"
"Five cruiser classes as well as three escort classes."
"And . . . the commander?"
"A pair of Jedi sir, one Obi-wan Kenobi and one Anakin Skywalker."
"Skywalker!?" Tuuk asks almost surprised by what the droid just said, then he seemed to enjoy these news rather well as he has longed for a rematch against the Jedi "Good . . ."
Soon enough the Republic fleet jumped into visual range moments before another droid reports "Sir! The enemy fleet is holding position at eighty seven kilometers, shall we engage?"
"No, we let them come to us. But first I would like to contact Skywalker . . ."
[Jedi Cruiser Savior]
Anakin was in the cruiser's main hangar prepping his Eta-2 Actis-class Interceptor for launch along with his trusted companion R2-D2 when Admiral Yularen contacted him on his wrist-mounted comlink "Sir we're being hailed by the separatist flagship, he says he'll only speak with you."
"Put it through Admiral" the Jedi says as he prepares to enter his cockpit.
Tuuk's voice came through "Anakin Skywalker, I did not expect to see you again after all this time."
"Mar Tuuk, what a surprise to hear your voice again, I was hoping you had gone down with your ship like a real captain does."
"No . . . as you can clearly tell I am very well alive and much eager for a rematch between our two fleets."
"Well wait no more, because you're about to get one."
"Good . . . Good . . . I will hope this will be more of a challenge for both of us" Tuuk finishes before cutting the transmission.
R2 moves over to Anakin and made a concerned whoo before he kneels down and said "Don't worry buddy, we'll pull through just like every other mission."
A clone officer's voice then echoed through the ship's intercom system "All pilots prepare for launch! I repeat all pilots prepare for launch!"
Skywalker starts climbing to his cockpit saying "Well here we go Artoo, you ready?"
R2 made a series of cheerful beeps before activating its leg-mounted rocket boosters and inserted itself into the fighter's astromech slot on the dorsal port wing.
Admiral Yularen's voice spoke through the intercoms "We're opening the hangar bay doors, General Skywalker has the lead."
Skywalker's fighter began lifting itself off the hangar floor and flew out the atmospheric barriers into the central runway along with the cruiser's complement of ARC-170 Starfighters, BTL-B Y-Wing Bombers, and Z-95 Headhunter Starfighters. The fighters, squadron by squadron, flew out of the central hangar bay door on the dorsal bow along with the other cruisers' complement of fighters and bombers with Kenobi leading his group out of the Vigilance.
"You ready Obi-wan?" Skywalker asks over the comms.
His master responded "Unlike you Anakin, I rather be standing on the bridge."
"Oh come on Master, flying can't be that bad."
"Easy for you to say, you're the ace pilot here."
A clone fighter pilot reports "We got fighters inbound."
Another orders "Lock S-foils into attack position."
The Jedi followed those orders alongside the many other pilots extending their wing flaps into attack positon as they began to get visual of the large swarm of vulture droids and tri-droids barreling their way.
"Here we go!" Skywalker calls out to the other pilots before the droid fighters began firing.
The next moment droid and clone fighters clashed flying past one another and entering into vicious dogfights all across the battlespace, military chatter soon flooded all channels of communications as the republic capital ships move in to engage the separatist warships with their heavy turbo laser cannons.
Admiral Yularen aboard the Savior orders "All cannons target the closest separatist frigate, full barrage."
As ordered, the Venator's eight dual heavy turbo laser turrets faced forward and unleashed a hellish barrage of heavy blue laser fire concentrated on the nearest frigate, each round slammed against the frigate's standing shields and began to hold as the crew diverted all power to the forward shields. The separatist fleet then retaliated with heavy cannon fire directed on the entire republic fleet sending a storm of red laser fire back onto the Venators and Arquitens cruisers.
By this time Skywalker had already shot down four droid fighters when he contacts Captain Rex and order "Rex we've already have the fighters distracted, start your attack on the shipyard."
"Right away General!" the captain responded which was soon followed up with LAAT gunships coming out of the cruisers as they make their trek to the shipyards.
Admiral Yularen stood aboard the bridge of the cruiser Savior when an clone officer from one of the crew pits on either side of the bridge's central walkway reports "Sir, we're detecting an unusual anomaly off our starboard bow at twenty kilometers."
Yularen turns and asks "Anomaly? What do you mean?"
"Unclear sir."
The admiral walks over to the starboard side of his command bridge and looks out the view port finding nothing in the distance until he caught a glimpse of something. A small electrical surge out in the emptiness of space like two blue bolts lightning just occurred and suddenly this large spiraling blue portal appeared with a pitch black center indicating nothing and only moments later did this escort size vessel comes streaming out of the portal at flank speed. From what he could tell, the vessel was coated black, presumably for camouflage against the blackness of space, and featured a bit of an angular design much like republic warships but the vessel did not match any class of ship he has ever seen before.
He contacts Skywalker "General Skywalker, an unidentified vessel had just emerged from a portal off our starboard bow, we cannot confirm whether it is friendly or not."
Anakin responded "Roger that Admiral, I'm breaking off to investigate."
But Kenobi objects "No the gunships need you to cover them, I'll go check out our new guest."
After that Kenobi pulls his Starfighter away from the fighting and makes his way to the unknown vessel but as he grew closer he started to make out weapon emplacements and missile pods, but what really got his attention were the bold white letters along the broadside bow, Vanguard.
It was then when he began receiving a transmission from inside the warship near the ventral bow, at first it came in garbled but it was quickly cleaned up by an unknown source "Mas—r –nobi? It's m—Ahsoka."
Kenobi sighed in relief "I hear you Tano, so good for you to join us."
He soon sees a large grey bulky fighter craft launch itself from the hangar below the ship moments before he heard Longarm's voice report "This is Sabre-1 we are on station, ready to assist."
The Jedi maneuvers his fighter and comes alongside the sabre and looks in the cockpit to see the SPARTAN in the front seat and Ahsoka behind him, he asks "So this is the firepower you mentioned, I'm not sure if it'll help against an entire fleet."
Longarm was going to make the Jedi Master eat those words when he contacts Percival aboard the Vanguard "Percival, set primary target on hostile frigate in grid G-5, MAC rounds have been authorized, fire for effect."
Kenobi turned his head to the destroyer behind him and watched it line up its two forward cannons to its designated target and almost immediately launched a massive metal slug over the two fighters sending it hurtling towards a separatists frigate with its starboard shields down, he watched as the round violently slam into the side of the frigate's hull and violently tore a hole through the entire ship before passing out the port side and slam into the upper armor of a Recusant-class Destroyer where the impact caused massive structural damage due to the massive amounts of kinetic energy that was still behind the slug. The frigate began to tilt forward as if it began to lose power and orientation when the second MAC round was fired, this time targeted towards the aft of the frigate, where it impacted and tore another hole through one of the frigate's reactor chambers causing a chain reaction of explosions and resulted in one final massive explosion splitting the ship in half while rocking the other vessels that were around it.
The Jedi watched in shock as the ship slowly fell apart from the destroyer's devastating firepower and said "Well then . . . I take back everything I just said . . . Have your ship coordinate with the fleet, we have some droid fighters to deal with ourselves."
The SPARTAN nodded and said "You heard him Percival, link up with the fleet and give them fire support."
"Acknowledged Longarm fly safe, for Ahsoka's sake."
"Thanks Percy" Tano said with a gentle smile.
"I'll follow your lead Kenobi" Longarm said as he falls in behind Obi-wan's fighter.
"Right this outta be fun" the Jedi replies as he sets off towards the raging warzone of fighters with the sabre following close behind and the Vanguard making its way to the republic fleet.
As the two fighters make their way to the battle Ahsoka looks at the consoles around her and looks up at Longarm in front of her asking "So what do people say when they fly with you?"
Longarm kept facing forward watching the battle ahead of him and said "I don't know. They normally don't tell me."
Kenobi warns "Careful, fighters heading our way."
The targeting screen in front of Longarm immediately lit up with seven red squares each highlighting a droid fighter, he reports "I have visual, switching to missiles, acquiring lock."
Two racks loaded with three Medusa-class homing missiles each extends from the dorsal hull of the main fuselage and were ready to fire when the SPARTAN said "Target lock, firing!" launching four missiles out of the racks sending the roaring to their individually locked targets with trails of smoke following them.
Obi-wan watched the four missiles make their way before four explosion flashed in the distance signaling they had struck their target however a vulture droid and two tri-droid fighters were still coming in prompting the Jedi to let loose with his dual blaster cannons mounted onto his interceptor, Longarm follows suit and switches back to his two 30mm autocannons and began firing in small bursts sending high velocity rounds downrange. Eventually Kenobi scores a kill when a pair of bolts slams into a tri-droid's central fuselage sending it spiraling out of control before exploding and Longarm scores a hit on the vulture droid as a slug tore through the droid's right wing cutting it clean off and sending the droid barreling straight towards the sabre.
Ahsoka cries out "Look out!" as the droid rapidly drew closer.
The SPARTAN quickly performs an aileron roll passing the disable droid harmlessly then immediately made a break right tailing the remaining tri-droid that quickly took off realizing its odds will stand better if it had backup. He pushes the throttle lever to full power causing the four thruster engines to burn brighter as he closes the gap between himself and the seemingly superior fighter as it tried to flee. The droid performed all sorts of rolls and maneuvers in an attempt to elude the SPARTAN but it was hopeless as the sabre stayed on target not letting up on the autocannons until several rounds struck the fighter and sent it burning down in flames but by this time two vulture droids gave chase and began firing away at the UNSC superiority fighter.
Ahsoka kept her eyes on the radar screen in front of her and states "We're not losing them!"
A bolt of energy slams against the sabre's right wing prompting the SPARTAN to call out "Report!"
She answers "Impact on the right wing, shields down to thirty seven percent!"
"Hold on!" the SPARTAN firmly states before pulling the thruster lever all the way back killing the engines and pull back on the flight control stick sending the fighter into a full loop while holding position allowing the droid fighters to pass by.
He then re-engages the thrusters and tailed the two fighters in another high speed chase filled with ducks, banks, and rolls through space full of starfighters and flak, a clone pilot reports "We're right with you Sabre-1!"
Longarm looks over to his left and found a clone ARC-170 fighter with its wings extended into attack position move into formation alongside the sabre before ordering "You handle that vulture on the left. I'll take the one on the right."
"You got it sir!" the pilot responded before firing off energy bolts towards his designated target while Longarm does the same with his target.
The two allied fighters close in on their targets firing away until the clones made the first kill destroying the vulture outright with their twin blaster cannons but Longarm was still trying to shoot his down while it did a series of twists and turns until it went into a perfect straight line, only to be shot down by a set of blaster fire from somewhere above the sabre. He and Ahsoka looked up to see a Jedi interceptor sporting a gold and light grey color scheme fly pass their cockpit canopy and fall into formation flying alongside the much larger sabre.
Tano looks out the canopy window and spotted her old master inside the interceptor and said "Good to see you again Sky Guy."
"I knew you couldn't stay away from me snips" Skywalker replies humorously.
Ahsoka rolls her eyes with a grin before Longarm asks "So that's your former master . . . he seems nice."
"Yeah . . . a bit bull headed sometimes but he's alright" she comments.
Skywalker then asks "Longarm is it? What's your kill count?"
The SPARTAN answered "Six."
"Ah you're getting sloppy, I already have seven."
Kenobi's voice came through on the comms "The two of you can show off your flying later, right now our bombers are preparing for a run on the warships and they need us to cover them."
"Of course Master, we're on our way" Skywalker said before he turns to Longarm and Ahsoka and said "Race ya'."
Ahsoka grinned "You're on."
Then by cue Longarm sets the thrusters to full power and rocketed upwards towards the small swarm of Y-Wing bombers several kilometers above them with Anakin's interceptor close behind with relative speed and gaining.
Kenobi was flying alongside the force of over thirty bombers and fighters when he soon sees Skywalker and Longarm appear from below and take up their positions on either side of his interceptor, he then looks forward at their intended target, a separatist destroyer carefully safeguarding the flagship abdominal, and with most of the droid fighters distracted by clone forces the only thing between them and the destroyer was another frigate with its deflector shields up.
"So good for you three to join us, might I ask who won this little race?" Obi-wan asks.
"Ah you know me Master, I never lose a race" Skywalker said with glee.
"Ooh I don't know . . ." Ahsoka said as if making a point "I think I saw you lose a little power on the last kilometer."
R2 made a series of whoops and beeps prompting Anakin to say "Yeah we decided to let you win."
"Whatever you say Sky Guy" she said with an amused smile.
Longarm on the other hand remained focused on mission and asks "What's our target?"
"That destroyer that's blocking our path to the droid flagship" Kenobi answers.
Anakin adds with disgust "And that slimo Mar Tuuk."
"The only thing standing in the way is that frigate" Ahsoka points out.
The SPARTAN sees the separatist frigate that stood between them and the destroyer and asks "You want to do the honor?"
The togruta grins and contacts Percival "Vanguard Actual this is Sabre-1, requesting fire on seppie frigate at grid H-7, fire for effect. Scrap that rust bucket."
The AI responded "Acknowledged Sabre-1, MAC guns are charged and ready" he then switched to an open channel with all republic vessels "UNSC Vanguard to all Republic ships: MAC rounds are in effect, clear the lane, and we'll light 'em up."
Shortly afterwards from the UNSC destroyer came a hypervelocity MAC round bolting across the distance and slams into the frigate's forward shielding which resulted in the shields to shatter under the tremendous kinetic energy and the round smashes itself into the frigate's two forward-mounted dual heavy turbo laser cannons crippling the ship. A moment later and another six hundred ton slug slams itself into the frigate's command tower essentially vaporizing it and the crew inside resulting in the crippled vessel to fall out of formation as small explosions racked the hull.
Kenobi saw this as their only chance to hit the separatist destroyer, now exposed, and orders "All fighters begin your attack!"
As ordered, the force of thirty some ships kicked their engines into overdrive and raced towards the vulnerable destroyer that was beginning to return fire with defensive turrets and flak batteries hoping to minimize the amount of potential damage by shooting down as many bombers as it possibly can. Bombers and fighters alike dodged and weaved through incoming cruiser fire while at the same time trying to evade the droid fighters that broke off from their previous engagement to save their capital warships. Several clone fighters broke away from the group to hold off any droids while Kenobi, Skywalker, Ahsoka, and Longarm led the way shooting down any obstacles, fighters and such, out of the way with combined fire of blaster fire and 30mm armor piercing rounds.
A clone pilot inside a Y-Wing bomber reports "I have target lock! Torpedoes away!"
One after another, republic bombers delivered their payload of several proton torpedoes each sending them crashing against the destroyer's hull causing heavy damage throughout the ship while fighters peppered the shields to weaken them to a state where the they will be able to inflict structural damage of their own.
Ahsoka began examining the readout of the destroyer's faltering shields until she states "Longarm they're exposed!"
The SPARTAN replied "Acknowledged, I'm making a run on the bridge now."
The sabre breaks out of formation with the Jedi and begins making his solo run on the separatist bridge which was flanked by two quad turbo laser batteries that targeted the UNSC strike craft and began firing away hoping to shoot him down. However Lonagrm ducked and weaved through the enemy fire and launched four more Medusa-class Missiles straight into the command bridge resulting in its ultimate destruction in a massive ball of fire, the sabre was able to pull out in time to avoid getting caught in the explosion.
Admiral Yularen watched, from the Savior, the destroyer's hull become racked with explosions and hull breaches as each bomber landed their own devastating blow against it, he then looked over to his right to see the Vanguard holding position just a few hundred meters from his cruiser launch a volley of Archer anti-ship missiles from its numerous pods. The storm of missiles came fast and finished off the destroyer in one last display of explosions causing the two thousand five hundred and forty four meter long vessel to simply wither away under the intense amount of punishment it received.
[Separatist flagship Abdominal]
The Neimoidian captain watched in horror his last line of defense waste away under the sheer combined firepower of the Republic Navy and that monstrosity of a warship that already destroyed three of his ships with its forward mounted cannons and vast array of missiles.
A droid reports "Sir. Our ships are awaiting orders."
The captain soon became furious and gave his list of orders "Set all available power to the forward deflector shields and have the rest of the fleet form a defensive perimeter around us. Recall our fighters and destroy those bombers!"
The droid responded "Roger Roger" and walked off.
Tuuk then turned his attention to another droid "You! Call our reinforcements! We will make the Jedi rue the day they make any humiliation out of me!"
"Roger Roger" the droid replied before turning back to its console and ordered "Battlegroup Eleven, Battlegroup Seventeen. Attack formation!"
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