Chapter 14
I stood in front of the command chair on the Resolute's primary bridge and regarded the view outside with both satisfaction and frustration.
Senator…
Padme's prediction on how long the Senate's dithering would take, had been off by two weeks, and now here we were, two and half months later, on the final hyperspace leg to Ryloth.
The Resolute stood as the flagship of a task group of five Venator-class Star Destroyers, accompanying us in a wall formation. They were Redeemer, Defender, Avenger and Colossus. It was our job to break the blockade and maintain aerospace superiority for the ground forces as the invasion continued.
Obi-wan's own flagship had been unable to make it. Not due to enemy action but instead technical issues with the Negotiator's hyperdrive had cropped up and it couldn't be fixed in time before the scheduled departure of the invasion. He was therefore assigned to the ground component of the task force along with Mace Windu.
I spotted Anakin entering the bridge and a quick glance at the command chair holo showed we still had twenty three minutes till we reached the Ryloth system. It was hard not to feel nervous about the coming battle. This would be the first time my planning, ideas and actions would be affecting such a great amount of people, not just the large task group, but the homeworld of a very significant major race of the Corusca galaxy.
Thankfully, I wasn't bearing the burden of overall command, not for something this important, that fell to Anakin.
"Relax Snips," he said to me with a mild smile.
I merely nodded and worked in tandem with the Force, settled the annoying butterflies in my stomach and the twitches along my spine.
"How's the Resolute faring?"
"There hasn't been a problem in the last twelve hours, so I'm confident she'll pull through for us when it counts."
"I really hope you documented your troubleshooting, master."
"Of course," he nodded.
It had been a bit of struggle in the beginning when we had overseen the engineers and scientists at the shipyards to get Anakin to slow down a bit and actually document what he was doing. His genius technical acumen, which was most definitely aided by the Force, had been enough to often baffle everyone.
"Intelligence report just came from the shipyards," I lifted a datapad from the command chair and handed it over.
Anakin frowned as he quickly perused it, going over the major points.
"Okay, so we're at least somewhat confident that they have no idea what's coming," he eventually declared with visible relief.
"I should hope so," I nodded. "The amount of blood that's been spilled by Republic Intelligence in the shadows to keep the secret and the disinformation leaked is… disturbing reading."
Even the report that eventually got to us was so heavily sanitized and redacted that it was a miracle anything could be understood at all from it. The spy games that took place in the shadows was something that naturally wasn't represented in the media of my previous life. It was Star Wars, after all, not James Bond or Jason Bourne, yet those battles with daggers in the dark had to be fought so that the big visible battles on the war front could happen at all.
Admiral Yularen joined us as the counter reached ten minutes, "General Skywalker, I've surveyed all commands and we are at ready status."
"Thank you, Admiral," he nodded and walked forward to seat himself in the command chair.
Anakin keyed his com, "This is General Skywalker to the Fleet, Navigation, stand by to inject us into a hyperspace orbit of the system."
"All calculations are complete, General. Standing by."
He stared out into the swirling hyperspace tunnel for a moment before tenting his fingers under his chin, to idly gaze at the tactical holo projected in front of him.
"Engage orbit."
I could feel the hyperdrive begin to wind down and the slight almost imperceptible shift of the Resolute. The hyperspace tunnel was now visibly slower, its bright blue patterns and shifts usually speeding past like a bullet train, was now so slow I could trace the moving patterns with my fingers.
"Fleet has successfully achieved orbit, General. No problems to report, synchronization holding."
"Good work, Navigation. Keep an eye on it. Skywalker to Twilight, you ready?"
"Standing by, General."
"Open bay doors."
I walked forward and looked down upon the bulk of the Resolute, the spinal hangar doors began to steadily part along the entire length of the ship.
I could just about make out the blocky form of the Twilight in one of the lower hangars as it lifted off and slowly moved forward, exiting the magcon field and hovered within the open launch spine of the ship. It was still within the hyperspatial field and the frame of reference of the Resolute, so wouldn't be 'sucked' out or be left behind, so to speak.
"Engaging drive sync in three, two, one, everything in the green. Hyperdrive engaged."
Twilight's engines flared to life and she lifted herself out of the launch bay and successfully crossed Resolute's field boundary.
I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of a successful separation. For all that it had been practiced and practiced, the hyperdrive software calibrated and synchronized, there was still a chance that something could go catastrophically wrong because of an undetected hardware fault or software glitch.
The Twilight's engines flared and the small freighter started to steadily creep to port, getting enough separation before it vanished into its own hyperspace tunnel.
"Amazing, I'll never get tired of seeing that," Yularen declared with satisfaction.
I fully understood the sentiment. It had been my brainchild after all to develop the doctrine that would finally see the Venator class used as it was meant to…
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Captain Mar Tuuk of the CIS Navy was many things; he was neimoidian, he was rich, he was successful in politics and war, and right now he was very annoyed.
The source of his annoyance was being projected into the giant holotank on the expansive bridge of his Lucrehulk-class battleship Tempest.
It seemed that the most esteemed Emir Wat Tambor was once again in need of some reassurance that the blockade of Ryloth would hold. Every week since the occupation of the Twi'lek homeworld began, Tambor would call and demand status updates and generally be a nuisance. Now with word from the CIS spyhouse that a Republic counter-attack was imminent, the CIS councillor had become even more of a micro-manager. Tuuk indulged the skakoan only because it was very much within the power of Tambor to have him replaced and make life very expensive and cost him a multitude of hard-won political capital.
"Captain, are you prepared?" Tambor adjusted the volume on his enviro suit's speech emulator reflexively. Tuuk had long since come to the conclusion that the councilor used the supposed fiddly nature of that device to both distract and annoy his opponents.
"Our blockade has withstood the Republic's previous attempt to send relief, I've since refined it further in ways I won't say over an open channel. When they come, they'll only find defeat again."
"I'm counting on you captain. We cannot allow the Republic to invade this planet."
The holo vanished abruptly as Tambor cut the channel.
Tuuk kept his disgruntled relief from showing on his face and kept quite a few choice words for the councilor buried in a little corner of his mind, which he would only express when he was in the certain privacy of his own quarters. The spies of the CIS didn't need to have dedicated eyes on their military, not when every droid from the lowliest B1 damage control droid all the way to a tactical droid could be used for that purpose with the push of button.
He surveyed his fleet formation, hovering just beyond the mass shadow of Ryloth and perfectly arrayed to intercept anything coming in from the hyperspace lane.
The Tempest was on the right flank along with four Munificents arrayed in a crescent formation towards the port side. Two cruisers hovered above and below on the z axis, creating a lethal net for any incoming ships that there was no escape from. The concentration of firepower he could bring to bear would overwhelm anything short of a star dreadnought.
No one wanted to bring those near irreplaceable behemoths out to play though as yet. Tuuk would've loved to have had a Subjugator-class in his formation here, but the CIS Navy budget was still reeling from the loss of the Malevolent. It had been a testbed for the class, and though it had proven itself wonderfully before being destroyed by Republic sabotage, they weren't built easily or quickly, even with tireless droid labor. Their cost in the latest estimates he had seen were projected to hit well over eight hundred million credits, which meant they were only going to be used in decisive battles that were seen as strategic in nature.
Ryloth was as far from 'strategic' as you could imagine in the scope of a galactic war. It was his little corner of it though and he'd fight for it.
"Captain, hyperspace emergence," reported the B1 droid from the sensor station.
At last, Tuuk thought.
He narrowed his eyes as every sensor in the fleet began streaming data into the holotank. It was a small freighter, Corellian G9 Rigger class.
His paranoid mind whirled with possibilities, discarding the ridiculous notion that the Republic was going to try to run the blockade with just that…
"The ship has emerged six hundred thousand kilometers away, Captain."
"I can see that," Tuuk groused at the moronic droid. The question now was why? At that range it would take a ship of that class roughly fifty-three minutes to traverse that distance on sublight engines alone. No weapon it could fire would reach them unless it was ballistic in nature and any such threat would be swatted out of space by his fleet's anti-fighter defenses. If he sent his Vulture droid fighters on an intercept it would take twenty five odd minutes to reach the freighter, assuming it was burning in hard toward the blockade.
Those freighters, if modified, could pack a bit of punch and so all it would take would be six fighters to guarantee the destruction of the intruding craft. He wondered if it would even be worth the effort of sending the Vultures to intercept.
But again, why? Why send a small freighter so far out?
"Captain, hyperspace emergence."
Tuuk stared into the holotank and his mind briefly froze at seeing the number of signatures… sixty!
Then relaxed when the data came in, they were only fighter sized…
He jerked in tension again as those fighters resolved into existence barely thirty kilometers from the three Munificents on the far side of the blockade.
And all of them were identified as ARC-170s!
The holotank was abruptly filled with angry red signatures as a veritable storm of proton torpedoes were launched.
Forty eight torpedoes each bracketed those three Munificents, who with droid reaction times immediately recognized the threat and opened fire with their flak guns and lasers.
It took a mere eight seconds, but even with all the fire sent into space, enough torpedoes made it through the defenses to make it not matter at all.
Three brief small suns were born in Ryloth orbit as the frigates exploded.
Tuuk almost launched himself out of his seat, "Launch every fighter, I want those Republic fighters destroyed to the last!"
The surviving ships of the blockade began to disgorge Vulture droids en-mass and it was only in retrospect that Tuuk now realized he had acted in haste. The surprise of that opening gambit by the Republic commander had been complete, he grudgingly admitted and losing three frigates in an instant had been a shock.
It said something about the endurance of the clones in those fighters that they could tolerate being cooped up for so long in the ARC-170, using its hyperspace engines to travel long distances and now the use of the freighter became obvious. It had been a reconnaissance vessel, feeding exact coordinates of the blockade back to the incoming fighters. That they could alter their emergence on the fly like that spoke of something new that the Republic was deploying against him.
The Republic fighters had already turned around, deploying their s-foils and burning away with an acceleration that was impressive and would certainly extend the chase quite a bit. The Vulture droid fighters had better speed as there wasn't a squishy pilot inside that they had to worry about.
"Captain, hyperspace emergence!"
And just like that another sixty ARC fighters appeared among the blockade. Now that Tuuk was ready and looking for it, he could begin to see details. Barely seconds passed before each launched two proton torpedoes on their targets, and the fighters were divided in 12 craft squadrons and each squadron had a single Munificent as their primary target.
With the blockade now more ready for it and with the element of surprise lost, more torpedoes were intercepted, but in compensation the enemy fighters launched a torpedo to follow in the wake of the first salvo.
The Republic also lost their first fighters when the anti-fighter flak managed to kill half a dozen before they could begin evasive maneuvers and burn out of range.
The damage had been done though, when the remaining Munificents in the blockade exploded in a conflagration of liberated energy, fire and debris.
Tuuk sighed… he had no choice now.
"Call in our reinforcements."
He had hoped to use this trap gambit on any incoming Republic capital ships and fighters, but now he had to do it just to patch his blockade.
Jumping in from beyond the Oort-cloud of the Ryloth system, three more Munificents and four cruisers emerged from hyperspace on the far right flank of the blockade formation.
Then the world was turned on its head again.
The first group of ARC fighters, now well away from the blockade line, dropped two unidentified packages from their wings.
What those were was quickly demonstrated when launch alerts appeared.
600 concussion missiles raced towards the formation of vulture droid fighters chasing them down.
The droids recognized the threat and began throwing their on-board ECM towards the incoming missiles. It turned that area of space into an electromagnetic soup, yet the missiles were unphased and then at the last moment the fighter droids began throwing decoys. This also didn't work and now the droids were reduced to firing their guns as rapidly as they could at the incoming threat.
Tuuk realized that this could only mean those concussion missiles had image recognition.
Despite the Vulture's evasives and desperate firing, the missile storm fell upon them with a fury and after it had passed barely a third of their number were remaining.
They continued their dogged pursuit despite their drastically lower numbers and to add insult to injury, just before they managed to cross into extreme weapon range of their own missiles and guns, the ARC fighters flashed and stretched into distant space as they jumped into hyperspace.
"Order the survivors to return and let us deal with the second group."
"Roger, roger."
The second group of ARC fighters had suffered further losses as they were now dealing with the reinforced blockade.
Forty fighters remained and they were weaving through the CIS blockade in their fighter formations, which he now saw were further sub-divided into further elements of four and two fighters. Each keeping in a formation to provide mutual support and blasting any threatening droid fighter that tried to fall in on their tails for a shot. Their forward laser cannons were equally devastating to the defenses of any cruiser or frigate they flew by, blasting their anti-fighter emplacements and flak to pieces wherever they could.
It was a losing battle though, as no matter how well they flew or supported each other, there was just too much incoming fire.
Then, once again, the fighters in unison dropped something from their wings. His battleship's sensors finally resolved some details… they were cluster munitions! Each 'box' holding five concussion missiles…
360 missiles shot out into the battlespace around the blockade.
They were all targeting every vulture droid that was now hunting the beleaguered Republic fighters and the smaller CIS cruisers.
Tuuk had barely comprehended that happening…
"Hyperspace emergence."
Four Venator-class Star Destroyers appeared in the battlespace, coming to a stop barely three hundred kilometers from the Tempest.
Their formation was an odd one.
Two ships led the way, with the remaining two flying in formation behind them, barely separated by a hundred meters.
"Launch all our bombers and open fire!"
From every CIS ship that could hold them and jumping off from their positions on the hulls, the Hyena-class fighter/bomber droids at last was brought into the fight. The Tempest's big turbolasers opened fire on the inviting targets they were at last given.
The two lead Venators then began to move, twisting and maneuvering to bring their ventral surface to bear towards them. Tuuk almost thought it looked like an ancient warrior bringing a shield forward.
He puzzled at the reason for this as the turbolaser blasts began hitting the enemy's shields.
It prickled his mind as something he had read about in a battle report and it was only as the IDs of the enemy ships were finally resolved from the warbook… the Resolute…
"That is General Skywalker's flagship," he mused, bringing forth everything he could remember about the Jedi from his memory and also sending a query to his personal database.
Torrent and Actis starfighters began streaming out into the battlespace, screaming toward the incoming Hyena bombers and a glance at his sensors finally brought the puzzle together.
"Clever," he admitted grudgingly. "So the Republic has figured out a way to launch fighters in heavy combat from their capital ships." It was one of the weaknesses of the Venator that the CIS had capitalized on greatly until now. Catching a Venator under heavy guns before it could launch its impressive fighter complement usually meant even lighter units could become a threat to the undergunned Republic ships.
The fighter battle in space truly erupted now as the formations merged and fired at each other in a dazzling display of plasma, laser and missile.
His attention was dragged back to the Venators as they normalized their orientation relative to the blockade to bring their main guns to bear. Only they were not firing at all… why?
He checked the sensors again and the computer began flagging anomalies in the profile of the Resolute and its sister ship on its port flank.
The shield strength was still considerably high and these Venators had their ventral docking bays removed and covered with multiple segmented hull doors. There were also distinct differences in their point-defense arrays that couldn't be resolved at this distance.
Two CIS cruisers abruptly died with flashes of liberated energy as the surviving ARC fighters managed to concentrate their proton torpedo salvos.
"Captain, the enemy's shields…" the sensor droid began to comment.
"I know," Tuuk snapped. Yet another ingenious trick, using the rear ships and screening them from fire, while they pushed their shields to reinforce the ships in front of them. His battleship had 52 quad turbolasers, and while it would've been nice to be able to bring them all to bear, the shape of the Lucrehulk and the relative angles to the enemy meant that only half of them could fire usefully. Skywalker had picked his emergence spot and approach angle wisely.
"Captain, Hyena bombers have broken through."
About seven bombers had managed to get through the dogfight and begin their attack runs on the Venators. He hurriedly interfaced with the droid control network and directed them to focus their attack on the Resolute.
The bombers wouldn't really be able to do much but he wanted to force Skywalker's hand and he was really curious about what the Republic had done to that Venator.
The answer came barely a few seconds later when the Hyena droids launched their proton torpedoes.
The instant the weapons reached twenty kilometers of impacting the Resolute… a veritable storm of starfighter grade AA fire erupted from the starboard flank of the Venator, in long sweeping streams. It contemptuously intercepted the torpedoes and annihilated them. Their deaths were only heralded by brief bright flashes of liberated energy.
Those same seemingly impossible continuous streams of blue AA fire turned on the Hyena bombers next, turning them into debris and scrap that was easily brushed aside the by the Venator's shields.
His mind whirled as he tried to figure out how the Resolute was doing it. The only weapon at starfighter scale that he had heard of that could fire like that was… the repeater guns on Jango Fett's unique Firespray-class patrol craft, Slave I. Repeaters were devilishly complex and expensive things though and the more you tried to scale them up, the more problems you ran into. Did the Republic solve the problem enough that they could outfit an entire Venator's point-defense guns with them? No, the solution had to be simpler… maybe a rotating multibarrel?
The Venator, he knew, had 52 point defense cannon installations, and if all of them had the same refit…
He frantically worked on his chair controls to replay the event, bringing up a smaller holoscreen to study the sensor readings.
"Those guns are on computer control," he mumbled to himself eventually. It had to be, the perfectness of the interceptions just didn't allow for any other interpretation.
The Venator formation had now reached two hundred kilometers and were still accelerating towards the Tempest.
Then another CIS cruiser was claimed by the ARC fighters, it was so close the flash of light even made it through the bridge viewports. The debris spiraled in every direction and a significant piece slammed into the port side of a Munificent, whose shields collapsed immediately under the strain of deflecting it. The Republic fighters seized on the opportunity and did strafing runs with their cannons that mission-killed the frigate into uselessness.
"Order more fighters to intercept those ARCs!" Tuuk barked in anger at the com droid.
"Captain, all ready fighters have been launched, it'll be at least another twenty minutes to fuel and arm replacements."
"Then do so."
He turned back to the holotank and cursed himself. He had been so focused on the surprising Venators that he had lost sight of the battle as a whole.
"Enemy shields are at half strength, Captain."
"Focus our fire on the Resolute."
"Roger, roger."
He watched with grim satisfaction as the turbolaser fire from Tempest shifted and began hammering the Resolute, reducing its shields even further.
Then, as if they had been waiting for that moment, the Resolute decided to pull the universe out from under his feet.
The streams of its computer controlled AA fire erupted from all along the Venator's flanks straight forward and with precision, began to…
Intercept and deflect the Tempest's turbolaser fire!
He was left just gaping at the holotank, unable to believe what it was telling him. In a daze, he got up from his chair and walked forward, looking out of the bridge windows…
At this distance, the enemy was still barely visible as a pinprick of wedge-shaped light, but the computer hadn't been lying to him. He triggered his data goggles to pipe the ship's visual sensors to his eyes and it helpfully showed him the impossible made possible.
Somehow… Skywalker had turned his ship into an embodiment of a Jedi armed with a lightsaber! It would almost be beautifully poetic if he hadn't been the one on the receiving end of it.
The Republic formation reached 150 kilometers and Tuuk was barely able to see among the streams of competing blue and red bolts, something had changed on the Resolute's ventral profile.
He hurried back to his command chair and focused every sensor the Tempest had on the enemy ship.
For all that this… interceptor system managed to seemingly achieve, he was somewhat relieved to see that it wasn't perfect after all. Some fire was getting through.
Then the armored ventral doors that had been built over the docking bay of the Resolute seemed to flap open and he now realized that there were actually dozens, if not, hundreds of two square meter doors there now…
Alarms started blaring as the sensors detected a wave of fifty proton torpedoes launching straight towards the Tempest from the Resolute.
Then another fifty, ten seconds later… followed by a massive launch of 150 torpedoes!
He gaped at the display for a crucial five seconds before his brain kicked in again.
"Roll the ship! Bring our dorsal profile to bear on those torpedoes and I want every flak and antifighter turbolaser with an angle firing on overload!"
"Captain, we'll be reducing our turbolaser fire on the enemy in the process," a tactical droid commented.
"I know that! Do it!" he groused even as he admired the tactics involved.
He gritted his teeth as the giant battleship began moving. The Lucrehulk, for all its firepower that had been developed over the decades by the Trade Federation, had never really seen a need to make it maneuverable. The class had started its life as a giant cargo freighter initially after all, and even when it had been overhauled into a battleship, the massive craft had never needed to be able to move quickly. They were veritable fortresses of firepower and shields, and the C-shape of the main hull ensured that approaching from any angle was a tricky prospect.
The torpedoes raced in and a deluge of fire erupted from the Tempest's forty-five anti-aerospace cannons that could get a bearing to meet them. He could already see the immediate need to have the numbers of such weapons increased dramatically to meet this new threat.
The first wave of Republic torpedoes was reduced to sixteen in short order, but those impacted on the Tempest's shields like a giant had struck the ship.
"Intensify our AA fire rate! Fire our main guns on the torpedoes!"
Despite his desperate order, no improvement was made and twenty-four torpedoes made it through.
"Captain, our dorsal shields are nearly gone!"
"Roll, bring our aft to bear!"
Then the Venator on the Resolute's port flank opened up with their main guns before the order could be carried out.
Tuuk felt a jarring, wrenching sensation on his body… a searing flash of light… then nothing…
He blinked and found there was something wrong with the universe around him.
He felt like he suddenly had the galaxy's biggest headache and was suddenly laying on the bed of what he instantly recognized as his personal escape craft.
He wearily rolled out of the bed and into view came MD-6, his personal med droid. "Easy captain, you had a nasty head injury and a few broken bones. Those awful droids weren't exactly gentle when they carried your injured form onto your escape craft."
"What… what happened?"
The droid helped him to his feet and assisted his limping walk to the cockpit, which showed the swirling tunnel of hyperspace. He groaned in pain as he settled in the soft chair, not even bothering to check the navicomputer.
He knew it was already on its way to his personal estate on Kamur, as that was what he had programmed it to do in this eventuality.
"The Republic has broken the Ryloth blockade," the med droid declared, as it injected a painkiller into his neck. "The Tempest was destroyed and the remnants of the blockade fleet retreated into hyperspace."
"How many were left?"
"Five cruisers managed to escape. I believe a captain on one of the cruisers managed to take command and rallied them into a fighting retreat."
"Thank you, now leave me."
"As you command."
Tuuk stared blearily into the depths of hyperspace, his mind whirling as he tried to think about how he was going to salvage the disaster enough that he wouldn't be 'retired'. He could more than likely avoid an assassin's blade, but he was definitely going to be poorer for it at the end of the day.
"Nicely done, Skywalker. Nicely done."
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The one place on the Resolute where you could truly appreciate its sheer size was in the aft command station for the main central passage for launching fighters. To the left and right for nearly five hundred meters going off towards the fore section was just hangar bay after hangar bay, with nearly eighty meters of space above you before you hit the dorsal launch doors.
I watched with a bitter taste in my mouth as the five battered, surviving ARC fighters from the squadron Resolute had contributed to the main strike group returned to land in their designated spots.
Just those seven lost fighters meant twenty one dead pilots and the casualties among the Torrent and Actis pilots was even worse. There were going to be a lot of empty seats in pilot country on the Resolute.
The hangar spine of the ship wouldn't be seeing any decrease in activity though. Search and Rescue shuttles were coming and going and it was now the job of the Venators to secure Ryloth's orbitals and prosecute an aerospace campaign on the ground, to keep the skies clear. With the amount of time the CIS had invested the planet, there was really no telling how many Vulture and Hyena droid squadrons were landed or based on the ground.
"Ahsoka, come in."
I tapped my wristcom, "Yes, Master?"
"Acclamators are due to arrive."
"On my way."
By the time I entered the main bridge after a few turbolift rides, the three Acclamator assault ships had emerged from hyperspace and were well into their acceleration burn to insert themselves into a descent vector. The Defender had also arrived and I was somewhat thankful that we hadn't needed to use her as our own 'trump card'.
The holograms of Obi-wan and Mace Windu appeared in front of Anakin.
"It seems you had things well in hand," Obi-wan commented.
"There were a few close calls and our fighter casualties were greater than we hoped for, but the blockade is broken. You're cleared for ground assault. We've so far monitored no ground based starfighter activity, but that could change."
"Understood," Mace Windu nodded. "We're beginning our approach to Nabbat. Keep our skies clear."
"I will, Master Windu."
The two Jedi nodded and the holo's vanished.
"You Jedi make history and it's just another day," Admiral Yularen shook his head in amazement. "A blockade has never been broken that fast and with so few relative casualties."
"We won't get a repeat performance unfortunately, the Seppies will learn from this," I pointed out. I could already imagine the one simple thing they could do to shield themselves from pin-point starfighter attacks from hyperspace… simply pull the blockade properly into the mass shadow of the planet.
It committed the defending fleet with no option to retreat at all, but it forced the attacker into that gravity well and to run that gauntlet.
"They will," he agreed. His mustache twitched in a rare show of amusement from him and I could sense his distinct satisfaction. "Nevertheless, I can see quite a few naval 'experts' heads exploding when they learn of this doctrine."
"Got a few old rivalries going there, Admiral?" I teased him.
"Indeed," was his only reply.
The doctrine was getting our names stamped on it, after all.
"Well, we've got an entire planet's aerospace to secure, not to mention orbital debris duty," Anakin clapped his hands together and glanced at me meaningfully.
"You've got be kidding me, Skyguy?" I gaped at him.
"Snips, you do know how important that job is."
"Yes, but… that's done by…"
"The sooner it's done, the sooner you'll be able to fly your shiny new fighter."
"Fine."
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That was how I found myself in the starboard crew pit, with nearly half a dozen naval clones who specialized in navigation, running scans, cataloging and determining course tracks on the numerous space debris that now cluttered the main hyperspace approach towards Ryloth. It was the one thing that most people, even in the Corusca galaxy and my previous life, didn't consider was the aftermath of battles in space, especially when breaking blockades.
The hazard this presented to ships coming in, who wanted to spend the least amount of time burning in normal space to reach the planet, was considerable, double that if they were civilian. Seeing as the whole point of the exercise was to return control of Ryloth to its people, it didn't help if the Republic did so while leaving the planet even more of a mess than what the CIS had been doing.
The battle had taken place out of the hyperspace mass shadow of the planet, but in real space, the gravity of Ryloth, its star and all the other planets of the system was now influencing the debris field. Their orbits were high enough that there was no immediate danger of big pieces, like those from the Lucrehulk, falling onto the planet for another few decades at least.
The small stuff that ranged from starfighter sized debris down to stuff you could easily carry, which had been propelled by the explosions of the battle towards the planet, were of more immediate concern. A lot of the alloys and metals were designed to resist re-entry heat and computer projections of those gave a timetable of just a few days before Ryloth would be experiencing a rain of starship metal.
Thankfully, all this had been planned for by Admiral Yularen and the Defender had exchanged carrying its usual complement of Torrent starfighters for nearly a hundred, tractor beam equipped cargo tug ships. They varied in size from small one man craft all the way up to small cargo freighters.
The biggest pieces, especially of the CIS battleship Tempest, was also being earmarked for examination by Republic Intelligence. This meant pushing the large pieces into safe orbits relative to the local star, which was also clearly documented to allow the inspectors and analysts to later find.
Doing this was routine and as such, I had small electronic 'montral patch' stuck to the side of my head, that was tuned into the command frequencies for the ground battle happening on the planet below.
It seemed Separatists had thrown a surprise at the forces below.
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Obi-wan Kenobi really didn't like flying.
The reason, that he would only currently admit to one soul in the universe, was simple. It always brought him back to the hangar bay of that Czerka Corp cruiser, enclosed in the cockpit of that awful starfighter, fighting for his life against droids and automated defense systems and then his youthful clumsiness had activated the autopursuit system. Even now with decades of time separating him from the event, he could still see every moment of frantic flying he had done to survive without crashing as he sped through the bowels of that cruiser.
The only thing that was somewhat moderating this feeling was that he was standing in a gunship surrounded by the clones of the 7th Sky Corps. The viewing slats were open and gave a wonderful view of the passing terrain of Ryloth. The sight of the lush forest below was another balm to this stupid fear that never seemed to leave his shoulders.
He wrenched his focus into the moment and released the fear into the Force. Then turned to address the clones.
"We need to remember why we're here. We came to aid the twi'leks, not destroy their home," he declared sternly. "Cody," he prompted the Clone Marshal.
Cody, or more formally, CC-2224, stepped forward to address his troops, "That means we'll be taking it back the hard way. Minimal destruction with blasters and droid poppers only. No rockets or detonators. Check your aim and keep an eye out for the locals. Am I understood?"
Every clone in the gunship's bay stiffened and repeated, "Sir, yes sir!"
The gunship was rocked by flak and explosions as fire came up from the ground to meet them.
Obi-wan hurried to the small holostation in the bay and confirmed that they were on the final approach to Nabbat. It was a relatively small town on the outskirts of Ryloth's capital city and the terrain of the area meant that it was the only convenient landing zone for the Acclamators that would also allow for an approach to the capital that wouldn't take months of engineering work.
The capital had been built where it was not only for access to natural resources, but also defense and as such the only viable paths of assault for a ground force was from the north and west of it. Just getting to that point meant going through a valley and Nabbat was the 'gates' of it.
Then an alarm sounded on the holostation and an alert box popped up stating that one of the Acclamators had taken critical damage to its port engine.
Obi-wan cast aside his surprise at the event as an emergency signal holo came from Windu.
"Master Kenobi, the Separatists have something new for us down there. There are multiple mobile droid AA guns in Nabbat that seem to be able to phase their shots right through our shields. We can't risk landing the larger transports until you take out those guns."
"Pull back, we'll take care of it," Obi-wan declared instantly.
Windu only nodded and cut the com link.
"Land behind this hill," he ordered the seven gunship pilots after studying the holo of the immediate terrain.
"Copy that, General."
It was barely a few minutes later that saw the gunships landing on the far side of a hill that sheltered them from the AA fire, losing only a single ship in the process.
The doors opened and Obi-wan led the way as the surviving ships unloaded their combined total of 180 troops onto the surface of Ryloth.
The forest surrounding Nabbat had been scoured by fire, leaving the native trees blackened and devoid of any foliage. He gave a brief look to his left and right, confirming that the troops were advancing properly and spread out enough that an artillery hit wouldn't leave mass casualties in its wake.
Despite the CIS's best attempts the foliage was still enough to hide the troops when they crested the hill and the droids manning the perimeter defenses only spotted them a few meters from the end of the treeline.
Orange blaster fire from the droids opened up immediately, which included multiple sets of mounted repeaters, streaming fire into the treeline.
The Republic troops returned fire as they advanced, taking cover behind the trees and returning fire as best as they could.
Obi-wan deflected fire with his lightsaber, but the repeaters were instantly turned on him, forcing him to take cover behind debris that looked like it had been blasted from a large wall in the town.
Cody fell into cover behind a nearby tree. "That bunker is gonna be a problem, General!"
"Leave that to me," Obi-wan declared and pointed to senior troopers to his right, flexing the Force on their minds to get their attention on him. "You two, follow."
He turned the Force on his own cover. The large slab of wall floated into the air and he got behind it, the two troopers hurried into its cover as well as he moved forward.
The firefight erupted into greater intensity as all the clones unleashed their blue bolts of blasterfire on the CIS defenses. Many B1 droids were felled as their own ability to take cover was rather limited by the awkward dexterity of their legs and balance systems.
They were about forty meters from the CIS line when he put down the wall. Both clone sergeants knew what to do without being told, pulling droid poppers. Given how heavy the grenades were, combined with the armor the clones wore and their strength, on a good day in perfect cover, a clone could throw a grenade about thirty meters.
On this day, they managed about twenty eight meters if he had to guess, but it didn't matter. He reached out with the Force and snagged both grenades, sending them sailing much further and falling down onto the heads of the droids controlling the repeaters.
The droids died instantly when the localized electronic charge and EM pulse overwhelmed their systems, frying the circuitry and turning their verbobrains to molten scrap.
The repeaters also suffered malfunctions and instantly fell silent.
The volume of fire became much more manageable, Obi-wan emerged from cover, lightsaber moving in perfect economical motion to reflect the blaster bolts right back to the droids who fired at him. A step on a piece of debris and with a flex of will through the Force he surged into a jump that carried him into a broken tower that overlooked this section of the town wall.
With no pause he surged onto the right flank of the defending droid line, cutting down every B1 in his path as he ran along the perimeter of the wall. Thankfully the tight quarters and the ramshackle nature of some of the buildings in the perimeter meant that no B2 droids could be used as they were just too heavy.
The clones surged forward as he advanced along the wall. Their impressive marksmanship cleared more droids, allowing him to prioritize his own attacks to the droids who were better entrenched.
A further hour of such fighting saw the troopers of the 7th Sky Corps take over the defensive positions of the CIS. Now the only way the droids could go, would be to retreat towards the capital itself.
The clones braced for an immediate counter-attack from the droid forces deeper in the town, but it was soon apparent after more than two hours of tense silent waiting that no such attack was forthcoming.
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"This is a rather passive choice of tactic for a tactical model CIS droid," Obi-wan mused to the three holograms of his fellow Jedi in the Ryloth system.
He had chosen the most intact building on the perimeter for his field HQ, which wasn't saying much. The place, which must have been a shop of some kind before the invasion, was utterly stripped to the bone and wouldn't do much to protect from the elements.
"They know that those new guns are the only thing keeping us from overrunning them," Windu declared.
"The droid can't be certain if it goes on the offensive that it'd not just be feeding its remaining forces into a grinder, especially with you there, Master Kenobi," Ahsoka pointed out. "More than likely it's decided to fort up and concentrate everything on protecting the AA guns."
"What of a fighter only airstrike? That should be maneuverable enough to evade the tracking of these guns," Anakin proposed.
"The Separatists have thought of that," Windu shook his head. "Our close range scans indicate that they've clustered a large amount of twi'leks around the guns as living shields to deter such attacks."
It was at this point that Obi-wan felt a surge of the Force around him and just like that he was hearing…
'Masters, sorry to intrude like this, don't react,' Ahsoka's thoughts echoed in his mind. It took just a glance to realize that Windu and Anakin had also heard it. 'There is a flying CIS spy droid listening to our conversation, it's landed on the edge of the hole in the roof above your head Master Kenobi.'
"That is barbaric," Obi-wan continued without missing a beat. "It will make this difficult but not impossible. I still have a good plan for taking out those guns."
"Getting the villagers out of harm's way is our first priority," Windu's left eye twitched slightly.
"I'll see to it, we'll go in with everything we have," Obi-wan nodded.
The projected holos vanished, as did Ahsoka's mental presence. That was a neat trick.
Cody entered the room at this point and saluted, "General Kenobi, the wall is fully secure as we can make it."
Obi-wan returned the salute and as casually as possible they left the building, flicking a hand signal as subtly as possible to the clone marshal.
"We need to know the precise enemy disposition, I need your best recon squad out there, sensors can only tell us so much."
"Yes, General," Cody saluted again and hurried off.
Now he wondered how he was going to marshal a successful battle plan while under active enemy surveillance… an interesting challenge.