Chapter 23

My eyes stared at the astrographic galaxy map and it seemed to be mocking me. Throwing me a puzzle that whoever was my opposite number on the CIS side had crafted. I fiddled with the holotable controls and scrolled the map slowly, up, down, left, right, all the while trying to put myself in the enemy's shoes and their thinking.

"Ah, there you are, commander."

Yularen walked into the primary pilot briefing room, looking much more like his usual stoic self. All shipshape and Bristol fashion, so to speak.

"Admiral," I acknowledged him absently, my mind a bit too preoccupied to give him my full attention.

"Dare I ask if you managed to get any rest?"

"Jedi can generally get by with an hour of sleep and an hour of meditation for quite a while, it varies depending on talent. Legend has it that during the pre-Ruusan era, there were some Jedi Lords who had managed to do away with the need for sleep completely. Though that is probably just some ancient hyperbole and propaganda meant to keep their people's spirits and hope up."

"Fascinating, but I noticed you didn't actually answer the question."

I smiled. "I managed to sneak in two hours of sleep with an hour of mediation."

He nodded in approval and stared at the map, "Trying to find the enemy staging point?"

"Yes, staying on the defensive like this is not an option. Sooner or later, our combat effectiveness is going to fall to a point where we make a fatal mistake."

"True enough," he conceded. "Any progress?"

"Logically speaking, nothing should be getting through the Yout and Ord Mantell battlefronts, which locks down the Entrella Route and Celanon Spur, the major hyperspace routes to the north. Yet somehow, the CIS are pricking us with these light destroyers emerging from the Myomar emergence point in Dorin, as if they are coming down the Celanon Spur anyway."

"And since there's been no word of any breakthrough from Yout and our major lines are still holding, they're somehow still getting through. Perhaps they're using minor, small capacity routes that branch off from the Spur, it takes them longer and is extremely fuel inefficient but… there are no such routes that you could take. You can't, for example, go from Tyan on the Etralla directly to Baltizaar to hop, skip and jump your way through all these minor systems along the Spur. Even for a Recusant that's pushing it."

"Unless they managed to map a new hyperspace route or rediscover an old one that's missing from modern charts."

Yularen nodded in agreement, "That is also possible, but we can't be sure."

"Which is why I enacted a plan to find out during the last skirmish."

Yularen raised a questioning eyebrow, "Oh?"

"I ordered a number of Wraith squadron pilots in their brand new Z95s to use their ion cannons only."

"We have captured Vulture droids on board?"

"Four of them," I smiled mildly. "R3 and a small team from our ELINT division are going over them now."

"Surely, their memories are encrypted, not to mention the ion cannon fire would've had a good chance of corrupting them as well."

"Yes, it's a gamble, but one I hope will pay dividends. These droids were clamped active onto the hull as the Recusant emerged from hyper, that means they have to have visual memories of the starfields of the waypoints of their hyperspace route."

"I see, let's say you do find them, what is your offensive plan? We only have the Resolute here."

"That entirely depends on what the Seppies have waiting for us at their staging. This entire thing could be just a diversionary tactic that intends to make us call for reinforcements, that most efficiently and realistically can only be pulled from Ord Mantell."

"Which then gives them the opportunity to try and deliver a hammerblow that will try to collapse that battlefront."

"Precisely," I agreed with a nod. "Admiral, I want you also to look into what it would take to accommodate using and launching KUDF fighters from Resolute."

"I can already hear the scream of the quartermaster in my ear," he quirked a rare smile.

"Thanks, Admiral," I chuckled.

The door to the briefing room swished open and the minor whine of R3's motor preceded his entrance as he trundled in on his wheels.

"R3, I thought you'd be busy for hours yet?"

'Mistress, you are too used to R2 units,' it burbled in binary.

"I suppose I am, what have you got?"

In response, my astromech drove forward and plugged into the logic port of the briefing room computer.

'We managed to salvage enough data from three of the Vulture droids to reconstruct a flight path, the fourth's systems were too badly damaged.'

The holo of the galaxy vanished to show reconstructed images of starfields, which was then superimposed by hundreds of analysis patterns that flashed on it. This continued until a new image appeared, of a much more zoomed in astrographic galaxy map. Showing the derived course that the last Recusant had to have taken.

"What the…" Yularen's composure broke briefly. "That's ridiculous, why would they do that?"

His perplexion was understandable. The CIS had to have discovered this route somehow from ancient maps.

A route right from Ord Cantrell, 500 light years inside their own space, that crossed the Entralla Route and linked to Iridonia. From there, there were nearly 8 minor, mapped systems in that sector which they could pick and choose a direction from, until they hit Glee Anselm in the Namaadii Corridor. A system that was technically on our left flank. Only this cunning CIS commander didn't attack us from that direction, as it would immediately betray the fact that they had new hyperspace route up their sleeve. Instead they kept bouncing around sector J7 until they hit Myomar - creating the illusion of coming down the Celanon Spur.

This was a route I could see some ancient explorer or astrocartographer striking off their maps. The entire first day of using it was through essentially barren space, no inhabited systems and with a number of major nasty astronomical phenomena, some of which was a number of neutron stars, black holes and a cyclical pulsar or two. The only advantage it gave you was a time and distance saving if you wanted to travel to Iridonia specifically from the north. It was also entirely possible the hyperspace route was cyclical - meaning it was only safe when certain interstellar conditions were met.

"Well, it's one way to disguise their use of a new route from us. R3, can you chart a course for the Resolute from this data to Ord Cantrell?"

'Yes, but it would be risky to use without at least a smaller scout verifying the route first.'

I helpfully translated the binary for the Admiral.

"Naturally," he agreed. "Did you manage to reconstruct any images of their staging in Ord Cantrell?"

In answer, an image appeared in the holo that was rather badly fragmented and showed interpolation artifacts, but it was clear that there was at least one Lucrehulk battleship there, with three Munificents in frame, and one Recusant.

"We can't base a decision to go on the offensive just from that," I declared with a sigh of frustration.

"No matter what is there, we need the element of surprise on our side as well. I can see the enemy putting scouts or even sensor drones along this new route of theirs to guard against this."

"Then isn't it amazing we have just the ship we need parked in one of our smaller hangar bays," I gave the admiral a big knowing smile.

"You don't mean… the Xanadu? I heard that awful thing was barely spaceworthy."

"I've had engineering teams work on it since I took command on Coruscant. I mean really, when will a cloaked ship ever not come in handy?"

"So now you just have to find two pilots crazy enough to fly an untested hyperspace route."

"I can name two from Wraith and a bunch from Shadow squadron who would jump at the chance."

Yularen's shoulders slumped ever so slightly and I could feel his relief. "Good, for a moment I thought you were going to suggest you go yourself or some other Jedi craziness."

"The commander's place is in the rear," I declared firmly. "Yes, necessity does sometimes put us Jedi in the thick of things, but that can't be helped. R3, what's the time to target for the Xanadu to Ord Cantrell using this route?"

'Best estimate of arrival in 30 hours.'

"In other words, five more attacks to defeat if the Separatists keep this schedule," Yularen didn't look happy at the thought of that. "Do they have the patience or the ships to keep this going that long?"

"The ships, yes. This CIS commander's patience when we just keep sitting here and take his punches against all odds will not be infinite though. Their goal is to eventually gain a foothold in Dorin, turn these pinpricks into a knife in our back. We have no choice but to weather this storm until the Xanadu can confirm the hyper route and then I hope I can convince the KUDF to work in support of a surprise offensive deep strike."

"They're not going to like that," he predicted immediately. "It'd mean relying too much on the orbital defense grid."

"It's what it's kriffing there for in the first place. I've also got a few ideas on shoring up the defenses further."

"Well, I hope they listen."

I was not looking forward to this meeting, "So do I."

Donning my brand spanking new armor for a meeting of all things was not how I intended to debut the suit. I'd always imagined it'd be some distant battlefield or even with the upcoming deep strike mission. The unfortunate necessity of it curtailed those imaginings.

The armor that Anakin and I had designed, in the end, was striking to the eye and if any gamer stats could be assigned to it, it'd have a plus 2 to charisma or intimidation.

Its basis, like the previous one, was the mechanical pressure suit that clone troopers had, but going over that was where things got much better. It was a more complete armor kit than my previous one, considering I had no problems with the weight anymore. The boots and greaves were linked and equally armored, flexing with a powered rotator, with the knee armor getting the same treatment. The first slight gap appeared above the knees, which was a necessity due to the flexibility needed for Ataru.

The thigh armor or cuisse, to use the old Earth term, was nice and beefy and stopped just below my hips. Next my stomach and crotch was covered with an abdomen plate, which again needed a slight gap before moving up to a breastplate that while not completely 'boob armor', had a curved mold that left no doubt that a female was wearing this. The whole system had also been designed to be more modular than the old armor, to accommodate future growth.

For my arms, there was a full set of gardbrace, couter, vambrace and gauntlets adorning them. The interface, comlink and other tech wizardry of the armor was controlled by buttons on the vambrace and gauntlets.

As a final touch, I had integrated an open brown Jedi Robe into the armor that was held in place by a utility belt. It even had a detachable hood for that extra bit of Jedi-ness. The armor as a whole also had the fractal camo color scheme but with whites, grays and browns.

The helmet design was especially inspired and trust Anakin Skywalker to come up with a solution to the problem of a togruta's montrals and lekku being uncomfortable to stuff into a confining helmet.

Thankfully, I really didn't need to wear it now. It was still a chore to get into. The material of the armor itself was Anakin's own spin on the Katarn armor that was currently given to Clone Commandos, which was a mix of metallo-ceramic composites.

I glanced at my armor's chrono and struggled to keep my expression neutral. Even in this day and age, you'd think scheduling a conference holocall would be much easier to do. When you had to do it with a bunch of local military brass, that was not the case.

As it was, the meeting couldn't run for long, we were cutting it pretty close to the next projected attack time.

Then, the standing holograms of four KUDF generals began appearing around me on the Resolute bridge. They were each in charge of the aerospace, ground forces, medical and what passed for a Kel Dor Navy - which was a collection of thirteen frigates, only eight of which were armed to modern standards. The rest were still in drydock being stripped of their old post Ruusan-era mandated weaponry. It was a testament to the Kel Dor technical expertise that they had managed to refit so many of these frigates to combat readiness in the little time since the war began.

They would be needed.

"Commander Tano, you wished to speak to us?" General Di Soszhain of the aerospace force began.

"Yes, thank you for taking the time and as it is not on any of our sides at the moment, I'm going to be blunt." I gestured to a comm tech in the crew pit. "You should now all be receiving a file package with data and conclusions for your review. I need at least six KUDF squadrons to embark on Resolute within the next twenty-five hours."

The generals looked at each other and I could sense that they were barely containing themselves from exploding in protest and other objections. Instead their own aides handed them datapads which they began reading.

"Are you certain of this, Commander?" Soszhain questioned, his four mandible teeth twitching. Their lowered articulation surrounding the maw of their mouth, was rather disconcerting to the average person who was unused to seeing unmasked Kel Dor. It didn't phase me at all.

"As certain as anything can be in war, general."

"Have you considered that embarking on this deep strike, is precisely what the enemy is trying to goad you into, commander?" General Wa Kusekac asked. She was the only female kel dor among the four, and the general in charge of the navy.

There was something viscerally wrong with calling anyone in charge of a navy a general, but this was a problem with Basic and the Kel Dor language coming to the fore.

"Yes," I admitted. "The problem is that keeping defensive posture and these continuous timed attacks is having a deleterious effect on my command. If the CIS keeps this up, I'll eventually be forced to order my crews and people to stim up. That is also only a stop gap and at most extends our combat readiness for another two days. I don't need to tell you the effect of prolonged stim use on judgment, reaction time and other mental faculties. Not to mention having to deal with an entire starship full of people going through withdrawal symptoms after the fact. The conclusion is that eventually, I'll be forced to retreat from the system. So I'll rather strike while I still have a functioning crew."

"An understandable position with the predicament the enemy has forced us into," General Hass Kirramm, in charge of the Kel Dor medical service branch, stated.

"I've run some numbers, commander," Soszhain explained, looking up from the pad he had been working on. "Our starfighter corps can spare you four squadrons, no more. We'd be compromising our effective aerospace coverage to loan you more."

I turned my head to look at Kusekac. She made a wurbling noise that was the Kel Dor equivalent of a humanoid scoff. "Commander, I don't know what you expect my frigates to be really able to do. They've got half the tonnage of these blasted Recusants."

"But they've got sharp teeth, nevertheless. Have you seen how the CIS use their Munificents?"

"I've done my research, yes. The problem is my captains and crews haven't trained for that kind of close coordination. They're likely to crash into each other trying to pull those maneuvers. The CIS have linked droids that are able to avoid any issues of miscommunication and improper coordination."

"Then imitate that," I pointed out. "Network a bunch of astromechs on each of your ships, link them all in an encrypted com net and there you go."

"I'm not sure my captains will like the idea of entrusting their helms to even loyal astromechs, commander."

"They'll like it soon enough when it lets them punch above their weight class and kill a CIS capital ship," I declared, throwing a bit of anger in my voice. "Get it done, general."

"Very well, commander."

"What is the status of the orbital grid?"

"96 percent functional satellites are ready and awaiting command the instant anything comes into range," Soszhain reported.

"What happened to the four percent?"

"Routine downtime for maintenance, it's rare that we have a hundred percent functioning grid at any time."

"What do simulations for their performance reveal?"

"Anything that comes in effective range will be destroyed in short order."

I frowned at that, "Even a Lucrehulk?"

"Commander, these mass drivers are designed to deflect asteroids, even moon sized ones. They synchronize and fire for time on target hits for every defense satellite that can orient for a bearing. No shield system in existence can resist dozens of 80 kilo slugs traveling at fractional velocities of light."

"My concern is that all it would take for the CIS to take out the grid, is to stay out of effective range and suicide ram, hoards of Vulture droids into the defense satellites. Do they have any close-in self defense guns?"

I could visibly see I had taken the wind out of Soszhain's sails. "No, commander."

"I would kindly suggest your technicians and designers get to work on fixing that issue. General Aguu, I realize we've not been speaking about your areas of responsibility, but should the worst come to pass and CIS forces land on Dorin…"

Pla Aguu, was the oldest general in the KUDF high command and merely nodded at my implied question, "We're ready to send them into oblivion, commander. Divisions and reserves are mobilized, equipped and pre-positioned near most likely and high value targets."

"I hope you won't mind, but I've got some desperately bored 501st clone legion troopers who want to pound some dirt. I suggest you make use of them as advisors and learn how to best use your troops against an enemy that doesn't need food, sleep and is not hampered at all by the atmosphere of Dorin."

Aguu gave me a Kel Dor smile and I struggled not to shudder. "They've certainly got some experience and lessons to teach I suppose. Our own fighting days date back to the last clan wars and the professional ground military we have train based on those hard experiences."

My chrono beeped a warning at me. "We have twenty minutes, generals. Good luck to you all."

They bowed briefly before their holo's faded.

I sat down as my prescience flared and my hands balled into fists, straining the fresh gloves of my gauntlets.

"Oh baka bachu," I muttered under my breath.

Fighters launched and their attending technicians scrambled to safe their equipment. Clone troopers loaded up and readied themselves for anti-boarding ops, while yet others detailed to damage control reported to their stations. Naval clones went through their checklists and readied systems. Those manning computer controlled gunnery stations ran their systems checklists and double checked everything was working. Proton Torpedo handlers manned their stations and readied their weapons for firing.

Such was the pre-battle readiness procedure for the Resolute.

'Two minutes until mark, all personnel two minutes.'

I sat in my command chair and adopted the typical posture and pose - one that was both relaxed, confident and attentive, even occasionally indulging in a little tenting of my hands and affecting a deeply thoughtful expression - as if I was devising some cunning stratagem.

'One minute, final battle readiness checks, all personnel.'

The announcements were shipwide and also being beamed to the KUDF. Integrating them into our tactical nets was one of the first things I did. There was to be no miscommunication incidents leading to accidents under my watch.

'Thirty seconds.'

Admiral Yularen took his typical position next to me. I'd even had engineers build a command station for him, so he didn't have to go running around the bridge if he wanted to personally input commands to the systems.

'Fifteen seconds.'

'Ten seconds.'

'Five seconds… mark!'

Every eye and sensor turned to the hyperspace emergence point.

Nothing.

I tapped a button on my chair and began a timer.

"Negative sensor contacts, so far. Stand by," Yularen ordered, his voice snapping like a whip.

'Plus twenty seconds. No enemy contacts.'

I gave a brief glance at the Admiral. His face was grim and his eyes asked a silent question.

'Plus one minute. No enemy contacts.'

The tension on the ship was building and I cursed the tightrope I was being forced to walk. I could even feel it from the KUDF fighters in space.

'Plus five minutes. No enemy contacts.'

I pushed a button on my chair, "Comms, if no enemy contacts are present by fifteen minutes, signal secure systems to condition two."

"Roger, commander."

"Are you certain about that, commander?" Yularen spoke softly, ensuring that only I could hear. "The enemy could've been delayed for any number of reasons."

"That is true," I acknowledged. "However, we can't keep to battle stations indefinitely."

His lips thinned and his eyes showed understanding. This was the dilemma of the defender.

Eventually, the timer ticked to fifteen minutes and condition two was announced.

It kept systems ready, kept men at their posts, kept weapons charged and fighters out on patrol but they could somewhat relax and sit down if able.

A further thirty minutes passed and I declared condition three, which was the start of getting everything back to normal. Fighters began landing, damage control crews stood down, but gunnery crews remained hot and on stand-by.

"What is going on? What is the enemy thinking?" Yularen wondered.

I stood out of my chair and walked forward to the transparisteel bulkhead and gazed into the black.

"He's fighting us psychologically and attacking our morale. He got us into a pattern of expectation, of action, and now that he's broken the pattern, we're left coming down from the adrenaline high and assumption of another attack. We're feeling disgruntled, angry and though most of the clones won't admit it, disappointed even."

"That's… rather brilliant," Yularen commented, feeling a bit of wonder. "We studied the idea of fighting on that level at Prefsbelt, it just was too problematic. What might work if your opponent is one type of species, won't work on another."

I turned around and continued the line of thinking, "A problem neatly overcome by the fact that the GAR are all human clones. There might be some variation in the commanders and generals, but in the end we're all Jedi and the way we think can also be studied and inferred. Our only advantage here is the Kel Dor."

Of course, I couldn't mention that my own thinking and psychology was essentially an Outside Context Problem to anyone in this galaxy attempting to throw psy-ops at me.

"I must admit, I'm not familiar with them enough to judge how they could be of benefit in psychological warfare," he said.

"If there is one word that you would associate with Kel Dor, Admiral, then it's patience. Their civilization endured despite the awful Sabacc hand that nature dealt them. There were a number of times they've had to rebuild almost from scratch thanks to the asteroid impacts. They evolved from ambush hunters in their pre-history… so this tactic doesn't phase them at all. Their version of an adrenal response lets them come down from it without any of the typical effects as seen in humans and other similar species. They make very good Jedi too, which is why the Order has a chapter house down on Dorin."

"Fascinating, so the question is now, will the enemy resume the pattern or break it entirely?"

"That is the question and one I will need to think very carefully about." I delved down the probability lines of prescience. The further I went, the more motion and uncertainty there was, but one thing was clear. "Admiral, order condition green at the one hour mark. I want everyone who can in their bunks and getting rest. I'm authorizing medical to issue sleeping pills if necessary."

"Yes, commander."

It was at this point I really wished I either had Bastila Shan on hand or had her Battle Meditation. That utterly broken Force ability had seen the old Republic Navy through events that would've otherwise shattered it under the hammer blows of Revan and the Star Forge.

There was only one thing I could really do in answer to this.

"Comms, get me a fleetwide channel, I want every ear on this ship."

"Roger commander."

I sat down on my chair and after a few seconds a prompt popped up in its small holo projector.

The button was pushed and a loud double chime echoed throughout the ship.

"This is Commander Tano."

I could literally feel as the attention of thousands was metaphysically directed towards me.

"We are being attacked. Not by a turbolaser, not by a gun, not a missile nor droid. No, the enemy is attacking our minds. He is playing us. We expect him to come and he does not. He wants us to think a certain way. He wants to trap us. So that when his true strike comes, we will fall to it all the easier.

"Do not let this happen. We will endure. He can play his little mind games all he wants! But we will stand Resolute! This ship is our home and we will defend it. The enemy is now living in your minds, expel him! To fight him now, we must do everything in our power to remain vigilant. If you struggle to sleep, sleep! The enemy is trying to deny it to you. Do not let him.

"Soon, we will go on the offensive and then we will tell him what we think of his little games. Do you agree, Resolute?"

The bridge erupted in a shout of 'Yes, we do!' that was echoed throughout the ship. Building the concept of 'esprit-de-corps' was something emphasized even in the naval manuals of the Corusca galaxy. It was nice to not have to build the idea from scratch.

"Good! I will test that mettle, Resolute. Rest assured the enemy will too. Commander Tano, out."

CP-7607 or as his brothers preferred to call him, Blot, blearily opened his eyes to greet the small interior cabin of the Xanadu. He went through a mental checklist of everything his senses reported and found nothing wrong, odd or about to explode. He threw his legs out of the small bunk bed and marveled at the ability to properly stretch his limbs while on a flight.

His eyes found the form of his co-pilot, CP-3609, callsign 'Click' and found that the rookie clone pilot was properly doing his job of flying, even though the computer and the droid was doing most of the work in hyperspace. Click was halfway through a standard checklist of the hyperdrive by the looks of things.

"Oh, you're awake, LT. Everything's nominal."

"Good to hear, Click," he grunted and stood, stretching his back in the process. Bloody pilot armor's always chafing at that back spot, he thought in annoyance.

Click vacated his chair for the co-pilot spot and Blot dumped himself in the pilot seat, beginning to drink his liquid breakfast from a bottle absently, while he smoothly continued the checklist where the rookie left off.

As usual, nothing was wrong, but the routine was welcome as was the blessed uninterrupted sleep.

"So…" Click began leadingly and Blot really wished he had his helmet on at this moment.

"What is it, Click? Spit it out." The rookie wasn't really a true fresh tank, he had clankers painted on his fighter, but he was a new pilot in Wraith Squadron.

"I'm just wondering why I was chosen for the mission by the commander…"

"It's not your job to wonder why," Blot retorted.

"I know, it's just… I was looking forward to flying those new Z95s and now here we are, stuck in a Seppie ship that's held together by engineer spit and prayers."

"Click, there's more to flying and fighting than just bagging clankers. We're the eyes of our ship. If we don't do our job, no one is going to know where the enemy is."

"The job should've gone to one of the Recon boys then."

"The commander doesn't want the ARC boys anywhere near the Xanadu."

"Why not?"

"The commander places a high value on training and learning in this squadron. She thinks the ARC pilots need a retraining course and she doesn't like the ARC itself. The Xanadu is an entirely different approach to recon than what they are used to and have trained for. She trained me on a manual she wrote from scratch with General Skywalker on how to best fly this bucket. Any ARC pilot would need to, in her words, 'unlearn too much'."

"Why didn't I get this manual?"

Blot glared openly at his co-pilot, "You've been reading from it the whole time, the cloaking device manual is only part of it."

Click looked down at his datapad, fiddled with it briefly, swiping on the screen, "Oh, yeah."

The senior pilot finished his breakfast and dumped the bottle in the disposal bin. "And the light of sunrise dawns. With that level of attention to detail, Click, how they let you off the homeworld as a pilot is a miracle."

"Hey!"

Blot laughed at the insulted look on the rookie's face, then patted him on the shoulder. "Just teasing, rook."

"I'm not a rook."

"Click, until you get ten kills as a member of Wraith, you're a rook."

"What? There's no reg like that."

Blot rolled his eyes, "It's not a reg, it's a commander's rule, there's a difference."

"Wait, the commander has her own regs?"

"Another thing you'll learn in this squadron," Blot grinned.

"Is this written down somewhere or what?"

"Yes, I'll transfer it to your pad later. It's not something the commander has done officially."

"Uh, speaking of things the commander's done… has… I heard a weird rumor…"

Blot gave his fellow clone a gimlet eyed stare. "Oh?"

"Yeah, in mess, I think it was a Shadow squadron guy. He said that… uh she walked straight into the common fresher where Wraith… I mean our squadron was busy showering and pretty much beat down one of the guys for disobeying an order. I also heard other versions but there's no way those could've happened…"

Blot didn't react at first to hearing this, but swiftly reached over and slapped his fellow clone upside the head.

"Ow! Why…"

"Do you see that astromech?" He jerked his thumb to the oddly painted astromech in the back, that had been managing the hyper jumps and route. The droid in question had turned its upper dome and main optical sensor to face them. "Take one guess to whom it belongs."

Click blinked for a few moments then seemed to choke on his own saliva. "That's the commander's astromech?"

"Yes. What? You think she'd really trust a ship as tactically valuable as the Xanadu to the likes of you and me. Don't be ridiculous. And for the record, she didn't beat down Crosser, just gave him a dressing down that left his ego suitably humbled. Oh and R3, can you confirm our ETA?"

The droid was silent for a very awkward few seconds before it replied in binary. 'Fifteen minutes to Iridonia.'

"Thanks R3," Blot nodded and began a hyperspace transition checklist without pause. He slapped Click on the shoulder to snap him out of his embarrased funk. "You get that cloaking device ready."

"Yes, LT."

Things were mercifully quiet besides the sounds of the rhythmic operation of the ship for the remaining time in hyperspace.

"Dropping us out in three… two… one… now!"

The hyperspace tunnel seemed to stall and burst into streaks of light that resolved into the starfield of normal space.

"Cloaking now," Click worked his controls… a few anxious seconds passed. "Cloak nominal."

Bolt let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He should've been used to it by now, but there was just no getting over the fact that the cloak might as well be the only shield the ship had. If that didn't work, it was game over. Dead.

"Begin passive scans," Blot ordered automatically.

"Uh, LT… we've got problems."

A holo-readout blossomed above the console, showing a diagram of the star system and what the computer resolved into clear enemy ship profiles…

"R3, contact the Resolute."

"Three Lucrehulks and five Munificents have occupied the Iridonian system, commander."

The transmission was audio only to save on bandwidth and give the highest possible encryption. My scouts were also using directional links to further minimize the chance of detection.

"Why in the blazes did the zabraks not call for help?" Yularen frowned severely.

"They tried Admiral, but it seems that one of the first things the Seppies did when they opened this new route, was send in droid commandos to sabotage the system's interstellar communications. By the time they realized they were under invasion it was already too late."

"What's the disposition of the CIS fleet, lieutenant?" I asked, my brain struggling to square this problem that was being presented to me.

"One Lucrehulk is in orbit of Iridonia, acting as a staging point for their groundside occupation and blockading the planet. There's already a substantial debris field that tells me the zabrak have tried to run the gauntlet and clearly failed. All the usual satellites that the database indicates they should have are no longer there. The remaining CIS ships are clustered around the emergence point from Ord Cantrell, which is near the sixth planet of the system, a gas giant with a substantial moon system."

"Send me all the data you can, we're going to need your eyes there all the way, Blot."

"Understood, commander."

The channel closed and I gave a glance at Yularen, "Bit of a problem this is."

"Understatement of the age, commander," he chuckled.

"So not only do we have to somehow keep a defense on Dorin, we have to liberate Iridonia and destroy this fleet - which is one order away from being launched to unleash destruction on…" I gave a quick glance at the sector map… "sixteen different star systems and all the Iridonian colonies on our left flank."

"We have to call for reinforcements."

"Agreed, but even if they could be launched this instant…"

"It's a three day journey from Coruscant and four from Kuat. That movement of ships will definitely be picked up by CIS Intel, which will cause them to go on the offensive."

Of course, that didn't count the other problem of Palpatine himself instructing Dooku to launch the attack, the moment I reported this to the High Council.

There was only one solution now that I could see. It was a card that I really didn't want to use now, but the scale of the stakes didn't really leave much choice. Letting the CIS do this would force a thinning of the north's defenses as the GAR scrambled to deal with this flanking offense, which in turn could lead to a defensive collapse of the north.

"Admiral, I want every astromech tied into our navicomputer. Then I want you to contact the KUDF and get them working with every spare computer they have that can work out a hyperspace course linked to us."

"Commander, the doctrine requires at least three Venators. You should know, you helped write it," he objected.

"I'm not going to use the doctrine. We're going to do something different, it's based on it, but something which allows it to be carried out by a single carrier ship."

"All right, consider my curiosity piqued, you're not one for suicide tactics, what did you have in mind?"

It was an eighteen hour trip to Iridonia from Dorin.

The Resolute's departure was delayed further when we had to see off another probing attack from a Recusant destroyer. We had gotten advanced warning of its arrival thankfully due to the Xanadu's scouting. This meant that the Separatists only saw what we wanted them to see - that we were just sitting there and taking the punches.

The instant we were sure everything that could possibly have a working verbobrain and a com system was destroyed, the Resolute powered out of the Dorin gravity well and jumped to hyperspace.

In my wake, I left a time-delayed request for reinforcements. I was therefore fulfilling my duty, but delayed enough that even should Palpatine pull his shenanigans, it would be too late.

My next order was for everyone who could, to get six hours of sleep, after which the remainder who were required for Resolute to operate, would hot-bunk their own six hours.

Most of my own time was spent practically living in the squadron briefing room, getting the pilots up to speed on what we were going to attempt and even trying it in the simulators.

The results were mixed enough that I had no choice but to take a risk I really didn't want to.

"We need real-time telemetry from the Xanadu," I shook my head in frustration as I watched the holo-replays of the various squadrons doing their simulated attacks.

"I agree, there's just too much error introduced in the hyperspace calculations otherwise," Yularen absently combed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger.

"Something the matter, Admiral?"

"Yes… if… no, when we do this. It'll make Yularen-Tano a picnic in comparison. We might even be seeing the end of an entire era of space warfare with this."

"Perhaps," I admitted. "But you can't hold territory with this tactic."

"Yes, but it'll put a blaster to the big-gun and ship fanatics. They're going to be screaming bloody murder and can you imagine Kuat and all the big shipping houses frothing at the mouth that their giant monstrosities which have been only getting bigger and bigger over the decades, have been reduced to nothing more than target practice."

"They can bahko d'bhem nina," I sneered. Yularen gave me a confused stare. "Sorry, slip of the tongue and I'd rather not translate. It's not usually said amongst polite togrutans."

"I'll take your word for it, commander, though now I'll really have to look into my own personal security going forward, a bodyguard droid perhaps?"

I laughed, "HK won't consent to being copied but he can help in the programming of the droid."

"I'll get back to you on that."

"Five, four, three, two… we are in hyperspatial orbit of the Iridonia system, commander."

"Thank you helm, good work."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands together, helping the gloves to get rid of the sweaty palms that just loved to annoy me when I was feeling particularly tense.

"Commander," Yularen politely cleared his throat, seeing that I was dithering somewhat.

"Flight Ops, open our bays and begin launching fighters."

"Roger, commander."

I looked up into the abnormally slow roiling tunnel of hyperspace as very carefully two squadrons of ARC-170s began syncing their own native hyperdrives and slowly coasted upward into a general V-formation hovering about 130 meters above the upper dorsal decks of the Resolute. That gave us a 20 meter safety margin if a desync happened, so only a fighter was lost and not the entire ship. The theoretical simulations of what would happen was not pretty to look at.

Finally, joining them was a squadron of KUDF fighters. Their general shape roughly reminded me of a Peregrine-class from another universe I knew and considered a 'heavy fighter'. Not surprising, since the Dochu-class could trace its lineage to the earliest space craft the Kel Dor sent into the void of space to carry out asteroid deflection missions. They only had Class 5 hyperdrives, but that was more than enough speed, since the Dochu was never intended to go on interstellar excursions. It was another little bit of wiggle-room they had in arming the things with regard to the Ruusan Reforms.

"Commander, all fighters are in position and linked. We're ready to begin," reported Flight Ops.

I keyed the com controls in my chair, "Resolute to Xanadu, we're ready."

"We read you, Resolute. Engaging telemetry uplink."

A few tense seconds passed.

"Cloak is holding for now, but if anyone is looking we'll be quickly triangulated."

"Thank you, LT. Cut the link the instant you start seeing the fireworks."

"Roger."

There was no going back now.

"Strike One, begin your run."

The first ARC squadron began to maneuver, slipping to the side of the Resolute and quickly vanished from sight as they transitioned into their own hyperspace slipstream.

"Strike Two, begin."

The second did the same maneuver and mirrored their fellows precisely.

"Strike Three, begin and may the Force be with you all."

The KUDF fighters slipped from view to the starboard side of Resolute and vanished.

I brought up a real-time holo of the targets, a system diagram, and my eyes were fixed on it as the clock ticked down.

The delta shaped representations of my squadrons were steadily sweeping across the star system in hyper.

10.

9.

8.

The Xanadu's computer reported a routine scan sweep from one of the Lucrehulk's had hit them.

7.

6.

It didn't take long for the enemy fleet to begin showing signs of reacting. Already their computers were probably making sense of the transmissions.

5.

4.

A flight of Vulture droids were launched towards the Xanadu's position.

3.

2.

"Hyperspace emergence!"

I saw my fighters burst into real space. The resultant coasting velocity carrying them to within spitting distance of their Lucrehulk targets, barely 10 kilometers.

The entire board lit up as 72 capital class, high yield proton torpedoes, the kind that was normally launched from Resolute's ventral mass launcher, dropped from the bellies of the fighters and redlined their repulsor engines.

In the same instant, the KUDF fighters dropped from hyper, just outside the mass shadow of Iridonia and lobbed their capital torpedoes at the blockading Lucrehulk. They followed that up with a standard salvo from their torpedo launchers, managing to throw 48 of them at the enemy before they were forced to turn tail and within three seconds vanished back into hyperspace.

The ARC fighters didn't even wait to see what their torpedoes achieved, as they too accelerated on the pre-prepared hyper course, maneuvering just a few degrees upward and streaking away into hyper.

The droids had barely two seconds to react.

Which was an eternity to a computer, but these droids were commanded by a very small biological crew. Even if there were tactical droids who could react, the only guns that were ready to fire in an instant were the kinetic based flak guns.

Space was briefly filled with flak, but the hasty fire only managed to take out nine of the torpedoes targeting Lucrehulk alpha.

It died as eleven torpedoes popped its starboard side shields like a soap bubble and the sixteen remaining spent themselves slamming against the hull and detonating. The focused high velocity proton particles tore through everything in their way.

It wasn't more than a few further milliseconds before something explosive cooked off, whether that was fuel, hypermatter or an ordinance storage… it didn't matter. The entire starboard side ring blew up in a spectacular energy release, that sent the remaining port side of the ship's ring spinning wildly in the other direction, taking the central spheroid core of the ship with it. This crashed into a nearby Munificent frigate sitting in close formation.

The result somewhat reminded me of those old videos I used to watch on the Internet in another life, where cars tried to tempt fate with train crossings and lost badly.

The frigate was smashed and deformed until it was barely recognizable, until another inevitable munition cookoff occurred.

It was like a brief new sun was born.

The second Lucrehulk sitting at the Ord Cantrell emergence point fared slightly better, firing its flak so it only took 22 torpedoes.

The relative angles for this one meant that its central dorsal area was targeted and soon we were treated to the sight of a Lucrehulk reduced to three large pieces coasting off into space on the acceleration imparted from the explosions. Then reduced to two pieces as the port wing reactors gave up the ghost and exploded.

The third Lucrehulk in orbit of Iridonia had much more time to react, due to the longer travel times of the torpedoes.

Only eight capital torpedoes made it through to impact on its forward shields.

That didn't seem to be enough to drop them.

The fighter torpedoes following in their wake to act as distractions did that job.

Ten made it through in the first salvo, popping the forward shields.

Only eight torpedoes made it through to contact detonate with the hull.

It wasn't a kill, at best a mission-kill, judging by the damage to the forward arcs of the hull. No fighter was launching from those bays anytime soon.

"Helm, plot us an emergence for Iridonia, let's finish that thing off."

When I didn't hear a response, I turned my chair and saw that most of the bridge crew had been brought to stupefaction and astonishment at seeing what was one of the most feared battleships in the galaxy, so easily reduced to scrap. It had been so extreme to their worldviews that not even their clone conditioning could shield them from it.

Admiral Yularen simply stared with wide eyes into the holo, his face was blank and if I didn't know better I'd say he was about to faint.

Now that wouldn't do.

I reached out with the Force to every mind on the bridge and clapped my hands hard and sharply.

The very basic mass mind trick worked in getting everyone somewhat back in gear.

"Helm?"

"Uh, yes, yes commander. Plotting now."

The view of hyperspace began to slowly 'speed up' and the tunnel began its typical effect.

The Resolute emerged from hyper as close to the mass shadow as it dared. It didn't take more than a further ten seconds of hard acceleration to reach extreme gun range.

"Open fire!"

The first turbolaser salvo speared right through the central gap in the outer ring to impact the central command spheroid. It was the heaviest armored part of the Lucrehulk, as these could detach themselves to land on planets and deploy legions of droids in a pinch.

The enemy response was to return fire from twelve of their forward quad turbolasers.

"Shields holding for the moment, commander."

"Let's not give them a chance to bring more of those guns to bear. Time on target, triple salvo."

All eight of the Resolute's dual heavy turbolasers and the two mediums spoke at once, then with a two second pause, fired en masse twice.

It did the trick and fire punched through the unshielded central spheroid, wrecking it and brief fires began flick out into space before the void smothered them.

"Give me another, try and see if you can't hit those aft reactors."

More fire was still hitting the Resolute's shields as droids probably went to local control, with no more orders and commands coming from the bridge.

"Guns, give me a torpedo salvo from the ventral launcher."

"How many, commander?"

"Twenty four. Steer them straight through the gap."

It took another ten seconds before the lower doors opened and barely two seconds later, torpedoes raced forward.

Only sporadic AA fire met them and 19 made it through.

I looked away as the Lucrehulk died in a more subdued explosion in an almost anti-climactic fashion.

"Comms, get me the Xanadu."

"Blot here, commander."

My relief was palpable, "Good, you made it."

"Had a few close calls with Vultures trying to ram us, but we turned off our links and left them in our dust, commander."

"What's the status of the emergence point?"

"Only one Munificent left here, commander. The other three retreated through the hyper point to Ord Cantrell."

"We'll be there soon to either send it to the scrap heap or chase them off."

"They don't seem to be in a very fighting mood, commander. All their fighters are recalled and they're burning to keep themselves oriented for a hyper out."

"Well, that simplifies things. We'll be there in a few minutes, the moment they're gone I want you decloaked and landing on the Resolute. Good work."

"Just doing our job, commander. Blot out."

"In the meantime, I'll see if I can't make contact with the Iridonians planet side, see what's their situation," Yularen said.

"We wouldn't want another Ryloth situation, would we?" I asked wryly.

"No," the Admiral said shortly and walked off.