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Phase 7: An Alliance born in fire

=RK=

Part 7

=RK=

CIC

Republic cruiser "Reconciliation"

Lununmo planetary system

Sullust

Joanna Holt didn't know what to think. The sheer insanity of her situation was obvious and went without saying. The Admiral could appreciate the task she had to play, even if she hated it. The Freedom was her ship. She served as her captain for long enough to feel terrible at the mere thought of the old girl being gone. Despite that, she was glad that it would be on their terms. No matter how crazy, Joanna had to admit that Veil's idea would make a fitting end for a warship. It would a monument that might very well outlive them all. It was fitting. It felt right.

Nevertheless, Joanna hated every moment of it. She was sending her ship, the best command she could have ever hoped for to her destruction. At least the Admiral could appreciate the fight her ship still had. The Freedom was crippled. This last hyperspace jump caused too much damage to both her hyperdrive and space frame to ensure she would never leave Sullust on her own. She had a huge wound in her side trailing debris and still burning hours since the battle ended. Yet, the Freedom wasn't done. The automated sub-routines left by her gun crews did their jobs and pumped barrage after barrage into the moon they were slingshotting around. The skeleton crew that brought her here were busy disembarking and very soon the Freedom would make the last course correction in her life.

Below them, Luminara, the closest moon to the gas giant, burned. Freedom's guns turned all infrastructure and anyone unfortunate enough to work there into vapour yet she didn't stop shooting. The crust broke, where it wasn't turned into lakes of boiling magma or even vapour. No matter if the Freedom's mission succeeded or not, no one was going to use Luminara for anything any time soon if ever.

"Admiral, we just received a data-burs from the fleet. They will be ready for insertion in four minutes. We've got a confirmed kill count – twelve Lukrehulks destroyed or mission killed. Thirty to forty Munificents as well as at least eighteen Recusant light destroyers." The comm officer paused.

"Come one. How many ships did we lose?" The Admiral prompted.

"All escorts. Two Venators moderately damaged. Quarter of the remaining bombers and half the fighters."

Stunned silence descended upon the CIC, then the compartment exploded into deafening cheers. Such a stunning success after the hammering the fleet took earlier in the day... It was simply inconceivable. Joanna knew that the CIS commander did half the job for them by dumbly flying along the bulk of the Republic wrecks left from the earlier battle. The best theory was that whoever was in charge over there believed that they wouldn't dare return after the damage they took. Reluctantly, Joanna admitted to herself that with the Freedom gutted she would have retreated if she was in charge. Preserving such an asset unless Corellia itself was at stake was ingrated into her by years of training. Star Dreadnoughts weren't like other ships. They shouldn't be risked with the abbadon the General did it, however one could hardly argue with the results.

Someone else would have kept the Freedom back as a deterrent or only engaging when the odds were overwhelmingly in their factor if they had a choice. It would have been the safe course of action. Perhaps the sane one.

The only question Joanna had was if it was worth it. She looked at the large red sphere in the holo-tank that represented Lununmo. If this insane plan worked it might very well be.

"Multiple hyperspace events. Both above and bellow us as well as in front!" The sensor operator stopped the cheer cold.

The holo-tank updated and three large groups made of angry crimson symbols appeared around Joanna's command. The numbers didn't match. There were half again as many ships as those that survived Veil's last attack.

"The SDF. I want their formation tagged and send the data to the General." The Admiral smiled coldly.

The clankers who mortally wounded her ship were back for round two and he was going to oblige them. Thanks to the hellish gravity mess that was the Lununmo's planetary system, there weren't many vectors on which the enemy could arrive. They couldn't jump between Luminara and the gas giant. Well, perhaps they could. There was supposed to be a tiny sphere where the gravity of the moon and the planet it orbited cancelled each other enough that a reasonably safe hyperspace transition could be made. As it was, the three enemy formation did quite the risky jumps – a tiny mistake would have made them emerge caught by the constantly clashing tidal waves of gravity pushed by the gas giant and its thirty four moons. The only reason why Joanna's own force made it safely was Veil who used his abilities to literally divine how to thread the needle – something he was about to do again in a few more minutes.

All of that meant that in thirty seconds, when the slingshot was done and the Freedom flew straight at the gas giant, the odds of the enemy successfully intercepting her would be astronomical. They would have something else to worry about. Considering the vectors the enemy flew at, only the blocking force which jumped in front of them might be able to clear the gravity wells in time to attempt interception. They were the farthest so they could turn around and accelerate, because on their arrival they had their engines pointed at Luminara.

"Emergency speed. Let's see if we can catch them with their pants down." Joanna ordered.

The Admiral examined the tactical plot. The gravity wells worked in their advantage. The enemy couldn't just jump in point blank range and do Holt's force them what Veil unleashed upon them. There was a logic to the Separatist deployment – the three battle groups would be able to converge upon her on the edge of the well and with that blocking force she wouldn't be able to escape unarmed to cause mischief elsewhere. Besides, they undoubtedly assumed that this was their best chance to kill the Freedom once and for all.

That wasn't going to work too well for them. Well, at least the enemy was obliging enough to swallow the bait. Unfortunately, to make it all work, Joanna's force was going to get hammered. She had just a handful of escorts left, the enemy loved their ramming tactics and unless Delkatar did an excellent job, this might be it for her and her people.

Three minutes. That's how long it took to get into range of the enemy. The reactors were straining, the engines glowed dangerously red and were overstressed beyond any reasonable safety limits, yet Joanna did it. The blocking forced was caught out of position. They didn't even attempt to go after the Freedom, probably the clueless bastards thought that she had finally succumbed to damage and was out of control, which couldn't be farther than the truth.

The other two enemy battle groups were coming like mynoks out of hell. They were straining their engines too to make a timely intercept and at least some of them would achieve it at the price of stretching their formations.

"Prioritize enemy frigates and light destroyers. If you suffer too much damage I recommend abandoning ship after setting it to ram the closest Lukrehulk." Joanna ordered. "May the stars look over us all." She prayed quietly.

The blocking formation came into range. The battleships were in position though most of their escorts were still busy finishing their manoeuvres. Long seconds passed. Joanna's command opened fire the moment they were in range and the enemy responded in the same instant. Shields burned as they strained to absorb and reflect barrages made with machine precision. Answering fire rained upon the Separatist formation. Enemy frigates died even as the friendly ones hid behind the ships they were meant to protect until the last possible moment so they could intercept any ramming attempt, physically even if that was that it took to protect their charges.

For ten seconds the Republic formation flew down the throats of their enemies and even before the leading elements of the other two battle groups could strike at them, they resembled huge burning asteroids thanks to all the energy splashing upon their shields.

While Munificents and Recusants began to die first, the Republic force didn't remain unscratched for long. First came energy bleed further straining the shield generators. It was followed by spot failures enabling the odd turbolaser bolt to slip through. The armour held, yet weapons and sensors were less fortunate.

Then, seconds before the formations were about to intercept, the first Venator lost her shields. Peaceful Intent was racked from bow to stern from multiple sides and simply blew up short of the enemy formation. It was as if her death was a sing because within a few seconds of each other every single cruiser in the vanguard lost their shields and were ravaged by concentrated barrages.

Two more things happened about that time.

Veil arrived with the rest of the fleet just above and below the blocking force and accelerated to overtake them. The second was perhaps even more critical – the Freedom flew through the point of no return. She was already within Lununmo's gravity well flying too fast to avoid the gas giant and no one could intercept her any more.

What followed was utter chaos. Joanna's command intersected with the enemy and Veil's force opened fire. Reconciliation shook, jamming and ECM blanked the sensors consigning the ship to mere optical means of detection and more ships died.

The Venator barely slipped between a listing Lukrehulk that was critically damaged after the last Republic light cruiser in the system slammed into it shattering its outer hull like glass and a pair of frigates that attempted to do the same to her. Her weapons racked those ships gutting the engine section of one and tearing huge holes mid-ship the other. Then the Reconciliation's shields finally fully failed and it was her turn to get hammered.

Suddenly there were no more ships in front of them, just stars.

"Give me a rear view!" Joanna ordered sharply.

One of the monitors changed picture and it showed what they just survived. There were hundreds of ships flying through a ridiculously small amount of space, space that was practically on fire and fast turning into a tiny nebula from all the exploding warships.

"Calculate us an exit vector and get us out of here." Joanna ordered.

She knew what was about to happen. Veil, along with whatever part of the fleet survived that insanity back there would de-accelerate until they got Luminara between them and the gas giant. They should be able to just get there before the anticipated shock-wave of the ignition hit them. The big question was what the Separatists would do and how their damaged ships would handle what was about to happen.

=RK=

CIC

Republic cruiser Eriadu

Lununmo planetary system

Sullust

Sometimes I'm too smart for my own good. Oh, my crazy plan seemed to work. It was just that it worked too well...

Joanna smashed the blocking force quite bad as she fought her way through and that allowed us to comprehensively smash those ships as we overtook them. However, we had to begin de-acceleration almost immediately after we caught up with them if we were to get a zero intercept with Luminara.

That was a problem. The only good news was that the other two enemy battle groups were unable to hit us as solid fists. Their own formations stretched a lot as they charged to catch Joanna. The effects were twofold. We had the time to crush the battle group we took from behind, yet doing that broke our own formation and let to a huge fur-ball we had to fight through. I didn't dare use Battle Mediation again right now. I had a minute, perhaps two I could manage before burning myself beyond recovery and in this chaos the benefits simply weren't worth it.

Kriff it, I had to find the time to investigate what was wrong with the Force! Why the hell took so much more power to do anything here in the future? Pushing away that dreadnought took me to my limits and it shouldn't have.

The same was true for the Battle Meditation if to a lesser extent. That was a technique I had no real aptitude for so using it on a large scale always took its toll upon me. The same went for when I almost, well practically, killed myself before Geonosis. The amount of energy I channelled in my funk... It took more than I thought it would to manage even a partial success. If it wasn't for my knowledge and training I would have lost conscience before I caused myself that much damage. If I wasn't too busy not paying attention at the time I would have figured out what was happening before it was too late. I might not have crippled myself... and Bo might have died. I still didn't know what would I have done if I was fully aware that I was killing myself.

The deck below me shook when damage leaked through weakening shields and I paid a bit more attention to the battle. Funny thing, right now I was a mere spectator. We were committed. We had to get into Luminara's shadow. I gave my orders and now I was merely a spectator free to let my mind drift.

A third of the fleet I led into this engagement was already dead, half the rest damaged to some extent. Five more Venators died when Munificents and Recusants rammed them. A damaged cruiser returned the favour to a Lukrehulk. A heavy cruiser did the same after her engines were critically damaged by a battleship she flew past.

A loud bang and dull screech of tearing metal reverberated through the ship.

"We lost the command tower. Damn there went the bar..." The woman at the DC console grumbled.

On the main holo-tank I saw three depleted Venator divisions gang on a Lukrehulk trailing at the end of the enemy formation. The battleship had engine troubles but otherwise was intact. The same couldn't be said for our cruisers. A few had lost shields, others had theirs dangerously depleted and every one of them was damaged. We were all decelerating and so did the battleship. In the ensuring fire-fight it managed to destroy two shield-less Venators in short order, then it concentrated on the rest in turn. By the time the Eriadu came into range, the Lukrehulk's own shields failed but she had gutted three more of my ships. My flag added her fire-power into the fray and finally the behemoth died under the merciless attention of ten Venators.

The half-molten wreck of the Lukrehulk vanished in an explosion caused by a run away hypermatter reactor and we were through.

Only half the fleet followed us and there wasn't a single intact ship among them. If she was able, Joanna should be out of here by now. That left us alone with every single surviving enemy ship in the system, which unless I was very much mistaken were concentrated behind us. With the gravity geometry of the Lununmo being what it was, we weren't going to get an easy escape vector on the course we were on. The enemy figured out that fast. The tattered remains of the blocking force – just five ships, a Lukrehulk, two providence dreadnoughts and three light cruisers, all damaged, continued after us at a subdued acceleration. The rest of the enemy was still decelerating and manoeuvring to give chase and avoid slamming prowl first into the utter mess of wreckage we left in our wake.

"Transmit to the fleet: Well done. You have your orders. And put a live feed from Lununmo in the holo-tank." I ordered.

The Captain, one Perrin Maya, a youngster in his thirties from Eriadu as it could be expected from the ship's name, complied. His thin face not too dissimilar form Tarkin's own was pale, yet his voice held steel resolve as he relied my orders. I wondered if there was a family connection between the two of them.

We were eighty seconds from our destination when the Freedom slammed into the gas giant. Even as big as she was, the Star Dreadnought only caused a minor disturbance in the upper atmosphere. For long seconds nothing happened. Then a dot became visible at the place where the Freedom vanished. Considering the distance and the level of magnification used, that dot had to be at least few hundred kilometres in diameter to be visible. And it was growing.

"I want all available power directed into the shields. Everyone brace for impact and if at all possible strap in. Rely it to the fleet." I made a great show of checking the rigging keeping me snugly in my seat.

It was one of the upgrades implemented after I sat with Valentra and the R&D people to discuss how to improve the Navy months ago. The GUARDIAN system was born from that conversation, along with a lot of current R&D projects. Many still thought that proper seats and safety harnesses were pointless at least for capital ships because the odds of damage being just great enough to cause injuries but still light enough for such measures to help were quite low – at least on a capital ship. Apparently that was one of the expenses deemed superficial during the general drive to lessen the costs of cruisers as much as possible. Given the price tags involved, it was an idiotic. The savings weren't even a pocket change and the people who might benefit of such measures were all highly trained specialists and officers. In contrast, the various light ships had such things implemented for the longest time because most things that hit them yet they could survive tended to joust them a lot.

In the holo-tank, the dot was now a large disk. Was it sucking the gas giant's atmosphere in or was that merely an optical illusion.

"We've got major gravity fluctuations coming from Lununmo!" The sensor operator's voice said in wonder. We all knew what was supposed to happen. Watching it however...

Sixty seconds until we were behind Luminara. The Separatist ships were committed. Now there was no escape for any of them.

If I wasn't looking at the screen I would have missed it. There was a spark in the centre of the dark circle. The circle contracted and it appeared that the whole gas giant shrunk a bit along with it under the strain of the increased gravity and the incredible amount of additional mass introduced into it. In theory, the way we could utilize hypermatter, despite how incredibly, improbably energetic it was compared to anything else, even anti-matter, was incredibly in-efficient. The real mass equivalent of a single cubic container of hypermatter with a meter long side was enormous – in hyperspace. In real space, the mass and weight was still great but only a tiny bit of the 'real' thing. Within a hypermatter reactor, or as they were properly called, a hypermatter annihilation plant, multiple fusion and gravity generators worked in conjunction to breach the barriers between dimensions on a tiny scale. Only then we could utilize the hypermatter for a fuel to enable economical hyperspace travel. Even then, the amount of mass and energy we could utilize compared to the theories was small. Anything past a certain threshold would lead to a catastrophic failure that would dump most of the resulting energy harmlessly in hyperspace and the mere backslash would be enough to vaporize even something like the Freedom.

For various reasons weaponising hypermatter failed. First, what we could get in real space was proportional to the size of the hypermatter reactor. A larger ship needed proportionally larger annihilation plant. And the smaller the reactor the smaller the amount of energy that could bleed in our dimension upon a failure.

You could fit a tiny reactor on a space fighter and travel through hyperspace with it. A failure in it wouldn't be more energetic than the proton torpedoes or concussion missiles such a craft could carry.

For something as huge as the Freedom, well you could get a very large bang if thing went wrong. And if you engineered the proper series of failures, you could excite the hypermatter in the reactor, in theory in a small radius around it too so it could dump its mass equivalent into our dimension as an actual mass.

The math was weird and even after decades I still couldn't really wrap my head around it. The important thing was that it worked.

In almost all conceivable situations what I just did would be useless. It couldn't be done without causing a catastrophic failure in the ship in question and you couldn't dump the energy of the hypermatter in our dimension to cause a bang. You could however dump its mass as a matter if you excited it properly. Light elements only. Like helium.

If you did that in the middle of a gas giant and then used the catastrophic failure of the annihilation plant you used to ignite everything, well if you did your homework right, you could create a fusion reaction. A self-sustaining one at least until it ran out of fuel.

The trick in this case was to see if the mass increase thanks to the hypermatter would be enough to cause the gravity of Lununmo to increase sufficiently for the fusion reaction to happen properly.

We all watched theory become practice. The dark disk flashed orange, then white.

"Gravity increasing. Thermal spike!"

"Time to impact?" I asked.

"We'll get in the shadow with a few seconds to spare." The sensor operator told me in a relieved voice. "That would be enough, right?"

"At this distance we should be all right or at least would be if we hadn't taken combat damage." Our shields and ships were tough and the shock-wave would be losing power with every little bit of distance it crossed as it spread out. Still, this was going to be one very energetic event.

One moment Lununmo was growing orange. In the next it was bright white.

"We've got ignition! Huge thermal and radiation spike incoming!"

We flew into Luminara's shadow, which was very bright thanks to the moon itself still burning after Joanna's visit. Heh. I had a fan.

"Impact if five, four, three, two..."

I could hear quiet prayers from some of the crew. The Captain wasn't among them – he simply resembled a statue carved from a solid block of granite, yet I could feel his grim determination. He too knew we should be safe. That didn't prevent him from worrying.

Time stretched out. Did I miscalculate? The Force was quiet and for the first time that wasn't reassuring.

The shock-wave hit.