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Phase 12

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Part 3

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CIC

Republic cruiser Adler

Molavar

"We haven't played bait since First Kamino." The Clone Captain spoke wishfully, as if the man enjoyed the idea.

To Tigellinus' despair, the whole bridge crew looked like they shared the sentiment.

"You know, we might be the ones trapped and destroyed if the Separatists have the forces the spare nearby." Rufaan pointed out the obvious.

"We'll get to blow up a lot of the clankers anyway." The Captain confided.

The Admiral was more worried about his command being the one left as drifting hulks. How did he get himself in charge of those lunatics? He grimaced. Tarkin recommended he takes the Adler as his flag after the crew performed exemplary under Wilhuff during the last stages of the latest battle for Naboo... That might even been the case, though Rufaan was ready to bet a year's worth of salaries that Tarkin simply wanted those lunatics as far from himself as possible.

"Enemy forces are accelerating to meet us." Tactical reported.

"Match acceleration." Tigellinus sighed, hoping Veil wasn't playing this too smart for anyone's good.

The Republic and Separatist forces weren't equally matched. In fact Rufaan's battle group outnumbered the enemy two to three and had a healthy advantage in capital ships. Even the four Lukrehulks the enemy had in system weren't enough to offset the fire-power superiority he would enjoy. Nevertheless, the Separatists did have the numbers to hurt his forces badly and it was going to be fatal if they had the same idea Veil had – having significant forces waiting in hyperspace until the enemy was in no position to flee. The moment the two battle groups engaged, the General and Admiral Holt would jump at the CIS's flanks and they were going to crush the enemy between them.

It was good plan – as far as the Separatists didn't have a similar idea.

Two nerve-racking minutes passed until the converging fleets entered effective weapon's range. Tigellinus' people followed their standing orders and concentrated their fire upon the enemy escorts, who blew up or fell back from the advancing Separatist formation as battle damage forced them to lower acceleration.

The sensors blinked alarms sounded and two large Republic battle groups dropped out of hyperspace. The enemy had just enough time to attempt to change approach vectors into something that might allow them to flee into hyperspace when the Republic fire-power slamming into them tripled and soon doubled again as Veil's and Holt's formations opened to allow more ships to target the Separatists.

Needless to say, not a single enemy ship made it to hyperspace. The loses were more than acceptable to – three frigates and a moderately damaged Venator who was unfortunate enough to receive the attention of three battleships at the same time. Another two cruisers had little more than cosmetic damage and that was all.

"Give me a proper sensor sweep of the system while the fleet reforms and we complete emergency repairs." Veil ordered. "I want everyone calculating jump coordinates towards Ukio. We won't waste any more time than absolutely necessary here."

That was sensible – the only reason Molavar had this many warships protecting it was the fact that it was right on the border with Hutt Space. Otherwise, the planet itself didn't warrant such defences nor could it afford it. Molavar was a backwater desert world, which as far as Rufaan knew had nothing of note on the surface. He wasn't even sure if whoever lived down there even had a proper planetary government or not.

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A few hours later the fleet got to Ukio only to see a small Separatist force flee towards Rishi – a single battleship, ten light cruisers and various escorts. The multiple types of lighter ships betrayed their origins – the local SDF was running. They probably hoped that there would be no battle in the system that could risk Ukio's surface. The primary planet in the system was a major agrarian world and before the war began used to be one of the hundreds of planets that fed the Core. No one local would want to risk a battle that could lead to crippled ships and stray shots endangering their biosphere. Luckily for them, there was no heavy industry anywhere in the system that would demand the fleet's attention. The hyperspace calculations were soon ready and Republic forces left behind a safe and sound agrarian world.

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CIC

Republic cruiser Shining Light

Rishi

After the small enemy fleet at Ukio fled I was concerned that there was a trap waiting for us at our next stop. Instead, when we got there we received a pleasant surprise. Not only Rishi turned out to be under Republic control, but a sizeable enemy fleet that had been besieging the system was in the process of disengaging and fleeing either towards Manda or dark space.

"Contact the local Republic commander. Admiral Tigellinus is to intercept the enemy withdrawing towards Manda. Admiral Holt will engage left flank the primary Separatist force pulling away from Rishi. We're hitting them from behind. Request from the local forces to attack and fix the enemy in place for as long as possible." My voice was thick with glee.

The Separatist didn't quite have a large part of a Sector fleet here. They outnumbered the defenders about two to one, however heavy fixed defences made up for a lot of that disparity. With our arrival the tables turned dramatically and now the enemy was the one outnumbered and caught out of position. Unless this was some kind of elaborate trap, the Separatists weren't aware where we were heading for after we got to Hutt Space – otherwise they would have had this fleet in a better position to face a surprise attack. It was obvious that they began to pull back the moment they heard from the force that fled from Ukio, however they had been too closely engaged with our own forces here to extract themselves in time.

It made sense – the moment we got to Hutt Space unmolested, there were a lot of places we could go for and for the Separatists to protect if they wanted to track us down. Besides, any large forces they had in the region that wasn't already engaged or blockading Republic fleet elements was likely detached and sent to the Core. If we were lucky, we wouldn't face overwhelming numbers until we got to Randon, however that was one place that the enemy was sure to heavily reinforce. It was the obvious gate to Republic space and our best chance. That was also the reason why I did agree with Joanna and Rufaan about coming to this system. We just might need all the help we could get when we got to Randon.

"Sir, we've got Rear Admiral Oren on the line for you." The Comm officer said.

"Patch him through."

A window opened next to the main holo-tank showing the oldest Clone I've seen so far. His hair was greying and his face was at least couple of decades older than those of his brothers. A mess up with his genetic sequences? A mutation forcing him to age even faster than the other Clones?

"Sir, you're a sight for sore eyes." Oren gave me a relieved smile. "We received your orders and will hit the enemy everywhere we can, sir."

The tactical plot proved him right – all around Rishi Republic ships surged forth and threw themselves at the enemy who was doing their best to disengage.

"Hyperspace coordinates calculated."

"Jump and fire at will. Aim to disable enemy hyperdrives and engines. We'll finish them later."

For a moment we left real space only to re-appear right behind a swarm of enemy ships before an ordinary human's senses could even register the transition. Seconds passed until our ships sensors could recover and feed targeting information to the weapons and we joined the battle. The largest concentration of enemy ships in the system suddenly found themselves boxed in while they were trying to run and fired upon from three directions and that was before our formations opened as we went for a partial englobement. It soon became clear that it wasn't just at Naboo that we had supply issues and also why the enemy was pressing the attack when we arrived – just a few minutes later the fire-power of the local Republic ships began to drop off though it was clear that it wasn't because we were suddenly losing a lot of them.

"Message from Admiral Oren, sir. Ammunition situation across his fleet is approaching critical. He asks if he should attempt to keep maximum fire rate until his ships run dry or keep them in the fight for as long as possible."

"Go for time. We need them to keep the enemy engaged for as long as possible."

I zoomed out the tactical plot to see how Tigellinus was doing – he had his forces deployed in multiple small battle groups, which he kept in a mutual support range and was hunting down any enemy ships attempting to reach an escape vectors aimed at Manda. While he didn't have enough ships to stop everyone trying to run in that direction, he was still extracting a nice toll upon the enemy.

Meanwhile, the enemy we were engaged with finally had enough. Their commander had about a third of their remaining forces throw themselves at us and the others scattered while we were busy with the rearguard.

"Call Tigellinus – I want him to get as many of the runners as he can! Emergency deceleration – keep the range open and watch for ramming attempts."

We simply didn't have the numbers, nor what we had was in a good enough position to properly trap the enemy. Still, we did manage to put a lot of their forces in a nasty cauldron and shot to pieces a significant number of ship. By the time the dust settled, about half the Separatists fleet present in the system upon our arrival was left behind in the form of drifting hulks or expanding clouds of debris.

We didn't get unscratched either – the enemy rearguard managed to maul Orin's forces got mauled – too many of his ships ran out of ammunition at the worst possible moment and were unable to fend off incoming kamikazes. While my fleet did fare much better, we lost fifteen cruisers outright with at least twice that many damaged to various extent and our already few escorts got shot to hell in the final furious engagement.

Nevertheless, we won and Orin had good news for us about the situation in this region of space.

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Part 4

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Observation lounge

Republic cruiser Shining Light

High orbit above Rishi

The former exposed bridge of the cruiser turned out to be a very convenient meeting place slash second office. If there was a time for additional refits to make the place the nerve centre for additional sensors and ECM mounted in the command tower, it would have been even better but I might as well wish for another fleet or two and a few mountains worth of supplies.

This time around I sat with Joanna, talking with Admiral Oren and a representative of the locals – an avian species I've run once or twice in my Imperial days. The Rishii were bipedal humanoid birds whose wings ended up with agile finger like feathers allowing them to manipulate tools. The few birdies I ran into back in the day were either slaves or in two cases – mercenaries taken off their fairly primitive world.

The local representative, Flight Leader El'Raani, droned on and on about how the Rishii were glad that we helped them kick the egg eaters out of their system and if we could pretty please do something about the droid army on the ground. Said Separatist force, complete with theatre shields of their own, had dug in around a crashed Lukrehulk at the slopes of a large mountain range and for the time being were keen on being a major pain in everyone's backsides.

"Flight Leader, we will assist your people in removing the metal Egg-eaters from your world." I promised. We might simply keep them locked in place by burning from orbit any attempt of breaking out and otherwise ignore them until the war was over, however the overgrown raptor didn't need to know such pesky details. Whoever said I can't be diplomatic?

"That would be me, Veil." Ti whispered in my head. Ever since I decided to spare Mundi, at least for the time being, my resident ghost was a bit easier to deal with.

El'Raani bobbed his head and ruffed his bright red feathers looking awfully pleased... and continued to drone on and on about a holy war against the Egg-eaters. That was new. I glanced at Oren who simply shook his head and a brief long suffered expression ran over his face before it was replaced by a mask of polite professionalism.

Those exodium mines better be some of the richest in the galaxy, though it wasn't like it mattered too much right now besides denying their production to the enemy. It wasn't like anything dug in here had gone farther than Manda in months.

By the time El'Raani was done and went to bore someone else to death, I was sorely tempted to Force Choke him just to make him shut up.

"Sir, can I request a transfer out of here ASAP?" Oren begged when the Rishii was gone.

"I'll think about it." I smiled briefly before getting back to work. "What is the status of your forces?"

"Bad. While thanks to salvage and the supplies you could spare we'll have the magazines topped off, that's only because two third of my fleet is either destroyed or yard-jobs."

"It's going to get worse I'm afraid – I'll be leaving you most of my moderately to heavy damaged ships and replacing them with some of the more intact of yours before hitting Manda tomorrow."

"Sir, that would leave us terribly vulnerable if the Separatists come back in force."

"If that happens before we've opened the way to Bothawui and get you some fresh reinforcements from there, then your position will be untenable in anything but the short therm, Admiral." For a change I did have the initiative on my side and I intended to maintain it – even if that meant stripping Rishi and Manda off a significant part of their garrisons in order to replenish losses suffering in breaking the enemy there. After Manda there were a few empty systems we had to pass through until we reached Kothlis – a Bothan colony world that had fallen in CIS hands. By all accounts there was a powerful enemy presence there as a part of a distant blockade on Bothawui. That in fact was the best news Oren gave us once the dust settled – the largest and most industrialized Republic system in this part of space was still in friendly hands after the Separatists tried and failed to take it three times since their grand offensive began. Even better, Kothlis was just close enough to Bothawui that even with the enemy disrupting the holonet we would be able to talk with our people there once we got in system – that by itself was going to open some interesting tactical options...

"...sir. I can't in good conscience strip this system to the bone, sir." Oren was saying.

"Nevertheless, you do have your orders, Rear Admiral. I'll be taking at least fifteen of your cruisers that are in the best shape along with at least half your escorts. As you can see, we have only a handful of frigates left and a single light cruiser, which we'll be leaving in your capable hands."

"Because it's little more than a flying tomb!" Oren snapped.

"It's not all bad, Admiral Oren." Joanna added. "Once we've broken the siege of Manda too, you'll be able to be reinforced and re-supplied from there as well as exchange some of the damaged ships for ones in better shape. As you informed us earlier, Manda does have some repair capacity – if the enemy hadn't taken it out since the last time you had regular contact with them."

"That doesn't change the fact that if the Separatists hit Rishi with a meaningful fleet most of the ships I'll have will be gone in minutes!" Oren glared at us.

"That's an unfortunate possibility, Admiral." I agreed. "Despite our latest victories, our material state is less than ideal. We'll have to do what we can with what we have available. Veil out."

The holocom shut down and Joanna groaned. "That could have gone better. Do you really intent to leave this place ripe for the taking if the Separatists come back?"

"In a heartbeat, though it might not come to that. I'm guessing that the enemy will do their best to prevent us from getting to Bothawui, which means that they might even pull back from Manda to preserve their forces there. Once we secure that system, the CIS can't reinforce our next target easily. They'll have to pass either through Manda, Bothawui or go off the main hyperlanes and that will cost them time."

"They'll either hit us with everything they have at Manda, make a stand at Kothlis or try cutting off our way back when we leave depending on what the Separatists have available." Joanna suggested.

"If the latter happens, we might be in trouble." I admitted. "We're betting everything on the reasonable deduction that the enemy is sending everything they can spare at the front at the Core. However, they might very well decide we've become too dangerous a thorn in their back to ignore."

"In the grand scheme of things that might be useful." Joanna pointed out.

"If Obi-Wan launches an offensive when the Separatists sent a sector fleet or two at us that were slated for the Core." While I didn't sense danger higher than usual when I was about to enter combat as far as trying to divine the future went, that wasn't exactly a sure thing. I could very well have excellent chances of surviving everything the Separatists could throw at us before we got to Bothawui. The same wasn't necessary true for the fleet I had and if it suffered catastrophic losses I might be stranded in this part of space unless I was willing to risk trying to sneak through enemy space in a small ship.

Of course, there was the little inconvenient fact that every time I willingly went into combat there was small but very real chance that I would get myself killed and in such a case the Force wasn't going to give me a firm warning – that was restricted for situations that would get you killed for sure or if you were particularly powerful and well attuned with your power – when the danger was significantly higher than usual.

"Joanna be a dear and coordinate with Tigellinus to make sure we're ready to leave tomorrow at noon at the latest. I'm going to get some rest in case I have to cheat again when we get to Manda." I got up.

"Wasn't that restricted for Randon?"

"Technically. However, first we'll need to get there with a large enough fleet that Battle Meditation will be enough of a power multiplier to get us through there in one piece."

While so far we got very lucky and managed to maul significant enemy forces while suffering acceptable losses, we would need to fight at least one, more likely two or more major battles before we got to Bothawui and when all was said and done I couldn't count on there being enough intact friendly forces there to replenish my fleet with for the next part of the voyage home.

As it was, we had just eleven frigate left, one light cruiser that we would be leaving behind, thirty two mostly intact Venators and seven Acclamators. That didn't include the damaged ships we were leaving behind, nor those I was going to take from Oren. That would add about twenty to thirty escorts to the fleet plus fifteen cruisers of different classes – there were Venators, Dreadnought Heavy Cruisers and few smaller and more exotic designs among the local forces.

Those combined with what was left of Manda's SDF should allow us to break the siege there. If all else failed, Battle Meditation should allow us to prevail at Kothlis. What was going to happen after that however was anyone's guess.