Chapter 50
Pantora – Southern Swamps
The holographic cartography showed a basic map of the southern swamps in blue, complete with dozens of small red triangles showing the positions of the remaining Republic starfighters. Fay stared up and watched as the pilots retreated from orbit, disappearing into the cloud cover above the marshes. Beside her stood Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hun'tsmen, the Togorian turning his head to yell something at a nearby officer.
The small fleet had lost most of their fighters. Green Squadron was gone, off to find Yularen. Again, Pantora's communications were jammed. At least this time the sourced was obvious. The huge Recusant light destroyer was depicted on the huge holographic map. Above it was the smaller D'brathi cruiser, the source of the jamming.
Most of their starfighters were gone. According to the Obi-Wan's padawan, who was watching the battle with wrapped fascination, most had been hit with debris from the medical frigate. Torres Squadron was a little more fortunate. Three of their ships had been lost due to systems malfunctions after the Helios' destruction. Shocker Squadron, their H-79 bomber's only just managing to launch before the Helios was destroyed, had managed to join the other half of their squadron who had been on the orbital platform. Major Pilios March had sent them to rendezvous with the Riverdancer to reload with heavy ordinance.
The largest ships of the little defence fleet were the three armoured Consular corvettes. Flanking them were two of the Pantoran Frigates, though the word freighter would also easily describe the smaller ships. They alone were the last line of defence from an invasion. But invasion from who?
She and the handful of techs left on the ground were trying to calculate vectors and wind currents to give to the shipboard computers and astromech droids of the Consular's. Those numbers would then be given to the starfighter astromechs. It was a monumental task, more suited to an array of droids than a collection of young technicians. But they did not have and array of droids. Every available droid was currently crammed into the ports of a fighter or a data station of a corvette.
Suddenly, a loud thrill startled her, and she grabbed the commlink on her belt, pressing down the round activation button, and answering with practiced calm. "This is Jedi Master Fay, how can I assist you?"
The voice that answered was strained with tension. "This is Warden Militar of the Black Cliff Prison, Master Fay. I don't know understand how, but battle droids are storming our facility and freeing the prisoners. We need help immediately!"
Battle droids? Fay felt the world spin. As bad as the battle above would be, the over-crowded prison could be a larger disaster. Some of those people were crazy psychopaths. Most were people who had just been snatched up in the Chairman's new militarised roundups. But battle droids wouldn't care. They would kill everyone until their mission was complete. She had seen the carnage of previous droid attacks on a dozen worlds during these paths seven years.
"Stay calm and find a fortified position, Warden.", Fay instructed calmly, using the practiced calm that she had mastered after years of being an influential Jedi. "I am on my way."
"You had better hurry.", Militar replied. "Their leader seems very unhappy. Crazy cyborg has nearly wiped out my entire guard unit."
Fay dropped the commlink as though it were a hot coal she had foolishly pulled from a fire. A cyborg leader? Grabbing her cloak, she whipped it around her shoulders and she raced outside into the freezing air of the city. Marching by the rows of military tents, she made for the small airfield nearest to her.
Predictably, every starfighter was gone, either helping Mace or going to refuel at the orbital platform above the Capitol. Only a single Eta-class shuttle remained, more beat up than not. It had claw marks and blaster burns pockmarking the hull in several places, but still look as though it would fly. She was halfway up the ramp when a loud cough behind her stopped the Silverine in her tracks. She was being observed. Turning, she found Bultar Swan standing a few metres away, her short hair recently cropped to be even along her shoulders and her robes freshly cleaned. One of the cuts on her face had earned her a bacta patch, and her left hand was heavily wrapped in bandages. A small BD-series droid was clamped onto the karma across her shoulders.
"Any reason that you want to borrow my shuttle?", she asked innocently, but a hard glint in the back of her eyes surprised Fay.
The Silverine shook her head in exasperation, sending her short hair flipping back and forth in the wind. "Black Cliff Prison is under attack. We need to get there now!"
"Sounds bad. We can take two of the squads to help.", Bultar turned away and began to walk back to the soldier's tents.
"But they need our help now!", Fay argued, moving after her while shaking her hands wildly in the air to try and accentuate the words, "Crazy cyborg and battle droids are…"
She got no further. Bultar had grabbed her hands and was staring right into her eyes. "Cyborg?"
Fay nodded, wrenching her hands away, "According to the warden."
Bultar looked at the droid on her shoulder, "If this is the same cyborg that I fought, we will need every Jedi we can get, and as many troopers as are available. He took me down too fast. We have a few squads of ground troops who are doing nothing while the battle goes on above, so let me grab two of them for support. Better to have them and not need them than the other way around. At the very least, they can handle those battle droids while we take on the cyborg."
Taking a deep breath, Fay nodded. "Your logic makes a sort of sense, Master Swan. Get your men. I will fire up the engines."
Mace piloted his starfighter in circles around the Flying Cross, studying the corvette's hull. It was mostly intact, but had the occasional burnt scar seared across the metal. Twisting the yoke, he slipped over towards the Fourth Indication, noting the flames pouring from the portside airlock. A single turbolaser blast had managed to strike the ship, turning that compartment to flaming slag. The remaining crew had blocked it off and were concentrating on rerouting power back to their weapons. The two corvettes held the most firepower of the remaining ships at their disposal.
Unfortunately, the third Consularwas currently linked to the Rainmaker, one of the Pantoran frigates. The First Notice had been the main focus of the Recusant's fire while they retreated. It's reactor was malfunctioning and overheating. Captain Gibbs, who had been picked up in an escape pod with the rest of the Helios' surviving bridge crew, had ordered them to evacuate the corvette before the core melted down.
The Rainmaker, one of the Pantoran vessels donated by Baron Papanoida, was large enough to hold the entire crew, and so had volunteered to take on their men. Unfortunately, although the ship was more agile than the Republic Corvette, it had needed to conform to planetary defence protocols. The Republic only allowed planetary fleets to have point-defence weaponry. The two other Pantoran vessels would likewise be helpful only in starfighter defence. They could do little again the enemy flagship.
He checked his scanners again. Still nothing that indicated something else dropping from hyperspace. There was movement though. The enemy had begun to spread out. Probes from the Recusant's cargo areas were moving large orbital stations into position. Whatever plan the enemy fleet had, Mace was uncertain if he would be able to counter it.
"They are at thirty devices so far, Master Windu.", Obi-Wan's calm voice came over the commlink. He was still down on the surface, scanning the fleet and searching for defence strategies. For once, Mace was glad that Anakin was stuck by his Master's side. The boy was an adept pilot, and would have sooner stolen a ship than be left out of the battle. Obi-Wan continued to speak, and Mace roused himself from his thoughts, "R1-SS has just confirmed that the devices seem to be Vulture Droid deployment stations. Each holds six fighter droids."
"That sounds like an attack if I had ever heard of one.", Major Pilios March put in.
Mace realised that his comm channel was still open to the other high ranking officers, including Captain Gibbs, and Major March. He phrased his next question to them. "Any idea what we can expect?"
Gibbs answered first. "If they are deploying their Vulture droids in orbit, they might be attempting to hold position there and blockade the system. Reinforcements could arrive at any time. We would need to exert what little firepower we had defending what ground we can while their ships bomb military targets."
"That sort of situation usually ends up with political treaties being signed." Obi-Wan put in. "The Trade Federation was attempting something similar with Naboo a few years back."
"I remember.", Mace conceded. "But with Green Squadron out there, they must know that our own reinforcements are on their way. We could theoretically catch them in a pincher move."
"Which is why they have the platforms.", Pilios said. "They take care of us while the cruiser's take on the Resurrection."
"That could take out the Republic presence here until they dig in and set up permanency.", Gibbs mused, "But my question is why Pantora? It isn't properly allied with the Republic. They only have diplomatic envoy ties."
"That question will unfortunately need to wait.", Mace disconnected the comm channel. R8 had pulled up a list of the ordinance their flotilla had left. Most of the heavy ordinance was gone, loaded into the bombers of Shocker Squadron. There were still a few ion bombs and a heavy scatter-mines crated up on the orbital platform, and proton torpedos for the light V-19 fighters. If placed in precise locations along the main hull, the remaining explosions could cascade into the engines. But they needed to eliminate the Vulture droids first.
Captain Amelia Nubon stared through the glass of her exosuit's goggles at the moon before her. She stood on the bridge of the personal light destroyer, the Recusantshe had named the Immovable. They were still parked in the orbit of Pantora. Parked seemed to be the only word she could think to describe this. She felt like the captain of a cargo ship, not of a warship. The Immovable's probes were still removing the orbital stations from the cargo hold, and they could move until they were in place.
The Skakoan's exo-suit beeped and whirred as it monitored her vitals. Unlike most Skakoan suits, which were used to isolate the Skakoan organs from oxygenated environments, hers also contained instruments to monitor her heart. An incident in a previous battle to defend their world had left her with a large gash in her right side. The cut had come close to severing her pulmonary veins. She focussed on her breathing, feeling her side ache slightly as her chest expanded within her exo-suit.
A loud and obvious cough came from beside her, and she turned to see a holographic image of Admiral Nal Breedas, who was captaining the gunnery platform float off to her right. She bowed to the stoic Sullustan, but he simply ignored the gesture. His thin mouth, with its set of dual flaps on either side, opened and the words that came out were short and sharp. Brutal even, which matched the man's temperament. "Captain Nubon, are all the satellites in place?"
"Indeed they are, Admiral.", she replied, bending down to see the datapad flash green. Perfect timing. The Republic was officially trapped. Granted, those five or so starfighters that had managed to jump away after the destruction of the Pelta medical cruiser were an annoyance, but they had nothing to report besides the appearance of the Commerce Guild above the moon. That could be excused, for certain. The Senate would not allow a Naval Fleet to attack Pantora without days of strange and unnecessary arguments.
"Are the droids ready to attack?", Breedas asked, his small black eyes insistently boring into her, searching for the answer before she could give it.
"Of course, sir.", Nubon replied, bowing slightly, "My technicians are just finishing the programming switch on the last rack of droids now. They will be prepared for air combat once we begin out decent."
Her superior officer, as always, had something to add before he cut the transmission. "Wipe them out, Captain. Wipe them out, or be destroyed. Do not return to me having failed."
The hologram flickered out, and she straightened. Her brow furrowed in frustration. She would lead this attack, not Breedas. He was only in charge because their usual admiral was busy on another assignment. She was convinced that he had given himself the position of admiral purely to annoy her.
She gave the small holographic projector a mocking salute, "Of course not, 'Admiral' Breedas. I will do my duty, unlike you."