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Phase 12

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Part 5

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Bridge

CIS dreadnought Huntress

Manda

Two months – that was how long Admiral Shun Bay kept Manda under siege. The Bith had seen some insanity before, during his long and successful career as trade captain, but this... Manda was a trade hub. Reasonably peaceful despite it's location – too close to Hutt Space for comfort. The local SDF was supposed to be competent but that was it.

Nothing he had experienced, nor anything Intelligence could gather prepared him for the truth. The locals were crinking fanatics ready to ram his own ships when their own were crewed by actually people! That was what broke his first assault upon the System. He lost four battleships to ramming attacks with more incoming.

After that an increasing number of GAR fleet elements arrived often escorting the tattered remains of other SDFs fleeing from systems where Bay's colleagues were more successful. His second heavy assault faltered too when the Republic Clones turned to be crazy too. That's why he settled onto an attrition strategy. Why waste ships when you can force the enemy you had cut from any meaningful support to expend their consumables, especially when they had to run a gauntlet to supply their friends at Rishi?

Command agreed too, at least after a whole Sector Fleet not only failed to take Bothawui but had to be heavily reinforced after suffering crippling losses in three separate attempts before the powers that be put someone with more sense in charge over there and the Confederacy settled on a distant blockade.

The plan worked too – even if Republic forces somehow managed to fight their way all the way up to Rishi and force the Confederate fleet there to flee, that didn't happen before a significant number of enemy ships were crippled or destroyed. That news came along with a confirmation that the GAR elements trapped at Rishi ran out of ammunition at the end.

That little nugget of information combined with a number of mostly intact ships fleeing to Manda after their defeat led Bay to his current course of action. It wasn't like he had a lot of options. He had to either pull back, do something foolish like jump to Rishi and invite the local forces to come after him or do what he was doing – throw everything he had at the crazy locals and destroy their mobile forces before the Republic fleet from Rishi could recover after the battle they won and come knocking.

Bay had never been a timid man. Bold and decisive action was what in his opinion was called for. For all he knew the unexpected enemy force brought enough supplies to put the locals at full combat effectiveness, which would only make the Confederacy's life harder.

The Admiral knew his chosen course of action was dangerous. The enemy could receive reinforcements at any time and that would ensure he would get a Pyrrhic victory at best. That's why he did clear his plan with Command. In response, they deigned to inform him that the Republic's pet Sith was the one most likely to be at Rishi. Well, that news only made Bay more determined. If the Sith was coming here, which meant he would be heading for the blockade around Bothawui next, he would find no help at Manda. Bay was going to make sure of it, no matter the cost.

The Huntress slid through the void with the predatory grace of her kind flanked by a battleship division. Sensors – including old fashioned optical ones, surrounded Bay with images of the battlefield that was Manda's planetary system. On the flanks, frigate packs tore at the enemy's lighter units, while the Admiral threw half his capital ships in a headlong charge at the SDF. A solid wall of battleships kept the GAR part of the defenders at bay while escorts kept a wary watch for any Republic ramming attempt.

Bay's flagship battered her way through a debris field – all that was left of the enemy's lead elements and the vanguard of the Confederate forces that he threw at them without remorse. It wasn't like there were crews on those ships he should care about. His own side was almost exclusively manned by expendable droids, usually flying expendable ships. The Republic was little better with their Clones – were they anything but organic machines? That only left the locals, who were certifiably insane and blowing up those maniacs was simply a service to any sane spacer in the galaxy!

Still, Bay couldn't help but wince when one of the holographic windows surrounding him showed a close in view of a sheared in half Venator and hundreds of broken bodies drifting frozen around the hulk. One of them – little more than a twisted torso ending in a burned out ruin, found itself in the way of the Huntress. The corpse didn't even leave a smear as the dreadnought armoured prowl ran it over.

The familiar chatter of the droids that made his bridge crew didn't falter – not that it would have mattered to those machines even if they paid any attention to the gruesome field they just flew through.

"We are in range. Firing." A droid announced.

"Roger, roger!" Another agreed.

The Huntress released a full alpha strike upon a distant locally built cruiser. The sheer volume of fire made the ship tremble despite all the recoil compensators, her sheer mass and the inertial dampeners keeping little fragile things like the crew – organic and synthetic alike, from becoming smears upon the nearest bulkheads.

To its credit, the dreadnought's target survived her initial attention. However, that rapidly changed when two of Huntress' consorts sent heavy barrages of their own. The cruiser was quite far yet – distant enough that wild evasive manoeuvres were of some utility and a third of the outgoing fire-power did miss. That, which hit was enough to fry the ship's shields leaving it open for Huntress' next salvo. The cruiser staggered when a hail of turbolaser fire slammed into it and bright explosions engulfed it.

Return fire rained upon the dreadnought's shields, which held for the time being. Despite that, one of the battleships accelerated even faster and began slowly moving in front of the Huntress, thus giving her time to recover. The Luckrehulk did have stronger shields and a lot more armour – that one was a purpose built warship, not a mere trader converted as a man of war.

Bay glanced wishfully at the droids who actually ran the battle. He was the Admiral; he already gave his orders and now he was a passenger on his own ship unless or until the machines messed up and he had to correct by issuing new instructions. This was so unlike being a captain! The hands off approach ill suited his temperament. Keeping himself from micro-managing when it wasn't necessary was one of the hardest lessons he had to learn after his promotion!

The Huntress emerged from her consort's shadow with replenished shields and weapons ready for another alpha strike, which soon landed upon a banged up Venator squeaking the IFF of the local SDF. Her first target was already gone – it was an expanding sphere of burning gas and glowing debris. The Venator's shields were already gone and The Huntress' barrage scoured its upper surface and even sheared off the command tower sending it flying in the path of a frigate that flew dangerously close to the ship it was supposed to escort. The resulting impact sent the smaller craft spinning out of control with its port side ruined. Soon that Venator was breaking up by out of control internal explosions and Bay's flag moved her attention upon her next victim.

At the same time, the other half of the Admiral's capital ships were pressing the GAR elements hard. They were pushing the Republic ships farther and farther from their local friends, which ultimately meant they were going to get defeated in detail. Bay did have the numbers to win – it was just until the Sith came to Rishi neither he nor Command deemed it worth it to actually spent the resources needed to take out the enemy at Manda the hard way. Forcing them to exhaust their supplies first was deemed the prudent and cheaper course of action.

The proof of that sentiment littered the battlefield. Bay had already lost forty Munificents and fifteen Recusant light destroyers along with a pair of damaged Lukrehulks forced to pull back or risk destruction.

At least the enemy was faring worse. Three quarters of the Republic escorts were simply gone with the rest keeping close to the enemy and often hiding in their shadows. Ten Republic cruisers of various types died in their vanguard with more accumulating damage or simply blowing up under the remorseless Confederate onslaught.

"Damaged ships are to form up along those two Lukrehulks and go after any industrial or logistics targets that become vulnerable. They're not to risk engagement with enemy mobile forces or fixed defences. The rest of the Fleet will deal with those." Bay gave possible the last order he would need before the battle was won. He grumbled in frustration and tried to get himself more comfortable in his seat. At least the sensor feeds showed some very pretty fireworks – something he as a former starship captain he never thought he could ever enjoy.

The things a man learns about himself in the middle of a war...

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Part 6

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Bridge

CIS dreadnought Huntress

The last of Manda's SDF ships blew up under the concentrated fire-power of Huntress' whole battle group. Behind the elements of the fleet under Admiral Bay's direct command, a colourful group of damaged Confederate ships flew at a sedate pace due to battle damage, yet that didn't prevent them from annihilating any piece of orbital industry, space station or supply depot that entered their range. Meanwhile, the other half of the fleet was still busy tearing into the GAR elements in system. The enemy there was giving as good as it got and while they were pushed back by the CIS task force engaging them, both sides bled broken or outright destroyed ships at a distressing rate. The Republic got the worst of it – there was no doubt about that. Almost every one of their number that got sufficiently damaged got overtaken by advancing confederate forces and little more than scattered debris was left by the time it passed through their formation.

"Have half our battle group swing around Manda and remove the remaining fixed defences, then join our damaged ships as escorts and help them eliminate all orbital infrastructure." Bay ordered. "Bring the rest of the fleet together – we're hitting the remaining Republic forces in the flank."

It took six long hours to put down the crazy locals while keeping the range open to avoid ramming attacks against his battleships and it might take even longer to finish out the GAR contingent unless he wanted to suffer avoidable losses. However, Manda was done. Even if the Sith got here now, he would be too little too late. Considering that there was no sing of enemy reinforcements, Bay was becoming more and more certain that either the enemy General wasn't coming here or he paused to resupply the Rishi garrison and perhaps take some of those ships with him. That wasn't exactly ideal – it meant that when the enemy actually came, they would be a tough nut to crack. Perhaps too tough, forcing Bay to abandon Manda – though in that case he would wish the Republic good luck with retaking a crippled, defenceless system.

Most importantly, the crazy locals were no longer a threat. Their fleet, crewed by insane lunatics was finally gone and the fixed defences, which might be manned by more crazies would soon be reduced to space-dust.

Five minutes of tense waiting and watching the ongoing battle later, Bay's task force reformed and had calculated a jump to bring them on the Republic's flank.

"Targeting pattern Kilo-Six. Jump." The Admiral ordered. A short hyperspace transition later and the GAR battle group was hopelessly outnumbered. Yet, the bastards didn't break, nor did they run. Instead, they stood their ground and the fighting grew even more vicious if that was even possible. Bay thought about it and then he connected the dots. The enemy's commander had to believe that the survivors from Rishi came here victorious, despite arriving in small groups over the course of hours. If that was the case, then as far as the Republic forces here knew, there was no escape for them – there was powerful Confederate presence at any of the hyperlanes they could hope to reach and running in deep space – they might not even have the supplies left to risk such a stunt.

That was actually good – if the enemy managed to break contact and run to Rishi then the Confederacy would need to deal with them another day, possibly when they didn't have such large local material superiority.

The battle continued on and on for hours. Bay's fleet bled broken ships that went to join their wounded compatriots at Manda and the Republic force continued to die under the relentless Confederate onslaught.

It was only then that the droid stuck monitoring the sensors raised an alarm.

"Multiple hyperspace events. Arrival vectors indicate Rishi as origin point. Scanning for IFFs and ship types. Stand by."

"They're here then. Have TK-260 disengage and intercept the enemy reinforcements. The rest of the fleet will engage the enemy in front of us more closely. Give me a break down of the new arrivals ASAP." Bay ordered.

Couldn't the Sith waited a bit longer?

The Huntress and her consorts accelerated and flew for the throats of their enemies, followed by the test of their task force. On their flank, TK's forces decelerated sharply and began turning to face the newcomers.

"Thirty one frigate class. Forty-one cruisers, primary Venator class. Seven Acclamator Assault Ships." The Sensor operator reported.

"That's a lot of tonnage." Bay grumbled. They would have had time to effect what repairs they could and he had no doubt Veil was bringing the most intact Republic ships that survived their victory at Rishi. After the losses he suffered to gut the local forces he was far from confident he could cause enough damage to that new enemy force to be worth it seeing his command get gutted further. However, he was going to finish off the local GAR contingent before leaving. He had to engage Veil's force with a rear-guard too to ensure his damaged ship made it out of the system safely too. That's why he cut off the orders for TK-260.

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CIC

Republic cruiser Shining Light

Manda

The tactical plot updated to reveal an unwelcome sight. Manda was in Separatist hands. The only exception was a Republic battle group that was in the process of being slowly but surely overwhelmed by four times their numbers of separatist ships. There were more enemies in the system. One large blob of slowly moving ships that appeared to be damaged but operational enough to trash what was left of the local space-borne industry, while another smaller group was busy dismantling Manda's fixed defences.

"Admiral Tigellinus, take your command and hit the enemy cripples. Admiral Holt – you're engaging the Separatist force that is decelerating sharply and turning our way. The rest of the fleet – we're bypassing that that group and going to aid our remaining forces in system."

My orders weren't ideal. They would lead to otherwise avoidable losses, however if we kept concentrated, while we could easily handle that rearguard the enemy was throwing at us but at the price of losing what was left of our local forces and allowing a lot of damaged Separatist ships to flee unmolested. Every one of those that got away would be one more we would have to deal with at a later date – a less than ideal scenario.

Rufaan's and Joanna's battle groups separated from our fleet's formation. My own task force dived so we could get to a vector for hyperspace insertion that would bypass the enemy rearguard.

The hyperspace calculations were ready, and the hyperdrives cooled down to a safe level just in time for us to slip through under the enemy rearguard before they could block our approach vectors with their bulk. It took them too long to disengage, decelerate and turn away from the GAR force they were bearing upon. Well, they did do so just in time to run right into Joanna's task force and a vicious fire-fight erupted between the two. Tigellinus actually jumped away a few seconds before us and by the time we appeared in the rear of the enemy who continued to engage our comrades here he was already striking the Separatist cripples which unfortunately played it smart and scattered at all directions. It was unfortunate we didn't have the numbers to chase them all down.

"That bastard knows what they're doing." I told myself. On the tactical plot it became clear that the enemy commander was on the top of their game. They had the rear third of their force decelerate at a dangerous pace and turn to engage my force. They couldn't stop us – not enough numbers nor fire-power for that but unless we slowed down too we were going to run right through their formation allowing for ramming attempts. What was worse – we weren't going to be able to blow them all up unless we decelerated too, which was going to let the enemy commander hit the local GAR units hard. Unless I missed my guess, he was going to just kept ongoing and flee into hyperspace after that.

Perhaps we shouldn't have paused at Rishi for repairs, to replenish supplies and wait for Oden's ships to do the same so we could pick up enough of them – which was less than I hoped once proper damage reports came through. Visual inspection did confirm what the Force told me – the Clone Admiral didn't even have to lie about the state of his ships. They were in a bad shape after months of combat without the benefits of enough downtime, proper repairs and spare parts.

The Republic ships of this era were tough, unimaginably so, however they just weren't designed for combat of such intensity for so long without the benefits of the Republic logistics and industrial support. No one even in their deepest, darkest nightmares ever thought that such a situation as we had to deal since the grand offensive would ever be possible.

They still over-engineered the Venators to a significant degree, otherwise I would have at best half the fleet I had now.

"Decelerate, two thirds power. Concentrate fire on the enemy escorts, then capital ships. Destroy the former and seek to disable the later. Once we're pass the enemy formation we'll go emergency acceleration and try to intercept the Separatist force going after our ships."

Zooming out the tactical plot I saw that Tigellinus had to keep more than half his forces together in order to face against the enemy battle group that was after the fixed defences. They were heading against him at acceleration that would cause organics to black out despite the inertial dampeners of those ships. That enemy group might get annihilated, however they were going to allow a lot of their friends to flee to the nearest available Separatist repair yard.

"Target Munificent. Engaging..." The Weapons' officer spoke aloud.

"Shift fire to that Recusant on its flank once its gone." The Captain ordered.

The plot showed me that Joanna was already engaging the enemy and while she was outnumbered, a lot of the Separatist ships in that group were battered already – a fact that was soon underscored when they began to blow up one after another after taking just a fraction of the punishment that a fresh Munificents and battleships could survive.

It wasn't all good – far from it. The larger force in front of us slammed into what was left of the GAR ships defending this system and when they passed through and the sensors could focus on the aftermath only an expanding field of wreckage was left behind... no, there was a single crippled Venator that somehow survived the exchange and got out of it under its own power. It was slowly decelerating and turning to better target the retreating enemy with its more intact broadside. The other side of that ship was a molten mess with multiple decks clearly visible to be opened to space. Its whole port side was stripped of weapons and armour alike and it was a small miracle that the cruiser was still operational.

The enemy ships engaging us fared even worse than our colleagues who just got shot to hell in front of our eyes. When it became clear we weren't catching the running Separatist task force, I ordered further deceleration that was going to ensure we wouldn't reach the enemy right in front of us before we had them blown out of space.

The Separatist units engaging Joanna didn't try to hold their ground either. They finished their deceleration, briefly hanging more or less stationary in space before running straight for the heart of Holt's formation. She had to get out of their way while shooting them as they approached for all her task force was worth. The enemy gave as good as it got and by the time they were able to flee to hyperspace, half their number was gone with a lot of those left being visibly heavily damaged. Yet, in exchange, a third of Joanna's own ships got either mauled pretty badly or outright destroyed.

I got off better – due to outnumbering the enemy significantly. None of my capital ships were write offs, though two cruisers got light to moderate damage, however half my escorts got blown to bits.

Tigellinus engagement was a mixed bag. While he did take out a lot of the damaged enemy ships and the whole intact force that jumped him that came at the cost of a quarter of his own ships as write-offs.

It wasn't really a Pyrrhic victory – we took out too many enemy ships for that, however it wasn't really one to be pleased about either. We were soon going into another heavy battle and I wasn't convinced that we would have enough forces left to force our way through Randon by the time we got to Bothawui.