A/N:Gosh, an update! Just in time for Star Wars Celebration! This has been lingering unfinished for a while on my drive. Finally paid attention to it after the PTSD The Last Jedi caused and subsequent Lucasfilm BS towards the Star Wars franchise had faded enough into the background, and the truly excellent Star Wars Theory's "Vader Episode 1: Shards of the Past" fan film had fanned the flames of my fandom for this franchise. Go to Youtube, support his channel, donate a few bucks so he can get Episode 2 made. The poor deluded passion-less fools at Lucasfilm living in their echo chambers can 'officially' butcher the GFFA universe as much as they want - we the fans, will carry the torch in our own imaginations and those of us with the means and talent will make fan films and other media to carry the story forward.

Chapter 5

"Pilots of Shadow Squadron, say hello to the Malevolence," I gestured and R2 projected the ugly ship in full holographic high definition glory to the neatly aligned seats in the port side hangar bay, which was filled with clone pilots. I had been given the task of conducting the briefing by Anakin, who wanted to see how I coped by slowly introducing more command responsibilities on my shoulders slowly but surely. "This is the newly declared flagship of the entire Separatist Fleet, and it's our job to hunt it down and destroy it."

It really irked me that despite the fact that we had ID'd the damn thing and its capabilities without the Seppies knowing, then of course, the instant it went to the Jedi Council and the Chancellor's office, the Separatists knew that we knew - and acted accordingly, so we therefore lost the element of strategic surprise. Palpatine probably had a heart attack when he saw the intel scans of the Malevolence cross his desk so soon. So predictably he had ordered Dooku to order Grievious to stop tip-toeing around and bulldoze Republic shipping openly to get as much mileage as possible.

"To that end our task force, consisting of the Resolute, Justicar and Freedom, was commissioned by the Senate for this task. With the majority of the fleet engaged in the front line battlespaces, we'll be unable to immediately request reinforcements. The reason you're here Shadow Squadron, is because while our capital ships are vulnerable to the enemy's new weapon, a squad of Y-Wing bombers are small and nimble enough to evade the ion wave. Your target will be the Bridge," a gesture from my hand had the holo zoom in on the utterly moronic position of the command bridge, on a curved tower jutting out of the main hull near the aft section, "and General Grievous himself."

The clone pilots were visibly astonished and even excited at the prospect. Killing that cyborg would be a nice feather in anyone's cap.

"If Grievous is killed it could theoretically shorten the war and with the Bridge out of action and its combat effectiveness greatly reduced, should allow for our capital ships to engage it effectively without the Ion cannon coming into play. We only have a general heading for the Malevolence at the moment, and the entire sector is on alert, so make sure to have your bombers ready to go at a moment's notice when we narrow down its location. Understood?... Dismissed."

The pilots surged to their feet and headed off in the direction of the ranks of parked Y-wings.

"Not bad, Snips," Anakin said, coming to stand next to me.

"Indeed, Ashoka," Master Plo affirmed. "Master Skywalker, this is an aggressive plan. Are you sure this squadron can complete the mission?"

"Shadow squadron hasn't had a single failure in its record and the lowest casualty rate of any squadron in the task group," Anakin affirmed.

"Usually because you're flying with them, Master, so not exactly fair on the others, is it?" I gave him a teasing grin.

"It is what it is," he shrugged it off.

"Minimal casualties may be enough to prevent you from breaking Grievious' defenses," Master Plo warned.

"He has a point, Master, I'd bet that Bridge has redundant secondary and tertiary shielding, extra armor, not to mention the highest density of flak and turbolasers... at least it's what I'd do if I was forced to command a ship from that exposed position."

"With the amount of firepower we're packing into the bombers, we'll destroy that Bridge no matter what defenses he throws our way. Now go on, get your flight suit."

"Yes, Master."

Actually finding the Malevolence was proving rather annoying for the crews of the Task Force, whose ELINT divisions were working overtime on sifting through the galactic information highway that was the Holonet. Or trawling through hyperspace communication bands listening for encrypted Seperatist signals or even simply monitoring Republic broadcasts and signals for any report on the enemy flagship being sighted. In the meantime Shadow Squadron plus Anakin, Master Plo and myself were on standby to launch, and I discovered the true meaning of the old Earth military adage "Hurry up and wait."

It did allow us the time to perform simulations of attack runs on the Malevolence, but there's only so much of that you could do and not compromise your own readiness by tiring yourself out. So after only an hour in the simulators we were back in the hangar bays, wearing flight suits and waiting... and waiting.

Of course, I spent the time meditating as did Master Plo, Anakin spent the time tweaking his bomber to his own personal specifications and calibrations. Of course, it was also 'our' bomber, as I would be seated in the top turret gunner position of his Y-Wing - I had yet to figure out any rationale why Rebellion model Y-Wings used in the future would do away with that turret.

It really irked me that I was so close to the old fantasy of flying a starfighter, yet so far. On the other hand I was rather glad, because a Y-Wing was my least favorite snubfighter. X-Wings were as yet not even a gleam in any Incom designer's eye yet. I didn't like the current design of Jedi Starfighters, despite their similarity to future A-Wings, as they were too compact and relied on the external Hyperspace Ring attachment to fly interstellar. The closest I'd get to X-Wing levels of performance at the moment would be a Z-95 Headhunter and they were not into full production yet.

Then at last, after six hours of waiting, word reached the Task Force.

"The Malevolence has attacked a convoy of medical transports near Ryndellia," Admiral Yularen reported to the squadron as we all quickly wolfed down a meal from ration packs.

"Ryndellia is near Naboo," Anakin frowned in thought, keying his portable holo to show that sector of space. "Hang on, that's near where our medical base is for the Southern galactic front lines. If Grievous knocks out that base, we'd be forced to ship wounded clones all the way back to the Core, Corellia would be the closest, and that means way more casualties due to the travel time."

"There are many star clusters in that area," Master Plo said, studying the holomap, "from Ryndillia to the medical base and given the size of that ship - the Malevolence would have to fly a course..." he poked his long claw like finger into the holo and dragged a rough approximation through it.

"I agree," Anakin nodded, "for us to intercept Grievous before he can reach the med station, we'd need to hyperspace to the edge of this nebula, fly through it at sublight, then perform another jump."

"I take it the med station was put there because the nebula made astronavigation difficult?"

"Exactly," Anakin confirmed.

"Then I'll ask the question I hope is being asked somewhere, how in the Universe does Grievous know the position of that station? Its in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking."

I knew the answer of course, but I wanted other people to start asking hard questions that would have old Palpy running damage control and start to tax that infamous 'Foresight' that the Emperor would always boast about.

"That's a good question, Snips, but not one we ourselves can worry about at the moment." Anakin pressed a few keys on his com band, "Shadow squadron, man your ships. We launch in five."

Describing my first proper experience in a fighter outside of a simulator, and in the gunner seat of a Y-Wing, I can confidently say I know what being a goldfish feels like. I had a custom designed helmet that was almost like something straight out of the old Jetsons comics, to accommodate my lekku and montrals. The flight suit was essentially a full space suit as well, that maintained pressure via mechanical pressure on the body instead of air, meaning it allowed for a much tighter fit, and it's what the clones wore underneath their armor. The difference being that a space suit also had tiny thrusters. The turret was also cramped, I could only move my arms about somewhat freely to handle the co-pilot systems and the guns, but my legs had barely a few centimeters of wiggle room.

"I hope you know what you're doing Anakin," Obi-Wan commented on the com system from the bridge of the Justicar.

"Well, if I don't, I won't be around to hear the 'I told you so'," Anakin replied sarcastically, as he flicked a few switches and moved the Y-Wing into a tighter formation.

"That's reassuring, well, take your shortcut, we'll take the long way but you better be there before I arrive."

The task force's arrowhead forms was steadily growing smaller in the blackness of space.

"I'll be there, Obi-Wan." He switched channels to the squadron frequency. "Shadow Squadron, tighten formation, call in."

"Shadow Two, ready."

"Three, ready."

And on it went until all twelve had signalled and finally, "Fighter escort, standing by." Master Plo in his Hyperspace Ringed Jedi Starfighter fell into the rear of the diamond formation.

"Confirmed, Shadow squadron. All navicomputers are synchronized. Green across the board."

"Shadow Squadron, you are clear to depart, good hunting," Admiral Yularen commed.

"Thank you, sir. All right boys, let's go."

Anakin pushed on the small throttle lever and the fighters' engines whined with the hyperdrive motivator, and all around me the stars were drawn into long lines as the Y-Wing plunged into the twisting blue vortex of a stable hyperspace tunnel. It was quite mesmerizing due to my elevated position and the fact that the only thing separating me from hyperspace itself was the transparent canopy of my turret.

"Time to reversion forty minutes."

When Shadow Squadron emerged from hyperspace the entire view was dominated by the nebula. It was a roiling cloud of interstellar gas filled with colours of earthy browns, reds, and even the occasional swirling blue - meaning we were about to fly through a real witches brew cocktail of bromine, nitrogen dioxide and dichlorine monoxide. I had quite enjoyed all the 'space' subjects taught at the Academy - astrophysics among them. This nebula's current dimensions made it one of the smaller ones you could find in the galaxy, being only slightly wider than a single AU, though the particle density was higher than the norm. It's relative length and height though was what made it a 'wall' for hyperspace astronavigation in the sector.

"Okay, if we can navigate through this shortcut, we should make it in good time."

"We should remain alert, this nebula's interior has not been explored," warned Master Plo.

"You'd think that they would at least send in probes before putting the med station next door it," I pointed out.

"Not if they'd wanted to keep the location totally secret, Ashoka."

At that point the view was entirely swallowed by the nebula and the stars vanished. The squadron's passage left a visible contrail now, the heat of the engines causing the gasses shift into a higher energy state. Thankfully that didn't mean it'd go boom.

"This soup is thick, can you see anything?" Shadow Two questioned.

"Just keep your eyes on my thruster, Shadow Two," Anakin ordered.

I powered up the fighter's scanners and stared at the small readout scope, "Well, I can tell us what we're flying through out to twenty thousand kilometers, Master, but beyond that we'll have to navigate with the Force."

"Already on it, Snips."

"I always know where I'm going," Shadow Three boasted.

"Oh yeah, where's that, Broadside?" Shadow Two 'Matchstick' snarked in return.

"I'm going to blow up that battleship."

"A clear path if ever there was one," Master Plo agreed with amusement.

The squadron kept accelerating for over twenty minutes before Anakin had to call them to pull the throttles back to 'neutral', lest the nebula overwhelm the particle shielding. Yet another rather large inconsistency was that the Laws of Physics regarding inertia, gravity and so on did indeed apply in the GFFA as well. Fighters and starships in space didn't just magically 'stop' and start or fly as if they were aircraft in an atmosphere - space battles in the old Star Wars media was simply the 'Rule of Cool' in action.

Starships and fighters needed to match velocities and courses to be able to engage one another. The complex calculations and speed adjustments to achieve that is precisely why astromech droids existed, in addition to hyperspace computations.

I checked the nav feed from R2, the little droid was patiently sitting ensconced in his slot, its domed head tracking back and forth as it studied the nebula cloud formations. The squadron's base velocity relative was a fifth of lightspeed at the moment, meaning we'd clear the nebula in forty two minutes.

Thankfully I'd brought some reading along to pass the time. I'd downloaded a few books onto a data slate, both fiction and non-fiction, the latter being mostly about starships this time. I was especially interested in the fact that Cloaking Devices existed, yet they didn't seem to be as widely used as they should. An issue of Alder's Guide to Starships of the Galaxy published ten years ago on Corellia illuminated the subject though.

Cloaking Devices put a number of constraints on a ship's design that made it rather unattractive for general military use. The power requirements meant that you couldn't cloak and have your other systems such as weapons, engines, shields and hyperdrive fully online as well. The power draw also meant that only ships with strong enough hypermatter reactors could power it. The smallest ship that could therefore mount the thing was a frigate, with Kuat Drive Yards managing to slap a Cloaking device onto a Pelta Class frigate. It also forced you to use a specially treated hull and therefore made the entire prospect extraordinarily expensive. That was as far as the rest of the Galaxy knew, but I also knew of Darth Maul's Scimitar, a secretly modified Star Courier with cloaking tech, that he'd used to get around during the Naboo Blockade and the beginning of the Saga.

Sadly it was firmly in the hands of Palpatine at the moment, who used the thing to travel in secret in his alternate Sith persona.

Even so, I knew cloaked ships were going to be crucial to the future.

The nebula began to thin and given the speed we were going at, vanished abruptly from around us and we could see stars in front of us again.

"All right, we are clear," Anakin confirmed, "hyperspace in three... two... one..."

The hyperspace tunnel would only surround us for another five minutes before we emerged within visual range of the Med Station.

It was a space station of the Haven class - which was one of the bits of rather ostentatious Republic engineering, as if you looked 'down' on its dorsal side, it was shaped to look like the Republic emblem. The benefit of it though was that it allowed for numerous ships to dock at the outer tiers of the station, allowing large amounts of potential passengers and patients to be embarked or sent off at once. Which was a good thing, as every dock collar was currently being used by transport and medical frigates from the Republic and Naboo ships, frantically trying to evacuate before the Malevolent would arrive.

My scanners started lighting up like a christmas tree.

"Hyperspace emergence! It's massive."

Seeing the massive bulk of the Malevolence in person again, shooting through space and coming to a relative halt was distinctly eerie. For something that big to move so fast was utterly quite terrifying. The sheer amount of conventional firepower it had was difficult to appreciate. It was a mere two hundred kilometers from the station and its massive rear blisters of engines lit up to begin maneuvers.

"Shadow squadron," Anakin declared grimly, "on me, full acceleration."

I felt the Y-Wing's engines roar to full power and rotated my guns towards the direction of the Malevolence. The squadron was, by unlucky circumstance of our emergence points, a few thousand kilometers from the enemy, and while we could intercept, we were too far away to even try to prevent the Malevolence from attacking the fleeing transports.

The enemy flagship put its starboard side facing the transports, then the massive circular emitter of the Ion Wave Cannon began glowing, and steadily became brighter, then not twenty seconds later, it reached a blinding peak before firing. The wave was more like a faint expanding discus, that writhed with ion energy and arced with purple and blue hues.

The wave's speed was quite slow for anything that could be called a 'cannon' but it easily outstripped the transports and washed over them, leaving behind only faint sparks dancing along their hulls. The ship's lights began flickering, and then we watched helplessly as over three hundred turbolasers rendered the five disabled transports into expanding clouds of debris and plasma. Just like that, nearly eighteen hundred lives were gone. The sheer range of those turbolasers was stupendous - the Malevolence had pummeled the transports at effectively double the range a Republic Venator Star Destroyer could.

"Contacts, enemy vulture droids on an intercept!" I inwardly blanched at the number of them.

Grievious had thrown thirty six fighters at us.

"All wings take evasive action, but stay on intercept. Deflectors double front, equalize as they pass."

I submerged into the flow of the Force and began taking extreme range potshots that managed to destroy two fighters. Then they were in range where the clone pilots and gunners tried their luck, blanketing the space ahead of us with blue energy bolts - felling a further five fighters before we had to evade to avoid collisions. I swiveled the guns around, sending five shots into the void that sent three more fighters flying off in pieces.

Shadow Squadron proved its mettle and accuracy though, with the eleven other gunners each managing a kill in short order, while Master Plo scored three kills on the trot in a graceful turn. The intentions behind even launching the vulture fighters became clear when the Malevolence brought its Ion Cannon to bear on us, flashing with energy and soon enough another circular nimbus of energy was heading our way.

"Incoming!"

"Bank to the edge of the wave, now!" Shadow Squadron pulled up in a near perfect display of formation flying shooting upwards on the z-axis and I winced as I heard Anakin kick in the Y-Wing engines into overcharge mode and even redlined the reactor. "Give it everything you've got!"

It was really weird to fight in space... now the space station, Malevolence and the approaching ion wave was 'below' us from our point of view and I was strained against the crash webbing as the acceleration was creeping past the inertial dampeners ability to compensate. An alarm on my panel drew my attention…

"Shadow Two, your reactor is going critical! Relax your burn!"

"I can make it..."

I felt Matchstick and his gunner's lives wink out abruptly and his Y-Wing exploded in brief flash of liberated energy. The pieces of wreckage swept past us as the energy of the reactor release pushed them faster away.

Shadow Three and Four frantically maneuvered to avoid the debris, but Shadow Five didn't react fast enough and I felt their deaths as a larger piece of wreckage smashed right through the front of the fighter.

The Ion Wave swept past us and Anakin turned the Y-Wing back on intercept with the Malevolence.

"Who did we lose, Ashoka?"

I surveyed the squadron status display. "We lost Matchstick, Tagg, Shadows six, seven and ten were caught in the wave." The ship was now filling the view ahead and anti-fighter flak and plasma erupted from the beast to meet us. "This is not going to work anymore, Master."

"We can make it, Ashoka." His voice was filled with a grim determination that would be admirable in any other situation.

"Master, this mission would be a reasonable gamble if we had a full squadron, but we're not going to break the bridge defenses with just eight bombers. The flak fire will reduce our numbers even further." The squadron was belly to belly with the Malevolence, now so close, it was a massive horizon of grey steel to our eyes. "If we disable the ship's Ion Cannons, it allows for a conventional attack on the ship. Look at the sensors, both port and starboard cannons share the same power conduits and main reactor, hit one side just as its charging up to fire..."

"She's correct, Skywalker, we will face Grievous another day, there's too much at stake now," Master Plo stated as he twirled his fighter ahead of the squadron, sending blasts into the static flak turret defenses to thin them out.

I saw Anakin eventually nod his head, "Shadow Squadron, new target, starboard Ion cannon. Sending coordinates."

"Confirmed Shadow Lead."

The massive superstructure of the Malevolence seemed to spin around us as we maneuvered, then it was above my head, my focus flowing through the moment and the Force. I started to send blasts from my guns at every enemy turret that I could target as quickly as possible, even to the point where I had to begin pacing my shots more as I was running the capacitors down. The remainder of the squadron joined suit as they fought for their lives against the storm of enemy fire.

We lost another Y-Wing before we could plunge into the relatively narrow space between the emitter ring of the Ion Cannon and the main hull of the enemy ship. It was extremely nerve wracking as we waited the nine seconds for the cannon to charge - casting an eerie purple-blue glow over all the instruments in my turret.

"Fire NOW!"

The Y-Wing vibrated hard as torpedoes were shot out from the bomber as fast the launchers could cycle. The squadron emptied their launchers completely, and I released a breath I didn't know I was even holding as the fighter blasted away under full acceleration after getting clear of the weapon.

I knew better than to look at what was coming and it was eerie to merely see the flashes of the proton explosions. I only dared turn my turret around when we were more than a hundred kilometers away from the Malevolence.

"Now that is a pretty sight," one of clone pilots commented.

The giant Seperatist ship was yawing awkwardly as damaged thrusters misfired, and most importantly, the circular structures of the Ion Cannons were both utterly wrecked and twisted into a pretzel. Secondary explosions had also erupted here and there, but I had to give the Seperatists their due, the ship was well engineered. Scans showed that despite the feedback of the aborted Ion wave and damage from the torpedoes, that the main reactor had scrammed successfully and distributed backups were already kicking in all around the massive ship.

We were over a thousand kilometers away when the sensors gave a warning of incoming ships from hyperspace and I subtly shook a fist of victory when the arrow shaped forms of Obi-Wan's task group of Star Destroyers shot into view and began a hard burn for the Malevolence.

The enemy ship turned and began its own burn into a retreat, its backups were clearly not enough to push a ship that size into Hyperspace.

"Good work, Shadow Squadron," Master Plo praised over the squadron frequency.

"Anakin, do you copy?" I smirked in amusement at a tiny note of worry I heard in Obi-wan's voice even through the crackling radio comms.

"I'm here."

"Congratulations, it looks like your mission was a success."

"Partially," Anakin reported grimly, "we destroyed the Ion Cannon, but Grievous is still alive on that ship, and the battle was hard on my men. Open up a bay for us and deploy Search and Rescue for our disabled fighters."

"Being done as we speak. I'll take it from here."

"Good, be with you shortly, Obi-wan."