Confusion has enveloped the Kalpana. None of the gunners have any certainty of who to shoot, and about half of them are firing on the minority of starfighters who are actually loyal to the Republic. Dorain is screaming about how, "We need to target those hijacked ships from the north!" Yet, the V-19s are all being blended into a swarm that even Kuallue is having a hard time parsing.
The clones are better pilots than the Meerians, and they're more familiar with the ships, but they must be outnumbered at least three to one, and they have no coordination. Kuallue just isn't strong enough or wise enough to manage everyone. Dorain and Karne are giving their best efforts to give out orders, but the people who actually need to listen to them are far out of earshot. "The rear deflector shield generator just went down!" exclaims some officer in a frantic outcry.
Re-angling deflector shields to focus on the assault at their stern takes time, but now they can't even re-angle them if the operator knew that he was supposed to. Their engines sit effectively undefended, and once the CR25 transports arrive with some additional firepower, the Kalpana has no chance. Concussion missiles, lasers, and turbolasers unleash wave after wave of destruction upon the largest of their five primary engines, and it gives out after a few minutes.
"We can stay afloat in the atmosphere on four engines," remarks Karne, but everyone knows that it's a futile hope at this point. Their starfighter complement is outnumbered, and it's only a matter of time before more damage is dealt.
"Begin heading down," orders Dorain, "and we might just be able to take out that Munificent before they finish us off." It's a pathetic consolation, destroying a frigate that's about a fifth of their length, but it's all they can reasonably hope to accomplish as the attacks on their stern continue unabated.
The gunners recognize the threat now, but they just can't possibly keep track of what's going on as friendly and enemy starfighters keep coming in and out of their fields of view. Djinn is still hanging in the battle, Kuallue can feel, flying rather well but still unable to defeat the greater numbers of enemy ships. He got pulled into this trying to save Kuallue from his folly, and he doesn't deserve to die for this cause.
Kuallue wishes well upon his friend, because Djinn's wisdom looks more and more like it was right all along. Kuallue embraced darkness on its promise of helping him defeat Grievous, but the darkness reneged, and now it has cost Kuallue his soul as well as the lives of so many around him. The road to redemption will be long and hard, and at this point, Kuallue isn't even sure if killing Grievous on some other occasion would even improve anything.
When the second engine goes down a minute after the first, Dorain hangs his head. The ship can no longer be saved, and nothing can prevent this chunk of durasteel from meeting its end on the ground that comes closer and closer by the minute.
The descent is a feeling of slight weightlessness, and Dorain puts his head in his hands before finally standing tall to announce, "The ship is doomed. All personnel must abandon ship." He presses a button to sound an alarm before turning his back to the viewport and heading to the exit at the back of the bridge.
As he reaches the door, he looks back in, where Kuallue and Captain Karne remain rooted. With a furrowed brow, Dorain says, "Kuallue, you and your Jedi sorcery cost us this battle. I hope you remember that, and I hope Sadiya does too."
Kuallue turns to join the mob of evacuees, but once his tank crosses about half of the bridge, it comes to a sudden halt. Its power is gone, worn down by the constant usage of its repulsorlift. Karne looks at his stationary form, still standing right next to the viewport, just as still as Kuallue. For a few moments, they both regard one another.
Finally, Karne breaks the silence. With remorse in her cracking voice, she states, "On Glithnos, we have a custom that starship captains aren't to have children, because the ship and his crew are our sons and daughters. And it's not right for a parent to outlive his children."
Kuallue nods himself up and down slowly. He explains that he used to have a child.
Karne turns back to look out the viewport, toward the ground that is rising to meet them. She replies, "Perhaps we're both captains of the Kalpana today."
Kuallue can still move his tank using his body's own power, awkwardly shifting it forward. He couldn't reach the escape pods in time if he wanted to, but he can waddle it back across the bridge, heading for Karne's side, right next to the viewport. Together, they stare forward at the rocky ground as it rises to meet them.
"Today has been an incredible success," WanThir congratulates over the holocomm, with even LilVas nodding behind him.
Grievous sits in the cockpit of a Consular-class cruiser apparently dubbed Micah Giiett alongside IG-124. The two Meerians have taken up roles in the back of his new vessel, acting simultaneously as engineers, gunners, and comms officers as they call both the Demask and the CR25 transport that WanThir and LilVas have commandeered. It's not easy coordinating communications when multiple stolen ships are involved, but they're doing a very admirable job, allowing all of the Separatist leadership to contact one another.
LilVas steps forward, pledging, "It will be an honor for the Babteer Pil to serve under the Separatists across the galaxy. And we will return here to free it one day."
"One day…" Grievous murmurs.
"The Acclamators are inbound, but I don't think they'll make it in time," excitedly remarks Mu, "so we'll be off to the Mepha'as Prime system shortly."
After all this, we finally escaped. But… there is still so much more to do. "No," Grievous states suddenly. WanThir and LilVas give one another confused looks, as do Mu and B9-Z4. Grievous considers his words for a moment. This time, he isn't sure of a plan, but all he knows is that he feels invincible right now, and that he has more work to do in order to save this planet from Republic tyranny. He couldn't have escaped without the Meerians, and it wouldn't be right to leave them behind to suffer. The Republic would no doubt enforce particularly harsh measures against the populace to punish them for supporting him.
"It would be insane to remain here and fight without additional reinforcements. The Kalpana was one thing, but we defeated it through a combination of Infiltrator-series droids sabotaging its sensors and comms, and how it was unaware that we had stolen Republic ships. We would have neither of those advantages against the Acclamators, and we're too outgunned to win a fair fight." asserts B9.
LilVas asks, "Are you reverting to your old self, General? We have to understand our limitations, especially now that we have something to lose."
"Yes, it would be insane to attack without reinforcements. The only sensible reason why we would attack those Acclamators would be if there was a Separatist fleet inbound," Grievous admits, with his voice dripping with an optimism that would suggest that the fleet might indeed be coming.
"What's this about, Grievous? We know there isn't anyone coming for us. They'd have no way to coordinate it, and even if ships from Mepha'as Prime departed right now, it would take hours to arrive," WanThir points out.
"Are you sure?" Grievous challenges.
What Grievous doesn't dare say, and in fact, he cannot say, is that WanThir is right. But if I can convince him, I might just be able to convince the Republic fleet. Their communications probably aren't even remotely secure, so he can't fully explain this bluff right now.
When WanThir doesn't immediately respond, Grievous presses, "We're going to broadcast a request for reinforcements, attack the Acclamators briefly, and then scurry away back down towards Selbar. What do you conclude?"
"You're a madman. They'll have us trapped, and once they descend, we'll have nowhere to run. The Separatist fleet at Mepha'as Prime would take hours to arrive, and we would be long dead by then," LilVas answers.
But Mu shakes his head around a little bit and finally says, "There must be some sort of secret base or hyperlane that I don't know about. You must be having some communications with the Separatist Council behind our backs."
B9 calculates then says, "Your patterns from previous battles suggest that even you would not be so insane as to attack against these odds. Captain Mu would be most likely correct."
"Excellent!" Grievous replies, "Two out of three told me the correct answer. Now, I shall transfer myself to the Demask, and then we shall strike."
What he doesn't tell them is that by "correct," he doesn't mean "accurate." It just means that they told him what he wanted to hear, because if they would think that, then the Republic should think it as well. Keldon seems to be something of a coward. She is ruthless, but once the shield went down, she didn't order a total bombardment of Selbar, only a few strategic strikes. They survived, in large part because she wanted to get out and save herself.
Just recently, the Micah Giiett's sensors spotted a shuttle leaving Selbar and heading for one of the Acclamators. That could only be General Keldon. She must have decided to lay low in his territory for a while, but now that they've fled, she will be resuming command. That's important because it means that a coward will be resuming command. And when cowards are outnumbered, they cut and run. Keldon won't truly be outnumbered, but as Mu and B9 demonstrated, she'll have reason to think that she is.
By heading close to Selbar, it will look like a trap designed to make her ships chase him, going further into the planet's gravity well, so that when the hypothetical Separatist reinforcements arrive, she would be trapped between the two with no hope of escape. The reinforcements will eventually come, but not until several hours after General Keldon recognizes his fake trap and decides to cut and run. However, if she's too stupid to recognize the trap or too smart to fall for the bluff, she might just pursue and destroy his ships over Selbar.
It will still have been a tremendous success to have destroyed the Kalpana, but if Grievous is wrong about this, their success will come at the cost of all their lives. Yet, if he is right, they won't just have escaped Bandomeer: They will instead have seized it.
As a curiosity on a different note, he tunes into a broadcast on the ship's holonet receiver to check out the latest with the Selbar Babteer and their Beezfitrar game. It still irks him that the Republic attacked during such an important few hours of the game. It would be silly to let him get distracted during the battle, but it would be nice to at least check the score and watch a minute or two before he takes command of the Demask.
Since turning his attention away from it and focusing on the battle, much has gone on, and the stakes have raised further. The Padneen have forced Selbar's offense into peetrat vod, their last chance. They would need four meters to advance their drive, but they could score three points and tie the game if they settled for a relatively easy pim-rif. That would be the common-sense approach. Yet, they could also try to gain those four meters, which would almost certainly allow them to take the lead if they succeeded.
If they went for it and failed, they would come away with no points and almost certainly go on to lose. It's almost eerily similar to where we are now.
Just like Grievous and the Babteer Pil, the Selbar Babteer look like they have elected to go for it on peetrat vod, allowing one play to effectively decide their season. Unfortunately, just before they can approach the mesram, the Micah Giiett docks with the Demask. Grievous turns off the broadcast; there is no more time to focus on games. One way or another, the battle of Bandomeer has arrived at its endgame.