Chapter 7

"Ouch!"

I cursed and shook my left hand in reflex. When the pain of another failure had subsided…

"Shhhh...ow," I gritted my teeth as the zap resounded through my small quarters aboard the Resolute. I cast off my frustration and let go, again allowing the Force to gather in my left hand, then through my body, then going down my left leg and finally through into the floor. Then I slowly brought the rather clunky, jury rigged, cobbled together but very functional electric stun gun close to my left hand and thumbed the switch.

"Ow…" that had been marginally better, there wasn't as much pain and I had felt the energy be channeled somewhat, but it had 'fizzled' out near my leg and now the muscles there were protesting. I used the Force to sooth and push out the excess into the deck plating.

I had a long way to go before I would even call myself even a beginner with the technique of Energy Absorption. The stun gun I was using had just enough voltage to hurt and the current at way below lethal levels. The goal being to eventually no-sell Force Lightning, the favorite trick of Palpatine and nearly every Sith in history, and intermediate goals such as blaster bolts and even Satele Shan's lightsaber blade absorb trick. That was the long term goal, but in the short term I had improvised a non-ideal solution if worse came to worse…

I put down the taser and put on the new gauntlets for my armor that the Fab droids had finally finished. Despite that it was painted to match the visual camouflage pattern of the rest of my armor, the matt finish camouflage nicely hid the fact that it was actually an alloy and not like the rest of my armor. The heavier weight would take some getting used to, but it was a way to get stronger, if slightly more mundane.

I was too sore to continue practicing Force Absorb so packed away my tinkering tools and started on the academics I assigned myself for the day.

The Resolute and its crew, along with the other ships in the old task group, in recognition of the destruction of the Seperatist flagship had been awarded a campaign medal, one that I could even technically wear. That was not the 'Jedi Way' of course, so it was just sitting in its display case in my locker. Now the Resolute was the lead ship in the newly formed Fifth Fleet that had, as its first responsibility, been given the job of patrolling the Abrion sector, which housed the Kamino system.

Kamino was the 'homeworld' of the clones, so to speak. The world where the Kaminoans grew and raised the clones of Jango Fett that formed the 'backbone' of the Republic army and navy. There was more to it than that though.

While the Republic was now the biggest customer of the Kaminoans, clones of Jango Fett wasn't their only income stream. They were master geneticists and had not only been improving on themselves for centuries, giving the middle finger to natural evolution, they were also in the business for other clients from other worlds that was not shown; non-aligned worlds outside the Republic and in Hutt space. Want to colonize a world, but don't want to go through the incredible expense of reforming the place so it would be suited to your biology? Come to Kamino and bioform yourself and your descendants to suit the planetary conditions. The transactions with the Hutts though made for unpleasant reading, especially the tailor made genengineered slaves, and it was the reason Kamino was not part of the Republic.

The entire ocean planet was dotted with surface bound facilities, and while the largest was dedicated to clone production for the war effort, there was no telling how many underwater and underground facilities the kaminoans had. The Republic now had a vested interest in protecting the planet and sector, so now had an entire fleet to guard it and all the hyperspace lanes and approaches toward it.

It was the obvious prime target for the Separatists to attack, and was a distinct strategic advantage they had over the Republic. Droid factories in their space were distributed, their ruling council was always on the move, their 'parliament' was just a rubber stamp machine and as such there was no strategic 'center of gravity' so to speak for the Separatists. On the flip side it meant that the Republic could concentrate a lot of military might in Kamino that would make it a very tough nut to crack, whereas the distributed logistics of the Separatists could be assaulted relatively more easily and with fewer forces, but consequently it meant they could 'roll with the punches'.

It was just so frustrating as I looked at the strategic picture of the Galaxy, saw what known assets the enemy had, what the Republic had… and everyone just saw what they wanted to see, not the true heart of the war. Master Yoda was perhaps the only other who saw that heart and perhaps Mace Windu, but everyone else just stared blindly into the painting of the Clone Wars as merely the Outer Rim's bid for independence.

My thoughts were interrupted by the ship's intercom, "All hands, prepare for Hyperspace, Seperatist invasion fleet has been sighted in Leritor. Repeat, invasion fleet in Leritor."

There was a brief shudder through the decking as the Resolute's engines came to a full burn. I pulled up a Navcomp plotter on my computer. The Fifth Fleet was currently in Blenjeel and given the hyperspace routes, could intercept at Lahsbane, the final stop before Kamino, after a thirty-six hour journey. The Separatists were facing a thirty eight hour travel time, assuming they had a standard fleet composition of frigates and cruisers. So theoretically we could get there in time. Unless they shed their heavier units they wouldn't be able to outrun us, but even if they sped ahead that would leave them outgunned when they eventually arrived at Kamino.

I closed the program, powered down the workstation and started strapping on my full armor, the jump to hyperspace caused another distinctive shudder through the ship. My wristcom beeped for attention.

"Yes, Skyguy, I'm on my way."

"How did you know it was me?" Anakin's voice emerged. Caller ID was sadly not a feature on the wristcom, though it was quite easy to theoretically do.

"Master, after an announcement like that only you would be calling me."

"It could have been Obi-wan just as easily."

He had a point, "To put it very briefly, I'm using the wristcom as a 'focus' if you will, that allows me through the Force to perceive who is talking to me." The further Sith refinement of that skill was to Force Choke the person calling you, even should you be separated by great distances. Good grief, would I be the one who teaches 'Vader' the beginnings of that… really?

"Interesting, anyway, planning meeting in Briefing Room 5, ten minutes."

"On my way."

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If there was one thing that had always bugged me quite a bit, was how on earth you could have a blockade in space, a planet or even hope to intercept any ship. Space was three dimensional after all. The answer was in the words Han Solo would use, 'Travelling through Hyperspace ain't like dusting crops boy!'. There were a great many factors and variables to using Hyperspace. The capabilities and computing power of a ship's Navcomp, dictated how fast it could compute a jump, and that was even using known hyperspace routes or corridors. Those lanes had emergence points in star systems that were programmed into every Navcomp that was built, with only minor variations depending on which star charts the ship was using.

That was how, for example, the Trade Federation had blockaded Naboo. The spaceports on the planet were well known, and any spaceport tended to be built on the same latitude of the planet relative to the hyperspace emergence and exit point that lead to the major hyperspace lane. The then Queen Amidala's royal starship, while having all the bells and whistles you'd imagine, simply did not have the onboard computing capacity to calculate an off-route hyperspace jump in any 3D direction to avoid the blockade in the time they'd have before they were intercepted by droid fighters. They also had to escape to a certain distance from the planet's gravity well.

Relevant now though; when a fleet of ships was travelling together in the same hyperspace lane, their combined mass was factored into the hyperspace calculations, which also meant they were relatively 'big' and could only use hyperspace lanes and emergence points that could accommodate them. It was therefore comparatively easy to determine where the Seperatist fleet that was attempting to get to Kamino would emerge from their hyperspace lane in the Lahsbane system, and would have to spend close to an hour in normal space, burning for the onward exit point in the hyperspace lane.

There was still fifteen minutes to go before their projected arrival and the Fifth Fleet was already there in combat formation, with all its fighter and bomber complements in space, ready to give the Seppies a warm welcome. I was on the bridge at the Tactical holo, observing and learning from Admiral Yularen, while also reading the after-action report from Commander Cody; who was the only reason warning had reached the fleet in time.

The Separatists had tried to sneak their fleet through by a rather cunning infiltration and sabotage of the Leritor listening post, using a new model of droid that had the intel weenies screaming fits.

The BX series 'Commando' model was something that was so far from the clunky, near moronic B1s and even the B2 super battle droids, that there was no comparison. They could almost fit in right alongside a Skynet lineup of Terminators. They were also agile, fast, and smart to the degree of reasoning a protocol droid had, armed with an E-5 blaster rifle, a bandolier of thermal detonators, a vibrosword and an electrostaff. Their armor could even shrug off one or two hits from a standard issue Republic blaster rifle. The only ray of sunshine was that they were relatively very expensive to produce, and we wouldn't be seeing them in large numbers, but that didn't diminish their potential threat and impact. Of the twenty clone soldiers in that listening post there were only four survivors, and that was with Rex and Cody helping them.

Then there was the issue of the meteor disguise the Seperatist drop pods had used. The best sensors were installed on those listening posts and they hadn't been able to detect the pods through the 'rock shells' the pods had been equipped with. The shells themselves were actually rock a few centimeters deep, but beyond that was a new sophisticated ECM suite that made them appear like actual meteors to even full active scans. Their relative expense again kept something like this from being used often, but it was nevertheless a powerful tool in the Separatist arsenal.

"Sir, incoming hyperspace signatures."

I looked up to the holo tank and watched as the angry red symbols of the Separatist fleet start to wink into existence; eight Munificent class Star frigates and four cruisers.

"Check," I grinned. They had clearly been counting on speed and surprise. They had lost surprise, and in so doing obviated their speed advantage. That fleet was not winning against twelve Venator Star Destroyers who had ready wings of fighters and bombers deployed and waiting. Whoever was in charge over there clearly had a smart head on their shoulders, as the Separatist fleet immediately reversed course and burned for a hyperspace exit.

"Instruct all fighters and bombers to pursue and to engage if possible, I'll be damned if we aren't going to inflict some loss on them for this," Yularen ordered.

A single bomber wing with fighter escort managed to get in range to launch on the tail end charlie of the enemy fleet, but the shields of the frigate in question managed to hold and shrug it off before they managed to retreat into hyperspace.

"I take it we are not pursuing?" I asked Yularen.

"No, they could use the opportunity to pull us out of position. This was clearly only a vanguard probing force, we're going to need reinforcements for this sector. They are clearly opening a new front here."

"That'll take time."

"Yes," nodded Yularen, "I foresee we're going to have a tough time of it these next few weeks."

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Yularen's words were borne out barely a few days later.

A combination of feints, actual attacks and recons in force throughout the vital sector and the Separatists had seized the initiative, successfully keeping the Republic on the backfoot. The competing priorities had forced the fleet to split up into battle groups and even then our strength was further pared down due to Republic worlds in the sector screaming for protection.

This resulted in the perfect clusterfuck of a tactical situation me and the rest of Anakin's battlegroup now found ourselves in.

Resolute, Freedom and Liberator, was all that stood between the world of Bothawui and being conquered by the Separatists. It was rather worrying to think what butterflies I could potentially drop here, since this was the homeworld of the race that would provide the spy network that the future Rebellion against the Empire would so rely on and the ones who were leaked the fact that Emperor Palpatine would be aboard the second Death Star. If my presence and other butterflies caused this world to be brought under the CIS yoke…

I shook my head to rid it of the thought as I stared intently at the tactical holo, no use worrying over things that were literally out of my control. The three Republic ships were holding the line beyond the rings that encircled the planet, exactly at the intercept point of a least time course from the hyperspace emergence point beyond the mass shadow of the planet. Long range sensors and listening posts had long since determined the size and composition of the enemy force that was bearing down on us and it wasn't looking good at all.

"Try to defend everything and you defend nothing," I muttered in disgust.

"That is quite an insightful thought, Commander." Admiral Yularen must have more sensitive ears than I gave him credit for, as he looked at me from across the holotable. If there was one butterfly that was a guilty pleasure that I indulged in, it was striking up a near mentor-protege relationship with the Admiral that in the old universe I knew, had not happened between Ahsoka and Yularen. I loved the universes of military space battles, and wanted to not just be an 'armchair general' so to speak. So I threw myself into the naval archives of the Republic, took my command studies very seriously and picked Yularen's brain on everything that I could without it being overbearing.

"Yes, well, we clearly can't keep this up or risk being defeated in detail. We won't be in a position to help anyone when that happens. I know it's kriffing bad to leave a world to the Seppies, but we won't defeat their fleet elements in pinch sized packets. We should reunite our fleet and crush the invasion, then we can liberate the temporarily conquered worlds of the sector easily. But no, we have a strategic Senate committee, that puts short term politics before military reality!"

"Be that as it may, Commander Tano," Yularen nodded, "that is the reality we face and our duty must be discharged in the face of it."

"I know Admiral," I grumbled, "doesn't mean I have to like it."

His mouth nearly quirked in a smile, "There is nothing to like about this, Commander."

"General Skywalker," a clone tech approached Anakin who was deeply absorbed in studying the local battlespace at a nearby plotting table. "Incoming transmission from General Kenobi." Anakin approached the holotable and a few taps on the controls had the full body holo of Obi-Wan appear in it.

"Greetings to you all, but I'm afraid I can't mince words. The battlegroup at Falleen has fallen to the Seperatist fleet element that is heading your way. They didn't even bother to conquer the planet or land forces." Damn, I had been hoping that going through the logical, normal motions of planetary occupation would stall for time, but clearly whoever was in CIS command in this sector wasn't bothering.

"Do we have any intel on who the commander is, Master Kenobi?" It was a question that I had been anxiously keeping an eye out for and was causing the occasional sleepless night.

"No, but intelligence has confirmed that Grievous is indeed dead. A Seperatist ship retrieved his escape pod, but he had suffered grave wounds to his organic components when his pod tumbled through the transition between hyperspace and real space, they were unable to stabilize his condition." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Anakin's fist clench and I could feel his sense of triumph and even joy at the news. "At this point, there is only speculation who commands the CIS fleet in that sector. The list of possible candidates is short but it is also incomplete," Only time would tell but given what I knew of Palpatine's grand plan, he'd definitely want it to be a non-human commander.

"Whoever this is, they seem to be perfectly exploiting our lack of coverage and know exactly where to hit us," Anakin sighed in frustration.

"You're heavily outnumbered, Anakin. I advise retreat."

"If we run, the Separatists will control a system that's the key to holding this sector."

"Not to mention the repercussions, the Bothans have been part of the Republic for more than four thousand years," I pointed out.

"And that is a problem, but we can't afford to lose your battlegroup as well."

I 'pinged' our slowly developing Force bond causing Anakin to look at me and after a brief exchange of thoughts he nodded at me. "My padawan and I have been working on a plan that should allow us roughly to engage the enemy fleet with even odds."

Obi-wan nodded after a moment of thought, "Very well, it shall be a report well worth hearing should you survive this."

Anakin smirked, "You know me, Master."

"That I do."

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Resolute, Freedom and Liberator were now in a V formation, with the Liberator holding the rear spot, and the other two as 'prongs' facing the incoming enemy.

The lack of seating on the bridge, except for those working in the crew pits had me really wondering what naval architects were thinking when they had designed these buckets but I couldn't really properly command from a workstation that had seating. So I had my hands clenched on the holotable and glaring at the tactical display it presented. Everything was in place, we had rolled the dice and the only things now in my control was simply the timing of the orders.

"Incoming hyperspace contacts, here they come."

Six Munificent Star Frigates translated out of hyperspace beyond the gravity well of Bothawui, and beyond the dense planetary rings of the world. They were a general nuisance for navigation only, as it was simple to just lay your course to take you over or under them, but quite a few daredevil pilots on the world below like to run through the rings as a test of piloting skill. The rings were made up of fairly hefty sized asteroids with a decent density, with some almost large enough to be called moonlets.

I gave a glance at Admiral Yularen and he gave me an encouraging nod. I recited the mantra for fear in my head quickly and keyed the battlegroup communications.

"This is Commander Tano, the enemy is here. You all know your parts to play, there's a Republic world below us that is counting on us to hold the line, not to mention the entire sector. So let's do our jobs and duty. We get through this, I'm sure there isn't a pub on the planet below that won't give you rounds on the house. So let's send these clankers to the scrapheap, Tano out."

Yularen gave me a considerate gaze, "Fair, for the first time." The upper hangar doors on Resolute and Freedom opened along the spines of the Star Destroyers and started disgorging ARC fighters and Y-Wing bombers, along with Anakin in his Jedi Starfighter. "I just hope the enemy doesn't figure out why we're screening Liberator in this fashion."

"By the time his sensors tell him the answer, it'll be too late."

The CIS launched their own droid fighters in answer, the Munificents weren't outright carriers and so only a single ready squardron could be launched directly out of hyperspace, but that still meant sixty droid fighters were bearing down on our own ready tally of twenty eight ARCs with twelve Y-Wings. If that wasn't bad enough, when the Munificents entered gun range, they had their spinal dual heavy turbolaser batteries that packed a massive punch, along with long range Ion guns. Six of them working together like this was a dire threat to just three Venators. If there was a competent commander over there, he'd just focus fire of all six frigates on a single Venator and blow the ship out of space in short order.

If this engagement was as simple as a chess match, we'd be screwed.

I brought up the relative ranges between the opposing fighter squadrons and the max gun range of the incoming enemy, projecting it as an angry red sphere that was slowly and inexorably bearing down on our formation. I also projected the engagement spheres of the fighters, in addition to the range of the surprise we were going to bring to the party.

"Enemy course is bringing them over the rings, they're not going through," announced a sensor tech.

I projected the new enemy fleet course on my holo and opened comms, "All fighters and bombers, launch in… five, four, three, two, one, launch, launch, launch!"

From the improvised hardpoints on the ventral fuselage, every Republic fighter launched a concussion missile. The missiles had been sourced from the local Bothawui aerospace defense force, whose relatively outdated fighters were of no use in the battle but that didn't mean their munitions were not, they had to after all still be able to protect themselves out here from pirates and the other criminal scum that the galaxy had to offer. That they didn't have a proper orbital defense grid was the unfortunate legacy of the Ruusan Reformation and the Clone Wars had caught a lot of worlds throughout the galaxy with their pants down, so to speak. The missile avionics had been patched to allow the astromech droid of each fighter to steer it to a target, so no amount of ordinary ECM would help spoof the missiles.

The droid fighters couldn't really be caught by conventional surprise, but their programming and the onboard hardware didn't have an answer to the unexpected missiles besides 'go evasive'. The efficient formations they flew in also didn't leave much room for maneuver to their 'wingmen' and we saw as quite a few utterly crash into each other as they tried to evade the incoming missile swarm.

Then the missiles arrived and I watched with satisfaction as the icons on the holo representing the droid fighters just began winking out in droves. The droid fighters that eventually intercepted the Republic squadron were barely fourteen strong, and were swatted out of space with a near contemptuous ease by Anakin's fighters, losing only a single ARC fighter in exchange.

Now they ripple fired all their remaining concussion missiles at the frigates.

I didn't have much hope for this in destroying them, but they would cause…

"Energy spikes, enemy anti-fighter defense flak firing and… their shields are double-front!"

'Double-front' was the catchall term for a ship or fighter that essentially transferred all shield power towards the forward emitters, creating a super durable shield at the expense of dropping the rear shields. The concussion missile swarm slammed into the frigate's shields, draining them naturally, but not appreciably enough to really matter.

"Enemy is entering gun range, energy spike!"

I slammed a finger on the com, "Liberator, shield transfer now!"

Resolute and Freedom both also threw their shields into double-front mode as well, but Liberator, with their shield geometries suitably altered and hidden behind the other two ships relative to the enemy, also engaged their shield in double-front mode, right in front of Resolute and Freedom. The shield itself was also fueled by every erg of power that Liberator could produce, except for that dedicated to life support.

The clone engineers had conservatively estimated that our forward shield strength now was the equivalent of a mid range orbital defense platform. The heavy turbolaser and ion blasts from the frigates had focused their fire on Resolute, but the fire splashed off the massively reinforced shields, barely draining their overall strength by about eight percent.

Time to end this, I thought grimly.

"Resolute and Freedom, all power to main guns, focus on the lead enemy frigate, fire!" Blue turbolaser blasts began streaming out into space. "Shadow squadron, join the party."

"Our pleasure, Commander."

Two ripples of concussion missiles thundered from within the rings of Bothawui and were steered perfectly into the now vulnerable rear arcs of the enemy frigates. The astromechs honing them in on the most critical bits of the engines. New contacts appeared on the holo as Shadow Squadron's Y-Wings powered up from their landing spots on the asteroids and with barely a few seconds pause began firing their anti-capital ship torpedoes.

It had taken quite a bit of fooling and tooling around but we had managed to power down the Y-Wing to a point where only life support was online. It wouldn't have fooled an active scan, but it did work on passive, so at least that gamble had paid off. The enemy commander had taken our by-the-book approach and fallen into the mode of thinking what we wanted him or her to think.

Three Munificents erupted into massive balls of exploding debris and flame as their reactors were breached, the remaining frigates frantically sent fire everywhere to intercept the fighter envelopment but it was pointless. The fourth and fifth fell to the combined guns of Resolute and Freedom, with the last being destroyed by an attack run by Anakin's squadron.

The Bridge erupted in cheers and elation.

"Nicely done, Commander." Admiral Yularen gave me a rare smile.

"It was a team effort," I waved him off but I couldn't keep my own smile from showing. "Normalize shields and tell the Liberator's captain he can go and change his pants now."

The clones around the holotable erupted in laughter.

It was then I noticed in the holo a fighter still maneuvering as if it was in a fight. A quick glance showed that it was Anakin, because of course it was, and he was in a dogfight with a Seperatist heavy fighter that was rapidly fleeing the area towards the boundary of the planetary gravity well. I didn't dare interrupt over the comms. Sure, he could handle the distraction as any Jedi could, but it was one more thing that I didn't want to burden him with when fighting who was probably the new Seperatist field commander.

It was over so quickly, I didn't even have time to blink before Anakin's fighter was tumbling out of control from the damage of an explosion on his starboard wing. The enemy fighter crossed the gravity well perimeter and vanished with a blur of speed into hyperspace.

"Scramble search and rescue shuttle, now!"

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Several hours later I found myself in the medical bay, seated right next to the bed of my rather stubborn and unconscious Master, who had a rather nasty concussion and an assortment of broken ribs, some of which had nearly punctured a lung. Anakin was already in a self-induced Force trance, which accelerated his healing at a near ludicrous rate but it would still be a few days before he was back to normal, as long as he stayed in bed. The doors opened and R2-D2 trundled in with a warbly greeting.

"Hello R2, all the bits and pieces where they should be?"

'I'm 100% functional,' the droid said in his characteristic binary, that still managed to convey an emotional tone.

"Good, I've reviewed the flight data recorder and I'm going to have a long talk with Skyguy about listening to you in the future." Debris from an exploding Munificent had neatly sliced into the starboard side of Anakin's starfighter, neatly destroying half of the engine's cooling capacity, and disabling that side's repulsor vanes. Instead of doing the sensible thing and throttling back, he gunned it to overdrive and kept chasing down the escaping enemy fighter. It was no wonder the engine on that side had exploded.

'He would not listen.'

"Gotta agree with you there," I nodded ruefully. I was sure the Force wouldn't let Anakin die but that didn't mean you could just sit back and shrug off his insane stunts. "Oh, which reminds me, did you find any problems in live fire with Bothan guidance systems on their concussion missiles?"

'Their systems are adequate and could use an efficiency pass but otherwise performed as in simulation.'

"Good, that should make it easy to convince Skyguy here to authorize us getting more and perhaps even we can negotiate a license from the Bothans to fab their design." Carrying those missiles on simple external release mounts on the ARC-170 and Y-Wings was to a casual observer rather dangerous, but if those were always expended before dogfight ranges were reached then it didn't matter.

I was also giddy that my idea for tweaking the proton torpedoes carried by Shadow Squadron's Y-Wings had worked. Torpedoes were usually fired by pilots at a range that guaranteed a hit, that meant they were at gun range anyway. Their vectoring capability was minimal as they were meant to hit big and slow capital ships. If a proton torpedo was fired at something that was beyond what was considered maximum range, it's on-board batteries which powered the vectoring ran out, and it became a projectile. Those same batteries also powered the mechanism which caused the release of the high energy proton particles of the warhead, which was what allowed the torpedo to be so compact in the first place.

My tweak was simple in concept but hard to do in practice for the techs that actually worked on the fighters and the ordnance. A secondary much smaller battery jury rigged onto the torpedo, which made it slightly longer but meant that its ability to be a weapon was retained even beyond powered range. It had meant that Shadow Squadron could launch their torpedoes well beyond flack and anti-fighter gun range. The torpedoes put themselves into ballistic intercepts with their targets before their primary batteries ran dry and relied on the new secondary to detonate. The downside of course was that the Y-Wing had less torpedoes to work with overall, but it was a worthwhile price to pay for not exposing the pilot and fighter to the danger of having to go point blank with a capital ship. Ideally, this would give rise to a new torpedo design for fighters that was two stages in essence, which would make their powered flight envelope even longer.

"How is your memory partitioning holding, by the way?"

'It is… the best word I can find for it, is odd.'

"I can't exactly imagine what it must feel like, like only having a part of my memory accessible through a straw, but if Skyguy isn't going to give you routine memory wipes, it's the only solution I can think of in terms of security. So if you ever do get captured…"

'Consider that partition deleted, I will not have harm come to you or Master Skywalker because of me.'

"I appreciate that R2," I gave the droid an affectionate pat on its dome. I do firmly recall this part of the timeline and the whole idea of R2 being 'salvaged' by the Trandoshan in the first place was ridiculous. Standard procedure after any major battle was to do search and rescue of a battlespace, not only for survivors, but for sensitive data and technologies, which included astromech droids socketed into starfighters.

"Snips?"

I felt Anakin return to wakefulness and try to sit up, wincing in pain at the action. Honestly, so impatient he can't even wait for a healing trance to do its job.

"Skyguy, welcome back to the land of the living. You'll be happy to know that everything went to plan, we got them all."

"Not all of them," he disagreed.

"Yes well, you'll also be interested that I've ordered that we remain in Bothawui orbit and our engineering techs are at the moment busy digging through the battlespace, especially the debris and remnants of the Munificent where our new CIS commander was present in the battle. Hopefully, they'll turn up something and if not, I'm sure there's some nonetheless useful intel to be gained." I had also ordered them to salvage as much undamaged CIS ordnance and droid parts as possible, after thoroughly scanning them for locator beacons of course.

"Good thinking, whoever they were, they fly pretty good."

"Any idea of their species?"

He closed his eyes and probably used one of the many internal techniques of Force aided memory recall, "Not a human, the feeling in the Force I got from… him, yes a him, wasn't really as comprehensible as a human mind would be. I couldn't get a close look at the canopy, was never close enough or at a good angle for it, and the transparisteel was glazed anyway."

"So relatively good pilot, male, non-human, might not even be humanoid in form at all." I got up from my chair and gave a playful glare at him. "I have to be off to prepare my formal report for the Council, since I have to pick up your slack and I've been ordered to tell you, it's doctor's orders that you are to stay in bed for the next day at least. You have a padd over there for access to entertainment and light reading only, no work and no reports."

Anakin groaned and slumped back into the bed, only to wince in pain at the action. "Fine."

"It's not the end of the world, Skyguy. So you lost a dogfight with a half broken starfighter, thank the Force you're alive, call it a day and relax. There'll be plenty of future battles to come with our mysterious new CIS Commander."

"Yes, Commander."

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