Chapter 10
"Time to reversion?"
"One minute, ten seconds."
"Hyperdrive status?"
"Stable for the moment, Commander."
I let none of my relief show on my face, using as much willpower as I could and the Force itself to aid in my self-control, projecting an aura of calm confidence to the bridge of the Resolute. We were running the hyperdrive at 108% of rated power. Technically, we could go to 115, but the chances of burning out the drive became a matter of when and not if. As it was, we would definitely have to take the Resolute back to Boz Pity for an overhaul of the hyperdrive after this mission.
The past eight hours had been a whirlwind of planning and preparations for the coming battle. I knew the general disposition of the Seperatist forces we were slamming into and I probably had the general element of surprise on my side.
I brought up a full tactical holo on my command chair and stared at the countdown clock until the hyperdrive would throttle down according to the navicomputer.
The swirling eerie tunnel of hyperspace suddenly shattered and the starlight of normal space reached my eyes, streaking as they interfaced with the boundary between the two dimensions.
The planet of Quell loomed large, then swallowed up the view beyond the bridge windows completely as the Resolute used its exit velocity to eat up as much of the remaining distance towards the planet as possible. The planet was what would've been termed a super-Earth in my previous life. On the surface, you'd roughly be experiencing four times standard gravity but otherwise had all the necessary ingredients for a habitable world.
As a result, that made it a strategic world for resource extraction in the sector for the Separatists. Living and working on the planet was only possible with significant infrastructure investment in gravity control technologies. That made it naturally one of the first targets the Republic would go for with the new hyperspace lane opened up that outflanked the 'north-eastern' CIS defense line. They had sent the first 'task force' that could be hurriedly called up which consisted of an understrength group of three Venators, led by Knight Aayla Secura.
I resisted the urge to facepalm again at the strategic level blunder that was now playing out on the tactical holo in front of me. This was nothing against Knight Secura or her tactics, in fact that she was still alive at all and her flagship still intact spoke volumes of her general naval ability. No, she had been screwed by the Republic overreaching too fast, too quick and trying to get the most mileage out of the new hyperspace lane before the CIS locked it down with another defense line. The only criticism I could give her in hindsight was letting herself get pinned so deep down in a gravity well that it left no escape options, even using escape pods was a problem as while they could climb out of the grav well with no problems, they would struggle to use evasive maneuvers and would be sitting ducks for the CIS star frigates to easily pick off.
I internally winced as I saw and felt through the Force the death of her second escorting Venator - now all that was left was her own flagship, the Herald, and it was in dire straits.
She was now facing down two Munificents who barely had any damage. A quick scan of the planet surface showed the wreckage of three more Munificent star frigates - she had essentially been mauled by a 'wolf pack' it seemed. And if that wasn't enough, the battlespace was now lighting up like a Christmas tree as both enemy frigates deployed rocket droids en masse to fall like rain onto the beleaguered Herald, whose shields finally collapsed under the accumulated battle damage.
This was good news in a sense.
"They want to capture Knight Secura it seems," I commented to Admiral Yularen.
"The Herald would also have the precise coordinates of the new hyperspace lane in its navicomputers."
"Well, we can't make life that easy for them, now can we, Admiral?"
The battlespace was just below the boundary level of the planet's exosphere at this point and the Resolute was soon closing to within extreme range of our main guns.
"Guns open fire, three volleys. Helm, bring us about, begin stage one," I ordered.
Resolute's guns blasted energy bolts into the shields of the two frigates, just enough to get their attention and get the on-board droids and organic crew into the decision pathways and thinking that I wanted them to go down. Soon enough, enemy fire began streaking towards the Resolute and splashing off our fresh shields.
"Helm, stage two, shields double strength, ventral."
The ship now partially rolled relative to the enemy and turned in such a way to present the entire ventral profile towards the frigates. None of the Venator's guns could come to bear in this way, but that wasn't the point.
The entire length of spinal hangar doors along the dorsal axis opened.
"Resolute squadrons, launch, launch, launch, primary target designated as Rho 1."
The Resolute launched every ARC170, Y-Wing and Actis Interceptor that could fly in a stream of fighters. They streaked out of the hangers and accelerated out - using the bulk of the Venator to initially shield themselves. Common doctrine said it was suicide to launch under combat conditions and the guns of the enemy. You had to lower dorsal shields and doors to do so, which was begging for a droid fighter to suicide into.
For a long time I imagined the damage I could do with a Battlestar Galactica or even Pegasus analogue in this universe with it's fighter launch tubes that didn't give a rat's ass if the ship was under fire or not, and now with a bit of maneuvering and playing with shields, I essentially had it.
"Close our doors, shields to double front and rotate us back to bring our guns to bear!"
Resolute yawed its aft around to waste the least amount of time and once again the dull thumps of the main guns reverberated through the hull again as they fired on the enemy. The clone fighter pilots had with a few minor mistakes in their formation neatly attacked in a bull horn maneuver that left the Resolute completely clear arcs of fire on the enemy without worrying about vaping our own fighters.
"Guns, give me a time on target barrage for Rho 1's engines, fire on my mark."
"Aye Commander, calculating… ready."
I stared carefully at the holo, waiting for the moment when the ARC and Y-Wing fighters reached maximum standoff for their torpedoes.
"Fire!"
Resolute's guns paused for a few moments… then blasted out plasma energy in a synchronized volley across every single gun that hit the aft shields of the enemy frigate. Torpedoes were now ripple fired from every fighter that could carry them, while Actis interceptors launched their externally mounted concussion missiles that turned the battlespace into a 'missile massacre' straight out of Macross.
It was as if a giant hand had reached out and swatted the droid fighters out of the sky and the energy trails from the torpedoes drew rather pretty red lines behind them as they soon slammed into the shields of the frigate, they withstood the first volley but the second follow up volley buckled and wrecked them.
Resolute finished the frigate off with a volley of fire that smashed it's engines superstructure to pieces, sending debris tumbling down where Quell's gravity eagerly claimed it. The ship's own anti-gravs and repulsors gave up the ghost and it was soon falling down as well.
The remaining CIS frigate now turned its firepower towards the Resolute and her fighter wings. This was good because it meant that it was no longer pounding on the Herald's hull armor, but now the casualties amongst the fighters started ticking up and the frigate started pounding on Resolute's shield with its two massive spinal turbolasers.
"Guns, get me a solution on that frigate's aft. Helm, keep our nose facing the enemy, port repulsors and thrusters to full! All fighters begin runs on that frigate."
Thankfully the exosphere of the planet at the current altitude was thin enough for this maneuver to still be possible without a crazy amount of drag from the atmosphere.
"Gun solution plotted, Commander."
"Fire!"
Resolute's eight dual heavy turbolasers and two medium turbolasers erupted - focused again on the aft of the Munificent. The angle of the salvo wasn't the best it could've been, with the massive bolts of energy coming in at about forty degrees instead of a plum ninety. The enemy shields were more successful in dispersing the hammer blow along a greater surface area of the force field.
"Fire."
Torpedoes from ARC fighters and Y-Wings were now being launched as they reached attack ranges and suddenly an enormous gout of an explosion rocked the enemy frigate. It seemed a torpedo had managed to sneak straight through a faltering sector of shielding.
"Guns, try and target that spot!"
The next salvo was once again intercepted by shields but the one after that allowed three shots to leak through and slam into the hull. More damage leaked through and finally the CIS frigate exploded into a smouldering wreck with the emergent shockwave of a hypermatter reactor going critical radiating outward.
The feeling of joy and victory erupted on the bridge of the Resolute but the naval clones were all professional enough not to cheer and clap.
"Incoming communication from the Herald, Commander."
The holographic form of Aayla Secura appeared in the air before my command chair.
Even though she had clearly just been in a battle for her life, even with sweat and bruising, she was still the textbook definition of beauty even to non-Twi'lek eyes and even though I was a hundred percent straight and she was about fifteen years older, I'd be lying if I didn't say that she was attractive to was a beauty she defiantly embraced and showed off with a midriff baring top and skintight pants, with the only allowance made for the practicality of war being the armored combat boots.
She bowed slightly to me, "Padawan Tano, thank you for your timely arrival."
"Knight Secura, you're welcome."
"Unfortunately, we can't count our victory yet. There's still a large contingent of rocket droids on board the ship and the fighting against them is not going well. We're understrength due to our casualties and we've lost ground. Most critically, if something doesn't change we're going to lose control of our hyperdrive section. The droids are pushing hard to take it over."
If the droids had unfettered access to the hyperdrive it would either lead to them destroying it, which would leave the Herald relying on its backup smaller hyperdrive, which was considerably slower or if they couldn't manage that...
"I'll personally lead a company of troops to reinforce you, Knight Secura."
"Hurry, Secura out."
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Despite the battle in space being over, the reinforcing contingent from Resolute had to deal with a squadron of rocket droids that emerged from destroyed sections of Herald's hull and started shooting at the approaching LAAT gunships.
The forward blaster cannons on the gunships fired in return, dealing with several of them. Some droids even stupidly took off again and tried firing rockets, but the point defense guns on Herald slapped them out of the sky the moment the guns could get a bearing.
I was in the somewhat awkward position of having to wear my 'fishbowl' helmet and life support pack for my armor, which was thankfully just as small as the standard one for the clone troopers.
The gunships all landed next to a large hole on the Herald's dorsal hull armor, near the main bridge superstructure and opened the side doors for troops to disembark.
With lightsabers lit, I led the way and used the Force to briefly arrest my fall into the corridors of the Herald, while Rex and the troopers behind me used jetpacks.
It wasn't long before we ran into damage control teams of the Herald rushing to and fro with repair droid support, fixing systems and shoring up the structure and clearing debris.
We had barely passed them in our trek to the engineering spaces when the first evidence of battle reached our eyes. Fighting droids built for combat was in general a dangerous prospect, fighting rocket droids in the enclosed spaces of a ship was utterly gruesome and much worse. The sight of limbs encased in clone trooper armor, just lying on the deck and leaking blood everywhere, headless torsos… it was a massacre of both troopers and naval personnel caught flat footed by the rapidly advancing droids.
I felt like I was walking through a corridor that might have been lifted straight from a UAC base on Mars in the Doom universe and it was such that I had to use the Force to prevent my stomach from regurgitating its contents into my helmet.
In the next corridor we encountered the opposition most likely responsible.
A squad of twelve rocket droids instantly opened fire on us, leading with a barrage from their arm mounted repeating blasters before following it up with three rockets from the ones in the front of their formation. Republic ship interiors were thankfully built for fighting within them and the clones managed to find cover behind angled bulkheads. My lightsabers were very busy deflecting fire, but the moment the rockets came streaking at us I reached out with Force and caught all three in a telekinetic grip before with a twist of will sending them down the throat of the droid formation.
The thunderous detonation wreaked havoc, outright reducing the droids nearest the blasts to scrap and picking up others to hurl them into bowling over others.
I rode out the explosion behind the cover of a bulkhead and the instant it was safe I was surging toward the surviving droids with a burst of Force speed. My lightsabers bisected two droids before a roll brought me closer to the next. The left lightsaber sliced another from groin to head, while the right deflected a blaster shot to take out another.
Rex and his squad were being their usual efficient selves and killing droids with a combination of fire from standard carbine DC15s and their sniper variants. Soon enough we were victorious in the skirmish and after making sure that each droid was fully out of action, hurried onwards.
Our next encounter happened just a corridor away leading into the main engineering section which led to the giant hyperdrives of the Herald. I halted my company with a raised fist as I carefully worked out what my senses were telling me. There were not just rocket droids down this corridor, there was another type of droid, which had a smaller power plant about the same size as a B1's but radiated much more power. There was only one type of droid which this could be.
A few hand signals to Rex and he nodded in understanding, and after a few moments I was handed eight droid popper grenades. A flex of will and the Force had the grenades floating next to me. Here was another little oversight I was going to bug Resolute's engineers with - a grenade launcher for droid poppers. Grenade launchers did exist in Star Wars, it's just no one had the idea to equip the clone troopers with them and use them for launching droid poppers.
I held up a signal for five seconds and the company braced themselves.
With a flex of my TK, the grenades were primed and zoomed through the air as if they were shot from a gun.
They detonated in mid air in front of the first rank of rocket droids and above the heads of the two commando droids.
We rushed down the corridor, blaster bolts whined through the air and found their mark on the twitching and helpless droids. It left the way clear for me to do a bit of Force assisted parkour along the walls to land right behind a commando droid and slice it to pieces, before throwing my right lightsaber in a lethal spinning fan of light that killed the other commando, before continuing its deadly dance through the air, destroying three rocket droids before returning to me.
The battle that followed was a blur of intensity; catching and stopping rockets from mulching my troops, deflecting blaster bolts, slicing up droids, at one point we were finally further reinforced by Knight Secura and another company of clones, but it was the tipping point in momentum we needed to break through into the cavernous engineering spaces that held the main hyperdrive of the Herald.
Further resistance here was light in comparison to the tight droid echelons we had fought to get here but it was slower going as the clones had to be careful of their aim. There were a lot of things in the giant chamber which housed the hyperdrive that did not take kindly to being blasted with superheated plasma bolts.
Things went from bad to worse when I spotted something alien on one of the main control banks of the hyperdrive. A burst of Force Speed and a jump had me there in a few seconds and right in one of the main interface terminals was a large and ugly looking programming spike - the USB drives of this universe.
I had barely touched the controls to begin finding out what party favor the Separatists had dumped into the Herald's hyperdrive when the entire room began to light up like a Christmas tree - each of the hypermatter cores and spatial banks began whirring with light, power and activity.
"Sithspit!"
I focused all my attention on the computer in front of me and began working the aurebesh touch keys as quickly as my fingers would allow.
"Padawan?"
I barely acknowledged Aayla as I tried to isolate the malware now coursing through the hyperdrive computer system and abruptly janked the program spike out the port.
"The hyperdrive has been sabotaged, it's going to jump us into hyperspace."
"Can you stop it?" Her grim question fully indicated she understood the sheer danger everyone on the ship was now in, with the Herald this deep in a gravity well.
Unlike what most laymen in the galaxy assumed who didn't understand hyperspace physics and navigation beyond the vague basics they were told through word of mouth and what they experienced when they traveled anywhere in the galaxy - a ship could indeed engage and enter hyperspace in a gravity well, it could even do so in atmosphere. The problem was that it threw a wrench the size of the ship you were flying into the safe course calculations that a hyperspace jump required.
"No, not in the time left before the hyperdrive is ready, fifteen seconds to go."
I tapped my communicator, "Admiral Yularen, I hope you're getting Resolute out of the way."
"Already on it Commander," bless that clever man, "rest assured. I hope you have a plan?"
"Keep a firm watch on our trajectory and follow."
"Good luck and may the Force be with you, Yularen out."
I turned to Aayla, "Knight Secura, how good are you with Force assisted hyperspace navigation?"
The Twi'lek Jedi let her lightsaber deactivate with a hiss and stared into the flashing screens of the main diagnostic display of the control bank, "Like all Knights, I have studied it and done it exactly once but…" The Herald shuddered and the pulsing of the hypermatter cores shifted into the rapid pulsing that indicated the ship was now shooting itself into hyperspace, "I am far from a Jedi Navigator's expertise."
"Then you're one up on me, I know the technique in theory but have never done it. You just need to let us survive long enough so I can disable the hack program."
"Very well," she nodded and tapped her communicator, "Bridge, I'm taking the helm from down here."
"Understood General," the naval Clone captain replied.
I took my place at the computer panel and continued to work on the hack, whilst Secura took another control bank and after entering her command codes had navigational control slaved to her computer station.
"Remember Padawan Tano, do or do not."
I nodded as my fingers began flying so fast on the controls that they almost blurred into invisibility, "The Force is with us."
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I was hardly what anyone would call a Slicer in the Galaxy Far Far Away, but in my previous life and this one I was a quintessential geek and infotech was a hobby and passion. I could build a computer system and troubleshoot it, could even write a decent program using the common computer languages in use throughout the Galaxy, but there was no time for finesse here.
"Knight Secura, you're going to lose the navicomputer for at least a minute in ten seconds, you'll be on complete manual control."
"Understood," she said as her hands moved across her controls while her eyes were half closed.
I took a deep breath and pulled the navicomputer out of the control loops, before just straight up formatting the blasted thing. Going scorched earth on an infected computer was the last resort but it was the quickest and dirtiest solution. Next I flicked a physical switch that kept the backup hyperdrive isolated and allowed me to use it's navicomputer as a backup to pull the software for a fresh main navicomputer. That done, I ran a quick diagnostic and that seemed to take an eternity but was in actuality barely 20 seconds - progress bars suck.
It came back okay and the fresh navicomputer was pushed back into the command loops.
"Done, navicomputer in the green. You have computer assisted control again."
"Dropping us out… now!"
The hyperdrive began to whine into a down cycle and I felt the shudder as the Herald dropped out of hyperspace.
Aayla visibly relaxed and stepped away from the controls, taking a few fortifying breaths. "Well done, padawan."
"You did the hard work, Knight Secura."
"I was not merely referring to the repair of the navicomputer, padawan. Every soul on this ship is alive thanks to you and I speak for us all in thanks." I could only bow in response to the sincerity I felt behind those words. "I sense we are not out of trouble yet, however. Come, we are needed on the bridge."
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I stared into the bridge's main holo table in deep thought as it displayed our new position. For it only being her second time, the feat of navigation that Aayla had pulled off was impressive. The Herald was holding station a few light seconds away from a star, which had been looming in our hyperspace route and unlike a planetary grav well, would've wrecked our hyperspace field completely and gobbled us up like a snack. Our navicomputer told us it was called Maridun. I marvelled in wonder at that fact, because Quell was about just under five thousand light years away. Under normal safe conditions it would've taken the Herald twenty hours to traverse that distance, and somehow under the influence of that deep gravity well and a lot of luck, the Force and Aayla's skill, we had accomplished the same journey in barely less than five minutes.
I was definitely going to pull and copy every scrap of data the Herald's sensors had, then put it under the nose of a physicist or Jedi Navigator to research. It probably wouldn't lead to anything truly groundbreaking in this war, but maybe within my lifetime something would come from it. If anything happened in nature once, it can happen again. Of course the danger of Palpatine benefiting from it also hung in the air, something he did not have in the original timeline, but I couldn't live my life with the fear of that monster hanging over me always. That in itself was a pathway down the slippery slope of the Dark side.
Knight Secura arrived along with the Herald's clone captain and Rex as usual was never far from my side.
"We have a dire problem, Padawan. I will let Captain Rish explain."
The clone captains, like all clones, chose to adopt a nickname beyond their breeding number the Kaminoans gave them. Among the clones given the responsibility to command a Venator in the Navy, they went even beyond and pulled a human family name from the millions that were out there, out of convenience mostly and because of the sheer responsibility that was placed on their shoulders.
Rish's face was grave as he pressed a few buttons on the holotank controls to change it to a diagnostic view of the Herald. It was a depressing view, with dozens of minor and major labels popping up to indicate a damaged system or one that was utterly beyond repair without access to a drydock.
"As you can see, this ship has been through the wringer, but our biggest problem is this…" he tapped another button and highlighted two areas. "Venators have two major life support plants within its structure, along with a small backup meant for emergency use only. The clankers that boarded us had three goals, hyperdrive, bridge and life support. We could only concentrate on defending one of the life support plants in sufficient strength before moving onto the other in mopping up the droids, that was all the time they needed to utterly wreck it beyond any hope of repair. We're therefore operating on sixty percent life support capacity and that will fall to fifty when the emergency system fails - as it's only meant to work for a limited time."
"What are our current numbers on board?"
"8,323," Rish replied grimly.
"How long can the life support capacity keep up with this?"
"It's not exact, but my engineers state we've got maybe fifteen hours before our remaining life support plant will be overwhelmed."
It was grim math, "So we have to evacuate our crew by half before we suffocate."
"No," Rish shook his head, "two thirds. Life support is not a hard numbers game, we need to give the system a margin from full capacity, so it can recover and allow those who remain on-board the time needed for further repairs."
"So where are we going to drop off the 5,548 souls this will require?"
Aayla tapped on the controls of the holotank and it shifted to a diagram of the Maridun system, "Maridun Four is our best bet. It has a breathable atmosphere, temperate and is mostly covered with savannah plains. The native sentient species are the Amani, who are not spacefaring and still in a hunter-gatherer stage of civilization but they are contacted and are aware of the wider galaxy in general."
Then there was the next obvious question, "Any CIS presence?"
"There has been no Republic settlement before the war in deference to the Amani, that might have changed since the war. The CIS are generally not as caring about native sentient rights but we'll need to get closer to know for sure."
I nodded in understanding, "We must approach this as if there is at least a CIS garrison force. I doubt it'll be big but they'll at least have some hyper capable fighting units and the ability to call for help. Speaking of which, tell me we still have hyper comms?"
"That we do," nodded Aayla.
"Then Resolute can be here within a day, but even with her help, she can only carry an extra two thousand people beyond her own compliment. We need to call for an empty Acclamator troop transport ideally."
"Even if one can be called, it will take time to get here, meaning we have an extended stay on Maridun ahead of us. Time is against us on this. Due to the Herald's damage, we can't attempt to land on the planet without possibly breaking the ship's superstructure, we will have to use every available LAAT landing craft and even the escape pods to ferry as many people as possible in a short amount of time. Then we need to assemble a field base to house them. We have the on-board modular infrastructure for it, but it can't possibly house everyone properly, so the crew will need to hot bunk. Make it happen, Captain Rish."
"Yes, General."
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The old saying was 'many hands make light work', and should also be 'quick work'. It was barely two hours after giving the evacuation order and the impromptu Maridun base was already taking a distinct shape from the air. Clone troopers and crew from Herald scurried between the established lanes, guiding the cargo LAATs down, which were usually used to drop AT-TEs directly onto the battlefield, but this time dropped prefab modular sections of what would become various barrack buildings. The perimeter of the base was marked by patrolling squads of troopers and AT-TEs each patrolling their assigned sector.
Aayla and myself were practically squashed like sardines in a troop LAAT carrying a mixture of troopers and crew. We essentially burst out of the transport the instant the large side doors opened. The moment the pilot had confirmation everyone was off, the LAAT roared into the sky again.
We were met by the most senior clone trooper groundside from the Herald's compliment who saluted Aayla.
"General."
"Captain Six," she returned the salute, "Situation report."
"Things are proceeding mostly on schedule, General. Our scouts have gone out to a fifty kilometer radius so far and our systems are patched into Herald."
"What of the CIS base we saw from orbit?"
"Scouts are en route and due to report in twenty minutes, General."
We entered a makeshift command center in the northwestern section of the base and congregated around a holotable, currently showing a topographical terrain map from Maridun base, all the way to the CIS base in question, overlaid with orbital scans, which was almost a thousand kilometers to the south-west.
"There can't be really more than a regiment of clankers that you can fit in there," I pointed out after giving the visual scan of the base a look over. "That's odd… they've only got three C-9979 landing craft and a hyper capable shuttle.."
"That's good," Aayla sighed, "is the interstellar comm jamming holding?"
"Yes General, Herald's keeping them nice and quiet."
"So we only have to worry about a routine patrol coming from the incoming hyperspace lane."
I had a different worry rumbling in my head. I knew generally what this planet actually was and what weapon the CIS was testing here. That the Force had put us here was no coincidence - the Defoliator, a neutron weapon that would leave droids and technology untouched but kill everything else in the blast radius. Now we had been forced to give the Seppies the perfect target to try that weapon out on. The only question now was the delivery method of that weapon. If it was still just a ballistic weapon fired from a modified tank, then there wasn't really anything to worry about. The Herald hovering over our heads could deliver squadrons of fighters that could precision strike any enemy force that could sally forth.
Theoretically, Herald could even orbital strike the base but the Republic had a very strict policy against orbital bombardment with heavy turbolasers on any garden world, which even the CIS adhered to as well, though that was more because of the PR war and the need to portray themselves as the 'good guys' to the outer and mid rim of the galaxy. The last great Sith War had seen many worlds suffer the fate of ancient Taris during the Old Republic and such was the cultural anathema against orbital bombardment that it wouldn't be until the Empire under Palpatine that saw its reintroduction as a punishment for disobedient worlds.
So if it was totally impractical for the Seperatist commander to throw a conventional ground force at us to get his weapon in range, what could be another way…
"General Secura, we have an incoming communication from the Seperatist base," reported the clone tech manning the base's com system. "They…" the tech shook his head as he tapped his earpiece and I sensed his shock, "... they wish to discuss terms of their surrender with us."
Nerfshit.
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If there was ever a being in the galaxy I would recommend seeing a cardiologist quickly then it was the Neimodian currently staring at us in holographic form. This was the case for General Lok Durd, who had an extra chin of fat bulging underneath his jawline that moulded into a general look that felt like someone had taken a pump somewhere and inflated him. His robes were opulent and given the scale of his holo image in the small tank, he probably stood at over two meters tall as well. His weight as a result would be horrendous, it was a miracle that he could stand on two legs and walk at all.
"General Secura," Durd awkwardly bowed, "a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The unctuous tone in his deep voice sent a deep revulsion tingling down my back, like someone was using it as a xylophone.
"General Durd," Aayla greeted him with an even tone. "Your communique indicated you wished to surrender. Why would you do this?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Durd raised his arms gregariously. "This measly backwater garrison couldn't hope to contest with the forces you have in theatre. It would be a terrific waste of resources and I can't even call for help. Oh, I'd probably kill a company or two of clones before I'd be overwhelmed but to what effective gain would that be to the war?"
"I understand. You're simply being pragmatic then. What are you offering?"
"Full deactivation of my droid battalion, the handover of the command encryption key and my personal surrender to you and the Republic."
"On behalf of the Republic, I accept, General Durd."
"Excellent, I propose the following coordinates for the meeting," the holograph flashed with numbers.
Aayla nodded at me and I took the prompt to input them into the computer and the indicated point was highlighted on the map holo table, "About four hundred kilometers north-west, only thing nearby is a local village of Amani."
"It's still four kilometers away from them and we have an understanding with the locals," Durd negligently gestured with his hand, "they won't bother us and it's a nice flat location that's closer to you than it is to me. We will be there at midsun tomorrow."
"And so will we," declared Aayla, "so long, General." She tapped a button on the holotank and cut the call.
"So will we really be walking into this trap, General?" I wryly questioned my superior.
"And what makes you think this is a trap, Commander?" Aayla asked me, her lip briefly quirked into a fleeting smile.
"If he was truly surrendering, it would be unconditionally and he would get in a shuttle alone and land on the outskirts of our base under the cover of all our guns and fighter escort after having deactivated his droids," I explained. "Instead, he wants to 'surrender' to us in a predefined location at a certain time." I walked over to the holotank and tapped into the general Republic intel database and brought up a profile of General Durd. "He is a known scientist and weapons developer for the Trade Federation and now the CIS. That he is out here in the middle of nowhere can only mean two things. He has either fallen out of favor so badly that he was exiled here or… the more likely reason, he is out here for weapons development and needed wide empty spaces to test his new toys."
"Interesting, I sensed his duplicity through the Force, but I take it you have more than a passing familiarity with Durd?"
"Yes, I majored in a few sciences at the Academy. Durd was a prominent figure in energetic materials science before the war. You don't have a mind and talent like his sitting in a backwater doing nothing."
Aayla stared at the holographic profile of the General and eventually shook her head, "Not going isn't an option. Nothing I see here tells me that Durd wouldn't just use any new theoretical weapon he has on the village out of spite and sheer practicality."
"Then we go on the offensive, hit the CIS base under the cover of darkness," I proposed. "That way we catch them flatfooted and whatever new war toy Durd has… he will face the prospect of being in the blast radius if he tries to use it on us."
"Bold strategy," Aayla commented evenly, "and somewhat aggressive."
I clamped down on my first instinctual response. Quite a lot of blunders and defeats in the Clone War could be laid right at the feet of Jedi Masters who were too defensively minded and even timid in their tried to twist the Jedi way and philosophy into governing their tactical and even strategic decisions. That to seize the initiative or do any sort of pre-emptive strikes was 'of the Dark side', never mind that later on they found themselves in grinding attrition battles which could've been avoided had they been a true General first and a Jedi second.
"It means we don't endanger the locals by having a battle within weapons range of their village," I retorted coolly.
Aayla eventually nodded, "Very well, we attack tonight. How quickly can you compose a battle plan, padawan?"
"In two hours or so," I answered, frowning at her. "They're your troops, General. Are you sure…"
"I have availed myself of your record, Padawan Tano. I know they're in good hands."
I felt an embarrassed blush sneak past my self-control, curse you puberty, "Very well, I'll get right on it."
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Lok Durd was not a heavy sleeper. The slightest disturbance in his environment was usually enough to raise him from slumber. For an ordinary person or any other species this would be a problem, but it was the primary reason Lok was even still alive at all. Neimoidian politics were not called 'cut-throat' in jest and it didn't matter what profession you were in, there was always politics involved in some fashion. In the fields of science, there were no outright assassinations, but you didn't have to use a blaster to ruin somebody's academic career and subsequently their life. The one thing that was prevalent though was espionage on rivals and peers. Each one trying to gather information on what the other was researching and getting an advantage by beating them to the punch.
The moment the door to his quarters started to open he was awake and reaching for his holdout blaster, but stopped when his aqualish engineer barrelled into the room at frantic pace. Grup was out of breath and had to wheeze for a few moments while leaning on his knees. The noise this made from an aqualish was something that reminded him of the bowel movements of a kitonak. Finally when Grup had his breath back, he began groaning and blubbering in what passed for speech from an aqualish.
"General, the Republic is attacking… we have maybe six minutes before their transports are on top of us."
Lok felt his stomach drop through the floor, "What? Only six minutes? Why didn't we detect them sooner?" He threw himself out of bed and grabbed the first presentable bit of clothing he could throw over his sleepwear.
"We only detected them when their ships passed above the scanner horizon."
Lok shook his head in disbelief, "That meant that they had to have flown mere meters above the ground all the way from their base. How many?"
"Twelve troop LAATs, twelve AT-TEs, escorted by a squadron of ARC170s."
He considered those numbers for a moment before rushing out of his rooms and into the corridors of the small base. The command post was fifteen meters away and he was cursing that he couldn't run faster with his bulk.
When he stared into the holotank that was currently showing the tactical plot he couldn't help but feel something was wrong. A fully stocked Venator was a frightful opponent to fight against and yet if they could pull off such a surprise sneak attack, why weren't they drowning him with more troops and blotting out the sun with fighters and bombers?
"Raise the base shields," he ordered the tactical droid.
"Yes, sir," the droid monotoned. On the holo, an angry red dome burst into existence as it covered the CIS base almost like a blossoming flower of energy.
"With the amount of enemy fighters, do they have the firepower to batter down the base shields?"
"Calculating," the tac droid intoned. "They would have to employ torpedoes. Set to an atmospheric ground attack yield, it would require three bombing runs from that squadron."
"Not considering that our AA emplacements would take a toll on them during each run. Twelve AT-TEs might as well be nothing in the face of our shield and then we can easily use the Defoliator to wipe the entire ground force off the face of the planet. Deploy all available ground forces."
He stared at the angry red symbols denoting the incoming enemy forces, that were mere minutes away from attack range. It would be a glorious test of the Defoliator, a much more worthy one than what he had planned originally. He really wished he could thank that lovely Jedi General for providing this opportunity to demonstrate his new weapon, a pity she would soon be dust in the wind, if she was on one of those transports. This form of test would also score him more points with the new supreme General of the CIS.
Unlike Grievous, the new General wasn't at all interested in indulging personal feelings and venting on subordinates in a deadly fashion. He despised inefficiency and incompetence. Failure would see one merely demoted and reassigned to the most unpleasant postings available to the CIS. Lok had only had a few direct conversations with the 'Illusive General', but they were memories that were stamped into his brain that he would remember for the rest of his days. It was such a pity that he couldn't meet and just sit down with him, as any communication from the General was solely via a disguised holo transmission.
Lok blinked and rubbed his eyes… what?
"Incoming torpedoes!"
The base rumbled and shook, forcing him to grab a hold of the holotank sides lest he lose his balance.
"General, the torpedoes… they were launched at over 30 kilometers range!"
"What?" Lok gaped at the tactical droid. "That's…" He wanted to say it was impossible, but the sensors didn't lie. For torpedoes to have such a range in an atmosphere…
The holo showed the Republic fighters perform a hard turn and just like that another impossible volley of torpedoes streaked in. It felt like a giant rancor was dancing on the base.
"Shields collapse imminent," warned the tactical droid in a monotone.
A thunderous cacophony shook the base, sparks flew from various systems as breakers were tripped from the overloaded shields and the lights flickered. The holo now showed the fighters angling in and breaking the sound barrier as they redlined their engines to close the distance to the base.
"Ready all AA batteries."
"All batteries are online and tracking, General."
The holo zoomed in to show the effective laser cannon AA range as an angry red sphere around the base, with the red delta shapes representing the Republic fighters, zooming in steadily.
"Thirty seconds," reported the droid.
"So they don't just want to destroy us," mused Lok thoughtfully. "They could've just sat there and used their standoff torpedoes to blast us off the face of this planet with impunity."
"Twenty seconds… fifteen… ten..."
"Well, you want to get me General Secura," Lok grumbled, "you'll have to pay for it with the blood of your troops."
The fighters crossed into range…
"Fire!"
Lok stared hungrily at the holo, eager to see those fighters wink out of existence.
Nothing happened. The holo suddenly lit with alarms.
"Fire, you stupid droid!"
"All power to AA batteries are offline."
"What?!"
"Diagnostics show no power is reaching the gun batteries, the lines have been cut."
"That could only mean…"
The tearing snap and hiss of lightsaber was one of the most distinctive sounds in the galaxy, right alongside the sound of a Corellian sublight engine, the roar of a disgruntled wookiee. Anyone who heard it knew instantly who would be there and there would be various reactions depending on who you were. Lok admired the weapon of a Jedi simply because of the sheer energy contained in such a small package and the skill required to wield it without lopping your own limbs off.
The blade's tone shifted as it moved, suddenly rising to magnificent crescendo and a green fan of light suddenly appeared in his vision, moving impossibly as a lethal saw of light that began cutting off the heads of every droid in the room.
It stopped spinning after relieving the tactical droid of its head and hovered there over the holotank, it's tip pointing briefly at Lok's chest before abruptly zooming upward and over his head, out of view.
He turned around carefully and slowly to regard the Jedi, casually catching her weapon in her left hand, before she made a flicking gesture with her right hand… and the door to the command post abruptly shut with a grim finality. It wasn't General Secura… it was the other younger Jedi… the young togruta with a near full body armor set.
The heavy whines and thumps of blaster cannons began resounding throughout the base, followed shortly by the whine of fusial engines in an atmosphere and secondary explosions shortly thereafter.
Lok didn't need to turn around to know that probably all the base's air defenses were in rubble now.
"Greetings General Dord, I am Commander Tano and will accept your surrender now. Please deactivate all CIS droids and hand over command keys and any relevant encryptions. If you refuse to do so, I will pull them out of your mind and the experience will be extremely unpleasant and maybe painful," she declared formally, deactivating her lightsaber and clipping it to her waist.
Lok didn't have to think about it for long. The thing he valued most was his mind and intelligence - he did not want to have a Jedi child poke about in there like a rancor in a museum looking for those codes. He quickly hurried to a terminal at the holotank and began the shutdown procedure. "It is done. I surrender."
"Thank you. Now, General Secura and I would really like a tour of this base, perhaps you can also show me what you've been working on lately."
"What?"
"I'm somewhat of a weapon designer myself. Maybe we can compare notes?"
Lok felt that there had to be something wrong with his hearing, "What?"
"Too much to hope for, I guess. Not every day I meet someone with your resume."
Was this Jedi scrambling his brains somehow?
"What?"
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