The Force Wills - Chapter 46 (Patreon)

“Admiral, pull the fleet slowly into the mass shadow of the planet.”

Wullf Yularen sat back in the command chair of the Resolute as he contemplated the order that he had just been given. He effectively shut out the sounds of battle reverberating through the ship; the alarms, the shudders of the deck under his feet. The sight of orange turbolaser fire streaking towards the fleet. Even those that hit the Resolute, barely made him even blink these days.

He took in the fleet formation, the enemy formation, relative speeds, positioning, all the Republic fighters and tried to see what Commander Tano was seeing. After having spent so much time together, teaching the young Jedi and rather strangely being taught by her on occasion as well, Wulff liked to imagine that he knew her and on most occasions could see the logic behind her strategic and tactical thinking.

That such a mind could be in such a young person, was something that often made Wulff consider that the Jedi had done something right in educating and raising her. She had none of the overt mystical nonsense that some Jedi wore like an extra robe around their shoulders. The closest she got to that was some of the profound philosophy she would occasionally pull out of seemingly nothing. There were moments though that she utterly frightened his mustache off.

The most obvious reasoning behind pulling the fleet back was to draw the Seppies into the mass shadow as well and removing hyperspace as an option for defense, attack or retreat from the table. An enemy fleet this large, retreating then dividing itself and running about the sector in small groups would not be ideal. That enemy fleet was here, now, and the opportunity to crush it had to be seized.

The question was would the enemy actually commit?

Would General Durge and his strategic advisor do it?

Wullf could well imagine them declining the invitation and just sitting still and letting the Republic fleet creep out of gun range. The problem with doing that was the fighter dominance the Republic had in the battlespace. The fleet’s Venators could launch further fighter wings that would smash apart the entire CIS fleet, even the Providence dreadnought would eventually succumb. The CIS would be reduced to only using their own ship-launched torpedoes for a long range punch. That punch was slow and couldn’t fire with enough numbers, which could be easily parried by the Republic fleet’s AA defenses.

Unless the enemy also launched their remaining Belbullab heavy starfighters to somewhat even the playing field in the fighter war.

“Yes, commander. Resolute to Fleet, Nav, forward repulsors and thrusters at one quarter,” he said, emphasizing his order by interacting with the holo in front of him and pulling back on the tiny holos of the fleet, to the position he wanted.

As much as he liked this modern holo system for command, control and coordination, that both Skywalker and Tano had designed, he would never be able to let go of the traditional verbal order.

“Group Delta, Time on Target, Munificent Gamma 3.”

Delta was essentially the right flank of the Republic fleet, consisting of six Venators and three Acclimators.

A few moments later a combined 84 quad and heavy turbolasers started a coordinated volley of fire.

The Munificent’s forward shields briefly held for about six seconds, transferring its rear shields forward before even that measure failed and it popped like a soap bubble.

The follow up volley tore through the armor and superstructure of the star frigate, multiple brief explosions and debris venting from the superstructure before something critical was hit… and it turned into a bright conflagration of light and wreckage that radiated outward in a sphere.

The CIS fleet responded with nine of their Munificents, using their spinal long range heavy turbolaser and ion cannons to batter down an Acclimator on the left flank of the fleet.

Wullf winced as a brief new light source blossomed among the Republic fleet. Thankfully the range between ships in the formation was such that little residual splash damage from such a loss could happen. Something that the CIS Navy still hadn’t improved upon.

“Well, they had to adopt the Time on Target tactic at some point,” Tano said and he could hear the weariness in her tone

So far the battle had been a measured slugging match, with ships jockeying for position until one side could deliver a hammer blow, only for the other side to throw one back. The only dynamic variable was the fighter wings that had already accounted for five Munificent kills and one Lucrehulk.

The Recusants and other AA defenses of the CIS took a heavy toll though and the tally of disabled or dead fighters currently stood at 201.

Their torpedoes and missiles were almost totally spent and it was getting to the point that Wullf was contemplating ordering a general retreat of the fighter wing, sending them to land and rearm on Kamino. The only fighter capable of still being effective in a capital slug match with no missile armament was the ARC-170s.

Then he spotted the death of another half-squadron of Torrents for no appreciable gain.

“All fighters retreat to the planet for rearming,” he ordered, inputting a course into the holo and dragging the small icons towards the planet. “Venators prepare for the launch of your next ready squadron.”

What would the reaction be of the enemy to this?

The fighters ran the gauntlet of the enemy formation and lost a further twenty six of their number before they could leave enemy AA range.

Group Alpha on the left flank combined their fire to kill another Munificent, but the combined fire of the Lucrehulk and six other Munificents on the opposing flank reduced a Venator to fiery pieces that swiftly ejected dozens of escape pods as the crew desperately tried to escape their dying ship.

Group Beta, the central wall of the Republic formation, suffered the attention of the enemy next as the Providence entered extreme range.

“Shield wall, shield wall!” Wullf roared.

Beta was arranged in a different formation to the flanks. It clustered Venators into triangular groups of three, but the trailing ship was completely obscured from enemy fire. This let that ship be the ‘shield ship’, whose job it was to focus its full power on throwing its shields over the ships in front of it and regenerating the shields.

The Providence’s eight quad heavy turbolaser and seventeen dual heavy lasers blasted out into the void, in concert with armament of the four Munificents that surrounded it.

The shield reinforcement meant that the Venator bearing the brunt of this attack lasted thirty seconds longer than it would’ve otherwise, allowing more escape pods to launch before it was reduced to a bright flare of expanding energy, gas and debris.

At this point, the Republic fleet crossed into the mass shadow of Kamino at a relatively slow pace of a few kilometers per second and moved back out of range of that blasted dreadnought’s guns. The frustrating thing was that there had been relatively low amounts of fire or damage done to it.

The Providence outranged every gun on the Republic fleet. The clustered Munificents and Recusants around it, combined with its own formidable AA capabilities meant that few fighters could dare venture close or successfully throw coordinated torpedo volleys. To this point in the battle barely a handful of heavy capital torpedoes had managed to impact Providence's heavy shields, damage which had already regenerated at this point.

There was only one weapon the Republic had which could fire at a similar engagement range and would really damage the dreadnought significantly; the composite ventral main laser on the Resolute. It was a weapon that they dare not use at the moment, lest it draw the fire of the entire CIS fleet on what was currently the flagship.

He directed another volley from the left flank to smash into the Lucrehulk on that side of the CIS formation.

Seven Venators fired at their extreme long range and reduced to starboard side of the enemy battleship to constantly vent gas and debris into space. It wasn’t dead, but it was clearly mission-killed.

“Sensors, any indication on the enemy’s drives?” he asked.

“Nothing evident, Admiral, they’re staying put in formation.”

He glanced at the holo and noted that every Venator was reporting ready. “Yularen to the Fleet, fighter launch!”

The eighteen Venators maneuvered to present their ventral profiles to the enemy. 216 fighters, this time composed of a greater percentage of ARC-170s streaked out of the hangar bays and accelerated towards the enemy.

He considered the problem for a moment, then came to a decision, “All fighters, target Recusants and Munificents on the port side of the Provi.” He tapped the targets in holo, broadcasting them to the fighters. “Fire saturation volley, delay five seconds, fire another.” The fighters all returned green acknowledgement signals. “All Venators, lock heavy torpedoes on the Provi, await my signal to fire.”

Turbolaser fire was steadily thinning between the fleets as the range opened up further and further. Into this space the fighters burned through, rapidly closing the distance to their own targets.

“Locks achieved, firing,” reported the chief wing commander.

The holo suddenly lit up in blue delta icons with the mass launch of torpedoes.

Then another mass launch.

Inwardly, Wullf was silently and irrationally urging the torpedoes to move faster.

“All Venators, fire!”

72 heavy proton torpedoes streaked into the void, immediately starting on an evasive course and spiraling in towards the enemy fleet. This was to keep the CIS guessing as to the potential target for these slow but very deadly torpedoes, but it was a rather pointless gesture. Any decent commander would know that the Providence was the only viable target for these weapons.

The virtual cloud of fighter-launched torpedoes entered enemy AA range and the droids manning those stations opened up immediately with a torrent of laser and flak to destroy the incoming weapons.

Seven.

Only seven torpedoes in the first wave survived to smash into the starboard shields of a Recuscant, collapsing it.

With their targeting solutions and computations further refined, only five torpedoes made it through the hellish storm of laser and flak to smash into the targeted Recuscant.

It vanished in a flash of light as its hypermatter reactor detonated under the proton particle hammer blows that smashed through the hull and armor.

The gap this opened up in the enemy AA coverage was not enough and the heavy torpedoes were easily swatted out of space without even getting near the dreadnought.

“It was a good try to strain their targeting solutions, admiral,” Ahsoka said over the command link.

It was bloody pathetic, he screamed internally. The CIS was stepping up their anti-torpedo and missile tactics. They were learning and getting better at this deadly game. The same attack would’ve at least killed two or three Recusants and battered the Providence's shields just a month ago.

This was going to force torpedo releases closer to the enemy, a return to the old paradigm of grinding attrition warfare, where fighters bled and died to release those weapons - only this time much worse given the better AA defenses that stand-off weapons had inspired.

“Admiral, make your next launch a mix of concussion and proton. Proton first, ten second delay.”

“Understood, commander.”

Torpedoes streaked into the void again from the fighters, who had kept themselves in a holding pattern two hundred kilometers beyond the maximum AA range of the CIS fleet.

Concussion missiles followed afterward exactly as he had ordered and he intently watched the holo, fighting to keep his outward neutral posture and expression.

The scintillating blue particle trail of the missiles allowed you to see them with the naked eye at this range and they made for a pretty sight.

The timing of the two volleys turned out to be exactly what was needed.

The droids had to treat the concussion missiles as a threat, as the sheer volume of them concentrated on a single target would also deplete and batter down shielding. A discerning commander with an experienced crew would make the calculated sacrifice, prioritizing the torpedoes.

The droids however simply saw it as a threat that needed to be dealt with.

The proton torpedoes and concussion missiles merged into a singular cloud just as they passed into the AA defense zones of the enemy.

Again, enemy flak and laser defense streamed through space, hoping to swat away the threat.

Concussion missile and torpedo both died.

His eyes lit with triumph though as he saw that thirty one torpedoes had made it through the active defense!

The torpedoes quickly split into two equal groups that targeted the last Recusant that was guarding the dreadnought and another Munificent in close formation.

The light destroyer had no chance and erupted into an expanding cloud of gas and debris, which a few seconds later started to pelt the dreadnought, enough to actually damage those monster shields.

The Munificent fared slightly better, but was cracked in half when one of the guiding astromechs managed to guide its torpedo right between the primary bow armor plates and got lucky.

“Again!” he ordered.

Thirty seconds later, another Munificent was destroyed.

“Admiral, aspect change to the enemy fleet,” reported the Sensor tech. “Engines are lighting off, they’re following us into the mass shadow.”

Wullf nodded, “Well commander, it seems the enemy has taken your invitation.”

“Then we shall strive to be welcoming hosts,” he could hear the smile in her voice. “Keep our fighters at stand-off range and keep the fleet going until you hit low orbit.”

The CIS fleet responded in kind for the first time at this point.

The nine remaining Munificents and the Providence fired heavy torpedoes at the steadily reversing Republic fleet.

“Arquitens cruisers to the front of the fleet,” Wulff ordered. He quickly reviewed the intelligence profile on this Providence that had been hurriedly generated so far. It had sixty-one, three shot launchers, so could conceivably fire 183 torpedoes within fifteen seconds before having to go through a relatively lengthy reloading. How long that was exactly the Intel divisions could only give best guesses about.

A look at the holo proved that Intel had guessed correctly in this instance. Just like the Republic had generated hits by saturating defense, the enemy commander was trying the same.

Combined with the Munificents launching, there were now 243 torpedoes bearing down on them.

It was a rather pointless gesture in Wullf’s opinion. It spoke of frustration and just firing for appearance’s sake.

The Republic AA burst to life a few minutes later and sweeped space clear of the slow enemy torpedoes, none managed to penetrate the active defenses.

He didn’t want to leave the launch unanswered, “Fighter Wings, target Munificent Lamda One.”

The mass torpedo and concussion missile launch did its job again and 44 torpedoes penetrated the enemy AA, slammed home into their targets, killed two star frigates and finished off the badly wounded Lucrehulk.

A glance at his holo indicated another creeping issue, his ARC fighters only had three more such volleys remaining.

The Providence only had three more ships remaining to aid it in its active defenses, but four more Munificents could theoretically maneuver to replace those losses.

Then, as if his thoughts were direct inspiration to the enemy commander, those ships started maneuvering to take up direct escort positions around the dreadnought.

Seven star frigates now surrounded the dreadnought, with the three remaining Recusants trailing behind and escorting the last remaining Lucrehulk.

“Admiral, we must keep them thinking our backs are against a wall, we must also keep them interested and pursuing us. I’m sending you a course for the fleet.”

His holo lit up with the course she had designed. It was essentially just to keep reversing and use Kamino itself, keeping the planet to their starboard side and doing what was essentially a powered orbit. It almost looked like an ancient slingshot ballistic course.

“This will mean we have no choice but to let them get back into gun range,” Wullf pointed out.

“Yes, we must offer them a chance for victory in their minds.”

He saw immediately what she was getting at. It was just a grim calculus that they would have to sacrifice ships to achieve this.

“We’ll get it done, commander.”

His hands tapped the holos of the enemy ships, “Fighter wings, target the following ships… launch everything and retreat to the planet.” He dreaded his next order. “Nav, reduce our relative speed, I’m sending you a new course.”

Missiles and torpedoes burst into space and the range to the enemy fleet began to creep slowly down…

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In that moment, it was a struggle not to hate myself for the order I had given.

I had to offer battle to the enemy or there was a real chance that he could possibly break through the blockade with that bloody Providence.

The probability lines along that path was the certain death of a fair portion of Tipoca City and substantial damage to other surface cities. My opponent was perfectly willing to direct the dreadnought into crashing directly into the planet surface - he didn’t even need to be accurate. Something with the mass of that ship hitting the planetary ocean at any appreciable speed with the aid of its engines and pure gravitational attraction would at least cause a planetary wide catastrophic climate shift in the long run and a water displacement well in excess of anything the kaminoans had built their cities to handle.

What the bloody hell was Palpatine thinking in letting these futures have such a high chance?

Yes, he had the Spaarti clones on Centax 2 as a failsafe option. Spaarti clones had numerous drawbacks though and could not fight the Clone War as he needed it to go. It had the advantage of being able to clone a full human to maturity in one year, but their training was accomplished with ‘flash learning’ imprinting and was decidedly substandard. HK would call them ‘meat B1s’, for their effectiveness was similar.

“Commander?”

Rex’s voice had managed to snap me out of my woolgathering. It had been some time since I had allowed my prescience to distract me so sufficiently. Palpatine was truly riding the edge of a knife at the moment and it had surprised me.

The battle in the military complex was still ongoing. Dividing my attention there and managing the battle in space as well was proving to be a strain. Thank goodness Rex and Yularen were there to handle the details and I could keep my head only in the strategic realm.

I flicked my hands into the holo and brought forward two screens that were tracking the ongoing fights between Anakin and Ventress and Durge against Obi-Wan and Shaak Ti. The quick program I had written to keep a sensor interlink between internal surveillance and their comlinks was holding nicely. It allowed me to project my senses and if needed my TK onto both conflicts.

The fight against Durge was the most critical and perilous.

The ancient mad bastard was like a force of nature and it was taking all Obi-wan and Shaak Ti’s skill and power to just remain alive in the face of the 2000 year old gen’dai warrior.

Even as he fought, he firmly retained the initiative, dictating the direction and pace of fight, with his primary single-minded goal being to kill as many clones as he could with sadistic pleasure and delight. Even when both Jedi Masters managed to land full on hits or strikes that would kill anyone else in the galaxy, the gen’dai just laughed it off.

It was all I could do to pull clone squads out of the way of the running fight.

Not an easy task considering that the clones still had to fight off the droids infesting the military complex. It was also clear given the direction the gen’dai was generally moving that he was intent on heading into the primary barracks and shelters, where the clone youth were.

Even with full control of the environment and shutting blast doors in Durge’s face only served to slow him down. The general had clearly come prepared as each time it happened he shoved a remote spike probe from his armor into the local controls that hacked the door within less than a minute.

That such a thing was even possible spoke of a clear infiltration and intel leak. The obvious guilty party being Palpatine himself, feeding intel to Dooku, which allowed a conventional infiltration to happen, so that to all external appearances it was just the playing out of the spy game.

I flinched slightly as my prescience presented a very grim probability line.

It was all I could do to keep my food in my stomach. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to curse and scream at the universe that such evil existed. That someone like Durge could exist.

I saw clone kids, their lifeless eyes just staring up, blood, limbs awkwardly bent… my mind rebelled and recoiled trying to even put further words to it.

Durge launched an electric bola at Master Ti…

My will surged forth and the bola was deflected to the side, missing her completely before it was crushed.

“Interesting!” Durge declared with delight as he used his left gauntlet energy shield to slap away Master Ti’s lightsaber strike, whilst casually kicking away Obi-wan’s lightsaber… with a disc energy shield that suddenly emerged from his thick calf.

That was new, the bastard had been improving his armor.

“You Jedi generally need some form of movement to use your powers… is my third opponent finally entering into the fray?” he laughed darkly and stared right at the holosensor.

Naturally I didn’t answer. It would be a pointless waste of precious time, even if I could use the local PA system in that hallway they were fighting in at the moment.

“Rex, move Squad Theta towards the adjacent hallway 1534 now.”

“Yes, commander.”

Durge fired his machine gun gauntlets at Obi-wan, threatening to utterly shred the Jedi Master with a mass of flechette projectiles.

All of which stopped dead in mid-air with TK from me, allowing Obi-wan to simply dodge to the side and attack Durge’s extended arm as the Jedi master moved in a blur with Force imbued speed.

The blue lightsaber sparked and cut through the upper half of the gun gauntlet rendering it inoperable.

Durge grunted in annoyance for the first time as the blast door opened and he sped through. The fight continued with Master Ti using the Force to bodily pick up the gen’dai and slam him into the ceiling before letting gravity take over.

The general’s jetpack flared into life and he literally used himself as a missile to try and take off Master Ti’s head with his disc shields as he passed by both Jedi Masters and landed.

I refused to celebrate the gen'dai losing some initiative in the fight.

They both managed to fend off and deflect the energy discs and Durge pulled out his spiked electro flail and began a slightly more traditional back and forth duel with his two Jedi opponents.

Obi-wan deflected the flail and slashed for Durge’s huge chest, who simply stepped back and let it miss, allowing him to use his right energy disc to fend off Shaak’s lightsaber.

Obi-wan smoothly conserved the momentum of his swing into an overhead slash, intending to bisect the gen’dai vertically.

The flail defended and with a flick of the wrist, Durge had it surging straight for Obi-wan’s head.

The Jedi master dodged at the last moment, slapping at the flail head with his lightsaber to send it off to the side.

Durge, at the same time, fended off Shaak Ti with a combo of his right energy disc, followed with a kick, with the foot disc bursting into life. She narrowly avoided getting her left lekku sliced off.

His flail caught Obi-wan’s lightsaber, wrapping around the blade in a nice trick that threatened to rip it right out of the master’s hands.

The scream of lightsaber energy competing against the energized flail whined through the hallway as Obi-wan pulled on it with all his strength. He succeeded a moment later, only to catch a big boot from Durge right in the stomach.

The gen’dai laughed with his typical awful gurgle and leveled his right arm to the fallen Obi-wan, whilst simply using his right leg’s energy disc to keep Shaak Ti at bay. He was using kicks and blocks with fluid quick moves that had no right to be done by someone so big and bulky.

His gauntlet flamethrower began sparking and threatening to belch flame all over the prone Jedi Master.

My will reached out, surrounding that thick gauntlet and I crushed.

Durge’s forearm went from the diameter of a tree-trunk to the size of my own fist. The metal of his armor shrieked and cracked as it deformed horribly and most importantly, rendered the flamethrower useless.

In the next moment, liquid flame burst out and poured out all over Durge’s armored legs and lower torso. My guess had proven correct. He still based his flamethrower on the Mandalorian style, which used a binary flame propellant technique; two inert liquids stored in the gauntlet, which were harmless on their own and would only light off when combined and energized with a specific frequency of power.

Obi-wan jumped to his feet.

He and Shaak Ti backed off with blades in guard positions to see the effect.

Durge stood there, cooking in his own flames, and for the first time I could sense something other than glee and enjoyment from the gen’dai.

He was distinctly annoyed.

“I’m going to enjoy the day you stand before me and we fight properly, little Tano.”

Shaak Ti didn’t like that, and expressed her displeasure by throwing a Force Push that doused the flames immediately. Obi-Wan flung up a hand, using the Force to introduce Durge to the ceiling again, but then the Master pulled down, to crash the gen’dai into the floor.

Durge blurred to his feet the moment he had leverage and charged into the fight again. His right gauntlet had also lost its energy disc from my crush, so he was forced to keep using his leg to fight off Shaak Ti, whilst the flail he reserved for Obi-wan.

The fight was so quick now, that anyone just looking at the holoscreen would just be bewildered, not being able to make heads or tails of what was happening.

Durge was keeping his flail in a constant spinning motion and sending it forward against Obi-wan like it was a disc saw, whilst he used his right fist and leg disc to kick away Shaak’s lightsaber and tried to slap her with a massive open hand. The speed and strength if that hit a normal person, would’ve been near instantly fatal. Thankfully, Jedi could use the same tricks that allowed falls from great heights to also blunt direct impact forces, if they kept their guard up, which was why Obi-wan didn’t have a collapsed rib cage from that kick he’d taken.

The fight went on, with the Jedi Masters now having a much easier time of it now that I’d taken away a fair bit of Durge’s offensive tech.

The general swung his flail in a wide arc, trying to catch both his opponents.

They dodged back and before the fight could move past the next major bulkhead, I triggered it to slam shut and box the general in again.

“Really, Tano, don’t you learn?”

Just as he tried to stab a hacking spike into the local port, I showed him that I do learn quickly.

My TK crushed the spike and wrecked the logic port.

“Good!” He praised me and slashed the lightsabers of both Jedi away in a contemptuous fashion.

His jetpack lit off and he soared back down the hallway, landing at the previous intersection they had fought through.

He brought out another hack spike, from his massive bandoleer. “Just so you know, little Tano, you limit my options enough and I’ll go out with a very big bang!”

Great, that meant he had another equivalent to a suitcase nuke on his body somewhere.

He tried to hack a door that would take him deeper into the complex, but I stopped that cold. He grunted with annoyance and rushed to the other side to hack a door that would head west and the exterior of the complex.

By the time it opened, Obi-Wan and Shaak Ti were there, falling on him with lightsaber blades and Force Pushes.

I decided to encourage him further by crushing his right leg just as he was about to deliver a kick to Shaak Ti. It destroyed the energy disc there and left him off-balance just enough for the Jedi Master to step inside and utterly slice through that leg, a few centimeters below the knee.

On any other opponent in the galaxy, that would be game over.

In a gen’dai’s case, this actually made him more dangerous. The armor was there to contain his form.

Spilling from the stump came multi-colored corded sinuous muscle that behaved like a dozen or more ‘tentacles’ that not only supported Durge’s weight, but now gave him seven or more limbs to fight with. Master Ti wisely backed off immediately just as those tentacles shot outward with the speed of a bullet and tried to grab her.

Her lightsaber whirled around her in a blur of movement, causing cauterized gen’dai tentacles to fly off around her.

I next found the focus to finally grab a hold of that bloody electro flail, which I crushed to pieces.

The gen’dai looked at the now useless weapon in his hand and growled deeply. “I liked that one. Just for that, I’m gonna make a point of crushing your glowy swords, Tano!”

Before Obi-wan could further capitalize, the gen’dai general whirled and used his jetpack again to retreat.

I made a snap decision that I didn’t want the near-suicidal bastard with a nuke in the military complex, so opened every door for him to allow his retreat.

My plan to finally kill the general wasn’t ready yet and keeping him here would only lead to the destruction of an entire dome of the complex, prescience was clear on that probability line.

“Ahsoka! Are you sure that was the right call?” Obi-wan said into his comlink.

“The more you let the gen’dai out of that armor, the more dangerous they become. He also has an implosion device somewhere inside his armor. If we corner him here…”

Obi-wan nodded, “Understood, what’s the overall situation on the ground?”

“If neither of you are too fatigued or injured, there are still a number of droid strongpoints that require breaking.”

“Direct us there, padawan,” Master Ti ordered.

I began to rattle off the directions as I took in what Anakin was doing…

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Their fight had gone back and forth in the secure hallway that led to the primary DNA chamber that held in stasis the full original sample of Jango Fett’s genome, upon which the entire clone army was based.

Ventress had so far not once tried to use Force Lightning in the fight, which showed that at least she had a functioning head on her shoulders and could learn. Anakin’s experience with Emerald Lightning during training with Ahsoka had taught him a lot of the finer intricacies of working the flows and potentials of power through the Force, and if there was one certainty, no matter how powerful you were, the price paid made its use in a long fight questionable at best.

Ventress had seemed very angry and surprised at the beginning of the fight, as if she couldn’t believe that any of them had the foresight to put a guard on the DNA room.

Now she was just full of anger and desperation as their blades flashed and clashed at each other.

She had to cross her blades to stop his overhead slash from bisecting her.

Her left blade disengaged as she tried to keep his own blade out of position with her right.

He took a step back, controlling the range of the fight and her slash missed.

He conserved his momentum, bringing his blade back in a blur and testing her with a Falling Avalanche.

She blocked it easily with her crossed blades.

“Is that all you can do, Skywalker?” she mocked.

She riposted, trying to impale him through the chest.

He countered, bringing his blade across his body, pushing her probing blades to the side and attacked her left side in the same swing.

She brought both blades to block him, but he pulled his swing, transitioning into a feint.

His true attack hit her when his sweeping leg hit the back of her legs and swept them out from under her.

She turned her fall into a full reverse somersault, but Anakin pounced and hit her with Force Push in mid air.

Ventress screamed in fury and tumbled through the air, managing to twist and tuck to land on her feet and skidded on the floor to bring herself to a stop.

He blurred with a burst of Force Speed and aimed to run her through the chest with a stab before she could even get up.

She had to use both blades and a Force Push to deflect it enough so she wasn’t just skewered.

Anakin let his blade be pushed out of the way, but brought up his foot and released another Force Push from it directly into her face.

This time she tumbled across the floor, switching off her own lightsabers to avoid getting sliced by them.

Anakin walked forward with a deceptively casual speed, “How was that?”

Ventress pushed herself up from the floor and glared viciously. He could feel her gathering power and the awful stench of the Dark Side soared to new heights.

Her red blades reignited and she did her own burst of Force speed that was quite impressive.

Anakin met her blades and channeled the Force through his right arm, batted the blades aside, before flicking his blade into a quick reverse grip and almost sent it surging right through Ventress’ eye socket.

She barely dodged by tilting her head and had to duck to avoid his reverse sweep that would’ve decapitated her.

His blade flicked and flipped around, back in a more conventional position, in time to riposte both red blades that attacked his neck and legs.

Ventress was furiously backing up, clearly trying to retreat for her trick of fighting in a location of her own choosing, where she could also use the environment as a weapon.

Anakin didn’t relent, stayed with her and sent his lightsaber crashing into her with a wide variety of probing strikes that would end her instantly if she made the smallest mistake.

Their fight carried them into a corridor junction and she finally managed to open up some room, with a quick Force Push that stopped all his forward momentum, but his own counter-Push canceled the rest.

She turned left and sprinted with a burst of Force Speed and simply ran, her dress flapping hard.

Anakin gave chase with his own bursts of speed, alternating between conventional sprinting and using the Force.

They soon emerged back outside of the main city dome and into the wind, rain and chaos of the ongoing battle.

Anakin didn’t have an overall picture of how the fight was going, but only saw many droids being cut down by concentrated fire from dozens of clone squads also emerging from the domes. Gunships circled overhead and steadily cut away Trident ships from the exterior of the complex. Shoulder launched missiles also streaked occasionally through the air - homing onto droid positions and knocking out Tridents that were busy detaching themselves.

He pulled on the Force and bent his knees, pushing himself into a high leap that carried him directly onto the still retreating assassin.

She didn’t try to contest the strength of this attack, dodging and fending off the path of his blade.

He conserved his momentum, bringing his blade and body into a quick Ataru form and whirled acrobatically through the air, attacking her left side.

She had to lean into her deflection with both blades to stop it, before Anakin pulled his blade away and attacked her right side.

Such was the strength he put into it that she elected to dodge by contorting her back and holding her crossed blades over her chest to keep her guard up.

He took advantage of the gap in her defenses as a result and delivered a forward push kick to her lower legs and unleashed a Force Push.

She hissed in pain as she went tumbling and barely caught herself from falling right over the edge of the platform.

Ventress got herself to a vertical base and screamed in fury as she charged into the offensive, the Force twisted and boiled with her hate.

She slashed at his head with both blades from the left.

He took a step back, whirled his blade in a feint to draw in her attack and prevent his blade from getting locked. Another whirl and he slapped the trailing edges of her blades, adding extra momentum to her attack. It threatened to pull her curved lightsaber hilts straight out of her hands.

Ventress went with the momentum, spun around and used the Force to leap into multiple kicks that attacked his left side.

She had chosen her moment well and her strength was augmented with the Dark Side.

He was forced to release multiple Force Pushes just to stay upright, but the bleed off still meant that he was driven back a meter or so from every kick.

Before he could move into a counterattack though, the energetic whines of dozens of blaster rifles being armed reached them.

Two full squads of clone troopers were now there, some taking cover behind the severed manipulator arm of a Trident, and aiming their weapons right at Ventress.

She looked at them all and smirked, “I suppose you expect me to surrender?”

“I think we both know how that will go,” Anakin replied evenly. “It’s a long way to Coruscant. Just like Dooku, the CIS can’t afford for you to be captured. So-” He gestured with two fingers.

The clones didn’t hesitate and opened fire.

Ventress burst into motion, deflecting the bolts easily at first, but the sheer volume of it soon began to drive her back and in desperation she unleashed a wide Force Push that bowled over most of the clones or upset their aim at least.

She burst into Force Speed, and jumped off the edge of the platform.

Anakin rushed to the edge and looked down.

It was an almost 200 meter drop to the stormy ocean floor, but that was nothing for a skilled Force user. He could just briefly see her form receding as she let gravity claim her. Barely a few seconds later a small splash heralded her entry into the ocean, which was immediately swept away by a wave.

She was still perceivable to his senses for a few seconds, but vanished when she performed her Force Obscuration.

Snips, Ventress has been driven off, he pushed the thought down the bond.

Good, Durge as well, they’re probably going to rendezvous with one of the cloaked Tridents that stayed below the surface.

What’s the situation in orbit?

The battle is still on-going. That dreadnought is not going down easily.

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Wullf winced as the medtech sealed up his bleeding forehead, as the hiss of fire retardant sprays from the damage control parties resounded through the bridge.

He pushed the medtech away abruptly and manipulated the holo, pulling back another Venator that was getting too much damage.

They had finally destroyed all the Recusants of the enemy fleet and there were only three Munificents left, a Lucrehulk and the Providence. In exchange, he had lost four Venators, two Arquitens cruisers, and was steadily accruing higher damage levels across the entire fleet.

If this was just a game about numbers it would’ve been a worthy trade to any tactician. It just didn’t feel that way when a ship entered into the weapon range of that dreadnought.

They had paid in blood to strip away the AA capacity of the enemy and now at last, they could conceivably launch fighter torpedo volleys at the Providence that would have a fair chance of getting through.

The original fighter armada with which they had opened the battle had been rearmed in what was probably some sort of record, and he watched with grim satisfaction as those fighters returned into orbit.

The remaining Venators presented their bellies to the enemy again, this time heralding a fresh launch of 130 fighters.

Resolute was not amongst those, as there was just too much damage to the hangar bays to risk launching starfighters at the moment.

“All fighters, fire the instant you can confirm locks! Get that dreadnought out of my space!”

330 fighters in total fired their torpedoes and missiles less than five seconds later.

Space was turned into a conflagration.

The CIS was not content to just lose. The remaining AA networks on their ships filled space with computer guided flak, plasma bolts and laser. The Providence especially was showing that she had been built with this form of warfare in mind.

Yet it seemed that Ahsoka’s strategy was finally bearing fruit.

The enemy was now forced to divide their defensive fire on two fronts, and combined with the concussion missiles running interference, torpedoes were getting through.

Eight torpedoes cleared the active defense field and slammed themselves into the Providence’s port shields.

The eight rapid flashes of liberated protons lit up the void and the primary shields of the dreadnought flashed and wobbled into the visible spectrum.

“Sensors, scan enemy shields. Effect?”

“They definitely felt that, admiral. I’m getting fluctuations in their power grid and internal explosions.”

Twelve torpedoes and a swarm of concussion missiles made it through next and exploded on the forward primary shields.

“Admiral.”

Ahsoka’s holo appeared in the command chair’s projector. The image flickered and occasionally dissolved into static before solidifying properly. Her helmet was off and she looked at him with a grim seriousness that made him feel like his stomach wanted to fall through the deck.

“Full advance, redline your reactors, I want every gun in the fleet firing on that dread as soon as possible.”

“Commander, you realize what you’re asking?”

It was a stupid question in retrospect, but it had to be asked.

Her jaw visibly clenched and her eyes were hard, “Yes. Power up Resolute’s main gun as well. The instant you have a gap in that thing’s shields, fire.”

41 torpedoes breached the enemy defenses.

Twenty of them targeted the Lucrehulk, battered away the last remaining shields and began exploding on the hull armor directly.

A massive flash of light heralded an explosion, along with a shockwave indicating a breached hypermatter storage, that ripped the battleship in two large pieces that spun off in two widely divergent courses.

Wulff sighed tiredly, before reaching into the holo controls and pushing the entire surviving fleet into a 110 percent engine burn directly into the teeth of the enemy.

Twenty one torpedoes completed their evasive turns and hammered into the port shields of the dreadnought.

He had to turn away from the forward transparisteel windows to shield his eyes from the brightness of the event.

“Their starboard shields are down, admiral!” shouted the sensor tech in triumph.

He nodded, absently staring into the holo as the range indicators steadily began ticking in the opposite direction as the enemy fleet began closing.

Then the holo began flashing red and the Providence’s vectors began changing.

“Admiral, the enemy has changed course, they’re decelerating-”

“I see it,” he grunted. “It seems the enemy is not content with a gracious defeat, Commander Tano.”

“Do what you can, admiral.”

“Nav, give me a reactor redline. Guns, divert all available power, charge the main gun. Fighters, empty your launchers. Yularen to the Fleet, begin firing at extended long range the instant you can. Fire your heavy torpedoes… fire everything you have!”

The entire Republic fleet flared their engines, throwing over 3200 Gs of acceleration to power directly into the enemy. They had to overcome their own initial velocities first and Wulff couldn’t help but ball his fists as he glared at the range indicators.

The dreadnought began to fall.

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A/N: Battle of Kamino Part 2, hope you enjoyed.