The Force Wills - Chapter 47 (Patreon)

He slammed his fist on the armrest and immediately regretted it.

The holo in front of him showed that they would win this battle and lose the war. The Providence dreadnought was trying to shed as much orbital velocity as quickly as it could. The projected line of its course cut through the holo like a vibroknife, before settling to a point where it would eventually crash into the ocean just four hundred kilometers southeast of Tipoca City.

Wullf threw up the projected intercepts of his own fleet as it thundered towards the enemy.

The projections were damning.

They’d have less than four minutes.

Four minutes of time under the guns and torpedoes of just half the fleet to kill a dreadnought. The left flank was just spread out too far and would not reach gun range in time. Now the tactic of fleet dispersion was coming back to bite them. Right when they needed the greatest concentration of fire, they couldn’t have it.

Finally, the enemy crept into extreme gun range.

No order was needed at this point. Every single crewman in the entire fleet knew what was at stake.

Eight Venators and four Acclamators began firing every turbolaser that would reach out that far.

His head did the math in moments; twelve quad turbolasers on the Acclamators, eight dual heavies on the Venators.

The first hits began smashing into the forward armor of the dread.

Flashes, explosions, clouds of durasteel erupted outward, but just like with the Malevolence months before, this class of the Providence dreadnought had thick enough armor and advanced metallurgy to take these hits and keep going.

Then to make life even more difficult, the dread began maneuvering, slowly bringing its nose around to present the fresh starboard shields towards the Republic fleet and transfer its aft shields to port. Essentially undoing all the work they had already accomplished.

“Torpedoes fire again!”

The duel of torpedo and missile against AA erupted into space again.

Wullf couldn’t help but suddenly be reminded of a firework display he had attended what felt like a lifetime ago on Hosnian Prime.

The torrent of fire that the dreadnought and the remaining Munificents surrounded itself with was almost pretty to look at.

“Forty-four!” shouted the Sensor tech with triumph.

He quickly selected the torpedoes in his holo and sent fourteen to intercept one of the escorting Munificents whilst throwing the rest at the dreadnought.

Then the enemy did something that honestly surprised Wulff.

The torpedo impacts lit up space with flashes of light and energy, followed soon by not one but two Munificents exploding with shockwaves, brief fire that was immediately snuffed out by the vacuum of space and debris.

It took nearly ten precious seconds of studying the data and what he was seeing of the aftermath to make sense of what had happened.

The enemy had used a Munificent to shield the dread, sacrificing it, steering the frigate at the last possible moment directly to take the thirty torpedoes for its bigger fleet mate. It would only take twelve or so torpedoes, but the resulting explosion killed the rest.

Time was running out and the range was closing.

With every second, dozens of kilometers were shaved off the distance that turbolaser blasts had to travel, hitting the dreadnought’s shields with ever greater strength.

The race was now to see what would give in first.

The Providence now only had a single Munificent left as its escort, their AA strength would be vastly less effective.

“Fighters, fire now!”

The shields of the dread were constantly being lit up with the turbolaser fire from the Republic fleet now, pricking steadily away at their strength.

Torpedoes and missiles streaked into the night desperately.

“Seventy two!”

Wullf focused on the holo, holding up his hand to the side of his head to shield his eyes from the flashes.

The sheer violence of titanic energies being released and dispersed sometimes beggared the imagination. It was something he was long used to, but there were times in battle that sometimes he felt like he was back at naval school on Prefsbelt, being awed at the forces that a modern navy could throw around in this era.

“The dread’s shields are down!”

Wullf didn’t have the heart to reprimand the sensor tech, nor the bridge crew for shaking their fists in triumph, even though they knew they had just now cleared the first hurdle in killing the monster that threatened their home.

Turbolasers began digging into the armor again.

Only for the dread to retaliate for its lost shields by lashing out in a massive single barrage from all the heavy quad and dual turbolasers that it could bring to bear.

The Acclamator assault ship Intruder was there one moment and the next simply erupted into an explosion of light, fire and debris.

“Admiral, you need to fire Resolute’s main gun.”

He turned to Ahsoka’s holo, “Commander, we only get one shot. If we fire and that dread is still there…”

“I understand, Admiral. That is why you must target this spot.”

A scan diagram of the Providence appeared, highlighting a target point just before the main rear blister of the dreadnought, where its central cylinder adjoined to the engineering blister.

“Why there?”

“It’ll take too long to explain, admiral. Seconds count here. Fire there, now.”

He nodded, “Guns, target those coordinates, fire the instant you can.”

“Yes, admiral.”

Resolute’s ventral bay doors opened and lowered the main collimator for the composite laser.

The lights began flickering, then dimmed, the ship’s engines stopped their burn as all power from the reactors was dumped into a crash transfer into the giant capacitor banks.

“Attaining a target solution,” reported the Gunner, his hands tapping on his consoles, his eyes squinting and glaring into his screens. “Nav, yaw us three degrees starboard.”

“Three degrees, starboard!”

The silence was oppressive and tense on the bridge as everyone looked to the gunnery station.

Wullf stared at the holo countdown clock as it ticked ever closer to the point where it wouldn’t matter if the dreadnought was destroyed or not. Whether that thing came down in pieces or whether its explosion caused apocalyptic effects on the planet. It would just be a matter of deciding what form of damage to try to live with on Kamino.

“Solution acquired… firing,” the Gunnery officer said with almost a hoarse whisper.

Wulff looked up just in time to see the thick collimated laser beam draw itself through the intervening distance between the dreadnought and Resolute.

For a moment, it looked like the two ships were bizarrely connected.

The entire fleet seemed to hold its breath.

He felt the whine of the capacitors through the ship as they protested their rough treatment.

A massive explosion ripped through the Providence dreadnought, almost propelling it on an opposing heading as it flung masses of armor, components and other debris in the other direction.

“Sensors, damage report on that thing! Guns, recharge for a second shot!” Wullf demanded.

“Massive damage to the enemy. That nearly cut them in half, Admiral. I’m reading reactor fluctuations and system scrams, their primary is down… Targeting pings, their guns are aligning on us, Admiral!”

“Will they be able to fire?”

“I’m reading their heavy turbolasers as still having a full charge.”

Wullf looked up through the transparisteel and stared at his death.

They were close enough now that he could vaguely see the turbolasers guns on that dreadnought pointing and aligning straight towards the Resolute.

It was strange. He’d thought he’d be feeling dread and fear, staring into that specter. Yet, he kept glaring and stared at death with anger and contempt.

Something passed in front of his eyes and it took him a moment to comprehend that it was another ship.

The dreadnought fired.

In front of Resolute, the Venator Star Destroyer Vigil had swooped forward, presented its ventral section…

Wullf looked away as the flash of light and fire heralded the destruction of Vigil. Taking the hit for its fleet mate.

“All shields forward and tractor beams in repulsion mode forward!” he roared.

Resolute coasted forward on its velocity, straight into the rapidly dispersing maelstrom of energies and debris of what had been an entire ship with over four thousand crew.

Her forward shields blossomed into view as a bright blue dome as it waded through that energetic miasma. Large gaps began appearing as invisible tractor beams punched and pushed against the largest sections of debris the clone operators could find and react to.

Finally the ship pushed through and only empty space was ahead.

“Forward shields took a battering, but we’re through,” reported the Engineering officer.

“Time till the main gun can fire?” Wullf asked as he glared at the wounded dreadnought.

“Two minutes for a full power shot, admiral.”

“That’s too long, Guns. We must fire in the next twenty seconds or it won’t matter.”

“I can cut some corners in the charging process. We won’t have a full power shot and we’ll damage the gun, but if I aim it right, I don’t think it will matter.”

“Do it,” Wullf ordered. “Yularen to Group Alpha, redirect your fire to the last Munificent.”

The left flank of the fleet finally got into extreme range and opened fire almost eagerly. The last enemy frigate lasted barely nine seconds under the combined bombardment. It exploded and the debris began pelting the wounded dreadnought, causing secondary explosions, but for the most part it just bounced off the armor.

“Charged, I have a lock,” announced Guns. “Firing.”

The blue collimated laser lashed out again, piercing through the intervening space and stabbed straight at the already wounded section of the dreadnought.

If Wullf had thought the fireworks of the battle so far had been a visual spectacle - this one topped them all.

No one had seen a dreadnought class vessel die for more than a thousand years. He didn’t feel honored at all to be the witness to such a rare thing or to have given the order that led to it, but he was awed.

A light purple shockwave in a perfect sphere attenuated through space, before being followed by a blinding white flash. It was powerful enough to briefly blind sensors and overwhelm their filters, even causing power fluctuations throughout the Resolute’s grid.

When everything came back and the holo cleared, it was to see two massive pieces of a Providence dreadnought flying in opposite directions.

“Track the forward section!” he ordered.

“It got a significant boost from that explosion, admiral. It’s on course to impact the surface, it’ll enter the atmosphere in less than three minutes,” replied Sensors.

“Yularen to the fleet, I want every tractor beam locked on that debris yesterday! If you are not in range, get in range!”

The Venator had a total of six heavy tractor beam projectors, there were currently eight ships that were in range to latch on the piece of dreadnought threatening to deorbit catastrophically.

“All commands are reporting successful locks and tractor beams operational at full power, admiral.”

The lights on the bridge began flickering. “Report.”

The Gunnery officer shook his head in frustration, “Our battle damage is catching up to us, admiral. Combined with the crash charging we did of our main gun, our power grid is under heavy strain.”

“Engineering?”

“We’ve got breakers tripping across the entire ship, admiral. If we keep up this load, we’re going to lose mains and be reduced to auxiliary, perhaps even emergency power.”

“Maintain our tractor locks. We will only lose them when this ship is dead in space, is that understood?”

“Yes, admiral,” the bridge declared in a single voice.

“Nav, do the math, will we make it?”

The navigation officer looked with wide eyes into his screens and monitors, then began working.

It took an agonizing amount of time before the officer spoke again.

“With eight Venators… no. We need the rest of the fleet to link up and put ourselves into maximum reverse for at least 90 seconds.”

“Group Alpha, after this is over I better hear you’ve burned your engines out getting here!” Wullf snapped over the coms.

“Our engines are at 110 percent, admiral!”

“Then go to 120!”

He contented himself with staring into the holo and remonstrating himself in silence. The invisible tractor beams were rendered with rippling waves of blue as they pulled at the massive piece of what had been a dreadnought.

In the holo, the courses of the entire Republic fleet converged on the debris. The icons for each ship closing the distance with agonizing pace, even though he knew that in reality they were probably setting acceleration and speed records for the Venator and as Ahsoka liked to say, ‘Space was big.’

“Observer has a tractor lock, full reverse,” reported the Sensor officer.

Four seconds later…

“Emissary and Behemoth have tractor locks.”

Wulff turned to the Nav officer, who was practically wringing his hands as he was staring into his screens. The officer met his eyes and shook his head.

“Bastion, Pioneer and Typhoon, has achieved lock.”

“Huntress has locked. Admiral, the entire fleet has locks.”

Resolute’s power flickered again as she threw her remaining strength into the forward repulsors and thrusters, whilst keeping the tractor locks as high as they could.

“Come on, come on,” Wullf gnashed his teeth with tension and balled his fists as he stared at the numbers being flashed at him in the holo.

It was like they were fighting the planet they were trying to save, as its gravity eagerly wanted to reclaim this object that had been flung into its influence.

“Admiral, our grid is near collapse,” warned Engineering.

“Then let it collapse, we must give every possible chance for this to work.”

The clock ticked steadily on as the entire Republic fleet pulled and fought against the last effort of the enemy to damage Kamino irrevocably.

The bridge lighting flickered and suddenly Wullf found himself plunged into the darkness. The only light coming from outside the transparisteel windows. He heard the whine of fans steadily slowing down and his stomach rebelled as even artificial gravity failed.

The command chair, which operated on its own independent power supply, engaged its own emergency system and released a crash harness, which Wullf grabbed onto and secured across his waist and shoulders.

Muted lighting returned and his holo restarted.

“We are on emergency power, admiral,” Engineering announced. “Our tractor beams have failed, guns are offline, life support is holding, except the a-grav. We have limited com and sensors.”

He turned to Nav. “Lieutenant?”

The officer squinted into his screens, which were only now stabilizing. “Checking, admiral.”

The clone looked up and met the eyes of his fellow brothers, his mouth open and breathing hard.

“Well? Out with it, man!”

“We- we- we did it!”

The cheers on the bridge were almost deafening.

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It took another full day of sporadic fighting to fully clear out and secure the military complex of every single enemy droid. The battle in space, this time against space junk and debris would also continue for another few weeks at least, to make sure nothing could fall down Kamino’s gravity well again, not to mention clearing out paths for ship traffic.

It was only after nearly a full 24 hours of staying awake, coordinating the battle and even lending a hand to root out droid holdouts that I found myself ushered to Master Shaak Ti’s quarters, given a bed, and told by her in no uncertain terms to sleep for at least eight hours.

My former mentor in togruta culture had a certain motherly streak about her when it came to me, so I tolerated it and gladly passed out for the required time.

I had barely gotten breakfast in me the next day when a meeting was called to discuss the aftermath of the battle and what was learned in it.

We all took a seat in the communication room Master Ti used for her remote sessions on the Jedi Council.

The holo of Mace Windu appeared on one of the chairs. He gave a look around the room and nodded. “Good day to all of you. We received word of your victory and I would just take this opportunity on behalf of the Republic to thank you all and your troops.” Everyone in the room nodded in acknowledgement. “There is no doubt that this battle was a crucial one, the war may have been lost yesterday were it not for your efforts. Yet it also brings about the revelation of new capabilities both technological and tactical that the Separatists are bringing into their war effort.”

“Anything from Republic Intel on how the CIS drove that fleet all around the galaxy?” Obi-wan asked.

My theory on how that was done unfortunately had no hard evidence backing it up as yet. Obi-wan had sent cloaked scouts further along our best guess and had yet to find any sign of the theoretical CIS tanker ships. In addition, it’s not like the hutts would also willingly admit that they had violated the treaty by letting the Seppies access the rimward side of the Trellius.

“Nothing substantive yet has emerged from them regarding that,” Mace answered. “I think it will be a few weeks yet before they can definitively give us any answer. I’m more concerned about both the dreadnought and the observed behavioral changes in the droids.”

“I can give some answers about the droids,” Anakin sighed, rubbing his face wearily. “I’ve managed to review quite a bit of their code we salvaged from destroyed and semi-intact models of the B1s and droidekas. While the hardware is the same cheap, mass produced bantha dung, they have definitely improved on the software side. There are protocols now that will make them seek the nearest available cover, evade and their aim has improved somewhat. It’s a somewhat good attempt to rework the coding into something that someone won’t be embarrassed to put their name on.”

“Did someone actually put their name on it?” Master Ti asked incredulously.

“Not in the traditional sense, this is more like a slicer alias, someone who calls themselves Tremor. Like most high level slicers, they have a bit of an ego, so they made sure to sign their name into the coding.”

“I will have our own slicers look into it,” Mace affirmed. “Now the performance of this dreadnought worries not only me, but Republic R&D and Intel are not taking it well. This ship was not that much larger than a Venator, yet it took a disproportionate effort to destroy one at too high a cost in life.” He turned to me and I sensed that I was being called up to the plate. “Padawan Tano, since you were in overall strategic command at the time, do you have any insight to share?”

I took a moment to get my thoughts in order, “The biggest issue was clearly a form of integrated AA network that operated between all the ships, producing a defense that was better than the sum of its parts. I’m sure that Intel and the kaminoans when they examine the intact pieces of the dreadnought will find some form of point to point directional data linkage. Combine this with computer controlled targeting and you have an active defense AA network that is second to none in the galaxy. The only way to beat it was to absolutely swarm and overwhelm the system with potential targets, then concentrate the fire onto a single ship of the fleet.”

“If that is the case, then it raises the threat profile of their Munificent groupings significantly,” Mace said with a slight frown.

“I also think we have to seriously investigate the metallurgy of the armor on that dreadnought. The last time I saw armor react like that to direct fire from the heavy turbolaser on our Venators, was when we were facing the Malevolence.”

“So it was not just a matter of exceptionally thick armor?” Shaak Ti asked.

“Yes, though it surely helped. There is clearly some new alloy the CIS has developed to throw onto their new builds of ships. Thus far in the war, we have only been fighting ships that can be traced to pre-war production and design. It’s inevitable, given the speed at which they can build and iterate with supervised droid labor, that the Republic Navy will always be somewhat behind the curve of development that the war is inspiring.”

“Yet the experimental composite laser on the Resolute did penetrate this new armor handily,” Anakin pointed out.

“There isn’t much in existence that can withstand such concentrated directed energy,” Obi-wan said dryly. “The issue is that unless we can equip every Venator in the fleet with a composite laser soon, we’re going to come up against new build CIS ships that can handily resist the current generation of turbolasers on our ships. We’re nearing the end of the first year of this war and already we’re looking at our ship’s weapons being potentially obsolete.”

“This is a matter that the Jedi Council will bring directly to the Chancellor’s office, rest assured,” Mace said in a near-ominous tone. “Now, let us speak of the reason for this attack in the first place. Master Kenobi, you placed Knight Skywalker to personally guard the main DNA room, where he was in a perfect position to intercept Ventress. What led you to this decision?”

“This was something that Padawan Tano and myself concluded,” Obi-wan elaborated. “Even with the amount of firepower that the CIS brought to Kamino. The fact that they already had these cloaked Tridents in the water spoke of a plan behind the obvious attack motive. This deception tactic is something that is clearly favored by not only Ventress, but also by their other strategic and tactical planners. It’s a clear pattern that we should always anticipate from them in some form or another.

“As to their motive, only one thing makes sense. If all they wanted was Jango Fett DNA, we have an entire army of them. They can capture or kill them on any battlefield. It’s far easier than launching a multi-billion credit invasion fleet across the galaxy to distract us, while they steal it here on Kamino. No, what they wanted was the original DNA and engineered stem cells which haven't undergone any of the environmental development that the kaminoans give to the clones.”

“I agree with Master Kenobi,” Shaak Ti declared. “With that in hand, the Separatists could conceivably create an engineered virus that is specifically tailored to target only the clone army, with very little to no chance it could affect anyone else. If all they had was a clone’s iterated DNA, then the potential is too great for a mutated variance to develop in the virus.”

“Crippling the GAR in the process,” I continued the probability line. “It’d force the Chancellor to potentially call for reinforcement from the various member worlds that have native defense forces or are in the process of mobilizing. We all know the general sentiment in the Senate against that kind of thing.”

“Which in itself would inspire more secession among member worlds, pulling them into the Separatist cause, which is definitely worth losing an entire fleet for,” Mace nodded in agreement. “What of the damage to Tipoca City and the military complex?”

“The damage was at most superficial, with the worst being done by the Trident’s manipulators collapsing the connection paths and platforms between the various domes. Only a single cloning chamber suffered direct damage, which caused the loss of nearly two thousand developing clones. Overall, this will only cause a slight dip in cloning numbers over the next month or so as repairs delay usual operation,” Obi-wan explained.

Mace sat back in his seat pensively, “Very well. Is there anything else you wish to bring up?”

“Just that no Jedi should engage Durge alone, ever,” Obi-wan said seriously.

“Has something changed from your last encounter?”

“He has improved his armor, adding more lightsaber resistant shields to his legs. The shields themselves have also improved, previously, they would only hold against my saber for a few seconds. In this fight, the shields held long enough that they could be considered a lightsaber in their own right, given the way he uses them in a fight.”

“Noted, we will update our files on him and issue a directive to all Jedi in the field to be on the lookout and to retreat if possible.” Mace looked around at us briefly. “Thank you for your time. May the Force be with you.”

His holo vanished and the room’s lighting brightened.

“Snips,” Anakin gestured for me to remain behind as the other masters left the room.

“Yes, master?”

“I realize you’re eager to get your hands on that wreck, but we need to sort out the 501st. Their casualties were thankfully in acceptable ranges, given the surprise improvements the Seppies made to their droids, but we still have a lot of reorganization to do and promotion of troopers to fill a number of vacant slots.”

I frowned at him in suspicion, “You want me to do the boring flimsiwork, whilst you get to tinker with that dread’s wreck first, don’t you?”

He puffed his chest and looked innocently away, “Now what would give you that idea, Snips? I’m sure I used the term ‘we’.”

“Skyguy, you suck at admin work. We won’t be at it for ten minutes before you find some excuse or conveniently arrange to have Rex call you away.”

“Snips, I promise, we’ll both sit there and not get up until it’s done.”

I gave him a flinty stare, “Fine.”

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Fives deposited himself to sit on the very edge of the platform that overlooked the endless ocean surrounding the military complex. He felt a weariness all the way down to his bones after a full day of back breaking work to help clean up the mess the clankers had made of their home. There was no distinction between tech or soldier in this and everyone was pitching in.

It was a rare calm and sunny day, with the ocean only producing slight waves that lapped against the distant stalks below. This far away from the domes, the sounds of heavy lifters, power tools was a minor background din, allowing the constant sound of the waves to balm his mind. As a kid, he’d always sought this place during their scheduled ‘relaxation sessions’, as their instructors led them through the day.

He opened a water ration bottle and soothed his parched throat.

“Ha, always the same place, eh?” Echo, wearing a tech’s overall, sat down next to him with a groan. “Ugh, I don’t think I’ve felt this beat since our time in the Meat Grinder.”

Fives just shuddered at the thought of the physical obstacle courses designed by Instructor Bric. It was the first thing clones had to do after they came out of their final stint of accelerated maturation. It was designed to instill the physical skills and strength of a soldier into the fresh clones.

“Yeah, starship life, even with all the time we spend in the gym and on battlefields, can’t really compare to the beating of the Grinder.”

Echo pulled out his own water ration and gulped it down in one go. “Ah! So, what was your score?”

Fives smirked, “Twenty six, confirmed.”

Echo leaned back on his arms and smiled in return, “Thirty one.”

Fives felt his jaw drop in astonishment, “Thirty one?”

Echo nodded and Fives could swear a slightly smug look had briefly flitted over his brother’s face.

“Where did you get the extra? We were practically together for the entire battle.”

“I’ll admit, I got lucky with a few there, but I have been spending a fair few extra hours in the danger room in my off-duty time.”

“You better show me your battle chit,” Fives insisted.

Echo shrugged, reached into a pocket of his overall, clearly having anticipated his friend’s demand, and chucked the small storage chit over, which Fives deftly caught.

The pointed clearing of a throat had them looking around. In the next instant, they were on their feet and standing at attention.

In the light orange striped armor was Commander Cody and next to him was the blue striped armor of Captain Rex. Both senior clones had their helmets off and regarded their subordinates critically. Fives couldn’t help but feel he had done something wrong under the gaze of these two senior veterans.

Finally, after entirely too long, Commander Cody smiled, “That was very good work from you, boys. Not only in clearing multiple enemy strongpoints, but also holding off the enemy from that shelter. You were the most senior clones there and organized a competent defense with very little to work with in record time.”

“We just did what we had to, sir. We had help from 99 as well,” Fives replied quickly.

“Yes, 99 will be honored as if he was a full soldier in this army,” Rex declared, then gave a small smile. “His help saved a lot of lives. I’m sure the old fellow will just stuff the medal in a locker somewhere, knowing him. Commander Cody and I are here for you two. You both showed valor and real courage in the face of the enemy. You rallied your brothers and showed leadership. As of this moment, you are both recruited into the ARC trooper program.”

Fives felt his heart leap with excitement at the mere thought and quickly glanced at Echo. His friend’s eyes told the story that he felt the same. Yet, he couldn’t help the regret that also surfaced at that moment - he wished Hevy, Droidbait and Cutup were here too… all of the old Domino training squad.

“I’ll also warn you now. As ARC troopers we get the best gear and training you wouldn’t believe, but in return the best is expected. We are the tip of the spear. We are usually right beside General Skywalker and Commander Tano, expect to see amazing and very dangerous things.”

Cody and Rex saluted, which Echo and Fives mirrored a moment later.

“You should be receiving your assignment and revised schedule within the day. As you were.”

The senior clones walked off.

Fives and Echo looked at each other and gripped each other’s right arms in a strong grip.

“We made it, Echo.”

“That we did, Fives, that we did.”

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A few days later I found myself back in my quarters aboard the Resolute, just sitting in front of my desk in my underwear after a very long day of work. The last day had been devoted just to managing the ship’s repair effort, of which there was a very long list. Thankfully, nothing which would require dedicated drydock time and could be done in the field right from the ship’s spare part storage.

My natural body clock was starting to insist it was time for some shut eye, but there was just too much to do, so I was burning the midnight oil with a combination of caf and the Force.

Also on my plate was monitoring news in the Mandalore sector, keeping myself informed on the affairs of the clan and making notes on things which could potentially require a direct holocall or more indirect intervention. It was already looking like I would have to arrange for my holographic presence at a coming board meeting of Concordian Crescent Tech. There were a number of execs on that board who were playing dirty under the table tactics against their internal rivals and pushing for an expansion for the company to start producing fighter and starship scale weaponry, which they wanted to mount on the future warship design.

Never mind the cost associated with the expansion in R&D, labor and capital expenditure, there was the question if there was even a market for CCT to exploit here. MandalMotors already had their excellent designs for fighter scale weaponry, which were amongst the best in the galaxy and it was already a no-brainer that Kalevala Spaceworks were going to approach them to design the capital scale turbolasers. Kalevala unfortunately did not have their own line of starship scale weaponry, and sent their luxury liners to KDY to have them fitted with their anti-piracy armament.

The step-up from fighter to capital size was not easy, but vastly more plausible than CCT managing it from the ground up. So these greedy idiots just saw credits and the ‘honor’ of having CCT arm the first warship line built by the Mandalorian people in centuries.

My desk terminal in front of me lit up with the characteristic tone of an incoming holocall. The code ID was mostly unfamiliar, but I recognized that this call was coming from Kuat and if it had got past the Resolute’s com officer while I was officially serving aboard ship, then whoever was on the other side of this call would not be a random prank caller.

I quickly double checked that only my head was being scanned by the holo, before tapping on ‘accept’.

The holo of an unfamiliar human woman from the waist up appeared and I was immediately struck by two things - one, she was decidedly beautiful; with glistening brown hair that fell to her shoulders, arched perfect eyebrows, a thin elegant nose, aqua blue eyes, full lips and slightly tanned skin with a flawlessness that meant this woman had a bio sculpting done. She had a bosom that straddled that perfect line between being substantial, yet not large enough to be uncomfortable. I quashed a stupid feeling of irrational jealousy at the sight.

The second bit was my sense of her through the Force as my senses almost automatically dove through the connection. Her massive office was definitely on the KDY Ring and had an expansive view of Kuat, which meant this was not some low level, yet very pretty flunky. She had a sense of confidence and ego about her that was typical of people in high level positions of a high stakes company.

“Padawan or Commander Tano?” Her voice was a nice rich soprano which pleasantly reverberated in my montrals. Her tone, uncertain expression and starting off this conversation with a question clued me in on her immediate issue.

“I don’t mind either address. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

“Commander Tano it is, thank you. My name is Lira Blissex, Senior Designer at Kuat Drive Yards.”

A spike of nervousness shot up and down my spine. This was the Lira Blissex -  the mind behind the design of the Venator! Of course, I let no sign of fangirling slip through any of my masks and simply bowed my head with a standard greeting.

“Again, a pleasure to meet you Miss Blissex. What can I do for you?”

“Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, commander. A lot of proposals come across my desk from various sources in KDY and even outside it. Some of them are utter nerfshit, not worth the datapad it came on. Then there are nuggets of electrum that pop up from time to time and it's especially interesting when I did a bit of digging into the origin of these proposals, I happen to find them coming from the GAR and you in particular.”

“I have sent a number of them to KDY, yes, based on my own experience so far in the war.”

Blissex arched an eyebrow at me, then brought up a datapad and began reciting, “Mandator II Mothership, I like that ship name terminology by the way. You could run a fleet of Venators conceivably for generations with something like this ship supporting them, even build new ships from it.”

I inwardly squirmed at her gushing over the idea, “It’s just a logical extension of solving the logistics problem of fleets ranging over extreme distances away from the core worlds and without having to wait for planet bound supply bases to be built. Such bases are also difficult to build especially if a local world first has to be diplomatically satisfied. Even when they are built, they are static, which means a point for the enemy to attack and undo all the hard work of building the logistics chain in the first place.”

She nodded, “Next, a ship whose sole job is to reinforce and remotely recharge another ship’s shields, even in mid-battle.”

“It is something we have managed to do to a limited degree between Venators already. The tactical and technical problems this presents can be solved by the presence of a new type of ship class, which is built from first principles to do this.”

“And if the enemy starts targeting them first always?” she pointed out.

“Let them, these ships are never meant to be operated in single units. There must always be at least four of them supporting a fleet and each other. If the enemy targets one, then the others can combine their shield restoration on their partner being targeted. The enemy just wasted their time, failed to kill the shield ship and lost more ships in the process. The bigger the fleet, the more shield ships you deploy.”

She began idly rubbing the bridge of her nose with a finger as I spoke, which seemed to be a physical tic she had whenever she was in deep thought, “Hmmm, I’m pretty well versed in the principles and physics behind shielding, but it's funny that no one thought about actually doing this before.”

I smiled somewhat, “Necessity is the mother of invention and war brings necessity like nothing else.”

She frowned for a moment, then smiled, “I’ll definitely have to think about that one. Then again it’s amply demonstrated by the monstrosity that Free Dac produced to fight you.”

“You already have access to the post battle reports?” I asked in surprise.

Blissex was surprised at my question, “Of course, commander. The KDY think tank gets priority access as a matter of routine. We have to keep up with the Seppies and we can’t do that if those reports are stuck for weeks or even months on the desks of the Intel nerfs.”

I suppressed the urge to giggle at her reference to the general ‘paper pushers’ and analysts of Republic Intel.

“I’m just surprised that Intel allows it, that’s all Miss Blissex.”

“Well, you know them,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes. “They’re so caught up in protecting secrets and information, that they’d rather see it buried than released into trusted hands where the information can actually be useful to the cause. Thankfully, we have a chancellor with a decent head on his shoulders for once and who can look at the big picture.”

“Yes, that he does,” I said with full honesty. “So do you think we can apply the same technique to our own AA, networking them so they share targeting data between ships in a fleet?”

“For Acclamators it won’t be a problem, their com system was designed to be networked anyway when groups of them are landed on a planet and share data, for battle coordination of ground units. It's just a matter of now using it in space and feeding the targeting info. The issue there is that automation of the guns will have to be done to a far greater extent for this data to really be worth it, removing the gunners from their seats entirely.”

“The Venators on the other hand; some of the guns are on computer control and others need gunners. It was a redundancy measure in the face of battle damage. If automation goes down, then the crew can still get in a seat and shoot. The com system will definitely need to be upgraded to handle that amount of increased data flow for a start, with the current system you’d kill the available bandwidth you allocate to launched fighters if you tried.” She looked up and blew some breath into her fringe in another behavioral tic of thought. “No, it’s definitely going to be another case of what has to be sacrificed to make room for such an expanded system.”

“Well, I hope it won’t be something too essential, with a choice between one or the other I mean.”

She scoffed, “With the amount of suggestions and proposals crossing my desk, I’d have to build an entire new starship class from scratch to satisfy them all…” She trailed off and looked rueful. “Sorry, commander. I tend to get a bit… protective of the Venator.”

“Understandable within reason, Miss Blissex. Think of it this way, those proposals are just a sign of how well you designed her overall. Are they asking for an entirely new ship or hull? Are they saying the Venator is nerfshit? No. They see how the ship can be adapted for the ever changing environment of the war. Something you couldn’t possibly have foreseen.”

She nodded and stared off to the side in thought. “Wow, I… didn’t think of it like that.”

“And take it from someone who commands a Venator, at least this one, she’s amazing.”

Blissex’s mouth twitched with amusement, “Your preference for the feminine pronoun in reference to a ship is strange. Most would see a Venator and think of power and strength.”

“That, like so many things, is a matter of perspective. I can counter that by saying this ship protects and has endured much for those who crew her, seeing them through dire situations. She also costs a ton of money to keep in operation and looking pretty for the Republic.”

She outright laughed at this point, and again it was a very pleasant sound to me.

“Oh yes, yes, now I see it. By the Force… is this what it’s like to talk to all Jedi?”

I let my mouth twitch to show my amusement at the question, “It really depends on the Jedi, Miss Blissex. It might seem that way, but we are not a monolithic order. Can you say that all KDY employees are brilliant engineers or designers?”

She snorted and even that was a pretty sound, damn it.

“Hardly, commander. Some of the nerfs around here…” She trailed off then visibly shook herself back into gear. “Well, commander, I’m sure we both have busy schedules. I hope you won’t mind if we continue to keep in contact and correspond. I would like to have more ongoing direct feedback from someone who is in command of a Venator. Our classification levels are on the same general level, so there is little chance we can compromise things. I’m sure you would also like to have some consultancy input into the final design of the shield ship?”

“That would be wonderful,” I bowed my head in thanks. “Force be with you, Miss Blissex.”

“And you, Commander Tano.”

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A/N: So ends the Battle of Kamino. Have a good weekend.