The Weaving Force: Chapter 74 (Patreon)

Chapter 74:

Pors Tonith:

“Battlegroups have breached the atmosphere.”

“Fleet arranging itself above the Jedi Temple; will be ready to provide direct orbital support in approximately fifty-eight, galactic standard minutes.

“Sir, the Republic fleet is exiting the system through hyperspace.”

“Thank you, TP-8843.” Pors answered calmly before turning his attention away. “TT-7622, inform me of our own casualties.”

“Request acknowledged, compiling data.”  The droid said by way of answer.

Truth be told, Pors was fairly sure their damage was relatively light, all things considered.

The Republic fleet doctrine relied heavily on knocking out the capital ships of the CIS forces as soon as possible.

So he’d simply denied them that.

A screen of his fighters and Munificents moving forward as the vanguard, while keeping the heavier, larger vessels with their long range guns out of range of their fighters or the Venators’ own guns had frustrated the Jedi Commander across from him. The Jedi’s fighters were so outnumbered their typically superior quality could not reach the high priority targets that would have let them even the odds.

Add to that, Pors decision to send his droid fighters in waves, not allowing the comparatively limited clone pilots any time to properly rest, refuel and rearm, and after a day and a half the Jedi fleet had needed to retreat lest their pilots started dying out of sheer exhaustion

He doubted the Jedi would stay away long. He would return, likely committing hit and run raids to slowly weaken his position. It would, in effect, become something of a double siege. He besieging the temple below, and the Jedi raiding him from the stars.

Either he would have to outlast the defenders with his resources, or the defenders would hold out long enough that his position here would become untenable and he’d need to retreat.

It was all so very… academic, really…

Luckily, the outcome was ultimately irrelevant.

“Get me in contact with my Field Commanders.” He demanded as a holomap of the temple emerged in front of his command throne.

He nodded in satisfaction.

The main force to the south, of course. To the west, the more specialized strike force to try and take the geographically hard to assault spaceport. And to the east and north, a sizable contingent of his available armor and air power, respectively.

Time to begin.

“Let us see what these champions of the Jedi can offer us.”

—

Anakin:

If Anakin didn’t know better, he’d swear Taylor had scaled up her tricks.

The skies were choked with ships. Vulture droids, dropships, gunships, heavy transports, thousands upon thousands of ships circling like flies on carrion.

Behind them, on top the base itself and mounted along the craggy hills and rocky paths leading all the way towards the Temple, at heights far above, anti-aircraft batteries lit up the sky with a barrage of high yield blasts, tearing through vulture droids and anything else that was stupid enough to veer too close.

High above, the atmosphere still roiled and was streaked with fire. The debris of dozens of destroyed ships was pulled down through the planet’s atmosphere in fiery streams. Some even smashed into the shield that protected them, wrecks of twisted metal and destroyed parts.

He stared out from the duracrete walls of the forward base at the foot of the mountain. Where dozens of long range batteries were being arrayed behind the massing battalions of battle droids, tanks and other warmachines.

“They’re gonna hammer us.” Rex said next to him. He did know the captain of the 501st Legion well enough to definitely agree with his assessment.

“The shields will hold.” Another clone answered, Captain Black. “They’ll be blasting at us for weeks before they go down.”

“Doesn’t make me feel much better.” Rex grunted. “Even if the shields hold, sleeping under bombardment is gonna be hell.”

Again, the Captain was absolutely right.

Black shrugged. “Unless you got a way to magically charge out there past all the droids to take em out, I don’t think-” The man grunted as the wind kicked up, the rapidly forming blizzard from all the atmospheric disturbances really beginning to come down in force now. “-we got much of a choice other than just dealing with it.”

Anakin opened his mouth… then closed it.

Hmmm.

“Oh no.” He heard Rex groan behind him as a smile began to tug on his lip.

“What?” Black asked.

“I know that look, that’s what.” Rex did not sound happy.

“It’ll be great.” Anakin consoled, a jaunty spring in his step as he turned around, away from the wall and began marching towards his goal.

“Commander, last time you said that my armor melted.”

“And it worked out.”

“While I was wearing it!”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Rex?”

“Got shot.” He responded drily. “Several hundred times.”

A few minutes later, as he finished explaining his plan, Captain Black tepidly joined Rex’s protests. “Sir… this wasn’t in the op brief for this. We’re on defense.”

“Best defense is a good offense.” He countered with a smirk that made Rex facepalm as he revved up the engine with a howling whine.

Vicky:

For all of her jokes and appropriate usage of proper movie speeches at correct times, Vicky was taking this seriously.

This wasn’t Corellia, but that didn’t mean things weren’t dangerous.

She stayed in contact with as many of the other Jedi and clone commanders as she could, getting scattered pieces of information here and there of where the enemy was amassing. Because the reality was she was the most mobile heavy hitter available right now, and if someone needed backup ASAP she was the one that had the best powerset to do that.

She had a feeling, either her gut or the Force, that the commander of this invasion force knew that too.

This not being Corellia cut both ways.

She and Tay were a known element now.

They’d fought in a few battles already. Hissrich, Excarga, Quarmendy, Hisseen, Akoshissss.

The Confederacy knew them now. Even had some names circling around for the both of them.

And they were adapting.

The Confederacy were already aware of how to play ‘keep away’ from Taylor. They knew that she had a range and a limit to that range And every other battle it seemed like they were coming up with new prototype counter droids to try and hit Vicky with.

They hadn’t found any that could stick… yet. But this… escalation was worrying enough that even the Jedi Council was taking notice, and were actively beginning to wargame around the possible tactics and prototype droids that could be deployed.

Hell, she and Taylor herself had sat down almost every other week and started to openly strategize on how they would each try to fight each other if they had to. Not in terms of personal combat, but rather how they’d brainstorm in leading a team against each other.

They were, after all, the two Jedi with the most experience in fighting and countering parahumans and experts in each other’s powers.

These wargames had revealed two things.

Firstly, Taylor could be downright brutal. Like, she’d earned the villain-tag brutal.

Vicky tried to be more appreciative of the fact that she was learning new tricks and ways to shore up her vulnerabilities, rather than concerned at the fact that her girlfriend/partner could coldly recite a few ways in which she, hypothetically, would be capable of causing extreme bodily harm or wiping out the Jedi around her in a wargame.

But secondly, and this was the important part, that in defensive scenarios like this, both she and Taylor suffered a significant tactical drawback that could be exploited.

The enemy fighting where they weren’t.

Right now she was to the Temple’s north, by the cliffs with a battalion of clone jet troopers and heavy anti-air specialists, to stop fighters, bombers and dropships from landing.

That was fine. For now.

But what happened if the enemy got wise and decided to concentrate the bulk of their attack to the west, at the starport? Or to the south, while investing just enough to keep her tied down here in the north?

Same thing applied to Taylor, or even most of the Jedi.

Defense was not a footing she or Tay wanted to be in, it gave the enemy all the initiative. If this wasn’t a trap, meant to lure the CIS in so Obi-Wan could pounce on them with Tiin, she was sure the entire meeting would have gone very differently. And the quiet suggestion Tay made for just her ears, of abandoning the static defense of the Temple and just going full Iwo Jima in the mountains and crags, setting up ambushes, raids and lightning attacks, would have been something the brunette would have twisted arms and legs to the point of snapping to implement.

Tay didn’t care about a building no matter how sacred the Jedi claimed it to be.

Vicky had a hard time caring about it too, but she was at least more tactful about it.

Still… it was a concern, but it was a concern mostly for another day. This siege wouldn’t last weeks. Rancisis would send out the signal to Obi-Wan through the special transmitter, his fleet would jump in practically on top of the CIS fleet along with Tiin, and if for whatever reason the signal didn’t go through, Obi-Wan had orders to arrive after thirty-six hours.

Even if all the clones and Jedi lined up to get shot, it would still take almost a day to get them all into formation for their executions.

So… they’d hold.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t worried.

Anakin, Taylor, even Cere and Luminara would all be committed to their spots just like she was committed here. If they needed help-

“General Victoria!”

She straightened, her eyes pulling away from the tactical display. “Captain?”

The Clone Captain nodded, slamming his helmet down over his own head. “Eyes up, ma’am. Here they come!”

She reached up, pulling her own breathing mask over her mouth and nose, the air now warm as she breathed it in.

Seconds later, as dropships, bombers and vulture droids swooped in, the anti-air guns riveted across the northern cliffs opened up in lances of blue particle fire, and a battalion of clones soared into the sky behind her on wings of howling fire.

—

Pors Tonith

“Ahh.” The Muun high commander smiled just a bit. “There she is, I see.” He said to himself before reaching up to rub at his chin with long spindly fingers. “Now… where is the other?”

His eyes panned over the map, eyes fixing themselves on the lake.

“If the Valorous Jedi is guarding the thin defensive line… then it stands to reason her partner would be on the other thin line, yes?” He commented to the droids around him.

“Uhhhhh. Yes?” The B1 working the sensors answered hesitantly.

“It was rhetorical, but thank you for humoring me.” He chuckled, opening up a comm link. “Commander Tanir.”

A crackle of static. “Yes,sir?”

—

Uvalro Tanir

“You may begin your advance, Commander.”

Uvalro Tanir was not an idiot. The Skakoan were not a warlike species, but one didn’t need to be to see the obvious trap.

He’d seen the readings on his way down from orbit. The Jedi Temple was bristling with guns on every side, with hundreds of thousands of clones manning layer upon layer of heavy, thick defenses.

To the north, sheer cliffs and several battalions of jetpack carrying clones. To the south, a very literal fortress had been constructed at the mouth of the canyon that led to the Temple itself, stopping anyone from entering through the primary route of the valley at the foot of the mountains.

The spaceport to the west was a maw of jagged teeth and anti-air guns, almost too narrow for any type of landing that wasn’t abject suicide.

And then there was this side. The eastern side.

The frozen lake side.

The defenses here were laughably thin. Anti-aircraft weaponry and a single brigade, not even a battalion or a regiment; a brigade of clones.

Practically inviting them to charge across this lake.

Well… he had no intention of dying quite so stupidly.

“Understood, sir.” He nodded, hanging up the call before he contacted the droid commander that would lead the armored assault. “Armor, full forward.”

“Roger roger.” The droid obediently nodded.

Then the hovertanks began to charge across the frozen expanse.

Ulvaro picked up his tac pad, seeing through the command droid’s eyes.

The seconds ticked by like hours. He could see the clones in the far distance. Some, the ones dressed in white that typically denoted raw recruits, moved as he expected. Rushing to ready themselves.

The veterans however, those with decorations over their armor, bits and pieces of personalized equipment, they seemed unbothered, mostly. No scrambling behind cover. No seeking heavy weapons.

Definitely a trap.

What would the Jedi use? Mortars? Charges placed under the ice? A bombardment or strafing runs from fighters hidden in the temple hangars?

The hovertanks slid into range, blasting away with their primary turrets, the blasts of red highly-energized particles smashing into the shields defending the line and the temple beyond.

Still, the clones did not move. Uvalro looked up, beholding the spectacle of hundreds of assault tanks blasting away at the blue domed shield with his own eyes.

It allowed him the luxury of seeing what happened next with his own eyes as well.

An icy lance ripped up from the lake below, tearing through the surface ice and goring a tank, tearing it open.

Then another across the line was similarly torn apart.

Then another.

And another.

Uvalro’s head and eyes snapped left and right, hearing the horrid screeching of rent and shorn metal. The droids began to… well… They couldn’t panic, but they were obviously trying and failing to bring their guns to bear, trying to aim at the frozen waters below them.

Massive beasts tore out of the lake, and Uvalro had a second to recognize the monsters as giant, icy crabs of all things, with four great pincers and shells covered in spikes and spines. Five of the monsters ripped up through the ice, grasping tanks in their pincers and pulling them down to the depths below.

A tank managed to wheel its gun around, letting out a single blast that the monster practically ate as it side scrabbled towards the armor, its giant claw cleaving through the barrel and its other ripping and tearing through the chassis as its legs punched holes clean through armor plate like it was flimsiplast.

Thundering snaps and bone rattling cracks made the lake begin to break apart, and for all that he was at the edge of the lake, he realized he was still on the lake.

“GO! TURN AROUND, GET US OFF THE LAKE” He wheezed to the droid operator, the machine with its damnable calm nodding “Roger roger,” as it turned the tank around to begin retreating.

All the while Uvalro kept hearing the sound of his armored division being torn apart behind him by giant ice crabs.

—

Taylor

I breathed a puff of warm air into my hands.

This planet was too damn cold.

“Bloody hell, General… think ya got ‘em?” One of the Clone Captain’s asked, a cheeky grin in his voice hiding behind the helm.

I snorted. “They shoulda just given me the damn lava worm.”

—

RB-551

RB-551 was not much different from his fellow B1 droids.

He had one job.

March forward.

Shoot designated enemies.

It was not complicated.

The uplink to the command droid and other background static noted that all other fronts, east, north and west of the temple had opened the engagement already.

Only here, in the south, was it taking longer. Logically, even his simple processors understood that it was because of the sheer number of droids, armor, artillery and heavy assault models being arrayed into battle formation before marching forward.

Still, listening through the uplink of his command droid, the attack would begin in another three minutes. They would meet the clones soon.

The winds howled and snow began to blanket them, the heavy fall descending onto the valley first, hampering his vision. He switched to alternate vision modes, settling on thermal, the red outline of his fellow B1 droids visible through the snow.

His processors told him the clones were statistically more likely to be affected by the weather conditions than he and his fellow droids.

That was good. The probability of victory increased with these conditions.

There was a sound, something his audio processors struggled to catch.

His fellow B1s seemed to hear it as well, queries traded through lines of code, asking for confirmation, multiple sources confirming, consensus rapidly being established as to the source of the sound.

But the consensus made no sense, so RB-551 presented the query into the amassed communications.

“Laughter?”

Suddenly there was something in his thermal vision, drawing closer and fast. Others saw it, multiple queries being exchanged, calls for confirmation.

He didn’t have time to do more than raise his blaster, his voice box beginning to form a question for organic ears.

“Who goes the-”

Then, his vision caught a blue hot fla-

Critical system error.

Critical system failure.

Catastroph-

—

Anakin

The speeder roared under him, his lightsaber flashing, the nose blaster barking.

A column of clones followed after him. He raised his blade high, a beacon for his clones to follow. Flares lit up all around them, bursting from packs to cast light through the white snow. Rex sat at his back, one arm wrapped around Anakin’s waist, the other sending bright blue bolts from his blaster as Anakin swung out his blade, the nose of the speeder ripping through the cheap frames of the B1s like they were made of more glass than metal.

He used the Force to guide him, manipulated physics to keep the nose of the machine in the air despite the impacts as he pressed his foot down on the accelerator, the howling winds tearing at his ears and the cold air stinging his nostrils, a line of cold fire down his throat

Rex screamed behind him: “A frakking cavalry charge through the lines! Really General!?”

Anakin laughed, his joy fueling the aura around him, shining like a beacon in the Force, as Victoria did in so many battles. His clones couldn’t see, not really, but they didn’t need to; they were following him anyway.

Blaster bolts sizzled in the air, red and blue crisscrossing everywhere around him one singed past his ear, nearly clipping rex along his brow.

The droids had thermals but the bikes were hot, droids were hot, blaster shots were hot too, and B1s weren’t exactly smart enough to figure things out quickly. Their shooting was more wild flailing than a coherent mass of fire. Some were even shooting into the backs of their own fellow droids.

Even so, this was dangerous, and he felt several clones meet their end behind him. Stray shots, sudden swerves or crashes. They were all strapped with explosives, and each death was followed shortly by a tremendous blast from a thermal detonator.

A B2 droid was gored on the nose of his speeder, the front of the thing dipping dangerously with the sudden impact and weight before he yanked the nose up as hard as he could via controls and sheer brute strength in the force. And even then he nearly lost control- the blasters strapped to the nose of the speeder were ripped off as they scraped at the snow and stone underneath, clattering past his feet.

The speeder veered and banked, the engine sputtering dangerously. As he was forced to slow down to regain control other speeders rushing ahead of him, taking up the front of the charge; plowing through columns of droid infantry as Anakin he used the Force to rip the remains of the B2 droid from the nose of his bike and speed up again.

“Sir!” One of the clone pilots called. “Got eyes on the artillery!”

He pinged the heavy guns, the various clone helmet HUD’s lighting up like a proverbial flare had gone off and suddenly they were guiding him, the column of rushing speeders veering and banking to slice through the confused droid army like a carving knife.

Rex adjusted behind him, pulling free the rocket launcher that had been strapped to the side of the speeder.

Ahead of him, he could see streaks of fire lancing through the snowy sky, fireballs erupting, casting the long shadows of shattered artillery across the snow white backdrop ahead of him.

Anakin laughed.

The clones joined him.

Rex fired off  his rocket, the brightly shining piece of ordnance howling through the air, and Anakin could almost swear he felt the brief instant of realization from an organic mind before it was quickly and brutally snuffed out as the last cannon was wreathed in fire

—

Pors Tonith

Pors had been staring, as humans would say, his eyebrows reaching his forehead as the tactical display showed the utter destruction of his armored column by, of all things, Ilum’s icy crustaceans.

He’d heard the woman had control of insects and insect-like creatures. Not… well… Not this.

Was it control of animals? Or things with exoskeletons?

That… complicated things.

Though not much for now.

Then, of course, alert signs and calls for aid began reaching him from the south, his orbital scanners picking up the rather ludicrous sight of a speeder bike charge rushing through the howling ice storm and smashing through the army of droids like a white hot knife to tear down the artillery batteries before they had even fired a single shot.

In spite of himself, Pors couldn’t help but smile ever so slightly at the display.

They really were making this such fun…

But still, every defense had a weakness, a fragile point.

He was fairly sure he’d found at least two he could work with.

His long, spindly fingers activated the comline.

“Commander Ugg, Master Cirvan, I do believe you’re, as they say, ‘up to bat’?”

He did not have the Force, but he could almost feel both men’s respective anticipation.

(X)(X)(X)

So, fun fact- A reader compared Anakin's potential tactics to Jagathai Khan.

I decided to run with it xD