(Coruscant System, 30 seconds later)
I had to give it to Admiral Dron. Despite the fact the Malevolence and the rest of the Coalition fleet must have seemed to appear out of thin air due to their having jumped in-system while the interference from the annihilation of the two suicide-ships was still fogging the instrumentation of much of the Coruscant Defense Fleet, he hadn't wasted any time. Ordering every fighter and bomber at his disposal scrambled, rather than trying to first move the Venators now spread out in a cordon over Coruscant back into an order-of-battle.
That one decision revealed the man was keenly aware of the nature of the threat facing his fleet. The CDF might outnumber the C.I.S task-group twenty-to-one, but many of the vessels belonging to the defense-fleet couldn't harm the the Coalition juggernaut even if it's shields were down.
Worse, as I studied the nav-display, I saw the C.I.S superweapon wasn't the only monstrosity present. Anchoring each of the two wing-formations to either side of the great cruiser was a Separatist Dreadnaught. The pair of them likely built as the Quarrens' attempt to conceal the construction of the Malevolence and her hopefully still incomplete sister ship. Toward the rear of each C.I.S wing-formation were ten of the twenty-five hundred meter-long variants of the Recusant-class Light Destroyers, their extensive inset hangars already pouring swarms of Vulture Droids, and a lesser number of Commerce Guild Bombers into space from their flanks. Each of the formations flanking the Malevolence contained a fairly even mix of the more conventional Recusants and Munificent-class Star Frigates numbering perhaps thirty-five all told for each wing. Finally, there were ten or twelve Commerce Guild corvettes screening for each flank-force, and that brought the total number of C.I.S capital ships to a number in the mid-to-high eighties.
It was a truly impressive amount of war material, but with the exception of the Malevolence, these weren't the ships which had me pursing my lips in a tight line. Admiral Dron had more than eighty Venators and nearly three dozen slave-rigged Dreadnaught Heavy Cruisers alone in-system, after all, and the Force alone knew how many smaller vessels. None of these cruisers being subject to the limits of the Reformation because of the Military Mirror Sanctions Act, plus the truly awesome number of fighters and bombers he could expect were even now racing into orbit from the planet below. All of which said nothing of Coruscant's orbital and static planetary defense assets.
No, it was the fifty-plus drop-ships, hardened droid-transport vessels, and boarding craft now moving to hug the rear of each formation that had me glaring at the nav-display. They'd all arrived as a second wave, seconds after the C.I.S fleet began pouring all those vultures and CGMs into space, and those ships made the Coalition's strategic goal crystal clear.
"This isn't an out and out attack. It's a raid, meant to prove the Republic can't even protect it's holdings here in the very heart of it's power. At least I hope that's all this is, anyways." I explained in the same short, clipped tone I'd used earlier.
Padme, being a politician, was the first to grasp the implications. When she did, it was easy to hear the concern in her voice.
"The C.I.S could hide almost anything within that kind of chaos and destruction, even if only a quarter of those forces are allowed to reach the surface! Bomb a corporate headquarters, and whose to say what information was stolen from their servers first? Accidentally strafe a hotel, and a dead shipping magnate is just one among many unfortunate casualties. The possibilities are as endless as they are horrible! Bad enough, the loss of faith in the Republic's ability to safeguard it's member worlds after an attack like this, without having to spend a tremendous amount of time and resources trying to separate simple tragedies from ongoing threats to our security."
My left hand had already depressed the touch-plate which was a distinctly technological addition to the console. Causing a low thrumming sound to echo throughout the elongated teardrop-shaped vessel's interior for several moments, as a throbbing tremor ran throughout Seraph's superstructure. Lowering Seraph's nose, I pushed the scion of a sentient world into a steep curving descent along the z-axis at a screaming ninety percent of her maximum sublight speed. Banking in such a way as to put us about a million and a half kilometers below and away from the Malevolence. Only then did I answer the question I was certain was on both their minds.
"The enemy fleet isn't simply ignoring us. Seraph has a state-of-the-art cloaking device, which I engaged right before moving us into position to shadow that monster." I kept my voice calm and matter of fact, as I banked out of the path of a squadron of vulture-droids obviously taking the low road on their way to a target among the CDF.
Padme was the first to respond to that revelation, but she ignored the obvious and completely irrelevant question as to the provenance of our present means of concealment, in favor of the far more pressing inquiry. "What are we doing here, Anakin? There are so many droid-craft leaving that fleet, we could get easily get rammed by accident. I want to stop this terrible attack as much as you do, but it doesn't seem we're in any position to do so."
Without looking up from my instruments, I explained "Seraph isn't simply a ghost-ship. She's the near-sapient product of extremely advanced bio-technology, and as such, her weaponry is as advanced as her flight capabilities. There are four meteor-cannons set flush into her hull, and each one can fire variable-yield ordinance up to the destructive potential of six or seven proton torpedoes apiece. The Force revealed those great ion cannon emplacements on the flanks of the C.I.S superweapon are incredibly vulnerable where they meet the vessel's hull as they charge to fire, but it's not like I can simply transmit that information to the CDF mid-battle. Admiral Dron would have every reason to consider such an intelligence windfall more than a little suspicious, and that's if we could even get through. Both sides are doing their level best to jam each other's communication frequencies to disrupt C&C."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a thoughtful look on the ex-queen's face, as she replied without a trace of the fear I could sense she had almost entirely in hand "You want to attack the Separatist flagship by surprise when it charges it's main cannon to fire? If that's the plan, why aren't we moving into position to do so?"
"I was ordered to protect you, Padme, and I don't have the right to make this kind of decision for my apprentice. Seraph's deflector-shield is impressive for a vessel of her size, but only for her size. Her best defense is and always will be her speed and maneuverability. Making a run on the Malevolence isn't a suicide mission, but it's not far from one, either. We could probably survive a glancing hit by one of the dreadnaught's point-defense batteries, but if one of it's many hundreds of twin turbolaser batteries strike us squarely, there won't be anything left of us but a cloud of slowly cooling gases." I didn't sugarcoat the situation for either of them, as I continued to weave, climb or descend to avoid passing droids. We seemed to be on the very tail-end of the C.I.S fleet's release of said droid-craft, but there was a substantial number of them circling just above and below the fleet-killer.
Ahsoka was the first one to reply. Her voice filled with the confidence of youth, as she urged "We have to try, Master! If there's even a chance we can save the people down there, or some of the JF troopers up here, we, we just have to!"
I took my eyes off the nav-display for a fraction of a second to glance in Padme's direction, but I needn't have bothered. I could feel her determination and resolve to prevent needless suffering and loss of life like a steady, unbroken drumbeat. Vital as any heartbeat, as she answered "I abhor what this battle will mean for the people, but the sooner it's brought to a close, the better it will be for everyone. It's as Ahsoka said, we have to try."
I nodded my agreement, but felt the need to point out a few more critical details. "Seraph expended all of her meteor-rounds clearing away asteroids during our recent escape from Cato Neimoidia. Meaning all we've got is the explosive material she's produced in the last eighteen to twenty hours. Material she'll need to compress fashioning maximum-yield rounds. We'll get four of those, and maybe another four equivalent to a proton torpedo apiece. The cloak will fall as we fire, we won't be able to reengage it for five very long seconds, and I'll need to drop the deflector shield to recloak. Last chance to reconsider."
No one bothered to add to what they'd already said, so my fingers began tapping pads in the middle of Seraph's control-yoke. Ordering her internal chemical processors to begin preparing the meteor-cannon rounds of the requisite yield, as I nosed up slowly and began moving into position. I kept the acceleration down to minimize any tell-tale thermal blooms, and that gave us time to really take in the battle already ongoing.
A churning furball of V-19 Torrents, and a great many of the older Z-95 Headhunters up from Coruscant airfields contested the area around the planet's orbital defense-platforms with the swarming vulture-droids. Always willing to make suicide-runs on targets of value, the vultures also acted as shield-formations for the bombers trailing them. Although ultimately outnumbered for a change, I could see that the handful of platforms the bombers were focusing on had already sustained an alarming amount of damage. Wings of Republic starfighters were doing their best to keep the CGBs at bay, but it was difficult to stonewall an enemy which was entirely indifferent to it's losses, so long as the tactical objective was achieved. In ten seconds, I lost count of the number of CGBs followed right in on their runs by starfighters who would inevitably turn them into scrap moments after they'd flushed their racks. Platform point-defenses and deflectors defied many of these hits, but as I watched, long gouts of vented atmosphere from two badly-holed platforms sent momentary plumes of debris outward to be captured by the planet's gravity-well before emergency forcefields sealed many of the breaches.
Likewise, the Malevolence had borne down on the wedge the Coalition was trying to drive into the defenses. Standing off only a few hundred thousand kilometers from high orbit, it was beginning a threatening turn which would line it up on nearly twenty Dreadnaught cruisers fearlessly advancing on the behemoth. It's respective wings had drawn in closer and fanned out somewhat as wings of Venators with their screening elements advanced to begin pouring a truly withering amount of fire into their opposite numbers, but I had to wince regardless.
"Admiral Dron's sacrificing many of his older cruisers to force the Malevolence to turn and fire. Look there and there on the nav-display. He's moving the Venators not occupied cutting the monster's flanks to pieces into position now. Hoping the ion-cannon will require a substantial amount of time before it's ready to fire again. It's strategically sound thinking, and it will limit his casualties because the slave-rigged cruisers are far more lightly crewed, but I think he's being played." I told my companions as we continued easing closer to our target. I hated being forced to wait for that obscenity to fire even once, but the ships hugging it's underside were blocking the z-axis run I wanted to make on the ion cannon's mount. The spine and belly of the leviathan were where the plasma-rotor emplacements were found, and those were less effective with respect to a vessel the size of Seraph. It was cold, waiting like this, but getting ourselves vaporized would help no one. I needed to limit the time we were exposed to the umbrella of fire from all those dual-turbolasers on the flanks, or we were going to go the way a great many Y-Wings had in a now defunct timeline.
"What do you mean, Anakin? If the superweapon's fleet is on it's way to collapse, and the Admiral coaxes it into firing on targets of his choosing in preparation for his own attack, what's the problem?" Padme inquired in a tense yet quizzical tone.
"He's forgotten those are tactical droids captaining the frigates and destroyers. They're not going to break and try to disengage as their formations crumble, because they've been ordered to act as bricks in a wall, and that's what they'll continue to be until the very last ship has been destroyed. Look at that cluster of transports and dropships directly in front of us. They're going to redline their engines the moment the ion cannon fires, and chase the expanding wave right over top of the helpless cruisers. Oh sure, the gunboats, corvettes and frigates waiting beyond and to either side are going to take their toll, but it's all war-material already calculated as lost. The C.I.S can probably lose thirty-five or forty of the fifty, and still accomplish whatever they're planning with even limited air support. Dron's not doing anything to prevent them from picking their own descent-vector, and I wish I understood why. Is it really as simple as him just trying to end the threat as quickly as possible?" I replied matter-of-factly. Eyes glued to the HUD in the nav-console.
My stomach was beginning to feel like it wanted to crawl out of my mouth and slink away, as the deluge of deaths I could sense kept abrading my senses. Each one was a horribly discordant note that ended in an unnatural microsecond of damning silence. All of it fusing into the hellish wailing of the demonic symphony underway. If I was trained to at least dull my sensitivity to the carnage, and it was this bad, then...
"Remember to breathe, and focus on remaining centered, Apprentice. Try to keep the sounds of the Room of a Thousand Fountains in mind. It should help, a little." I advised gently. Not really having the time to offer any more comfort to my Padawan, as we neared the point where things were going to get dangerous, but keenly aware of the fact it was my choice that had brought a fifteen year old Force-sensitive into contact with her first mass-casualty situation.
Looking out at the vicious battle underway, I couldn't shake the certainty that all of this represented the hand of Palpatine at work. It was no surprise that Padme and Ahsoka didn't see anything wrong with what must look to the untrained like a very robust defense of the Republic's capitol, but I knew this was only a tithe of the vessels which collectively made up the Home and Sector Defense Fleets. Given that relations between the Republic and C.I.S had been souring for months, it was no surprise that many fleet-elements were out on maneuvers or even shakedown cruises with so many new Venators coming into service so quickly, but it beggared belief that the C.I.S had just so happened to launch their offensive while so much of the fleet was away from Coruscant. It was treachery at work, and the traitor or traitors were people with access to the most sensitive military intelligence, period.
The Malevolence fired it's great cannon, and star-bright rings of crackling, coruscating energy raced toward the formation of Republic cruisers. Expanding as they traveled, like the yawning jaws of some interstellar demon from the dark places between stars. The Dreadnaughts began to list, as white discharges continued to race across their hulls, but they weren't the only victims. Three of the great orbital platforms sparked and crackled with overloads before going completely dark, as the wave of ionic energy simply reaved onward. Finally slamming against the planetary defense shield in a glaring flash of pyrotechnics that saw the shield stutter and faded in and out of visibility for long moments. Jagged white streaks of ionic energy seeming to interact violently with the shield-energies.
The transports, drop ships, and boarding craft which had been directly in front of us had done just as I predicted. Accelerating to their maximum speed as they raced through the path of devastation their protector had just wrought, and inadvertently clearing our way.
"Hold on to your harnesses!" I barked. Pushing Seraph from station-keeping to her maximum acceleration so quickly, we were all thrust back in our seats despite her inborn inertial stabilizers. The belly of the tremendous warship began to loom on our immediately right, but my gaze was fused to the still-solid targeting reticle as we surged upward.
Fifty thousand kilometers.
Forty thousand kilometers.
Thirty thousand kilometers, and Seraph conveyed a hunter's anticipation as her targeting system locked onto a point seventy-eight meters from being flush with the Malevolence's hull.
Twenty thousand kilometers.
We were fifteen thousand kilometers from our target, when the Subjugator began to roll in place like some horrifying breaching leviathan from the collective nightmares of ancient mariners the galaxy over. I was astounded at how swiftly the enormous ship was accomplishing the maneuver, and apparently I wasn't alone.
Crimson bolts began to split the blackness before us like a legion of devilish legionnaires launching fiery pilum at the oncoming Republic warships. Admiral Dron's offensive, consisting of fifteen Venators in three groups of five, and at least as many squadrons of Torrents shepherding three ten-strong squadrons of NTB-630 Naval Bombers I was certain Dron had pulled strings to see assigned to his flag-group were trying to do the same thing we were on a vastly larger scale.
"Anakin, there isn't any way that thing can fire it's main weapon again so soon, is there?" Padme inquired in a tight voice. I felt a surge of admiration, and corresponding attraction for her sheer self-possession at such a moment, but didn't know how to answer her.
"It might be a bluff, or it could simply be bringing it's heaviest concentration of turbolasers to bear. I, it's possible the Malevolence could fire it's ion cannon again before the Venators can range against it" I said after a moment's thought. The lion's share of my focus remaining on what was transpiring before us.
Looking out the larger viewscreen, we could all see four-fifths of the rapidly approaching starfighters as they were forced to break and tussle with the vultures now being vomited from the monster's starboard bays. My admiration as a pilot was for the remaining two squadrons of Torrents. Refusing to be diverted, they continued on to the target. Firing concussion missiles at the point-defense batteries as soon as they reached maximum effective range. Two-by-two they fired, and by the time the fighters leading the bombers to target the Malevolence pulled up at the end of their runs, more than half had paid for their courage with their lives.
Four thousand meters out, I saw two things happen simultaneously. The NTB-630s began their own runs into a corridor where the ribbons of flak-plasma were comparatively weaker, thanks to the courage of their guardian-squadrons, and the first lines of white lightning began to crackle all over the immense coil growing ever larger on Seraph's port side.
"Going to be close!" I muttered with some urgency. Beginning to arc a few degrees to port, as we screamed past the twenty-five hundred meter mark. The immense coil was awash in dazzling arcs now, but blue orbs were slamming into it's surface again and again. Detonating into washes of bluish-white energy that were mostly lost in the greater maelstrom of building energy.
Seraph shuddered twice as the targeting reticle began to flash, and her meteor-cannons fired their own ordinance two-by-two. The sizable red-gold spheres trailed wispy flame-like streaks into the void as they covered the intervening fifteen hundred meters.
The first and second rounds caught the inmost edge of the coil, and spent their fury as the proton torpedoes of the NTB-630s had. The Malevolence's ion-cannon continued it's buildup, with an inexorable inevitability that must be threatening to dishearten the troopers aboard the approaching Venators. The third round hit the mounting proper, and had some kind of effect as it exploded, because immediately long loops of ionic energy began to surge like spilling white-hot lava from the bottom of the coil. It didn't stop the overall buildup, but some of the electricity-like arcs flared back against the Subjugator's own armor belt. Scoring the hull with wide black furrows carved in meters-thick armor plate like an immense child digging their fingers into potter's clay.
The final round missed the metal where cannon and hull meet, and slammed into the circle of hull directly behind the bottom third of the huge circular technological construct. I never saw the explosion itself as we streaked past, but no one could miss the kilometer-long arc of energy that twisted back on itself to ground against the center of the ion-cannon coil. A second later, the hull bulged as if it were a balloon being blown up all around the cannon, then explosion after explosion ripped through the cannon. Ripped through the hull, and ripped out the opposite side of the dreaded fleet-killer.
I listened to this description delivered in avid detail by my new apprentice sometime later, because just then all my attention was being divided between avoiding collisions with any of a number of Torrents, Vultures, or the odd bit of wreckage being hurled out to fill space all about us, and trying to evade weapons batteries obviously capable of defending the ship under local control.
The Force sang out, and for the first time since those blinking red dots had appeared on the HUD, it wasn't entirely bleak. I could still feel those silences continuing to accrue, but there was a trill of something sharper and yet distinct from the miasma of death and destruction.
Everything appeared to be happening in slow motion, as I called on the Force to enhance my reaction-time. Space was full of red and white all around us, but I felt I was threading a needle. Slewing to port or starboard, sometimes by meters, and sometimes by tens of kilometers.
A hard impact caused Seraph's elongated teardrop to seesaw off the line she was running. It took me a moment to realize that had been a simple near-miss from one of the dreadnaught's spine-mounted turbolasers.
"Recloaking in two seconds" I announced. Hauling over hard to port on the control-yoke, then pushing down on the yoke to level out from our madcap climb, before slapping my open palm down on the rectangular pad the instant it flashed teal.
Still screaming along faster than anything but the squadron of upgraded Eta-2 Actis-class Interceptors which had just appeared on the HUD, I brought Seraph around in a wide arc to starboard to head in their direction. It wasn't until we were more than thirty thousand kilometers from the Malevolence that I flipped a stud on the organic console to switch the viewscreen to a view aft. Continuing to fly on instrumentation, I didn't say anything for a moment, as we took in the sight that was slowly shrinking in the viewscreen.
Weeping long streaks of golden fire-like energy discharges from the immense circles on it's flanks, the Malevolence was turning laboriously away from the planet as the Venators finally closed and began an unceasing barrage. Secondary explosions like small gouts of sparks dotted it's engine section, and huge swathes of buckled and blackened hull-plating revealed just how catastrophic the feedback wash of all that energy into the vessel's interior components really had been. One of the Separatist dreadnaughts had turned broadside as the wounded C.I.S flagship cut behind the arc of it's passage, and began to exchange fire with the harrying Republic cruisers, but they were like Vornskyrs with a fix on Force-sensitive prey.
It was the other dreadnaught which had a bit more luck, however. Already blackened and scored from the brutal firefight on the port-flank of the C.I.S formation, it was clearly accelerating toward a ramming attempt. Awake to the peril of the suicide-run, however, the more agile cruisers simply parted and poured fire into the bloodied vessel as it passed. It was hopeless madness, but there was something almost admirable in the methodical determination of the machines. Which had, after all, momentarily stalled the pursuit.
The chase continued, as the Venators freed from the conclusion of the port-formation firefight began pursuing the C.I.S turning to race after the flag as best they could. I honestly had no idea how it would all conclude, but it was no longer our fight.
The HUD clearly showed why more of Dron's fleet and the attendant fighters weren't joining the hunt. They were organizing on CAP over Coruscant.
Where the transports and drop-ships, or at least those which had survived, had indeed evaded the defensive cordon along their chosen descent-vector.
"Ahsoka, hail the Light of Coruscant, please. Admiral Dron is probably apoplectic over not knowing what in the name of the Force just happened, and we need to know what's going on planet-side."