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Chapter 58

Twenty standard hours is not enough time to forget the words of a man, that much Asajj Ventress learned as she endlessly paced the deck of Dark Rival like a starved acklay. Rain Bonteri’s parting words troubled her, not for that he definitely knew she had been ordered to betray him, but that he also insinuated she herself would be the victim of betrayal.

“Because betrayal is an unhappy hazard of the dark side.”

It was the exact same words Dooku had recited to her, and now it echoed over and over again in her head. She tested the sentence, feeling the Force wrap around it as she stewed in that hated sense of uncertainty. The simple recital of the maxim was proof he knew every detail about Count Dooku’s instructions–but he could have used any section of that transmission, yet purposefully picked out this single sentence for a reason.

Ventress could be overthinking, but if there was one thing she knew about Rain Bonteri, it was that the Onderonian noble only knew how to overthink; whether it be planning a stratagem down to the most minute detail, deconstructing his opponent’s psyche piece by piece, or calculating each and every word in order to elicit the most favourable outcome in a mere conversation. If she wanted to be on the same mental wavelength as the Battle Hydra, it was worth combing through every detail.

And there was one detail that plagued her like a chronic illness; that he had given her the benefit of the doubt on the eve of such a crucial battle being able to. The fact that he chose to ‘believe’ her when Ventress told him she was acting for the greater good of the Confederacy. A single, well-placed missile could have taken out Dark Rival before Ventress and the Storm Fleet ever became a problem, but no such missile came.

Instead, he simply imparted that maxim.

“Betrayal is the unhappy hazard of the dark side.”

Ventress paced the deck, repeating the sentence under her breath like a mantra. Over and over, and in the twenty-first hour, something clicked into place, and Ventress felt like a lucid onlooker in a mad dream. She had focused so much on the sentence itself that she had overlooked the context behind it.

No. He didn’t say that to tell me he knew I would betray him. It was used as a warning. He was warning me that I was going to be betrayed.

And then in her mind’s eye, that sentence was replaced by a single name. Count Dooku.

What if… what if Dooku’s instructions were meant to lure her away from a place of safety–within the most dangerous fleet of the CAF not under Dooku’s complete control–and into a hidden, isolated nebula of the Mid Rim where he could kill her? Did that not mean she wasn’t actually tasked to take command of a powerful, secret fleet to use against their enemies, but instead to sail straight towards her own tomb?

In that frenzied hurricane of thoughts, Ventress had not even considered how Rain Bonteri could have uncovered such knowledge. Or even realised that he had not known at all, and simply wished to unnerve her. Nor did she realise that the very fact that Dooku had told her of that maxim just before ordering her death was incredibly suspect on its own.

That frenzied hurricane of thoughts… came to an abrupt end with her relentless pacing when the hyperdrive alert warbled. Twenty-one standard hours throught hyperspace. She had finally made it.

But made it where? A new beginning, at the head of two-hundred of the most advanced ships of the Confederacy? Or the end, in a ignoble death among the stars, alone and unnoticed?

The astronavigation droid, not being Force-sensitive themselves, and wholly unaware of her thoughts, flippantly disengaged the hyperdrive. Dark Rival lurched beneath her feet, and Ventress braced herself for the blackness of deep space, and perhaps, the blinding light of a thousand turbolaser bolts.

At that moment, a crucial detail slipped from Ventress’ mind. If he had every intention to kill her, why had Count Dooku also reminded her that betrayal was the custom of the dark side?

⁂

“Here we are,” Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker announced to himself as Pioneer and half a hundred other Venators–battlecruisers and carriers alike–ripped themselves out of hyperspace, “Dead centre in the middle of nowhere.”

Clone Commander Appo stirred from such stillness for a moment Anakin could have believed the trooper had fallen asleep on his feet. To all outward appearances, Appo seemed perfectly normal, perfectly stern and attentive as a Clone Commander should. But beneath that perfectly identical face, Anakin had noticed something else over the past few hours in hyperspace; an underlying thirst, an eagerness for something, a tension that strained to be released.

Released, in battle. It was there now, and as Anakin studied Appo’s face, he could almost visualise those lines of tension in the Force.

The 501st Clone Legion was yearning for some excitement, and their Commander was no different. They had been bred for battle, and their last engagement, on the Separatist world Nam Chorios, was far and away. A deep space boarding action was the perfect vector to unleash some of that pent up energy.

“–I’ll ready the men, sir,” Appo suggested, “At your leave?”

“Go ahead,” Anakin jabbed out his chin, crossing the deck to the sensor chief. For a moment, he almost called out to Lieutenant Klev, before squashing down that habit with the mental reminder that he was no longer aboard the Harbinger anymore.

Klev, and Avrey and Yularen for that matter, was with Tallisibeth, and hopefully they were doing alright. They must be fighting the Battle Hydra now, that infamous Separatist warlord, if the battle was not already over. Tallisibeth was not dead, that was much was certain to him, nor was the Harbinger destroyed–for he would have felt such a connection severed in the Force, and he had felt no such thing. It was a good sign, one that only reinforced Anakin’s faith in his apprentice, and not just his apprentice but the crews and captains of the Open Circle Fleet.

It was a long way from Christophsis.

“Anything, officer?” the Jedi General questioned.

The sensor chief’s eyes darted up to him, and back down, “Working on it, General. The Nebula ain’t playing nice.”

Anakin nodded sharply but understandingly, nary a blame or rebuke on his lips, and brought his attention towards the viewports. It was a sight to behold; the Llon Nebula were sheets of green and blue and red, and there were stars, newly-formed and newborn, above and below and on all sides. It was an enormous soup of dust and gas, one of many stellar nurseries of the galaxy, and they were within it, soon to violate it with battle.

An involuntary shiver ran up his back at that thought.

“We’ve got contact–” the sensor chief suddenly said, “–Multiple contacts; bearing oh-four-seven, mark two-nine-nine.”

Anakin’s brain spun as he mentally ingested the bearings–below us–before raising a single finger and twirling it. The helm kicked Pioneer into a spin, rolling the mighty vessel a full hundred-eighty degrees longitudinally until the entire ship was ‘upside down.’ Such orientation was tracked as such on the numerous displays and holos, until their operators keyed in for the switch, and thus ‘upside down’ was now the ‘right side up.’

Anakin marched up to the viewports, craning his head up at the supposed contacts that were now ‘above’ them. At first, there was the usual scattering of stars, but as he traced the bearing, it was then that he witnessed an arm of the Llon Nebula, a swirling river of light bisecting the vast void. And within that river of light were dark shapes, shadows, hundreds of them, like barges sailing along the flow of stardust. His eyes traced the silhouettes, and his brain forced a pattern onto them, matching them against the vast gallery of starship silhouettes his memory contained.

“Those are freighters, not warships,” Anakin muttered, then aloud ordered; “Send the scans to my datapad. I want to see everything.”

“Right away, sir.”

The images coalesced on his datapad. The ships were large and geometrical; massive flying boxes exactly eight-hundred metres long and sheathed in dull black durasteel. On their aft ends sat a pair of huge sublight thrusters, arranged vertically, and their prows were dominated by a gargantuan cargo door that spanned port to starboard. Anakin recognised the freighter type; it was one of the most popular and ubiquitous ships classes in the galaxy.

PCL 27, designed by Maxwell & Son. It also went by another more popular name, whether it be in the private circles of shipping magnates, dockhands living paycheck-to-paycheck, or the trillions of spacers who share the hyperlanes with such vessels; A-class bulk freighter. Such a classification was not official, but merely being called the ‘A-class’ was enough of a testament to its omnipresence across the galaxy. Pioneer’s scans reflected as such, with a gleaming ‘PCL 27’ highlighted at the corner of the screen.

There were two-hundred of them, all lying dormant on that river of light. No running lights, no thruster plumes.

So this is it? Anakin had to ask himself in disbelief. The vaunted reinforcements the Battle Hydra was relying on is an abandoned, derelict merchant convoy?

Suffice to say, the Jedi Knight swiftly discarded the thought.

“I want a full-spectrum scan on that fleet,” he instructed, “Search for bio-signs as well.”

As the Open Circle detachment crept closer to investigate, more information poured into Anakin’s hands. His suspicions grew. The thrusters… were too clean. Freight companies and captains loved to skimp out on fuel quality to save costs, and these thrusters showed no signs of that. Either these ships were incredibly new, or they didn’t burn dirty. That was the first sign. The second was the hull itself. Anakin studied the lines and paneling of the hull, the quality of the fittings, then the material composition of the plating. It’s not just durasteel–it’s a military-grade doonium alloy. Then there was the forward ‘cargo door’ that possessed none of the design features of a cargo door and all the features of an armoured bulkhead.

These ‘freighters’ are built like military-grade warships.

So why are two-hundred of them sitting in some middle-of-nowhere nebula?

“That’s strange,” the sensor chief frowned, “There aren’t any bio-signs.”

“Did we accidentally stumble on the Dark Force or something?” another officer half-joked.

Dark Force. A rush of memories flooded Anakin’s mind. The officer was talking about the Katana fleet, a task force of two-hundred Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers built ten years ago. The Katana fleet was meant to herald a new era for Republic military warships, each ship outfitted with a then-advanced set of full-rig slave circuitry. When the system malfunctioned, the whole fleet jumped to lightspeed together and disappeared forever.

Ten years ago, Rendili Dreadnaughts were ludicrously crew-intensive, requiring upwards of sixteen-thousand spacers in all. The bespoke slave circuitry implemented cut that number down to little over two-thousand. These days, slave circuitry was even more advanced, but hardly utilised due to the great scare caused by the scandal. Despite that, slave circuitry was absolutely ubiquitous in the Separatist navy; present and essential in basically every Separatist warship ever built. The joys of droid crews, Anakin decided, and organic manpower deficit.

Ten years ago, full-rig slave circuitry was the next evolution in starship technology. Advanced, but untested. The Dark Force was supposed to be the Republic’s grand demonstration of how effective a slave-rigged fleet could be.

Before the slave-rigged fleet took half a million men to their graves.

“A-class bulk freighters only need a crew of sixty,” Anakin recalled aloud, “If these are warships like I suspect, maybe a couple hundred. If we assume slave circuitry, and droid crews… one could run a completely secret fleet. Think about it; there’s no need for a home port or even ports of call, and when they’re on the move, the ordinary spacer would think it\'s a freight convoy.”

“So you think this is it, sir? The Storm Fleet?”

“Yes,” Anakin said decisively, “This is it. There must be a reason why they are all deactivated, but we’re not here to poke the sleeping krayt dragon. We’re here to kill the sleeping krayt dragon. Inform the secondary bridge; launch all starfighters! Bring us in–destroy them all!”

Sorry, Appo, but if we’re lucky your men won’t have any fun at all. If we’re lucky.

Anakin Skywalker wasn’t a lucky person.

“New contact!” the sensor chief alarmed, “There’s a Providence almost right above us, headed on the same vector!”

That’d be Asajj Ventress. Anakin traced the vector–it was Ventress’ ship, indeed, Dark Rival, and it was racing towards the safety of the Storm Fleet.

“–How close must she get to transmit the control codes to the fleet!?” Anakin demanded in a rush, his every muscle straining to dash to the hangar bay and leap into his starfighter.

“We’re in a nebula, sir,” the sensor chief replied as calmly as he could, “You can ask the stars and they’ll likely give you a more accurate answer than I.”

Anakin twitched, “Then belay that last order and bring Pioneer to bear on Ventress! Have all starfighter wings target that ship–the Dark Rival! The rest of the fleet will proceed at pace!”

As long as those fake freighters don’t get activated, this spot will mark Ventress’ grave. Anakin’s scar burned. And it\'s been a long time coming.

⁂

Ventress found herself within her Ginivex-class fanblade before she knew it, the Banshee screeching out of Dark Rival’s through-deck hangar bay with all two-hundred droid starfighters and a hundred more landing shuttles as soon as Anakin Skywalker’s Open Circle appeared right below her. She hardly even had the luxury of wondering how or why he had followed her, only that she had to reach the Storm Fleet before he caught her.

Because a Providence, for all of its advantages, could not outrun a Star Destroyer, or the blistering masses of Republic fighter-bomber wings for that matter. Within a matter of moments, the Pioneer was right below Dark Rival, both ships longitudinally spinning perpendicularly to bring their broadsides to bear. Without her combat escorts, however, Dark Rival couldn’t effectively stave off the hungering squadrons of BTL-B Y-wings that dove beneath her shields and unleashed their deadly payloads of proton torpedoes down her spine.

Dark Rival, knowing her end was at hand, overloaded her turbolasers, turning into a cylinder of blazing laserfire and torpedoes, lashing out in one final tantrum against death before her capacitors blew out. Pioneer responded in kind, leveraging an almost comical number of starfighters–well over four-hundred–against the single Providence. Ventress hadn’t the luxury to watch her flagship’s end either, as she kicked Banshee’s drive to full power and set off towards the indicated Storm-001, flagship of the Storm Fleet, on her panel.

Close behind her, another 49 Venators, and 5,000 hostile starfighters out for her blood. A familiar drive trail appeared on the panel, one unmistakable to any pilot of the Confederacy–the piercing dagger of a Jedi Aethersprite.

Skywalker.

One of the Vulture droids warbled, the translation scrawling across the holodisplays in Banshee’s cockpit.

“What!?” Ventress gritted her teeth, kicking out her engines and whirling Banshee around so she could see behind her–and saw a second fleet extracting out of hyperspace. Separatist frigates shot out of lightspeed and slugs from a chamber, each deafeningly silent thud seemingly vibrating the dust clouds of the Llon Nebula, “Bonteri followed us!?”

The Vulture warbled again, alerting her to the twenty spearhead destroyers blazing a golden trail towards them, outpacing the frigates and even the Republic Star Destroyers. Mistryl destroyers. Why? Did Bonteri send them after Skywalker? To help me? But he knows I’m not here to bring him reinforcements… just what is he up to?

Regardless, it was a welcome reprieve. The Mistryl fleet had appeared almost laterally across the Open Circle, with Dark Rival and Pioneer dead centre between them. Almost immediately, half of the pursuing starfighters peeled off Ventress’ tail and brought themselves around in a tight one-eighty, now on a tight intercept with the Vultures released from the frigates–

Only to be ignored by said Vultures, the droid starfighters blowing right past Dark Rival and Pioneer.

Or, Ventress narrowed her eyes, whirling Banshee back around and pushing its drives to their limits, Bonteri sent them to track me after all. The Llon Nebula was, like all nebulae, utterly vast, spanning many light-years. Only Ventress knew the exact coordinates of the Storm Fleet, courtesy of Count Dooku, and Bonteri had likely sent the Mistryl to track her.

Regardless, her situation had just gone from bad to worse.

Banshee barrelled between the first two Storm-class destroyers, weaving through the tightly packed formation towards the centre of it. Her fighter wing followed closely as she did, zigzagging in and out so closely Ventress could count the rivets on the front panels.

“Storm-One,” Ventress punched the comm panel, “This is Asajj Ventress!”

If she thought her name was enough to make the slumbering giants wake, Ventress found herself sorely mistaken. As Separatist and Republic starfighters clashed right over her, stray bolts spearing through empty space, the Storm Fleet continued to lie unmoving. Another of her Vultures chimed, its chassis quivering as it did.

Stolen story; please report.

“Dooku,” Ventress hissed, slamming his contact into the panel, “Count Dooku!”

As if awaiting precisely this moment, Count Dooku’s hologram appeared before her, a regal eyebrow raised, “Why the rush, Asajj? It is unbefitting.”

“Master, I need the codes, now,” Ventress told him as urgently as she could without shouting, “There is a– a situation.”

A Vulture droid warbled–damn you!–and Dooku’s eyes narrowed. At that moment, it took every fibre in her body to not wheel on the stupid droid and blast it to pieces.

“So both the Hydra and Skywalker have tracked you and learned about the Storm Fleet’s existence,” he murmured in disappointment.

“I can still destroy them, Master!” Ventress insisted heatedly, “All I need are the codes!”

“You have lost, Asajj,” Count Dooku sighed deeply, but composedly, “Against one or the other, perhaps the Storm Fleet could prevail. But both? The Storm Fleet will no longer be yours to command.”

At that moment, Rain Bonteri’s words returned to the forefront of her thoughts like a vengeful prophecy. At that moment, Asajj Ventress’ pride and ego shattered, her weaknesses and insecurities flooding her thoughts, and thousand questions and one repeating in her head. The promises she made, the promises she broke. The lifetime of battles she waged, the years of service she kept. The dark side of the Force reigned over her, her eyes bleeding into a baleful shade, her blood darkening, her pulse quickening.

And yet, Asajj Ventress was as lucid as she has ever been.

“You are betraying me,” she stated with a calm certainty that surprised Dooku as much as it surprised herself.

Count Dooku met her hateful stare, “I am afraid it is–”

“Do not give me that tripe!” Ventress snapped, the roar of laserfire and thundering torpedoes overhead fading into a background lull, “What was it all for, Dooku!? Rattatak, Geonosis, the war!? What was the Confederacy for!? I believed in you, when Sev’rance didn’t! I believed in your promise of a better galaxy! Tell me! Why am I no longer part of the galaxy you envision!? What did I do!? Where did I go wrong!? What does the Confederacy mean to you!?”

“Nothing,” Dooku replied simply, the single word like a vibroknife in her gut, and the next words twisted it mercilessly, “The Confederacy means nothing to me. Your mistake, Asajj, was not realising this, and not realising you were but a mere piece in a greater game you know nothing about. I truly regret this, Asajj. You were my finest creation, and there was nothing I looked forward to more than your presence at my side whence I built my New Order. I had hoped for… much from you. In the end, you couldn’t accomplish something as simple as secure a fleet I had all but placed at your fingertips. This failure will be your last.”

The comlink clicked and went dead. One of the Sheathipede shuttles accompanying her released a loud burst of electromagnetic waves. Banshee was close enough to intercept the code–the encoded string was crawling across her dashboard as she kicked her starfighter out of the flight formation on instinct.

A series soundless thud thud thud. The running lights of two-hundred dormant warships exploded to life simultaneously, black armour plating rolling back to reveal perfectly aligned rows of turbolaser barrels and missile launchers.

And all nine hells broke loose.

⁂

The Storm Fleet had been activated, Anakin could see that clearly from the cockpit of his Aethersprite, R2-D2 beeping in alarm as each ponderous vessel executed surprisingly sharp turns, considering their design. Anakin had to admire their manoeuvrability, and the impressive engineering that went into it. ‘Freighter’ and ‘manoeuvrability’ might as well be antonyms, yet the shipwrights behind these fake freighters somehow disproved that.

Not that he had the luxury to spectate–not good. Ventress made it. He knocked down his speed and drew back as the Storm Fleet tightened its ranks, deciding it wasn’t worth tackling a well-prepared anti-fighter screen like this. In the next moment, however, Anakin began to doubt that assumption. Because the Storm Fleet then, for some indiscernible reason, began to lay into each other with furious tempo. The river of light was consumed by sharp needles of red and smoky wakes of missiles as the fleet fired upon itself.

R2 released a long, confused whistle that went something along the lines of “they’re shooting each other?”

“No,” Anakin thinned his lips, “They’re shooting at something between them. Friendly fire is just the natural consequence. Not that they seem to care.”

R2 chirped something crude, and Anakin allowed himself a brief smile. It went as quickly as it came, however, as the Storm Fleet abruptly stopped firing, simultaneously turned to face them, and burned forward as a single wavefront of destruction.

Before he could react accordingly, however, a light blinked on his console. R2-D2 whistled again, informing him of an incoming transmission on open frequency. A sender; one of those spear-hulled destroyers leading the Separatist fleet. Anakin was struck by a sense of familiarity, in a rare instance where he could place exactly where he felt this sensation before.

Atraken.

“Next thing you know, those fake freighters are filled to the brim with civvies,” he muttered bitterly, keying in the transmission.

“General Skywalker,” a female voice greeted him, “Might you be interested in a temporary alliance? I’m sure our efforts would be better spent against a common enemy than each other.”

If I had a credit for every time a female adversary offered me a truce, I’d have two credits now. The first time was when a Republic element went rogue, and now the second was when a Separatist element went rogue. Strange how these sorts of things seem to follow him. Once again, his Force-attuned hunch told him the woman was speaking the truth. Maybe he was just that popular.

“Isn’t the Storm Fleet yours?” he shot back, “I don’t recognise your ship; what’s your affiliation?”

“I am Naradan D’ulin of the Mistryl Shadow Guards,” the voice returned, “To answer your question; the Storm Fleet has gone rogue. The only thing controlling it is rampant code.”

Just my luck, he grumbled, now he had to deal with an omnicidal droid fleet, instead of a deactivated one. That said, he did recognise the Mistryl Shadow Guards.

“I didn’t know the Battle Hydra dealt with mercenaries.”

“I don’t know an aristocrat who doesn’t.”

“Point taken,” Anakin murmured beneath his breath, “Fine. I’ll deal with you after we deal with the Storm Fleet. Any idea how to take it down?”

“My frigates can jam the slave circuitry between their ships, breaking up their coherence,” the Mistryl told him.

“You’ll need to get into position for that, I’d imagine,” Anakin mapped out the jamming formation in his mind’s eye, “And you need me to distract them.”

“Precisely. I will lend you–”

“That’s all right,” Anakin interrupted, eyes gleaming, “My fleet can handle such an elementary task.”

“I beg your pardon? They have two-hundred ships. You have fifty.”

“Elementary,” he repeated himself, and toggled the frequency, “All wings; we’re having a truce with the Seppies until we deal with the Storm Fleet.”

“Isn’t this the second time now?” Oddball’s voice came on.

“You got that right,” Anakin grunted, “Pioneer, bring all ships to bear. We’re engaging the Storm Fleet. Grant local control to all vessels, and go in hot.”

Anakin Skywalker may not be the luckiest of Jedi, he knew just about everything there was to know about starships. Designing warships to look like freighters for covert reasons was clever, but there was a reason why warships looked like warships, and freighters looked like freighters. Warships were architecturally designed to optimise firepower, speed, manoeuvrability, and a whole host of other reasons, while freighters were singularly designed to maximise holding volume and cost efficiency.

In other words, freighter hulls did not make good warship hulls. You could cram a PCL 27 with as much advanced hardware and sophisticated software as you want, but you can’t overcome basic geometric principles.

All he needed was one good look at these ships to realise a single Venator-class battlecruiser could take on two or three of them in a straight fight any day. But this wasn’t going to be a straight fight, because droid fleets have a second major weakness; they were utterly terrible once out of formation. The main and perhaps only advantage those fake freighters had going for them with their box-shaped hulls was extremely thick armour.

The captains of the Open Circle must have understood his thought process from the very second Anakin permitted local control to each ship. All fifty Venators–Pioneer included–roared forward as one, facing down an enemy four times their number, yet matching in all ferocity and alacrity.

The two fleets crashed into each other before the painted backdrop of the Llon Nebula, the sword-shaped hulls of Star Destroyers easily slicing into the enemy formation and breaking up the Storm Fleet into an anarchic brawl. Despite the ensuing chaos, there was still rhyme to the Open Circle’s actions–each Venator, despite engaging anywhere from two to five enemy ships simultaneously, covered each other’s flank in an intricate yet superfluous web befitting the spontaneous battle.

Hazardously aware of a Star Destroyer’s main vulnerability–its exposed engine block–the Open Circle’s captains supported each other by covering the next ship over, even as the situation morphed and evolved. It was just as they trained for, and tirelessly practised over and over in wargames and simulations.

The same just couldn’t be said for the droid-controlled Storm Fleet, which simply couldn’t keep pace with the fast-evolving nature of the battle. Add in the thunderous swarms of Republic ARC-170s and BTL-B Y-wings and Separatist Vultures and Hyenas running havoc as well–flying side by side no less, by some twist of fate–to which the Storm Fleet had no answer to, and the four-to-one odds were more than fair.

Anakin forced his Aethersprite into a deft roll, zipping underneath the belly of one freighter to come up next to another, unloading his nimble fighters payloads all the while. He flew between two ships, violently twisting his yoke as they open fired–dodging by a thin sheet of transparisteel–and whooping as the missed shots smashed into the flat hulls he had just darted past. His headpiece was ablaze with frenzied chatter, rampant war whoops of clone pilots and chittering Vulture droidspeak.

From his peripheral vision, he witnessed a flight of Y-wings and a pack of Hyena bombers gunning for the same ship–a blast of droidpeak aired over the open comms, and the Y-wings broke off in affirmation that the Hyena’s had a better angle on its attack vector. Far and away, Vultures and ARC-170s coordinated a strafing run down one of the virtual steel canyons formed by the flat shells of the freighters, flying in perfect strike formation together.

Deep inside the chaotic melee, Anakin could only observe the unnatural allied forces triumphing over and over in a dozen minor ways. But he knew better, he knew otherwise. Numbers mattered, and four-to-one odds aren’t to be glossed over. The Storm Fleet still had more ships, more guns, and slowly but surely, the Open Circle was being overwhelmed. He didn’t believe the Mistryl would betray their hasty truce. Munificents weren’t a match for the Storm Fleet freighters as Star Destroyers were. Even if the Open Circle was totally ground down, there would still be enough of the Storm Fleet to destroy the Mistryl were brute force alone.

And he was right. Outside the melee, the fifty Separatist star frigates were taking full advantage of the battle, fanning out into a loose circle that surrounded the Storm Fleet–and the Open Circle for that matter. As if they were creating a shockboxing ring, with the Storm Fleet and Open Circle as the participants. Letting R2-D2 take the yoke, Anakin scanned his cockpit for the Mistryl destroyers, and found them lingering just outside the battlespace.

In that moment, they seemed less like spears, and more like poisoned arrows, just waiting for the right moment to be shot forward and deal the finishing blow.

…

Finishing blow? The Storm Fleet is a rogue Separatist element. Are they here to destroy it… or recapture it?

Anakin hooked up a connection to Pioneer, squinting in the general direction of the ship through a cloud of flaming debris,“Appo, this is Skywalker. Come in.”

“Present, General,” Appo’s voice came on, “Looks like a major scrap’s shaping up out there.”

“Couldn’t be more right, Commander,” Anakin instinctively ducked as a pair of proton torpedoes thundered right over him, R2 slamming down the nose of the Aethersprite with a terrified shriek, “I need as many larties out here for boarding action as possible. Up for the task?”

“My men are all ready, sir.”

Ah, that was Appo-speak for “you didn’t even have to ask.” The Clone Commander’s a hair too reserved, sometimes. Another explosion shook the cockpit, the connection breaking up as Anakin’s skull bounced off the transparisteel cockpit like a pinball. He swore again.

“Can’t you fly a little straighter, Artoo?”

R2 released an indignant whine in response. Craning his head to look around again, Anakin brought his fighter up and over the brawl to check in on the jamming formation’s progress. The circle was nearly complete, with the last frigate sliding into place and–

Anakin’s Aethersprite screamed, R2-D2 screamed, a chorus of frantic yelling and panicked droid beeps blasting out of his headpiece, right before being abruptly cut off by an ear-piercing screech of somehow blinding white noise, injected straight into his eardrums. Anakin screamed, violently tearing off the headpiece and dashing it against his dashboard, his ears still ringing with spectral noise.

Anakin Skywalker, an ace Jedi pilot, lived vicariously through his starfighter, connected to its whirring machinery and beeping electronics through the Force.

In this sense, it was as if he had been abruptly dumped into a sensory black hole. The battle went mute and monochrome, lasers from all three sides pausing for the briefest second as everybody grappled with the sudden and violent jamming signals inundating every electronic device in the battlespace.

It was this brief lull, unnoticeable to all but the most acute attention–or perhaps Force-aided awareness–that the twenty Mistryl destroyers exploited. With an unexpectedly powerful blast of acceleration that Anakin had to envy, the Mistryl roared into the haphazard formations of the Storm Fleet and Open Circle, invariably hunting for a specific target as all mercenaries do.

Biting his tongue, Anakin forced the static out of his eyes and ringing out of his ears with a quick shock of pain. He snatched the yoke, rappelled the Aethersprite’s unaffected analog controls, and kicked the dagger-shaped fighter back into drive.

“You there, Artoo?” Anakin locked his teeth into a snarl as wet iron tinged his tongue, “Please tell me you’re there.”

The hardy astromech, directly integrated to the fighter’s flight computer, confirmed his presence with a quick scrawl of text on the dash.

“Great, I need you to do something,” Anakin expertly piloted through the blind flying of Vultures and panicked clone pilots. What was happening? He could sense such thoughts and emotions bubbling through the Force. Are the Seppies attacking us? Were we betrayed? Is this still part of the plan? Is the truce still effective? How do I contact the flight chief? What should I do?

The best the clone pilots could do was stay in whatever formation they were already in, or link up with the nearest one, and follow the lead starfighter. Some were still cooperating with Vultures and Hyenas, while others had turned on each other, entire joint flight groups exploding in a flurry of torpedoes and laserfire as adjacent fighters wheeled on each other without warning.

Anakin cut through all the flak, plunging back into the turbulent mass of fighters and ships as he tailed one the Mistryl destroyers, “Artoo, help me get the attention of Appo’s gunship.”

Unable to rely on his fighter’s fly-by-wire systems, Anakin had to take a microscopic leap of faith to dart his eyes down to the display screen of his dash to read out R2’s response. It read; HOW?

“I don’t know–!” the Force roared in his ears, and Anakin wrenched his yoke to the side just in time to avoid a careening wreck. An ARC-170 or a Hyena, he couldn’t tell in that split-second snapshot that lingered in his memory, “–Just figure it out! I’m bringing us as close to the Pioneer as possible without losing the Mistryl!”

It was just as well. Hundreds of LAAT/i gunships were pouring out of the dozen or so carrier-configured Venators from their ventral docking bays, foregoing the dorsal hangars for obvious reasons. As Anakin blew past Pioneer, R2 had his fighter’s navigation lights blink furiously, even going so far so to unleash one of his starfighter’s two missiles, held on undercarriage racks, sending it careening into the middle of the gunship formation and having it detonate harmlessly.

The gunships scattered, circling back around and honing onto where the missile originated from–him. Anakin wrenched back his fighter, slowing down precipitously to allow the gunships to catch up–until they were close enough for him to identify them by their decals–before kicking it back to full drive. Twelve larties, Anakin counted, I caught the attention of twelve larties. That’s three-hundred and fifty troopers. It’s enough.

All of the Storm Fleet destroyers had all but frozen up post-jamming, sluggishly reacting to even the most devastating of turbolaser fusillades as gunships singled out select freighters to board, hundreds of grapple-equipped troopers swarming around the incapacitated warships. As for Anakin, he quickly identified the target–the one freighter with two Mistryl destroyers mounting it–and zoomed towards it.

R2 unleashed the second and final of the Aethersprite’s missiles, which exploded harmlessly against the freighter’s powerful ray shields, to mark out the target. The dozen LAATs soundlessly reformed into a suitable attack formation, blast doors opening to reveal the blue-white glint of polished 501st trooper armour.

With well-practised efficiency and effortless ease, the first two gunships raced down on their repulsors, dipping under the ray shields just as quad-mounted armour-piercing rockets racing out from their racks and slamming into the freighter’s shell plating like a fist of thunder. The smoke and debris cleared, revealing a gouged–but not penetrated–crater in the freighter’s shell plating.

No matter. The next pair of gunships repeated the action, aiming for the same spot. And then the next pair, and then the next.

And then there was the telltale vapour of boiling atmosphere escaping from the breached hull. The particle beams came next, ball turret gunners precisely slicing into the plating to create boarding portals for the troops.

Meanwhile, Anakin dug around at his feet for the spare EVA helmet he had lying around. His vac-sealed flight suit already in place, the Jedi Knight affixed the helmet on and checked the gear to ensure it was in proper working order. Once he confirmed–no leaks–he manoeuvred his Aethersprite right in front of the breach, which was already the target of at least a hundred rappel lines.

After all, it wouldn’t do for the Jedi General to not join his men.

“Thanks, Artoo,” Anakin grunted as he forced up his cockpit and stood, “You can head back to the Pioneer and get yourself patched up. I don’t need a ride back.”

Without waiting for an answer, he leapt towards the breach.

⁂

“Checked the air, yet, Appo?” Anakin asked as he brushed himself off.

“It looks fine,” the Clone Commander reported as he handed Anakin the datapad for inspection.

“Perfect,” Anakin waved off the datapad and ripped off his EVA helmet instead, taking a deep breath of stale air.

“I don’t understand why droid ships maintain their environment system,” Appo muttered as he looked around, habitually patting his carbine.

“Because it\'s hardcoded into them, Commander,” Anakin grunted, “These ships were built by organics, and designed for organics, because we meat sacks can’t imagine a ship any other way. Ask a Seppie tactical droid to design a ship, and, well, I can’t imagine what it’d look like. Which is the point, I suppose.”

The ongoing battle outside faded to distant echoes as the boarding party delved deeper into the ship. As if confirming his theory, the lights in the corridors were all working properly, as were the gravity plates and the rest of the environment system. Doors leading off the corridor slid open automatically whenever any of the group strayed close enough to trigger them, revealing glimpses of perfectly maintained machine shops, equipment rooms, and crew lounges. Not the exact configuration you would find in a legitimate A-class bulk freighter, but definitely designed for living spacers.

One sign that there weren’t any organics living here, however, was the air. It was fresh enough that Anakin didn’t feel like choking on it, but it was thick and musty, like a combination of oil, dust, and rust. He tasted a metallic tang on the tip of his tongue, but couldn’t tell if that was the air too, or his own blood.

They retraced the evacuation lights up towards the bridge, faint mechanical noises of idling systems whispering behind the sound of their own footsteps. The only thing out of place… was the lack of droids.

But that mystery quickly solved itself when they stumbled upon their first droid corpse–perfectly bisected in half, with the cut edges smooth from an even melt.

“Lightsaber,” Appo identified, hefting his carbine.

“Ventress,” Anakin agreed, “It must be. We’re on the right ship, at least.”

It was not a long walk to the bridge from… wherever they inserted. They had breached the ship in one of its upper compartments, and they found the bridge smack centre of the freighter’s footprint, nestled between two sensor suites in the dorsal sensor grid, along the longitudinal ridge that ran along the freighter’s spine. It was in the path of a long, straight as a needle corridor that ran from the engine room to the prow, passing through more than a few bulkheads with easily trippable thresholds.

They found the vacuum-sealed bulkhead door shut and locked, of course, but for some inexplicable reason it wasn’t a blast door. Anakin suspected it was so any cargo inspector boarding the vessel wouldn’t get tipped off, but for now that did not matter.

Appo’s squad breached through the door as easily as punching a hole in wet flimsi. The boarding company poured in, blasters up as they fanned out along the walls. Anakin stepped through the bulkhead, a tight grip on his lightsaber.

The first thing he noticed was the flashing lights above. The bridge was connected to an observation bubble peeking right above the spinal ridge of the ship, from whereupon Anakin could glimpse scenes of the battle unfolding around them.

The second thing he noticed was Asajj Ventress. The Sith assassin presided over the centre of the room, a single boot hiked onto the beeping console, and to say she looked worse for wear would be an understatement. Her face was smeared half-black from soot and ash, and her black dress had been torn up and still smoking in several places, revealing hints of pale, unhealthily white skin. She met his eyes, her own fiery orange-red, then brandished one of her two red lightsabers.

“Skywalker,” she drawled, but Anakin could sense the underlying exhaustion in her voice–she was right about ready to collapse, “How nice of you to join the fun.”

The third thing he noticed was the Mistryl Shadow Guard, garbed in their distinctive black suits. They were positioned directly across the compartment, at the second door that would lead to the rest of the ship’s spine. At their head, a tall, regal-standing woman, who he naturally assumed to be Naradan D’ulin. Ventress was brandishing her other lightsaber against them.

“Well, well, well boys,” Anakin quipped, allowing himself to ease up slightly in the admittedly humorous situation, “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a Mandalorian stand-off.”