Chapter 69

Somewhere in the Cato Neimoidia System

Quellor Sector

Rear Admiral Calli Trilm had been mulling over their next course of action when her tactical droid approached her with a datapad. Her extemporaneous decision to overshoot the Seyugi System egress to Cato Neimoidia had been well-justified, when a fleet of those new pocket battleships pounced right on top of where they would have been, by way of the Recopi System. In any case, it was definitive proof the GAR, or the Coruscant Home Fleet at least, had created an algorithm capable of deducing their movements.

It was somewhat of an impossible situation for the 19th Mobile Fleet. Embarking on truly random raids was out of the question; the fleet needed an established line of contact with each other, lest they be grinded down piecemeal from attrition. As such, Calli and her staff had devised a series of patterns that would appear as ‘random’ as possible, whilst allowing the 19th’s raiders to not only predictably communicate with not just each other but more importantly their auxiliaries, but also be efficient and effective in both their search for Dua Ningo and destruction of GAR materiel.

Unfortunately, should the GAR already have an algorithm in place, then their raids would simply become datasets to feed into their machine. An impossible situation indeed; to achieve their goals, they needed to raid the innumerous worlds in the Core, but the more successful they were in their raids, the faster the GAR could devise a retaliation. It made one question if the endeavour was at all worth the pain and effort. After all, these were seasoned ships and crack spacers, veterans of a hundred engagements. Every warship downed was an incomparable loss.

To make matters even more concerning, Calli Trilm hadn’t been able to contact the 28th Mobile Fleet at all. She had arranged intelligence frigates along the southern zone of her AO, bordering the 28th’s supposed AO in the Southern Core, and yet they had still not seen hull nor signal of their sister fleet. In fact, the fleets of the Freeworlds Common Navy seemed content with guarding their strongholds on the Rimma Trade Route. There was utterly no sign of any upheaval in the Tapani Federation.

“It’s because of the Twenty-Eighth, or lack thereof,” Commodore Aviso had told her, with no small amount of severity, “Their presence was supposed to split the GAR’s attention between us. But without their presence in the Core, the Bloodhound’s Home Fleet could level all of their attention on us alone.”

Calli Trilm rubbed her face. She knew she had jumped the blaster; storming into the Core well before Operation Starlance was ready–but even then, according to the itinerary, the 28th Mobile was supposed to have already been inserted into the Core. But they were nowhere to be seen...

Stars damn you, Bonteri! Where are you when I need you!?

They had made an agreement, back at Nanth’ri, to have each other’s back when they were alone in the Core. But how was that possible, when one party wasn’t even present at all? Shit, but it's still my fault, isn’t it? What if... what if she had been abandoned, and the 19th Mobile was acting alone? What if Independence had called off the operation to cut their losses?

Calli Trilm’s expression soured at her own thoughts, eyes narrowing into slivers. They wouldn’t know–she couldn’t communicate with the Confederacy whilst in the heart of Loyalist space. At that moment then, Calli wondered the feasibility of simply... withdrawing. She could dispatch a fleet-wide order to withdraw from the Core and regroup in friendlier space. The Core had hardly the forces to stop all of them. It would mean forsaking the operation however, and forsaking Dua Ningo and the Bulwark Fleet. But if that was the price for all of their lives, then Calli Trilm would more than gladly pay it.

“Rear Admiral,” her tactical droid attempted to catch her attention again, “We have successfully decrypted the Starpath unit.”

The Rear Admiral glanced down at the data, but her gaze remained hazy, and her attention unfocused, “Isolate the priority targets. Military channels, fleet deployments, anything that can help us penetrate the Bloodhound’s next move.”

“We already have, Admiral,” Tex’s synthetic, yet dry undertone finally cleared Calli’s head like a piercing gale lifting a fog, “There was a transmission between the Skako and Coruscant Star Systems, about hyperlane registrars, followed by a report announcing the Invasion of Skako.”

“Skako... invaded?” was such a thing even possible, Calli couldn’t help but ponder.

“A more recent transmission appears to imply the GAR and Techno Union are already in a ceasefire negotiation,” Tex elucidated, “Nevertheless, this was the last known position of the Coruscant Home Fleet, that we can confirm for certain at the very least. The timing also matches with the following coordinated counterattack that destroyed many of our squadrons.”

The possibilities the Starpath unit represented raced through the Rear Admiral’s mind, her blood buzzing once more as if she had taken a jab of hard spice. It seemed hope was not all lost just yet. If they can intercept the Bulwark Fleet, they can still escape with a job well done and put the Core behind them.

“The Bulwark Fleet... and what of the Bulwark Fleet?”

“We know of an engagement involving the Bulwark Fleet, though we don’t know if the Home Fleet was involved,” Tex said, “Caamas System, east of Skako. According to the report, the Bulwark Fleet then jumped south to the Demophon System.”

Calli shot to her feet, waving a holographic starchart into existence in front of her captain’s chair and analysing it, “Caamas System... the Bulwark Fleet could have broken out into the Mid Rim from there, but they jumped south instead?”

“From what we know of Admiral Honor Salima, the Bulwark Fleet’s odd movements could potentially be attributed to her,” the droid drew a line from Skako to Caamas to Demophon, “If that is the case, then Caamas would be the last known location of the Home Fleet.”

“Did the Home Fleet not report the victory?”

“Unless Handler One’s archives are incomplete, Skako was the last time the Home Fleet replied to any of Coruscant’s transmissions. The report was sent by the Caamasi System Fleet, not the Home Fleet–the reason we can assume the Home Fleet was present at all, was because the Caamasi System Fleet mentioned transferring a cruiser squadron to the Home Fleet in order to reinforce their numbers.”

“...Add the data from our intel frigates as well,” the Rear Admiral instructed, “Let’s start painting the pursuit.”

“Very good, Admiral,” Tex nodded, “From Demophon, the Bulwark Fleet jumped to Vuma in the southeast, where they had been engaged again. Again, we can assume they were engaged in battle there, as the Bulwark Fleet then immediately jumped south to Leria Kerlsil. Our intel frigates discovered Home Fleet elements in the nearby star systems north, northwest, and east of Leria Kerlsil.”

“They’re shepherding the Bulwark Fleet south,” Calli Trilm immediately, boldly surmised, “Does this fit what we know of the Bloodhound?”

“It does,” Tex confirmed, “Admiral Honor Salima is known to be an expert in manoeuvre warfare.”

“Then the only question that remains is where exactly does the Bloodhound want the Bulwark Fleet?” Calli Trilm mused, crossing her arms and eyeing the starchart, “I can only assume she is searching for a suitable battlespace where she can force a decisive engagement... however–”

“If she can manoeuvre around the Bulwark Fleet so freely, she could have already forced one on her own terms,” her tactical droid finished her train of thought, “According to my calculations; Skako, Caamas, and Vuma should have all been decisive battles where the Home Fleet could have destroyed the Bulwark Fleet in its entirety.”

“So either we're dealing with an utterly terrible tactician,” Calli Trilm thought out loud, “Or we’re dealing with another of the Bloodhound’s stratagems. Is there anything else we can glean from Handler One?”

That made the droid pause, “...Admiral Honor’s destination may be the Rendili Star System. According to a transmission from Coruscant, the Home Fleet may have been given orders to suppress a secession attempt in the Rendili Sector.

That took the Rear Admiral by surprise, “But why would Rendili secede? Last I heard, their Arch-Provost is a hardline Rendili nationalist, and had done everything in his power to modernise the Rendili StarDrive to meet Kuat’s competition. You can’t convince me he suddenly decided to switch sides after investing so much into Republic infrastructure and warships.”

“We will only find out if we make for Rendili,” the droid might as well have shrugged, “Reaching Rendili may also allow us to reestablish communication with Star Station Independence, however.”

“Is that wise?”

Tex’s response was swift– “Not at all. I believe Admiral Honor Salima is attempting to use the Bulwark Fleet to lure us to Rendili. She seeks not a decisive engagement, but the decisive engagement, in which she can destroy the Bulwark Fleet, the Nineteenth Mobile Fleet, and the Rendili Defense Fleet together in one action.”

“She doesn’t have the numbers,” Calli pointed out.

“Not if she regroups with Jedi General Kenobi’s Open Circle Fleet–whose last known location was still Commenor–prior to that,” the droid warned, “Admiral Ningo should have barely a hundred fighting warships, and the Rendili Defense Fleet has no more than two-hundred. We have two-hundred as well, for a total of five-hundred warships. The Coruscant Home Fleet and Open Circle Fleet would make six-hundred warships, with a much heavier tonnage on a per ship basis as well.”

Stang. Calli Trilm felt the datapad weight heavy in her hands, and mindlessly scrolled the innumerable reports archived onto it. They had to dedicate a number of frigates simply to process the sheer volume of reports coming in and out of Coruscant, with how many exabytes of sheer processing power delegated to simply filtering out which were important and which were some random senator’s under-the-table dealings.

Until a particular transmission caught her eye. Calli lifted it up to show the tactical droid. It was an inquiry from Coruscant, requesting any available warships from the Anaxes shipyards. No doubt the Republic Admiralty was attempting to muster up a new fleet in response to all the incursions into the Core, but it caught her eye nonetheless. Fiddling with the datapad, she managed to filter out all the tangentially related transmissions. There were much more of the same; mostly inquiries from nearby star systems for any available warships.

“To suppress the raids in the Agricultural Circuit,” Calli recited a specific line that caught her eye, before looking up at Tex, “Now, what does that remind you of?”

“...The chances of the Twenty-Eighth Mobile operating in the Agricultural Circuit is infinitesimally small–”

“What other brainless drydak would be raided within walking distance of Coruscant itself?” Calli suppressed a laugh, “Wasn’t Bonteri last fighting at Yag’Dhul? The homeworld of the Givin? What are the chances he used some bespoke spacelane to circumnavigate the Deep Core?”

“And...” the Rear Admiral grinned, waving the datapad pinched between two fingers, “What are the chances we can reach him through Handler One?”

“Handler One feeds us data from Coruscanti satellites,” Tex snatched the datapad, “It is plausible, if the Twenty-Eighth is within range of the GAR’s communications network. But that runs the risk of the GAR noticing a rogue, even perhaps unauthorised, transmission in their network. We do not yet understand how PRIESTESS operates, Admiral. We could risk self-sabotaging one of the greatest intelligence sources the Confederacy has at its disposal.”

“Rendili. Trust me.”

“What.”

“Send that to him, wherever he is,” Calli said, “Short enough to run past the GAR undetected, if they’re listening, but enough for him to understand.”

“If he has access to the same data as we do, he’ll understand we’re telling him to enter a trap,” the droid shook his head, “He might not trust it.”

“Droid.”

“Admiral?”

“I’m sending it. Me.”

Iskat froze, the atmosphere shifted, and Adi Gallia’s smile dropped.

“You’re a Separatist spy?” Iskat Akaris curled her lips, aghast, “Since when!?”

“Since I returned,” Barriss watched Iskat’s lightsaber carefully. She was no match for the Knight, that was for certain, and she daresay she wasn’t sure if Master Gallia was either. At least, Master Gallia had never been known for her duelling skills.

Master Plo Koon would definitely be able to stop Iskat if she went on a rampage, but he wasn’t here. Barriss reached out through the Force, fearing the worst. Help. Adi Gallia’s eyes sharpened, and with a whisk unclipped Iskat’s lightsaber and whipped it towards her. Except, Iskat has two lightsabers, doesn’t she? Barriss attempted to convey as such to Master Gallia, but she didn’t seem to have noticed.

The Jedi Knight whirled around, “Master!?”

“Let’s hear her reasons,” the Jedi spymaster said softly, soothingly.

“She’s a spy!”

“We’re spies, too,” Master Gallia shot back, “Have you not realised, Iskat? We’ve already betrayed the Republic by consorting with the enemy. Now, let us hear her reasons.”

“...He told me first,” Barriss finally admitted, and a weight was lifted from her chest, “About the Sith Lord. I promise you, the Separatist program and Bode’s program have the same purpose. While we want to uncover the Sith Lord in the Republic, the Pantoran wants to uncover Count Dooku’s true allegiance to use against him in the courts.”

“Bode’s program reads Coruscant’s satellites!” Iskat shouted, “If the Seppie program does the same–you’ve just handed everything coming in and out of Coruscant to the Separatists on a silver platter! Every fleet deployment, every major order, every army command! How will we win the war like this?”

“The war, Iskat, will be won when we rid the galaxy of the Sith,” Barriss explained calmly, “That is my mission. That is why I agreed to help the Separatists. I don’t care if the Confederacy breaks, or the Republic breaks, or both. I don’t care if the entire galaxy needs to be torn down and rebuilt–if that’s what I need to do to exterminate the Sith, then that’s what I'll do.”

“But...” Iskat looked lost, like a lost dog searching for her owner, “But how can we do that when it’s just us? Not even the rest of the High Council is in on this!”

“We try, Iskat,” Master Gallia offered her lightsaber back, “We try our best, and we succeed, then we know we’ve prevented a terrible future.”

“And if we fail?”

“Then we die with a smile, preferable at the end of a red lightsaber, knowing we’ve tried.”

Iskat gingerly reclaimed her weapon, and the Jedi Master resumed; “I’m pairing the both of you together. When we return to Coruscant, we must begin flushing out–”

“Adi,” Master Plo Koon’s voice rang out from the comlink, “I’ve received orders from Coruscant to suppress a revolt in the Rendili System as soon as we’ve secured Empress Teta. I’m putting all three of you on a frigate back to the capital. We have different fights. May the Force be with you.”

“Understood. May the Force be with you,” Adi Gallia echoed, “Let’s go, girls. A battle’s about to be fought, and I’d like to miss it.”

⁂

I gritted my teeth to avoid biting off my tongue as Chimeractica was rocked violently, bracketed by a volley of concussion missiles. Plo Koon certainly wasn’t pulling his punches, despite our prior agreement, as his fleet plunged into our ranks, a deadly vanguard of Victory-class Star Destroyers ripping into our front ranks as his larger battlecruisers spread out onto the wings and pinned down our flanks. He didn’t appear to be wielding his Force cheat this time–battle meditation, was it called?–but he hardly needed to.

I mean, sure, he had to make it believable for his spacers–but weren’t his spacers green boys freshly harvested from the academies? A fleet wasn’t just warships, as modern as they may be, and was nothing without its crews. And yet, Plo Koon wielded his crews with well-oiled efficiency, steadily mounting up the pressure on the 28th Mobile’s ranks as he pressed us away from Empress Teta.

And speaking of Empress Teta–

“Twenty ships bearing down on our portside, bearing three-one-one relative, range two-hundred thousand klicks,” Diedrich Greyshade warned, “It’s the Tetan Guard.”

“Just great,” I muttered–we were about to get outflanked, “Tuff; order a general retreat. Peel off ten droid warships on our left to delay the Tetans.”

“As you command, sir.”

Almost instantaneously in the droid commanded style, ten Recusant-class destroyers separated from the lattice and formed a tight line of battle opposing the Tetan warships, led by Lexington and Saratoga.

“Great, great,” I breathed out, “All going to plan. Dodecian Illiet, is our vector of escape open?”

“Affirmative. We will jump to Tython, then to Ojom in the southeast Deep Core. We will be able to jump back onto the Nexus Route from there via the Kalist System, circumnavigating any Loyalist forces around Odik.”

“Perfect,” I mumbled as I facilitated our withdrawal, beating back any straggling warships back into line with strict commands whenever any drifted out of course. I couldn’t blame them too much, it was difficult enough maintaining a battle lattice in combat, especially against a hardass opponent like the Jedi, and it was even more difficult to maintain a lattice while going backwards, “Melodiosa, you’re falling behind!”

Falling forwards, rather, since we were retreating.

“Our retrothrusters are shot, sir!”

I blinked, then honed in onto the adjacent ships, “Riposte, Ronin Huntress, use your forward tractor beams to drag Melodiosa back into line!”

“Chimeratica, Riposte. Understood.”

“Chimeratica, Ronin. Yes, sir.”

“Lady Lex is being boarded,” Tuff noted calmly, and my attention snapped back around.

Two Tetan Supremacy-class cruisers had bracketed the droidship, allowing a host of attack ships to swarm her shell and start inserting troops. The squadron was putting up a good fight, but they were outnumbered two-to-one and flagging under the Tetan assault. Soon, even Saratoga was under siege, her Vulture droids desperately trying to fend off waves of Tetan assault crafts.

“The Empress is a clever one, isn’t she?” I mused, referring to Eara Lota, “It’s good to see that she’s a woman of her word.”

With this, Lexington and Saratoga will be successfully stationed in the Empress Teta System without drawing suspicion from the GAR, as the Tetans have claimed them as spoils of war. In reality, they would effectively act as floating embassies for the Confederacy, in order to facilitate our trade agreements. That, and also as... insurance. In case the Chancellor activates his Jedi extermination order or whatever the hell it was. I would at least have ships in a nearby system to watch over the Jedi Temple.

“Fleet navicomputers have been synchronised, Admiral,” Dodecian Illiet notified, “Confirm Tython as our destination?”

“Confirmed!” I barked, “Tuff, bring us around!”

Retrothrusters were abruptly cut all across the lattice, with the second rank swivelling around first–each individual ship spinning 180 degrees transversely like a top until they were facing backwards. The rear screen would jump first with half of Illiet’s fleet to guide them, opening the way for the forward screens to turn around and immediately follow them. It had to be done this way to avoid collisions in pseudomotion; not to mention if both ranks spun around at the same time, all that would accomplish was opening up our vulnerable aft flank to the enemy.

“Incoming transmission from Lady Lex!” Taylor suddenly shouted in alarm, “I’m putting it through!”

I squinted at the tactical holo again. Lexington was getting boarded, and my eyes were not mistaken. What could be so important–?

[FROM CND_1.252.491.472.01.51.4_1310RV] FWD: RENDILI TRUST ME

The words scrawled across the tactical holo, and my heart stopped, my next breath catching in my throat. I swallowed it down painfully, as if there were hooks ripping into my lungs as I did so.

“B–Belay that order!” I roared into the comms, “All ships are to bear oh-seven-oh! Illiet, is the Daragon Trail still open!?”

“Only until the Vulpter System. The rest of the hyperlane collapsed millennia ago.”

“But we can break into Arrowhead from there!?”

“Correct.”

“Change of destination; plot a course for the Rendili System! We’re reinforcing our sister fleet!”