Sublight Drive (Star Wars)

Chapter 63

Commenor Approach, Commenor System

Quellor Sector

“Standby for hyperspace extraction on my mark,” TX-103 said, “Extract in ten… nine… eight–!?”

The 19th Mobile Fleet, composed of seven sub-divisions virtually identical to their sister fleet, exploded out of hyperspace in multi-peaked flashes of Cronau radiation just 180,000,000 klicks outside the hyper-limit of the star Commenor-A caused by its gravity well. Alarms wailed throughout the Star of Serenno as her hyperdrive malfunctioned from the forced extraction, the entire fleet practically ripped out of its transit like an arrow torn plucked from its flight by a supernatural hand.

Smoke wisped from the hulls of the fleet along with the dim azure glow of transit energy–excess Cronau radiation–like water vapour off a cold surface, internally lit by the electrical fires raging belowdecks.

“Analysis: we have been intercepted by an interdiction net of unknown scope,” TX-103, ‘Tex’, evaluated, “All ships are to submit preliminary damage reports!”

It was a phenomenally advanced piece of technology, interdiction nets were, but Rear Admiral Calli Trilm was unable to appreciate it properly as she fought the mind-wrenching, stomach-lashing dizziness the crash extraction sent smashing through her. She heard others on Star of Serenno’s flag bridge retching and knew hundreds of thousands of spacers throughout the fleet were doing the same. Even in her nausea, however, Calli Trilm’s calculating mindset shone through as reflected on how vulnerable her fleet was in that moment.

The Commenorian Navy had truly pulled out the rug from under them. The 19th Mobile Fleet would have been as completely incapacitated as herself for the next few minutes, if not for the widespread use of droid-supplemented crews and automated systems throughout the task force. Still, during those crucial seconds and minutes in which the fleet’s organic spacers were lurching and stumbling around, where the only the ships’ droid and automated defences were available to stave off attack, had any hostile vessel been in position to take advantage of that brief helplessness, the price could have been catastrophic.

Gripping a console like a crutch and dry heaving her lungs out, Calli could hazily make out the damage reports on the displays through her fugue. To her silent distress, she realised there were organic casualty numbers coming in along with the expected engineering and astrogation reports.

“B-Begin system transit,” Calli croaked out, her free hand wiping her matted grey hair from her sweat-soaked face as she fought her body’s protests, “We need to escape the Commenori interdiction net’s hyper-limit before the Open Circle Fleet can reach us. G-Get our hyperdrives back in working order!”

The 19th Mobile’s auxiliaries were already launching repair drones while the fleet clawed its acceleration back from Caraya’s Gauntlet, staggering back onto its course in a haphazard diamond. She had intended on jumping as close to the hyper-limit of the star known as Commenor-A, effectively cutting the transit distance in half. Of course, completely bypassing the Commenor System would have been ideal… but it wasn’t as if she was going to be able to evade the sort of sensor net the Loyalists have erected here, especially after the Pantoran’s Sarapin Campaign. Still, she had not expected the Commenori interdiction array to be so… thorough.

Now, however, all priorities lay in getting their hyperdrives back online–a difficult feat for any other fleet that didn’t possess six auxiliaries tending over it like an obsessive coven of fairy godmothers–and escaping the Commenor net; the much harder task. After all, the CAF had no hard data on the Commenor net, but Calli Trilm knew what the CAF had assembled to watch over its own core systems. The huge, sensitive, deep-system passive sensor arrays standing sentry over the Lianna System for the Tion Hegemony, for example, was centred on the star Lianna and could detect even the extraction footprint of a sloop at a range of up to a light-hour distance. Theoretically.

She had to assume the GAR had the same type here at Commenor, albeit at a smaller detection radius of a half light-hour. After all, Commenor was a ‘gateway world’ just like Lianna, which meant there was no point trying to ‘sneak up’ on the Core Worlds with a slow, furtive approach.

To explain: there were two main types of interdiction arrays; those centred on planets, and those centred on suns. Similarly, there were two main types of fortress worlds; those that prioritised protecting the planet, and those that prioritised blocking any hostile from transiting the host star system. One might rightly presume the type of interdiction array and type of fortress world were paired respectively.

The 19th Mobile Fleet had now just been violently, yet concretely, informed which type of net the Commenor System possessed. It didn’t matter so much. Because to keep the 19th Mobile Fleet from micro-jumping out, the Commenorian Navy had to maintain the interdiction uplink, and a peculiar trait of interdiction technology is that it does not discriminate.

Click. Click.

Should the Open Circle Fleet be attempting to chase the 19th Mobile on the same inbound vector, they were going to be unceremoniously ripped out of hyperspace in the exact same location Calli Trilm was. Besides, the GAR was supposed to see them. That was the entire point of pairing Operation Starlance with Operation Storm-Door.

“Talk to me, Tex,” Calli groaned as the effects of crash extraction began to subside, and her vision cleared enough that she wasn’t seeing the plot in doubles and triples anymore.

“Present position is five-hundred sixty million klicks from Commenor-A, bearing triple-zero by oh-oh-three relative,” the tactical droid gave her the brief as he had down a thousand times before, “Velocity is three-thousand KPS, with the fleet maintaining acceleration of a five-hundred gravities until. On current acceleration and heading, we will reach zero-range intercept with Commenor-A in four-point-two standard hours, with a crossing velocity of seventy-three thousand KPS at the moment we cut its orbit.”

“Where’s Commenor?” Calli blinked as she eyed the sensor display. The Commenor System was host to a number of planets, but none as brightly lit and populous as Commenor. The planet should’ve shone like a star on her screen.

But it was simply not there… then she remembered where Commenor was in its orbit at this time of year.

“Behind Commenor-A, sir,” Tex replied blandly, “We cannot see Commenor on our sensors because it is on the other side of the star.”

“...Kriff,” Calli slumped in her chair, “Well, let’s cut the orbit of Commenor-A below its ecliptic and come up on the Commenorian Navy from below. Anything heading our way yet?”

“Not yet, Rear Admiral,” Tex replied promptly, “We are detecting a lot of drive signatures in-system, many certainly warships, but none are fixing an intercept vector yet. I expect we’ll be seeing a reaction soon, however, especially by how hard we’re burning.”

Calli instinctively glanced over her shoulder, though there was nothing there, “Then let’s make as much time as possible. I have no intention of getting into a scrap with Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“Concurred, Rear Admiral.”

There was a reason the 19th Mobile left a nasty surprise for the Jedi General back at the Zeltros System; known as just about every interdiction mine the fleet possessed. Enough mines to set the Open Circle back a couple hours, hopefully.

Click. Click.

?

Sub-Lieutenant Vrad Dodonna managed to keep himself in his seat in the briefing room only by sheer force of will. An hour ago, he had been enjoying a fine luncheon in Chasin City back planetside, and now he found himself aboard Anteluma Terminal, the Commenorian Navy’s relatively new orbital headquarters. Despite being dressed in his full vac-sealed flight suit, the briefing room was still freezing; a deliberate chill carefully designed to prevent people from dozing off on duty.

After all Anteluma-T, as its crew so called her, also served as the HQ of the Commenor Astro-Control Service, and in a star system so heavily trafficked as the Commenor System, a single mistake by one of its controllers could result in the loss of several million tons of shipping, not to mention the potential human cost to the crews of the ships involved. And now, that chill made Vrad want to leap out of his seat and pace the deck.

Despite that, however, the Sub-Lieutenant kept his ass firmly planted in his chair. Partially out of pride; in the compartment filled with pilots, he didn’t want to show weakness; and partly out of responsibility. After all, he was a commissioned officer, one gained by his own merits–despite what his family’s detractors would claim–and he had men under his command. Men he would be leading out in the black.

Once they found out what the hell for, that is. Because they don’t tell you why you’re summoned, only that you were and you had to report to so and so with all your gear equipped. Regardless, they were about to find out.

Vrad Dodonna sat a little straighter when the Jedi General marched into the compartment, and she was a Jedi General, because she was wearing those baggy drapes over the black bodyglove he could see peeking out at the collarbone and hands. She was a pilot too, Vrad realised, and will be flying with us. Why else would a Jedi General personally brief a bunch of vac-heads like them?

“Good afternoon,” the Jedi General said demurely, “My name is Olge Plavi-Dol.”

He had heard the name before. She was the CO of that GAR task group that arrived in-system the other day, apparently redeployed to Commenor in response to some threat alert from Coruscant. Vrad didn’t realise she was a Jedi.

Generaal Olge swept her gaze across them, bearing a wry smile as if she knew something they didn’t. Something that wasn’t what she was about to tell them. Despite her soft-spokenness, she could be heard clearly over the distant claxons roaring across the multimegaton Grade V battlestation that housed the Commenorian Navy HQ.

“There’s an unidentified enemy task force in-system, headed straight towards us–” and any disinterested eyes remaining disappeared, “–Commenor ACS puts them at a minimum thirty capital ships and sixty cruisers. Three to four hundred ships in total.”

Someone gasped in horror. General Olge nodded grimly.

“The Open Circle Fleet is already underway, but there’s no knowing if they can even get here in time. That leaves us–” her gaze swept over them again, sharpened into daggers, “–as the final line of defence between the Separatists and the Core.”

“Do we even gotta stop them?” someone’s hand shot into the air, “I mean– the last time this happened…”

The voice trailed off when the Jedi fixed their impassive gaze upon the speaker. Probably. Vrad didn’t have it in him to look over his shoulder and check. Because they weren’t talking to another Commenori, but a Jedi General of the Republic. What that pilot asked… it must have sounded like treason to the Jedi. But it was the truth. And the truth was that Commenor was a fortress world unto itself. Commenor was never meant to block an enemy fleet trying to invade the Core.

The last time a Separatist fleet came knocking about these parts was the Pantoran herself, and Commenor raised up its shields like a tortoise retreating into its shell and simply watched as the Seppies sailed right on by. Then, the GAR came in. A brand new interdiction net was planted in the star system. Commenor was ‘gifted’ twenty new orbital battlestations, including two brand new Grade V platforms. The Commenorian Navy had suddenly found itself in possession of Star Destroyers to bolster its existing complement of Dreadnaughts, then later handed the burdensome job of interning thirty-two captured Separatist warships.

The message was clear: fortress world Commenor was no longer a fortress for itself, but for the entirety of the Galactic Interior.

“Yes.”

That was all the Jedi said, and it was enough for Vrad’s bones to cringe. In an effort to diffuse the tense atmosphere, he volunteered to risk the Jedi’s attention;

“Are there even enough ships in-system to stop this kind of attack, sir?”

“We have two-hundred ships in-system, including both the Commenorian Navy and my task force,” General Olge answered, “Not enough. But we also have twenty orbital battlestations, and Commenor itself.”

“...Commenor itself?”

The Jedi General's lips thinned, “Thirty-eight hundred thermonuclear warheads.”

?

“Open Circle’s right behind us,” Commander Rel Harsol’s warning came like a thunderbolt, his 192nd Strike Division acting as their rear picket for the time being, “We gotta retro-burn the rest of the transit, but the Open Circle’s gonna have to do that too. And the way their boats look… I think Zeltros did a number on them. If we give Commenor the quick slip, there’s no way the Jedi will catch us.”

The 19th Mobile Fleet was making a retrograde burn below the solar ecliptic, the star of Commenor-A so close ‘above’ them its solar flares could almost lick the deflector shields of the fleet. At this junction right ‘beneath’ the star, the 19th Mobile could get a fix on both the planet Commenor and the Open Circle, but as they made the pass, soon the Open Circle would disappear behind the sun. And that meant the 19th Mobile would also disappear off the Open Circle’s scopes.

Meanwhile, forward of Star of Serenno, Aviso of the Bronze Serpent had his own situation report to make;

“They’re coming out,” Commodore Aviso informed.

“Strength estimates?” she asked.

“Still too far out for any positive count, Admiral, but it looks like they’re in considerably lower strength than predicted,” he told her seriously, “We can confirm six to eight capital Star Destroyers, thanks to their drive cones, and an unknown number of Invincible-class and Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers.”

“Shoot a hard number, Aviso.”

“...No more than two-hundred ships.”

Calli Trilm frowned, “We’re staring down a fortress world, Aviso. Unless the GAR and CAF have different definitions of ‘fortress world,’ I’m certain there should be more ships than this.”

“I did say they’re out in lower strength than expected,” there was an edge of something almost like challenge in his voice, but Calli was content to ignore it so long as Aviso kept it under control. And he did, because nothing affected the one-eyed man’s sense of professionalism, “Will this affect our battle plan, Rear Admiral?”

“Nope,” Calli popped the word, “There may be less opposition than we expected, but there's still enough to hand us some nasty lumps. I’d reckon they intend on having the Open Circle hammering us against Commenor’s anvil.”

“What’s to say they won’t just raise their shields and let us slide on by?” Rel Harsol asked, “Why does the Pantoran get the VIP treatment? Their fleet can’t match ours. Not with less than ten capital SDs and a bunch-a outdated judicial cruisers.”

The GAR would not allow Commenor to reenact what occurred during the Sarapin Campaign, of this Calli Trilm was certain, and she was certain there had to be something for Commenor to live up to its designation as a fortress world. A certainty that only strengthened as they approached, and as Commenor’s planetary shields remained down.

“Dark stars, Admiral,” Aviso reported two hours into their 800G retro-burn towards Commenor, “There’s twenty orbital battlestations sitting on the jumpzone.”

“Make?”

“Ten Grade-Threes, eight Grade-Fours, two Grade-Fives.”

“I didn’t even know Grade-Five battlestations existed. How the hells did we even miss them?”

One might mistake an orbital battlestation for a defense satellite. They would be wrong. Grade III battlestations were the most common in the galaxy, having been in widespread use–at least, amongst the most affluent worlds–before the war even began, and they were ten kilometres wide. Ten kilometres of fighter bays, turbolaser ranks and missile pods. Grade IVs had been introduced sometime during the Separatist Crisis, coming in at twelve klicks wide.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Grade V battlestations? She hadn’t seen one before, but she could imagine two Mandator-class star dreadnoughts welded together rear-to-rear and decided that might as well be accurate.

“They’re being tugged into key positions around the fleet,” Aviso observed, not quite answering the question, but giving just enough, “...Admiral, those Grade-Fives are fifteen klicks wide on my scopes.”

“The GAR must’ve spent a fortune on them,” Calli murmured, “Maybe we can start here…”

“There’s another thing, sir. We’re picking up thirty to forty ships orbiting one of Commenor’s moons, Folor.”

“A flanking force?”

“Unlikely. At zero intercept, Folor would still be behind the enemy fleet. Furthermore, they’re cold.”

Calli Trilm pursed her lips. Commenor was a bustling commercial world, and it wouldn’t be unexpected for its orbital facilities to be servicing vessels of all types year-round. By now, she would have expected Commenor ACS to have evacuated all civilian ships from the system, but maybe these were newbuilds, or simply not spaceworthy for any reason. In any case, if her strategy was to play out as planned, they would not be a factor even if they were reserve warships.

Click. Click.

“We shan’t have to worry about them. But keep an eye out for any movement.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

“Harsol,” the Rear Admiral then snapped in a sharp, clipped tone, “Any sign of the Jedi?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Tex, velocity and range?”

“Eighteen-thousand KPS, range from zero-intercept with the planet is twenty-million klicks.”

“Mark and match velocity fleet-wide,” Calli Trilm commanded, “Bring us from Yellow to Red. Cut all sublight drives and begin manoeuvring into attack formation alpha. We’re going to slip right past Commenor.”

“Not with those battlestations we aren’t, Rear Admiral,” Aviso warned as the klaxons blared.

“Who said anything about those battlestations? I want my Railguns, Aviso!”

Aviso’s single eye widened, and then narrowed into a sliver, “Understood, Admiral.”

Click. Click.

?

Jedi General Olge Plavi-Dol watched as the Perlemian Coalition’s Armada came in hell for leather, blazing through space at some 20,000KPS and not slowing down, and she did not blame them one bit. It was the Open Circle Fleet, after all, hot on their heels, invisible to both of them if not for the Commenor ACS’s sensor net giving Olge a full view of the star system.

All we have to do is hold them back for a couple hours, she thought nervously, we can do that, right?

In truth, Olge possessed a personality far removed from the front she put up. She was a young Jedi Knight, not so different from the late Rees Alrix, if not for the fact that she was never an officer. Olge was a Jedi healer, a battlefield medic, and never trained or even suited for command. She had neither an authoritative voice nor a commanding attitude, and yet she was redeployed to the defence of perhaps the most crucial world in the Arrowhead.

And in some odd fluke of fate, she was born Commenori, to a family who quickly recognised her Force-sensitivity and delivered her to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. She had never once set foot on Commenor, despite that, and the only reason she was now defending the homeworld she never knew was because her fleet was simply the nearest to the system when the emergency order was broadcasted. It gave her mixed feelings of it all, especially after that one pilot raised the obvious dilemma between prioritising the defence of Commenor over the defence of the Core.

It was not that she did not sympathise, or even empathise, because something still hurts within Olge’s chest when she put Commenor in harm’s way, despite never once stepping on her soil.

A Master would say it was the will of the Force or something like that, but Olge couldn’t care less at that moment. At moments like this, she almost wished she had her boots on solid ground, dust and ash clogging up her nostrils, screams and groans of the dying and dead echoing in her ears, blasterfire and artillery thunder booming overhead. It was in the worst of times where her skills and talents shone, as morbid as it was.

But this isn’t the Battle of Argul anymore, she thought, and she hadn’t the umbrella of Master Yoda and Master Ulseh over her anymore. She had clean, sterile air in her nostrils now, the rumble and roar of distant reactors and engines many bulkheads away from her ringing in her ears. It was empty, lifeless, and Olge felt like a fish out of water.

Also at moments like this she bitterly resented the game Jedi Command and the Republic Navy had to play, the way it kept them in a constant tug of war over the GAR. And Jedi like Olge were trapped in the middle, pulled from one side to the other, flung from one end of the galaxy to the other, tossed from one role to the other, no matter how ill-fitting it could be.

But wishing and resenting changed nothing, and aboard the battlestation Anteluma-T, she locked her eyes resolutely on her plot. The thought of the political circumstance way over her head, after all, was far and away unimportant compared to the here and now. Olge read the estimate of what was headed for Commenor and all the orbital warehouses, freight transfer points, repair shops, and supply bases that served the commerce that poured through the star system daily, and she shivered.

If the Separatists defeated them here, they will destroy every installation in orbit of Commenor and her two moons. Commenor could raise her planetary shields, but the orbital bases? Will the Separatists even give them time to evacuate? Of course they will… unless their CO was a Separatist fanatic like the Tombmaker. Unless their spacers were men and women of the Perlemian seeking hot vengeance for the losses incurred by Operation Trident.

Olge grimaced at the thought, in the privacy of the observation deck, already feeling the weight of all the deaths about to occur. Not just from her side, but their side as well. Because there was a reason Commenor didn’t have her shields up, and so long as her shields were not up, the Separatist fleet wasn’t going anywhere.

Jedi General Olge Plavi-Dol clicked on her handheld holoprojector and came face-to-face with the First Minister of Commenor, Tomlin Gorastor, and one of the few people who knew the truth of her origins. First Minister Gorastor looked at her calmly, asking the unsaid question.

She replied softly, “I believe they’re in range, First Minister.”

Tomlin Goraster closed his eyes, then nodded. The hologram was cut out. Seconds later, a key was turned, and the surface of Commenor glittered with twelve-hundred flashes of light, an entire continent burnished with golden rays up to pierce the atmosphere, wide-open silos smoking like discharged blasters. Then–silence. Then–the burning howl of twelve-hundred thermonuclear missiles tearing heavenwards, between the Commenorian Navy’s ranks, leaving trails of fire in their wake.

Olge could then imagine the planet’s ground-to-orbit artillery loading, like sleeping giants rising from their slumber, ready to defend their home for the first time in a millennia. As the Jedi General watched the missiles race away, their azure drive cones gleaming on her plot like glowworms, she prayed for the Separatists.

Die quickly, and let this be a mercy for both of us.

?

“Holy mother of meteors,” Rel Harsol was breathless, “They must’ve launched an entire hemisphere’s worth of missiles at us.”

Rear Admiral Calli Trilm felt her heart spasm for the second time that day as her flagship’s scopes screamed out the existence of the thousand or so missiles dotting the plot.

Click. Click.

Evasive action! She wanted to shout, but she couldn’t shout that, because Commodore Aviso had just painstakingly brought his battlecruisers into attack formation with all the finesse and precision of a surgeon, taking the better part of six standard hours to do so, and now she wanted him to bring them apart again? She had no idea the limits of his patience, but she wasn’t really in the mood to find out either. And yet, the thousand or so nuclear warheads coming their way weren’t so gracious or nearly as polite as she was.

Calli knew Commenor possessed a whole lot more missiles, and she knew why they only launched twelve-hundred, but the wonders of elementary geometry didn’t make her feel any better about it.

“–Fairies out and shields up!” she roared, “Screens to the front! Get those decoys in the black! I want countermeasures, countermeasures! Brace for impact!”

The rapid fire orders may be unintelligible to any other crew, but not the 19th Mobile Fleet. Diamond icons speckled the plot as the fleet flushed their pods and the countermissiles went out, dwarfish little fairies whose objectives were to race out and intercept as many incoming birds as possible. The fleet’s Intel Division was fanning out and bringing up every jammer they had, including jettisoning remote buoys that seemed to be doing things she had never even heard of before, and decoys were lighting of all over the place like a fireworks display that travelled with the fleet thanks to inertia.

The entire perimeter of the 19th Mobile Fleet was disappearing into a huge ball of electronic and gravitic fuzz that the guidance systems of the incoming missiles would be unable to penetrate, turning them ballistic. And as the saying went in the CAF; ballistic missiles were harmless missiles. Well, not when there were over a thousand of them thundering down their closure vectors. Not when the fleet couldn’t even evade.

Calli Trilm vicariously watched through the screens as huge numbers of incoming warheads picked off by countermissiles or fooled by ECM and decoys, the figure of a thousand-plus swiftly plummeting into the hundreds. But it wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. And then the viewport exploded into a wall of fire as the fleet’s screens opened up with their PDCs and CIWS, popping birds out of the black left and right. But it wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. And then the missiles were so close the screens themselves were moving in to intercept them, entire frigates and corvettes preemptively throwing themselves onto the incoming vectors and sacrificing themselves to shield the capital ships behind them. Entire crews submitting the worth of their lives to the success of the mission.

But it wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough. It couldn’t have been, and Calli bit her lip until she tasted blood as the first Separatist battlecruiser vanished from the plot at the same time as a massive explosion rocked her flagship on her starboard flank. The missile had crashed bow-first, the resulting shockwave peeling away layers of the battlecruiser’s hull not dissimilarly to the rapid disassembly of an onion, until nothing remained. Then another died–a second. A third. A fourth. A fifth.

For the next few harrowing seconds, the 19th Mobile Fleet braved the missile storm, close-in weapon systems and point-defence lasers roaring out in a deafening maelstrom that consumed the fleet and all of its attention. It only took seconds, and when it was over, two more capital ships had been destroyed, along with a number of cruisers and screens.

But they were through. And they emerged, staring down two-hundred warships, twenty battlestations, and a hemisphere’s worth of ground-to-orbit artillery at a range of eleven-million klicks. But it did not matter, because as far as Calli Trilm was concerned, they had bulled straight through Caraya’s Gauntlet. They had already won.

Click. Click.

“We’re within effective range, Admiral!” Aviso shouted urgently, no doubt moved to the extreme by the vast amount of lives sacrificed to give him the chance to make his shot.

“Good!” Calli sneered, “It’s our turn now! All ships, attack formation beta!”

Here’s what’s going to happen, Commenor. We’re going to make you shy, and you’re going to raise your star-damned shields, whether you kriffing like it or not.

As one, the forward ranks of the 19th Mobile Fleet peeled back, pushing out towards the flanks of the fleet then back, revealing the untouched rear ranks of Aviso’s paired battlecruisers, jettisoned missile clusters hanging in the space between his ships. The void pulsed with gravitic tension, his ships running cold as their tractor beams pulled their own systems taut like a bowstring.

Calli didn’t even realise they were loose until they were. The readings on the displays spasmed, shooting heavenwards, though the system was able to capture a snapshot at time of release; 1,749,155G launch acceleration. A scarcely believable figure indeed.

It was a thirty-two second transit across some 11,000,000 klicks. It was enough time for the Republic to realise something had happened–no doubt their scopes must be blaring alarms all over the place too–but not nearly enough time to respond. Countermissiles launched desperately, and laser clusters trained onto the incoming birds, but there simply wasn't time. Nowhere enough time.

Space itself seemed to vanish in titanic violence as hundreds of proton warheads exploded in a solid wall of fury, ramming into the nearest Grade V battlestation at virtually 1.12 times the speed of light, a furious penetrative explosion roaring out the far side of the mass. Indeed, within a fraction of a second, all of Aviso’s missile clusters had launched and struck their targets, a ring of explosions scrambling across Commenor’s equator.

It would be an alpha attack for the history books, Calli simply knew as the fallout unfolded before her eyes. After much preparation, the Tann Railgun tactic had proven its worth once more. Despite the apparent impact velocity of 1.12c, Calli Trilm was well-versed enough in physics to know such a feat was practically impossible. The speed of light was, after all, the speed limit of the universe. Even hyperdrives were only able to launch ships into ‘lightspeed’ by using a non-baryonic dimension where established physical concepts didn’t apply.

The figure of 1.12c was only possible with how the Tann Railgun functioned. Dozens of capital ship-grade tractor beam projectors effectively folded space in front and expanded space behind the projectile respectively. As such, the proton warheads were not travelling any faster than lightspeed–only a significant fraction of it–merely travelling a much shorter distance due to the ‘warped space’ created by the tractor beams. This was, however, enough to sell the illusion to the Star of Serenno’s scopes–which existed in ‘unwarped space’–that the warheads were superliminal, thanks to relativity. Thus the operative word ‘virtually’ in ‘virtually 1.12 times the speed of light.’

This explanation was then proven as a score of aberrant missiles missed their marks and struck Commenor itself, and were immediately vapourised within the atmosphere rather than vaporising the planet. Instead, the missiles essentially disintegrated upon impact with the upper atmosphere, collapsing into atomic particles which themselves flung outwards and struck adjacent air molecules with enough force to trigger nuclear fusion reactions and rapidly expanding shells of superheated plasma. The 19th Mobile Fleet could only look on in scarce shock and awe as dozens of short-lived fusion chain reactions tore across the planet, massive white trees of deflagrating vapour blooming out in mushroom forms visible from space, accompanied by crackling thunderheads and incandescent firestorms that raged through Commenor’s atmosphere.

Simultaneously, the Commenorian Navy was disintegrating before their eyes, detritus and debris and fragments erupting in geysers of rampant destruction, the entire enemy fleet chewing itself up in fratricidal chain reaction. As debris rained down from above, Commenor finally raised its planetary shields to prevent any more damage. Nothing was getting in, and more importantly, nothing was getting out.

“HAHAHAHAHA!” Rel Harsol all but screamed, “That’s what I’m talking about!”

Calli Trilm suppressed a smile. She will have to have a little discussion with Harsol about communications discipline, but she didn’t at all feel like detracting from the moment. Hard to do so, after all, when her entire flagship was vibrating with all the stomping and raucous cheers of her crew.

Click. Click.

“Sitrep, Aviso?” she toggled the comms, “Hope the damage isn't too bad.”

She spoke as if damage was all but a foregone conclusion, and it was, because in all the thousands of simulations they had done, there was not a single instance the fleet came away without lasting injury from performing such an act.

“Five of my capitals came away with internal failures,” Aviso was much calmer in comparison, though Calli could still hear his bridge crew in the background, “But the failsafes we installed that isolated the capacitors managed to limit the damage. They can fly and jump, but they won’t be getting into any battles until the auxiliaries can take an in-depth look. And… well, our fleet has no more functioning tractor beams.”

That was Aviso-speak for ‘if we hadn’t installed those failsafes, half our fleet would have been kriffing vapourised’ but Calli took his word for it. They were only planning to use the Tann Railgun once, anyways, just for this moment. It was not as if they could use it anymore, for seven of their capital ships were literally gone, and another five were effectively out of action. Not to mention all the escorts and cruisers lost Commenor’s missile barrage. A brisk, pained glance at the sitrep all but confirmed that nearly a third of the fleet’s total firepower had been lost in that ‘engagement.’

There was always a high cost for such fearsome power. For now, that is. Because… she could salivate at the day the tech required became available.

Gnifmak Dymurra, you better not screw this up! Calli had invested a fortune into the Loronar Corporation, which alongside the Techno Union, was pioneering the new technology. In fact, she believed they were constructing the first prototype testbed in the Columex System… a fitting place for the birth of the first functioning gravitic wavegun.

“Very good,” she nodded in blissful satisfaction, despite their heavy losses, “Let’s get out of here.”

As the Commenorian Navy withdrew from the blastzone and reformed, the 19th Mobile Fleet took the opportunity to deflect their course onto a tangential vector relative to the planet, now without any fear of potential ground-to-orbit artillery thanks to the raised shields. As they did so, Rear Admiral Trilm ordered the 19th Mobile to open fire. Broadsides were flushed, and thousands of torpedoes rampaged out towards the disarrayed enemy fleet. Gripped by confusion, but never dull in reaction, the Commenori captains nevertheless responded with countermeasures and their own torpedoes and turbolaser bolts.

Unwilling to lose any more ships, the Rear Admiral ordered a hasty escape, her fleet mounting their acceleration once again as they blazed towards the interdiction field’s hyperlimit. Calli Trilm watched as the Commenorian Navy opted not to pursue, content to leave that to the incoming Jedi as they licked their wounds. She took stock of their losses; 16 of their 20 battlestations were missing from her scopes, including one out of two Grade Vs. Of two-hundred ships, a third to half of them weren’t being picked up, either destroyed or depowered. It was a more than fair exchange, in her mind, if not a little more costly than she would have liked.

Click. Click.

Hours later, halfway towards the maximum range of the Commenori interdiction array, the Open Circle Fleet finally crossed Commenor-A’s orbit, appearing on Separatist scopes for the second time that day.

And Calli Trilm was not the sort of person who would fight a Jedi General head-on. The hours passed as the Jedi fleet struggled to close the distance–indeed closing the distance, for Star Destroyers were much faster than anything the CAF could procure, but far too slowly–and a distant corner of Calli’s mind noted as they approached the Commenor System’s hyper-limit, outside the interdiction array’s range.

“There are four hyperlanes out of Commenor and into the Core, Rear Admiral,” Tex alerted her to the fact, “The southernmost to Quellor, the next to Humbarine, then Kuat, and the northmost to Alderaan. Which will we be taking?”

Click. Click. Beep!

Instead of answering, Calli Trilm suddenly snapped her attention towards the Starpath-cum-fidget cube captured in her hand. She had thought it dormant, after it had been disconnected from the GAR network as an obsolete piece of technology. As its lights blinked on and the cube buzzed with electronic life, however, Calli could only think of how she had been mistaken. Lifting the cube to her eyes, she read the tiny status display.

[PRIESTESS] HANDLER ONE UPLINK ESTABLISHED

She had no idea what that meant, but Calli wasn’t too concerned; she had an entire hyperspace transit to figure that out.

After a minute, the Rear Admiral finally asked the droid; “...Do I need to reprogram you?”

If Tex could smile, he would’ve, “As you command.”

The answer was, of course; all of them! Good luck guessing where I’m going when I’m going everywhere, Kenobi! Eat stardust!

Once more, a woman’s triumphant cackling filled the void as the 19th Mobile Fleet split into four task groups and jumped into hyperspace on all four different vectors. Unbeknownst to said woman, however, in the shadow of a Commenorian moon called Folor, a count of thirty-two Separatist warships suddenly, silently, came back to life.