Chapter 13

Golm Approach, Both System

Bothan Space

One might think Sev’rance Tann to be aggressive and almost zealous in her approach to strategy, knowing her operational history, but Karoc had grown to know better. Sev’rance Tann was methodical and cautious–almost too cautious–and never willing to commit to any action unless she already knew the outcome. And when she did know the outcome, she would bet everything she had, resulting in her reputation.

Only 700 parsecs southeast of Bothawui was the site of her greatest victory, where she used herself as bait. And the Republic taskforce fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Karoc checked his chrono again. They’ve been staring down the combined Republic-Bothan fleet for five hours, and Sev’rance Tann hasn’t moved an inch from the captain’s chair, as still as a sculpture. Her glowing red eyes were closed, and Karoc could feel her searching for something through the Force. What exactly she was searching for, he did not know.

All he knew was that he had been standing next to her for almost eight hours now, and his legs were getting weak.

The reason they hadn’t attacked yet was obvious; the enemy fleet had entrenched itself inside the asteroid rings of the gas giant Golm. There was 60,000 klicks of dense ice, rocks, asteroids, dust, and other stellar debris between them. No missile would be able to penetrate the cordon, and even Ascendant Sky’s particle shields would expire long before the dreadnought could reach the other side. But Karoc knew the Republic had ostensibly chosen this specific battlefield to deprive them of the Tann Railgun.

Sev’rance Tann blinked, her glowing red eyes revealing themselves for the first time in hours. She squinted at the enemy fleet through the forward viewport, as if she had only just realised they were supposed to be in a battle. If Karoc hadn’t been sunken in the Force as well, he could’ve believed the General had genuinely awoken from a nap.

“Numbers?” her voice was hoarse.

“Twenty-one Jedi cruisers, including Negotiator and Tranquility,” Karoc reported, “Thirty-three Arquitens and seventeen CR-Ninety corvettes. There are also six Bothan cruisers, and eleven Bothan frigates.”

“Mmh,” she hummed, “Can you sense any Jedi?”

Karoc reached out through the Force, but was barely powerful enough to reach through the vacuum of space. There was no point looking through the viewports–the distance was too great, and he could barely see the red paint jobs of the ships themselves through the planetary belt.

“No,” he answered, lying in spirit, “I couldn’t sense any.”

“Then this will be simple,” Tann said curtly, “Can you tell me the most efficient way to defeat them, Captain?”

The most efficient way to defeat them, Karoc repeated in his mind, spoken like the Republic’s defeat was all but assured. The question wasn’t how to defeat them, but how to do it with minimal effort and losses. Which means the General already had a plan, and simply wanted to test whether Karoc knew it as well.

Test. Karoc’s life until now has only been a series of tests, but this was the first time the test had nothing to do with the Force. I have to prove myself worthy. This time. I cannot fail again.

He observed the pitch again. With a portion of the Second Fleet enforcing a blockade around Bothawui, they now outnumbered the enemy two-to-one–but the asteroid belt negated that. While their capital ships may be able to bludgeon their way through the field, the expense of their particle shields would make them vulnerable to starfighter and missile attacks. Not to mention that their Diamond-class cruisers and Lupus-class frigates would never make it.

“We need to push them out of their position,” Karoc thought out loud, “We can circumnavigate the rings and strike from below…”

“And they will climb over the rings,” Tann replied, audibly bored, “We aren’t here to play games with the enemy, Captain.”

Karoc resisted the urge to shout in annoyance, feeling the Dark Side creep into the corners of his consciousness. He held it at arm’s length.

“Our missile frigates are quick enough to make it,” Karoc tried again, “And attaching our point defence cruisers will protect them from enemy starfighters.”

Sev’rance Tann straightened slightly–which he took as a positive–glancing at her datapad and counting the pins, then at the tactical holo.

“That would work,” she demurred, “If the Second Fleet presented the total of our assets. However, if we detach our screens to protect our frigates, that would leave our capital ships vulnerable in their stead.”

“…We could recall our Lucrehulks and use their fighter wings–”

“From Bothawui? I want efficiency, Captain,” impatience coloured the General’s voice, “You must remember that battlefield tactics is an extension of greater strategy, Captain. Do not separate tactics from strategy–conflate them instead, and see the larger picture. What is possible here is a result of my decisions on Geonosis a week ago.”

“…Commander Merai,” Karoc said, “Where is Commander Merai?”

“Sublight transmission from Hoppawui,” the comms droid reported, “Corporate Alliance forces have entered the system. Forty-three ships.”

Hoppawui? That’s the edge of the system! Karoc scowled–the Both System was relatively dense, possessing eight planets and many more moons. A fleet the size of Commander Merai’s was too large to safely jump directly to Golm, and will be forced to extract on the edge of the system. If Tann considered pulling their battleships from Bothawui too inefficient, then waiting for an entire fleet to make it all the way from the termination shock was out of the question.

He caught Tann smirking in amusement from the corner of his eye.

“–Tell Commander Merai to get into position,” Karoc said in frustration, “And have him make it quick.”

“Uh, sir?” the droid looked up at him, “Commander Merai isn’t with the fleet. His XO is in command.”

“…What?” Karoc blurted out.

Was Merai killed in action at Kamino? Karoc frowned–that couldn’t be right… the Force pressed his mind, telling him something was amiss. There was something he was missing, he could feel it. Corporate Alliance fleet… forty-three ships–wait, only forty-three?

“Sir,” he asked the General, “How many ships were lost at Kamino?”

“Eight,” Tann bore a knowing look that told him he was on the right track.

“That means six ships are unaccounted for…” he mumbled, “Droid, what’s their flagship?”

The droid consulted his console, “Star destroyer Vanguard Flare.”

Commander Merai’s flagship should be the very same flagship of the Corporate Alliance armada, the dreadnought Prosperous.

“There you go,” Sev’rance Tann smiled, “Now what is the last asset you have missed?”

Karoc grew silent, combing over everything he knew. He checked the tactical holo, the gravitics, the astrogation computers, anything to jog his memory or give him a spark of inspiration. He even peered through the Force–even though the General never required it–to find something.

“Have I ever told you where I came from?” Tann’s voice dug into his spine.

“No, sir.”

“I come from the Unknown Regions,” she answered herself, “We call it the Chaos. Navigation computers are unreliable in the Chaos, because there are no permanent hyperlanes in deep space. Instead, we rely on Force-sensitive navigators, known as sky-walkers, to predict safe passages. I was one of them.”

Karoc kept quiet. There was an odd nostalgia in her voice that he dared not interrupt.

“We boldly went where nobody else dared go,” Sev’rance Tann said firmly, even pridefully, “Through the harshest reaches of the galaxy, or beyond it.”

His tablet buzzed; the sensor readings spiked, alarm lights blinking. Cronau spike.

A fleet jumped out of hyperspace directly above the enemy, exactly six ships strong. One-hundred and two pre-prepped torpedoes raced ahead of Corporate Alliance dreadnought Prosperous before it had even fully materialised, cradling its hull in a thick curtain of hash. Then followed by the shrieking of hundreds of droid starfighters. The torpedoes branched out like purple lightning, carpeting the topmost warships of the Republic fleet with their brutal ordnance.

Their impact times were synchronised perfectly, leaving no ship more time to react than the other, resulting in what seemed like a single massive explosion that gave Golm a new ring to boast of–one of doonium, durasteel, and cinder. The inferno screamed in every colour of the rainbow–a telltale sign of rhydonium-based fuel–and the subsequent shockwave drived every proximity sensor on Ascendant Sky to howl in alarm as a portion of the planetary belt was blasted out towards them.

To escape the intensifying barrage of laser fire and missiles, the remaining ships precipitously descended as hastily as possible, using the twisted wrecks of their comrades to shield them from above. Most importantly, they were descending beneath the asteroid belt.

“All ships,” Tann reverted back to a disinterested tone as she watched the carnage, “Descend two-thousand klicks. Maintain formation; reinforce forward shields.”

Karoc glanced at Sev’rance Tann in quiet awe; she hadn’t been searching for anything, she had been guiding the Alliance fleet through a hidden spacelane above the galactic plane. Was there even a single Jedi Master who could do such a thing? Maybe someone from the ExplorCorps? But were any of them even powerful enough to see beyond the galactic plane?

“The Rishi Maze is an interesting phenomenon,” she seemed to read his mind, “Not because it exists outside the galaxy, but because we know it is there, and have travelled to it. But we have not explored it, not truly, because nobody dares to. The Zareca String is the only known hyperlane between Lesser Space and the Rishi Maze–but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others.”

“…You found another?” he said in disbelief, “Just like that?”

“It exists for now,” Tann replied, “Maybe it will stay, maybe it will shift in a decade. It skirts the edge of the Intergalactic Void, so nothing can be known for certain. But if this spacelane didn’t exist, or will not exist, I will always be able to find another. Your orders, Captain?”

“Orders–” he caught himself, “All screens, forward positions–prepare to receive the enemy. All destroyers, activate tractor beam projectors and set to Railgun preset. Prepare to jettison proton torpedoes.”

The Tann Railgun, as its name suggests, was a battle tactic invented by Sev’rance Tann meant to overcome the deficiencies of their self-propelled warheads. Torpedoes were short range affairs, and at this range drive burnout will send even Ascendant Sky’s largest missiles ballistic–thus harmless–well over 55,000 klicks short of target.

The Tann Railgun compensated for that with extreme acceleration. You can’t shoot down a bird travelling at near-luminal speeds, after all. Superluminal too, relatively speaking, if the distance was great enough. Karoc still didn’t quite understand how the gravitics worked.

Karoc’s gaze was drawn to the ship’s startled gravitics, which were dramatically warning of unsafe anomalies on both port and starboard flanks. The bridge was basked in the strobing lights of the display, which described the pulsating forcefield being cycled from aft to prow like a resonant wave. Dust and micrometeorites which had been blasted towards them were slingshotted back towards the planet as Ascendant Sky’s ten heavy beam projectors synchronised and intensified.

“All ships report synchronism, sir,” a droid reported.

“Jettison pilot torpedoes,” he commanded.

“Roger roger,” the droid tapped this console.

A single torpedo was ejected off the rear quarter of the dreadnought–half a heartbeat later, it was captured by the artificial gravitic wave and whipped towards the planet. A purple explosion 60,000 klicks away sent a Bothan cruiser reeling back into a Republic corvette, shattering like glass and perforating the warships behind them with secondary explosions.

Six more whips of light followed as the fleet’s other star destroyers tested their Railguns, gouging out a pound of flesh from the enemy.

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“All systems functioning as normal, sir,” the droid said, “All destroyers report systems operational. Proceed?”

Karoc nodded, “Commence firing.”

Ascendant Sky’s proton torpedoes were ejected in succession–each perfectly timed with the strobing gravitational wave to maximise active acceleration–and fired off towards the enemy fleet. Trapped between the Corporate Alliance and the Second Fleet, the battle–if it could be called that–was already over. All that was left was to watch the pyrotechnics.

But the Tann Railgun was not without deficiencies itself, Karoc had to remind himself lest he become reliant on the tactic’s awe-some power. For one, tractor beam projectors were extremely energy intensive, and powering all ten concurrently required almost all of Ascendant Sky’s weapon, shielding, and engine systems deactivated–leaving only the attitude thrusters to keep the ship-cum-catapult stable.

Second, it was also untenably difficult to aim. As the entire dreadnought now acted as a barrel, even the slightest attitude change could offset the projectile’s destination by orders of magnitude. Not to mention the projectile is launched forward in the attitude it is jettisoned–to rectify this, the Railgun usually required two destroyers abreast of each other, with one acting as propulsion and the other as a guiderail.

Still, the first shot will always be the most accurate. Triumphant could attest.

Not that it was necessary here. The Republic-Bothan fleet was so bunched up, they would be hard-pressed to miss. In conclusion, there were two minimum requirements; a dreadnought, and range. Because the enemy can press the attack while your warship’s power was still being fed to the tractor beam projectors, the battle was already lost.