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.

Click. Click.

“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.

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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.