Chapter 30
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MarkWarrior
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Chapter 30
The worst thing about being a part of a battlegroup that was attempting to track down an enemy fleet, was that we were reactionary. From what I could remember, not even Dooku was able to keep track of many of Grievous's movements from the old TV show dad had recorded back on our Tivo. Which meant that Republic Intelligence, Fleet Intelligence, no one that was a part of any major intelligence agency knew or could predict where the rogue cyborg was going to go next.
So, a lot of our job for the next few weeks was jumping into a system that had recently been hit, then guess at what the next target was and try to get there first. It was kinda odd, if I were completely honest. Grievous seemed to avoid a bunch of major shipyards in favor of hitting targets that wouldn't hit the war effort for the Republic all that much. But once I looked deeper, it clicked.
Grievous was hitting small fleet sections with larger amounts of Jedi. Sure, he was also attacking certain systems as he was probably ordered to by Dooku and the Confederacy. But Grievous was more focused on taking out his anger on as many Jedi as possible over completing those orders. At least for now, and currently wherever Grievous went, Durge went also. Maybe we would avoid the speederbike jousting this time around.
Still, it had led to us going on wild chases and only meeting a handful of smaller ships that barely did anything to our battlegroup. Essentially those that were left behind by Grievous's fleet, or those who were trying to join him.
After almost a month and a half of this game of cat and mouse, Teskit decided he'd had enough and called a meeting for all of the senior officers to join.
"No one in the Republic Fleet has been able to pin down General Grievous at this time," Teskit opened up the floor. "I tire of chasing this villain. So, we don't be chasing him anymore. Instead, we will bring him to us."
The Commodore nodded at Jedi-Commander Durald and gestured for her to take over.
"After some rough analysis, we've finally identified two patterns that Grievous follows. One of them is that he goes after Jedi. The second is that he will abandon the fleet in orbit to go after Jedi on the ground," Kalyna tapped the holotable and it showed a system in the core that was nearly in the colonies or the Mid-Rim. "Tinnel is the core world we have chosen for this. While not the most prominent system, they do have shipyards capable of producing Venators, Acclamators, and Dreadnoughts for the Republic Navy. Though in the past they tended to work with CEC and various starfighter companies instead of ships larger than corvettes, of late, Kuat Drive Yards has licensed them to begin producing the aforementioned ships."
The holotable shifted to show the void as well as the handful of defense stations that kept the shipyards safe.
"I have made a request to the Council and they have agreed to assist with our plan," Kalyna said. "We have four Jedi Knights along with their cruisers coming to join us here. We'll then leak that we're assembling a battlegroup to launch an attack directly at Raxus. When Grievous takes the bait, we'll eliminate his fleet in orbit while the other Jedi handle him on the ground."
"Lieutenant Hull, the Horizon will be crucial in this battle," Teskit looked at me, his holographic representation as stoic as ever. "Your ship's interdiction field generators will be required to keep the enemy locked into Tinnel. We cannot allow them to escape."
"Understood, sir," I nodded. "What if he doesn't arrive, or it's another one of the decoy fleets the Confederacy likes to use?" I asked.
"Then it will still be another enemy fleet that we have removed from the board," the commodore replied, the other officers nodding their heads in agreement. "Now, I'm sending you each your orders. All sections will be working under a subcommander for the duration of this operation. Should communications between the Hyperion and the rest of the fleet cease, you'll follow your section commanders orders as if they were my own."
The commodore waited until we'd all responded before leaning forward with a savage grin.
"Now, let's make sure that General Grievous regrets the day he decided to strike against the Republic."
Five days later…
Tinnel looked like most worlds in the galaxy. A wide varied climate, an abundance of flora and fauna, and a mixed human and near-human population. It had been settled a many millennia ago and had pretty much remained the same throughout the years it had been a part of the Republic for. Sure, it had sided with Revan during the Jedi Civil War, but many systems had done that, it wasn't like they were alone in that. The only other thing of note that could be said about it was that the massive crater where a city was once said to be. It had been destroyed so long ago, the only tales left were legends and myths.
Outside of those few facts, Tinnel had been a productive, if usually forgotten world among the thousands that made up the Galactic Republic. That is, until we arrived.
The entirety of Battlegroup Huntress had dropped out of hyperspace with enough space and time for the local PDF to detect us. They'd been informed of the plan in advance, but it was still better to not offend the people you were going to be relying on in a few short days.
"Horizon, you and your escorts are to move to the designated nav point," Commander Task ordered. I'll remain here with the rest of the section and act as a QRF for whatever the commodore needs."
"Aff," I replied and turned to see the helmsman already inputting the instructions for the engine crew.
I glanced down at my tactical display. We were being escorted by two ships we'd worked with on the last battle. The Eclipse and Starfury were on our port and starboard flanks, along with a pair of Acclamators that had been modified to carry starfighters instead of ground troops, and a couple of corvettes armed with anti-fighter weaponry.
It took a few hours for us to reach the place where we were supposed to be hidden, but eventually, we were safely secreted away in the mass shadow of one of Tinnel IVs two gas giants.
We'd be sitting the initial portion of the battle out. Only revealing ourselves once the main enemy fleet had ventured too far into the system for it to be practical for them to attempt escape. Sure, we'd be cornering the Separatists, but I wasn't sure how much harder droids would fight over people when push came to shove.
Protective instincts could be programmed into droids, loyalty could be programmed into droids. But that instinct to lash out and make others pay as much as possible for bringing you down wasn't something most droids possessed. After all, not every droids was HK-47, IG-88, or R2-D2. Those droids were special for particular reasons, they weren't the cannon fodder that made up the majority of the Confederacy.
Which is why I thought that the Commodore's plan had a decent chance of success. I was just hoping that the Force didn't decide to have other plans…
For now though, I had to make sure everything was ready. So, I had Aliya and the engineers going over everything to make sure that nothing would break too badly when we went back into combat. We knew that something would break, we just weren't sure what it was yet. Our hope was that it wasn't the grav well generators. Because our entire plan relied on them to work.
The worst thing about being a part of a battlegroup that was attempting to track down an enemy fleet, was that we were reactionary. From what I could remember, not even Dooku was able to keep track of many of Grievous's movements from the old TV show dad had recorded back on our Tivo. Which meant that Republic Intelligence, Fleet Intelligence, no one that was a part of any major intelligence agency knew or could predict where the rogue cyborg was going to go next.
So, a lot of our job for the next few weeks was jumping into a system that had recently been hit, then guess at what the next target was and try to get there first. It was kinda odd, if I were completely honest. Grievous seemed to avoid a bunch of major shipyards in favor of hitting targets that wouldn't hit the war effort for the Republic all that much. But once I looked deeper, it clicked.
Grievous was hitting small fleet sections with larger amounts of Jedi. Sure, he was also attacking certain systems as he was probably ordered to by Dooku and the Confederacy. But Grievous was more focused on taking out his anger on as many Jedi as possible over completing those orders. At least for now, and currently wherever Grievous went, Durge went also. Maybe we would avoid the speederbike jousting this time around.
Still, it had led to us going on wild chases and only meeting a handful of smaller ships that barely did anything to our battlegroup. Essentially those that were left behind by Grievous's fleet, or those who were trying to join him.
After almost a month and a half of this game of cat and mouse, Teskit decided he'd had enough and called a meeting for all of the senior officers to join.
"No one in the Republic Fleet has been able to pin down General Grievous at this time," Teskit opened up the floor. "I tire of chasing this villain. So, we don't be chasing him anymore. Instead, we will bring him to us."
The Commodore nodded at Jedi-Commander Durald and gestured for her to take over.
"After some rough analysis, we've finally identified two patterns that Grievous follows. One of them is that he goes after Jedi. The second is that he will abandon the fleet in orbit to go after Jedi on the ground," Kalyna tapped the holotable and it showed a system in the core that was nearly in the colonies or the Mid-Rim. "Tinnel is the core world we have chosen for this. While not the most prominent system, they do have shipyards capable of producing Venators, Acclamators, and Dreadnoughts for the Republic Navy. Though in the past they tended to work with CEC and various starfighter companies instead of ships larger than corvettes, of late, Kuat Drive Yards has licensed them to begin producing the aforementioned ships."
The holotable shifted to show the void as well as the handful of defense stations that kept the shipyards safe.
"I have made a request to the Council and they have agreed to assist with our plan," Kalyna said. "We have four Jedi Knights along with their cruisers coming to join us here. We'll then leak that we're assembling a battlegroup to launch an attack directly at Raxus. When Grievous takes the bait, we'll eliminate his fleet in orbit while the other Jedi handle him on the ground."
"Lieutenant Hull, the Horizon will be crucial in this battle," Teskit looked at me, his holographic representation as stoic as ever. "Your ship's interdiction field generators will be required to keep the enemy locked into Tinnel. We cannot allow them to escape."
"Understood, sir," I nodded. "What if he doesn't arrive, or it's another one of the decoy fleets the Confederacy likes to use?" I asked.
"Then it will still be another enemy fleet that we have removed from the board," the commodore replied, the other officers nodding their heads in agreement. "Now, I'm sending you each your orders. All sections will be working under a subcommander for the duration of this operation. Should communications between the Hyperion and the rest of the fleet cease, you'll follow your section commanders orders as if they were my own."
The commodore waited until we'd all responded before leaning forward with a savage grin.
"Now, let's make sure that General Grievous regrets the day he decided to strike against the Republic."
Five days later…
Tinnel looked like most worlds in the galaxy. A wide varied climate, an abundance of flora and fauna, and a mixed human and near-human population. It had been settled a many millennia ago and had pretty much remained the same throughout the years it had been a part of the Republic for. Sure, it had sided with Revan during the Jedi Civil War, but many systems had done that, it wasn't like they were alone in that. The only other thing of note that could be said about it was that the massive crater where a city was once said to be. It had been destroyed so long ago, the only tales left were legends and myths.
Outside of those few facts, Tinnel had been a productive, if usually forgotten world among the thousands that made up the Galactic Republic. That is, until we arrived.
The entirety of Battlegroup Huntress had dropped out of hyperspace with enough space and time for the local PDF to detect us. They'd been informed of the plan in advance, but it was still better to not offend the people you were going to be relying on in a few short days.
"Horizon, you and your escorts are to move to the designated nav point," Commander Task ordered. I'll remain here with the rest of the section and act as a QRF for whatever the commodore needs."
"Aff," I replied and turned to see the helmsman already inputting the instructions for the engine crew.
I glanced down at my tactical display. We were being escorted by two ships we'd worked with on the last battle. The Eclipse and Starfury were on our port and starboard flanks, along with a pair of Acclamators that had been modified to carry starfighters instead of ground troops, and a couple of corvettes armed with anti-fighter weaponry.
It took a few hours for us to reach the place where we were supposed to be hidden, but eventually, we were safely secreted away in the mass shadow of one of Tinnel IVs two gas giants.
We'd be sitting the initial portion of the battle out. Only revealing ourselves once the main enemy fleet had ventured too far into the system for it to be practical for them to attempt escape. Sure, we'd be cornering the Separatists, but I wasn't sure how much harder droids would fight over people when push came to shove.
Protective instincts could be programmed into droids, loyalty could be programmed into droids. But that instinct to lash out and make others pay as much as possible for bringing you down wasn't something most droids possessed. After all, not every droids was HK-47, IG-88, or R2-D2. Those droids were special for particular reasons, they weren't the cannon fodder that made up the majority of the Confederacy.
Which is why I thought that the Commodore's plan had a decent chance of success. I was just hoping that the Force didn't decide to have other plans…
For now though, I had to make sure everything was ready. So, I had Aliya and the engineers going over everything to make sure that nothing would break too badly when we went back into combat. We knew that something would break, we just weren't sure what it was yet. Our hope was that it wasn't the grav well generators. Because our entire plan relied on them to work.
