Lucky Strike (A Star Wars SI)

[MarkWarrior]

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.

 

[JadeKaiser]

"Aff," I replied and turned to see the helmsman already inputting the instructions for the engine crew.

Click to shrink...

Bit of Battletech sneaking its way into your Star Wars, lol.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Bit of Battletech sneaking its way into your Star Wars, lol.

Click to shrink...

I've written so much batletech at this point…

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter

 

[Marlow3]

Thanks for another chapter Mark.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 31

The Separatist fleet that came out of hyperspace outnumbered Battlegroup Huntress by nearly half again our number. But come they did. From what little we could pick up from the few unencrypted channels that they were broadcasting on, it seemed that instead of one of the Providence-class carriers or dreadnoughts, Grievous was using a Munificent to manage the entirety of the fleet.

Which made sense to me, given the advanced sensor suites and communications gear that were standard onboard the star frigates. But all it really meant was that we had a priority target for our interdiction.

In our testing over the last two days, we discovered that we could use the gravity well generators to stop an entire fleet. In exchange, we had to sacrifice either offensive firepower if we wanted shields and point defenses. Or sacrifice having our shields dropped down to twenty-five percent efficiency. Unless we were willing to rip out the entire hypermatter reaction core and replace the thing, we were limited in just how much energy we generated.

Our most useful asset to the fleet made us a target. Thankfully, I did have the two Acclamators along with the Eclipse and Starfury as escorts. But anything other than a wolf pack of Munificents or light cruisers was going to require reinforcements. Lest we get overwhelmed and lose the ability to lock Grievous in the system with us.

One of the awful things about space combat was the sheer amount of time it took to get anywhere. Even with hyperdrives and modern engines, it still took the Separatist fleet several hours to reach weapons range for the main section of the battlegroup.

With our orders being what they were, we were on standby until both sides were fully engaged. If we launched the trap too early, then it was entirely possible that the enemy would pick up on what was happening and that Grievous or any of the other leaders would escape the trap we'd laid.

So for now, we watched what was happening across the solar system through a small relay, waiting for the signal to move out of the gas giant's mass shadow and do our part in this battle.

Two hours later, we got just that opportunity. The enemy was entangled in our own battlegroup, and reinforcements were going to be arriving soon.

General Kenobi had been tapped for assistance and was bringing another fleet to help us accomplish this. But given his position in the Outer Rim, it would take two days before he arrived. All we had to do was survive.

"Helm, get us a course out of the mass shadow," I ordered, standing with my hands clasped behind my back. "Everyone else, start planning on rerouting power to the grav well generators and shields. We're going to be relying on the rest of our section and fighters to ensure that we're kept in this fight."

I was answered by a chorus of yes sirs, and the Horizon emerged from the mass shadow along with the other four ships of our section. Hundreds of starfighters streamed from the pair of Acclamators, and our own complement joined them in formations around us. Then, thirty minutes later, the lights dimmed for a few seconds as we switched power to our generators, trapping both our fleet and that of the enemies in the system with us. There was only one way they were leaving, and that was by fighting their way out.

---

"Commodore, the Horizon has begun interdiction procedures," the communications officer relayed to Teskit, prompting him to lean over the tactical console.

The enemy had yet to even come close to breaking the shields of his new flagship, the Defender. A handful of enemy ships had broken off for the ground, but Teskit had to leave that to the ground forces to handle. It was his job to ensure that Battlegroup Huntress destroyed all of the enemy opposition in the system. With that in mind, he instructed one of the Arquitens wolfpacks to move onto the Defender's flanks as escorts along with a trio of Acclamator carriers.

He left a pair of Venators and the Acclamator destroyer Shards of Elysium behind to act as a QRF while he himself began shifting the Defender and the other fleet

"Captain, ground forces are reporting that there are Magnaguards on the surface. Force Recon believes that Grievous is likely on the surface somewhere."

"Good," Teskit kept his grin to himself. "Then all we have to do is eliminate this fleet, and he will have nowhere left to flee."

In any other situation, the tactical console would have been a horrible sight to see. After all, the blue shapes that were the ships and starfighters of the Separatists outnumbered his fleet, and the display showed that very well. But the Republic's ships were better on average than the most numerous CIS ships. With a Venator being capable of handling at least four Recusant-class destroyers without needing serious repairs, Teskit wasn't too concerned with them or the Munificent Star frigates that were the lynchpin of the enemy task force. No, his concern was with the Providence-class carriers and destroyers that were along the enemy's backline. Them along with what looked to be a hastily refit Lucrehulk were spewing out droid fighters and bombers at an alarming rate. So, it was up to his flagship and its escorts to remove them from the tactical playbook.

As they got closer, the Defender finally began taking hits that rocked her shields, dragging them down bit by bit before the massive battleship finally began to return fire. Her Turbolasers focused on the closest target, a Providence that was outfitted more as a carrier than a dreadnought. The Defender's heavy turbolasers first struck the CIS ships's shields, making them glow a brilliant blue, then a few moments later, had completely overwhelmed them.

"Have our escorts focus on taking out the enemy ships once we've stripped their shields down," Teskit ordered. "Our bombers can clean up. We're going to have to move on that Lucrehulk."

Teskit's reasoning for targeting the Lucrehulk and its escorts was twofold. For one thing, that ship carried enough starfighters to fight his entire fleet. For another, said battlecarrier and a wolfpack of mixed destroyers and frigates had shifted and were heading for where the Horizon was stationed. They could not be allowed to open the way out of the trap.

But as the Defender began to eliminate the enemy that stood in her way, it became clear that she wasn't going to be able to catch up to the enemy fleet section. Not before they'd engaged with the Horizon and her escorts. In any normal situation, they would have microjumped to assist. But with the Gravity Well generators locking everything down. Well, that wasn't an option anymore. The Horizon would simply have to hold out until the Defender caught up to the Lucrehulk. There wasn't any other way.

---

"Do you think we can take some of these home with us?" A Clone Commando nudged one of the still intact electrostaffs from a dead magnaguard with his DC-15 blaster rifle.

"Negative," one of the B-2 Super Battle droids that had been repainted and attached to the four-man squads replied.

"You're no fun," the Commando chuckled. "Hey Bruiser, we killed a lot of droids today, but I haven't seen any sign of the big guy yet."

"He's probably on his way to take on the Jedi, Crack," the leader of the Commando unit shrugged. "We're just here to help clean up. It's their job and that of the Arc Troopers to take him out. Besides, Trick hasn't picked up any communications signaling for help. So the trap is still good."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, Bruiser," the tech of the squad replied. "All I'm getting is static. Which means either we're being jammed."

"Or the comms relay is offline," Hulk offered. "Could be either or."

"What do you think, B?" Crack asked the droid.

"There is no sign of signal jamming," The deep voice of the vocoder responded. "There is a 70% chance that the relay station has been shut down and is in use by the enemy to observe our communications."

"Well, Kriff it all," Trick sighed. "Bruiser, we should to go clean that up. Otherwise, the whole op's blown."

"Copy that," the leader nodded. "Hulk, go commandeer a speeder of some sort that's capable of carrying our friend here. Crack, police these bodies and grab whatever ordnance you think we're going to need, and Trick, make sure that none of this stays on the grid. If they're listening in. Then we need to be sure that we have the advantage of surprise. Oh, and B," The B-2 seemed to look at the commando leader quizically. "Look menacing."

"Roger Roger," the droid's photoreceptors shifted from olive green to red, and its vambrance opened up to reveal the wrist rockets mounted there.

Whatever was going on, it was clear that this battle wasn't just going to be decided in the void. There was going to need to be something done on the ground as well. Otherwise, Grievous would slip through the Republic's fingers. Again…

Author's Note: Sorry for the delayed updates across all of my fics for the last week and a half. Had some big stuff that I had to deal with IRL. Should be back to regular updates soon.

 

[Andrew1993]

Nice, love the b2s getting some love, hopefully they get ahold of some more of em along with some more seppie ships

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter