C4P2

Tipoca City, Outer Wards

North Western Bridge

Ventress ducked under the jab of the Jedi's lightsaber, feeling the heat of the plasma blade pass inches from the back of her neck as she returned favor with a swift kick to the shin of the Torgruta woman.

Both of her own red sabers slashed down at Shaak'ti as the Jedi stumbled backwards, but a blue lightsaber met them.

Obiwan, bless him, had rushed to his comrade's aid, quickly knocking aside her attack and pushing her into the wall with the Force.

The young witch nullified the telekinetic push by running up the wall and throwing her own push at them.

Both Jedi dodged the telekinetic attack and rushed to catch her in a pincer attack.

This was taking too long, Ventress thought to herself as she blocked both sabers with her own and forced them back. Both Jedi relented, but struck again, forcing her onto the defensive. They had too much initiative, the dathomirian realized.

She needed something to distract them, but what?!

With a cry of frustration, Ventress pushed the Jedi back with both of her crimson lightsabers.

A whistling noise filled the air above them, and all three looked up to see a dark missile fall towards them.

Without hesitation, they threw themselves back as it hit the ground between them, sending a plume of dust and debris high into the air and around them.

Coughing, Ventress expelled the dust from her lungs and reactivated her lightabers, only to pause at the sight of what had landed before her.

"Graaah…" Growled Grievous weakly, as he tried to lift his head. It jerked with a creak of protest, but remain lodged deep within his metallic chest cavity. The kaleesh cyborg was bereft of all his limbs, his armor was crumpled and mangled, and streams of blood, coolant, and oily residue pooled underneath the broken warrior.

"Grievous?" Breathed Obiwan several meters away, his eyes wide in horrified fascination. He didn't deactivate his lightsaber, but the sudden relaxed posture in his body showed relief and newly regained confidence.

The other Jedi, Shaak'ti stood and pointed her saber at the Sith.

"Surrender, Ventress! Grievous is obviously disarmed and beaten…" Grievous growled louder at the accusation, but the Togruta Jedi ignored him as she focused on Ventress' ugly expression of hate and loathing. "If you choose not to, then you shall face the same fate."

If only she could make it across this bridge, to the fortified positions her forces had congregated within...but not with Grievous slowing her down and the Jedi doggedly hounding her...

Ventress swallowed audibly, teeth clenched and hands gripping her saber's hilts so hard, she was surprised they did not break. She briefly considered the thought, just for a moment, before rejecting it entirely.

Carefully, the acolyte moved her sabers to attack.

"So be it." Said Obiwan as he and Shaak'ti both slid into their forms.

A low drone filled the air, promptly them all, even Grievous, to look up.

On fire and still exploding, an assault corvette hurtled down towards them, armor plating scattering in all directions like a thousand fireballs. The stern of the ship erupted in a massive fireball, propelling the entire forward hull straight down towards the bridge they were standing on.

Ventress grabbed Grievous by the collar and drew on the Force to throw herself and the cyborg as far as she could.

In the opposite direction, Obiwan and Shaak'ti ran as fast as they could, infusing their bodies with the Force as they sped towards the main platform.

The ship crashed into the bridge, snapping the whole thing into pieces nearly instantly as the tiabanna gas within the ship ruptured and detonated in a massive conflagration of superheated plasma, sending a explosive shockwave that threw the Jedi off their feet and into the air.

Ventress slowly and painfully picked herself up off the ground and glanced back behind her. The corvette had completely destroyed the bridge with it's impact, The Jedi were gone, out of sight, and she couldn't sense them.

Next to her, Grievous was angrily wheezing as he struggled to turn himself over with without any arms or legs.

Forcing herself to stand, she grabbed the cyborg by a mangled collar and started walking, dragging the general along a trail of sparks as he sputtered and gurgled.

-

"Incoming torpedoes, numbering sixty two and rising."

Point Defense batteries opened fire, explosions ripping in complex patterns kilometers in front of them. Flak filled the vacuum of space as the large capital-grade proton warhead detonated violently. But even as dozens were destroyed, a handful got through the cloud of flak and they impacted their target, fracturing armor plating and ripping open holes into the sensitive superstructure.

"Enemy Frigate Squadron Nine is concentrating fire on Cruiser Squadron Eight. Heavy damaged to all vessels. Counter artillery fire commencing."

The fleet returned fire, but the stress from moving the immense command ship of the Republic Navy and the complex maneuvers required to evade enemy fire made their task difficult, to say the least. Nevertheless, despite the damage being taken, several Munificents managed to return fire with their remaining weapon banks.

A stream of accurately placed turbolaser fire nailed a Foray class corvette in the stern, tearing off an engine unit as it's shields died before another salvo vaporized the vast majority of it's hull. Another series of shots hit home on a clearly modified Y-8 mining craft. It's forward hull ruptured even as it' burning hull continued firing it's laser cannons.

A fistful of Thranta-class frigates and CR70 Corvettes ceased firing as they dumped all power to their oversized engine units and sped away, leaving behind the burning wrecks of half a dozen Hammerhead cruisers to die under the barrage of turbolasers raining down on the helpless vessels.

With the enemy squadron destroyed, the Munificents turned their gaze to the main fleet of enemy vessels that had dropped, literally, on top of them.

"Enemy Cruiser Squadron engaging Battlecruiser Squadron Ten. Damage moderate. Counter Battery Fire commencing. Two enemy cruisers analogues destroyed, four sustaining heavy damage."

Dozens of ships have jumped out of hyperspace, closing the distance into knife range, resulting in close quarters space combat as numerous fighters blew past the ragged fighter cover and began strafing runs on the nearest warships at the edge of my fleet.

The new ships were hodgepodge of almost random craft, from civilian freighters and mining craft to police cruisers and paramilitary frigates. Spotte amongst the group were even a few designs from history books; including at least one Valor-Class Heavy Cruiser...which was currently slugging it out with a pair of enlarged Recuscants.

The ancient museum piece was a terribly designed starship, but it was clear that it was meant to fall, even as millennia old deflector shields were torn down and it's ancient hull armor was pummeled into shrapnel. The immense warship had been a carrier in the ancient days of the Old Republic, and it's hangars gave birth to wings of fighter craft.

Ranging from Chela-class starfighters and clearly modified Starrunner cargo haulers to Z-95 Headhunters, the snubfighter swarmed the dreadnoughts, swiftly maneuvering past the laser blast and flak to deliver their payloads.

As swiftly as the new fleet had come, it had already begun disengaging and begun to withdraw.

It had been effective, I'll admit grudgingly. Whoever these forces belonged to, they knew they didn't stand a real chance of fighting a straight battle between my own forces and their random assortment of starcraft.

They had essentially performed the equivalent to a drive by shooting, a hit and run tactic that diverted precious attention to beating them aside and choose between losing more ships and continue with the mission of delivering the star dreadnought to it's crash course.

Ordinarily, an organic commander would have chosen one of the options; likely the former of pausing and fighting them rather than lose more ships.

Unfortunately for them, I was not an organic commander and so I chose both. Using the immense computer systems and processors of my fleet, my Network once again proved their worth as they tore apart the enemy with brutal and ruthless efficiency.

Despite the surprise, they had precious little else. Yes, they managed to deal heavy damage to some of my vessels, but none were destroyed outright and they lost more than I did.

But what damage they did manage to inflict could turn the battle against me if Yularen decided to make his attack...like right now.

Peering through multiple sensors within the network, I could make out the remnants of the Kamino Defense Fleet on an attack vector on my left flank, aiming to take advantage of the damaged ships whose tractor beams remained fixed on the Pride of the Core.

With a thought, I had nonessential warships move to intercept; Munificent frigates and Recuscant destroyers moved forwards, their prow guns opening fire on the forwardmost element of-

I tore my attention from the Republic fleet to the rear of my own fleet as sensors detected the little fleet that surprised me before.

A quick glance into the data feeds told me they were going to try to go for another quick broadside again. This time they were gunning for the engines.

Not this time you little bastards.

Flak guns swiveled to target their interception vectors, laser and turbolaser batteries adjusted their aim and then fired, streams of fire forcing the fleet to disperse and attempt to make their attack runs...right into the killzone of my flak guns.

Clouds of flak exploded into existence around the forward elements of the enemy fleet nipping at my rear; gouging chunks from corvettes and vaporizing whole fighter squadrons. The fleet pivoted and began accelerating away from me, their numbers being reduced from the flak and turbolaser fire as more and more of their number were claimed with extreme prejudice.

A pair of armored dreadnoughts sped away, rips in their hull leaking atmosphere, fueling the fires that burned out of control.

With that annoyance taken care of, I returned my attention to the Republic capital ships hammering away at the increasingly tattered forward elements of my fleet.

Two of my remaining anti-fighter Munificents were in the middle of exploding spectacularly while a Recuscant bodily rammed a Victory-Class star destroyer, immolating itself as it's reactors overloaded, tearing entire chunks of superstructure from the larger ship.

Long range fire from my heavier warships rained down on the Republic fleet, even as the first of their Consular frigates and Ministry corvettes began to filter through the vanguard. They targeted the tractor beams first; but their weapons were too light and inaccurate to do any real damage unless they got in close...which would result in their destruction.

Another Munificent succumbed to the overwhelming firepower being thrown at it by the assorted star destroyers as the first of the dozen Republic heavy hitters began to make it through.

Alerts popped into existence as more contacts began to fill my mind. I sigh with exasperation as sensors detected starfighters flying up from Kamino.

They numbered in the low hundreds, with assorted shuttles and gunships joining the small swarm of snubfighters.

Unfortunately, my fighter cover was stretched thin and they couldn't handle hitting the vulnerable soft spot of enemy capital ships between protecting my own vulnerable soft spots.

What to do...what to do…

I delved into the eyes and thoughts of every droid in the Network, searching for an answer.

Commandeering the ships of the Sector Fleet and the Pride of the Core's weapons systems would take far too long; I had been very thorough in my alpha strike with the Nox's ion cannon.

Flak would only do so much against the fighter craft in the distance, not to mention dealing with that fleet of gnats...only they'll actually be dangerous with those fighters coming from Tipoca City.

Hm. When I disabled the Sector Fleet, they were in the middle of launching several wing of fighters weren't they?

A photoreceptor tinged in red focused on the canopy of a ARC-170, the frightened faces of two clone pilots helpless to do anything staring back.

Hm. That could work.