Chapter Thirty-Six: Finding Avalon

Star Wars + Harry Potter Crossover

A/N: Chap 35 review responses are in my forums as normal. The proceeding battle will take up the remaining chapters of the story. Just like the Battle of Endor dominated Return of the Jedi. Those who are enjoying it, I hope you continue to do so.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Finding Avalon

A single figure stood on the over-bridge of the Force Eclipse, the newest, most powerful ship in the Empire, and a testament to the man's growing influence over the Emperor. He stood as straight as a rod, clad in brilliant white with gold tassel epaulets that reflected off the burnished floor below. His dark blue skin stood out in stark contrast to the white of his uniform; his red eyes an equal contrast to his skin.

Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo, known to the Empire at large as Thrawn, stood on the bridge of his ship with a sense of accomplishment. The Emperor was well into planning a second Death Star when the growing threat of the mages in the Alliance began to reveal itself. The other grand admirals, such as Grant, Grunger and Declann, threw their hands up and declared the magicals irrelevant due to lack of numbers.

But Thrawn knew his master well, and knew such an answer would not appease the Emperor. So, he studied what they knew of the enemy. He studied intently how Potter so thoroughly stole the identity of an officer on Despayre and managed to parley that into the best marks the real officer ever had in an attempt to save slaves. It was a mark of intelligence and compassion, but also ruthlessness. Thrawn had no doubt all those he replaced with his people were killed.

He studied the footage of the Death Star that Vader transmitted back to Coruscant, of Potter teleporting instantly from one area to another. The other grand admirals declared it impossible, and a hoax. Thrawn knew better, and instead tasked his fleet physicists with how it might be possible, and what could stop it.

Most of all, he discovered why Potter and his people were on Despayre in the first place. It was only a matter of a few weeks of work for him to triangulate where Potter's home planet was just based on Despayre's position, using a plethora of probes. He personally took his flagship to Earth and discovered the frozen wasteland. His teams scoured the mostly intact ruins and brought back writings and broken art pieces that spoke of a culture on the verge of joining the greater galactic community. In the Republic days, they would have been welcomed and aided in their advancement by the senate, while being ruthlessly exploited by the various trade organizations.

With the death of the Republic, they were welcomed by orbital bombardment and genocide. Tarkin was a fool. For Tarkin's actions introduced the Empire to an enemy far, far more dangerous than the other admirals were wont to admit. Tarkin was a fool, and the Emperor was a fool to ever listen to him.

Tarkin was a fool in other ways. The Death Star was offensive to Thrawn not for its destructive capabilities, but for the incredible waste of resources that such a project entailed. And it was this argument which finally convinced the Emperor not to proceed with the second Death Star, because it was one of the few things that Thrawn and Vader actually agreed on. After all, the Empire could build five Eclipse-class ships for the cost of a single Death Star. And with each ship armed with both an ion pulse cannon and a superlaser capable of shearing whole continents in half with a single shot, it was a far, far more effective weapon. The fact that the superstructure of the first Force Eclipse was already complete and orbiting the Emperor's secret base at Byss just made the argument that much more effective.

The slow tapping of a alerted him to company. He turned to face the Emperor and bowed. "Majesty," he said respectfully.

"Admiral," Palpatine greeted him.

Thrawn looked and saw the ever present, crimson-clad Imperial Guard, but no sign of Vader or their latest prize. "You have done well, Admiral," the Emperor continued in his crackling voice. "Endor is the single greatest victory against the Alliance we have enjoyed, despite the efforts of others to bring them to heel."

Thrawn bowed but did not respond to the obvious jibe against Vader. It was not wise to place himself between the two Sith Lords. "We are fast approaching Avalon, Majesty."

"Yes, I can feel it," the old Sith said. He closed his orange-tinted eyes, as if revelling in the approach. "Soon enough Potter and his kind will bow before me, or perish."

"Yes, m'lord."

Palpatine stared straight ahead, his face hidden within his cowl. "Tell me, Admiral, do you think we will face opposition?"

"Most certainly, m'lord," Thrawn said briskly. "The Rebels were hurt, but not destroyed. Our intelligence suggests Potter is either on the High Council or influential to those on it, and he will stress the need to defend the planet."

"What course do you think he will take?"

"There are a few possible plans," Thrawn said. "Carlist Rieekan would favour an attack by snub fighters, such as the Republic used against the Malevolence during the Clone Wars. Of course, shielding capabilities have been vastly improved and this ship carries more Starfighters than current estimates of the Alliance's entire fighter capability. Madine will favour a full-scale capital ship assault, likely using a three-vector pincer move along the lines of Ackbar's defence of Mon Calamari."

"And Potter?"

Thrawn paused in thought. "In exploring the remnants of his world, I came across literature which I believe illustrates his thought processes. 'Give me liberty, or give me death.' He will attack directly, in an unorthodox manner which will be difficult to predict, but which will give him the best chance of defending his people even if it means his death. I believe this means that he and his fellow wizards will attempt to board the Force Eclipse. In the end, it will likely be a combination approach as befits a group effort."

"Your insight serves you well," Palpatine said. "What plans have you made?"

"Battle droids are embedded with Stormtrooper and marine units throughout the ship with automated defensive systems. We have learned that some of their evasion abilities are purely mental and do not work on droid systems. Stormtrooper helmets have a thermal overlay on their visors in case the wizards use their invisibility skills. Additionally, we have gravity well generators throughout the ship and various force fields at all key points. They may very well make it onto the ship, but it will avail them little."

Palpatine chuckled, but it was a dry, hoarse sound. "Good. Very good. Carry on, Admiral. I will be in my chambers with our newest project. I am not to be disturbed until the wizardling's world has been opened."

"As you command, m'lord."

The quiet tapping of the Emperor's cane allowed Thrawn to mark his progress off the over-bridge without having to look away from the streaks of hyperspace. He could easily have had the conversation by holocom, but by visiting Thrawn he raised the Grand Admiral's status in the eyes of the Fleet, and further goaded his apprentice.

Thrawn said nothing as he contemplated the intricacies of Sith politics. It was a shame he had no true Sith art to study. On the other hand, would the galaxy truly miss the Sith?

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

The rebel attack shuttles made it to Avalon first by virtue of being faster, and the fact that the Imperial fleet did not set course for Avalon until after all potential rebel prisoners were captured and taken aboard either Vader's Executor or the Force Eclipse.

This bought the Alliance precious time to regroup, and for Harry's people time to charm the shuttles. When the ten assault shuttles launched, laden with the single largest ground force the Alliance had ever assembled, the Imperial fleet was just beginning to make its way toward the wizard's world.

"How much time do we have?" Harry asked Leia as they sped at sublight toward Avalon.

"Fleet Intel says less than an hour," Leia said.

"That's enough time," Harry said.

With the secret shared among the ten pilots, the shuttles had no problem finding Avalon and making toward the colony. When they landed, Harry Apparated directly to the middle of the Wizenmeet Hall. Fortunately, it was a work day, and the council members were all there, even Master Kota.

Rahm blinked at Harry's appearance, and then rose as he suddenly sensed the emergency. "What…?"

"Endor was a trap," Harry said curtly to Kota, Madam Rosmerta and the rest of the council. "The Empire has developed a weapon that can rip away the Fidelius, and they are coming here within the hour. I need a thousand witches and wizards who are willing and able to fight, and I need them now!"

"Why not use the ward crystals again?" Rosmerta asked.

"Not enough time," Harry said. "It took almost a whole day for me to get the equations right, and if I made even the slightest mistake, it could backfire and kill us all. Those ships are almost here."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

A swarm of titans burst out of hyperspace on a wave front of Cronau radiation like gods descending from the heavens. Even the smallest of the ships measured hundreds of meters long, while the two largest had to be measured in kilometres.

The Executor looked like the point of a spear, long and lethal. Behind it came the mace, the Force Eclipse, the single most powerful ship the galaxy had ever seen. Compared to these two mechanical monstrosities, even kilometre-long star destroyers appeared to be mere specs. They came in numbers at first uncountable, except by tactical droid brains that quickly put the total fleet at over five hundred and fifty capital ships and over twenty thousand individual star fighters.

Even if the Rebel Alliance attacked the fleet with everything it had, it would still be outnumbered two to one, facing superior ships as well as numbers.

However, Thrawn was still not pleased. "Status of the blockade taskforce?"

"No sign of the taskforce," Captain Pellaeon said from his sunken command console. "It's gone, Admiral. The rebels must have taken them somehow."

"Without them sending out any alerts?" Thrawn asked. "How curious. Any rebel presence?"

"None, admiral. We're detecting no ships in the system at all. I've ordered all ships to start firing ion cannons to locate the target world."

"Very good, captain. Alert me when we have it."

"Yes, sir."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"Holy Merlin's nutsack that's big," Harry whispered. The shuttles were already in the air with their last fighters on board when the fleet appeared in the system. "I'm going in fast; they're probably going to start firing any second now."

The other pilots were all veteran fighter pilots from Luke's squadron—Wedge Antilles taking the lead. And flying with the ten shuttles was the Millennium Falcon, once more filled not with soldiers but ordinance—as much as a missile boat. Solo was serving as a last-ditch insurance policy. If their attack failed, he was to pump as many proton torpedoes into the ion pulse cannon as the Falcon could hold.

Minutes later, space filled with blue streaks of ionized energy. Harry risked opening himself to the Force to let it guide him, but in the co-pilot's seat Leia closed her eyes and sank so deeply into the Force he could barely feel her, until something that was more than the Force alone allowed him to dodge an ion blast.

Behind them, their onsite Alliance commander, Airen Cracken, said, "What's wrong with the Princess?"

"I do believe she's entered a Battle Meditation," Harry said, speaking in awe.

"Could you do it?"

"Not a chance."

Harry did not fight the sensation—he surrendered to it completely, trusting Leia's connection with the Force far more than his own. Though the Empire could not, he could see the other shuttles and saw that they had formed up in a perfectly straight line, literally just meters from each other, and flew the storm of ion bolts like a thread through the eye of a needle. It was the most incredible thing Harry had ever seen Leia do.

Suddenly they pierced the vanguard of the fleet and the ion blasts dropped off immediately since the inner ships did not wish to accidently shoot their own fleet. The line of shuttles continued on under Leia's Force guidance past the long, dark-blue grey of Vader's Executor, toward the blunter monster. As they approached, he was able to see the ion pulse cannon. It flared out under the tip of the ship in a great disk easily two kilometres in diameter. But what amazed Harry was that, on the dorsal side of the hull he saw a massive weapon emplacement that seemed to run up into the heart of the ship.

"There's the superlaser intelligence warned us about," General Cracken said from the back. "An ion pulse cannon and a superlaser mounted on the same ship. Whoever designed that was a mad genius. The hypermatter reactor on that thing must be huge."

Even as he spoke, though, Cracken continued working on the shuttle's tactical computer. "Attack force," he said through their secure channel, "I'm sending landing instructions now. General Solo?"

"Here."

"General, I want those flight bays closed down. Target the atmospheric shields to trigger the manual doors to close on as many as you can. Wait until after we've landed."

"Got it. Good luck, Cracken."

"You too, Solo."

When he finished, a reticle appeared on the cockpit viewport showing Harry's assigned landing spot. "Right, here we go."

As they drew closer, Harry felt the heavy pull of the gravity-well generators on the ship that was such an effective anti-Apparition ward. The spot they were heading toward was directly on the dorsal ridge that ran up the length of the ship from the superlaser, just underneath the bridge.

The shuttle began to buck from all the gravitons and the massive ship's own gravitation pull. With effort, he managed to land the shuttle smoothly and secure it with grapple hooks. "Done."

Leia opened her eyes and sighed. "The rest have landed."

Unable to help himself, Harry leaned over and kissed her. "Damn you're good," he said. "Now let's go kill some people."

She shook her head. "It's a good thing you're not a Jedi, Harry."

He grinned and led Cracken back into the packed, expanded hold. Almost two thousand soldiers and another hundred wizards stood packed with arms and weaponry. Madine even managed to get the Alliance Imperial-style powered armour suits for each heavy squad. They squeezed past all the squads until they reached the ventral boarding dock. It was already open directly onto the cold, dark hull of the enemy ship.

"Ten mages to me," Harry said.

Six wizards and four witches reached his side, and side by side around the docking ring, they pointed their wands down and cast vanishing charms on the hull. It was a testament to the density of the hull plating that each charm only vanished an inch-deep circle, even with ten of them casting. However, even Cracken had to admit it was faster than trying to drill through, given the nature of the depleted neutronium used.

When they exhausted themselves, Harry had another shift take over, casting in rapid succession, until after only ten minutes they broke into a softer material that was easier to vanish. And with a last swish, they were looking directly down into a corridor of the ship.

"Helmets closed," Cracken shouted. All Alliance soldiers—infiltrators, marines and spec-ops, closed their helmets against any possible environmental offenses such as gas or vacuum, and started down the drop ladder in quick succession. Harry heard the first shots before the second squad of ten men made it down.

"We need to go next," Harry told Leia. She already had her lightsaber in hand and nodded. When the second squad was down, Harry just jumped, as did Leia. He cushioned his landing with magic; she used the Force. Four alliance men were already dead, and another two injured just from the first ten down.

A squad of Stormtroopers stood at a nearby corner, firing. Harry summoned a pair of thermal detonators off a dead soldier's belt while Leia skilfully deflected the blaster fire. With a banishing charm, he sent the detonators directly at the troopers, who had only a second before the charges exploded.

Immediately more rebel soldiers and mages poured out of the hole. Over the ruckus, Harry heard heavy metallic footsteps approaching from the same corridor as the now dead troopers. "Heavy armour incoming!" he shouted.

He then flicked his wand, drained his magic temporarily, and conjured a rhinoceros. The large, horned beast snorted and then barrelled down the smoky corridor. Just as the power-armour clad Stormtrooper cleared the corner, the rhino struck and sent both tumbling down. He and Leia ran after, flanked by spec-ops soldiers. They reached the screaming, terrified man just in time for Harry to pop his armour canopy with a spell and kill him.

"Anyone know how to use this thing?" Harry asked as he compelled the rhino to back off.

"Hells yes!" one of the soldiers said. She grinned as she handed her rifle to a cohort and pulled the dead Stormtrooper out. Cracken caught up with them, while still more Alliance troops poured out of the opening in the hull. "All units have encountered heavy resistance," the general reported tersely. "We need to find a terminal and hack the ship's systems."

"Right, let's go."

They managed to make it another twenty feet before encountering more Stormtroopers, this time accompanied by battle droids. Rory the Rhino managed to take one droid out before the blaster fire destroyed him. After that, it was hard fighting every step of the way.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Thrawn studied the tactical read-outs with a puzzled frown. "Interesting."

"Section 53 on Deck 345 has been overrun," Pellaeon reported with professional calm, despite the anger in his expression. His professionalism, in fact, was why Thrawn chose the man to captain the new Imperial flagship. "The rebels are attacking in numbers our forces are not prepared to handle. We're receiving reports of large, armoured creatures breaking through barricades and tactical points, and flying creatures that are attacking and destroying the ceiling-mounted e-webs. Chemical weaponry has had no effect—the rebel soldiers are armoured and the animals don't appear to be breathing—and the two attempts at vacuum seclusion failed. They broke through the section too quickly for the vacuum to take effect."

Thrawn counted the ten separate incursions throughout the ship, with estimates placing each incursion at over two thousand men. It was curious, since they would have had to come in ships small enough to evade the ion fire. In fact, Thrawn was counting on that fire as a limiting factor to just how many people Potter could bring.

Even so, Thrawn had over one hundred and fifty thousand Stormtroopers and marines on board the Force Eclipse. Even if Potter managed to land twenty-thousand men, they were outnumbered better than seven to one. They were advancing, yes, but taking losses.

Thrawn did the calculations in his mind in a second. "Transfer command to the secondary bridge," Thrawn said. "Evacuate the command staff and yourself as well. Potter will make it to the bridge, if just barely. When he does, we will blow it and remove the head of the attacking snake."

Pellaeon stared only a split second before nodding. "Yes, sir. I'll begin immediately. Will you be with us?"

"I'll be in the tertiary bridge. We cannot let this incursion delay our primary mission."

Pellaeon paused and stared intently at the grand admiral for a full tick before nodding sharply. "Understood, Admiral."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Four rebel soldier's heads fell from their bodies before Harry realized that a Dark Sider had attacked with the latest wave of enemy soldiers. Harry started to raise his hand to fire off an area-wide banisher to buy time when Leia dove past the line of stunned, terrified soldiers and engaged the Sith-spawn sabre-to-sabre.

The man taunted her and called her names as if he were a schoolyard bully, but Leia ignored him and bought them time to take out the next barricade. Harry lingered as Cracken led the troops past the fighting Force-users, watching as she duelled. He saw in seconds that she was by far the superior fighter, but the man used his greater mass to make up for it.

Harry cast an over-powered Aguamenti that emerged from his palm like a jet hose, blasting water at the startled Dark Sider. Water, unfortunately for him, was not something easily deflected with a lightsaber. It provided Leia more than enough time to finish him.

"That's cheating, Harry," she said as she joined him at a run down the hallway.

"There's no such thing as cheating in war, love!"

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"Admiral Thrawn, the outer elements of the fleet report a positive ion contact," Pellaeon's holographic image said.

Thrawn had just entered the third of the five duplicate command bridges on the ship and nodded. "Set course. Confirm with ion cannons, and once coordinates are confirmed, fire the pulse cannon at will."

"Yes, sir," the captain said.

When the hologram disappeared, Thrawn pulled up another detailed hologram of the ship that revealed the various incursions. They did not appear to be near any support systems for the ship's two primary weapons, but their attack patterns were too determined to be random. He pulled up ship schematics, and saw immediately their targets.

"An artful attempt, Potter," Thrawn said as he sent reinforcements to the gravity well generators. "Not sufficient, but artfully done."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"We're about to open up a big can of mynocks," Han Solo said.

Chewbacca roared his agreement.

"Right. Let's do this."

The dimensionally hidden ship fired two bursts of turbo-laser fire almost point-blank at the heavily reinforced environmental shields that kept air in the massive hangar. The sudden decompression launched personnel and fighters into void of space before a huge wall came slamming across the bay, saving those left within, but also trapping them.

"One down, ten more to go!" Han said. Then he added, "I hope Bria's okay."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Bria Theron eyed the seeming fragile old witch warily. "You sure you can do this?"

"Dear, I've been fighting since before your parents were born," Madam Malkin said with a cackle. "Ready, boys?"

The younger wizards and witches around them nodded, and together the ten mages raised their wands and shouted together, "Alohamora!"

The reinforced blast doors, which would have taken Bria's battalion an hour to punch through, snapped open so hard the motivators sparked. And beyond, staring in shock, stood the technicians and marines guarding the Number 4 heavy gravity well.

Bria had the first tech down before the Imps could respond, and her two thousand soldiers and ten old but surprisingly spry mages charged in.

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

"Coordinates set; the computer has the planet's position confirmed."

Pellaeon nodded to the targeting officer. "Then it's time, my friends. Fire the pulse cannon."

"Firing."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Harry stumbled and then fell to his knees. In the Force, Leia felt something thrashing. "Harry, what?"

"They've fired the pulse cannon," Harry said. "It hit. The Fidelius is failing."

~~Revenge~~

~~Revenge~~

Han had a second hangar bay locked down when the Falcon bucked. He blinked at the odd behaviour of his ship, and in so doing saw the familiar, sickening blue ring of energy shooting off from the bow of the monstrous ship. It flew straight, expanding, for several minutes before it slammed into something that he could not make out at first.

When the energy passed, he got a glimpse of a horizon, before minutes later a second burst of ionized energy struck. The streaks of lightning flashed over the whole world, and in a blink of an eye, where before was nothingness now shone a brilliant blue and green orb. "Well, the clock's ticking," he said fatalistically. "Let's take out that next hangar." It was all they could do.

sp

sp

Author's Note: As always, I just wish to stress just how much I appreciate Teufel1987, JR and Miles for beta reading yet another of my stories. As always, they make everything better.