A New Jedi in an Old Republic

Gatri, Orbit

"All pilots scramble! This is a scramble launch!" The alert rang out in the open as Anakin closed up his cockpit and checked his life support suit one last time. They knew they were getting into a fight when they arrived, so his 18 fighters were lined up at the front of the bay to launch as soon as possible.

"Black One to Black Flight, report status." He knew that they would all be ready. That they were ready for this.

"Black 3, standing by." "Black 6 all good." His pilots sounded off as he saw the front doors start to open. In response, he began to throttle his engines up to combat speed, pulse quickening in resonance.

"All wings, this is the Captain. Orders are to defend the fleet from attacking droid elements, giving priority to bombers and their payloads." Jox Corvell's voice was a solid foundation for Anakin to work from. "Be advised that you will be outnumbered."

"You hear that?" Anakin chuckled. "If we're outnumbered ten-to-one, I expect at least twenty droid fighters shot down each."

"Yes sir!" His seventeen followers agreed. In front of them, the doors protecting the landing bay opened, and Anakin launched into the void.

Ahead of him, he could see in the distance the five attacking frigates from the Separatist fleet. They were almost side-on to him, and for a moment, his targeting computer had trouble separating them out before he synced up with the fleet-wide sensor net and all became clear. Surrounding the five ships was a halo of glistening crystal lights, shimmering in the light from the sun behind him and the reflected light from the planet on the far side.

Except, he realized as his wing formed up. Those weren't crystals. They were droid fighters. Too many for him to count, even as the spherical defensive perimeter they set up was reformed into something to strike at his ships.

The Sathanas was at the back of the formation, and as he pushed his fighter to the limit, he passed by Tarkin's command ship, then the two forward combat ships. The chosen formation was still tight, but it allowed maximum global coverage for the massive ship mounted weapons.

As he and his wingman pulled ahead of the forward two ships, the Sathanas and the Sunder fired from the back of the formation, the series of large turbolasers mounted on the top of the ships orienting on the nearest Frigate. The bolts of destructive energy ripped away from the their guns, flanking Tarkin's Dreadnought.

Anakin looked over his shoulder, the Force giving him the hint that this was worth watching as Tarkin's ship added to the volume of fire, its own heavy weapons firing in time with the passing shots from the rear carriers.

Three ships worth of firepower moved as a single blob, passing between the front two ships, the Khevtoth and the Ennead adding their own guns to the cascade of destruction. It was an impressive level of coordination, Anakin admitted to himself, wondering how Tarkin pulled it off. Combining all five ships' weapons into a single massed strike.

But the droids weren't just going to take it. Already lead elements of their fighters were at extreme range, and the fighters that were launched from the forward ships were beginning to fire off missiles to start to thin down the cloud of droids coming their way.

"There's a lot of them," he alerted his wing. "Don't worry about doubling up on targets, everyone empty your missile racks once they're in range and you have a lock before we get close enough to start firing our guns." On his own console, he watched with one eye as the approaching droids reached lock-on range, and his computer began to pick targets.

The droids, however, had a different plan of action. The swarm of fighters didn't bother to deal with the Republic fighters, instead they threw themselves into the path of the oncoming blaster bolts, having had enough distance and speed to make the intercept.

Weapons designed to destroy full capital ships ripped into the formationless fighters, the small ships simply disintegrating under each individual shot. But there were a lot of fighters to throw in the way. Anakin watched, holding fire for the moment as he judged the results of what happened.

The enemy had thrown away at least a hundred droids to protect their ships from Tarkin's initial attack. Not a single turbolaser shot reached the frigates. But that was now a hundred less fighters for him and his people to deal with. "Fire missiles, then fall back to the first defensive line!" he called out, holding down the firing trigger to ripple-fire his payload into the separatist fighters.

Once he was empty, he flipped his fighter over and started to head back to the fleet, his wingman a moment slower. Behind him, the droid fighters started to organize themselves after that first volley, bringing their formation into a wedge to drive at the Republic ships.

Now each ship fired at their own pace, a change to a more staccato fire method in order to keep the pressure up on the defending Separatists.

The five frigates finally began to move, less than a minute into the fight. Anakin curved his fighter's flight path to the left and up, allowing him a view of the developing change in the battle. Where the original formation was a simple line facing the distant station, the separatists were now rotating to face the new threat. The farthest frigates were raising themselves up, slowly turning to face the Republican fleet. The nearer ones were lowering themselves, turning at the same time.

Reaching the point in space where the defensive weapons on the destroyers and dreadnought became effective, Anakin finally finished his loop, giving him a chance to see things straight ahead. There were a lot of droids coming for them.

His communications panel beeped at him, and orders from the Sathanas came through. He read them, and flipped over to the channel for his squadron. "Listen up, orders from Home. We're being assigned a volume of space between us and them, and we're to shoot down anyone who isn't friendly who tries to go through it," he passed along the orders to his people and waited for them to acknowledge even as he accelerated for his designated zone.

He wanted to attack. He wanted to charge into the middle of the damned Separatist ships, guns blazing. But he had been trained for years, since the first time he picked up a lightsabre, that defence was just as important as the offence.

Besides, he grinned as he watched the incoming swarm, there was no sense in wasting fuel rushing the enemy when they were doing such a good job of it themselves. Although, he noted, the enemy was not charging straight in, instead he and his squadron were leading the defence against one of four 'prongs' of droid fighters that seemed to be angling to envelope the entire Republican force.

He wasn't about to let that happen. "Black 9! Head back to the Sathanas with your wingman and get resupplied on missiles. Once you're done and back out here, Black 8, you go for resupply. We move up the line until I'm last. Understood?"

"Yes sir," behind him, two fighters peeled off and rushed back to their carrier for more weapons. There was no real safe moment to resupply all his fighters, so Anakin had to rotate who got the chance. And as leader, he would naturally go last to show off to everyone how good a leader he was. It was only natural. That, and it meant he got to spend more time out here, proving how good he was. "Everyone, break!"

Then the droids were on them, and he held the trigger down, blasters firing without aiming – there was no chance to miss the sheer number of fighters in front of him. He jinked to the left, his wingman following a moment later as a burst of counter-fire ripped through the space he just occupied. "Stay on me, 10!"

"Yes, One." If the Clone had any emotional response to the explosions around them, he didn't show it.

The Force spoke, and Anakin pulled up, avoiding a missile and putting a heavier droid fighter dead in his sights. His first couple shots splashed against its shields, then his wingman added in as well, blowing through the weakened defences and killing the fighter.

And then there was another. And another after that. And Anakin lost count of numbers, just relaxing into the Force to guide him through a sky full of stars.

Bridge, Eriadu

Tarkin watched on the master holographic display as the battle evolved. His initial shock-jump tactic had failed in its intended purpose, but had the unforeseen side effect of causing the enemy commander to sacrifice a good number of his fighters to protect his ships.

The idea, as he had formulated it, was to deliver a single, overwhelming blow to a single ship, to gain not only the tactical advantage of having an enemy ship effectively start the fight destroyed, but also the psychological one in demonstrating that he could do that.

It was a curious choice in response, but given the lack of sentient beings on the destroyed sub-craft, it made a certain amount of sense to use them as literal ablative armour. A desperation ploy. He wondered if it was some programmed response, or if the enemy commander had actually been prepared for the possibility.

The enemy had also shown some small skill with their manoeuvres. They had reacted quickly to his arrival, reorganizing their ships with minimal movements to allow them to fire on his fleet. "Move this ship forward," he turned to the Eriadu's actual captain. "I want to draw fire off the Acclamators."

"Aye sir." The captain responded curtly and gave the appropriate orders, trusting in Tarkin's decisions. "Shall I order the Sathanas and Sunder to move forward to keep the formation tight?"

"Yes," Tarkin agreed. Consolidation of his ships would allow for more effective mutual defence. "Give the order."

He returned his attention to the enemy formation. It was an elegant roll of the battle line, being able to see it in the abstract. Instead of keeping to a single plane, the enemy had minimized the wait times before more guns could be brought to bear by going perpendicular to their previous formation. It was simple and effective. Tarkin made a note to pass along his observations to the officer corps training programs that were just getting started, a real life example of utilizing three dimensional space properly to help the officers of the future understand why it was so important.

The motion of the attacking wings of fighters also showed a degree of three dimensional thinking that was lacking in his own forces. The four attacking prongs of fighters came from above and below, as well as from the sides.

Of course, that just meant that all of his defending weapons could fire, rather than trying to consolidate and push through one point. Not all applications of space combat were correct. "Focus fire on the lower capital ship," he said. "Ignore the other four for now. Keep the fighters on the defence."

It was his best tactic at the moment. He couldn't spare the fighters to attack the enemy ships directly at this time, nor to protect the bombers that should be doing the job. Instead, the heavier fighters were being cycled through the carriers, being loaded with anti-fighter missiles to shoot into the droid swarms that threatened to surround them before returning for reloads.

"Sir, we are detecting power fluctuations in the targeted frigate," one of his people announced, turning away from the scanners for a moment to deliver the message before returning to it. "Their shields are not holding."

"Keep firing!" Tarkin snapped. It was a useless command to 'intensify forward firepower', as he had heard issued by lesser leaders in the past. To do that was to overload the weapons, trying to shave fractions of a second off the cooling time, or to put a little bit more energy into each shot. While a normal pace of combat would allow for minor improvements on a case by case basis, Tarkin wasn't about to push in that direction yet. "Status on our ships?"

"The Sunder has taken a few hits to their shields, but they're holding. Both it and the Sathanas have reported near 10% loss of their fighter wings. They are Hot-Loading fighters as they cycle in for resupply, and getting them back out as fast as they can."

A second officer picked up to report on the other ships. "The Khevtoth and the Ennead are both reporting moderate shield damage. The enemy frigates have been splitting their firepower more than we have, and so far nothing permanent has happened to either of them. That could change at any moment."

No one reported on the status of the Eriadu, as Tarkin had the ear of the captain directly. "Very good." There was nothing else he could do at the moment. The orders were given, the tactics set, and the contingencies needed time for something to happen to be a contingency for.

Sathanas, landing bay

Anakin hit the deck with a little more force than he could have. It was his turn to get more missiles and he was almost ready to ignore his own orders before he remembered that more missiles meant more kills. And Black Ten, his wingman, had been very polite and insistent on rearming.

And a Jedi never left their partner with a problem. Anakin may have caused more than his fair share of problems for Obi-Wan, but he never left his mentor to deal with all the fallout by himself.

Mostly.

Only when Obi-wan could handle it.

And when he was needed elsewhere.

To do something important.

Below him, his fighter was lifted up by hydraulics, enough that the hatches to access his missile batteries could be accessed by the auto-loader. At the command of the flight-deck commander, he shut off certain systems to allow them to be operated by the flight crew. To his right, his wingman was undergoing the same reloading procedure.

"Hey Ten," Anakin spoke openly, "what happened to your tail?" He pointed at the rear of Black Ten's fighter, where a long scoring mark had burned into the hull. "You look like you scraped something."

"It's just cosmetic, One," the Clone pilot replied. "I got tagged by some debris, but there was no system damage, so I left it alone."

Anakin nodded, then awkwardly tried to look at his own fighter for anything similar, but the shape of the cockpit canopy wasn't cooperating. "Ten, give me a once-over, will you? I can barely see anything here."

He watched as Black Ten visually inspected one side of his fighter. "You're looking clean sir. No scorch marks or impacts. Very lucky."

The young Jedi wanted to snort. He wasn't merely lucky. The Force was his ally. "Maybe," he said instead. One of the flight crew banged on his canopy to get his attention. It was a thumbs up, and he reactivated his fighter. "Ten, I'm ready. Let me know when you are."

"Just a moment, One." The clone watched as his flight crew pulled back, then he nodded. "Crew clear, I'm ready."

"Follow me out," Anakin ordered as his ship was spun around to face in the right direction. Once he had a line, and it was safe to do so, he accelerated out of the ship, passing by other fighters headed in. Ten followed a moment later.

"This is Black One, I'm returning to the combat zone," he radioed ahead to his squadron.

"One, this is Three, I read you. Eight and Twelve have suffered damage, and I ordered them back to the ship. Three and Seventeen are paired up now." Anakin didn't let Black Three talking about themselves in the third person distract him.

"Understood."

Then a ship exploded.

Bridge, Eriadu

Some of the less composed members of the bridge crew cheered as the Separatist Frigate exploded, the hull finally giving way under the combined Replublic fleet.

Even Tarkin gave a small, thin smile. The razor edge of his mouth the only outward expression he felt at the vindication of his choices. "Change targets to the next frigate in the line," he said.

"Sir! We're detecting a buildup in the enemy fleet! They appear to be preparing to hyperspace out!"

Tarkin ran a mental calculation. It was too fast. "Are they recovering their fighters?"

"No sir! The droids are still attacking."

Tarkin saw the enemy's plan. The battle was lost, and it was time to leave before they lost even more in the way of not-easily-replaceable ships. Leaving the fighters behind though, could only mean one thing to him. "All ships! Prepare for suicide rams from the droid fighters!"

Black One

Anakin heard warning even as he saw the change in the way the droids were flying. Now, they were no longer concerned with shooting down what they could, they were actively no longer trying to preserve themselves. It changed the dynamic as a dozen of the tri-foiled fighters rose up from under him, forcing him to roll out of the way, the forces of the motion pressing him against the sides of the cockpit.

Not for the first time, he was glad for the flight suit he wore. It helped compensate for the manoeuvres.

He fired missiles and his guns with just the barest hint of aiming, the Force and his own experiences guiding his hands to the right positions to cause the maximum amount of damage. There was no time to do anything else.

Bridge, Eriadu

Tarkin watched with a grim expression as the enemy fled. Then the droids made their suicidal last march on their target. Five ships and hundreds of fighters poured fire into the last gasp of the swarm.

Helpless to do anything more, Tarkin watched as nearly a hundred fighters successfully made it through the curtain of blasters, lasers and missiles toward their target.

The Eriadu's shields failed after nearly two dozen strikes, escape pods already launching.

Then the rest of the droids slammed into it, killing the Acclamator in a move that was purely vindictive and vengeful. The explosion took out the few remaining suicide droids, leaving the Republic to hold the field, and take the day.

Bridge, The Invisible Hand

Grevious laughed.

He had gotten his fight, the first taste of true combat. Yes, he had lost, but that wasn't the point. There was a spine in the Republic, and he had met it. Let Dooku complain all he wanted. This was no longer his war.

Yes.

The Republic had a spine.

And he would break it.