Chương 55: Chapter 52

Sullust Libration Point 'L5', Sullust System Brema Sector At last, Kendal Ozzel thought, nervous despite himself, the Hydra awakes. Taskforce Conciliator's lines had been disturbed by a burst of hyperwave communications from the galactic south, which they had partially intercepted via Sullust's captured satellites. Not an hour later, the Separatist fleet stirred in its stone nest, like a beast awakening from its dormant slumber.

Commodore Ozzel stood aboard the Star Destroyer Imperious, a sense of unease coiling around his chest like a great snake, as the Perlemian Coalition's Armada advanced. Two-hundred assorted warships streamed from the pores of the asteroid belt, like rivulets converging onto a silent curtain, sweeping off the star system as if it were a pre-set stage.

The seventy-nine starships of Taskforce Conciliator moved to meet them as they recalled their starfighter wings from across the star system, the last two remaining Tectors of the fleet stationed dead centre of the formation as it stretched into a forward chevron. Five-hundred thousand klicks away, a single, unified thought passed through the minds of all two-hundred captains of the 28th Mobile Fleet, droid and organic alike.

The Rear Admiral's standing orders were clear and explicit; follow the ship in front of you. The command was as simple as they came, leaving no room for misinterpretation. After all, every captain worth their Hex could handle a task as simple as maintaining a safe distance between their allies, and the officers of the Perlemian Coalition were all veterans of some of the toughest battles of the Clone Wars. Follow the ship in front of you.

Those words echoed through two-hundred minds over and over as two-hundred ships converged into a single column in line ahead, bearing perpendicular to their enemy. The Separatists achieved their formation perfectly, wordlessly, with not a single stray tightbeam caught by the enemy, because there was none. There was an urgency in the Separatist ranks, an anxious eagerness to sweep up this battle as promptly as possible.

They had, after all, been informed that the Anakin Skywalker was enroute with three-hundred warships of the Open Circle Fleet. On the other side, however, one could also imagine the Hero With No Fear, standing upon the bridge of his flagship Harbinger, clenching and unclenching his fist as he silently urged his fleet to hurry up. To hurry up and reach Sullust in time. Alas, he could only stare blankly into the blurred, passing motions of hyperspace, stewing in his own restlessness.

The stars would cross his viewports with the passing of time, blinking mercilessly. ⁂ An impossibly long pause settled between the two fleets, located in the exact same patch of space as they did six battles ago. This was to be their seventh. Kendal Ozzel shifted his balance from foot to foot, wondering what the usually decisive General Rees Alrix was waiting for. Unbeknownst to him, his Jedi General was nursing a great pain.

The Force flexed and shuddered in unnatural ways, contorting as it conveyed the agonising swell of twenty-two billion souls. Merely 500 parsecs south, the world was ending, bathed and bleached under a storm of brimstone. But Rees Alrix was stronger than that, she partitioned her mindscape, and shut away the distracting pain with lock and key. And her vision cleared, and she saw the bright flames in the Force once more.

From the far right wing of the Republic formation, fleet flagship Resilient opened a corridor for transmission. And just as the Jedi General raised her hand to give the order to charge– The leading ship of the line of the Separatist formation surged forwards, sweeping towards the Republic left. Alrix's hand froze midair as the fires swelled and disappeared, vulnerabilities in the enemy formation changing imperceptibly to all but herself.

Ozzel immediately ordered for a full identification of the offending Separatist warship. Providence-class carrier-destroyer Chimeratica, built in the orbital shipyards of Ringo Vinda. After a brief moment's hesitation, the next ship of the line, the battlecruiser Weisser Sand, launched its great mass after the Chimeratica, followed by the frigate Centaur, and the next–until the entire Separatist battle line was shifting towards the Republic left.

Loyalist captains could only look on in anticipation at their opponent's action. Just as a hundred and thirty-three hours ago, the Separatist auxiliaries were placed within the asteroid field, many million kilometres behind. Should the Separatist fleet continue their perpendicular strafe, the vector ahead will open up. This had to be some sort of trap, they all thought.

They remained transfixed, nerves frayed, as Chimeratica turned hard to portside, following a natural, imaginary curve that rotated her bearing by 180 degrees, until she had settled on a reciprocal course back towards the Republic right. Obediently adhering to their standing orders, one by one the ships behind her turned and followed her, creating a double-ranked line before the Republic line.

Minutes later, just as she reached Taskforce Conciliator's absolute right wing, opposite Resilient, and Chimeratica banked portside once again, until she doubled back onto her original vector. Anticipation transformed into bewilderment as Kendal Ozzel and his staff observed the Separatist manoeuvres. The enemy battle line had now transformed into a squashed, conveyor belt-like shape. This wasn't any tactic ever used before, and it could hardly be called a formation at all.

The lead ship, Chimeratica, burned harder, until her bow had caught up with the last Separatist ship of the line, the battlecruiser Feranmut. But as she burned harder, so did Weisser Sand behind her, and Centaur behind her, until the unspoken order fell down the chain like a wave through a whipped rope, until Feranmust also sped up. And when Feranmust sped up, so did Chimeratica to keep pace.

Thus the formation became a snake eating its own tail, as the ship at the head increased its velocity, so did the entire body, forcing the head to speed up again. But there was seemingly one key oversight–the reason why this so-called 'formation' and all formations like it were never used before; it was unsustainable. Every warship in the fleet was of a different size. Every warship in the fleet possessed different turning radii, and different acceleration and thus different velocities.

Every warship in the fleet possessed different drive ratings, and some were unable to keep pace with the rest of the fleet, while others raced ahead. Order and discipline never lasts long within constantly evolving formations, and especially not when there was absolutely no communication between captains. And as expected, the formation began to break down. As every captain struggled to avoid collisions, the single-file line began to fall apart.

Fast cruisers were forced to swerve to avoid the slow battleships in front of them, just as frigates took evasive action before cruisers before them. As lumbering dreadnoughts pushed their etheric rudders to their extremes, they were still unable to attend the sharp turning circles at the end of the conveyor belt, and adopted shallower turns instead. Some followed those adapted turns, others couldn't afford to.

Taskforce Conciliator watched as the Separatists fell into chaos, the lead ship Chimeratica melting into the turmoil.' Follow the ship in front of you' became meaningless as the ship in front you changed with every blink–but the Separatist captains nevertheless did so to the best of their ability, while expending admirable effort to avoid colliding with each other in the whirlwind of battle steel.

And as they picked up pace, pseudo-forces stretched the conveyor belt, forcing shallower and shallower turns, until the entire formation existed within a single revolving circle–like a mammoth whirlpool deep in the void.

⁂ Aboard the Imperious, Kendal Ozzel observed the unfolding formation through the lens of his Star Destroyer's scopes. The individual drive cones of each enemy warship had since blurred away into a brilliant, flat, torus-shape–and as the formation only picked up speed, it was soon near-impossible for his scanners to fix on any specific contact without a blind toss, much less accurately target hardpoints. They no longer knew where the enemy line of battle began, and where it ended.

In fact, not even the Separatists themselves knew where their own battle line started and ended. All they had on their minds was to keep following the ship before them–no matter how many times it changed–and avoid smashing into the ship next to them. Indeed, for the Separatist captain, this was a marathon with no time to breathe.

Any hiccup, any break in the rhythm, any singular mistake could result in them crashing into their allies, and creating a chain reaction that would have the entire 28th Mobile Fleet collapse in on itself. But for Kendal Ozzel, he saw something different. This formation reminded him of something curious that used to fascinate him when he was still a child. As the minutes ticked away with no signs of the enemy formation changing, his suspicions only deepened. This looks like an ant mill, he confirmed to himself.

Known as a death spiral, or a death march, it occurs when a swarm intelligence such as ants loses their pheromone track whilst on the march, and end up following each other in a continuously revolving circle. Sooner or later, if there is no interruption in the death spiral, they would die of exhaustion. Ozzel looked at the spiral on the holodisplays again, and transferred the data to the combat information centre. The processed data that returned made him smile in disbelief.

It was certain then, that if the Separatists didn't break out of their death spiral sooner than later, all it would take is one trip-up to create a chain reaction of collisions. But there was a second development he noticed as well, one that turned his smile into a worried frown.

"They're coming towards us," Ozzel said aloud.

"Sir?" his XO asked. The Commodore handed the captain his tablet, "Despite being in a death spiral, they are still headed in our direction." To prove his point, Ozzel ordered his sensor officers to tag a single ship and observe its displacement across a single rotation of the spiral. Should it be a stationary rotation, the ultimate displacement of the ship should be zero–as the tag would end up in the same place from which it began.

Instead, just as Ozzel initially observed, the tag would be displaced towards the Republic's lines by around a thousand klicks every rotation, consistently, without fail. The only question was: is it intentional? ⁂ Aboard the Resilient, Rees Alrix knew it was intentional. She knew it not because she recognised a formation that doesn't exist, but out of instinct alone.

Rees Alrix never studied the naval arts, she never cared to memorise the tactics and stratagems the Republic Navy relearned after dusting off ancient databanks. A blazing fire in her mind's eye, she only trusted in her gut feeling, and the Force that drove it. Unlike Ozzel, she did not see a death spiral, she saw the hydra's nest, its many heads laying in wait for them to make but a single mistake.

She knew the steady advance of the steel hurricane was intentional precisely because she looked– and found no single vulnerability. She wanted nothing more than to recall the name of her opponent at that very moment, but their name slid through her fingers like sand. In their place, she remembered a cognomen she overheard from two spacers in the mess hall– so this is the man they call the Battle Hydra…

⁂ Rear Admiral Rain Bonteri watched in satisfaction from the bridge of his flagship, as the cyclone continued to pick up speed. Riding lights and brilliant plumes of ion gases smeared into a blur, until individual ships were no more differentiated than minnows in a raging school of fish, or raindrops in the eye of a typhoon.

Carefully, his personal squadron dispersed throughout the whirlwind would nudge just a bit further towards the Republic lines, and with each rotation, the whole fleet would unknowingly shift with them, like a responsive hivemind. Just as Rees Alrix experimented on how to defeat the 28th Mobile Fleet over the last five days, so did Rain Bonteri experimented on how to defeat Taskforce Conciliator. After six separate engagements, he had finally placed his finger on the pulse of her ability.

Rees Alrix finds weaknesses. Just as a trained duellist could find an opening in their opponent's guard, Rees Alrix could do the same with the Force alone. It didn't matter if the formation he used was simple, or complicated, or anything in between; Rees Alrix would sniff out the slightest opening without fail. A truly unfair ability, was it not? But fleet warfare was no simple game. A duel could end in seconds, but a naval battle never will. A fleet formation could bear one weak link, or a hundred.

Did the Force show only the weakest link, then, or all hundred? If it showed only the weakest, did it account for all future moves as well, as a chess computer would? Would that not be precognition? So Rain Bonteri experimented. Over five days, he deployed numerous formations against Rees Alrix, gauging her reaction as he gauged his, observing which intended vulnerabilities she exploited, and which she ignored.

And Rees Alrix would always, without fail, wait for him to finalise the translation of his formations before attacking. She would always wait for a static enemy before deciding to attack. And that's when he understood; the Force revealed all weaknesses. So instead of trying to outplay this terrible, unfair ability called the Force–he would beat it at its own game.

Over his year-long career in the Confederate Navy, Rain Bonteri had only ever faced one formation that he could not find any exploitable vulnerabilities in– Jedi Master Plo Koon's revolving arrowhead. It was the one tactic no normal commander could ever hope to overcome, on the basis that it was a tactic that existed so far outside the current era's technological and tactical capabilities to reproduce without the employment of supernatural means.

Though he wouldn't know the exact parlance, said supernatural means was known to the Jedi Order as battle meditation. By creating an all-encompassing bubble of the Force in which every captain, officer, and spacer existed, a Jedi General could coordinate entire fleets of ships and have them operate at maximum efficiency. Battle meditation enhanced morale, stamina, cognitive ability, reaction time, and even chain together millions of minds to act as a single entity.

It made impossible tactics and formations, such as the revolving arrowhead, possible. A truly unfair ability, was it not? Rain Bonteri strived to prove one could recreate such an effect without the cosmic sorcery. He was in battle, not against Rees Alrix, but against the Force itself.

He was embarking on a personal crusade to strip away the exclusivity of the Force and prove that he could achieve what many scholars believe to be exclusive capability of the intangible being of the universe itself, with nothing more than collective human spite and sheer will.

Rees Alrix and Republic hadn't realised it, but they were observing how the Separatists achieved a primitive form of the battle meditation utilised by the Jedi Masters, not through any complicated or esoteric means, but by enforcing a singular, overriding state of mind. By issuing a single standing order and leading his entire fleet into a death spiral in which it only took a single mistake to kill them all, Rain Bonteri successfully created a hivemind not dissimilar to the effects of battle meditation.

Unlike battle meditation, however, which could control the hivemind at will, the spiral's hivemind was only capable of a single thought– Follow the ship in front of you, and don't crash. But that was enough. That had to be enough. Because this death spiral was a product of two traits you couldn't find in any other fleet. First was an absolute and unshakable trust in their commanding officer, among the captains and crews of the fleet.

During the brief strategy meeting, Asajj Ventress was concerned whether the 28th Mobile Fleet could trust their Admiral enough to follow through with a plan they knew nothing about. But she wasn't there. She wasn't there on the Perlemian Front. She wasn't there, fighting a hundred desperate battles to slow the unstoppable advance of the Grand Army of the Republic. She wasn't there at Centares, where the spirit of the Perlemian Coalition was broken.

And she wasn't there at Columex, where a single man brought the spirit of the Perlemian Coalition back from the brink, and then broke the back of the Republic. The galaxy lauds and curses the name of Sev'rance Tann for the Republic's defeat at Columex, for the Confederacy had invested heavily into the sensationalism and publicity that came from one of the most infamous generals of the nation arriving just in time to save the day.

So much so, that the names of those who sacrificed so much to buy that time simply faded back into the shadows. But the men and women of the 28th Mobile Fleet knew who truly won the Battle of Columex. They were, after all, the men and women of the Perlemian Coalition. They were, after all, there to watch Columex shatter the Pride of the Core.

And after the sacrifice of his personal direct command to save seventy-five ships of their comrades, the spacers of the 28th Mobile would silently follow their Rear Admiral to the Nine Hells and back, if he asked. They would, soon enough. Sev'rance Tann knew that by placing Rain Bonteri and Calli Trilm at the head of the 28th and 19th Mobile Fleets respectively–two halves of the Perlemian Coalition's Armada–she was created two fleets with an unbreakable trust in their leaders, and in each other.

Perfect, for the purposes of the war she wished to wage. Second was the towering experience and skill of every single captain, officer, and spacer within the fleet. Just as the GAR Strategic Command had identified, and thus dispatched the quick response Open Core Fleet to engage these priority targets, the fleets of the Perlemian Coalition were the most dangerous assets the CAF had at its disposal. It was this well-known fact that Sev'rance Tann had relied upon to bait them in the first place.

Because they were, without a doubt, currently the most veteran spacers in the galaxy, witness to some of the toughest battles of the war. Their nerves were tempered in the cauldron of Centares, staring down the barrels of the Republic, unflinching as two lines of battle pounded each other into the abyss, fearlessly working at their stations even as their comrades were blasted and vaporised around them.

Their skills were honed by the whetstone of Columex, in the chaos of five-thousand warships where every smallest action at the fire control station, or in the engine room, could mean the life and death of hundreds. These were men and women who had broken in their warships as an equestrian would break in their stallions. Doing the impossible was what they did best. No other fleet, save perhaps their brothers and sisters in the 19th Mobile Fleet, could recreate such an implausible tactic.

And so the death spiral inched closer and closer to the Republic lines, gunports opening and missile launchers gleaming with steely glares. ⁂ Kendal Ozzel gritted his teeth. There was a lack of orders from their flagship, and the enemy was bearing down on them. He wasn't so foolish to think a straight charge would defeat any enemy formation. Taskforce Conciliator's speciality was in straight offensives, in that there was no doubt, but the reason they were so abnormally effective was because of their Jedi General.

It was despite their Jedi General that they were some of the Republic's best, having beaten back fleets many times their number many times over. General Rees Alrix's ability was not battle meditation, and her tactics–if they could be called that–would have never succeeded so many times if not for the skill of the many captains of her fleet. They may not be peers to their rivals in the 28th, but they acted with complete comfort and trust in their Jedi General, and knew how to cover for her blindspots.

So when Ozzel gave the command to withdraw, the entire battle line of Taskforce Conciliator pulled back without argument, burning retro and matching their retreat with the advance of the Separatists, patiently letting their commanding officer devise a plan. They have seen through the death spiral, and its purpose. By creating a rotating circle, as the Separatists came around to face the Republic formation, those along the nearest tangent could unleash a devastating storm of missiles.

Since the circle was continuously rotating, the effect was a continuous stream of missiles onto their formation. And should the Republic attempt to fire back, their shots would glance harmlessly off the swift-moving deflector shields of the enemy–which could be entirely concentrated on their starboard beam–as each warship constantly replaced the one ahead of them.

It was not as effective as the full-frontal revolving arrowhead of Jedi General Plo Koon, which could most efficiently take advantage of a Star Destroyer's forward firing envelopes. Similarly, however, this death spiral adaptation could fully exploit the broadsides of Separatist warships, even if the rotating design meant it couldn't produce nearly as much forward momentum as the revolving arrowhead. ⁂ Meanwhile, Rees Alrix herself was struggling.

There was no formation without weaknesses–such an incredible phenomenon did not exist, much to the chagrin of military theorists across the galaxy. Not only did she know this, she saw this. Nobody could outsmart the Force. And yet… she couldn't find anywhere to attack. Not because it had no vulnerabilities, no–for every armour would inevitably have chinks in its plating–but because the vulnerability was constantly and randomly changing.

As the death spiral grew more and more chaotic, that flame she tried to chase would leap from one location to the other. In one place, a corvette struggling to keep up, and in another a battlecruiser that mistimed its etheric rudder, and in another an old dreadnought with a struggling main reactor, or a destroyer with depleted power cells–all of them chinks in the armour which Alrix could stab and unravel the whole formation.

And yet, they appeared once, again, and disappeared just as swiftly as the formation evolved without rest. For the first time, there was no single weakness she could exploit. Realising this, but unwilling to concede defeat and surrender the star system she spent so much effort reaching and defending, Alrix naturally gravitated to the next closest vulnerability she could exploit.

The very same fire that constantly threatened inferno, that has hampered her enemy for nearly a week–the five auxiliary ships in the Sululluub Asteroid Field. But to reach it, she would either have to go through, or around the great whirlpool. She chose the latter option, recognising that the revolving circle, for better or worse, was largely a stationary tactic, despite its slow advance, and could not change the direction of its heading easily.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The order was transmitted, and Taskforce Conciliator's line of battle translated from a line abreast to a line ahead as each individual ship turned 90-degrees to starboard, with Resilient herself at the head of the line and Imperious now in the middle.

The plan was simple; circumnavigate the spiral in a single file line, and should the Separatists react by breaking that spiral, they would be too disorientated to form a proper line of battle, allowing the Republic to charge in and sweep up the disorganised remnants. Taskforce Conciliator began its transit burn, roaring around the circumference of the Separatist spiral.

All they had to do was traverse a 90-degree arc of the spiral before they had a straight vector for the auxiliaries, an impulse burn that would take no more than a few minutes– ⁂ Chimeratica shot out of the hurricane like a stone cast from a shepherd's sling, following an intercept tangent aiming straight for Star Destroyer Imperious.

This was the exact moment she had been waiting for, and like the monster that lended her its name, one could almost hear her snarling as she loaded torpedoes into her launchers and unleashed her horde of self-propelled droid starfighters. There was a period of stunned silence, where it seemed the galaxy itself stopped turning, as both sides watched the lone carrier-destroyer shoot out of its formation, bravely charging the hostile battle line on its own. Follow the ship in front of you.

The closest ship behind Chimeratica at this point was the '2nd Strike Division's Durandal. The star frigate was nowhere near its division–not that there were any divisions left, as all subformations had quickly dissolved as sugar would swirled in a pot–but with their standing orders in mind, her captain ordered;"Bloody stars– follow that ship!" The spell had been broken, and the Separatist death spiral violently unwound as a steel coil would after snapping its restraints.

The first head of the Hydra snapped forth, guns blazing and starfighters roaring out of their hangars and racks. After Durandal came Hound's Tooth; then Sarffgadau; then Gleaming Fey and Melodiosa; then Repulse, Renown and Revenge; then the rest of the fleet. Imperious barely had time to respond as Chimeratica bore down on her, unleashing a furious hail of torpedoes as she swung violently to portside.

Even as she ran parallel to the Republic battleline, the rest of Chimeratica's starfighters slammed straight into the two remaining Tectors, briefly blinding their scopes as the battleships' point-defence cannons spat out flack and lasers into the void. By the time Imperious had swatted away the Vultures, Chimeratica was gone, having raced ahead to reach Alrix's flagship Resilient at the head of the line. ⁂ It was then that aboard the destroyer Havoc, Commodore Horgo Shive was the first to receive his order.

TO HAVOC: INTERCEPT AND DESTROY FRIENDLY CONTACT 'REPULSE.' OVER. Horgo paused, and his crew could almost see the confusion coursing through his elongated brain. Normally, he would be well pleased to receive an intercept and destroy order, but the target of this order in particular was… baffling, to say the least. From his vantage point in the rear of the fleet, he could almost see the whole battle unfurling before him– literally, as the coiled snake undid itself–gleaning off as much information as he could.

Similarly to the Givin of Yag'Dhul, the Muun were notorious galaxy-wide for being highly intelligent beings. Most Muuns use that intelligence to pursue roads of business and economy, but there was nothing stopping them from applying their calculative powers in the art of battle. Horgo Shive was unlike most Muuns. Muuns were cautious, but Horgo was decisive. Muuns was reserved and mature, but Horgo preferred tossing himself into battle and improvising from there.

It was for this reason he was made the commanding officer of the '2nd Strike Division. But that didn't mean he wasn't just as every bit calculative and risk-perceptive as his kin, he simply preferred hedging his bets as opposed to holding them forever.

"Plot us a course for intercept," he ordered the nearest navigation officer.

"Target, sir?"

"Repulse." Repulse was the seventh ship from the front, racing away to meet the Resilient along with Chimeratica and the rest, and she was a crippled thing. She had been one of the ships thrown headfirst against the Tector-class Star Destroyers in the 4th Skirmish at Sullust, and despite managing to escape, had paid a dear price.

Much of spaced armour had been completely melted off by Imperious's brutal turbolasers, revealing her frail superstructure, and her starboard radiator-wing had been completely torn off by a stray starfighter torpedo, making her prone to overheating. She was barely space-worthy, much less in combat condition at all. But the Rear Admiral was insistent she, and the five remaining frigates of his direct command, be brought to battle, ostensibly to go out in one last blaze of glory.

Horgo had his reservations; he would have recommended the ships–which held great symbolic value–be recessed from the battle and repaired by Jorm's Auxiliary Division. Albeit, he might admit, they may be because he was as loss-averse as any other Muun.

"Intercept course plotted, sir!" Horgo hastily reviewed it–and every dissonant piece clicked into place. From the death spiral, to Alrix's modification of her line of battle, to Chimeratica's decision to shoot ahead. Each commander of the 28th Mobile was only given a single piece of the puzzle. Each of them were only one head of a many-headed hydra, all to disguise their true strategy from the enemy.

Horgo could see it; it was he who would make the finishing blow, and by the time the enemy realises, it would already be too late. But first, he had to safely guide his ship out of the whirling hurricane. Thankfully, he was a Muun, and with the figures of his repeaters neatly slotting into formula's in his mind's eye, he could navigate this storm as easily as exploiting the volatile economic situations and opportunities his kin were famed for doing.

"There," he pointed at an invisible gap, "Bring us around! Burn, now!" Star destroyer Havoc abruptly shot out of its station as Horgo personally took the helm, deftly navigating his ship through the hurricane of steel and fiery drive plumes with a white-knuckled grip. A handful of harrowing minutes felt like an eternity, Havoc's crew all bracing themselves for an impact that may or may not come, as they cut through the storm like a shark bulling through a school of fish.

And then they were free, the stars shining before the viewports once more, leaving the turmoil of the death spiral behind them. Horgo Shive breathed out, unclenching his hands and leaving two swathes of sweat on the control surface… and realised they had emerged on the complete opposite side of the spiral, where the Republic couldn't see them. He checked the tactical holo, observing how the coil itself was decreasing in size as more and more warships spilled forth from it–then discovered that Havoc was not alone.

A dozen other ships had somehow followed them out of the storm. This will do, the Muun ensured the parameters of his ship and newfound squadron were all in green; yes, this will do quite nicely.

"Destroy the Repulse," he ordered, "This is an order from the Admiral." Thirteen starships disappeared among the stars, accelerating as they traversed a long curve. The fourth head of the Hydra had made its move, and nobody was any wiser. For Horgo Shive, the battle ended before it had even begun in full. ⁂ Meanwhile, many tens of thousands of klicks away, Kendal Ozzel seethed with rage, lashing whips of frenetic reprimand at his crew as he ordered his warship turn to face the enemy head-on.

Unbeknownst to him, somewhere within the 28th Mobile's unfurling battle line, aboard the star destroyer Dark Rival, Commander Asajj Ventress received her order. The Dark Acolyte opened the command package with a eager curiosity, and came face to face with a single string of encrypted code; TO DARK RIVAL: INTERCEPT AND DESTROY HOSTILE CONTACT 'IMPERIOUS.' OVER. She recognised that callsign. Imperious was the ship that all but won the Battle of Medth for the Republic with its bold charge.

The same symptoms affecting her Jedi rival did not affect her as the Force pounded in her ears like a battle drum, drowning out all distractions. Ventress eagerly took up the calling, ordering Dark Rival all ahead full. Despite the command 'package' being a single sentence, the Force told her everything she needed to know, predicting her hated foe's next actions perfectly.

For a moment, she imagined herself in the flagship of the 28th Mobile Fleet, in the boots of the man who played the entire battle as one would an elaborate game of dejarik. And she felt like a god. ⁂"Commodore!" Imperious' XO shouted in alarm,"That ship's headed right for us!"

Ozzel spun around, involuntarily ducking as Vultures screamed over and around the bridge, eyes frantically searching and finding the single Separatist destroyer that had seemingly opted to abandon its line of battle and charge straight at them. He dashed towards the nearest astrogation officer and tore the sweating man off his seat as he commandeered the station. Imperious's scopes turned straight to the offending ship– Dark Rival– and plotted out her incoming vector.

"That's not an intercept vector," Ozzel stumbled backwards, panic forcing open his eyes, "They're on a collision course! Helmsman, take evasive action! HARD RIGHT, HARD OVER!" Imperious violently swung to the right so suddenly her inertial compensators barely had enough time to adapt to the change. The lucky spacers were thrown off their feet and onto the polished metal floor, while the unluckier ones slammed against the walls, into corners, or crushed by unsecured ordnance and skidding starfighters.

The manoeuvre was made just in time. Not a moment later, the second head of the Hydra blasted through the empty space where the Imperious would have been, gnashing its teeth at a failed kill. Since only Dark Rival received the command package, all the warships behind her were still operating under the standing order of'follow the ship in front of you.' In this way, Ventress had inadvertently commandeered just under three-fourths of the 28th Mobile Fleet, leading them through the Republic line of battle.

Kendal Ozzel observed the deteriorating situation in a frenzied haze. Imperious, along with the half of Taskforce Conciliator behind it, had been effectively cut off from their flagship. All communications were being jammed by the enemy; they were isolated, alone, and about to be trapped. With this in mind, Ozzel made the fateful decision as the ranking officer of his division; all ships, retreat! Escape the encirclement! Unfortunately for him, Asajj Ventress was out for blood and vengeance.

Dark Rival turned starboard to meet Imperious, effectively creating a 'hook' and forcing Imperious to travel reciprocally back down the Republic line. The two warships exchanged broadsides, hastily producing firing solutions on myriad hardpoints, casemates, and weakpoints in the other's shells, and pumping each other full of tibanna gas and proton torpedoes. Missiles flailed against shimmering shields, pinions of energy melting hull plating into gold liquid that rapidly cooled and blackened within seconds.

It was at this crucial juncture that the last two ships received their orders. ⁂ TO KRONPRINZ: INTERCEPT AND DESTROY HOSTILE CONTACT 'RESILIENT.' OVER. Commodore Diedrich Greyshade stared at the single sentence with disbelief. His ship, the Tionese battlecruiser Kronprinz, had just followed the Dark Rival across the Republic line of battle.

He looked to the right, where he could see Ventress' ship locking horns with Imperious, the two doonium giants leading their divisions in a brutal struggle that would only end when one of them was dead. Then he looked to the left, where he could see straight down the rear end of Taskforce Conciliator's forward half, the ice-blue glow of Resilient all the way at the end. Over there, Chimeratica was hammering Alrix from their portside–and then he understood.

Should Kronprinz manage to reach Resilient's starboard beam, the entire forward half of Taskforce Conciliator would be sandwiched between them. No normal ship could reach Chimeratica and Resilient in any reasonable timeframe from so far away. But Kronprinz was no normal ship. She was a Tionese battlecruiser, and with solar wind in her sails, there was no warship in the galaxy she could not outpace. Diedrich took a cursory glance at the location of the sun, confirming what he already knew.

Since the 28th Mobile was approaching from the Sululluub Asteroid Field, which was starward of Sullust, they had the solar wind at their backs. The reserved Diedrich Greyshade grinned like a proud father.

"And that's all we need," he said aloud, catching the attention of his bridge crew, "... All hands! Helmsman, hundred-and-ten degree port turn and meet her there! Extend all solar sails, catch that wind boys! Prepare portside casemates, I want us right next to Alrix in ten minutes!"

Once again, maintaining the standing order of'follow the ship in front of you,' the battlecruiser Kronprinz split off with half of the 28th Mobile at her back, leaving Ventress and Dark Rival alone with a quarter of the fleet–nearly fifty warships–to battle the rear half of Taskforce Conciliator, which boasted thirty-nine ships.

⁂ Commodore Vinoc upon the Providence Crying Sun recognised this from behind Kronprinz, that despite barely outnumbering Ozzel, Ventress in actuality commanded less tonnage and starfighters than Ozzel. In close quarters combat such as this, the Star Destroyers of Taskforce Conciliator would ultimately come out on top. Just as Crying Sun moved to trace the Separatist battle line through the Republic's shattered line, Vinoc's holoscreen chimed. TO CRYING SUN: STARBOARD TURN AND ANNIHILATE ALL HOSTILES. OVER.

It was as if his mind was read… or was this all planned from the beginning? Vinoc did not know which possibility awed him, or terrified him, more.

"Ninety-degree turn to starboard," he commanded. His tactical droid, TJ-912, protested, "Our turning radius at this velocity is too shallow. Calculations project collision with Republic vessels–""Failure to obey orders from the commanding officer of the fleet will result in you getting reprogrammed," Vinoc reminded dryly.

"–Ninety-degree turn to starboard! Meet her parallel to the Repubic line!" TJ-912 relayed the command so forcefully she nearly smacked the helmsdroid while doing so. The third head of the Hydra howled, sublight drives, attitude thrusters, and etheric rudders all working in tandem to sharpen the curve of Crying Sun's turn as much as possible. And even as she did, TJ-912's calculations were proven correct when Crying Sun levelled straight onto a Venator's inbound vector.

The Venator, unwilling to ram, banked hard to starboard in turn. The two warships scraped along the other's beam, the crunch and tear of stringers and stiffeners shuddering through both ships as torpedoes and laser bolts whipping out at point blank range. Nevertheless, the turn was completed, albeit by the paint of one's hull, and now Crying Sun and the remaining quarter of the 28th Mobile Fleet had trapped Imperious on three sides.

Similarly, Chimeratica and Kronprinz had successfully flanked Resilient both port and starboard. With the two halves of Alrix's fleet completely surrounded, velocities matched and unabating fusillades hammering out into the smoke-filled void, the fate of the Taskforce Conciliator has been sealed. Their grave would be a cold, lonely patch of space somewhere in the middle of the Sullust Star System. ⁂ But for Rees Alrix, the battle was not yet over.

She was a Jedi Knight, and despite losing contact with half of her fleet, she would not abandon hope so easily. No, not even as Resilient was smashed against both flanks, as one by one the friendly contacts on the holos disappeared. silently, or in great conflagrations of gas and cinder and slagged steel. Not even as her crew sunk into silent acceptance, that their once-unstoppable conquest of the Rimma Trade Route has come to an end.

Because she could still escape and regroup with other Republic squadrons in the region, the only question that remained was in which direction to escape in? The north seemed like an obvious answer. Unfortunately, the star of Sullust was in her way. That left one direction; south. She knew Eriadu was lost, in her heart of hearts. The silent roar of the Force was unmistakable, like a billions upon billions of lives burning in the pits of the Nine Hells.

But she was not an empath, as many of her friends and peers were, and empathic connection was not her forte. If it was, Alrix would already be lost to the Force. But that didn't mean she was not without allies in the south. Governor-General Teshik was still campaigning against Separatist fleets in the Seswenna Sector, and if she could reach him, they could sweep back north together. All she had to do was break through the Separatist line of battle.

So Rees Alrix fell back on the one ability she trusted her life with, and searched for the fire in the Force. All she needed was a spark, one that could set the enemy line ablaze. To her starboard, there were several, but none large enough to ignite fully, not with that persistent Tionese sailboat matching them shot for shot. To her portside, however… There were three Munificent-class frigates, half a dozen positions aft of Chimeratica. Repulse, Renown, and Revenge.

She recognised them as the handful of frigates that beat back Ozzel's rampage two days ago, saving much of their fleet at the cost of their own. Not only that, Repulse was the flagship of the Separatist admiral! Even now, Alrix could only consider them broken, pitiful things, barely worthy of being called 'warships.' In fact, they were hardly firing at all, with many of their turbolaser batteries having been shorn off during their battle with Imperious and its Tectors.

And the fire in the Force–it was already a great conflagration, and frustrated by tiny, fleeting embers until now, Alrix instinctively, unknowingly, found herself drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

"We will break through the enemy lines right there," Alrix felt the target through the Force, the correct time and place to pierce the armour, "Then, plot a hyperjump to the Uvena System, where we will rendezvous with General Teshik."

"Yes, sir!" a chorus of affirmation resounded from her crew.

"Inform all ships," she blasted out orders, "And transfer all power to the shields. Hard left, hard over!" Resilient swung around, dodging a fusillade of torpedoes aimed for her thrusters as she did, leading the remainder of the Taskforce Conciliator straight into the three crippled frigates–and barely slowed down as she blasted straight through them. Repulse snapped in half under a hail of blue pinions while a squadron of ARC-170s unleashed a chain of torpedoes that vapourized Revenge's spine, and Renown…

the Star Destroyer Resilient rammed straight into Renown, shattering the frigate as superheavy turbolasers thundered off round after round into her maimed husk until, that was left were miniscule pieces of debris no larger than flakes, and the lifeless bodies of battle droids drifting out of the punctured hull.

And as Resilient emerged on the other side– she came face to face with the fourth head of the Hydra; the eleven fresh warships of Horgo Shive, who had taken a long detour around the battlefield to remain out of Alrix's sightlines, bearing down upon them. Just as the Muun had predicted hours in advance, his prey was not only waiting for him, but so graciously sailing straight into his maw.

Horgo Shive looked at the battered and spent countenance of Resilient and the Venators close behind her, with their empty hangars, overheating guns, overloaded shields and cracked armour–then looked at his own ships, yet untouched by battle. This won't even be a fight. He gave the order;"Destroy them."

In the span of seconds, from the moment a great bolt of red flashed from the enemy destroyer's jaws to the moment Resilient was disintegrated by enough firepower to melt a small moon, Rees Alrix wondered; where had she gone wrong? She did as the Force told her, and yet… and yet… In those precious few moments, her eyes flitted from place to place, instinctively searching for another flame. But there were none. Not on the Chimeratica, sailing away. Not on the Havoc, bearing right down on her.

Not in the enemy battle line she had just smashed through. The flame… was right on top of her. Did she lose the moment she decided to attack the Repulse? Or did she lose by deciding to meet the Separatist offensive? Or was it from the beginning, when she refused to withdraw from Sullust? Or… did she lose from the moment she declined Anakin Skywalker's help? If he was here, and not rushing to her aid at this moment, could the Chosen One have prevailed? It is so unfair, Rees Alrix lamented. She conquered the Rimma.

She prevailed against the odds where the arrogant bastards on the Perlemian failed. She achieved what everybody thought was impossible. The Hundred Days Offensive was her achievement! And what, the Council wanted her to hand everything she won to the Chosen One? Alrix just knew the moment the Open Circle Fleet arrived, the Republic would praise that upstart's infuriating name to the skies above Coruscant, while her own was lapsed. And yet, that might happen anyway, as Skywalker warred against time.

Could he even beat the Battle Hydra, the great bane of the Jedi that has trounced him not once, but twice? Of course he could, he was the Chosen One, after all. She was sick of hearing that damned title. So, so unfair. But Rees Alrix was a Jedi Knight. There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is only the Force. There is the Force… and here there isn't.

A vulnerability that escaped her attention. It was not in the ranks of her own formation, or her fateful decisions. It was a vulnerability in the Force itself, an impenetrable void that she could not have accounted for. At the precipice of her life, she finally saw it, felt it. It burned like a fire on her skin, and around her. I've got you now, Hydra. If she could not defeat the monster, then at least she could lend Skywalker a helping hand.

Rees Alrix reached towards the great blaze burning upon her, throwing in her own spirit to fuel the fire until someone found it. Appreciate my dying breath, Chosen One. No, there is no death. The Hydra's jaw clamped down. Rees Alrix closed her eyes, and revelled like a fire in the Force. ⁂ From the bridge of the carrier-destroyer Chimeratica, Rear Admiral Rain Bonteri watched the last remaining warships of Rees Alrix be devoured entirely, and ticked off the last square in his checklist, concluding the battle.

Preliminary casualties report the 28th Mobile Fleet lost as many as seventeen warships, with another two-dozen badly damaged. Taskforce Conciliator lost all seventy-nine remaining warships. It has been one-hundred and thirty-five hours since the 1st Skirmish at Sullust. Sev'rance Tann's prediction had been correct; from the moment the 28th Mobile Fleet was given the order to advance, it took only four hours to completely annihilate their Rees Alrix's fleet.

The Republic would not find out about the defeat until three days later, when Anakin Skywalker's Open Circle Fleet arrived at the Sullust System to find nothing but orbital debris, and no sign of either fleet. Within hours of their arrival, the Open Circle Fleet would receive harrowing news; Eriadu had been glassed, and General Horn Ambigene's 4th Fleet Group was advancing up the Rimma Trade Route en masse with 1, 500 warships.