Rage Against The Dark Ch 12

Heyo, good...uhh...HUH!? I made it to the morning!?

Neat!

Honestly didn't think that would happen. Had some uh...some stuff happen. I was honestly fearing I'd have to beg forgiveness and post during the week.

Shit was bad for a bit is all. But we are past, and I have chapter!

Hope you guys like!

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“Man that was a crazy fight.” I said as I lazily piloted through the mostly less empty than usual vacuum of space. “Glad that that’s over with.”

There was a long moment of silence on the communicator before Anakin got on. [Rylanor, what are you on about?]

“I’m trying to kickstart the time skip.” I explained.

“You know, where the scene transitions and we get to the next important bit in the great saga of the Clone Wars as we continue to mightily defend the Republic from the consequences of its own inadequacies. I do this, because I’m bloody bored! All I have to see out the viewport is variously colored space dust!”

[No propaganda over the communicator.] Anakin said absently, making me scoff, calling out the Republic on its bullshit wasn’t propaganda! [And since we’re flying through a nebula to get into position for a battle, shouldn’t your time skip be taking us straight to the fight?]

“I mean, that sounds like work.” I said, starting to rotate my Hummingbird around its Z axis, granting me a rotating three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of Shadow Squadron, as well as the (relatively) soup-thick nebula we traveled through, thanks to the ship’s design and the thrusters being slaved to individual droid-brains, each of which were slaved to a singular droid-brain that coordinated them, I lost no ‘forward’ acceleration thanks to my tomfoolery. “And I’m all about skipping work.”

[Diligent hard work is an investment that always pays off.] Master Plo Koon said sagely. [While taking proper rest in order to recuperate is imperative, one should strive to never neglect one’s duties. Such is beneath each of us as Sapient beings.]

“Yes Master Ploooooo.” I droned, doing my absolute best to sound like a brat at a classroom.

[It is good that you understand.] Master Plo Koon said, an immovable wall of serenity from which my sarcasm bounced helplessly off of. [Perhaps with maturity you will come to realize the joy of a duty well accomplished.]

“Hey I’m perfectly mature!” I said, adding a rotation along the ship’s X axis, closing my eyes and using the Force to maintain my heading as the world outside my viewport became a dizzying blur. “Wheeeeeeee!”

Anakin sighed. [Rylanor, stop playing around.]

“I’m not playing around.” I shot back as I added a Z-axis rotation, turning what I was doing into what looked like an uncontrolled tumble that nonetheless moved in a ‘straight’ line. “I’m experimentally utilizing non-destructive testing to examine the tolerances of the flight mechanism for my personal edification.”

[I don’t care what you call your playing around. You will stop doing it.] Anakin the spoilsport said.

“Okay fiiiiiiiine.” I answered, leveling out my flying.

I straightened up. “My utmost apologies Master Skywalker, it was not my intention to bring embarrassment and dishonor to you and to the hallowed institution of the Jedi Order through my thoughtless actions. I shall forthwith display only the utmost respect and decorum on our communications and interactions so as to never again cause such harm upon your person and the Order.”

[On second thought.] Anakin said, sounding queasy. [Continue snipping at me. It’s much better than whatever that was.]

“Whatever you say, Skyboss.” I said, beginning a lazy circuit around the squadron and making pew pew noises at imaginary enemy spacecraft.

[Quite the spirited Padawan you ended up with, Knight Skywalker.] Plo Koon said, no hint of anything other than serenity in his voice, which was a feat as his ship all but radiated amusement into the Force. Amusement reflected in the rest of Shadow Squadron, even if they kept their amusement to themselves.

Anakin grumbled.

I flew in silence for a little while before noticing something. “Shadow Five you are starting to drift out of formation, adjust six degrees port.”

The bomber quickly shifted and returned to formation. Tag opened communications. [Sorry Commander, this soup is thick.]

“I know the space dust can’t hurt you, but you wouldn’t want to be late to the party.” I said with a snort.

[It’s more difficult than I thought it would be.] Charlotte commented as she flew in a boring straight line, impeccably in formation. [The scanners are returning nothing but ghosts and echoes. Even thermals are struggling thanks to pockets of higher density, hotter gases.]

[This is old-fashioned flying.] Anakin said, sounding smug. [You have to feel your way through to stay on course.]

[Is that what we’ve been doing?] Asked Flyby. [I’ve just been staring nonstop at the thrusters in front of me and following that.]

“That’s a good a way as any.” I said, doing an aileron roll. “Just don’t follow mine, you’ll get queasy.”

[I don’t need to follow your thrusters Commander, I always know exactly where I’m going.] Broadside said cockily.

I maneuvered my ship to ‘hover upside down’ over his bomber. “Oh? Where would that be?”

[I’m gonna blow up that battleship!] He stated and the Force thrummed with his declaration.

[A clear path if ever there was one.] Plo Koon agreed.

The pilots continued to banter for a while, the Force trembling with their nervous energy and rock-solid readiness, when suddenly I felt a shadow looming in front of me. It wasn’t darkness, not exactly. The Dark Side was a part of it, as it was a part of all things. It wasn’t evil, merely uncaring and vast. Its sheer bulk causing something akin to a bow-wave in the Force.

“Hey, Skyboss.”

“There wouldn’t happen to be any spaceman stories about dragons eating ships that get lost in this nebula, would there?”

“Just a feeling.” I said as the Force nagged more insistently. “A Force feeling.”

[Not that I know of. It’s just an old smuggler’s route I heard about back in Tatooine. They call it Balmorra Run.] The Force spiked between my eyes in warning as he said that.

[Balmorra Run!?] Plo Koon snarled in dismay. [Skywalker, listen to me! We need to turn around!]

[Contact.] Charlotte reported with a tense false calm. [It’s massive.]

[We aren’t turning around.] Anakin stated. [If we do, we doom the medical station and every clone in it.]

[Another contact.] Charlotte said, her voice slightly more tense as my scanners picked up their first. [This one is an order of magnitude more massive.]

[Skywalker!] Master Plo Koon snapped. [Balmorra’s the nesting ground of the giant neebray mantas!]

The Force screamed.

“Evade! Evade! Evade!” I snapped, juking my ship ‘down,’ but since I was still flying ‘upside down’ to the rest of the squadron, that movement took me ‘above’ them as the clone pilots and Charlotte all instinctively followed my order. “Keep within sight of each other!”

[Rylanor wha—?] Anakin cut off with a growl as a gigantic bulbous head with six eyes and a huge maw of sharply pointed tree-trunk thick teeth parted the nebula directly in the path that the squadron had been flying in. Thanks to the fact that the clones had scattered and Anakin’s and Plo’s Jedi reflexes nobody crashed straight into it, and only the Jedi evaded it without a comfortable margin of error.

The squadron broke into a pocket of ‘clear’ space, though, glancing ‘down’ it wasn’t a pocket so much as a large cylinder, an eye of the storm caused by several dozen enormous creatures that had the head of an angler fish mashed onto the body of a fat flying fish with the fappy bits of a majestic sea flap flap.

But in space.

[Do not shoot or they’ll panic!] Plo Koon ordered as the squadron slipped between the few hundred meters that the creatures kept between each other.

Which, considering how big space was and the fact that they were so large that some of their bits brushed against each other as they ‘swam’ through the nebula, they were basically packed in like space tuna.

[There are too many of them!] Shadow two said, diving ‘beneath’ the maw of a very surprised space creature that flinched at the near collision. Unfortunately, he came out of that near full-on crash with a minor impact, his left engine trailing smoke and venting plasma into the nebula. [I’m hit! I’m hit! My stabilizer’s out!]

The bomber started to shake like a thing alive as I dove for it.

[Pull it together Matchstick!] Anakin ordered.

[I got it…I got it.] Matchstick said in the tone of a man standing on razor thin, crumbling foothold.

I launched the tow cable, sticking it to the top of the bomber, before tightening it and landing on the ship. “Gotcha! Shadow two, cut acceleration. Charlotte, mate to the other side and help me tow him!”

[Rylanor?] Anakin asked.

“I got him, Skyboss.” I said. “Between Charlotte and I we should be able to tow him without falling behind.”

[Don’t mess it up Padawan.] Anakin said after a few moments of silence.

Thanks to my Bond with Charlotte, she was able to anticipate my movements, the two of us dragging the no longer smoking bomber with us as we maneuvered around the giant aliens, the density of giant space creatures thinning as we left their nesting…well, it’s not really ground but…

[We’re through.] Anakin announced as we exited the nebula.

“Okay cool!” I said, cutting my acceleration, the rest of the squadron quickly gaining distance as we drifted, traveling at several kilometers a second.

[Rylanor?] Asked Anakin as Plo Koon’s fighter turned around and started hovering.

“Need to patch up Matchstick’s ship.” I said, as I nabbed the repair kit from the small cubbyhole with supplies. “I need to assess the damage, it might be nothing or he may be a dead man flying. I don’t want to risk starting the mission down one bomber.”

“Aye aye Skyboss.” I said, opening the hatch. I’d designed the Hummingbird to deploy with an internal vacuum. That way, if it was breached, I’d not have to deal with explosive decompression on top of a hull breach. I’d had Poots modify my armor’s life support functions to mate seamlessly with the fighter’s, and unlike other designs I’d based mine on, I didn’t take that as an excuse to skimp on comfort. A pilot fighting discomfort was one who would tire more quickly and thus could not fight as long.

I crawled out of the fighter, and drifted hand over hand down to the bomber, repair kit floating behind me tied to my waist.

After a few minutes of diagnosis, I saw that the stabilizer was indeed out, but the real issue was that the impact had punctured a coolant pipe, that was what had smoked, the coolant the Y-Wing used was flammable, it had burned through the entire reservoir. The moment this engine was pushed, it would not be long before it overheated and went up like a firecracker, taking the rest of the bomber with it.

It was the work of a few minutes to weld a patch, test the weld, syphon some coolant from my and Charlotte’s Hummingbird, refill the Y-Wing, and test the weld again, now under pressure.

With all taken care of, I jumped back to my ship, had a butt puckering moment of terror as I missed the handhold. Charlotte appeared there, having already decoupled from the Y-Wing, and allowed me to use her fighter as a platform to push off of to drift to mine.

A short time after that, we were back in formation. This time I didn’t drift around for the funsies, as my scanners returned the medical station, a convoy of medical transports traveling away from it at maximum sustainable acceleration, which meant things would be getting interesting pretty soon.

The Force showed it had a sense of humor as, just having thought that, I received an alarm about a massive object exiting hyperspace at the edge of the system.

[Contact.] Matchstick said, his voice tight. [Exiting hyperspace. It’s the Malevolence.]

[Alright Shadow, you know the drill.] Anakin said as he turned his ship and broadcast an intercept course to the rest of the squadron. [Let’s go turn that ship into a scrap heap.]

I grinned as the comms lit up with whoops and jubilation as the squadron turned like a single organism in the direction of the huge ship.

Grievous turned out to be a better tactician than Tarkin would ever be, as the first thing he seemingly did the moment his ship picked up our squadron, was deploy fighters. Dozens of the goddamn things.

I watched the distance between my squadron and the enemy fighters shrink with intent, my thumb hovering over my firing controls.

The Malevolence turned ponderously, lining up its starboard broadside in the direction of the station, and firing off a circular pulse of ionizing radiation that engulfed the fleeing ships and left them as drifting hulks, swiftly following up with an utterly ridiculous barrage of Turbo Laser fire.

Sacred hell, the energy readings on that ion pulse. A Y-Wing sat at just under sixty-five metric tons, it was heavily shielded and armored, not quite the ‘flying fortress’ idea of a bomber, but it was built to take a hit and dish it back twice as hard.

It also had just about the absolute minimum shielding necessary for an organic to survive the experience of traveling through that energy blast. And even then, they’d be left floating in space and there was a non-zero chance it would fry the life support systems of standard Clone Pilot armor.

(Un?)Fortunately, I didn’t have much more time to ponder as the Separatist fighter wing came within range of my heavy guns, I accelerated, pushing past Shadow Squadron, Charlotte and Plo Koon hot on my heels. “Engaging.”

The first three shots I took destroyed three vulture droids from beyond the range at which they could retaliate, Charlotte’s own shots took down five more before they finished working through their self-preservation routines and began dodging.

Fortunately for us, we’d studied their standard evasion pattern, so we were able to wipe out a full dozen Vulture droids before they came in range of the smaller guns in our arsenal and the guns in theirs. Then the dog fight began, as the Vultures were so outclassed it wasn’t even funny.

A vulture’s predatory shape was aerodynamic; it was an air superiority fighter that had been adapted to do battle in space.

Against a Jedi Master, and two ships that could turn on a dime while, bring the totality of their considerable firepower into any facing while accelerating in any direction? By the time they drew a bead on Charlotte an I, we were already four fighters ahead and they were dead.

Out of the dozens of enemy fighters that were launched, few survived long enough to be brought down by the defensive fire from the Y-Wing’s gunners.

Nonetheless, the pace at which we fought was not one we could sustain indefinitely, as my deflector shields were steadily decreasing from the sheer volume of fire being deployed.

In words as ancient as industrialized warfare, quantity is a quality all of its own.

Electromagnetic readings redlined.

I looked at the Malevolence, the ship so immense that I could see it with my naked eye even kilometers out. In the time we had been closing, it had maneuvered its bulk to turn its broadside to us.

“Ion caster preparing to fire!” I snapped, accelerating ‘forward’ and rising above the plane that Shadow Squadron was operating in. I turned the Hummingbird around and continued to shoot down vultures as I maintained my acceleration and direction. “Prepare—!”

The Ion Caster fired.

“Shit!”

[Make towards the edge of the ray!] Anakin snapped, ‘rising’ in the same direction I was already moving as the wall of electromagnetic radiation shot towards us, swallowing entire wings of Vulture droids whole and leaving behind expensive scrap metal. [Give it everything you’ve got!]

Every pilot redlined their craft, cresting the bow wave of the ion ray and continuing our course toward the Malevolence.

[Shadow Squadron, check in.] Anakin said, his voice grim.

His query was answered by Charlotte. [Shadows nine and eleven were caught in the ray. As were the entirety of the vultures the Malevolence deployed.]

Anakin grunted. [Mark their locations and headings for later retrieval.]

The assumption that they would succeed served to swell Shadow’s morale at their brother’s perceived failure.

The actual strafing run on the Malevolence itself was somewhat underwhelming. The ship was large enough and thus had engines that made it supremely fast…for a ship of its size. It was not fast enough to get away from us, its Point Defense was clustered to repel a direct assault on the bridge, so our corridor of attack resulted in it being incapable of bringing more than a quarter of its strength to bear, and it was far too slow and ponderous to turn quickly enough to make a difference.

And Grievous had managed to prove himself a worse tactician than even Tarkin, after having wiped out his own massive fighter wing, admittedly we had been tearing through them quite easily. But he could have still used them to be the hammer to his ship’s anvil by forcing us into a different avenue of approach.

With Charlotte, Plo Koon, and I flying forward and damaging, chaffing, and destroying point defense cannons, the bombers had a nearly unobstructed line of attack to the Ion Caster. All ten Y-Wings were able to fire off the entirety of their payload, something to which Charlotte and I contributed by launching four proton torpedoes into the pileup at the Ion Caster.

One hundred and eight proton torpedoes proved to be too much for the ‘superweapon.’ The Malevolence lit up like a Life Day tree on my instruments as it was wracked by internal explosions, the lights I could see on the ship flickered off and on before dimming completely, and one of those enormous Ion Casters outright detached from the rest of the ship, and with one last mighty plume of plasma and molten metal, the Malevolence’s reactor died, leaving the huge hulk drifting, dead in space.

Shadow whooped and hollered on the comms and I found myself joining them with a savage grin splitting my face.

[Shadow! Form up on me!] Anakin demanded as he pulled his Y-Wing into a new heading. [We are going to reduce that bridge to a scrap heap! Rylanor, you, Charlotte, and Master Plo Koon move ahead of us! Weapons free!]

“Hell yeah!” I roared as I felt Charlotte form up behind me, opening fire with every weapon the instant the Malevolence’s elevated bridge came into view.

I may not understand this Galaxy’s shipwrights’ obsession with an elevated, and thus vulnerable bridge. But I certainly took advantage of it as my and Charlotte’s combined barrage shattered the transparasteel viewports of the Malevolence, the explosive decompression sucking dozens of flailing B-1 battledroids into the cold void.

I flew up to the bridge, until my viewport was meters away from the mangled ruin that used to be bridge’s viewports, and shone a light into it. Unfortunately, General Grievous was not hanging on for dear life as hurricane force winds attempted to suck him into the void. Which…all things considered probably wouldn’t have happened anyways. Though the Force Field that was supposed to come on to keep pressure and atmosphere in didn’t activate, the bulkhead leading to the rest of the ship had, meaning if he’d been on the bridge he’d just have been forced to either float or more likely stab his metal feet into the deck to keep himself in place.

I shook my head to get it back in the game. “Shoot the…dunno what the hell you call it! The neck! Shoot the neck!”

I followed my instruction by opening fire with everything in my ship at the bridge tower (That’s what it’s called!), but its armor was so thick that even the P-12 Heavy Blaster Cannons could do little else than scorch it. We’d need the torpedoes we’d expended on the Ion Casters to get through it.

[This isn’t working.] Charlotte said, stating the obvious. [Let’s spread out, keep watch on the hangars.]

“Right!” I said with a snarl and flew off in search of wherever the hell the hangars might be. Cresting the side of the ship only to see a big muscle-car looking shuttle flying off. “Contact! Contact! I’m in pursuit!”

I redlined all four engines and began to close the distance, sending a fusillade of blaster bolts at the enemy shuttle. It immediately put its deflector shields to double back and maintained its acceleration as it performed erratic evasive maneuvers.

Maneuvers that didn’t help it fuck all as the Force angrily told me where he was going to dodge before he himself knew it. I cracked through his shields, blaster bolts from my ship boiling kilograms of armor off his shuttle, the two heavy blaster bolts that would cripple the ship and allow me to destroy it at leisure were meters out when the shuttle elongated, then disappeared into the black between stars.

“Blast!” I snarled. “Stupid piece of worthless rusted scrap metal bonded to bantha poodo!”

I swallowed the rest of my curses as I brought my ship to a halt, my blood singing in my veins as I itched for a kill denied.

[I take it he got away.] Anakin said sarcastically.

I took a deep breath ready to snap at him, then let it out slowly because it wasn’t his fault that the slippery pile of scrap metal got away. “Yeah, yeah he did.”

[He’s a slippery one.] Anakin said. [We achieved the objective. You and Charlotte go pick up Shadows Nine and Eleven. We’ll meet up at the medical station.]

“Aye aye.” I said but pulled out a small drone I’d had Poots put together for me, slotted in my Stamp into it, designated the wreck of the Malevolence as its target, popped the hatch of my ship and sent it off into the black before sealing the hatch again and going off to pick up my men.

My boys in Shadow Eleven were very thankful when we got them to the station, their air had been running somewhat stale thanks to the damage their suits had taken.

My boys in Shadow Nine were dead.

The next time I was in the same star system as that cyborg menace, I was going to tear his heart out and crush it to paste in front of him.