A dozen unmanned HAATs lined the side of the prison tanker, Nym noticed that the other droids have turned their attention on the rest of their soldiers, those two where were left to lead them inside the prison tanker were half distracted from the distant explosions were some of Nym’s men were still putting up a fight and trying to bring down as many battle droids they could before they could be totally subdued.
Nym and Vana’s eyes met then the Freeorin whirled around and pulled the droid’s blaster from its metal grip and shot it in the face. That moment, Vana’s right boot lanced out and kicked the side of the startled battle droid and as it started to fall Rhys grabbed its blaster then fired four precise bolts on the vulnerable necks of the nearby confused and alarmed B1 battle droids.
The team commandeered the twelve parked Heavy AATs while the others clung to the sides or huddled close to the tanks as Nym started blasting the droids around them.
Nym’s Heavy AATs steered towards several AATs where the rest of their soldiers jumped off to take the smaller tanks from the battle droids. After a few minutes, the battle was renewed.
Borvo slithered his way to a troop transport and wrestled it off from the droid, he disengaged the rack and climbed up, he then steered the transport out of the fray searching for his sail barge somewhere far behind the war zone of Epee Dui.
Down on the Grassy Plains, OOM-9 waited for the prisoner transport to arrive to take the Gungan leaders to Moenia. Boss Nass, General Binks, Major Fassa and Captain Tarpals were shoved to cluster together while the rest of the militiagungs were being segregated into groups of fifties.
The rest of the droid army moved in to herd the Fambaas, kaadus, cerrabores, falumpasets and other beasts. Only the packs of narglatchs gave resistance and fought off the converging battle droids.
“What if dessa failed to bring down the Saak’ak?” Boss Nass asked Jar-jar.
“Wessa gonna have to give them more time…” Jar-jar grinned and motioned for them to look up.
The Gungan leaders craned their necks and were surprised to see hundreds of militiagungs riding aiwhas blotted the sky above them. None of the droids have noticed them yet so Boss Nass shouted on top of his lungs, “Booma rain, get youssa shields!”
All across the Grassy Plains, Gungans dove to get their energy shields or seek cover as the swarm of aiwha riders started to drop thei.r loads of boomas to their respective targets.
The leaders and their militiagungs took the blasters of the destroyed battle droids and started fighting their way back to their mounts and catapults. Soon after that the battle resumed and OOM-9 was hard pressed to reorganize his troops against the rampage of the deadly cerrabores, narglatchs and other Gungan mounted creatures trampling their way past surprised battle droids.
* * *
Captain Ric Olié and the remaining Vengeance Squadron circled the battle fields from the upper to the lower lands around Theed and saw the battle resurging as Nym’s forces and that of the Gungans have finally got hold of their weapons.
Flocks of aiwha riders came swooping above the Grassy Plains dropping their blue plasma globs called boomas on the droid army below.
“Vengeance Lead, the last of the droid starfighters has been destroyed, what are your orders?” Vengeance Two’s voice crackled in the squad comm.
“We join the fleet. Our ground forces can handle this.” Olié answered.
“Roger that.” V-Two clicked in acknowledgement and flew in tight formation with him as the rest of the surviving pilots followed suit.
“Switching to long range scanners and activating Friend-Foe Identifiers, charging up inertial compensators and shields. Vengeance Squadron, let’s clear the skies!” Captain Olié ordered.
“Yihaa!” some of the pilots exclaimed as they broke out of the planter atmosphere and the vastness of outer space greeted them in a wide canvass of muted space battle.
“Dreadnaughts! Where on the galaxy did those come from?” V-5 gasped.
“I don’t know, V-Five. As long as they are firing at those droid starfighters, I wouldn’t be too concerned.” V-Two commented.
“Cut the chatter, let’s vape some droids!” Olié grinned as he swung up and tailed his first target.
The Vengeance Squadron broke formation and went chasing individual quarries and was instantly swallowed by the tangle of starfighters, crisscrossing red lasers, green ion beams, proton and concussion missile trails.
Captain Desnocres of the Moviana fleet command flagship Fair Chance went to the diagnostic panels to check their shields and life support after a turbolaser impacted on their hull.
CEO Clynt Resnon scanned the holographic tactical display and spotted the beacons of Vengeance Squadron and smiled.
“Great, the ground battle is stable, Captain Olié has joined us!” he announced to no one in particular.
Above the Trade Federation Droid Control Battleship Saak’ak, Captain Hoff Siege received the news from Fair Chance about the arrival of Vengeance Squadron to the fray and happily relayed it to the rest of his Bravo Squadron.
“Captain Olié, we have destroyed two of their shield generators but they are still protected, we need to take down the deflector shield housing but it’s too thick!” Siege said.
“Copy that Bravo Lead. We’re going in for their transmitter platform defense artillery. That should give you enough cover and time to blast that Neimoidian shell.” Olié exclaimed.
“Thank you Vengeance Lead… and nice to have you back in a fighter.” Siege grinned.
“I too, Captain. It’s been a while now. I still got the grips though.” Olié nodded.
“Well, like my mentor use to say during my training years, once a fighter pilot always a fighter pilot.” Siege said as he made a sharp turn to make another pass on the thick deflector shield housing.
“The saying still stands. Now let’s blast this shell inside out!” Olié said and the entire Vengeance Squadron regrouped and started towards their new primary target.
* * *
Anakin, Rinn, Max, Artoo Detoo and the other kids cheered excitedly as the N1 Starfighter they were fixing started its engines. Anakin was on the cockpit control and was being assisted by Artoo Detoo on running a thorough systems check from his astromech slot behind the cockpit.
Rinn and Max patted Anakin and Artoo before sliding down and ushering the other kids away from the newly repaired starfighter.
“Anakin, the coordinates of the Saak’ak is already in the navigational computers, you can run it on autopilot!” Max called out.
“Remember, you got an hour’s worth of power and life-support!” Rinn added.
Anakin nodded and gave a thumbs-up sign before closing the canopy and firing the repulsors and the thrusters. The ship slowly climbed and turns around to face the hangar’s exit bay.
Artoo chirped a question and Anakin shrugged innocently, “Qui-Gon told us to give all the help we could give them and this is the best way I know how to help.” he said.
Anakin’s starfighter shot out of the Theed Hangar and climbed steadily up through the clouds and onto the outer space. Artoo activated his long range scanners and detected the Saak’ak exactly where the pre-programmed coordinates said it would.
“This is a little more dizzying than my pod…” Anakin gasped as the ship corkscrewed and the stars and the distant shapes of the blockade rotated fast before his eyes.
Artoo adjusted the inertial compensators until Anakin felt better and manage to keep himself from throwing-up. They reached the battle zone sooner than he estimated and swarms of droid starfighters came swooping before them. He also spotted several familiar red-and-black and yellow-and-silver N1 Starfighters.
He spotted one from the Vengeance Squadron ahead being tailed by several droid starfighters. He switched the manual override of the targeting computers and started picking out the enemy ships one by one squarely destroying their thrusters leaving them floating dead in the space around them.
“Thanks for getting them off my…”
the familiar voice of Captain Ric Olié spoke to him from the open comm.
“Come on guys, we need to get their shields down…” came another familiar voice, this time from Captain Hoff Siege.
Anakin clicked an affirmative and did his best to keep his mouth shut lest they realize he was just a kid and make him turn around planet-side.
Anakin flew towards the gaping tips of the droid control ship and saw another squadron of droid starfighters emerging from the left portside main hangar portal. An idea came to mind and he diverted all power to thrusters and prepares to make the quick switch to shielding.
Artoo somehow understood what the boy has in mind and held the rest of the systems to keep the ship intact the moment Anakin fire up the accelerator and be absolutely certain his plan would work.
The moment the shield parted to let more droid starfighters launch, Anakin’s ship shot into the open hangar like a projectile.
Artoo charged the shields and its electromagnetic density sent sparks as the starfighter pierced the phalanx of stunned droid starfighters. Anakin and Artoo flew past the vast loading bays of the left arm of the Lucrehulk-class droid control ship and its startled battle droids moving about inside.
Anakin and Artoo shot past the Outer Hangar designated as Zone 1 and right through the Zone 2 or Middle Hangar without much of an incident, although battle droids and droid starfighters on walking mode started to turn around and arm themselves with an obvious intent to follow them and destroy them.
When they reached the Inner Hangar, the situation changed. The ultrafast mechanical messaging system has reached and prepared the droids stationed on Zone 3. Laser fire began pouring out from all sides to a single target, them.
“Shields to maximum, Artoo! Let’s try that corkscrewing again…” Anakin gripped the control sticks and spun his ship like a drilling machine and started firing its twin laser cannons.
Artoo Detoo scanned Zone 3 and checked its weak points. This side of the ship is mainly filled with Landing Ships. It has the capacity to house twenty five C-9979 with the same on the other arm’s Zone 3. But the ships here were not yet assembled and the wings and body were neatly stacked among beams of racks fetched by massive cranes and assembly arms. The wall was lined inside by rows of pilot reactor fuel pumps and pressure stabilizer assembly and of course, the pilot reactor heads itself.
Artoo relayed his idea to Anakin and two worked in tandem to spin their ship, hoping that their shields would hold long enough for them to get their plan executed and get clear of the area.
Fortunate for them, the ship still has all ten of its proton torpedoes. They only needed three for this one. Anakin aimed for the three targets marked for him by Artoo and fired. The first one hits the right power conduit disabling the internal laser turrets, the second impacted on the hangar door control separating Zone 3 from Zone 2. The explosion sealed the massive blastdoors preventing a swarm of battle droids and droid starfighters from getting to them. The third detonated on the thinnest side of the wall were the pilot reactor fuel pumps and pressure stabilizer assemblies are.
The moment the third torpedo was fired Anakin quickly flew his starfighter through the last hangar door ahead that brought them flying through the wide access corridor underneath the gargantuan portside main reactor.
The ship glided and skidded across to the other side of the Saak’ak and slammed hard on one of the docked C-9979. Anakin braced himself for the impact and it almost unseated him. Artoo screamed but the ship was only rattled, although their shields went off and Anakin and Artoo frantically worked to reactivate their shields.
Coming from the other arm of the battleship, a group of B1 battle droids and several AATs were starting to move towards them. Artoo patched the rest of the systems and devoted all of their power to shield enough to trigger the independent inflow. Anakin slowly reoriented the ship using minimal repulsors to aim the laser cannons on the approaching enemies.
“Hurry up Artoo! We have to get out of here!” Anakin said as he kept firing. The AATs finally got within range and fired at them. Explosions around the ship jarred Anakin and Artoo and some of the tanks’ projectiles detonated on the wings of the massive landing ship beside them.
Artoo squealed a warning and Anakin looked up from his canopy and saw what the AATs are doing. “Oh no! They wanted to bring down that wing on us!”
Anakin and Artoo hurried to fix their shields and restart the main engines so that they could take-off once again. The aft-wing tensor field generator finally exploded and the multi-ton wing groaned and started to fall down on them.
“Artoo!” Anakin gasped and in his panic he had fired two proton torpedoes that shot harmlessly past the advancing droids. “Ooops!”
Artoo screamed in triumph as the shields went up and the engines fired up, Anakin wasted no time and shot out of the falling wing and flew past the firing droids and helpless tanks.
Behind them where the pair of proton torpedoes detonated on the centresphere reactor and power generator assemblies, a chain of massive explosions began as the entire battleship started to implode.
Anakin and Artoo swung their ship at top speed across the other arm of the Saak’ak and out of the main hangar bay. Behind them multiple explosions seemed to be chasing their fleeing starfighters.
Anakin shouted, cheering as they got clear of the battleship, “Wohoo! Now this is Podracing!”
* * *
Captain Hoff Siege blasted the last of the twelve sensor dishes of the Saak’ak when he saw the battleship exploding from various decks.
“Bravo Leader, what’s happening to the control ship?” Ric Olié inquired.
“It’s blowing up from the inside!” another pilot exclaimed.
“You did it guys, great job!” CEO Clynt Resnon shouted in exultation as they saw the Saak’ak imploding.
“Wasn’t us Fair Chance, we never hit it yet.” Siege shook his head.
“Look! That’s one of ours! Outta the main hold! Must’ve been him!” Ric Olié cried out as they all saw a single starfighter racing out of the doomed ship.
“Alright, everybody clear out of the battleship!” Bravo Leader ordered.
“Let’s go home!” Vengeance Leader cheered.
The surviving fleet of the Moviana Patriots and the remaining starfighters of Bravo and Vengeance Squadron along with Anakin and Artoo’s ship headed back to Naboo as the Trade Federation Droid Control ship Saak’ak exploded entirely.
Chapter 49: Specters of the Force
Blackness and silence dominated the stillness of space like infinitesimal harmony of Time and the Universe.
The glittering tendrils of the Force swirled in a miasmic kaleidoscope of multitudes of color spectrums. The hushed eddies of light and darkness spreads out in chaotic order. The intangible essence and tangible power of the Force engulfed the entirety of the vast immeasurable universe.
The first signs of feeling slowly returned but it felt ethereal. It was as if one was floating in space, aimlessly drifting in the current of the sea and being steadied by the gentle touch of the wind all in the same time.
Bright lights started to pierce through the darkness, beams of coruscating hues, silent but explosive, lancing out of nowhere providing radiance, giving life.
Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn opened his eyes and wondered at the complexities of the Force. It was a profound experience of epiphany, a sudden rush of understanding of the harmony of both the Living Force and that of the Unifying Force, the two facets of universal energies.
Everything started to take form, there were shades of million hues around him, and he knew, somehow he already knew, that this was the universe. A specific whirlpool of light grew and within it he saw familiar astrological formations.
This was his galaxy, his home.
Then the space before him took shape, faint glowing silhouettes, faceless but somehow recognizable.
A tall form moved towards him without even leaving the rows of other figures hovering in the emptiness of space. T
he experience was disconcerting but utterly magical and thrilling.
Sound, like the breeze, the slapping of the ocean on the rocky cliffs, like the silence of dawn started to take form into a more comprehensive resonance.
“Qui-Gon Jinn,” the voice startled him because it was unmistakably familiar. It was Tahl’s.
He tried to speak but he heard nothing so he answered with his mind and his words poured out as clear and crisp as the bright core of the galaxy.
“Tahl! What is happening to me?” Qui-Gon gasped, his consciousness was searching for a foothold in the inexplicable state he was in like a toddler learning his first step, mincing his first word.
“You are now One with the Force. We are now unified. Do you see them?” Tahl’s image seemed to blur into trillions of microscopic dots of lights.
“What are those?” he asked.
“Don’t you recognize them?” Tahl smiled, but there was no face at all to convey such expression, even though Qui-Gon knew she was smiling.
Qui-Gon focused his attention on the dots of lights comprising her silhouette and he was astounded at what he just discerned.
They were midi-Chlorians, unlike anything he has ever seen before. More potent, far more indescribable than the physical symbiotic version he had come to familiarize with during his life as a Jedi.
“This is impossible… and different!” Qui-Gon said reverently.
“The midi-Chlorians are just words uttered by mortals, a name for something more mysterious that is the Force. Those symbiot you have accustomed to know were but massive stars in comparison to these. The Force is everything, it is everywhere. There is no place in the universe that the Force does not exist. It is the universe.” Tahl explained.
Qui-Gon was about to say something else but somehow Tahl managed to raise her hand to stop him despite not moving at all.
“Yes, Qui-Gon, there are pockets where the Force was inaccessible for the Jedi, out of their reach, their senses but it was only inaccessible but not nonexistent. The Force has a Will and it chooses when and where to be made tangent and palpable. It all depends on one’s complete focus and discipline and strength to penetrate such withdrawal of the Force.”