Chapter 18 — Natural Selection — Survival of the Fittest
Part 1
Sofa
In the small prefab storage room Sofa hung her head, disappointed – at what she had done, at what she was yet to do, and at what the Order she thought she knew had contributed to that outcome.
She’d moderated dozens of peace negotiations, knew there was always fault on both sides. It was true here too, she had come with an offer of peace, it was rejected outright - that was not the Jedi way. And now she had to make good on her threat.
The burly Nautolan just outside noticed nothing as she jiggled her shoulders, the small black sphere between her breasts was uncomfortable, but it needed skin contact Valens said…a gentle brush with the aether activated it…
<Ten minutes, stay where you are,> she thought across the device she didn’t really understand yet. <Things are going to get messy, but He’s on his way,>
<<<<>>>>
Valens
The co-pilot wasn’t talkative.
His name was Juosh, a Clan Captain for the Toush Uba that had ambushed them on Sinkhole. So rather than uncomfortable silence Valens waited in an escape pod.
His mind on the controls in the bridge he locked in the course according to Sofa’s plan to minimize the damage even after refusing a truce. Yoda’s strategy was predicated on Valens being the enemy general – a key reason Sofa had planned everything.
This was the last ditch attempt to end this without him having to get his hands dirty….
Yoda would be waiting…Valens was expected – Juosh’s companions were not.
<<<<>>>>
Goush
Goush leaned forward stroking his chin on the command platform of
Blood Remembers. Juosh had commed in eight hours ago with a lead on the Jedi Valens and Milaea,
[Targets found, Myrkr, en-route] – it was short for Juosh who was usually far more verbose, but on the hunt it was to be expected. Six hours later a further communique. [Target sighed, Anathema present, 15, request back up]
Again unusual for Juosh to be so cautious, but still 15 Anathema – or Jedi – he spat on the grated durasteel floor for just thinking the name – was a large force, caution was not inappropriate.
“14 minutes to real space translation” the thin faced dark skinned bridge-sister noted
“Good,” he replied settling back into his chair, “Ensure our transports are ready to launch as soon as we exit, I want the Anathema’s heads on the rack in three hours,” referring to the trophies of Anathema that sat upon a spike ring around the circular view port of the destroyer. Only 6 squared spikes had heads, the most recent 3 years old - before the day was out he would have fifteen more, and a 20 million credit pay day in the brig.
Yes today…today many Anathema would learn the name Toush-Uba and weep blood along their blades.
<<<<>>>>
Wrath of the Jedi
“Repeat,” Oma listened as the Sentinel relayed for a third time the situation they had found on the eastern edge.
“Confirmed, Oma out,”
That was it, 21 dead, Yshrrk critically injured, and Yoda had just refused Sofa’s offer of peace – Oma knew it was a stalling tactic – but a stall could benefit both sides.
Confident strides took her toward the command tent, she summoned Sentinels as she passed with flicks of her wrist.
Soryu noted her as he left the tent, but continued on his course, he could feel the tension, sense the intent of her heavy pace, but knew he was needed elsewhere.
She pushed through the prefab door into the dim room.
“Grand Master Yoda, High Sentinel Yshrrk it critically injured, six more Jedi are dead, there is no sign of the traitor, I am…”
“Here he is, sense him I can…ready your men to intercept…” he gestured to the holo’s of the three Strike group Commanders in Orbit,
She could only shake her head
“What proof do you have of this,”
“Sense his presence…”
Wrong answer she thought raising her voice and switching over to the command channel to ensure the entire force could hear
“Not good enough, as Acting High Sentinel with all the powers and responsibility that entails, I am hereby relieving you of Operational Command of this Mission, as evidenced by repeated failures to enact effective strategies leading to significant loss of life, Captain Tnbu, initiate bombardment pattern Cresh in five minutes, All commanders commence decanting, we will follow the fire in and put them down when they flee.”
He could barely move for the shock of it, of all the things he might’ve expected…Yoda didn’t expect that…to usurp his command, yes there had been losses, but it was unavoidable, to simply bombard them from orbit…..
“We will no longer wait for our enemy to make the first move while we are slowly bled white, reform into twelve man teams, Squads 1 and 3 reforms to Aurek, 4 and 2 Besh, 5 and 6 Cresh, speeder teams hold positon until the bombardment commences then co-ordinate with the Ardent to clog any fire breaks….Acting Grand Master…” she finally turned to him,
“I can arrange for you to be returned to the
Ardent, or you can take command of Cresh, your choice,”
His mouth twisted in thought as the shock died down, she was clever, very clever, taking command of the operation and offering two choices – flee or take a subordinate role – if he left it would be interpreted as pique, to take the command would condone Oma’s action.
He was about to answer when the alarm coming through Captain Tnbu on the
Ardent’s link interjected
<<<<>>>>
Tnbu was stunned, not so much but Oma’s action, but that it had taken Yshrrk being injured for the Sentinels to finally realize they were on a path to nowhere.
“Saber Squad,” he pressed the comm, “Confirm go bombing run pattern Cresh,”
“Confirm Cresh, Saber squad en-route,” the tight reply came back as the six Delta-2’s peeled off blue proton glow erupting being the diamond shaped fighters as they vectored to cut in through the atmosphere.
Tnbu had specially requested this command from Yshrrk, an opportunity to ‘get out of the office’, he had been quite the pilot - if he did say so himself - in the day, but moved to intelligence as his reflexes diminished with age. Yshrrk had welcomed his assistance, sensing his eagerness. Like Many Jedi Tnbu felt a connection to this chase, a need to see this through, he could not simply sit in the Temple filtering data when he could help pursue the murderers and traitors.
BWAAAH…BWAAHH….
“Sir, we have incoming three ships on…collision course” the Duro squealed. Tnbu felt his ears start to tingle as the force came alive with expectation, the Sullustan Captain immediately leapt across the deck to observe the holo,
“Captain?” Oma’s voice boomed across the bridge, “A problem?”
“Knight Unnnis hail them, time to collision?”
“Twelve minutes…they must’ve micro jumped from the systems insertion point…”
“Unidentified flotilla, this is the Ardent, please check your course heading immediately!”
“what’s the IFF,” Tnbu whispered to the tactical officer,
“The Frigate is ….Uba’s Edge…Ubese…”
Frell…Tnbu would’ve said had he been a less polite Sullustan.
<<<<>>>>
“No response, they’re still on a direct course speeding up to estimated maximum sub-light for ships that size, scans confirm no life signs on the ships”
Oma nodded, this must be what Sofa had threatened, her contingency, slam the ships into the
Ardent and the
Defender then have Valens slide in and pick them up while their orbital defences were in chaos.
Clever she smiled, but it had failed, she had stolen a march, the bombardment would commence any second now.
“Free to fire, send Crane Squad to disable them, but blast them with the main batteries if they get too close,” Valens was a good friend, but he was now on the wrong side, she had no qualms destroying him and his allies – indeed he would likely respect her choice.
A boom echoed overhead as Sabre squad sliced through the few clouds on their bombing run, all team had checked in ready – in less than an hour this would all be over, ‘Justice’ done and the battle won.
<<<<>>>>
“Target one…lining up…” blue tracers on the HUD ticked past, the distance tracer winding down to zero – the Knight hit the trigger.
“Charge deployed,”
The arc of the bomb was precise, there was little wind, so they had only compensated 5 degrees, it plummeted toward the dozen shades of green that made up the forest canopy pierced with the odd flare of red or blue – flowers that exploded microscopic fluffy seed pods into the upper atmosphere where it could remain for decades before settling back down.
Those seed pods were orphaned a second later. The orange blast obliterated a 100 metre circle of growth, vaporizing the closest trunks, flash immolating those at the edge. The hot shockwave boiled the water in leaves in an outer impact zone 50 metres from the yellow edge.
Six such explosions gently rocked the ground, the promethium charges were designed to burn not concuss so the shockwave was limited.
Old growth jungle, trees centuries old, ecosystems untouched by sentient hands for countless generations were immolated in seconds, a blazing fire front spreading outward. Whilst much of the forest floor was damp from recent rains and the slurry of organic decomposition, the sheer heat of the promethium fuelled blaze allowed the drier leaves and dying plants to catch, it didn’t take long for the heat to chain to the wetter of the foliage.
Oma smiled as she lead team Besh onto the blackened earth in the fires wake, spread out to scour the grey lifeless land for their targets corpses.
Half way between the command outpost and the centre of the exclusion zone, Soryu could only shake his head at what the Order had become.
In the outpost inhuman strength effortlessly pulled apart stun cuffs, sliding sidesteps and enhanced reflexes twisted an arm around the Nautolans neck before he could react, two fingers on the beating carotid artery put him under as Sofa stepped out.
They had assumed she was still human – they were wrong.
As sabre squad pivoted to ascend back to the
Ardent for the next payload, a Chiss freighter cut in through the ash clouds, on a vector calculated in less than five seconds by a Jedi Master who was wishing this had never been necessary as she raced through the trees to her stranded ‘sister’.
At the controls Maynard glided the ship as smoothly as he would a vibro-pick in a lock as Xandra hit the launch button sending the crate on directly to the location the Jedi had failed and feared to find since the siege began.
The Chiss ship went largely unnoticed on the
Ardent’s bridge as they watched Crane squad pepper the Ubese ships with white-blue ion shots that sparked against indifferent brown plating. The engines must’ve been disconnected from the bridge controls, hard set rather than programmed Tnbu determined as they kept coming forward, Crane squads fire ineffective, and their weapons not strong enough, he gave the order of the
Ardent’s main batteries to open fire.
Three ships resolved into real space just in time to see the green blasts tear the blocky brown
Uba’s Blade and its support ships to pieces with green lances of energy that competed in luminosity with the orange red ejection explosions of the escape pods.
Goush’s fingers gouged into the arms of his command chair as he watched the ships of his Toush-Uba clan mates annihilated by the Anathema’s ships, the vid-connect to
Uba’s Edge showed Juosh lying dead in his seat.
Goush roared orders across the bridge of the destroyer
Blood Remembers, demanding targeting solutions on the Anathema Corvette and the fighters to escort the transports to the surface to recover their clansmen in the escape pods.
Tnbu looked in horror as a Destroyer and two frigates, supported a dozen fighters and transports bore down on them, desperately trying to hail them, Goush allowed the vid-comm through only to look silently on the head of the Anathema that would soon decorate a spike on his bridge.
Sentinel Squad Aurek praised Oma’s prescience, they had just packed up when an escape pod slammed down into the former outpost, more fire added to the conflagration Sabre squad had begun, but began to worry as the command channel filled with anxious calls from Tnbu for the Star of Justice to micro jump from the night side of Myrkr in behind an Ubese ambush.
Worry turned to fear as a black silhouette stepped out from the escape pods yellow flames.
<<<<>>>>
Kiraea
Kiraea could only smile as the crate hammered into the ground, sinking into the mushy soil. Six plumes of smoke rose around her, the yellow glare of the fires proving a luminous substitute for the setting sun.
The crate was heavy durasteel, hot from the drop causing the red spray paint to streak, but the message was till legible –
‘Give ‘em hell Kiri’
<<<<>>>>
Jarys
Burnt air sucked moisture from his throat, skin burnt and cells boiled overheated from the fight edging toward dehydration coma.
On the edge of the conflagration he pushed what few scraps of energy he had to get to Kiraea…her mood elevated, hopeful, alive – he had come here to live, now he was about to die.
His legs finally gave, flopping him into the heat dried soil and cracked leaves of the jungle. Filtering out the cracking of wood as it roasted footsteps whispered closer. Pushing up on shaky arms for a final fight before the flames consumed him.
The brown robed figure stood a mere metre away…Jarys was gone if his enemy could sneak up so easily.
Instead of the snap-hiss of a sabre - a calming voice, cool hands lifting him up and pressing a bottle to his lips. He recognized the face as he scratched out the words.
“You betray your People…”
“They have betrayed themselves,” Soryu replied
<<<<>>>>
Yoda
A part of him was smug, let Oma take the fall for this he thought…but he knew it was all on him, he had lead them here, he had delayed waiting for Valens to arrive.
Be careful what you wish for.Team Cresh was formed behind him, circling around to where he sensed the familiar presence somewhere near team Aurek. They were moving at half march, cautious in the flame driven heat not to overextend themselves.
<<<<>>>>
Vengence of the Ubese
Sabre squad had barely cleared the Thermosphere when the Ubese fighters hit.
The
Ardent was trading blows with two blocky frigates, the Ubese destroyer picking off the
Defender. Overall the forces were evenly matched, three Jedi Consular class cruisers and eighteen fighters against two Kuati Firgates and a Rendili StarDrives Light Destroyer, a solid 400 metre vessel that required less crew than a true destroyer but retained much of the fire power.
Tnbu focused on his ships greater manoeuvrability, trying to get above and below the destroyer as Crane squad targeted the cannons and hard points. But for that he needed the
Star of Justice.
The
Ardent rocked as forward shields were slammed by three rapid turbo laser blasts,
“Sir
Defender reports assault transports breaking through, Sabre squad is ready to intercept.”
“Make it so, keep them off our ground forces…” another shake as the frigate to the left unleashed a pack of concussion missiles, short range cannons dealt with most, but not all. The port engines hull plating was pierced, engineering forced to shut it down for fear of a proton ejection.
<<<<>>>>
Goush smiled as his frigate picked apart the Anathema ship marked
Ardent, pounding on the
Defender with
Blood Remembers. It was angling beneath, between him and the planet hoping to cut off any more assault squads, his shields were on double low to counters its petulant fire.
They had less fighters than the Anathema, but once the capital ships were gone they would have nowhere to run.
<<<<>>>>
“Crane one scratch one,”
“Crane three need some back up over here!” desperate to shake the Star-Blazer off his tail Crane three swung between the Defender and the Destroyer, twisting and jinking between the turbo laser fire, the energy backlash scrambling his – and his tails – sensors.
“Crane five moving in,” hitting the afterburner she twisted down into the inter ship death valley, curving out of a turbo lasers path she lined up the Star-Blazer, feeling the thread of its movement in the force ignoring the targeting computer. Two short bursts of red chopped its engines then blew the body, metal slamming into the larger ships shields.
“woo thanks for the assist!” Crane one called as he pulled back up along the destroyer trying to get on top of it. A blast of displacement knocked his fighter off course as he came over the lip, the
Star of Justice had just resolved from a micro-jump above the destroyer, Crane three gripped his stick hard trying to correct but not before a plucky gunner on
Blood Remembers lined him up and took his first Anathema for the day – he might not get a trophy, but he had the satisfaction.
<<<<>>>>
“Where the frell did that come from!” Goush yelled as he found himself sandwiched between the two cruisers.
“errghh…focus on the turbo lasers, pull
Red Harvest back to support.” There were far more than 15 anathema it seemed, Goush began to suspect it wasn’t Juosh who sent that message.
<<<<>>>>
Sabre squad rode the buffeting burn of re-entry as they tried to pick off the six assault transports headed to the ground. The jittering threw off their targeting, and they had swapped missiles for the now used promethium bombs, still they managed to take out two before they hit the dense cloud of ash their bombing run had birthed. The smoke was dense and wet, stifling visuals, they flew by the force and radar.
There it is…Sabre six twisted through the dark clouds eyes closed...the luminous shapes of Ubese bodies compacted into a box that had no form in the force just ahead.
Little to the left…little to the right…FIRE.Six red bolts pierced the ash bloom, three knocked the rear shields, two smacked into the engines sending it into a death spiral.
“Sabre squad they’re launching another wave, let’s get them before they hit the smoke,” Tnbu ordered, the cloud of burnt organic matter was too dense to risk trying to offer air support – Oma would have to deal with the Ubese herself.
<<<<>>>>