The New Republic's First Fleet didn't know it, but the Battle of Coruscant had already begun.
And while Star Destroyers and cruisers, corvettes and frigates, gunships and small craft stood frozen, fleet against fleet, as if none of them dared to begin the battle first, one combat unit was already preparing to strike.
"Systems are green, missiles loaded," Alex said in a matter-of-fact tone as Tomax settled into the pilot's seat. "Engines are purring like well-fed rancors, and the afterburner chambers are shining like a vornskr's..."
"Spare me the details," Bren asked, connecting the life support system to the onboard equipment. After confirmation of stable system operation, he turned on the comlink. "Scimitar-Leader to OCC. Ready to execute the assigned task."
"OCC to Scimitar-Leader," the controller responded. "Copy that. You have clearance for launch. Targets transmitted. Chimaera has begun maneuvering. Angular velocity — three point nine, be careful. You have two minutes for the attack. Good hunting, Scimitar-Leader."
"Received," those relentless jokers in dispatch again. So many unnecessary words. "Alex, get ready, we're moving out."
"Always ready," the flight engineer replied. "What are we bombing this time?"
"A communications station on high orbit," the captain explained.
The Scimitar, emerging from the Chimaera's cargo hangar, indeed witnessed the flagship Star Destroyer performing a longitudinal roll, turning its belly towards the enemy fleet.
And not only the Chimaera was performing this trick, but all the Star Destroyers and heavy cruisers.
A typical Marg Sabl maneuver — turning the belly towards the enemy to protect the fighters hiding on the upper hemisphere side from enemy suppressive fire.
A tactical move as old as space travel itself.
But in Thrawn's hands, even such a simple action led to the enemy's destruction.
"Target locked," Alex said. "Distance — one hundred eighty-seven units. Course — three-four-four, vector clear. Enemy fighters near the target. SLAE is ready."
"Punch in three, two, one," the ship commander's hand rested on the acceleration lever and smoothly pushed the mechanical switch forward.
The accelerator, roaring silently, instantly shot towards its target.
Four seconds later, Tomax returned the lever to its original position, then veered the ship aside, avoiding fire from two enemy X-wings, who, startled by the Dominion ship appearing in direct line of sight, fired blindly.
But Captain Bren's fire was as precise as ever.
The Scimitar's laser cannons instantly turned one of the New Republic's T-65s into scrap, while the second chose to get out of the way, pulling into a turn to try and get on the tail of the unexpectedly nimble and aggressive opponent.
Pushing the sublight engine to maximum output, Tomax let the power plant carry the ship further from the collision point and closer to the target.
"Prepare to attack," Bren said, spotting the communications station ahead.
Located on high orbit above Coruscant, beyond both spheres of the galactic capital's planetary shield, it was comparable in size to some corvettes.
This station was designed for transmitting messages within the sector, as well as for the operational work of the sector relay, redirecting the signal to nearby equivalents in case the primary data transmission device in the Coruscant sector failed.
Only it had no protection.
Tomax fired the laser cannons, watching the white-green beams shear off several communication antennas.
"Missiles ready for launch," Alex reported.
"Launching," Tomax ordered, seeing the selected target was in the crosshairs of the rectangular targeting reticle.
The Scimitar's bomb bays opened, allowing the shaped-charge self-propelled projectiles to exit.
"Three enemies at eight o'clock," Alex's voice came through the helmet, sounding so matter-of-fact that...
Bren nearly let go of the joystick.
Orientation on a plane using the "clock face" of imaginary hours was specialized slang for many specialists. Including pilots. Judging by the fact that Alex used it, and used it correctly, the technician had clearly become proficient in their shared trade.
That was good.
His partner was finally ceasing to be dead weight.
"Copy that," Bren replied, noting that the indicated enemy fighters — slow and sluggish 'walls' would have to work hard to reach the Scimitar before they...
"Confirming fire damage to the communications station," Alex declared.
Though there was nothing to confirm: thirty-two shaped-charge missiles, meeting no resistance, blew the installation — which could have disrupted the information blockade of the Coruscant system — to pieces.
Now, all the Republic soldiers could console themselves with was being able to hold a dialogue with the planet while in orbit.
Nothing more.
They could have been deprived of even that, but it would require breaking through the planetary shields and destroying the low-power communications station in low orbit, which wouldn't be rational — it would take a fleet to do that.
"Scimitar-Leader to Chimaera OCC," Tomax said, turning the ship back on course and aiming the Scimitar at the flagship, which, like the rest of the fleet's Star Destroyers, continued showing its belly to the enemy. "Mission accomplished, communications station destroyed."
"Return to base, Scimitar-Leader, use the second upper echelon," the controller ordered. "The techs have already prepared the next combat load."
So, he should move above the upper formation of heavy cruisers. So, the fleet's attack sector would pass through the Star Destroyer echelon and two echelons of heavy cruisers.
Unremarkable logic, but sometimes that's exactly what saves lives.
"Copy that," the enemy fighters, belatedly reacting to the loss of the important target, moved towards Captain Bren's ship. "Returning."
Touching the SLAE lever, Tomax sent the Scimitar into a jump, leaving the furious Republic fighter pilots with nothing.
* * *
When Leia managed to squeeze into the central part of the war room, the first person she met was General Carlist Rieekan.
A fellow countryman who had commanded Echo Base on Hoth and was one of the most prominent commanders of the New Republic, he was a member of the New Republic Joint Command. This military unit was directly accountable to the Provisional Government and was responsible for shaping military strategy and developing plans, which were then broken down by...
The girl felt a lump rise in her throat.
The broadcast of Home One's destruction and the total devastation of the covering military base on Centax-2 was still before her eyes.
Whether Admiral Ackbar was on board, or whether what happened was another mystification by Grand Admiral Thrawn — whose artistry he had honed to the level of a virtuoso theatrical performance over the past few months — was not yet precisely known at this point.
But inside, Leia suspected that the demonstrative destruction of the base, and in such a ruthless way, after Thrawn's address had drawn millions of sentients on Coruscant and in space to their holoscreens to watch the unfolding battle, was precisely not a fake — and the Grand Admiral had somehow settled scores with the famed admiral.
The one who was supposed to destroy Thrawn himself...
Meanwhile, according to the tactical hologram, the New Republic's First Fleet had begun to move, deploying a massive airstrike against the Grand Admiral using fighter forces.
The fleets were not exchanging fire due to the large distance between them — twice the effective range of turbolasers. At that range, turbolasers, not to mention proton torpedoes and anti-ship missiles launched from starships, could not cause the slightest damage to Thrawn's destroyers.
Even if the turbolaser bolts didn't dissipate at that range and reached the target, they couldn't even scratch the hull.
Thousands of small ships of various types and military purposes, fighters and bombers, raced towards their target.
General Rieekan gave a sparse smile as Leia approached him.
"Princess," he nodded in greeting.
"General," her return nod went unseen by the named commander, who was intently studying the readings on a monitor.
Standing to the general's left, the princess experienced a momentary sense of déjà vu, realizing something similar had happened in their past.
The stronghold of democracy fighters under Imperial attack, Rieekan puzzled by the situation, and she, a young idealist struggling to understand the reason for such a dire position.
And she even remembered where it had happened.
Echo Base on the planet Hoth.
Six years had passed since then, and the situation was repeating itself...
Leia's Hoth flashbacks.
The girl looked at what was happening again — but this time at the data that had caught Rieekan's interest.
Coruscant's planetary shields were activated — both of them.
The capital's security force command had opened a corridor in sections of both layers of the capital's energy shield to allow ground-based squadrons from the second reinforcement wave to lift into orbit to join the bloody battle about to unfold between the two opposing sides.
Leia watched the fighters launched from ships and the first reinforcement wave moving slowly, allowing the second reinforcement wave to catch up with them...
"Well, that's it," Rieekan said. "Drayson has consolidated all our fighters into one fist."
"Drayson?" Leia expressed her confusion. When Bel Iblis had suggested that the director of Republic Intelligence would be put in charge of the defense, she hadn't expected it to be true.
There were other commanders, after all, like Rieekan himself...
"Ackbar is almost certainly dead, Admiral Nantz will soon arrive on Chandrila," Rieekan explained grimly. "So Drayson is in command. Experience..."
"Yes, experience commanding large forces," Leia had nothing against Drayson personally, but her rudimentary Force abilities were practically screaming a warning that by appointing Drayson as commander, Mon Mothma had made a major blunder.
Drayson was certainly competent enough...
And, unlike most of the New Republic's commanders — the likes of Han, Lando, Wedge — he had an academic education and extensive military experience, not just one thing from that very meager list.
But to stand against Grand Admiral Thrawn, mere competence wasn't enough. Ackbar was super-competent, and now, it seemed, he was dead.
Along with the exemplary officers of his flagship.
Leia wanted to protest that Bel Iblis was an excellent tactician, not on Ackbar's level, of course, but...
The princess remained silent.
Because there was no one in the New Republic more qualified than Admiral Ackbar.
And since he couldn't handle it, then...
"Were you able to contact the squadron covering Anaxis?" she asked. "Call someone else..."
Rieekan gave a sad smile.
"I think we won't get an answer from them until the Grand Admiral does what he came here to do."
Leia looked at her countryman uncomprehendingly.
"Thrawn's forces just destroyed the communications station in high orbit," Rieekan explained. "And its counterpart in low orbit can't punch through the interference that invariably occurs when the planetary shields are active. But worst of all — when the station was still active, we sent a message through the relay."
"And got no response from it?" A chill ran down her spine.
"Exactly," Rieekan nodded. "It looks like what happened with the relay in the Oplovis sector was a rehearsal for the assault on Coruscant."
"Do you think Thrawn intends to capture the planet?" the Alderaanian princess asked in horror.
"I don't think he has enough forces to capture the planet," Rieekan said. "Especially since he can't fail to understand — he's currently facing only a part of the First Fleet. Many ships are repelling attacks on other worlds, or holding their positions in the Core Worlds. As soon as word gets out that he's attacked the capital, forces will arrive that will grind him into interstellar dust, no matter what strategic talents he possesses. He cannot possibly break the planetary shield in that time."
"But he has the 'Torpedo Sphere'," Leia reminded.
"But it's not here right now," Rieekan countered reasonably. "Ensuring the security of such an object requires a lot of ships, since the Sphere itself, while a terrible weapon, is not absolute. The Empire in its time only used them as part of powerful fleet formations. So whatever Thrawn is planning, he won't be able to maintain control over Coruscant until our ships from other formations arrive."
"If they arrive," Leia thought grimly, recalling the Grand Admiral's specialty of dividing the enemy's forces to destroy them piecemeal.
And pointing that out now was pointless — if Thrawn had set a trap for those twelve squadrons sent to the attacked systems, there was absolutely nothing they could do about it now.
A scarlet flash flickered on the tactical hologram, then another.
"A waste of energy," Rieekan said with a hint of irritation. "Thrawn knows perfectly well what we have for self-defense — so his ships don't even think about approaching the orbit and our fleet. Drayson is just taking an unnecessary risk by opening segments of the planetary shield."
"But Thrawn's ships are too far away for bombardment, you said so yourself..."
"Yet somehow they managed to destroy our communications station outside the shield," Rieekan reminded. "A sabotage or some kind of deceptive maneuver — by opening the field segments, Drayson is just making us act too rashly."
"We need to find another supreme commander," Leia said quietly. "Before Drayson gives Thrawn a chance to bombard the surface."
"Or, worse — the ion cannons, due to their high power, could hit the orbital defense stations," Rieekan noted.
"Or our own ships," Leia added quietly.
"The worst part is something else," the Alderaanian stated. "Drayson clearly intends to attack Thrawn with fighter forces. That's our trump card — strikes with light forces. He most likely intends to damage the enemy's starships this way before the fleet arrives. Drayson is simply afraid that Thrawn has more firepower on his line ships, so he wants to negate that difference in advance. But with this approach, he's effectively stripped the entire fleet's ships of their escort. Yes, it's a standard tactic, and we have more small craft, but templated moves against a Grand Admiral... Look," Karrlist pointed at the holographic projection of the Dominion ships' position. "Thrawn didn't position the destroyers using the Marg Sabl maneuver for nothing. Now our fighters will engage his ships in battle, and he'll hit them with his own small craft in a pincer movement. Even outnumbered, the Imperials could destroy thousands of machines and pilots!"
She was liking what was happening less and less by the second.
Drayson might be an excellent fleet commander, but in matters of planetary defense, Rieekan was far more experienced. His judgments were logical, consistent, reasonable, finally.
If she could find Mon Mothma and convince her to entrust command to Rieekan...
The girl momentarily spotted a lone figure in the crowd of sentients who had moved to the balcony encircling the command center floor as an additional level.
Bel Iblis. She had just been talking to him!
And she hadn't even thought that the man who had fought the Empire for so many years without relying on Alliance resources, and who had even caused a ruckus at the Ubiqtorate base, could be far more useful for the common cause being here, among the commanders, than there, on the sidelines.
"We need to convince Mon Mothma to transfer command of our forces to Bel Iblis," Leia declared, listening to the Force.
And it had no objections.
Yes, maybe in a direct confrontation Thrawn had beaten Iblis, but then the latter had fewer ships.
Now — he had the core of the First Fleet!
And before the fighters got to a dangerous range, she had to get through to Mon Mothma and call off this suicidal attack!
"General Iblis, I..." the princess began.
"Do you have your comlink on you?" he cut her off sharply.
"Yes," Leia, thrown off balance, didn't understand what exactly he wanted, but she already had the communication device in her hands.
"Drayson won't be able to damage Thrawn the way he intends to," the former senator seemed to realize even that. "He deliberately turned his destroyers and cruisers belly-down toward us. He knew Drayson would do exactly what he's doing now! Hutt, he outright provoked Drayson into this move, showing him the unprotected belly of his destroyers! Judging by the fact that only cargo hatch doors are open on the ships, Thrawn is clearly up to something. Most likely, he delivered even more squadrons in those cargo holds — they'll be the first wave. And then, he'll open the armored hangar doors on the destroyers and the main air forces will join the battle. We need to recall the fighters immediately! While they're still in range of the lower orbital communication station!"
"General Rieekan thinks Thrawn intends to execute the Marg Sab maneuver," the princess recalled, simultaneously trying to call the commander. But not only was he somewhere on an extremely isolated part of the floor, he'd also left a clueless adjutant to answer calls.
"Too simple," Garm shook his head. "The first strike — yes, maybe. But then, I think, he'll launch a counterattack with corvettes and gunboats, scatter our fighters and kill almost all of them, while Drayson catches on and reaches the Dominion fleet with his own fleet. Well, what's the answer?"
"Put on hold," Leia lamented, encountering voicemail again. "Wait. What do you mean 'by being in communication range'?"
The Corellian, without much ceremony, grabbed a datapad from one of the civilians nearest him and sketched out everything on the tactical hologram.
"First, he cut off our communications outside the sector by doing something to the relay," Bel Iblis explained. "As soon as his ships began the maneuver to lure out our fighters, the high orbit communication station goes offline. Effectively, we only have the lower one left to communicate with the outside world. But because of the planetary shields, not only are the scanners and monitoring system sensors failing, but the communication equipment is too! For a single shield, that's seventy units, if I remember correctly, but with two — confidently cut that in half. And that's without factoring in the power of Coruscant's planetary shields — the stronger they are, the more powerful the interference."
"But Drayson can't not know that," Leia frowned.
"If he's never defended planets with planetary shields, he wouldn't even suspect it," Bel Iblis shook his head. "They don't teach this at the Academies — these are scientific papers from back in the Clone Wars. They ran into it during the final stage of the war, when General Grievous attacked Coruscant. The comm station slaughter was no less brutal than the rescue of Palpatine from the Invisible Hand. I've spoken with direct participants of that battle..."
"The farther our ships get from Coruscant, the worse we'll be able to control them," Leia's eyes widened. "The capital's shields are the most powerful in the galaxy. Right now, half of all power stations are running on the defensive structures!"
She looked at the tactical hologram. The current distance between the trailing ships of the First Fleet and Coruscant's orbit was...
"The Force," she rasped. "Twenty-seven units..."
And the fighters were already approaching the hundred-unit mark... A round number that doomed the pilots to failure.
"A little more and we'll lose them," Bel Iblis said in a trembling voice. "Leia, we have to do something!"
And Admiral Drayson's comlink could still only 'offer' the voice of an answering machine...
"Too late," Bel Iblis said quietly, pointing at the rapidly fading markers of the New Republic's fighters.
Leia, eyes wide, watched the points marking the fighters of Coruscant's defenders disappear quickly.
"What is that?" was all Leia could say. "How...?"
How could Thrawn destroy nearly a hundred and fifty fighters in one blow?
Especially when his ships were still belly-up to the advancing force.
"I don't know, Leia," Bel Iblis shook his head. "I don't know... But I don't like this!"
* * *
Captain Pellaeon stood before the tactical hologram of the Chimaera, silently and admiringly watching the enormous mass of enemy fighters begin to thin out.
First in the center — in the Chimaera's projection — then across the entire attack front in the forward lines of the enemy's air forces, advancing in a broad front, 'voids' began to form, indicating massive losses in equipment and pilots of the New Republic.
The enemy fighters, of course, weren't moving plane-to-plane, but the scaling still made allowances for the visual component.
As far as he could tell, the battle was developing satisfactorily. One could even say well.
Hutt take it, everything was unfolding perfectly! In just one minute, up to a third of the enemy's fighters were destroyed, and the losses only increased as the New Republic's pilots tried to avoid death from an unknown weapon that struck from the depths of space with its deadly shrapnel.
"So, we have denied the enemy the ability to strike our ships with small craft," Thrawn's voice rang out as he stopped silently beside him.
Pellaeon forced his gaze away from the tactical display.
"Thirty-seven percent of the enemy's air force destroyed," he announced, relaying the latest data from the flagship Star Destroyer's computer.
"Surprise effect, panic, kinetic damage from debris," Thrawn listed the reasons for such a clear success.
"But to destroy over one and a half thousand enemy fighters in one go..." Pellaeon shook his head. "Few have managed that. We're already at forty-five percent losses..."
The light on the bridge, already dim enough, was dimmed even further in accordance with battle alert protocols.
"Possibly," Thrawn pointed to another large 'gap' in the enemy formation. "A large object detonated."
"Yes, one of the big ones," Pellaeon agreed. "About thirty meters in diameter, I'd say... This is an effective tactic, sir."
"Without a doubt," Thrawn confirmed, not taking his eyes off the tactical hologram. "Effective, but expensive."
Gilad winced involuntarily.
Billions had been spent over the last few months on producing the cloaking devices.
It had started with millions, but the more money that fell into the Grand Admiral's hands, the more actively the hybidium was mined on Garos IV. With each passing month, plasma drills from Nkllon were punching holes in the space rocks in orbit around Tangrene.
The first component of this large-scale project were the asteroids collected in the Dafillevean sector during the attack on the New Republic base on the planet Ord-Pardnon. Then, in the holds of Star Destroyers, they were delivered to Tangrene's orbit after the system came under the command of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
And the endless work on creating objects camouflaged with hybidium for Project Asteroid-I began.
Hollow, stripped of all their rocky contents and modest metal deposits, they first served as a test range for the long-term operation of the cloaking screens, functioning as prisons for high-value prisoners like smugglers Mirax Terrik Horn and her father, Booster Terrik.
Then, when it became necessary to secure Tangrene after the mission to Vjun, the rocks from Project Asteroid-I became an invisible minefield across the system entry vectors.
And they proved their effectiveness in system defense when the Star Destroyers of the Ubiqtorate tried to take the Void Wanderer and capture its crew.
But those were just field tests of system barricading aimed at capturing damaged, not destroyed, ships.
Tests deemed successful.
And now, rocks of all sizes were being delivered to Tangrene, where they were fitted with cloaking field generators to continue serving as an invisible picket-barrier, guarding the secrets of the Grand Admiral.
Back then, seeing the success of Asteroid-I (at the time it was called simply 'Asteroid'), fleet officers already dreamed in their sleep of how the invisible weapon would become the key to victory and be used practically everywhere possible.
But even then, full-steam development was underway on Asteroid-II, which, at the moment, would surely supersede its predecessor — as soon as it completed all the tasks assigned to it by command during the Coruscant campaign.
Truth be told, no one could really understand why the Grand Admiral had sent thirty-six asteroids to the Yaga Minor shipyard. Officially — to speed up work on the project.
The engineers on Yaga Minor did exactly what was required — they laid electrical cables, having first hollowed out the asteroids' interiors. They installed the foundations for 'deflector field generators'... Essentially, they did the kind of work even clumsy civilian specialists could have done...
But Thrawn insisted it all be done on Yaga Minor.
Well, the result spoke for itself — while the lazy workers at the Pentastar Alignment's main shipyard sluggishly and carelessly worked on the thirty-six asteroids, on Tangrene they managed not just to prepare, but to fully equip several hundred asteroids with generators, which were now being delivered from the asteroid belt of the Lok system.
Yes, they were also brought from other Dominion systems, but the space rocks from the Karthakk system were best to transport. Not only did they have a solid, strong structure, but they themselves contained vast amounts of metal.
So, by scraping out the contents of asteroids with plasma 'diggers', the shipyard workers weren't just working on Project Asteroid-II; they were also supplying the Tangrene shipyards with necessary minerals, thereby allowing them to function with great efficiency.
Miracles of logistics — one convoy from Karthakk didn't just deliver space boulders to Tangrene for one project, but also resources for others... The volumes were, of course, a bit small, but... better than running starships just for some rocks.
And so, Project Asteroid-II was finally undergoing combat testing.
Honestly, each rock from the second project was more expensive than an equivalent boulder from the first, because of the sensor grid with which the asteroids were literally wrapped.
Yes, no one understood it back then... Why spend millions on these rocks, why make them so technologically advanced.
No one even independently understood the reason for drilling huge caves inside them.
And Thrawn was in no hurry to explain.
And now, everything fell into place.
Both the industrial-scale mining of rhydonium on the planet Abafar in the Sprizen sector, which Commodore Shohashi was currently in the process of conquering.
And the drilling of 'boreholes' and 'caves' inside the asteroids.
And the placement of sensor grids on the surface of the boulders...
Everything fell into place.
Only now, many months later, did Captain Pellaeon and other fleet officers begin to grasp the scale of the Grand Admiral's strategy.
Apparently, he had been planning the assault on Coruscant for a very long time.
And he clearly understood that even with an overwhelming number of TIE Interceptors in the regular fleet's air arm, even with excellent training and abundant practice, Imperial pilots, even clones of the best of the best Imperial aces, would have a hard time fighting against a fleet defending Coruscant.
The qualitative superiority of the enemy's equipment, embodied in the presence of deflector shields, allowed the Republic forces to fight much more aggressively, even when outnumbered.
And now... the huge number of fighters and bombers the Republic had thrown at Thrawn's fleet was simply flying apart, crashing into the camouflaged asteroids ejected from the fleet's cargo hangars and holds.
Ranging in size from fighters to assault gunboats, the small camouflaged asteroids were interspersed with truly enormous giants, which the Star Destroyers had carried in their hangars instead of corvettes.
After dropping the camouflaged rocks before the reformation according to the Marg Sab maneuver, and sealing the hangar armor doors, the destroyer crews — specifically the tractor beam operators — used modified installations to launch the Project Asteroid-II objects into the enemy's small craft armada.
An old saying came to Pellaeon's mind: "In space, there is no better anti-fighter defense than bolts thrown towards the enemy's small craft with acceleration."
And now, accelerated by tractor beams, the camouflaged rocks — packed to the 'stopper' with rhydonium — crashed into the small craft battle formations of the New Republic.
Seeing no threat to themselves, the fighters and bombers — so impenetrable to laser cannons due to their deflectors — rammed the camouflaged asteroids. The sensor grids, acting as contact detonators, detonated all the rhydonium inside the asteroids...
Detonation, shock wave, and thousands of fragments instantly accelerated to move in straight lines at enormous speeds in every possible direction — those were the very 'bolts' that literally annihilated the New Republic's small craft.
"Ten large asteroids from the first wave have detonated," Pellaeon stated, watching as another explosion on the tactical monitor erased another hundred fighters from existence.
No, Thrawn really knew how to play on psychology.
The New Republic had spread its fleet in a wide fan, as if surrounding the Grand Admiral's ships, which held a compact formation.
And this led to the fighters and bombers of the First Fleet having to not fly straight, but adjust their course so that even the small craft from the flanking Star Cruisers of the New Republic had to converge towards the center.
And the detonations of the camouflaged asteroids were reaping their bloody harvest by the hundreds, with each explosion of a large asteroid.
"And in the ongoing bacchanalia of large asteroid explosions, the enemy doesn't even notice that a significant part of their air force destruction is caused by the small asteroids," Thrawn tapped his finger on the corner of the display, which showed New Republic small craft loss data. At the moment — already sixty-four percent of the fighters and bombers that had attacked the Dominion fleet were destroyed by 'asteroid shrapnel'. "Captain, remind the commanders of our small ships not to poke their heads out from behind the ships' hulls until the armor of the Star Destroyers and heavy cruisers has absorbed the impacts of asteroid fragments."
'Marg Sab, huh?' Pellaeon mentally chuckled, understanding exactly what the enemy expected from this turning of bellies toward them.
A Dominion small craft pincer attack.
Actually, it was much simpler.
Behind the hulls of the Star Destroyers and heavy cruisers — which, after launching the first-wave asteroids, sealed their cargo holds, having released everything necessary from them — lurked interceptor fighters, bombers, cruisers, and other ships joining the battle.
In neat columns, one after another, like a line-ahead formation, the starships allowed the Star Destroyers to turn their insignificant bellies into shields against their own 'asteroid shrapnel'.
And how the engineers had complained that it required a huge number of calculations to detonate each large asteroid so that its fragments wouldn't be dangerous to the hulls of the large ships.
That's why the destroyers were now sticking out, presenting their lower decks to the enemy, while the stone 'bullets' struck the strongest armor. Unable to penetrate it or damage anything important.
There wasn't even any need to worry about the solar ionization reactor — its armor was thicker from the 'factory' than the hull of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer or a heavy cruiser.
But if the ships hadn't executed the Marg Sab maneuver, the shrapnel would have swept through the upper compartments, destroying everything in its path.
"They are fleeing, Captain," Thrawn remarked, pointing out that the twenty-three percent of the enemy's air force that had survived had turned back. "Launch the twenty-six large asteroids of the second wave and the remaining small asteroids into sectors two and eleven."
"Aye, sir!" Pellaeon responded.
And only after he answered did it dawn on him that Thrawn had ordered the last camouflaged asteroids on the Imperial-class, Victory-class, and dreadnoughts to be sent conditionally 'to the right' and 'to the left' relative to the current position of the enemy battleships.
The Chimaera's commander looked at his commander-in-chief, but he didn't even bat an eye.
So it wasn't a slip of the tongue. Which meant...
"Order to the Venators and Strike-class," Thrawn continued. "Launch the third-wave asteroids. Target — the central part of the enemy formation. Wide fan."
Pellaeon thought he clearly didn't understand something.
The third-wave asteroids were completely simple pieces of rock, without any cloaking devices. They had no rhydonium, no sensor grids...
Thrawn had even made them take them on at the very last moment before departing from the Dominion.
But he had chosen them from the large 'selection' only for their great durability and structural strength. The shipyard workers had actually rejected them because internal detonation would produce too large fragments.
And drilling them took too long...
"Sir," Pellaeon couldn't help it. "But then the enemy will see them well in advance..."
You didn't need to be a genius at planning — you just had to remember that the range of active sensors on modern ships was almost four times greater than the range of a turbolaser. That is — almost two hundred units!
This was absurd!
The direct distance between Thrawn's fleet and the New Republic's First Fleet was now just over a hundred!
"Of course they'll notice, Captain," Thrawn confirmed. "That's the plan. I want the enemy fleet to concentrate its fire on these asteroids as they move toward their target.
'And I thought we were going to use them to knock out the Golans,' an irritated thought visited the Chimaera's commander. What a superior weapon — kinetic projectiles almost impervious to turbolaser fire, which could damage orbital defense structures without even approaching the stations and putting the Dominion fleet's ships at unnecessary risk!
Or was the Grand Admiral planning to use the fifth-wave asteroids for that?
Or had he finally decided to demonstrate the rate of fire of the Dragon, which was holding at the tail of the formation?
But arguing with Thrawn was useless.
He just had to accept that there was a plan the Grand Admiral hadn't seen fit to tell him about.
Glancing at the watch officer's report, Gilad announced:
"Reports from the lower decks indicate that the 'shrapnel' has not caused significant damage to the ships. At most, a few sensors are out or destroyed. Maintenance will be carried out immediately."
"Good," Thrawn said in a calm tone.
For a while he studied the tactical monitor, then asked:
"Any news from Trogan, Captain?"
Gilad coughed into his fist.
No, he had long been accustomed to the Grand Admiral's manner of asking such questions, unrelated to the current situation, but... Doing it during the assault on Coruscant?!
How did Thrawn even prioritize?
"Problems, Captain?" Thrawn tore his gaze from the tactical monitor.
"None, sir," Gilad buried his nose in his personal datapad, frantically searching for the necessary files.
Found them.
"Lt. — the garrison commander on Trogan — reports that external surveillance has spotted Karrde at a place called 'the Cup.' It's some kind of cantina popular with smugglers..."
"Is he alone?" Judging by how the Grand Admiral perked up, events on Trogan were clearly of more interest to him than the battle near the capital planet, for possession of which any galactic government was ready to send millions of soldiers to their deaths, and rulers would cut each other's throats with dull pieces of plastic.
"Not long ago, someone arrived who, from the description, closely resembles Lando Calrissian," Pellaeon said, frowning.
A sardonic smile played on the Grand Admiral's lips.
It made him feel a little uneasy for some reason...
"Excellent," said the Grand Admiral. "Obviously, Calrissian has finally found Karrde and is currently persuading him to help the New Republic destroy me.
Did they have anything else to do in the current situation?
Thrawn was silent for a few seconds, then said:
"Order the garrison commander to attack 'the Cup'."
"Eliminate Calrissian and Karrde?" Gilad clarified the order, knowing the Grand Admiral's habit of implying a double meaning in his commands.
"Under no circumstances," Thrawn clasped his hands behind his back, squaring his shoulders.
Even in the dim battle lighting, the shoulder boards perpendicularly crossing his snow-white tunic above his clavicles.
"The New Republic wishes to fill its information void following the cutting off of their illegal intelligence network," Thrawn explained. "Karrde can fill in their gaps...
That's why both Calrissian and Karrde should be destroyed!"
"And for that reason," Thrawn's crimson eyes flashed with hellfire, "we must do everything so that Karrde agrees as soon as possible to help the New Republic and shares what he knows about my plans. Are we finished with the asteroid launches, Captain?"
"Yes, sir," Pellaeon said blankly, still racking his brain over the Grand Admiral's last orders and straining his mind in a futile attempt to understand the meaning of the command.
Attack someone who could betray your plans to the enemy, but not kill him, and instead make sure he rushes to your implacable enemies with them as fast as possible?!
What was the point of that?!
"Fleet — turn bow to the enemy," Thrawn ordered.
The Chimaera's commander mechanically relayed the order to the communications officer...
Gilad had never complained about his intellect.
Hutt, sometimes he had even managed to calculate the Grand Admiral's tactical and strategic plans.
But now...
Now the Chimaera's commander felt like a representative of the Gamorrean race...
Hopelessly stupid.
"Order to the commander of the Eternal Wrath," Thrawn ordered. "Begin jamming operations. We are entering battle, and the enemy has no reason yet to exchange information about their suspicions and guesses regarding what destroyed their fighters. But first — let's watch as the ships of the New Republic's First Fleet die without even making combat contact with us.
Honestly, Gilad tried to tie everything that was said together in his head.
But he couldn't.
As regrettable as it was to admit this fact — he would have to hang his uniform on the wall, wrap himself in furs, grow fangs, and learn to squeal.
Because he was definitely starting to feel like a Gamorrean.
Better not turn green before his time...
* * *
If there's one thing you can't take away from the Mon Calamari — they know how to build ships.
And even if the MC80s weren't particularly well-suited for members of other species, the MC90s were a different matter entirely.
True, the shipbuilders from Dac, though they created this type of star cruiser taking into account feedback from operational experience, still hadn't fixed the biggest drawback — the low backrests on the chairs on their ships' bridges.
Han, settled into the command chair on the bridge of the Mon Remonda, watched with wide eyes what was happening in orbit around Coruscant.
General Han Solo on the bridge of the MC90 cruiser Mon Remonda.
The Mon Remonda had been his flagship during the campaign against Warlord Zsinj, and had performed excellently, even withstanding the fire of the nineteen-kilometer Iron Fist. Not without damage, of course, but still...
And now, after all this time, he was here again, once more engaging an Imperial warlord in battle.
And no matter how much Grand Admiral Thrawn might act "fairly" or look after his wife, no matter how dissatisfied Han might be with the New Republic's actions, the fact remained.
Right now, he wasn't just defending a world, not just a planet — he was fighting for Leia, for his children, for Chewbacca, who were all on the planet.
Even for that blasted Goldenrod C-3PO, who could drive anyone crazy with his speeches!
"Still jamming communications?" Han asked, turning over his left shoulder to the officer sitting at the comms console.
The man pursed his lips and shook his head negatively.
"Keep cycling through the frequencies," Han ordered. "Imperial jamming systems always have a loophole."
The fact that you don't always find that loophole until your ship has been blown to atoms — Han chose not to mention that.
The Mon Remonda had an excellent crew of specialists; they didn't need basic concepts explained to them.
It was either them — or their enemy.
"Fighters are retreating," reported the ship's commander — a traditionally big-headed Mon Calamari standing behind Han at the tactical display. "Significant losses..."
Solo closed his eyes, taking a few breaths to avoid cursing profanely in Huttese. He probably wouldn't have the right accent, but what difference did it make to the Sith?
Drayson had screwed up!
Both Han and Wedge, and a couple of other admirals gathered in orbit around Coruscant, had warned him.
But Drayson stubbornly insisted — send the fighters into battle.
Well, fine, they sent them, and now what? Of nearly five thousand fighters, barely a fifth remained!
And how they died — it wasn't even clear!
The lack of comms only made the whole situation worse.
Not to mention that at this moment, none of the admirals whose formations had come to defend the New Republic's capital dared to take the initiative, to lead the First Fleet at that crucial moment when contact with the Joint Command hadn't been restored.
On one hand, you could understand them all — without communications, you can't do much fighting. Even now, after Han had taken steps to fix the situation by assigning some strike frigates as relay stations for messages transmitted via laser beams from one flagship to another, the admirals still couldn't formulate a common strategy.
On the other hand, this indecisiveness, which had appeared after the Home One had publicly entered the base on Centax-II at cruiser speed, was starting to get annoying.
Han and Wedge, keeping their task forces close to each other, were silently seething, knowing this couldn't go on.
Because unlike them, Thrawn was acting!
It wasn't clear how, by what means, with absolutely no idea what he was trying to achieve, but this Imperial had already deprived them not only of most of the squadrons drawn from Coruscant, but also of the lion's share of their own formations' fighter wings!
In fact, all that remained was what could fit on board a third of the total number of available star cruisers.
Meaning, out of a hundred MC80s and MC90s, only thirty of the former could boast of having a fighter wing!
How was that even possible?! Did Thrawn have some giant Verpine shotgun firing homing projectiles, that he could destroy almost their entire air arm in such a short time?
If so, why isn't it showing up on the scanners?!
"Message from General Antilles, sir," the comms officer reported.
"What does he want?" Han grumbled discontentedly.
His Corellian blood was starting to boil from having to just sit there stupidly and wait for someone to muster the courage to take command. Han would have loved to be the first to rush in, but he doubted he'd get support. And then total chaos would break out in the fleet — and when Thrawn attacked (he couldn't just drift in place, waiting for the First Fleet to leisurely fly up to him, could he?), the panic and confusion would cause far more damage.
"General Antilles suggests pulling the ships of his task force from the front line to the flank and trying to strike from the direction of Centax-II."
That is, from where Thrawn's flanks are covered only by Strike-class medium cruisers... Well, what could he say, not a bad idea, why not, the distance had practically closed to firing range...
The fighters had finally returned under the protection of the capital ships, constantly diving into the hangars. Many of them were barely holding together, leaving thick, smoky trails from damaged engines...
"Asteroids!" squealed a young Nautolan responsible for the scanning systems like a butchered Gamorrean.
"Kid," Han looked at him. "You should get checked out by a medic, huh? Where in the Coruscant system, near the planet itself, would aster..."
He didn't finish, catching a glimpse of the First Fleet ships opening fire with their turbolasers.
"What's this all about?" Han leaned forward, squinting to make out the target the Republic pilots were practicing on. "Are you kidding me?! Evasive maneuver!"
Looking at his subordinate again, Han smiled apologetically:
"I confess, I was wrong."
"Yes, sir," the Nautolan blinked his black eyes. "So, what do we do?"
"I wish I knew," Han muttered, watching as several dozen huge boulders, tumbling through the vacuum, pockmarked by turbolaser fire, against all logic and common sense, didn't even think of breaking apart.
No, they were crumbling, but so slowly, as if made of some super-strong rock and...
"Oh no, Grand Admiral, we're not that stupid," Han shook his head. "Comms officer!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Order to all ships you can reach — we're moving to the right flank, we'll hit Thrawn from the left! Don't stop firing on the asteroids!"
"If this guy thinks he can just attack us with space rocks, hoping we'll expose ourselves..."
Han didn't finish again.
Because before his eyes, an astonishingly solid asteroid slammed at full speed into the bow of one of the MC80s that hadn't managed to get out of its way.
The ship exploded into myriad fragments, torn apart in a huge white-orange flash marking the detonation of its reactors.
The debris scythed through the surrounding ships like shrapnel, causing two strike frigates, which had tried to dodge another rock, to collide with yet another cruiser.
"No," Han whispered, as his flagship, along with a significant part of the fleet, dashed to the right, intending to attack Thrawn's left flank. "It can't all end like this..."
Apparently, due to their dense structure, the asteroids had managed to remain undetected by scanners for a long time, and now, as they overtook the First Fleet ships moving at anything but slow speeds, the latter didn't even have a chance to escape with just a scare.
Nevertheless, having suffered tangible losses — half a dozen cruisers and several dozen ships of frigate class and smaller — the First Fleet of the New Republic still dispersed, letting the stream of asteroids pass through the center of its former formation.
With each moment, this corridor widened, the number of damaged and destroyed ships increased, but the majority of the fleet remained intact.
Yes, it was a shame about the guys on the corvettes and gunboats, which the space boulders swept aside as if they hadn't even noticed, continuing their movement along almost the same trajectories.
A shame about the guys on the frigates, which the boulders destroyed on impact as if they were made of flimsi. Doubly unpleasant that after such impacts, the asteroids would change course, pursuing other ships, increasing the tally of damaged and destroyed...
Immeasurably a shame for the crews of the star cruisers, which the asteroids crippled and tore apart, turning them into local supernovae.
But seventy cruisers and over three starships of other classes still avoided the strike, destroying some of the rocks, the total number of which exceeded a hundred.
Yes, a significant number of them had broken through the formation and now threatened the orbital defense stations of the Golan type, which as yet knew nothing of the impending threat — but a few corvettes were already pushing their engines, racing to reach orbit and report this unprecedented danger...
For some reason, he recalled the hunt for the Iron Fist and how easily Zsinj, by shooting asteroids, would destroy New Republic fighters, using these "projectiles" to strike large ships.
It took some time to clear the center of the formation, break the single front into two flanking groups, and establish some kind of order...
But now the threat had passed, so... hold on, Thrawn...
"Restore the laser communication network," Han ordered. "I want to know the status of the part of the fleet that moved to Thrawn's right flank, not to mention the starships that are here..."
And the next second, he saw with his own eyes something punch through the bridge of the nearest Corellian corvette, and the starship exploded from within.
"What the...?" Han jumped up from his seat and rushed to the viewport.
And witnessed the slaughter firsthand.
The New Republic starships, which had spread out to the flanks relative to Thrawn's fleet — which had stopped showing its belly — were exploding.
With the naked eye, you could see their bows, hulls, sides being pierced by something invisible, and then the ships would detonate, turning into huge, deformed masses of metal.
For a moment, it seemed to him that an MC90, a dozen units away from his own starship, had run into a huge boulder that flashed for only a fraction of a second, but in that same second, the starship was torn to pieces, and its wreckage and huge chunks of rock began mercilessly tearing apart the remaining starships.
Helpless, like children, the First Fleet ships tried to return fire, to maneuver, but the invisible punishment overtook them...
"Emergency!" he barked, seeing what Wedge's flagship was doing. "We're moving to the upper echelon! It's an ambush!"
The Mon Remonda, along with dozens of other ships, following the flagship of the youngest general of the New Republic Defense Forces, fled the dangerous area where they had tried to escape the visible threat.
And fell into an invisible trap.
Dozens of starships fled in panic, hundreds escaped a terrible fate...
By the time the stream of invisible asteroids ran dry, only forty-seven battered star cruisers, fifty strike and escort frigates, and forty corvettes remained of the First Fleet of the New Republic...
The bulk of the First Fleet of the New Republic had been struck down by yet another insidious weapon of Grand Admiral Thrawn.
And before Han could catch his breath, several anti-ship missiles slammed into the side of the Mon Remonda, shaking the star cruiser to its foundations, reminding the New Republic military personnel of one simple truth.
The Grand Admiral was advancing.
And there was nowhere to run.
Ahead — only the battle.
And death.