Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 38 - Flanking Maneuver (Part 38)

The Enterprise fleet... forty-three warships... wait, before the Battle of Camino, shouldn't the Enterprise's main fleet have fifty-seven warships?
"Sir," Carrock turned to General Tann, his voice seeking confirmation, "how many ships did the Enterprise fleet lose in the Battle of Kamino?"

"Eight ships."

Tann had an expression of complete understanding on his face, which convinced him that he had found the right direction.

“That means six warships…are missing…” Karok muttered to himself, his mind racing. “Robots! Confirm the Enterprise Alliance fleet that entered Hopavui. What is their flagship identification signal?”

The robot quickly checked the console: "Star Destroyer, Recusant-class light destroyer, Star Destroyer 'Vanguard Flare'."

Commander Melley's flagship should have been the Enterprise Alliance fleet's dreadnought "Prosperity"!
“That’s it.” Tann’s smile deepened. “So, Captain Karrock, based on the current intelligence and battlefield situation, what is the last critical asset you’ve overlooked?”

Karlok fell silent, carefully piecing together all the fragments he knew.

He examined tactical holograms, dynamic maps of gravitational fields, and deep-space scan records from navigation computers—any data stream that could evoke his memories or inspire him.

He even used the Force again to sense the airspace where the battle was taking place, trying to discover something that had been overlooked.

"Have I ever told you where I come from?"

Tann's voice rang out calmly, yet it felt like a cold needle piercing his spine.

“No, sir.” Karok raised his head, temporarily putting aside his thoughts.

“I come from an unknown region of the galaxy.” Tann’s voice carried a strange, almost nostalgic tone. “We call it the Chaos Realm. In the Chaos Realm, standard navigation computers and star charts are extremely unreliable because there are no fixed and stable hyperspace routes to anchor ourselves in the dark depths of space. Instead, we rely on navigators, who are born with the ability to sense Force tides and spatial folds, the so-called ‘Skywalkers,’ to predict safe jump paths… I was once one of them.”

Karl held his breath and remained absolutely silent.

Tann's voice contained a distant and heavy power, and he dared not interrupt rashly.

"We sail our fragile ships, bravely venturing into star systems that others dare not set foot in, or even imagine." Her voice grew firm, filled with pride as she said, "We traverse the most treacherous and unpredictable interstellar clouds and gravitational vortices in the Milky Way, and even... beyond the spiral arm boundaries of the Milky Way, exploring that boundless dark void."

At that very moment, the sensor readings on the Carrock tactical control console suddenly jumped and spiked violently!
The piercing alarm shattered the silence of the bridge!
The warning lights flashed wildly, turning the entire command platform a crimson red.

An unusual Kronau energy spike has been detected!
Source: The airspace directly above the Gorm planetary rings!
A small but extremely elite fleet, like ghosts, leaped directly out of hyperspace and appeared precisely in the airspace directly above the Republic-Bosa Joint Fleet.

Exactly six warships, no more, no less.

Before the Enterprise Alliance's dreadnought "Prosperity" had fully materialized from the blue-white energy vortex of the jump, 102 preheated and ready-to-launch heavy proton torpedoes shot out from the launch tubes of the "Prosperity" and its escort ships like purple lightning breaking free from its restraints.

A deadly, dense barrage of energy instantly wove itself around the unsuspecting enemy fleet.

Immediately afterwards, hundreds of "Vulture" robot fighters, like an enraged swarm of metal bees, poured out of the aircraft carrier's hangar with piercing screams.

The torpedo swarm scattered like purple lightning, engulfing the uppermost warships of the Republic fleet in a deafening, relentless barrage.

The torpedoes hit at the perfect time, giving each locked-on enemy ship not even a microsecond more reaction time than the other warships.

The result was like a meticulously choreographed symphony of destruction, a massive, chain-reaction explosion that suddenly erupted over the Gorm rings.

Its brightness momentarily overshadowed the star's glow, adding a new, brief, and deadly halo to this gas giant.

A death halo composed of molten Duonium alloy fragments, molten Dura steel frames, and scattered starship ash.

The fire shimmered with rainbow colors. This is a distinctive feature of rhenium-yttrium ore-based high-explosive fuel after ignition.

The resulting devastating shockwave violently struck the hull of the "Calamity," causing every close-range sensor on the bridge to issue the highest level of alarm, as some of the shattered planetary belt debris was propelled by the violent energy and shot towards them at high speed like deadly shrapnel!
call!
To escape the increasingly intense laser cannon and missile attacks from above, the remaining enemy ships used the twisted, burning wreckage of their comrades as makeshift cover and hastily swooped down.

Most importantly, they are plunging deeper and denser into the asteroid belt.

"Attention all warships," Tann said coldly, watching the one-sided massacre displayed on the holographic platform. His voice returned to its inorganic calm. "Descent two thousand kilometers, maintain tight wedge formation, prioritize all energy for forward shield generators, and increase power to maximum."

Karlock glanced at Tann silently, with an almost awe.

For the past few hours, she had remained motionless not to search for the dead end or the enemy's movements on the battlefield, but to use her terrifying Force perception to guide the missing Allied fleet through a hidden, dangerous, and almost unknown interstellar "gap" above the galactic plane, guiding it to make this deadly and precise jump!

Is there any Jedi Master who can do this?

Perhaps the legendary figures of the ancient exploration teams could?
But which of them is powerful enough to project their consciousness beyond the plane of the Milky Way and lock onto a course in the vast void?
“The Rishi Labyrinth is a very interesting astronomical phenomenon.” Tann seemed to see through his inner shock and explained, “Not just because it exists in the dark void outside the spiral arms of the Milky Way, in that area known as the ‘Unknown Zone,’ but because our people knew of its existence and had once reached it in rudimentary spaceships.”

However, we did not conduct a systematic exploration there because the spatial structure was extremely unstable and full of deadly radiation and gravitational traps, so no one dared to venture deep into it.

The Zareka String is currently the only relatively 'safe' hyperspace route identified by the star charts, connecting the smaller space (referring to the main body of the Milky Way) and the Lishi Labyrinth.

But this does not mean that there are no other, more covert, or less stable 'paths'.

"...You just...discovered another route like that?" Karok asked incredulously, his voice slightly hoarse.

“This route currently exists and we have successfully utilized it.” Tann’s answer was calm and pragmatic, as if he were talking about an ordinary interstellar route. “Perhaps it will exist stably for hundreds of years, or perhaps it will be distorted and disappear in ten years due to a supernova explosion or gravitational tides. It extends along the most unstable edge of the interstellar void, so everything is full of variables and cannot be predicted with conventional star charts. But what if this route no longer exists, or becomes impassable in the future?”

She turned her head, her dark red eyes locking onto Karok, "But I can always find another path in the chaos with my 'Skywalker' talent... So, Captain, what are your orders? The enemy is retreating, and the opportunity is fleeting."

"Order—" Karok snapped out of his shock, his voice instantly regaining the strength of a commander, "All escort ships, advance to designated interception positions and prepare to engage the remaining enemy fighter groups!"
All 'Providence'-class destroyers, immediately activate the tractor beam emitter arrays and set them to railgun preset mode!
"Weapons officer, all proton torpedo tubes are loaded and ready to fire. Target parameters are being simultaneously input into the fire control computer!"

Tann Railgun, as the name suggests, is a revolutionary combat strategy invented by General Tann and named after him.

It aims to overcome the inherent shortcomings of separatist fleets in long-range firepower projection.

The range of conventional torpedoes is limited by their propellant and guidance system. At this engagement distance, even the largest missiles on the "Calamity" would become harmless inertial flight objects 55,000 kilometers away from the target after their engine fuel is exhausted.

The core of the Tann railgun is to generate a powerful and highly focused gravitational field through a ship-borne gravitational wave projector array, providing continuous and almost unlimited additional acceleration to the torpedoes after launch to compensate for this deficiency.

After all, you cannot effectively intercept a target that is continuously accelerated by a gravitational field and whose speed is infinitely close to the speed of light. If the distance is far enough, its relative speed can even cause an effect similar to a faster-than-light attack.

Although Karok has participated in many battles that used this tactic, he still has not fully understood the core technical details, such as how the gravity field generator array works in precise coordination and how to avoid energy backlash.

His gaze was drawn to the warning icons that were suddenly flashing wildly on the main sensor array. The gravity field sensor was alarming loudly, warning that there were extremely strong gravity field anomalies on both sides of the warship, exceeding the safety threshold.

The entire bridge was instantly enveloped in the blinding flashes of red and yellow warning lights. The data display screen on the control panel was frantically refreshing the values, showing a powerful force field pulsation that circulated from the stern to the bow, like some kind of high-energy resonant wave.

The dust cloud and micrometeoroid streams propelled towards them by the shockwave were accelerated in the opposite direction by the powerful slingshot effect after the ten heavy gravitational wave projectors on the side of the "Calamity" were activated simultaneously and their energy output was enhanced. Like dust waving from an invisible giant hand, they were violently shot towards the atmosphere of the massive planet Gorm below.

"All participating ships report that their gravity field projectors have completed synchronization and reached the preset parameters, sir," a tactical robot reported in a monotonous synthesized voice.

"Launch the guided calibration torpedo!"

(End of this chapter)