Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 193-195 - Death Spiral
As expected, the formation began to loosen and crumble.

Every captain was on edge, doing everything in their power to avoid a collision.

The originally tight single column gradually dispersed and deformed.

The faster cruisers had to make emergency turns to avoid the cumbersome warships ahead.

The agile frigates maneuvered ahead of the cruisers to avoid them.

The massive dreadnought pushed the rudder to its limit, yet it still couldn't complete the sharp turn required at the end of the conveyor belt, and could only choose a gentler turning angle.

Some warships followed these adjusted tracks, while others were left behind, their positions changing instantly.

The officers and soldiers of the "Mediator Task Force" watched helplessly as the separatists were drawn into a chaotic vortex, with even the leading "Chimera" ship being caught up in it.

The order to "keep a close watch on the ship ahead" became almost impossible to execute given the rapidly changing target ahead. However, the separatist captains still desperately followed the order, while also making astonishing efforts to avoid collisions with friendly ships in the steel torrent.

As the speed increases, an invisible force pulls on this conveyor belt-like formation, forcing each turn to be smoother and more pronounced.

Ultimately, the entire formation evolved into a giant, slowly rotating ring in deep space.

A death vortex made up of warships.

……

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer USS Majesty, Kendall Ozer observed the evolution of this strange formation through high-powered targeting sensors.

The individual exhaust cones of each enemy warship's engine had now blurred and merged into a bright, flat ring of light.

As the formation's rotation speed continued to soar, the scanners were almost unable to lock onto any specific warship amidst the chaotic light and shadow, let alone target its vital parts.

They could no longer distinguish where the enemy's battle formation began or ended.

In fact, even the separatist fleet itself lost its way.

They had only one thought in their minds: no matter which ship was in front of them, they had to stick to it and do everything they could to avoid colliding with the ships next to them.

For the captains of the 28th Mobile Fleet, this was undoubtedly a death marathon that allowed no respite.

Any minor misjudgment, a slight interruption in rhythm, or a single erroneous operation could lead to a catastrophic chain reaction, causing the entire fleet to self-destruct in the face of the Republic's enemies.

But for Kendall Ozer, the sight he saw touched a corner of his deepest memory.

As time passed and the enemy's formation showed no signs of changing, a guess in his mind gradually became clear.

Ant spiral.

The natural phenomenon known as the "death spiral" or "death march" occurs when social organisms like ants lose their pheromone pathways, causing them to fall into an endless cycle until they are exhausted and die.

If this spiral is not broken by external forces, the separatists inside will eventually follow in the footsteps of the ants.

Ozer shifted his gaze back to the holographic tactical map displaying the giant spiral and imported the data stream into the combat intelligence center for analysis.

The result made him laugh in disbelief at first.

Data confirms his judgment: if separatists do not escape this deadly spiral in time, a single collision could trigger a chain reaction of avalanche-like disasters.

However, the second discovery that followed instantly froze the smile on his face, turning it into deep worry.

“They’re moving toward us,” Ozer’s voice broke the silence on the bridge.

"Sir?" The vice-captain looked at him in confusion.

The brigadier general handed over his tactical tablet, pointing to the superimposed dynamic trajectory analysis on it: "Look, although they are trapped in this spiral, the center of the entire vortex is steadily advancing towards our defensive line."

To verify this, Ozer ordered sensor officers to mark a specific separatist warship in the spiral and track its absolute position change after completing a full rotation.

If the vortex is rotating in place while stationary, the marker point should eventually return to the origin.

However, as Ozer initially observed, with each rotation, the position of the marked warship relative to the Republic's defenses steadily decreased by about a thousand kilometers.

Was this movement intentional?

Or was it just a coincidence amidst the chaos?

……

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer USS Endurance, Rhys Alrix knew it was intentional.

Her conviction did not stem from recognizing a known tactical formation.

However, the scene before us does not exist in naval textbooks at all.

It's not based on logical analysis, but rather on a deeper, more direct intuition.

Rhys Alrix had never systematically studied the old tactical doctrines that the Republic Navy had dug up from the dustbin of history.

She relied on the burning flame of the Force in her mind that represented the enemy-versus-friend situation, and the intuition that drove that flame.

Unlike Ozer's perception of ant spirals, what she sensed in the Force's vision was more like a hydra's lair, with countless serpent heads lurking and waiting for their prey to reveal a weakness.

She knew that this steady, steely advance was a carefully planned operation by the enemy.

She scanned the area intently, but couldn't find anything that could be considered a weakness.

The entire spiral is seamless, resembling a high-speed rotating, impeccable steel disc.

A strong sense of frustration welled up inside her. She desperately tried to remember the name of the opposing commander, but it slipped through her fingers like quicksand. Finally, she recalled a nickname she had overheard two staff officers whispering in the officers' mess.

This is the person known as the "Fighting Hydra"...

……

Raine stood on the towering bridge of the flagship warship, looking down at the accelerating vortex outside the porthole with an almost cold, satisfied expression.

The warships' navigation lights and the blinding exhaust flames of their ion engines had blurred into a chaotic halo, making each ship appear like a fragment caught in a raging torrent, indistinguishable from one another.

His private squad, planted within the whirlwind, would move precisely and inconspicuously a little bit towards the Republic.

With each rotation, the entire fleet, like a colossal beast with a collective consciousness, is invisibly pulled, drifting one step towards the target direction.

Just as Rhys Alrix had been trying to crack the tactical code of the 28th Mobile Fleet for the past five days, Raine was also peeling back the layers of the Mediator Task Force commander's abilities with each engagement.

After six independent encounters, observations, probes, and analyses, he finally grasped the pulse of Rhys Alrix's abilities.

Rhys Alrix can "see" weaknesses.

Just as a top duelist can spot the slightest flaw in an opponent's defense, Aleix can do the same thing within a fleet formation using the Force.

It doesn't matter whether the formation he sets up is simple, complex, or somewhere in between.

Rhys Alrix always has the keenest senses, able to sniff out even the slightest cracks.

This is a talent for cheating.

However, fleet warfare is by no means a simple one-on-one contest.

A lightsaber duel may end in the blink of an eye, but a fleet battle can last for hours or even days.

A fleet formation may have only one weakness, or it may have hundreds or thousands.

So, does the Force only show her its most fatal weakness, or does it reveal all its weaknesses?
If only the most fatal weakness is revealed, can the Force still deduce all the possibilities for the next few or even dozens of moves, like a supercomputer playing chess?
Wouldn't that be the same as predicting the future?
With these questions in mind, Ryan has conducted a series of carefully designed "experiments" over the past five days.

He deployed various formations against Rhys Alrix, deliberately creating weaknesses, both overt and covert, while closely observing her reactions as he adjusted his own fleet.

What weaknesses did she exploit that he deliberately exposed?

What flaws did he try to hide that he overlooked?

Rhys Alrix's modus operandi remained consistent: he would only launch a thunderous attack after his fleet had completed its formation change and become relatively "still."

She needs to fix her target in order to pinpoint that "fatal weakness".

At that moment, it dawned on Raine that what the Force was revealing to Rhys Alrix was all his weaknesses.

This massive flood of information forced her to need a relatively stable target for filtering and decision-making.

So he decided to stop futilely confronting this terrible and unjust Force talent head-on and instead use the rules of this talent to defeat it.

In his year with the Confederate Navy, Ryan encountered only one fleet formation in which he could find absolutely no weaknesses to exploit.

Jedi Master Pro Kong's rotating arrow formation.

It is a kind of existence that is almost unsolvable in the eyes of conventional naval commanders, because under the current technology and tactical system, it is impossible to achieve such precise coordination and synchronization without some kind of extraordinary means.

Although Raine didn't know the exact name used within the Jedi Order, he knew that they called this technique "battle meditation."

By constructing a consciousness field within the Force that covers the entire fleet and connects the thoughts of every captain, officer, and even ordinary crew member, Jedi generals can coordinate the entire fleet to achieve performance beyond its limits.

Combat meditation can greatly enhance morale, stamina, reaction speed, and coordination accuracy, and can even briefly merge millions of independent thoughts into a unified super consciousness.

It is this power that makes complex tactics like the rotating arrow, which are theoretically impossible, a reality.

Isn't that an extremely unfair ability?

Raine was determined to prove that similar effects could be achieved through mortal will and strict discipline, without relying on the mysterious forces of the universe.

His opponent at this moment was not Rhys Alrix, but the Force itself, which she represented—a force both awe-inspiring and infuriating.

This is a personal expedition for him, a testament to the divine power stripped away from its original form.

He wanted to show everyone that, with the pure, almost obsessive focus and iron discipline of the human collective, it was possible to achieve miracles that scholars believed only an invisible force in the universe could create.

Rhys Alrix and her Republic fleet were unaware, but what they were witnessing was how the Separatists were mimicking the combat meditation effects that only Jedi Masters could perform in a primitive and brutal way.

This is not achieved through complex and mysterious rituals or innate talents, but rather by forcibly pushing the entire fleet into a singular, overwhelming state of mind.

By issuing that one and only standing order: "Stay close to the spaceship in front, don't crash into it."

This places the entire fleet in a death spiral, where a tiny mistake can mean total annihilation.

Raine successfully fostered a collective consciousness field similar to combat meditation.

However, unlike the Jedi's combat meditation that allows for precise control and guidance of fleets to achieve complex objectives, the collective consciousness nurtured by this spiral is so pure that it consists of only one thought—

Follow closely behind the spaceship ahead!

But that was enough for Renn's purposes.

(End of this chapter)