Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 201 Chapter 203-Wreck
The "Open-Loop Fleet" is like a group of cautious explorers, slowly sailing in this terrifyingly silent deep sea of ​​space.

The remote scanner scans the vast space again and again, leaving no asteroid, satellite, or planet-like object undetected.

Anakin immersed himself even deeper into the Force, trying to find a familiar life force or guidance, but the familiar "warmth" of the Force seemed extremely thin at this moment, like a thin blanket that could not withstand the cold vacuum outside.

At the same time, he heard Asoka in the data center, giving clear and efficient instructions to the sensor operators with a maturity beyond her years, her voice calm and focused.

She moved with ease in that world of data and screens, just as Anakin was at ease among machines and mechanics.

With an almost instinctive keen insight, she guided the fleet to focus their scans on those seemingly insignificant yet suspicious objects that ordinary people would easily overlook.

"Found it!" Lieutenant Avre suddenly shouted excitedly, his voice trembling with tension.

"Mind your professionalism, Lieutenant!" General Yularen immediately reprimanded sternly. "Report clearly! What have you found? Location? Distance?"

"It's...it's the standard distress signal frequency used by the Galactic Republic Army!" Avre gripped the headset tightly with both hands, his eyes fixed on the waveforms jumping on the control panel, his fingers flying across the screen.

Ahsoka immediately leaned over his shoulder, scrutinizing every minute signal feature on the screen. "Relative bearing 032, distance... ten galactic astronomical units! The signal is extremely weak, like a candle flickering in the wind, but it's definitely there! Judging from the signal attenuation... it's likely been sending signals for several days..."

Several days.

This word pierced everyone's heart like an icicle.

They were already several days late.

"Lock onto the signal source coordinates!" Anakin whirled around, his voice like a lightsaber drawn from its sheath. "Helmsman, full speed ahead! I want the fleet to precisely jump above the signal source! Communications officer, immediately notify the medical department! Prepare all medical beds, Bakta treatment patches, and rehabilitation pods! Quickly!"

"Yes, General!"

The order was passed down quickly.

General Yularen approached Anakin, lowered his voice, and said with the wariness characteristic of a veteran, "General, could this signal... be a trap set by the separatists to lure us over?"

"No."

"Is it the Force that gave you this inspiration, General?"

“No.” Ahsoka had already returned to the main deck of the bridge, her voice clear and calm. “Given Bontri’s style, he wouldn’t stoop to using such low-level bait. He prefers to crush his opponents with absolute power or psychologically defeat them… Clive, any new findings from the sensors?”

Lieutenant Clive, who was in charge of the sensors, shook his head in frustration, biting his lower lip: "There is no definite target outline yet. The target point is ten astronomical units away... That area is too dark, and the target is too small. Preliminary scans show that it looks more like a large floating debris field... or a dense asteroid belt... But based on the energy reflection characteristics, I am more inclined to... the former."

“Too dark, too small,” Ahsoka repeated, his brow furrowed. “This doesn’t fit the characteristics of active-duty warships. Even when they shut down all active signal sources for silent navigation, our sensors can still detect the waste heat generated by the engines and life support systems… Are there any other abnormal readings?”

“The target area is located near Salust’s fifth Lagrange point,” Lieutenant Clive reported, pulling up a star map. “The orbit is very stable, and without external interference, that debris field will float there for hundreds of thousands of years.”

The stars outside the Pioneer's porthole were once again stretched and blurred, a sign that they were about to embark on a brief sub-light-speed journey.

Immediately afterwards, space rippled, and the spaceship broke free from its sub-light speed state.

The void, which was just moments ago adorned only with distant starlight, is now filled with a vast and chilling area of ​​debris, just as the sensor officer predicted.

When Anakin saw the familiar red paint scheme of the Jagdpanzer-class and Knight-class warships on those floating objects, it felt as if an invisible hand was gripping his chest tightly.

That red, which once symbolized the glory and order of the republic, is now half bleached and faded by the intense radiation of the Salust star, and the other half melted and blackened by fierce artillery fire, making it look particularly glaring and... tragic.

The red color now looked more like congealed, flowing blood, splattered on the cold steel tomb.

The huge, twisted and deformed Dura steel plate looked like a piece of paper torn apart by a tremendous force, with curled and charred edges.

The broken cables and pipes, like dying pythons, rolled and coiled silently in the vacuum.

The once indestructible transparent steel portholes are now shattered into countless sharp, jagged fragments, reflecting the cold light of the stars.

There are also... people.

A few relatively intact corpses floated among them, their bodies swollen and bluish from the vacuum and low temperature, their faces frozen with the shock of impending death.

But more often, there were mutilated limbs and torsos scattered among the metal fragments. Once again, they had arrived at a vast graveyard, the burial place of millions of loyal soldiers and sailors of the Republic.

The universe remained silent, with only distant stars eternally twinkling, coldly watching this long-overdue massacre.

"Start life scans immediately..." Anakin practically roared, his knuckles cracking. "Apo, send search and rescue teams over there right now! Afre, pinpoint and trace the source of all distress signals! Don't miss a single one!"

"In progress, sir!" Lieutenant Avrey's voice had lost its usual vibrancy, replaced by a professional calm and somber tone.

From the observation position of the Pioneer, Anakin saw the massive mainframe hangar doors slowly slide open.

Dozens of LAAT/i assault gunships roared out of the gates before they were fully open, rushing out like vultures swooping down on carrion, plunging headlong into the jungle made of death metal.

As the gunboat continued its path of destruction, the suffocating sense of foreboding grew stronger.

The outcome is clear.

Dozens of Republic warships were floating in the field of vision, many of which still retained relatively intact ship outlines, but what was chilling was that... no separatist warships were found.

“…That’s right.” Ahsoka muttered to himself, as if confirming something.

Anakin keenly caught her whisper, “What ‘right’?”

“Turn right,” his apprentice said, pointing deeper into the wreckage area, his tone carrying an undeniable certainty. “If we want to figure out what happened here, we must find General Aleks’ flagship, the ‘Resilient.’ According to battlefield convention, as the commander, her flagship should be at the forefront of the battle. So, we need to go back along the direction in which the battle broke out, against the distribution of the wreckage.”

Anakin raised an eyebrow in surprise, but did not question it. Instead, he looked directly at Admiral Yularen.

"Helmsman, hard to starboard," Yularen immediately nodded and ordered, "Proceed in the direction Commander Asoka indicated."

Just as the fleet turned, a massive, astonishing piece of durasteel wreckage drifted slowly past the porthole.

It is almost twice the size of the standard "Jackal-class" and has a more distinctive and imposing wedge-shaped profile.

This is the wreckage of a Knight-class Star Destroyer.

The massive hull was covered with shocking, penetrating wounds. Most horrifyingly, its bridge section was almost entirely sheared off in half, exposing twisted steel frames and pipes at the fracture points.

"Call sign identification, 'Majesty'!" an officer reported hoarsely, identifying each piece of wreckage they passed. "Call sign 'Red Fox'..."

"Turn left here!" Yularen strode along the wide porthole, his sharp eyes scanning every piece of wreckage floating outside, as if deciphering the silent code of the battlefield. "Then, at 10,000 kilometers from the destination, turn right sixty degrees!"

The deathly silence of this space... began to become deafening.

It was as if the entire universe had been silenced, and even the continuous, low rumble of the Pioneer's sub-light-speed engine seemed to be swallowed up by the boundless silence.

The Force, which should be like a spring that nourishes all things, has its tributaries and networks that run through the entire universe, connecting every life form and providing energy for everything from the largest space whales to the smallest insects.

It is surrounded by ancient ruins, settled in the battlefields of the past, and roars and surges at major turning points in history.

The Force is the will to live; it exists wherever there is life, wherever life once existed, and even... in some purely non-living entities.

But here, it... disappeared.

Something was greedily devouring it, like a desert instantly absorbing a torrential downpour, like a raging fire frantically consuming the surrounding oxygen.

This feeling is suffocating.

“Look at the damage to these ships,” Ahsoka’s voice trembled slightly as she pointed to the twisted metal behemoths outside the window. “They were attacked simultaneously by fire from different directions. Look at these gaping holes and twisted angles; it was caused by crossfire.”

"The battle report shows that General Alekss did indeed fight against three separatist fleets single-handedly," even the battle-hardened Admiral Yularen showed a hint of wavering and unease as he looked at the hellish scene before him. "But I really can't imagine how the situation could... have deteriorated to such a thorough and desperate point in such a short time. General Alekss... she has experienced far more dangerous situations than this before."

“We’re nearing the edge of this wreckage area,” Lieutenant Clive stood up from his seat in the data center, craning his neck as if trying to see further beyond the edge of the porthole. “I’m scanning with all my might, trying to capture the unique command ship transponder signal of the ‘Resilient’. If… if her flagship is ultimately destroyed as well, its wreckage should be in the center of this area.”

(End of this chapter)