Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 222, Page 224 - Coordinates
The Mistral man supporting her saw her gagging and choking on her own breath, and couldn't help but curse loudly.

"Damn it...she's not going to make it!"

"Quickly save her! Use the Bhakta... to retrieve the medical password!"

Over the next few minutes, Ventress was in a daze, sometimes waking and sometimes falling asleep, vaguely feeling the warship rocking beneath her feet.

She was half-dragged and half-carried as she moved, and then the hum of a hatch sliding open brought the fresh, sterile scent of cleaning agents and Bactra to her nostrils.

It was a medical pod, she realized groggily.

A figure flickered in her blurry vision.

She felt herself being laid down on a bed, then a Bhakta patch was gently applied to her burned skin, followed by several stinging injections.

Slowly, she regained some consciousness, and her heartbeat gradually became heavy, pounding against her chest.

"Uh...how...?" Her voice was hoarse and indistinct.

“Good, the adrenaline is working.” She recognized one of the figures as Naradan Dulin, who was looking down at her. “Try not to talk, Ventress. I just want you to hand over the command code for the Storm Fleet.”

Do not!
This was her first reaction.

Why should she so easily hand over her most powerful weapon?
Something she shed blood for and suffered betrayal to obtain?
Ventress remained wary of Dooku and Bontri's schemes, and she was more aware than ever of how insignificant she was in the galactic chess game.

I used to think I was a key part of Dooku's grand plan... but now I realize that I could be sacrificed.

Naradan herself said that she wanted either the "Banshee", the "Storm Fleet", or Ventress herself.

If Ventress were to hand over the only thing that could demonstrate her worth, her life would be in jeopardy.

She shook her head violently, trying to force a refusal through her vocal cords, but only managed to let out a low, beast-like growl.

“Do you want to live, Ventress?” Naradan leaned in just inches from her, his voice low. “Hand over the code! We need the Storm Fleet to escape! The Republic Fleet is crushing us! Either hand it over now, or we’ll force you to!”

The Mistral man's voice betrayed genuine panic.

She was probably telling the truth.

Ha... Dooku.

How did you start boasting about these battlecruisers?

Ventress thought bitterly.

Yet they were so easily defeated by Anakin Skywalker.

Taking them to fight the "Battle Hydra" is practically a meticulously planned suicide.

“…And what about me?” Ventress managed to squeeze out the words with all her might, her vocal cords contracting and relaxing with difficulty. Ventress could feel blood accumulating where Anakin had choked her. “…What will you do with me?”

“Doku may think you’re dispensable,” Naradan quickly added, “but you are crucial to the Peremian Alliance’s plans, I assure you of that.”

"A... mercenary's guarantee."

"It's a guarantee from the Mistral Shadow Guard."

Ventress silently reached into her clothes and, with trembling hands, took out the thin chip.

"Thanks." The Mystral took the chip with a hint of impatience, then turned to the medical robot and ordered, "Heal her. Once we reach the next stop, I want her back in combat mode."

As Naradan was about to leave, Ventress reached out her hand, and the Force gathered at her fingertips.

The woman stopped, but not voluntarily.

“Wait…wait a minute,” Ventress rasped, “where…are you taking me?”

"...Let's go back to Yagdul to report on the progress first, and then return to the hyperspace route."

Her arms fell limply, and the last bit of strength drained from her body.

Ventress's eyes began to close, though she struggled desperately to stay awake.

“I…I—!” she coughed, “I should have let Skywalker kill me…if only I had known I would end up facing Bontri’s mockery…”

“No time for mockery,” Ventress was sure Naradan said with a smile. “We will take the ‘Storm Fleet’ along the Harlem Trade Corridor, bypassing the entire front line of Rima, and once we reach the Kira system, we will switch to the Enark Channel.”

"..."

Ventress had so much to say, but she was too weak to speak.

This once fearsome Sith assassin was enraged by his own powerlessness, feeling like a prisoner trapped in this frail body.

“Want revenge on Count Dooku? You won’t have to wait long. We will finish what Bontri and Trilm did not; we will dismantle Dooku’s power and destroy his authority before his very eyes.” Naradan told her that Ventress felt only sincerity in the Force. “Our destination will be the place where his power in the Confederation originated: Geonosis.”

Geonosis.

Geonosis.

The name echoed repeatedly in Ventress's mind like the tolling of a bell.

"Sleep well, Ventress."

Dooku.

Ventress felt consciousness slipping through her fingers.

You should have killed me twice.

Naradan Dulin inserted control codes into the transponder of the "Shariheng," ordered the electronic jamming to be disarmed, and commanded all "Storm Fleet" destroyers with hyperspace travel capabilities to break free from the close pursuit of the "Opening Fleet."

Clearly, the Mistral were not of naval origin, and this hasty and chaotic retreat allowed the captains of the "Open Ring Fleet" to attack the fleeing enemy with virtually no hindrance.

These captains all understood the importance of preventing the "Storm Fleet" from reinforcing the battle of Yagdul, and they unanimously concentrated their firepower on the enemy ships' engines as they turned to flee.

This disorganized retreat, once the interference was lifted, unexpectedly became a decisive step in turning the tide of the war and shifting the balance of power in favor of the Republic.

Although the Mistral people escaped with all their original intelligence escort ships, they were only able to take stock of the remaining number of "Storm Fleet" destroyers when they reappeared on the other side of the Yagdul system.

Of the original two hundred "Storm Fleet" destroyers, only seventy-eight escaped from the Battle of Lonne Nebula, and only half of them were still combat-ready.

To the Mistral's dismay, Anakin Skywalker's goal of preventing the Battle Hydra from receiving reinforcements was to succeed.

Harlin Sector, Yagedul Galaxy.

Yularen did not hesitate at all.

Although Ahsoka was still stunned by the surprise, his command was issued decisively and swiftly, like a lion's roar.

"All ships!" Yularen shouted the order. "Roll over, ignite! Transfer all energy to the dorsal attitude thrusters! Focus on monitoring the port side shields!"

Three instructions were issued in succession, each with a clear objective.

The first step, "flip and ignite," is to allow these heavily stern-mounted "Star Destroyers" to slow down abruptly before colliding with an oncoming minefield.

The second step was to order the entire fleet to dive simultaneously to avoid obstacles.

The final point is to be wary of the Given defense fleet, which is always lurking deep within the boiling gas.

At this moment, the Wave Peak-class corvettes lurked like a hungry swarm of sharks, waiting for their chance.

As the ships of the "Open Ring Fleet" reversed course, they applied full-force braking as the interception deadline approached, while simultaneously diving downwards to completely avoid the minefield.

A thought suddenly flashed through her mind: Why do ships always choose to "dive" rather than "ascend"?
They were as if they were actually spacecraft in a planetary gravity well, even though there was no difference between the two directions in space and the energy consumption was exactly the same.

At this moment, it meant that the Republic's "Jegami-class" warships pressed their sterns down, like an aircraft performing a tail slide maneuver, narrowly slipping under the hastily laid minefield.

The three forward squadrons weren't so lucky; the three battlecruisers grazed the belly-mounted detection zone of the homing mines. Instantly, the mines, like moths to a flame, triggered a series of explosions along the hull, the shields collapsed, and the remaining mines slammed into the hull.

The battlecruiser shuddered violently in the explosion, its hull riddled with holes and debris flying everywhere.

One of the ships exploded due to overload of its power core, followed by the other two, which exploded one after another. The three ships turned into a cloud of metal fragments that burst forth from the wreckage.

"Concentrate the shields on the stern and back!" Ahsoka shouted almost instinctively, allowing the Pioneer to withstand the impact of debris and secondary explosions in time.

The entire bridge crew instinctively bent over as the exploding flames swept across their heads like fingers, while the rest of the "Open Ring Fleet" passed relatively unscathed beneath the minefield.

After flipping over again, the entire fleet continued to advance toward the last known position of the 20th Fleet.

“There is activity in the atmospheric anomaly area, General,” Lieutenant Clive reported. “The unidentified object is still in that location, appearing and disappearing like a ghost.”

Ahsoka squinted in that direction, as if he could make out the faint outlines behind the curtain of gas and rock—or perhaps it was just his brain's illusion.

"Move the heaviest cruisers to the port flank and form a column," Yularen quickly ordered. "Send a squadron of starfighters forward for alert."

"As you command, sir."

“Commander,” Admiral Yularen then turned to Ahsoka, “where is the main Separatist fleet?”

"Main fleet?" Ahsoka was momentarily stunned.

Why did the admiral ask her about the enemy fleet's location?
Unless... he knew that she had inherited a small part of Master Alrix's ability to sense the points where the Force broke.

But then again... Master Skywalker had told her that Admiral Yularen was already used to working with the Jedi's abilities and considered them an integral part of his fleet.

It seems that from the moment they decided to return to Yagdul, Yularen understood that some stronger force was intervening in some way.

"They are..." Asoka swallowed, looking at the nearby screen, gathering his thoughts, "Relative to Yagdul, direction 296, distance unknown."

General Yularen narrowed his eyes, confirming long-held suspicions.

Azimuth 296 is directly opposite the planet, which is a blind spot for the "Open Ring Fleet".

Unless the girl possesses some kind of groundbreaking technology, an advanced sensor capable of simultaneously penetrating multiple asteroid belts and tens of thousands of kilometers of thick mantle and core, she can only rely on the mysterious power he knows: the Force.

"Is that the main fleet of the separatists?" Admiral Yularen asked again, just to suppress his instinctive distrust of this supernatural force.

is it?

Ahsoka asked himself this question.

What exactly am I perceiving?
She touched a flame in the Force and could feel something behind her shoulder, but she didn't know exactly what it was.

A more experienced Jedi Master might recognize that the flickering candlelight in the distance was a break in the Force, but Ahsoka did not have this knowledge.

All she knew was that the "Battle Hydra" was in that direction.

Logically, shouldn't the separatist fleet be there too?

“I don’t know,” was all she could say, hating the uncertainty.

It feels like you already have an answer in your hand, an answer you're sure is correct.

But a lingering doubt remained in my mind, a feeling that I had missed a small but crucial step.

Ahsoka didn't know which step she missed, but she definitely missed it.

Because although she wanted to say, "Yes, I have located the separatist fleet," she had previously misjudged Hydra's initial target.

“As far as I know…” the apprentice hurriedly continued before Yularen’s serious face showed obvious frustration, “it’s in that direction, the ‘Battle Hydra’.”

The general's anger faded, replaced by a faint smile. "Then this is all we need."

"……what?"

“If you don’t know the distance, report the location,” Yularen said, walking past the girl and patting her shoulder lightly. “Update me every ten minutes. Everyone else, start mapping!”

"Alright everyone," the senior navigation officer clapped his hands in the operations command room, "Enemy formation at known bearing 296!"

"How far is it, sir?"

What is the last known location of the 'Fast Justice'?

A natural conclusion can be drawn from the star chart of the four-star system.

If the "Fast Justice" spacecraft is at position 296, then they must be attempting to orbit the Northwest Asteroid Belt.

Assuming the separatist fleet engages the enemy as it turns left, the enemy would be approximately 17 kilometers away.

"First marker: bearing 296, marker 009. Distance 17 kilometers!"

Ten minutes later, Asoka reported the second location.

"Second marker: bearing 315, marker 045. Distance unknown!"

“Plot all the possible routes they might take!”

Ten more minutes passed.

"Third marker: bearing 316, marker... 326! Distance... approximately 11 kilometers!"

Upon hearing the report from the communication system, Ahsoka was puzzled as to how the operations room could deduce the distance of the "Battle Hydra" based on just a few locations.

Yularen keenly noticed the girl's confusion and seized the opportunity to enlighten her, "The enemy fleet's vertical bearing is 326. Our reference point is not the 'Pioneer,' but the core of the Aghdul. What does this mean?"

Ahsoka frowned, thinking to himself, "This means they're diving below the orbital plane."

"Its lateral bearing is also 316. In this case, what direction might they be diving downwards?"

She suddenly realized, her cheeks burning with shame at having overlooked such a crucial point: "In that direction, they would swoop down right beneath Aqdur himself."

“Exactly. So, based on the assumption that it flies as close to Yagdul as possible to avoid my outpost reconnaissance, we can calculate its distance. Now, where is Ryan Bontri?”

"He... is still at position 316, marker 292."

“That’s almost certain, isn’t it?” Yularen rarely showed a serious smile, then said into the communicator, “Chief, enemy position 316, marker 292, plotting.”

After a while——

"Fourth marker: bearing 316, marker 292. Distance 10.5 kilometers!"

Yes, Ahsoka realized that if their vertical bearing was 292, then they must be almost directly below the south pole of Yagdul (bearing 270).

Nevertheless, the lingering feeling in her mind never disappeared.

What did she still miss?
A tiny but crucial object may have determined the entire outcome of the Battle of Yagdur.

But what exactly?
Thinking of this, Ahsoka remembered her unwavering support since becoming an apprentice and Jedi commander: her master.

What would Skywalker's master do?
A memory that had been almost forgotten recently resurfaced.

Since the 20th Fleet lost contact, she has been in a state of tension and adrenaline rush, almost forgetting her Skywalker master's instructions.

“Stop thinking like a Jedi, Ahsoka!” Anakin had told her. “You’re not alone here. The Force is useful, but don’t rely on it, or you’ll end up like Alex. Trust your instincts, but trust the people here. You’ll be fine.”

So that's what he meant, she thought bitterly.

If only she had consulted with the people on the Pioneer before the strategy meeting… no, there was no time for regret.

Ahsoka took a deep breath.

(End of this chapter)