Star Wars: From the Clone Wars to Starfaring Heroes

Chapter 223-225 - Zeta Nine Formation
"and many more!"

Ahsoka raised his voice, trying to make his tone sound confident and firm, "We've missed something."

“What’s missing?” General Yularen raised one eyebrow.

What exactly does the enemy want to do?

“Well, judging from the current situation, sir,” Lieutenant Clive interjected, “they’re probably trying to infiltrate below the orbital plane and attack us from below. But I’ve already started tracking them with active sensors, and we’ll be able to detect them as soon as they come into view.”

"So they're planning to intercept us."

“There’s nothing else worth intercepting in this galaxy,” Clive said, not laughing at his own cold joke. “They’ve made sure of that.”

“If they’re tracking us in tandem with the Givens, they’ll know we’re heading to a new battlefield that’s in our favor,” Ahsoka said, pacing back and forth on the deck, loudly organizing his thoughts under Yularen’s watchful gaze. “So they should intercept us.”

"Should?" Yularen questioned.

Ahsoka didn't respond, but instead took out his communicator and said, "Operations room, this is the bridge. Could you draw a straight interception route from the enemy fleet's last known location to our current position? Could you provide the estimated arrival time?"

"Bridge, this is the operations room. Assuming the enemy fleet maintains its current speed, it is expected to arrive in forty to sixty minutes. But if we accelerate to full combat speed in a straight line, they will appear directly above us... or rather, directly below us, in fifteen minutes."

“…Please send the flight path to my data panel,” Ahsoka requested politely, her potential to earn the nickname quickly coming into play. “Thank you.”

She carefully examined the route map, the solid blue line connecting the flashing red dots, and the dashed lines indicating possible routes.

There are four main markers, corresponding to the four directions she reported to the operations room, which allowed the operations room to deduce the enemy's course.

She slowly and meticulously traced the lines again, searching for the crucial clue she knew she had missed.

However... everything seemed to fit perfectly.

Using the momentum gained from defeating "Swift Justice," the "Battle Hydra" turned right and headed back along the opposite course, now hurtling towards the "Opening Fleet" almost in a straight line.

Considering the obstruction from planets, this is the straightest route.

Ahsoka rubbed his eyes, partly from exhaustion and partly from frustration.

She was certain that there was something fishy about Hydra.

Something's not right.

“…No,” she muttered to herself, “transfer this data to the holographic projection.”

Yularen snapped his fingers, and the data was immediately transmitted.

Ahsoka knew time was of the essence, but Anakin Skywalker's stubborn nature compelled her to find out the truth.

A three-dimensional holographic star map lit up before her eyes.

She then discovered the problem.

The Peremian Alliance fleet was not the Given Defense Fleet; they could not quickly traverse the Northwest Asteroid Belt, so they chose to "fly over" it.

From the first marker to the second marker: the vertical orientation changes from 009 to 045.

Then, from the second to the third mark: the vertical orientation changes from 045 to 326.

This means that between the second and third markers, the "Battle Hydra" moved a full 79 degrees downward in the vertical plane, whereas they could have "climbed" another 45 degrees instead of "diving".

They were already climbing due to the limitations of the asteroid belt.

Why the sudden change to diving?

If speed is the key to interception, then wouldn't the obvious choice be to go around the Arctic, such as the Yagdul, instead of the Antarctic?
unless……

A flash of light flashed.

“We’ve gone the wrong way,” Ahsoka blurted out, suddenly finding himself breathless. “War room! What if the enemy fleet continues towards the planet’s north pole from the second marker!? What’s the estimated arrival time to intercept us!?”

General Yularen knew the answer without waiting for calculations.

"Lieutenant!" he roared. "Expand the coverage of the rear sensors! I need to monitor the entire airspace overhead! Helmsman, be ready to maneuver!"

As the Pioneer's sensors locked onto its position and began transmitting detection signals across almost the entire frequency band, Ahsoka blinked, and about a hundred targets emerged from the darkness into his field of vision.

"Target spotted!" Clive and his operators quickly began marking the ships. "Eighty ships!"

Why didn't our passive sensors detect it?

“They’re operating in silent mode, sir!” another sensor officer gritted his teeth. “We have to perform an omnidirectional active scan, but that’s tantamount to telling them we’ve exposed our location.”

Sure enough, hundreds of sub-light speed engines suddenly burst into the sky above the "Open Ring Fleet," their propulsion tails burning like newborn stars in the star map.

They were originally arranged in a deep spindle-shaped formation, clearly intending to penetrate the "open-loop fleet" formation from top to bottom.

However, after being exposed in advance, the enemy formation evolved into a flatter rectangle, with the capital ships located in the center and at the four corners.

A near-perfect separatist fighting formation.

In an instant, warning signs flashed on countless screens on the Pioneer, as thousands of separatist missiles rained down from above.

Almost instinctively, the "open-loop fleet" formation responded quickly as an organic whole, with escort ships rushing forward, point defense lasers illuminating the void with a dense fire net, and bright, blazing chaff filling the gaps between ships until the entire formation seemed to be ignited by internal flames.

Ahsoka knew they had handled the situation well, but now it was time to retaliate.

For a moment, she looked at Admiral Yularen for instructions, only to see him intently assessing the enemy's attack trajectory.

His cautious nature led him to observe the enemy's tactical deployment before making any moves.

From any perspective, this wasn't a wrong decision, but Ahsoka's intuition screamed that they had to fight back. They weren't just facing this one fleet; a fleet led by "Battle Hydra" was approaching from below, along with the Given defensive fleet.

The tide of battle has turned; they are now surrounded.

"Warnings room," Ahsoka gripped the communicator tightly, "How long will it take for 'Hydra' to arrive and intercept us?"

"Are you referring to the fleet in Bontley, sir?" a voice replied. "They are expected to pass through the atmospheric anomaly zone in four minutes."

Once you leave that area, you will enter the sensor's range.

Four minutes!
What countermeasures can be taken within four minutes of being attacked?
Ahsoka shielded herself from the flashes of the intercepted warheads and the whistling of the shields, searching her mind for the tactics and formations she had learned and memorized under Yularen's watchful gaze.

We are being attacked from both sides.

I need a formation that can utilize the firepower of a Star Destroyer...

What about Zeta's formation?
However, it only works in one direction and will expose the aircraft carrier...

Ahsoka sketches out hypothetical scenarios on the data board.

But if we could utilize the SPHA-T turrets on the hull of the battlecruiser…

"General!" Ahsoka exclaimed urgently, "If we adopt the 'Zeta' formation..."

Zeta 9 attack formation.

This is a starfighter tactic used by the Naboo Royal Security Forces' starfighter units against large capital ships.

This formation emphasizes the role of shields rather than firepower.

When using this formation, if the pilot successfully completes a piloting check of difficulty level 20, the tactic will be activated, reducing all weapon damage dice of the ship by 1 and increasing the ship's shield rating by 20.

"Zeta is only effective in one direction."

"But our battlecruisers have SPHA-T turrets on their hulls!"

Yura Renn paused for a moment, narrowed his eyes, and took the data panel from her hand.

He examined it nervously for a few seconds, then quickly handed it to a nearby officer.

"Switch to Zeta Nine formation."

Ahsoka's heart raced. "This...this won't work."

"We'll only know once we try..." Then, Yularen roared, "Hard to starboard, full turn! Turn around!"

……

“We’re not dealing with Anakin Skywalker, are we?” Brigadier General Hogo Schiff murmured as the 2nd Strike Group of the 28th Mobile Fleet roared down its attack route. “Because their response is too unusual.”

The Republic Fleet's sailing formation is roughly box-shaped, with heavy capital ships arranged in an L-shape on the left side as support, and the remaining space filled with light ships.

Those light ships are rising to form a point defense barrier, protecting the L-shaped "Jackey-class" warships.

Meanwhile, those "Jackey-class" warships... starting with the lead "Pioneer," were turning to starboard.

Just as the Pioneer completed its turn to its apex, it stopped turning and nimbly began a tailspin. The one-kilometer-long warship spun like a top until its stern faced the inside of the circle it had just completed.

The subsequent eleven warships swiftly and precisely executed this maneuver in turn, until the uppermost layer of the "open-loop fleet" formed a twelve-petaled flower, with the bows facing outwards and the engines facing inwards.

Then, eleven "Jegami-class" warships followed suit, "diving" fifty kilometers below the lowest layer to form a second layer of petal array, with each ship cleverly positioned in the gaps between the upper layers.

However, this time they are "inverted", with the turbine laser gun turrets on the hull facing upwards.

Approximately fifty Jagdpanzer-class warships swiftly completed this formation, forming four alternating layers of petals. Their movements were so skillful that Hogo Schiff couldn't help but deduce that if it wasn't some kind of Jedi technique at work, then there must be a truly exceptional commander coordinating their actions.

Once the four-layer formation was complete, the "Jungar" class shut down its engines and was now drifting laterally along the composite vector.

To complete this formation, the escort ships of the "Open Ring Fleet" passed through the central cavity of the formation, forming a tubular structure with the superstructure on the back of the ship facing outwards, extending upwards and downwards along the vertical axis of the formation.

This forms a spindle shape with pointed ends, or more like the shape of a pulsar.

"They've over-spread out their escort ships!" Vinok shouted. "We can destroy them one by one as we advance!"

Brigadier General Muen clenched his fingers. "It's not that simple. This spindle structure has a dual purpose: first, to intercept any missiles or torpedoes aimed at the capital ship; and second, to disrupt my battle formation."

“Then we’ll destroy them systematically… they’re far too scattered.”

“If we slow down the entire battle formation to deal with the escort ships, those ‘Jackal-class’ ships will tear us apart,” Hogo Schiff clenched his fist. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to experience being bombarded by four ‘Star Destroyers’.”

The Crying Sun's communication channel was briefly silent, most likely because Vinok was analyzing the enemy formation.

"If we try to bypass this spindle formation, they can attack our flanks without restraint, and we will be forced to choose between defending the spindle formation and the petal formation."

"It seems so. They achieved the same effect without using a flanking maneuver."

Brigadier General Vinok chuckled, "Then we'll change our formation to a spindle."

Hogo was so surprised he almost jumped up. "What?"

“No, ‘spindle’ isn’t quite accurate,” Vinok pondered. “How about ‘tubular’? We can form a tubular array that can perfectly encircle the Republic’s spindle array, thus completely destroying their spindle section if those ‘Jackal-class’ units try to retaliate…”

“They’ll hit their own ship too,” Hogo added, a sharp glint returning to his dark eyes.

“Notify the Givens to alert the Third Squadron to the Republic’s formation,” Vinok ordered. “We can pin them down here while Rein and Diedrich devise a strategy to deliver a heavy blow. Prepare for the attack.”

(End of this chapter)