-From the perspective of Anakin-

  Anakin was watg the flow of the battle with a worried gaze, while his dreadnought’s various ons were stantly sending barrage upon barrage of support fire to suppress the attag ehe goliath of a ship served as a crucial bastion for the defending army. There were two more simir dreadnoughts positioned over other key locations on the phose ships were also used as a focal point to ter around by smaller sized vessels and battleships belonging to the republic.

  It was a battle pying out on multiple levels, and even though they were outnumbered by the enemy army, they still had ground support, which was not something to disregard. Just then, another elongated blue ion beam flew through spaing from the p’s surface, eventually hitting a nearby separatist battleship, effectively incapacitating it and leaving it defenceless.

  -Turn the ons from the rear left side towards the incapacitated separatist battleship at the given coordinates.

  -Yes, General.

  With that Anakin o himself as he watched the ion beams slowly barrel into the sides of the mentioned ship, ripping it to pieces.

  Soon a rge fre of psma explosions occurred, signaling the ship’s plete destru.

  Damn, only if we get to and simir ships ur missions. The enemy wouldn’t stand a ce. As, the Senate seems to spare all the big guns for system defending purposes.

  He patted the trols with an affeate smile while thinking.

  No matter, at least I got to py with it now.

  At that particur moment, Anakin’s senses were momentarily overwhelmed by a powerful force wave washing over him. His awareness skyrocketed as he was looking around with an armed expression.

  His eyes were wide with surprise, sensing the powerful disturbance which was tinuously spreading, effectively engulfing the etlefield and the p in its grasp. He felt his jaw bee loose as he withe inhuma with his own senses.

  The hing he did was to search for the source of the powerful disturbahe a came to him more from a habit than scious deaking. He did not have to search for long anyway, as he quickly realized that the in’s trum was exactly where he was... or a bit more precisely, it came from under his ship.

  I pushed a few buttons on the trols, pig out an outer hull camera and e, pg it across the main monitor. On the camera s right in the middle of it I saw the calm image of that ship, the Dark Seeker, if I remember it correctly.

  Anakin looked at the docile form of the suspicious ship that was so i on hiding in his dreadnought‘s shadow all this time.

  He furrowed his eyebrows sharply.

  I don’t know why, but I got this increasingly bad premonition about everything that has even the slightest e to that annoying little pipsqueak.

  -Heh… Grandmaster my ass… that girl is nothing but trouble.

  A soldier standing close to me spoke up suddenly.

  -Excuse me, sir?

  I blinked with surprise as I turowards the soldier. I didn’t notice him ing over to me… I felt annoyed with this. I actually lost awareness of my direct surroundings in the middle of a battle… What am I even doing?

  I shook my head and turned back to the soldier.

  -What is it, lieutenant?

  -We have received news from the right fnk, sir.

  Damn, it… of course… I hoped that the reinfort was enough to buy us some time, I guess it was not… I swallowed my sigh as I asked.

  -Were they pushed back?

  -Yes, General.

  Hearing this, I was already trying to pn a series of termeasures to slow down their advance. We ot let our mai get surrounded pletely. That would be the equivalent of plete destru.

  -What are our losses?

  I asked drily.

  -We have minimal losses, sir. Thanks to a successful surprise assault on the enemy fgship by a few groups of starfighters, the enemy forces have lost their momentum and bee disanized. Our lines have successfully reformed, and with the freshly arriving reinforts, have started to push baemy forces, taking maximum advantage over their momentary ck of attention.

  I o myself, just as I expect-… wait?

  -… Lieutenant? Did you say the enemy fgship, no… more importantly, they are the ones who are retreating? The separatists?

  -Affirmative sir. That is what the report states.

  -…

  What the fuck?! How? What was that about the starfighters?

  -Soldier, you mentiohat a group of starfighters assaulted the enemy fgship, is that true?

  The lieutenant became slightly fidgety, clearly not expeg me to question every single one of his reports. I couldn’t care less, though. In the end, he still answered my question if a bit drily.

  -Yes, sir. That is exactly what the reports state.

  But that is pletely impossible!

  -Could our unication els be hacked by the enemy?

  The soldier seemed surprised by my question, as he realized I wasn’t doubting his reports to begin with…

  -That is possible, but unlikely. Everything matches all the encrypted codes and even the names of the pilots who executed the mission.

  Now that caught my ear.

  -In that case, who was the leader of the fighter squad who took part in the mission?

  -It is a squad led by Jack Doe, sir. An experienced pilot who voluntarily took part in many missions, fighting alongside e troopers. He got a major promotion after we lost most of the e army’s loyalty and we needed experienced fighter pilots more than any time, sir.

  I stood there with an amused smile on my face.

  I remember that guy, Jack Doe. It was rare to see soldiers fighting alongside es frur army backgrounds. Aside from the logistical department. They o do a special training regime before they could be sidered for even doing so. Most didn’t like to go back to the military academy for just that. It’s not like they will receive more money for their service either… so that is how it was. Except that they took a ten times higher risk by doing so.

  Of course, you could still run into a few lunies doing just that. There are always exceptions, after all. When I asked him what he was doing here, since I was taken aback by a regur soldier appearing to be enlisted in a e squad. The only thing the bastard said was that he ehe e’s uniform, so decided to get one for himself.

  I could only shake my head at hearing that answer. It is good to know that he is still alive… I guess he will receive another promotion after all of this goes down the drain. However, I had more important things to focus ht now.

  -Lieutenant, reposition two more star destroyer css venator battleships to the right fnk. Also, advise them to not overstretch their battle line. I wouldn’t want to hear a few mier that they have been caught in the crossfire of some obvious trap!

  -Uood sir, right away!

  With that, Anakin looked out of the window, witnessing the sheer scale of the battle pying out above the capital p of the republic. As his eyes grazed over it, he couldn’t help but reize a straype of pattern dising itself. He looked closer, this time reag out with his force sight as well.

  It took only a few seds for him to notice the pattern. Now that he was enf his abilities with the force, he also realized how strong and vivid the ges were. The republic fighters and battleships have started to act together, with a shog… no impossibly perfect rhythm.

  Whenever an enemy ship bees incapacitated or its shield has been weakehe allied ships in the viity have started to swarm it as if they ses weakness on an instinctive level. No… there wasn’t any type of unication device that could allow such a level of synization. The as were simply too well anized and trated, happening just the right time, and pce to unleash a maximal level of destru.

  Witnessing all of this unfolding shocked me to the core. Especially taking into sideration that most of the soldiers taking part in this battle ook part in anything that could even resemble to the scale of what was happening here. For a moment, I was thinking that I hit my head on something and I was still anding es… but looking around the bridge, that doesn’t seem to be the case…

  I gulped as a cold sensation ran up my back.

  Seeing how many small, but importas pyed out with suatural ease was shog.

  In the half minute I spent on looking at the situation through my force sight, I witnessed as republic battleships started to move in a stratern, which allowed them to cover each-other with their shield, while the others cooled down their own shield geors then sed pces. Doing this, to take as much damage as it ossible and stay longer itle.

  I saw as small fighters pulled off luring maneuvers around the etleground. Luring enemy fighters towards loargets, only for them to be shot down by an uedly appearing ambushing squad. Witnessed bombers, pulling off miraculous feats by shooting proton torpedoes and hitting ots with such ease or randomhat would normally be impossible to even think about.

  I was left standing on the bridge with a pletely fbbergasted expression. What was happening here?

  Then, as if to answer my shock from the edge of my eyes, I saw the still image of the Grey Lord’s ship h calmly.

  -Could it be?

  My eyes widened as the memory of a now unpracticed teique blinked into my mind. Battle meditation… Then I gasped… even this a seemed to e to me on its own. I didn’t even have to think about it. I was clearly us effect, and that meant… the earlier disturbance, and now this…

  My eyes grow even rger with evident shock. I finally uood what was going on, and I started to feel perspiration appearing on my skin.

  If this was happening with every single soldier taking part in this battle… who the hell is capable of doing such a feat to begin with? It was a teique that was supposedly hard to pull off, but on such scale and precision… its borderline impossible. Except that it was happening right in front of me.

  -This is uncalled for…

  And it is, without a doubt, terrifying.

  -From the perspective of Alu Marlos-

  The enemy droids were getting closer to my position, I could feel the pressure growing on me, with each metallic step and energy bst colliding with the metal piece, some spare parts of a starfighter that I used as the only barricade separating me from the ining super battle droids.

  I started to feel the heat radiating from the impromptu barricade beyo was clearly overheating uhe endless assault of ser beams.

  Then the tinuous assault from the droids side stopped as suddenly as it began.

  Their ons must have overheated… this was the opportunity I was waiting for!

  I sprang up behind the cover, looking at the droids staying about teers from my current position. That was just right! I threw the grenade in their direy aim seemed to be right, hitting one of the bastards right in the face, to my plete delight.

  The grenade immediately blew up, as I ged it to activate on impact. As, I couldn’t withe explosion, as I had to lie down behind the cover once again. Seeing that three newly arriving B1 appeared to my fnk.

  I heard the explosion happening, but was too ed seeing that more and more droids appeared right on my fnk. This was getting out of hand and quickly.

  I looked around, trying to search for any other nearby cover that could work out. Unfortunately, the explosion seemed to also gain the B1-s attention, and they immediately started to send barrels of ser beams in my general dire.

  In my panic, I started to run in the opposite dire, while shooting backwards with my handgun, and doing that blindly.

  I was halfway to reach a different barricade when an earsplitting explosion happened not too far behihe waves of the explosion even mao throw me forward a few meters, droppio the cold floor with a heavy grunt.

  I somehow ended up ying on my back, disanized, my ears ringing with the sounds of the explosion. I pushed myself to stand up, only to withat a rge part of the hangar was burning, also… the droids were o see anymore…

  The head of a B1 unit dropped down in front of me, rolling a few times across the floor before stopping. I looked at it, fused. Then I saw that it was covered in obvious burn marks.

  I added oo one… and realized with a relieved sigh.

  -…Damn… I must have hit a fuel tank by act…

  My words were only followed by silence, and the noises of slowly burning materials. A slight worry sneaked into my mind, as I watched the fmes quickly spread across the hangar… I didn’t even finish the thought, and a bunch of fire trol droids flew over my head starting to put out the fire immediately.

  -…

  I looked at the situation with an abrupt suspi. I thought over what had just happened and realized that something was off.

  -Wait a minute… I am just not this lucky… have I used up the entire fortune of my life in just a few minutes? Is that it?

  Suddenly, I heard a series of steps ing from behind me. I turned around immediatly on high alert as I feared that dy fortune would whip me seriously after what I pulled off just now.

  Then I saw a bunch of republic troopers appear through a side corridor. And I heard one of them calling out to me.

  -Is that yo Marlos!? Thank god, we were looking for you, man!

  Seeing the bunch of soldiers appear and secure the positions… I felt pletely and utterly speechless…

  -What the fuck?…

  -Hah, now is that the first thing you say to your old friend!

  -…

  No, seriously… what the fuck? Something is seriously wrong here. Was I shot? Maybe it's just a daydream before I get to the otherworld? That seems more likely than this whole thing… and that man I knew him! He doesn’t even serve on this damn ship! What is he doing here?

  -Criss… how, what are you doing here, man?

  He hit me on the shoulder with a friendly ad said.

  -Well, now that you mentio… I don’t really know? For some reason, I got this feeling that you could use some help here, and quickly… so we took a few assault rifles and now we are here.

  I eechless…

  -How did you know that I needed help?!

  My question clearly frustrated Criss, and it was clear to me that he himself didn’t know the answer. Eventually, he shook off the disfort and barked.

  -Eh, man don’t get stu the small details… I am here, you are here, now where is the captain of the ship?

  I thought about it…

  -Before me and a few muys got separated in the hangar. We received an immediate order to defend the bridge. The captain must be there too. She is a Jedi Master called Adi Gallia. We should go and reinforce their position…

  Criss nodded frequently.

  -Yes, I have a feeling that there is trouble brewing over there.

  I nodded and then froze… For some reason; I felt as if Criss was right about this, but why?

  Criss shouted at the other man standing around.

  -Okay guys, we are done here. Head towards the bridge… but with caution, there might be droids over there.

  I couldn’t shake off the strange sensation… something just wasn’t right with all this happening around. Even if it worked to our adva least until now.