Chapter 149: Smashing a Fork
Chapter 149: Smashing a Fork
- Onderon – 57 Days into the Clone Wars-
Mace Windu had been pleasantly surprised by what their scouts had been reporting. It wasn’t all good news, of course. Avenelle, Nazzri, and Vena were all three now under Confederate control. In truth, however, that meant very little. Avenelle was a luxurious retirement world more than anything, and the CIS had accepted their surrender easily, the higher ups of the Confederacy no doubt more interested in having it intact than damaged. Nazzari and Vena on the other hand were isolationist in the extreme, to the point neither were actually Republic worlds at all, and thus there had been no question about throwing away assets trying to defend them. No one had any idea what was happening to them now but, even if the logic was cold, they had chosen that fate for themselves.
A modest-sized siege force had also broken off to Porus Vida, but that honestly wasn’t particularly concerning. If not for the fact it wasn’t directly on the hyperlane, and for the opportunity the ambush they were setting at Onderon represented, Porus Vida would likely have been their choice of where to stand their ground. The world was ancient, having been part of the Republic since before even the Indecta Era, and had suffered enough conflicts in its day that it had very potent planetary shields and significant ground-based defenses. It didn’t have much of a fleet due to the Reformations, but it was one world that would require an actual proper siege for the Confederacy to take. As such Porus Vida had been instructed to bring up those defenses and simply wait and was more than capable of looking after itself for now. Honestly, the fact that the enemy had broken off a dozen Lucrehulks and support elements to siege it was icing on the cake, as it weakened the fleet walking into their trap.
A fleet that was much less worrying than they’d feared. Early reports of the sheer scale of the force assembled had been concerning, to say the least. Yet odds that would have been overwhelming enough to force a fallback option, one that involved running off with the King and having Bonteri pretend to really go over to the CIS, had been pared away when the initial fleet split. Mind you, the fact that the larger portion of that massive fleet had jumped down the Randon Run toward Kashyyyk wasn’t exactly great news, but it wasn’t the worst. Quiet, unofficial talks with the Wookiees had reassured that the Council’s own hopes the League would intervene in that particular fight were accurate.
Who would win over that world, Mace didn’t know. Frankly, though, the forces he was expecting the League of Free Stars to be able to commit there were stronger than anything the Republic could have scrounged up. Again, applying cold logic that he wasn’t a fan of, even a failed outcome there would likely batter the CIS fleet badly enough that a smaller Republic relief fleet might be able to stop their advance at either Umbara or Zeltron.
All of which meant that their own situation was looking far less dire than they’d feared.
On his side of the field, he had a mix of Jedi, Republic, and local forces. Forty of the Army of Light’s Katanna IIs, twenty of their Hammerheads, thirty Consular-class refits, and enough extra carrier capacity to support an extra eighty squadrons of Blades, in addition to the one hundred and sixty aboard the capital ships. On the Republic side, he had a single Mandator II, six Maelstrom-class battlecruisers and three dozen Venators as a core, all practically fresh from Kuat’s yards. In lighter ships, they hadn’t been as lucky, but had managed to scrounge up a mismatch of three dozen frigates of various kinds and quite a few hastily upgraded CR-90s. Not from Corellian Yards, but from various defense forces that were scrambling to upgrade anything that could be turned into a warship.
Thankfully, lighter warships that were a bit more worthy of being called such was actually something Onderon itself was able to field, to help thicken the uncomfortably light screen for the heavier ships. Much to pretty much everyone’s surprise, Onderon had somehow purchased a full two dozen Munifex IIs from the League of Free Stars. Alongside them were three times that number of the military model of the Defender II. Which made it clear that, for whatever odd reason, the League had chosen to invest in Onderon by letting them buy something normally only provided for a shortlist of their closest allies.
However that had happened, Mace was glad to have the ships, just as he was glad to have a ragtag bunch of privateers and modified freighters that were the first fruits of one of Bail Organa’s initiatives. Specifically, one that gave pardons for certain types of past crimes, for smugglers and pirates that fought for the Republic in its hour of need. He wasn’t exactly going to count on them for great courage, but the plan they’d come up with didn’t require such from them. There were over four hundred such ships, all of which had at least one capital missile platform now welded on, and which were hiding in the shadow of Dxun. They were there to create a nasty surprise when they were sprung and then were fully expected to hightail it out system. The Vulture swarms might well catch some of them, but his own forces had enough fighters that it was unlikely their enemy would focus on the running freighters.
The only visible ships were those of the locals, of course. Which was part of the plan.
As for what was coming for them…it was still an uncomfortable ‘weight of metal’ as one of the more experienced Jedi who’d fought in the Hutt Crusade had called it. A useful term, honestly, as the wildly disparate types of ships used by everyone on every side made measuring by tonnage or total expected firepower both more honest measurements than ship counts in many ways. Something evidenced by what they were facing.
The heaviest units the Separatists were bringing here were six Providence-class battleships. Which, despite technically being smaller than the Lucrehulks, were proper warships rather than refits. Said Lucrehulks were, of course, the worrying core of the CIS fleet, with a full sixty of them remaining despite diversions elsewhere. Alongside them were eighty Munificent-class cruisers, and a hundred and twenty of the poorly-armed Diamond-class corvettes that Mace was frankly not concerned with.
It was a sizable force. One that, frankly and bluntly put, outmatched them in both tonnage and throw weight. If not for the fact this was a trap, it would be an unwise engagement. Since it was a trap, with the CIS Fleet hopefully expecting to waltz right into a friendly system after a ‘local coup’ ‘replaced the King,’ they expected the fight to be fairly even. Not easy, and it was very possible they would still lose, but the CIS was going to be mauled badly, assuming secrecy had held. Given that, even now, that very coup was actually taking place, with the members of it besides Bonteri unaware that the whole thing was now as charade…hopefully it had held.
It should have, since there had been a comms blackout on his fleet as well. But the truth remained to be seen in…twelve minutes now, by their best estimate. Embracing the Force, Mace readied himself for action. This would be his first true fleet engagement, and he was determined to prove equal to the task.
… … …
- Kashyyyk – 59 Days into the Clone Wars-
Izuku’s expression was a little bit grim as he floated, watching the CIS fleet drop into the outer system. Only Zavra was present in the Miruko’s Battle Meditation chamber with him, with Aayla still acting in the role of an informal ambassador and command link with the Kashyyyk SDF. Which meant that only Zavra was there to see his grimace, though she also understood the cause of it. Frankly, her own expression was a bit unhappy as well, as she took in the total picture. Even if she wasn’t really a Fleet commander, she’d experienced more of war than virtually anyone alive at this point, including being present for quite a lot of Fleet engagements both in her far and recent pasts. It was she that broke the silence, with the fleet comm currently turned off.
“Damn. We were hoping to get more of their fleet than that…or that the fleet would be smaller. This is going to be ugly.”
Izuku nodded, not responding verbally to the entirely-to-obvious statement, even as he assessed what the computers were putting together about the opposing fleet. A full dozen Providence-class battleships were only the tip of the problem, with 117 Lucrehulks and 185 Munificent-class cruisers backing them up. There was almost nothing lighter than that, whatever corvette or frigate screen that’d had likely brutalized by the ambush, given there were barely 30 of the former and less than 20 of the latter. A chink in any major fleet’s armor that, unfortunately, was less important with a Confederate fleet due to their massive Vulture Swarms being an exceptionally good stand in as a screening element.
If he had the same Fleet he’d taken to Geonosis, this wouldn’t be too bad. There, he’d had six Miruko-class ships and thirty Paladins, plus another sixty Volitions and hundreds of smaller support frigates and corvettes. The Miruko’s massively outgunned anything the CIS had, short of their small number of Subjugators, and even just three of them could likely take all twelve of those Providences without much risk. Meanwhile, they already knew from experience that a Paladin could utterly wreck the day of a Lucrehulk refit before it could even get in range to fire back. Realistically, with two to one odds in favor of a Lucrehulk pair, the Paladin would still almost certainly come out on top. Even a Volition had a serious chance of 1 v 1ing a Lucrehulk, assuming it had enough support to keep the Vulture swarm off of it, simply because the Lucrehulks were as much carriers as they were battleships.
The problem, of course, is that Randon hadn’t had six Mirukos to bring to the fight. The League just flat out didn’t have enough of their Star Dreadnaughts to go around, even if it was the one class of ship they had more of than anyone else. Even if you scoured the Republic and lied through your teeth to call Mandator Is a real Star Dreadnaught, it was improbable you could find enough such modern and hyperspace capable vessels to match the 147 Mirukos currently in service. The last two of those being the first two from brand new construction after the war started, and just off their shakedown cruise at the moment. Yet, even with having more Star Dreadnaughts than anyone else, the League was now stretched to cover nearly 9,000 star systems as well.
That might only be a fraction of even the CIS in total, which was currently estimated to have bulked up to around 80,000 systems since the start of the war. Yet more worlds inside the space it controlled fell or bent the proverbial knee every day, so that number was still growing. The Republic, meanwhile, still had ten times that number. Though the raw numbers were not a great indication of economic power, with groups like the Trade Federation, Techno Union, and Commerce Guild making sure that circumstances were a bit more dire than raw numbers indicated. With the League being the smallest faction that arguably had a piece in this war, the brutal truth was that the CIS had almost as many Lucrehulks as the League had frigates. Let alone heavier capital ships.
The League was no longer expanding at all, as they were holding all the territory they realistically could, at least while maintaining a strategic reserve and retaining a percentage of the fleet for offensive action. Major fleets were anchored down to Tythe, Naboo, Dac, Jabiim, Charros IV, and Mon Gazza. Smaller but still critical fleets were holding Daalang, Charra, Nexus Ortai, Rishi, and several other nodal systems besides. Add in commitments in ships needed to protect ‘core’ League worlds from any chance of raiding, cover the various shipyards, and even chase down the Hives that had gotten off Geonosis into worlds within League space…
They hadn’t been able to gather up a fleet of the same size as had been present at Geonosis to Randon. They were just too thinly stretched with other commitments.
There were only two Mirukos here in Kashyyyk, one of them the Miruko herself. His flagship had only barely managed to reach Randon before the call to defend their ally had come, having needed some TLC after Geonosis. Izuku himself had only been able to catch up only due to the completion of the Randon Gate. He also only had twenty Paladins, not the thirty he’d had at Geonosis, since those couldn’t pass through the Jump Gates. Though, thanks to the last-minute completion of the Jump Gate, they had managed to shuffle in extra Volitions and smaller ships to stiffen the fleet up after they’d gotten word just how massive the CIS attack force was. Which meant he did have 71 of the Volition-class, and over 200 Siege-class frigates.
Even so, and despite the losses the enemy had taken and the damage visible on some of their ships, the overall weight of fire was definitively on the CIS side this time. Though, of course, the League’s usual tech edge would help to some degree. As would the fact that they were not the only ones to come to the Wookiee’s defense. Izuku had been pleasantly surprised to discover Umbara had decided not to be stupid, the usually isolationist world getting the firm idea that ‘fighting over someone else’s planet is preferable to fighting over ours.’ They knew they were the next in line after Kashyyyk, and had sent forty squadrons of their Zenuas-33 starfighters. Which were, frankly, quite possibly one of the only starfighters in the galaxy that could match Heroes, Sidekicks, and the new Jedi Blades.
They weren’t the only ones to send help, either. The Wookiees were well-liked by quite a few species, and a fair few had sent what they could to bolster the Kashyyyk SDF. Mostly, it was corvettes, frigates, and gunships, along with quite a few armed freighters and starfighters. All of which Izuku was grateful for, since the League flat out couldn’t have brought enough fighter capacity to equal the quarter of a million Vultures the enemy was likely to put out. Despite having brought as much as they could, and despite the help from Umbara and others, they were absolutely going to be outnumbered badly on the starfighter front. Though, of course, pretty much every fighter on their side was better than a Vulture. Likewise, the League’s point defense systems against fighters were much better than most, with only the Lucrehulks possibly being of near-similar quality and coverage.
The Wookiees themselves were hardly unarmed either. The League had been selling them additional military model Defender IIs cheap for years, beyond those originally given as rewards after the Crusade ended. Better yet, in the run up the Clone Wars, they had also started selling them some of their surplus Munifex IIs. They’d also even, very quietly, let the Wookiees buy up some of the capital ship hulls recovered from the Hutt mothball fleets. The Wookiees, industrious as they were, had actually managed to overhaul and upgrade a quartet of old Centurion-class ships, the venerable battlecruisers absolutely nothing to sneeze at. The Kashyyyk SDF was, at this point, absolutely nothing to sneeze at…against numbers that were a bit more sane than the CIS was throwing around, at least.
Despite it all, it was bluntly obvious to everyone that the League had brought more to the fight than everyone else on the Wookiees’ side combined, including the SDF. Unfortunately, Izuku was very much afraid that it might not be enough. Doubly so since Zavra had warned him there was apparently a Dark Side user leading this fleet, who might very well try to disrupt his Battle Meditation. Something that he’d never had to deal with before.
Still. Not every fight could be one you were certain of winning, and this one needed to be fought either way. He was just afraid it was going t-
“Uh, Master? The Knight Errant is here, and her captain is asking for a private comm channel. Apparently, they have a prototype refit aboard that Rana had added to the ship in a hurry? That they think you need to know about now?”
Izuku blinked, swearing he felt the Force exude smug for a moment, and waved a command to accept the call, curious what the heck this was about…
… … …
- Onderon – The Same Day the Attack on Kashyyyk -
Mace had a grim smile on his face as he held a half-meditation, using the rest of his attention to listen in on the exchanges happening between the local system defense force and an acerbic asshole calling himself ‘General Grievous.’ Something about the voice was giving him bad feelings in the Force, which is part of why he was half-meditating. Yet whoever he was, he apparently wasn’t immune to a truism Jedi Knight Tinni had shared with him. Something he’d picked up during the Crusade from a young but talented commander named Raoul Courvosier.
Surprise is what happens when an enemy has seen something all along, but thought it was something else entirely.
The bit of tactical wisdom had stuck with Knight Tinni, and it had resonated with Mace too, given how he could apply the same line of thought to more personal forms of combat. When fighting with a lightsaber, it was very rare for your opponent not to see the lightsaber. They are glowing swords, after all. Making them believe it won’t be where they think it will, or hit where they think it will hit, was a big part of every combat form. Applied then, to the tactical and strategic level in a fleet battle…show the enemy exactly what they are expecting to see, and that’s what they will see.
This General Grievous was expecting to see a system that had already flipped loyalties in a successful coup. So that’s precisely what they’d shown him. The man was competent, without question. He’d still brought his fleet into the inner system in good order and with shields up. Yet, it was obvious from the feel of the Force and the irritation in his voice that he was already looking forward, toward the next conquest. Better yet, he hadn’t seen the need to launch his Vultures or send any sort of scout forward. Scouts that might well have noticed the ragtag fleet hiding behind Dxun, or the larger Republic fleet hugging the other side of Onderon itself as a shield from sensors.
Of course, even if he’d spotted those two, he still wouldn’t have seen Mace and the Jedi units, as they were in the outer system, preparing for a Force assisted micro-jump that would put them right behind the CIS fleet. A fleet that was just about in range for the first strike. Right about…NOW.
“Executing Sucker Punch!”
The voice was that of Knight Mano, another Crusade veteran handling the auxiliary forces. Mace, with a tactical view from her fight, watched tensely as the ragtag fleet swung around Dxun at the exact same time Knight Tinni brought the Republic fleet swinging around Onderon…and in a bit of cerography that was only possible with a lot of preplanning and leaning on the Force, both forces pincered the CIS fleet between them as they opened fire with thousands of total missile and proton torpedo tubes, many of them modified or custom built to fire in ‘sprint’ mode. A mode of fire that allowed them to empty their entire magazine in under twenty seconds, using sustained targeting data rather than re-acquiring loc-on for each bird.
One instant, General Grievous was faced with a boring handover of a world that had switched sides.
The next he had over 36,000 missiles and torpedoes, aimed with passive targeting data provided by the defense forces and refined over the hour it had taken the fleet to move in, unloading on his ships.
To give the man credit, he responded with inhuman reflexes almost equal to that of a Jedi, barking out defensive commands before the comms to the local SDF could even be cut. They were the right commands, too, as far as Mace could tell. Yet, as fast as the General was, the largely droid fleet using none-too-bright B1 naval droids wasn’t nearly as fast to respond. Thus, for the first wave of that incredible salvo, only the automated point defense systems of the Lucrehulks specifically responded at all, and they only knocked down a fraction of that wave, since it wasn’t even targeted on them. The remaining missiles and torpedoes, over 3,000 just in that first wave alone, hammered into the six Providence-class battleships, and their shield folded like wet tissue paper under a lightsaber.
Not a single one of those battleships was still intact enough to fight by the time the second wave finished, and every wave from the third on focused on the Lucrehulks instead. Individual ships were targeted by as many as 200 missiles and torpedoes per wave, and there were a total of sixteen waves. Though only the first eight were of a size with the first, with the smaller racks on the freighters running dry even as the true capital ship tubes among the Republic force had twice the magazine capacity. The freighters all started bugging out the instant their tubes were empty, which was both fine and what they’d been ordered to do.
Meanwhile, just as the Republic ships came into turbolaser range…
“Execute Ramrod.”
…Mace Windu gave the order that had his own fleet jumping in directly behind the ravaged CIS force. When they blinked out of hyper from the jump, they found less than 20 of the Lurcehulks still capable of fighting back, and adrenaline surged through Mace’s veins as he began to call out targets. He wanted those ships dead before they had a chance to launch their Vultures in full, something they were already trying to do as the droid fighters streamed out of launch bays. They had a chance to actually drown the CIS in superior numbers of fighters right now as both their own and the Republic’s launched, and he wasn’t going to waste that.
Curiously, he noted that a flight of non-Vulture fighters had launched from somewhere and was already breaking away, fleeing the battle. A whisper of the Force had him send a squadron to chase them, but something told him they wouldn’t succeed. Why, exactly, it was important to try and catch just four Belbullab-22 starfighters he wasn’t sure. He also didn’t have time to contemplate it as his mind was fully drawn into the battle. The ambush had taken them from the underdogs in numbers to having the dominate hand, but he wouldn’t allow any more lives to be spent here than absolutely required.
Not just because they would be needed for other battles, but because it was the right thing to do…
… … …
- Kashyyyk -
Izuku watched with calculation as the CIS fleet charged through the particle beams of the Mirukos and Paladins. He’d taken his fleet out to meet the enemy specifically so that he could reverse course and draw out the amount of time where their ships couldn’t properly bring him to battle due to the range difference with those weapons. Not with the capital ships, anyway. There was an orgy of destruction going on in the space between the fleets, as his own fighters and lighter screening elements dueling to keep the Vulture swarms back. It wasn’t entirely working, but League ships had better point defense than essentially anything else in space. Meaning that the Vultures that did get through weren’t doing a lot of damage.
He could feel the rage and frustration of the enemy commander at that fact, that the only way she could currently engage him was failing. Of course, that wouldn’t last much longer. Kashyyyk didn’t have a planetary shield, so they didn’t dare let the CIS fleet into ranges where it could start either bombardment or landing operations. There was only another minute or two before he’d have to turn and charge, but the engagement so far had already cost the enemy commander four of her Providence-class and eleven Lucrehulks. Not all of them destroyed, only one of the Providence and three of the Lucrehulks had died outright, the others simply peeling off and retreating after taking too much damage from concentrated particle beam volleys.
More importantly, he was fairly certain the enemy commander was convinced this was a conventional, if frustrating, engagement. She had tried to disrupt his Battle Meditation, and had partially succeeded, managing to at least limit the amount of it he could use. At least, she thought she had. In reality, Zavra had shielded him from most of her efforts and he’d simply pulled back on the amount used as another way to fool her into doing what he wanted.
Which, as it happened, was for her to stumble face-first into Rana’s little surprise.
Seriously, if he wasn’t already half-drowning in beautiful girls, he could have kissed the woman.
“All Captains, prepare to execute Phase Shift. Repeat, prepare for execution of Phase Shift.”
The order, spoken into the command channel, got verbal acknowledgments from the most senior captains, the ones in charge of entire divisions of ships. Other captains simply flipped the switch that colored their ships as ready on the Battle Board being displayed before him, and they were all satisfyingly smooth. Even the non-League forces, though admittedly such was partially because he was leaning harder on those with what Battle Mediation he was using, than he was on his own people. Another minute passed, then two, and then the range to the planet fell too far to keep retreating safely.
“Execute Phase Shift. Repeat, Execute Phase Shift.”
With so many non-League elements, he’d needed to keep his plans simple, but Phase Shift was just that, simple. It marked the point where they shifted from a defensive, withdrawing formation, into an offensive spearpoint aimed at the center of the CIS fleet. Given they were still outgunned, it should have been a slightly questionable decision, but not enough of one to worry their enemy, as it looked like another relatively conventional maneuver.
In truth, it would have been exactly that if the Knight Errant wasn’t hanging in the shadow of a Paladin, the Valiant Promise, ready to set off its little surprise.
Once Phase Shift was fully completed, their own fleet began accelerating toward the CIS, several Paladins acting as spear tips to form up around. The most critical of those, however, was the Vaillant, being ‘guarded’ by the Knight Errant. In truth, it was the other way around, the Paladin prepared to dedicate a lot of its own defensive fire to making sure the Knight Errant wasn’t hammered despite being near the front. The fleets were closing quickly, with both accelerating towards each other, and any moment now they’d be in range for more traditional weapons. Yet, before that…Rana’s little surprise had just a little bit more range than most turbolaser fire.
“Knight Errant. Fire.”
The command was calm, but the results were not.
The Knight Errant had been slowly and subtly charging the Omni-cannon it had been fitted with. Its power requirements were enormous…but as it fired, the reason for that was made perfectly clear. The shot lanced out, targeting the Providence-class Zavra had identified as carrying the Dark Sider, and as it struck, said ship came apart.
The most important thing, however, was that the beam hadn’t stopped. Instead of a single shot, the Omni-cannon was firing a stream, with rippling waves of energy building all around the Knight Errant. A beat passed, then two, three, four, the waves contracted, the beam flared…and the damage propagated. Impossibly, the next half dozen nearest ships to the Providence-class that had just been obliterated experienced their own spontaneous, unplanned, deconstruction. Something that sent a stutter of disbelief and panic through the enemy in Izuku’s mind.
Disbelief and panic that he pounced on.
The Dark Side commander had died with her ship and crippled the command structure of the CIS fleet in doing so. With panic on their mind from the display, Izuku ruthlessly pressed in with the ‘discourage the enemy’ side of Battle Meditation, which wasn’t usually his focus. Now, as he bore down on the enemy’s collective will…captains began to break. Orders were snapped and individual ships pulled away from the CIS battle line, breaking ranks and protective fields of fire.
It happened at the worst possible time, just as both sides found the range and began pounding each other. One side was abruptly completely unfocused and poorly led, the other bolstered with Battle Mediation to make every combined fire plan work flawlessly. More CIS ships started exploding, and more started panicking and fleeing, farther breaking down the enemy formation. Izuku’s captains barely needed him at this point to know what to do, targeting isolated ships and pounding them to scrap, spreading the panic even farther.
What had been a battle rapidly became a rout.
Not that they were going to be allowed to escape, of course. After all, even if the prototype Omni-cannon could only fire once before slagging itself, it had done its job breaking them, and Izuku had a pair of Veto-class ships to keep the enemy ships from getting away. A few smaller vessels might escape, but the rest…their options were surrender or death. As more and more began to strike their engines and choose surrender, his lips curved into a bloodless smile. Not for the deaths or the destruction of his enemies, but at the thought of the reactions to his plans for afterwards.
He wondered what the Wookiees were going to think when he offered most of those ships to them as prizes to bolster the Kashyyyk SDF with? The League would take what the Wookiees couldn’t, having converted a number of surviving Lucrehulks from the Crusades fully into carriers which were quite useful. But the Wookiees SDF would have as many of them as they thought they could repair and crew. One way or another, he was quite sure the reactions of the rest of the Republic would be entertaining. Particularly those of Trandosha. Somehow, he thought Wookiee hunting was going to rapidly become a dying practice…
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A/N 1: One thing to highlight here is that 'auxiliary' fleet. It shows, or is intended to at least, something of the difference between how Palpatine would have run the war and how Bail and the High Command he set up are doing it instead. Where Palpatine was playing politics and chess master for both sides, Bail is being Pragmatic. He's using all the means as his disposal to give his people what they need to stop or slow down the CIS offensive, buying time for the Republic industry to come fully online and make a difference. If that means pardons for a few thousands criminal scumbags? That sucks, but in exchange for the lives of billions or trillions the calculous is brutally simple.
A/N 2: Yes, one of those Belbullab-22s was the Soulless One. Grievous survived the battle, but he didn't make as grand an entrance as his masters would have hoped for...
A/N 3: More than one person has encouraged me to include things from Iokath :-p. For the most part, I'm keeping the Super Weapons down to a dull roar. But a slightly nerfed Omni-cannon (used on the Gravestone in SWTOR) is somewhat within reason. A weapon that can knock out a handful of ships at a time...if they can perfect it. Right now it's a single-shot prototype that fried itself after firing once.
A/N 4: Despite seemingly one-side victories, the League and Republic DID take loses in these fights. I thought about going into them in Chapter 150, but decided it didn't fit in with the celebrations. It's something covered in the next batch of chapters instead.