4.06

"Senatorial aide Doriana. Vice Lord Siv Kav. What a surprise to see persons of your station in such an... unusual location," Father greeted them as soon as the connection with the other Lucrehulk went through. Finding any high ranking member of the Trade Federation so far away from the main trade routes and with what looked suspiciously like a small attack fleet was unusual, but not entirely unexpected. Finding a senatorial aide on the same ship with him, given the tensions between the Trade Federation and the Senate was quite a surprise. Finding Kinman Doriana, a close ally of Darth Sidious openly present here... that was another thing entirely.

"Captain Andrim..." The middle-aged, balding, Nabooan noble and politician sighed in exhaustion and dejection - or seemed to. I had to admit he was a very good actor; without foreknowledge or the Force there would be no hint of his true feelings in his face. "It is a sad day that the senate has need of your services, however covertly. Your reputation precedes you."

"I suppose a meeting with an entire Trade Federation task force is covert?" Father asked rhetorically, then waved away the excuse Siv Kav opened his mouth to give. The Neimodian was left gaping like a fish while someone of lesser rank spoke over him. "No matter. The agreed upon reward was high enough to ignore such minor issues. What is this about?"

"The Republic has threatened the integrity of the Outer Rim and the rights of Trade Federation members, that's what it is about!" Siv Kav growled, his voice a little less practiced in dissembling than his human counterpart. "We're here to recover our constituents!"

"Please Vice Lord, the Jedi Order is not the Senate, no matter how much they wish they were," Doriana interrupted. "Captain, we called you here because an insane Jedi took control of a colonization mission with fifty thousand colonists, two thousand of them Federation members that aren't Republic citizens."

"Odd. The only such mission in recent years... it is this Outbound Flight project, right?" Father appeared skeptical, and well he should be. He'd been filled in on the outcome of this particular mess by me, foreknowledge passed as visions of the future, and what was happening now was an enormous divergence from the original timeline... or was it? "From what I heard on the news, the Jedi sent some of their own to help protect and guide the civilians. Even if a crazy Jedi had taken over - and since when do Jedi go crazy? - wouldn't they resolve this themselves?"

"Neither the Republic nor the Jedi can afford talk of crazy Jedi in this political climate, captain." Kinman Doriana shook his head at the 'absurdity' of politics taking precedence over fifty thousand lives. "It is why both the Senate and the Trade Federation have secretly agreed to resolve this quietly. My and Vice Lord Siv Kav's presence here is a guarantee of our interests being represented, and hiring you as a... special consultant should guarantee success, no?"

Sadly, Doriana's lies made far more sense than the truth, here. Jorus C'Baoth, the Jedi Master organizing this project, had gone all dark side and become a tyrant over the civilians in the canon timeline... but the Jedi and the Republic never knew that. Considering Sidious himself had visited the project and met with the man many times, chances were C'Baoth had been helped more than a little in believing he should become despot of the new colony. And there was Sidious' goal in all of this; by using the Trade Federation to eliminate the problem, he could inflame opinions in both the Rim and the Core while also marring the image of the Jedi. The only issue was why things were happening differently than the original timeline. There Sidious had wanted the project destroyed in total secrecy rather than use it in politics. Had my and Father's efforts changed things so much?

"...I accept, Vice Lord," Father stated after pretending to think things over. "My ship will join your task force in this sensitive mission."

xxxx xxxx

​

"You do not have any vulture droids? How are you supposed to help us in our mission?!" That was not the first time Siv Kav's superior, condescending, and far too idiotic attitude got on my nerves. As soon as we'd entered the Unknown Regions and started preparing for Outbound Flight's arrival, the torrent of illogical, megalomaniacal pronouncements and demands had begun... and not stopped since. "They're the staple of the Federation's space force, the greatest fleet in the galaxy. Is your vessel a warship at all, or a toothless cargo transport?"

"I suppose it would seem that way, Vice Lord," I said since Father had stopped humoring the idiot. "But appearances can be deceiving. Besides, drone fighters are hardly the most effective method of firepower projection." Especially when they were commanded by idiots, though I refrained from saying so to the Neimodian. It would have been insulting to idiots everywhere, if I had.

"Excuse our ignorance, Lady Andrim. Your father's departure from Trade Federation doctrine has left us unsure as to how your ship can contribute to the mission," Doriana interjected diplomatically as I led the two men away from the bridge before Father had the security droids accidentally shoot them a couple dozen times each. "Perhaps you could explain to us how the combination of Kuati tradition and Federation ingenuity has made this ship the terror of pirates in the Outer Rim? Captain Andrim seemed a bit too busy with the minutiae of the trip to answer questions."

"I am afraid I can't tell you, representative Doriana." The elevator opened its doors to a cavernous chamber several dozen decks deeper into the hull, a powerful, high-detail holoprojector the size of a small starship powering up and filling the chamber with an extremely detailed representation of the entire task force and the surrounding space. "But I can show you. Cabal, play simulation Outbound Flight, max difficulty."

At the far end of the hologram there was a tiny flash. Holographic displays appeared before the three of us, showing a zoomed-in image of the simulated Outbound Flight and the simulated task force both. Six dreadnought cruisers attached to a central module faced three Lucrehulk-class ships, six Hardcell-class transports, and seven escort cruisers. The displays indicated a narrow cone of space starting at the Darkvenge greying out, one that barely touched the Outbound Flight. A second later, another cone emanating from the Doughnut appeared, though at twice the radius and width.

"As you can see, instead of modified tractors, this vessel has dedicated gravity well projectors," I said. "The larger, more powerful system is more than four times as effective at preventing the escape of hostile vessels into Hyperspace." This was only a lie of magnitude. Kuat had developed the new interdiction system shortly before our House had been forced to cast us out, with a specialist cruiser to mount them still years from production. The Doughnut did have the system added, each projector taking a sixty-meter-wide spherical volume of internal space. But the simulation had only shown the effect of two projectors working in tandem. The ship already had eight installed, twice the loadout of the planned Interdictor, with more planned. Because assault micro jumps and hyperspace ramming attacks are only fun if they happen to others.

Now the two carrier Lucrehulks were disgorging fighters in fast-forward as the simulation sped up through the standard Federation assault doctrine. Unfortunately, as soon as the fighter screen showed itself, Outbound Flight started shooting. A dozen long-range ion cannons fired every second, their charged shots cutting through the swarm at twelve thousand kilometers. In the five minutes it took the fighters to fully deploy, assume attack formations, and attempt to cross the intervening distance, all attack squadrons had been chewed up, and the Outbound Flight had started taking out the defensive screen too.

"What's this? Ion cannon fire is not even close to this accurate!" Siv Kav complained. "Automated fire control can't do that, and organics simply can't react so quickly. And for the defenders to be so quick to fire they would have to be forewarned."

"Precisely so. The simulation takes into account the Jedi's known displays of precognition, as well as the recorded ability of some of their Order to shoot incoming blaster bolts down with other blaster bolts." Because the Grey Paladins were often mistaken as part of the Order by the media, and I totally wasn't a Force adept who knew better. "Your information has this crazy Jedi Master taking over the Outbound Flight, but what of the other Jedi with him? Weren't there, like, two dozen of them? We can't afford to underestimate them; fifty thousand lives depend on us!"

Now the simulation had turned dire for the Trade Federation task force. The six armed Hardcell transports' only means to attack at range was missiles, but with hypothetical Jedi on the target's weapons control eighteen-missile salvos could be easily shot down by six cruisers' point-defenses. That was the problem with capital-class missiles; they could heavily damage large ships by carrying warheads the size of small starfighters... without the latter's shields or maneuverability. Return fire from the long-range ion cannons could disable ships the size of a light cruiser with one hit, and Siv Kav's supposedly cutting-edge warships still had configurations used in the invasion of Naboo. That meant the Darkvenge and the Keeper were Lucrehulk battleships in name only; Outbound Flight actually outgunned them one on one despite being only the size of a Lucrehulk's control sphere, and its design geometry meant it could bring most of its guns to bear on a frontal attack whereas pre-Clone Wars Lucrehulks had painfully narrow firing angles and sparse weaponry spread thin across their massive, useless bulks.

"And here we see why a complement of fighters does not a battleship make." The Doughnut was faring much better than its compatriots. Far stronger shields deflected the barrage almost contemptuously aside as it approached, despite roughly three Venators' worth of firepower. In the simulation it moved closer to the Outbound Flight, answering with about a third the long-range firepower. The program assumed the six dreadnoughts' shields had been configured and integrated correctly, so the target was holding up too, if barely. Of course, its real capabilities would have shattered the target's shields far faster, but a) we were officially supposed to liberate the civilians and b) sharing our real capabilities with Sidious' minions would be dumb. No matter; with the range reduced further, the simulation lit up as over five hundred quad guns went into rapid fire. Already strained, Outbound Flight's shields collapsed and its weapons emplacement was scoured by repuposed AA guns.

"A large number of heavy anti-air provides more than a defense against small craft. At close ranges, this vessel outguns the Darkvenge and the Keeper combined." Especially with how your ships' guns have crap firing angles so don't get ideas about disappearing us. "Sure, we might not be able to project power across long distances on paper, but the Federation's doctrine of remote control cripples the fighters' ability to maneuver across the star system in any case. With their fuel cells limited to twenty-five minutes, the current generation of vulture droids also have issues over long engagements." Because why not compound idiotic doctrine with stupid design?

"But the greatest difference is costs. Each of our quad guns costs less than a vulture initially, and even with a thousand of them operational costs are minimal. Starfighters on the other hand need very expensive fuel and maintenance after every engagement. Plus to actually engage the enemy, they must get into close range, exposing them to counter fire they can't survive. Statistics show each successful shot from a vulture against an enemy with rough parity costs four thousand credits, with the vulture shot down after three such shots whereas quad cannons cost one credit per successful shot."

Siv Kav gaped at that before fainting like an idiot, my unloading my own fatigue on him through the Force only partially to blame.