Star Wars Project: Archery, chapter 1

The last one was boring... so this one is relatively action packed...


Chapter 1


Zyjin was dreaming again, he let the force float through him, even with his eyes closed, he would ‘see’ by the sense of the force the two incoming star fighters in his dream. He himself, was inside the cockpit of his own standard issue Delta-7-D Aethersprite-class light interceptor or the Jedi Starfighter for short. Master Toorani’s Delta-7-C was right beside. Both fighters still have their hyper space ring module attached. A couple of hooks have ejected from the rings' hard points into the rocks close by, the strain from the hooks secured both fighters in a stationary position. The two Star fighters were engulfed inside the ‘cave’ of a large pot shaped asteroid. The Jedis maneuvered their flights through the narrow circular entrance to hide.

Two more Delta-7 variants are approaching fast. One of them has an eye catching blue paint job the other has a standard ordinary red paint scheme.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Delta-7_Aethersprite-class_light_interceptor)

The two new comers came to a relative stop at the entrance of the cave. Then, the red Delta-7 turned itself around with thrusters, enter the cave tail first, then slowly it reversed park inside the asteroid and parked right on top of the other two star fighters already inside. The modified blue fighter simply fired its boosters, headed inside the cave head first, then it made a 180 degree turn inside the cave, smoothly park itself right on group on top of Zyjin’s Star fighter. That blue star fighter was the Azure Angel, a heavily modified Delta-7 piloted by Anakin Skywalker.

Zyjin has witnessed Anakin’s smooth move as opposite to the red Delta-7’s careful mechanical routine. Clearly, Anakin was docking his fighter with his piloting skills, whereas the other craft handed the job to the droid.

A series short beeps kick started Zyjin’s helmet ear piece, came the interception of conversation between the two new comers. The droids onboard all four Jedi star fighters have initiated their point to point communication link, one that was done via visual optical signals at very short range instead of emitting board frequencies that would be intercepted by the enemy.

‘… they would be here any moment Anakin, you should just fly in first and save a few more seconds...’ the chatter was the voice of Jedi General, Master Obi-wan Kenobi.

‘Yes master, I know, but I would be in a better position to intercept and defend ourselves as the rear guard, and besides, you are the master, you should be the first to enter.’ Anakin Skywalker speaks with his energetic voice.

‘…Welcome to the old cup, Gentlemen!’ Toorani greeted the two via the comm.-link. ‘I wasn’t expecting reinforcements on this scale, Jedi General (Major) Kenobi and top ace of the republic, (Lieutenant) General Skywalker. It is better than fleets of bombers. I am glad to have you two on board. Welcome to the fun!’

‘Our fleet is refitting closest to this position when you sent request to the war council. It is too good to miss such chance indeed. There is nothing better in this war than blasting those droids back to dust while they still packed up in freighters.’ Kenobi was pleased. ‘and, looks like today is the day the clone pilots talked about come true at last. The three top ace of the republic fighting side by side.’
‘Aces don't meant much fighting a thousand working droid fighters, but let’s hope we do have enough fire power to doom a fleet load of inactive ones.’ Toorani agreed. ‘Finally I get to see Anakin in action. We have a lot to learn from him, Kenobi, Anakin’s kill score was more than the two of us combine.’

‘That was merely because I was at the front, facing the dumb droids, Master Toorani. You and Onmikhan were fighting all those prototypes, custom made droids all the time. Much deadlier than ones I kill. Numbers don’t count. I should be the one learning.’ Anakin returned the praise politely.
‘So what is actual plan? We left in a hurry, mine fill us in.’ Kenobi ask, ‘I didn’t detect any separatists ships or bases in the systems nearby.’

‘I will let my young apprentice explain. Your term to speak.’ Toorani handed over to Zyjin.
‘Yes master, R-8 projections!’ He paused to wait for a hologram emitted from Zyjin’s astro-droid.
It was a map of the nearby sector, projected to the centre space of the cave.

‘It has been six months since Geonosis. We have so far encountered more than nine million droids at the front. At the beginning, our forces already faced an enemy with a numerical superiority that was roughly five droids for one clone on any battlefield. That number has just risen to six for one. That increase was gain after we have destroyed seven droid planetary foundries, each with production capacity of eighty thousand B1 a week. The numbers are still raising mean only one thing, there are a lot more factories out there. While we tried our best to find the factories, our team has found the next best thing, a list of rally points that the droids made by various factories would be delivered to and empty separate cruisers would pick them up.’
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/B1_battle_droid)

The projected star map highlighted a few spots mostly at remote, low population regions of the galaxy.

‘These are the most frequently used rally points confirmed so far. This one has reported hot activities in recent weeks. We have creditable intelligent indicated two deliveries of droids from factories unknown will be inbound in any moment.’

The Star map then shrank in size and a hologram of some sort of bomb was displayed.
‘This is the republic’s latest secret weapon, the Immobilizer bomb. If detonated, the blast would prevent starships within a radius of ten thousand klicks jumping to hyperspace for about 500 seconds. It is still on a trial phrase, there would still be side effects that we do not aware of. We have special clearance to use it on this mission. Each of us will have three on our payload. Use them at your own will.’
Master Toorani cut in: ‘Master Kenobi, your share of the bombs are here, my apology for not bring a ground crew with us. We must arm them at once.’ He use the force to open up a crate in front his star fighter, reveal inside were six immobilizer bombs.

‘Oh, no worries my friend, we got used to grabbing supplies without even landing our ship these recent months. Anakin, load them up!’ Kenobi turned to Anakin, ‘I sense they are about to arrive.’
‘Yes master!’

At once, Anakin concentrated himself with the force, the first bomb rise from the crate and follow by the second and third, all three headed to the hard points on Kenobi’s fighter. R-4, Kenobi’s astrodroid beeped fanatically from Kenobi’s comm. link, acknowledging the the bombs were successful secured. Anakin wasted no time as he quickly transferred his payload of bombs to his fighter. Hooked them to the hard point right before hyperspace activities registered on the hologram projected from Zyjin’s droid.

‘Here they come!’ Toorani began to adjust controls responsible for controlling the asteroid they were in. Slowly, the entire asteroid turned. It is obvious this asteroid was not there by any chance, it was a modified forward observation post. The strange shape was chosen so craft or observation droids can be easily hidden inside it. Its outer rock formation was installed with small boosters to provide slow mobile movement that are hard to be detected by system wide sensor unless at a very close range. Visually the entire asteroid would move like it was propelled by natural inertia.

Since the asteroid is to be abandoned after this mission, it has no hyper drive, the Jedis don’t mind it was going to be detected this final time of use, their cover is going to be blown the moment their fighters appear from inside it. Therefore Toorani programmed the asteroid to fly towards the point of activity in the star system at full speed.

* * *

A gigantic freighter ship came out of hyperspace. The three dozen vulture droid fighters attached on its hull during hyperspace travel immediate took off securing the area. The freighter ship was over seven thousand meters long. Its rhombus angular shape boxy main body gave it an even more enlarged, massive appearance visually. There were multiple docking arms seem randomly positioned on the main hull body, made the ship looked like a cactus build of steel.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Variable_Geometry_Self-Propelled_Battle_Droid,_Mark_I)

A second vessel of identical design came out of hyperspace moments after the first.

The Neimoidian captain of the second huge freighter ship looks out from the tiny windows of the bridge. He was anxious, he was late because his freighter's hyper drive malfunctioned. He was supposed to be here forty minutes ago. Worst, there were no other CIS ships around the rally area besides the two lone freighters. His squads of vultures are his only protection.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Neimoidian)

‘What is going on! Where are the other ships!’ The captain yell at the droid bridge hand next to him, ‘have the system fully scanned.’

‘Yes Sir! Scanning!’ Droid replied. ‘But, sir, our sensor are not powerful enough to scan the whole system!’

‘What! This madness, Spread out the fighters, secure the area!’

‘Yes Sir!’

* * *

A schematic of the freighter was projected inside the cave, as Zyjin explains to Anakin and Obi-wan, its weakness.

‘The Blocton class droid freighter, it is a lazy design but effective none the less in feeding droids to CIS warships. Those feeding arms once extended and connect to the CIS ships, would transport one hundred droids a minute each. The belly of the beast can house at least half million B1 and B2 droids with room to spread. However, like many CIS warship designed in a hurry before the war, it has fatal weakness. In this case, it was structural.’

Zyjin continue to fill in the detail but he raised his eyes to look out of the opening of the cave, he would see the two freighters through the cave opening ahead as two tiny shiny dot.

‘These points, if hit by a missile or proton torpedo, would smash the ship’s structural integrity. We expect once four out of six of these areas were hit, it would fall apart. As simple as that. Is everything clear?’

‘Looks like it is going to be a easy.’ Anakin was also looking out via the opening.

‘Don’t under estimate the enemy Anakin, they would be carrying ten thousand vulture fighters.’
Kenobi tries to tame Anakin down, he then turn to Master Toorani, ‘Do they have a droid control unit on those ship?’

‘Yes, they do, but not an all powerful one that would control every droid they carry on board, but more than a handful I am sure.’ Toorani replied putting the best answer he can think of.

‘I say we go out in the open and race there, we would deploy the bombs before they jump. It is far too slow traveling inside this thing.’ Anakin was impatient. ‘With the size of that thing, they will need a lot of time to charge up their slow hyper drivers, I say we got enough time.’

‘We will do it the safe way, Anakin.’ Obi-wan still can’t put down his old habit picked up while he was Anakin’s Master, often disapproves Anakin’s crazy plans. 

* * *

‘Sir, we detected an asteroid heading this way.’ One B1 bridge worker droid reported to the captain of the freighter.

‘Show me!’ The captain turn to see a hologram of the incoming, it is heading straight at them. He doesn’t like what he saw. ‘Send a dozen vultures to blast it out!’
‘Yes sir!’

* * *

‘Master, we are now less than ten thousand klicts, twelve incoming, vultures.’ Zyjin report his readings.

‘Only twelve?’ Anakin was surprised. ‘I say we go now!’ He look over to Obi-wan.

Kenobi gave it a short thought and nodded. ‘Let’s go Master Toorani, I believe Anakin and Zyjin can deploy the bombs in time. We will cover them.’

‘Agree! Let’s go! Zyjin, give our guests their gifts!’ Toorani reach to power up his yellow paint scheme fighter.

‘Gladly! Master!’ Zyjin reach for the controls. In a patch of empty space inside the cave a container powered up, it was a cluster of 12 concussion missiles. Zyjin have them locked on the unsuspected vultures. ‘R8, Fire!’

In a matter of seconds, all twelve missiles shoot out of the moving pot asteroid, headed straight towards the enemy.

The vultures reacted, breaking formation. Since all missiles had a firm lock on its targets. It went on pursuit right away.

‘Go Anakin, you first.’

‘Zyjin, after Master Kenobi.’ 

The two Jedi masters issue order to their apprentice at once.

Anakin didn’t answer. He detached the hooks, his thrusters at max. In less than a second, he was freely in space. After jettison of the hyperspace ring, he plotted a route that he would fly pass the possible path of at least three vultures evading the missiles on their tail, while remain headed for the freighter at full speed.

Obi-wan followed Anakin in slower pacing. Flying was for droids, he always needed time to adjust to it every time he returned to fly.

Suddenly, he found Zyjin zoomed pass him from behind.

 ‘Oh, I forgot that!’ Obi-Wan realized what was dragging him, as Zyjin left the hyper space ring behind. soon after he got out of hiding. He signaled R4 to separate his craft with the hyper space ring and together with Master Toorani, all four Delta shaped Jedi Star fighters went in to battle.

Zyjin, like Anakin ploted a path that would ran across vultures. But there weren’t much left as two third of the missiles, which all personally tuned up by Zyjin and Toorani hit their targets. For the remaining four, two went right into Anakin’s projected course, were instanly turned in to fireballs by just four shots from Anakin’s guns.

For the remaining two, one had itself head on towards Zyjin and was too easy as target. The last one managed to shake off the missile and before he tries to Ram towards to Toorani, it was blasted to pieces by Kenobi’s guns.

* * *

‘Sir, four Jedi Star fighters heading this way!’ Another Droid on the bridge report with their signature cold tune.

‘What! Nonsense. Let me see!’ After the captain confirmed the visuals, he panic, ‘Blast! Send out all available fighters at once! This is madness! Where are the cruisers? I don’t want to die here! Prepare my shuttle!’

* * *

‘Look at the size of that thing!’ Obi-wan speak with amazement. ‘I wonder why they don’t build guns on the hull.’

‘Careful of what you wish for, master!’ Anakin’s voice came in the every one's ear piece, ‘they are releasing dwarf spider droids on to the hull!’
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/DSD1_dwarf_spider_droid)

‘Oh I see it! This is still relatively easy!’ Kenobi kept his claim as usual as the pair headed towards one freighter.

* * *

‘Try to get closer, we don’t know how effective this bomb is!’ Toorani reminds his student.

‘Don’t worry master, thank you for drawing antiaircraft fire away from me. I will go deploy the bomb now.’ Zyjin use the force to help him concentrate, as he plotted the route with least enemy fire in front of him. ‘R8, boost preset 3.’

The droid clicked to acknowledge. Immediately, Zyjin felt the inertia of speed pushing him to his seat. His fighter, although not modified like Anakin’s, has done a lot of tuning to make the best out of it.

When he was about five thousand meters in front of the freighter, he detonated the first bomb. The blast sent out a dim shockwave across the affected region, disrupting gravity.

* * *

Soon after the bomb was deployed there was a shuttle leaving the Freighter, one that has a hyper drive. The captain suddenly discovers his craft isn’t going anywhere after he order the droid to jump to hyper space. ‘What is going on here?! Report! Report!’

‘Sir, we cannot jump to hyperspace, due to gravity distortion.’ 

‘Blast! This is not a good day to die! Certainly not out here, get me back to the ship!’

* * *

After he deployed his first gravity bomb, Anakin turn his fighter to go after the first weak point. It was at the engine backbone region. By this time, there were over a thousand spider droids on the hulls of both freighters, blasting every gun to their fast moving targets, sadly for them, these droids aren't designed for use in space, their targeting system not well tuned for shooting fast moving planes, it little to no lethal effect. All their shorts miss Anakin, it was the newly launched a dozen vulture fighters on his back he needs to pay some attention to.

Similar situation over with Zyjin, a  dozen vultures were tracing him.

‘Master, go for weak point 3, aim your missiles. I can’t get a lock, until I shake these off.’

‘Got it, firing!’ Toorani, sent out two missiles towards the upper backbone of the freighter, hitting the target. The subsequent explosion it causes sent hundreds of spider droids into space.

Anakin manage to hit his target with a proton torpedo payload he had on his craft, while using the hull of the Freighter as cover, he out turn the vultures along the hull, made three crashed into the high raise feeding arms. then blasted three in one go with a quick and sharp rolling turn, before the rest of the droids change tactic from tracing him and spread out.

‘This is easier than expected…’ Anakin appear to be enjoying himself once again.
Kenobi, having the force with him today, already destroyed another weak point, but before Kenobi managed answer to Anakin’s comment, he found their luck suddenly ran out.

Directly off portside of their target freighter a Providence-class carrier drop out of hyperspace. It came in the vase space right between the two gigantic freighters.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Providence-class_carrier/destroyer)

‘Oh dear!’ Obi wan instinctively commented.

* * *

Since there were two gigantic freighters here packed full with weapons, having a Providence-class carriers in to meet them shouldn't be a surprise at all.

Zyjin was trying shake of a wing of vultures behind him by flying away from his target towards Anakin's target, but all those trace signals suddenly vanished, the hyperspace gravity disruption crashed the tracers ahead of the trace pack and the rest has to pan out to avoid crashing onto the newly arrived carrier.

Zyjin would be killed if he was two second late to his position when the carrier came out of hyperspace. Not time to contemplate whether it was his luck or was the force saved him, he was immediately confronted with all their new problem: what just saved him is blocking him from targeting of the weak points on his freighter. ‘Blast! Master! Go get weak point 6, you should be able to do it.’ 

‘No Zyjin, I will have to deploy another bomb, prevent them from escaping. You are on your own!’
Without other choices, Zyjin yank his fighter off to a path to avoid the carrier to stay on target, evading a barrage of deadly anti fighter cannons from the carrier.

He decided to go for the top side of the freighter, hit two weak points at once, and so complete the mission. Then, suddenly a missiles warning alerted him, the carrier has loads of missile launchers and they only have four targets, they still have some of them left.

To avoided being tailed on the massive war front, Anakin and Kenobi have learned to help each other by flying towards each other, so each can blast the enemies projectiles or fighters behind each other’s tail. Both of them would go pass each other in space so close that they would reach for handshakes if there weren’t cockpits between them.  

For Kenobi's target, only one more weak-spot is required for mission success. Anakin knew the longer they stay, the more CIS ships would come in and that newly arrived carrier is not helping.
‘Master, you are flying along the starboard hull of the Carrier aren’t you? Can you blast the starboard hanger bay shield generators for me now?’

‘Yes, I am nearing there, what are you thinking?’

‘I am going to take this thing out!’ he kicked his fighter to max speed, made a fanatical run towards the carrier towards the shielded hangar bay from the port side, blasters at max destroying the protecting cannons and shield generators. ‘I am counting on you Master!’

‘I hate it when you do that! Anakin. Please don’t do it again.’ Kenobi know what Anakin had in mind, he have no way talking him out of that mad move in the heat of battle. So he can only help out. He went along the starboard hull, accurately fired a proton torpedo at the shield generator region, seconds after Anakin blew the one on the opposite side.

The carrier was opening the huge blast doors in anticipation of getting feed from the freighters, the hard wired programming ensure they can't initiate close option until the open operation came to a halt. The blast doors on both sides began to close after all the shield generators were destroyed.

Traced by missiles and vulture droids, Anakin flew his craft inside the large hanger, dropped his full payload of concussion bombs inside as he fly pass it. He narrowly escaped from the last gap left by the blast door before it slams shut. Those vulture droids and missiles behind him all crash on to the blast door.  Instantly the whole carrier start blowing up from the inside.

With the problem gone, Anakin can now concentrate on the last weak spot. It was then, he spotted more enemy. One of the Trade Federation Lucrehulk class Battleship arrived but far away from the battle space.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lucrehulk-class_battleship)

‘Master, go help Master Toorani, I can finish this one alone!’ As always, Anakin think of helping others in a disadvantage at the heat of battle, it doesn’t matter they were clones or fellow Jedi.
‘I am going there, may the force be with you!’ Kenobi yaw his craft towards the other Freighter immediately.

Zyjin and Toorani was in trouble. Each was traced by no less than a dozen droid fighters, adding to the trouble were missiles from newly release Hailfire droids on the hull of the Freighter. Despite those droids were almost ejected into space by the loading tubes, their pack load of missiles are still a worry combine with the missiles from the carriers before it blew up.
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/IG-227_Hailfire-class_droid_tank)

Zyjin came up with a plan to shake off his tail as he skitters across the surface of the Freighter hull. A few second was what he needed to target the last weak points. To dealt with the mess behind him, he decided to use the Freighter itself.

‘R8, prepare for maneuvered 17. I will fix you up back at base.’ R8 did not seem to be happy with the decision, but it obeyed.

Zyjin fly to the end of the engine section of the huge freighter where it was a blind spot for the spider droids struggling to hold onto the hull. He suddenly disengage engine and put full forward thruster reverse. Combine with the power of the force, he manage slow down rapidly and sank itself right off the edge of the ship's hull. Submerged his craft into the plasmas emitted by the engines. All the missile locks instantly lost its target lock. Flew off blindly and the star fighters droids over shoot, they became easy targets for Zyjin as he fire his guns in an upward arc swing.

Once the threat was gone, he kick the craft engine to max and has it raise from the engine emission, all the way up to the point he would get the best target lock on the two top side weak-spot.

There were warnings from R8 on missiles coming his way. But, Zyjin had no time to deal with that, he engaged the lock and fired all his remaining missiles towards each weak spots. Just before he began to move away from the trouble closing in fast, he sense all missiles were wiped out by rapid blasters.

‘Nice move back there, Zyjin! I've got five of those weak points! But I don’t see any signs that thing coming apart. Plus I have used up all my gravity bombs! I say we go in …’ It was Anakin, saving the day for Zyjin for the first time as they cross their paths. 

All the missiles fired by Zyjin hit its targets. The gigantic Freighter was already attempting to jump to hyper space.

While a star ship make the jump gravity gets disrupted in the spaces around would case massive stress to ships structures. In the case of the freighters, massive vibrations occurred to every bolt and beams, its structure began to crack. Large components fall out of place, engines dislodged, generators crash on fuel tubes. Explosions from the inside start to rip the hull apart.

The other freighter Anakin hit attempted the same thing met the same fate, only breaking down a lot faster. Countless droids still in their inactive storage status were sent in all directions by explosions. Close to empty CIS capital ships arrived in time to witness the spectacular disintegration of the two freighters that supposed to re-arm them for war.

‘I say it is time to go home!’ Kenobi's voice crystal clear from the ear piece, ‘our job is done here.’

‘Understood General Kenobi, let’s go home!’ Toorani agreed.

Four republic star fighters broke away from the battle field with their unusual high speed, headed straight to their hyper spaces rings. Each ring was automatically adjusted by each droid of respected pilot to be ready for their mother-ship to dock with it and jump to hyper space right away. Toorani was the last to jump, he left behind the last gravity bomb on delay charge, preventing any enemy from tracing them immediately…

Just four Jedis managed leave behind a big mess for the CIS force, tens of thousands of inactive droids floating across the space among the millions of pieces of wreckages.