The room was simple, circular, its tiled walls and glossy stone floors a perfect model of Rothanian minimalist architecture and design. The only pieces of furniture present within the room were a large, white, pentagonal Holo-table at its center, and the plethora of comfortable, rotating chairs placed around it. Despite them all being in attendance, most of the chairs were empty, there were not many that Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Mace had judged worthy of being considered as competent advisors.
First among those few they had recognised was Anakin himself. He sat beside Captain Rex and Echo, the latter of whom had recently been promoted to full commando, and was thereby representing Clone Force 99 at this meeting. Directly across from Anakin and the clones was Dr. Shina, who sat in a levitating mobile chair, her leg still locked within a cast, though she seemed to be otherwise recovering swiftly.
Sitting to her right was a straight back Captain Spikes, who wore the uniform of a naval officer, having even gone so far as to remove his helmet from the ensemble. To Dr. Shina's left sat Bucket, who wore his white trooper armor and helm and slouched like he was facing a court martial.
Additionally, sitting to Bucket's left, was a newcomer. Admiral Whilhuf Tarken, who had arrived only hours before, looked down his nose at the rest of the room with his one good eye. The man wore a sling, a still bloody bandage obscuring his left eye, and white, medical burn patches dotted his chin and neck. He was now a veteran of the Retreat at Axum, which was quickly coming to be known by the galactic community as the Blue Massacre.
Presiding over them as assessors were Jedi Masters Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobe. It was their duty to determine what effect this emergency meeting of theirs would have.
"We know that all of you have a lot of experience to bring to this conversation, and a lot of ideas as to what direction would be the most productive. So we will begin there." Said Obi-Wan.
"Each of you will be given some time to state what you think is the most important issue to address, and why. Rest assured, we will address all of these issues, but it will be up to me, Master Obi-Wan, and the Supreme Chancellor to determine in which order these problems are addressed. Keeping that in mind, I think we will start with young Skywalker, and move around the table clockwise." Mace added.
"Objections?" He asked.
None were raised.
"Good, then Skywalker, please begin."
Anakin stood up from his chair. His face was fierce, but controlled.
"We lost twenty seven Jedi, including Master Kiadi-Mundi, in the Retreat from Axum. Nearly all of them were killed in personal combat with these...these-"
"Uh, Astartes, General."
"Thank you Echo. Astartes. And I know why! I realized it while fighting the one I encountered over Annaxes. They are fast, and strong, much faster and stronger physically than any droid or even Sith we have been made to face. So naturally, when I began fighting him, I treated him as I would a sith or Jedi combatant. The moment I did that, I began to lose badly."
"...Because they aren't force sensitive." Obi-Wan said, the revelation mixing awe into his voice as he spoke.
"Wait." Mace interjected.
"Do you mean to say that these 'Astartes' are managing these feats entirely without the aid of the force?"
"Hard to believe, I know. But we need to start believing it, start training the remaining Jedi against it. These new warriors are not using precognition to guide their strikes, and so trying to preempt them that way will only allow them to catch you by surprise again and again until you recognize what you are facing.
"We need to fight them the way we fight Magna Guards and commando droids...but with a few alterations. There are certain forms that we cannot use against these enemies. Their swords are heavy, and they have more than enough power to move and leverage them with ease. Parries and blocks using Makashi won't compensate well, it could mean instant death.
"Additionally, Djem So...won't work either. They are faster and stronger than us, we cannot overcome their physical strength and speed consistently, and without that, aggressive forms cannot hold. I think-"
Anakin was cut short as Mace raised his hand.
"You have made your point Skywalker, but your time is up. What is your suggestion?"
Anakin barely restrained a glare but sighed and continued.
"What I am suggesting is that we need to retrain the Jedi order, as a whole, to deal with these new enemies. If we don't, we are just going to continue losing knights."
With that, Anakin sat down, and the turn passed over to Captain Rex. The clone stood, dressed in his customized, blue tinted armor, his helmet placed on the table before him.
"Permission to speak freely Generals." He asked.
"Granted."
"Granted." Said both Obi-Wan and Anakin.
He coughed to clear his throat.
"I do not mean to dismiss the weapons given to us by the Republic. They have worked well against the clankers and militias the Separatists have been throwing at us, so what I'm going to say may seem hard to believe, but it needs to be said, and, I believe, it needs to be acted on right away."
Rex pulled his left blaster pistol out of its holster and slid it onto the table.
"We need better guns."
To further punctuate his point, the clone pressed a button on the side of his helmet, sending its data to the holotable, which promptly displayed said data as a three dimensional, blue image. It was the Space Marine they had been fighting, viewed from Rex's perspective. The assembled experts, clones, and Jedi watched as Rex, Tech, Hunter, and then Wrecker, after he had finished reloading, unloaded a torrent of lethal blue bolts into the large, yet definitely nimble form of the Astartes.
More than half of their shots were deflected, and yet several got past the warrior's guard. The blue bolts splashed and hissed against his armor, landing in volleys that would have downed super battle droids. But against the Space Marine, they seemed to do only superficial damage.
Then the image changed, displaying an altered hud as they watched from Crosshair's point of view, the scene a twisting, confusing mess before it halted abruptly with a view of the Astartes's bloody face, which lasted all of a millisecond before Crosshair blew it away.
The marine's eyes popped like grapes, burning skin flayed off his skull by the high energy particles of the shot, revealing the resilient bones underneath. The image then fast forwarding to the moment when the Astartes, little more than a smoldering skull atop armor at this point, sat up. The image froze.
"I don't know how, or why, but energy blasts and ion bolts are not cutting it. Our EMP grenades would likely do very little damage as well, they are clearly not droids. We need weapons that can kill these things with a headshot, or better yet, weapons that can penetrate that armor."
He pressed the same button on his helmet, and disconnected the feed, turning the image off.
"We needed that at Pzob, we needed them at Annaxes, and we are going to need them worse and worse the longer we don't have them. So my suggestion is simple: we get them, invent them, buy them. It doesn't matter, but we get them ASAP and get them in the hands of the troops fast. That should be our most immediate concern."
"Thank you Rex." Said Obi-Wan, giving him a nod as the clone sat back down.
Next was Captain Spikes. He stood up, formal, straight, holding a data pad in his right hand. He pressed something on its surface and a holovid began to play on the table. It was a view of Freedom mere seconds before it had been destroyed. It began firing at something out of sight, tilting to angle more turbolasers at it but that didn't last long.
Like a god's cruel knife, a large outsider ship drove into view, its blade-like prow absorbing the brief spurt of concentrated fire the Freedom had managed to throw at it before plunging into the Venator Class Star Destroyer.
The arrowhead form of the Republic cruiser was split down the center, both sides buckling upward around the wedge like the head of the enemy ship. Fire and debris spilled from the struck craft like clouds of stellar gore, stirred and split suddenly when the colossal broadside guns of the enemy ship fired, the holo view panning back somewhat to show the shots ripping two more Venators into pieces.
Then the vid ended, and instead, a tactical display was put up in its place. It revealed the battle in time lapse. Enemy ships were represented as red dots of various sizes, and friendly vessels were similar but blue, and smaller. As the sterile information displayed a virtual mirror of the carnage they had seen just prior, Captain spikes began to speak.
"Our Turbo lasers cannot reach the enemy. They lose too much power, and travel too slowly over the vacuum to engage at the ranges they are using. Despite that, it appears their ships enjoy engaging in ramming maneuvers. Once in effective range, our weapons do work...but not as well as their armaments. In a straight shoot out, they can outlast us.
"Then there is the issue of size."
He tapped his data pad again, displayed one of their ships, a five kilometer long dreadnought. It had gotten itself surrounded by Venators and Class C frigates. They had mauled through its shields, but clearly that wasn't enough. They poured fire into it, but it wasn't dying.
"The enemy ships can get so large that it becomes hard for Captains like me to imagine where to even concentrate fire with a weapon like a turbolaser. Proton Torpedoes, Concussion missiles, basically anything that explodes, these have been shown to be more effective, and still their pay loads aren't packing enough for a decisive victory.
He turned off his display, setting the datapad down on the desk.
"In short, the fleet needs to be rearmed, refitted, and redeployed. How, and with what, I cannot pretend to know. As it is now, we will bleed tens of ships for each one of theirs that we can take down. And I might be being generous. This needs to be changed before anything else can get done. The Jedi won't have to fight the Astartes, and neither will the clones, if we can just fight off the relatively few ships they do have. We need-"
"Thank you, Captain. Your recommendation is received." Mace interjected.
Spikes paused, nodded once and sat down. Dr. Shina frowned as all eyes moved on to her.
"Pass." She said, her voice weary.
"Come on now, I'm sure you've got some kind of suggestion for us." Obi-Wan prompted.
She sighed, straightening in her seat.
"Get the senate, and the Chancellor, all of them, put them on a Mandator II dreadnaught, and make it the new capital of the Republic." The doctor said.
Every eye went wide.
"Just like that?" Obi-Wan pressed.
She sighed again, more heavily, ample brow creasing.
"Look, I'm just being realistic. The amount of advantages we have over the enemy are finite, extremely finite, but also extremely...extreme. From all the data I have, from every single thing I have been able to examine, it seems that their form of FTL travel does not abide or become impeded by mass shadows.
"I do not know if this is because they can somehow go through them without colliding with them, or because they can maneuver around them while remaining in hyper space. The point is, they could go from anywhere to anywhere. Maybe this isn't true, maybe there are other things which divert and impede them that I simply do not know about yet. But if it is true…" She said, trailing off.
"Then we won't be able to keep them out of the core...or off of Coruscant by holding hyperspace lanes." Anakin concluded.
Dr. Shina snapped her fingers.
"Exactly, give the angry one a prize! Any moment now they could be departing from the Axum system straight to Coruscant, and we wouldn't be able to stop them. But we would still be able to beat them there."
"What do you mean?" Mace asked.
"They are slow." Dr. Shina said.
"Their FTL technology is much, much slower than even what a cheap commercial hyperdrive can provide. They are unstoppable, but not inescapable. We cannot save Coruscant, but we can save the republic."
"By effectively abandoning our traditional seat of power and going into exile." Mace said, his tone suggesting he was not a fan of the prospect.
Dr, Shina shrugged.
"I've made my suggestion."
Windu nodded and all eyes slid from the Doctor to her companion, the clone trooper Bucket.
"Uh, I think I'll pass. I'm not really here because I'm a good advi-" He started to say.
"Oh no you don't! They made me be constructive, so you better say something or I'll never let you off this assignment!" Dr. Shina snapped.
The clone groaned loudly, putting his helmed head in his hands before standing.
"OK, so I'm CT 7226, but my friends call me Bucket, because I once got my head stuck in my helmet for almost two months and I...uh…" He said, trailing off for a moment as all watched on.
"Well, anyway, story for another time I guess. I didn't really fight them, none boarded our ship, and I'm a trooper, not a pilot or bridge crew. But I do know this...we were headless for a good while there. Some commanders, like Captain Spikes, took control right away, but a lot of us were sort of...left floundering. I dunno if that helps, but I feel like we would have done way more damage if any of us had known what we were doing."
"Exactly." Said Tarken, standing up and speaking for the first time.
Bucket gratefully sat back down as Tarken continued.
"We've all seen the reports. We've all seen how first contact with these hostile outsiders was carried out, and that is to say, abysmally. And while I mean no disrespect to those assembled here, I feel compelled to go further."
Tarken turned to face Anakin then.
"You did perhaps the best of all in this example. You and your team managed to shut down the droid army, recovering intelligence along the way, and managed self extract yourself despite unforeseen complications. But you did not retrieve the enemy's body, nor his weapons for examination. You did not take him captive when he was all but disabled."
Anakin frowned, but Tarken did not entertain his glare, moving now to look at Mace Windu and Obi-Wan.
"And you two, were in charge of the forces defending Annaxes. You chose to retreat in place of contending the ground. Retreat from Annaxes, the site of the most prestigious war college in the Republic, as well as the site of the Azurite Shipyards which were supplying and constructing our reserve fleets. All of this despite the enemy not even physically being there to contest the area."
"These outsiders had control of a planet cracking bomb." Obi-Wan protested.
"What would you have done, remained and risked losing the war for the republic?"
Tarken shook his head and sighed.
"It does not even occur to you, because of where your minds are, or rather, where they aren't. The tactical thing to do would have been to retreat 85% of ground forces to high orbit. The 15% who remained would be tasked with holding the production facilities. The enemy would not have destroyed all of Annaxes and its production resources to defeat that number, they would have gone down to engage our forces on the ground.
"Once the enemy committed forces, then you could safely and gradually commit more of our forces to hold our territory. The enemy would not detonate their weapon while their own soldiers are present on the planet, and that would buy us time to neutralize it without losing the Republic's holdings."
"And what if the enemy commander decided that 15% of our forces was enough to warrant the bomb going off?" Obi-Wan asked.
The haggard admiral shrugged casually.
"Then we lose 15% of our forces at Annaxes and deny the enemy what we have lost. Still a better outcome than what we have now. And as if to prove my point, I myself have just come from the utter disaster of a defense that your now deceased colleague, Jedi Master Kiadi-Mundi, orchestrated.
"Pzob, Annaxes, and now Axum. We will continue to lose worlds if we do not finally address, once and for all, the Roth in the room." Tarken asserted.
"And what Roth is that, precisely?" Mace Windu asked.
"That the Jedi knights and the Jedi order as a whole, are not suited to the task of leading this war. You are not trained for it, you are not ideologically predisposed to it, and despite the experience you have all gained in these past four years, you are not mentally prepared for the realities of command."
Mace Windu waved his hand dismissively.
"These seem like concerns you should address to the Supreme chancellor." He said.
"As you well know, I have. Multiple times. The Supreme chancellor seems to be quite convinced of your competence, despite the evidence. So as much as I would prefer this be handled by the Chancellor's better judgment, I am forced to rely on your Judgment instead."
Obi-Wan leaned in, fingers folding.
"So just what are you proposing, Admiral?"
Tarken looked around for a moment, imperious, straight as a blade, and just as humorless.
"I am recommending that the Jedi order step down. Abdicate command of the Republic's armies voluntarily, and allow true military leaders to take control of this war effort. Return to your temples, or enlist and serve properly, but recognize that you are not fit to confront this new enemy, not as you are now."
He paused, retrieving a data pad of his own from the surface of the table. No one spoke, and so he pressed on.
"It does not need to happen all at once, though it could. Our current military structure allows for that kind of rapid reorganization of officers. Slow or fast, gradual or immediate, I have compiled a list of suitably trained and experienced leaders from within the Republic's member worlds. They are loyal, tactical, and most importantly, ruthlessly pragmatic. I have matched them purposefully to each command posting that is currently held by a Jedi commander."
As he spoke, the holotable displayed his list in two columns. In the right one, names, birth dates, achievements, and current ranks. In the left one, faces match each profile, showing a myriad of species, organizations, and ages.
"We already know we are going to need to make sweeping changes to contend with this newest threat. If those changes do not begin at the top, then we have little hope of correcting this course before it leads to our eventual defeat, and the collapse of all order in the galaxy." Tarkin said.
When he finished, he sat back down, not waiting to be acknowledged or dismissed by the Jedi. A silence began then that lasted for many uncomfortable seconds, before it was broken by an even more uncomfortable statement.
"You're all wrong."
Echo stood then, and began to speak.
"With all due respect, none of this is what we should be focusing on now." He asserted.
"Training the Jedi to fight the Astartes, rearming the troops, rearming the fleets, all of that will take too much time. Even if we had all the weapons ready, the refits waiting to be applied, a perfect new lightsaber form to counteract the way they fight, even then it would all still take weeks or months to deploy it."
Echo shook his head sadly.
"And we just do not have time. Replacing the Jedi won't make that any different, and the last thing we need right now is to scramble our command structure. Reordering while trying to fight off being eaten alive just does not make a lot of sense to me. The only suggestion I can even really say I agree with is the doctor's suggestion. At least her's can be implemented now!"
"But what are you, yourself, suggesting?" Mace asked.
Echo paused to think.
"I think we need help. We need to contact the Separatists, and we need to work something out. A ceasefire or temporary alliance. Something that will at least stop us from fighting a war on two fronts. But the best case would be if we could combine our forces against them."
If it was possible for Echo to have said anything more shocking than what Tarken had already suggested, he seemed to have just given voice to it.
"Echo, that's-" Anakin started.
"Look! I know what I look like, I'm basically standing here, half droid myself!" Echo almost shouted.
"I know that some of you wonder if you can trust me because of all of this," He said, gesturing at himself.
"But please, believe me when I tell you this, I hate droids. I hate being part droid. I've been fighting clankers my entire life, and them stringing me up like a puppet hasn't lessened any of those feelings. But I feel something even more strongly now."
Echo reached forward to the base of the holotable's projector, plugging his augmented arm into the interface.
"I'm afraid." He said, as some of the images he had been forced to see were fed into the display.
Scenes depicting otherworldly monsters began to slide by, one after another. Some were among a swarm of their kin, blood stained talons and claws forming a veritable, bestial ocean before their eyes. Others were singular, standing atop hideous altars, viscera and corpses draping them like raiments of rulership. Twelve images total.
"What are we looking at Echo?" Anakin asked, though he found his eyes couldn't look away.
"This was part of the information I was able to slip out of Brother Tasleon when Tech was breaking me out of the Separatists computers. As far as I can tell, they are image captures from his helmet. They were technically deleted, but the data hadn't been overwritten yet. I've sorted through it and cleaned them up a little, but what you're seeing...it's what they see. It's what they fight."
Echo shook his head, the movement unnervingly despondent.
"I also got other things, communication snips, some random statistics for some of the equipment this...man has had equipped before...Generals, I'm afraid because none of the data I can understand tells me anything good. And because, while I was grabbing anything I could from the less protected parts of his systems, he was doing the same thing to me, but...better, more directly. He knows where Coruscant is, he knows what the Republic is, that we are at war. He knows that we are led by the Jedi, that they can use the force. He-"
"Yes, Echo. This was in your report." Mace said sternly.
Echo nodded stiffly but straightened, not sitting down.
"Then, respectfully General, you need to realize that the second their fleet-"
At that moment Echo was interrupted again, but not by Mace Windu.
The door into the smooth room suddenly swung open, a disheveled Rothanian man entering.
"G-Generals!"
His voice was trembling, the stoic composure of his culture breached by whatever information he needed to relay.
"The Outsider fleet has just arrived in the Arkanis sector!"
Everyone jolted at that.
"How is that possible? I wasn't even aware that the Outsiders had left the Axum system!" Rex said.
"It's not that fleet sir, it's the first fleet! The second flee-"
"That cannot be possible either! What system?" Dr. Shina almost yelled.
The aid stuttered for a moment before managing an answer.
"It's not an important system. Only a single inhabited planet, extremely low population index. Uh, the...the Tatoo system, I think it was called. But it is sitting at the crossroads of the Triellus Trade route and the old Corellian Run hyperspace route. We fear this may signal the beginning of a substantial new blockading effort. "
Dr. Shina shook her head, eyes wide in abject denial.
"They left four days ago, there is no way they could have reached that far into the Arkanis sector this quickly!"
The Rothanian didn't seem to know what to say to her.
"See, this is what I'm talking about!" Echo said, leaning one hand against the table as he gestured with his interface tool towards the aid.
"We think we know things but we don't! We are drawing lines, trying to pretend that what we think we know amounts to anything. Maybe hyperdrives are faster, maybe only sometimes.
"That's why we can't pull punches right now! We need to stop fighting the Separatists, we need to pull everything we have together, and then some. The moment their fleet leaves the Axum system, they are going straight for Coruscant! And if they do, we don't know how much time we will actually have!"
"Uh-Uhm, S-Sirs."
The aid interjected again, his pale skin now much, much paler.
"I was also told to inform you that the Second Fleet has also just departed the Axum system. They left a small reserve force around Axum and Annexes, but most of the fleet departed the system approximately eight minutes ago."
The news was an ice bath on every ear that heard it. For a brief instant, no more than a tenth of a second, all were too struck to respond. But this was no longer the first year of the clone wars.
"Prepare a shuttle, we leave in an hour." Said Mace Windu.
"Y-Yes master Jedi." Said the aid.
"Contact the Chancellor, make a formal request to recall the fleets back to Coruscant on my behalf." Said Admiral Tarkin.
"Right away Admiral." The aid added, coming to the table and withdrawing a datapad from his robe-like garment, beginning to take notes.
"Also, try to see if you cannot secure a line of communication with the Separatist council." Said Obi-Wan.
This had many eyes darting his way, but he raised a hand to ausage them before any words were spoken.
"Nothing is decided, but we might as well keep our options open." He said.
His former padawan rolled his eyes at that.
"Right, we might as well call up deathwatch while we are at it." Said Anakin, standing and heading for the door.
Obi-Wan shook his head but did not rise to his bait. Rex donned his helmet, and he, as well as the other clones, began to move without being told, with the exception of Bucket, who had to be ordered to follow by the doctor. But just before they left, the aid asked one more question.
"Oh, Admiral! Which fleets?"
"Pardon?" Asked Tarken.
"Which fleets did you want recalled? Which fronts?"
Tarken shook his head.
"I would have thought that to be obvious. All of them, boy. Request all of them."