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nonelikemesinceThe celebration, such as it was, of Centerpoint's functionality was short-lived.
The Yuuzhan Vong weren't on their way to Corellia -- they'd launched a sneak attack on nearby Fondor instead. The majority of the New Republic fleet was amassed at Bothawui, the other anticipated target, all the way out in the Mid-Rim; it would take them time to arrive. The laughable handful of ships stationed at Corellia would hardly shore up the First Fleet, currently getting picked apart by the massive Vong armada, and in the meantime Fondor -- famous for its massive orbital shipyards -- was completely vulnerable.
It was hard not to know this when they could see the battle unfolding on the HoloNet feed. Nobody was saying so, but they all knew Admiral Sovv's plan had gone badly awry. They'd gambled everything on luring the Yuuzhan Vong to the Corellia system, armed the station, and now this. The Vong's unexpected gambit had vaped any chance of using Centerpoint in a purely defensive capacity.
"There is something we can do," Thrackan burst out into the stunned silence of the control room, addressing Anakin directly as he pulled up star charts. "We have the time-space coordinates of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Their warships are clustered Rimward of Fondor's fifth and sixth moons. We can target them by focusing Centerpoint's repulsor beam."
The room descended into chaos again.
"We have no authority to take such actions!" one technician objected. "We could miss and hit Fondor or even its primary. We can't assume the risk."
"We must assume the risk! Fondor is lost if we do nothing."
At the colonel's inquiring look, Thrackan replied, "I can't promise that we'll hit our target."
Which had everyone in the room looking at Anakin. He'd thought he was used to this kind of attention, but everything had happened so fast that he felt like he'd gone into an uncontrolled spin with no inertial dampener. He was in over his head, flailing, and just like he'd done as a little kid he found himself looking at Jacen.
Thrackan must have guessed at what Anakin was wordlessly asking his brother, and given Jacen's stance so far the answer wouldn't be one he'd like. "The First Fleet is being decimated, Anakin," he said sharply before Jacen could speak. "The task force launched from Bothawui can't possibly arrive in time to help."
Anakin could hear other voices in the room pleading with him to do something, to save their home worlds; the colonel kept insisting it was their only chance to score a truly decisive victory, a chance that lay solely in Anakin's hands thanks to the station's imprinting itself on him. Beneath his grip, the control stick had reconfigured itself into a trigger. All he had to do was tense one finger . . .
"Anakin, you can't," Jacen urged him. "Step away from it. Step away from it now."
Except --
A while ago he'd learned how to use the Force to fall into a sort of battle meditation; he could see the flow of the fight around him almost before it happened, anticipate his opponents' moves, plan exactly when and how to strike. Through his connection to Centerpoint, he felt the same kind of absolute certainty now. He could do this. The station's repulsor beam was a thousand kilometers wide; firing that into the middle of a ship-to-ship battle meant a huge risk of devastating collateral damage, but all it would take was one precise shot and he could wipe out the entire Vong fleet without endangering the Hapan reinforcements he could sense jumping into the system right now. Through the Force and through the station schematics he could see in his head, he had the angle and timing of the shot calculated perfectly.
"Take it!" he heard Thrackan snarl. While Ebrihim pleaded with him not to fire, others begged him to do it for the sake of their people, the New Republic -- other reasons, probably. He couldn't pick them all out any more, and despite his best efforts to shield himself the emotional maelstrom in the room threatened to give him a huge Force headache.
"Tell me," Anakin said, shutting all of them out and looking straight at Jacen.
"You are my brother," Jacen replied, impossibly quiet and calm, "and you are a Jedi, Anakin. You can't do this."
In the middle of all the cacaphony he was drawn to that calmness, almost desperately so, and that tipped the scales in favor of Jacen's argument. Inhaling a long, slow breath, Anakin willed the muscles of his left hand to relax, uncurled his fingers one by one from the control stick, and felt the entire room's disappointment hit him like a wave of cold.
Before the sensation had even subsided, someone grabbed him by the front of his tunic and half shoved, half threw him away from the console.
"I'll take the shot," he heard Thrackan snap.
He could sense Glowpoint flaring up, and he knew Thrackan had pulled the trigger. He also knew that without his connection to Centerpoint, there was no way Thrackan could have aimed the beam with the kind of precision it would have taken.
By the time the sudden, crushing Force-backlash from the massive loss of life subsided enough to stop overwhelming all of Anakin's senses, he knew exactly how much damage had been done, but he looked back at the HoloNet display anyway. The remaining ships of the Vong fleet were already retreating, at least half of it obliterated by the repulsor beam, but along with them had gone a good three quarters of the Hapan reinforcements and a chunk of one of Fondor's moons.
He'd known with absolute Force-aided certainty where to aim the station to avoid hitting Fondor or the Hapan fleet; he could have stopped the Yuuzhan Vong without wiping out their allies -- and from what he knew of the Hapans, this was not going to go well for Prince Isolder. Standing down had been a huge mistake, and he knew it. He never should have listened to Jacen in the first place.
[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay blah blah. Still adapted from Agents of Chaos 2: Jedi Eclipse by James Luceno. Look, I wasn't the one who named these books. One more . . .]
The Yuuzhan Vong weren't on their way to Corellia -- they'd launched a sneak attack on nearby Fondor instead. The majority of the New Republic fleet was amassed at Bothawui, the other anticipated target, all the way out in the Mid-Rim; it would take them time to arrive. The laughable handful of ships stationed at Corellia would hardly shore up the First Fleet, currently getting picked apart by the massive Vong armada, and in the meantime Fondor -- famous for its massive orbital shipyards -- was completely vulnerable.
It was hard not to know this when they could see the battle unfolding on the HoloNet feed. Nobody was saying so, but they all knew Admiral Sovv's plan had gone badly awry. They'd gambled everything on luring the Yuuzhan Vong to the Corellia system, armed the station, and now this. The Vong's unexpected gambit had vaped any chance of using Centerpoint in a purely defensive capacity.
"There is something we can do," Thrackan burst out into the stunned silence of the control room, addressing Anakin directly as he pulled up star charts. "We have the time-space coordinates of the Yuuzhan Vong fleet. Their warships are clustered Rimward of Fondor's fifth and sixth moons. We can target them by focusing Centerpoint's repulsor beam."
The room descended into chaos again.
"We have no authority to take such actions!" one technician objected. "We could miss and hit Fondor or even its primary. We can't assume the risk."
"We must assume the risk! Fondor is lost if we do nothing."
At the colonel's inquiring look, Thrackan replied, "I can't promise that we'll hit our target."
Which had everyone in the room looking at Anakin. He'd thought he was used to this kind of attention, but everything had happened so fast that he felt like he'd gone into an uncontrolled spin with no inertial dampener. He was in over his head, flailing, and just like he'd done as a little kid he found himself looking at Jacen.
Thrackan must have guessed at what Anakin was wordlessly asking his brother, and given Jacen's stance so far the answer wouldn't be one he'd like. "The First Fleet is being decimated, Anakin," he said sharply before Jacen could speak. "The task force launched from Bothawui can't possibly arrive in time to help."
Anakin could hear other voices in the room pleading with him to do something, to save their home worlds; the colonel kept insisting it was their only chance to score a truly decisive victory, a chance that lay solely in Anakin's hands thanks to the station's imprinting itself on him. Beneath his grip, the control stick had reconfigured itself into a trigger. All he had to do was tense one finger . . .
"Anakin, you can't," Jacen urged him. "Step away from it. Step away from it now."
Except --
A while ago he'd learned how to use the Force to fall into a sort of battle meditation; he could see the flow of the fight around him almost before it happened, anticipate his opponents' moves, plan exactly when and how to strike. Through his connection to Centerpoint, he felt the same kind of absolute certainty now. He could do this. The station's repulsor beam was a thousand kilometers wide; firing that into the middle of a ship-to-ship battle meant a huge risk of devastating collateral damage, but all it would take was one precise shot and he could wipe out the entire Vong fleet without endangering the Hapan reinforcements he could sense jumping into the system right now. Through the Force and through the station schematics he could see in his head, he had the angle and timing of the shot calculated perfectly.
"Take it!" he heard Thrackan snarl. While Ebrihim pleaded with him not to fire, others begged him to do it for the sake of their people, the New Republic -- other reasons, probably. He couldn't pick them all out any more, and despite his best efforts to shield himself the emotional maelstrom in the room threatened to give him a huge Force headache.
"Tell me," Anakin said, shutting all of them out and looking straight at Jacen.
"You are my brother," Jacen replied, impossibly quiet and calm, "and you are a Jedi, Anakin. You can't do this."
In the middle of all the cacaphony he was drawn to that calmness, almost desperately so, and that tipped the scales in favor of Jacen's argument. Inhaling a long, slow breath, Anakin willed the muscles of his left hand to relax, uncurled his fingers one by one from the control stick, and felt the entire room's disappointment hit him like a wave of cold.
Before the sensation had even subsided, someone grabbed him by the front of his tunic and half shoved, half threw him away from the console.
"I'll take the shot," he heard Thrackan snap.
He could sense Glowpoint flaring up, and he knew Thrackan had pulled the trigger. He also knew that without his connection to Centerpoint, there was no way Thrackan could have aimed the beam with the kind of precision it would have taken.
By the time the sudden, crushing Force-backlash from the massive loss of life subsided enough to stop overwhelming all of Anakin's senses, he knew exactly how much damage had been done, but he looked back at the HoloNet display anyway. The remaining ships of the Vong fleet were already retreating, at least half of it obliterated by the repulsor beam, but along with them had gone a good three quarters of the Hapan reinforcements and a chunk of one of Fondor's moons.
He'd known with absolute Force-aided certainty where to aim the station to avoid hitting Fondor or the Hapan fleet; he could have stopped the Yuuzhan Vong without wiping out their allies -- and from what he knew of the Hapans, this was not going to go well for Prince Isolder. Standing down had been a huge mistake, and he knew it. He never should have listened to Jacen in the first place.
[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay blah blah. Still adapted from Agents of Chaos 2: Jedi Eclipse by James Luceno. Look, I wasn't the one who named these books. One more . . .]
