The Returning Knight: A Star Wars Story

Chapter 23: Love In War

The journey through hyperspace was very stressful. Sigil was off balance; that stare down with Revan was intense. Her eyes were full of hate and anger, all of that was targeted solely at him and Sigil could only blame himself for this failure.

He failed to raise and take care of her adequately and she succumbed to the influence and temptations of the Sith. He had felt extreme guilt and sorrow once her presence had become dark, spiteful and burning with rage.

His mental and emotional turmoil left him unable to focus on navigating a route for the Acclamator. He could only warn them once they were close enough to an object; at which point the navigational computer can detect mass shadows.

The supplies aboard the ship were only fit for that mission and the spare components weren't enough to fix the leaking and damaged hyperdrive and sub-light engines and have a spare for the other so they prioritized the sub-light engines. The communications array was also badly damaged and couldn't be repaired. Thankfully for them, the armaments however were still usable.

The Acclamator stayed in hyperspace for three days until the nava computer warned of an impending collision. They pulled out of hyperspace right above a lush green world with light blue oceans indicating a tropical world as indicated by the sensors of the ship.

The sensors also detected three ships parked above the planet. The three ships were of one class that neither Hera, Sigil, Zi or any other officer on the bridge for that matter could recognise. 

They seemed to be equal in length to an Arquitens or Nebulon-B. The ships bore resemblance to the Recusant and Nebulon-B with two sections connected by a long and narrow tube in the middle. 

The bridge at the very front was small, barely larger than the tube connecting it to the back section. The back section had two engines just below the level of the tube and the rest of their back sections was shaped like a set of fangs angled away from each other and facing backwards. On the fangs were multiple guns.

"Establish contact." Hera ordered. "We need to know where we are." She continued. "General, our communications array is broken." The comms officer reminded. "General! The ships are launching fighters!" The radar officer said in a panik. 

As soon as he registered what the radar officer said, Sigil looked to her for confirmation. Confirmation for him to assume battle meditation. Although he outranked her, she was the captain of the ship and the mission so she held more authority.l for the moment. She nodded at him, knowing what he had in mind. 

Dropped into a meditative position. Whatever turmoil he had, had to be put aside for the survival of nearly twenty thousand people depended on it.

The laser cannons of the Acclamator swiveled to face the incoming swarm of fighters and bombers. The unknown fighters invoked images of the separatist Tri-Fighters used during the Clone wars.

He had the guns open up in advance against the bombers to diseud a coordinated run. The bombers lost coordination due to his battle meditation and went on to break formation. The disunited bombers were easy pickings for the gunners of Hera's Acclamator.

They tumbled and spun out of control as they were picked off one by one; none having reached even the prow of the mighty ship. The fighters were even easier pickings due to their lacking shields. Seeing all their bombers destroyed, the fleet pulled back to the three ships they came from.

'War it is.' Sigil thought as he commanded the ship forward to the three awaiting ships. The Acclamators charged the three ships who were also closing in at starfighter speeds. Truly a wonder of engineering both classes were.

The Acclamators's larger guns opened fire first. Launching a salvo of ionized plasma which impacted the shields of the lesser ships. The rebel flagship didn't enjoy uncontested firing for more than a few seconds before the other ships were in range and responded kindly to the opening salvos.