May 12.
Life on Lothal had definitely changed. The populace had gladly accepted Ryder as the new Governor and new elections had been called in three months. Formally, the planet was now part of the Protectorate of Lothal, under the authority of the Imperial Federation.
Since military protection was guaranteed by the Federation and the Rebel Navy, the new Governor had focused the efforts of the new administration on rebuilding. The Imperial Dome was to be slowly dismantled and the incredible amount of metals used to rebuild public facilities: schools, libraries, public offices and, last but not least, hospitals.
In particular the central hospital of Capitol City, which had been long neglected by the Empire, had finally been reopened and was also undergoing a process of enlargement. The Federation had established the prisoner camps a few km away from the city and around the entire planet, and the imperials were being used as manpower for a few hours a day and under heavy surveillance, not just to prevent their escape, but to keep the resentful populace away from them.
And the reopening of the hospital had also marked a significant change for Mira.
Most of the doctors she had once worked with in that same hospital had been deported, killed or had escaped, meaning that she was the only one left on the planet with the necessary experience and skill to run the place and he had offered her the position of head-department of the ER.
It hadn't been easy for her to leave her family, but eventually, she decided that she could give much more contribution to the reconstruction and to the war effort, by going there and helping rebuild an efficient healthcare system on Lothal. Jordan and the kids also were of the same advice and pretty much encouraged her to accept.
Since the qualified personnel was pretty hard to find on Lothal, the Federation had sent some of its own medics to assist. Jaral and Claudio had put the propaganda machines of their respective factions to also spread far and wide the news of the liberation of Lothal in order to try to encourage a flux of immigrants, Imperial political dissidents, so they would escape on the planet and help to rebuild, or maybe join the rebel armed forces.
Mira had recently participated to a party at the old tower of her kids on May 1, Ezra's birthday where he finally turned 18, and he did it on his finally liberated home-planet. Truly something to celebrate, among all the work that everybody still had to attend.
Rebel Command on Yavin had expressed the desire for Jaral to go back to Yavin and conduct the other operations that the Alliance wanted to undertake independently from the Federation, but she had insisted to at least conduct the upcoming campaign for taking Mon Cala from Lothal, where she could much easily have better intel and communications with the frontline.
Yes, the war against the Empire had now significantly changed. It had turned to a conventional war, and soon, the Capitol would need the hospital at full efficiency to welcome the mass of wounded soldiers that would arrive once the campaign started.
Even now, Mira was working day and night because the hospital was submerged with patients. The strict rationing of the Empire had caused widespread malnutrition and that mean weaker immune systems for the people. There was the risk of an epidemic, against which the Federation was giving an incredible amount of medicines and specialized doctors. After all, it was in their interest as well that there was no such thing as an epidemic of alien origin on the only planet that was capable of hosting the invasion force.
In fact, when the Federal forces didn't simply occupy the imperial bases, they built new ones. Outside of the Capitol they had established the biggest one, named 'Camp Garibaldi', where the people of Lothal could also buy some of their food and other essential commodities for extremely favorable prices. This exchange was needed as it allowed the economists of the Federation, mostly Volus who had taken residence in the camp, to create an exchange rate between the Imperial Credit and the Federal Crown, the main currency of the Milky Way.
It was late morning. Mira was at the acceptance of the ER, making sure that the triage was being done right by the paramedics sent by the Federation, since they only had a rough idea of the biology of this galaxy who wasn't human.
That was until she saw two familiar faces in the waiting room: Hera and Sabine. The former didn't seem to look all that well.
She motioned them to get near the counter and they obliged, with Sabine giving a small support to Hera, who was massaging her head with the other hand.
"Hello ladies," Mira greeted them. "what happened?"
Hera groaned a bit. "It's a couple of days I've been feeling tired...uh...and I sometimes feel like I want to yell out of nowhere..."
Hera listed another couple of symptoms which rose a suspicion in Mira's head.
"All right, get through the door." she instructed them, pointing at the door on her right. She touched a human female nurse's shoulder as she started to walk out of the room.
"Urma, I'm taking those two."
"Yes, doctor." the young woman replied as she kept typing data on the holo-terminal.
Mira went out and welcomed the two women, then escorted them into an office for some preliminary exams.
She invited Hera to sit on the medical bed while Sabine waited on the side of the room.
"How's it going at the tower?" Mira asked to ease the tension.
"Ezra and Jaral seem adamant to have a house built around it." Sabine said with a smirk. "But they understand that there are more important things."
Mira giggled as she prepared the scanner on her omni-tool. "I think Jordan told me something about joint exercises between the two fleets?"
"Yeah, and we are supposed to join them too." Hera said a bit weakly. "So find whatever is wrong with me, doc, quickly." and then groaned as her head lowered a bit.
"Yes, General." Mira said with a quip.
She finished the preparations and got near Hera.
"I need you to remove your jacket, please."
Hera compelled and was left only with a black shirt on her upper body, only then Mira activated the scanner that was specifically set for making a sonogram.
It took around 10 seconds, then Mira could analyze the results.
And she chuckled as her suspicions were confirmed.
"What's so funny?" Hera asked mildly annoyed.
"Ok...Sabine, you might want to be ready to grab her." Mira quipped.
The mandalorian girl looked a bit confused.
Mira kept her arm bent so that she could look at the results of the omni-tool. After checking them again, she had no doubts.
"Hera..." she started with a smile. "you're pregnant."
Both Hera and Sabine barred her eyes, not sure if they wanted to believe their ears.
"Come again?" Hera managed to ask.
"Your symptoms were pretty familiar to me, so I took a scan and...well, there's an embryo growing in your belly."
Sabine's open jaw twisted a bit to become a surprised smile as she looked at Hera with trepidation. The Twi'lek, on her part, was still a bit stunned and she passed a hand on her stomach, lifting the shirt to feel it better.
"Is it true?" she asked with a whisper.
"Well, have you and Kanan had any intercourse around a month ago?" Mira asked professionally but with a smile still on her face.
Hera now recalled. Yes, it had been around 28 days when they had spent that night together, right the day before she left Lothal to bring the TIE Defender's data to Yavin IV.
It was definitely a month, so the symptoms made sense. As she caressed her belly once again, she started to chuckle, as well as shedding some tears of joy.
She had lost Kanan recently, but his legacy was going to live on with this child. Hera didn't need to think much about it. She was going to give birth to this child and give him/her all the love she couldn't give Kanan anymore.
She and Sabine chuckled like mad and exchanged an affectionate hug.
"All right, all right," Mira said merrily. "it's fantastic but, please, sit here. We should discuss the details." she said, indicating the two chairs on the patients' side of the desk while she went to sit on the other side.
Hera put back on her jacket, unable to wipe off her grin, and went to sit together with Sabine.
"Good, now I will talk both as a doctor and as a mother who had had two pregnancies, so listen carefully." Mira started with quite the serious tone. "You too, Sabine, because I'm afraid Hera will not follow the plan."
"Okay." Sabine replied with an odd tone.
"Hera, I have to tell you, hybrids are very much rare, so I cannot guarantee exactly when the child will come out or how he will look like."
"And...that's a problem?"
"The looks? No. The when? Absolutely. Because no matter what, when you're one month away, I want your butt grounded on solid floor. Possibly here on the planet, where I can keep an eye on you."
Sabine sighed. "Yup, dear mother-in-law, this is gonna be a nearly impossible mission."
"Mira, I am a General. I have duties to the Rebellion."
"Hera..." Mira replied sternly. "you also have duties to the baby, now. Is it important to you?"
Hera hesitated for a moment, but then gulped down and set her mind on the goal.
"More than anything else." she declared.
"That's the spirit." Doctor Bridger replied. "So, as I said, hybrids are rare, so there isn't exactly an established birth plan. Yet, it seems like a child of this type tends to stay in the mother's belly according to the regular cycles of the two species they come from.
"Now, Humans and Twi'leks have a similar time for pregnancies, so if I have to bet, I would say you have eight or nine months. In any case, you will have to check in regularly, and please avoid dangerous and stressful missions from the fifth month onward."
"I can't guarantee..." Hera started, but Mira gave her such a terrifying stare that had the two Specters chill their bones. "Yes, ma'am." Hera replied diligently.
Mira hummed positively.
"Very well. I'll make some research and then send you a birth plan. Since this child is a rare breed, we can't go with a regular one." she concluded.
"I understand, Mira. Thank you." Hera replied with a respectful tone before she and Sabine left the room.
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May 27
The news of Hera's pregnancy was indeed a cause for celebration at the tower, where the Specters and the Ghost had officially taken residence. Though they still slept on the ship, they had cleaned the disc at the top of the tower from top to bottom and make a small living room out of it, or maybe one could call it a lounge, with a stereo, some cute carpets and the paintings of Sabine to liven up the atmosphere.
Something else that was definitely another incredible experience had been the arrival of the Guardians on May 15, together with the second wave of Federal reinforcements from the Milky Way. The giant sentient ships had landed on Lothal and started to help the reconstructions.
Just two weeks later, they had almost completely healed the scarring of the main continent. Even from orbit, there were only few signs of the intensive exploitation that the Empire made the planet undergo. The Guardians were indeed a marvel, if it wasn't for the fact that they were literally built with the corpses of countless species that existed in the past.
For now, the Guardians were still on the surface, helping to heal the terrain and building new shiny buildings in the main settlements of Lothal. They had been so quick, that Ryder had even promised the siblings that the house they wanted would soon be built around the tower.
Right now, though, Jaral had other things to be afraid of. Namely that the Empire had finally managed to amass a fleet and was coming to retake Lothal, perhaps to bomb it into a wasteland.
She found herself aboard the Profundity, Admiral Raddus' flagship. In the previous days, she had promoted joint exercises between the Rebel and Federal fleets. The land armies were already akin to work together, since the Rebel one had been trained in the Milky Way, and now it was time for the fleets to prove that they were able to cooperate.
The Protector had been deployed on the first line, pointing toward the hyperlane of Kamdon with her impressive arsenal of weapons on the upper side ready to unleash hell upon the Imperial fleet once it came out.
She was standing right beside Admiral Raddus post on the Profundity's command bridge, the two Calamari officers behind the two commanders were keeping contact with Admiral Edrix aboard the Protectors. Though they had already established a battle plan, they needed to be ready to change it if the need arose.
Still, it was clear that the Rebel Fleet could only do so much and its biggest contribution was going to be in the starfighter field. After all, the rebel pilots had plenty of experience fighting the imperial ones and they were going to lead the way for the Federal ones, while the Y-Wings would use their ion cannons and proton bombs to take down the Star Destroyers' electronic systems.
The Federal fleet was going to take the bulk of ship against ship fighting.
It was almost midnight in the capital. And luckily, the city was on the other side of the planet, at the moment, still, the Federal fleet took defensive position around the moons of Lothal, and the shield generator that was contained in the Imperial Dome had been preserved and even improved by the Federation to build a planetary shield that would protect the surface from shots accidentally going that way.
The sensors started beeping on the bridge.
"Grand Marshall," the Calamari lieutenant behind Jaral and Raddus reported. "Imperial fleet coming out of hyperspace."
"Get me Admiral Edrix." she ordered calmly as the gray and triangular Star Destroyers came out of hyperspace.
A comm channel with the Protector was opened.
"Admiral, you may begin the preliminary maneuvers." she said.
"Copy that, Marshall. Deploy the drones." Edrix answered before giving the order to his underlings.
"Warning." Jinx suddenly spoke up. "There is a huge mass coming out of hyperspace."
A few moments later, a new kind of ship appeared. It was even bigger than the Star Destroyers, though not as big as the Protector.
"Jinx, as soon as the drones sent the data you and the other AIs analyze that thing." Jaral ordered.
"Order acknowledged."
From the Protector and other major ships of the Systems Alliance took off a swarm of small unmanned, automated drones, mostly controlled by the AIs aboard the ships. The goal of this drones wasn't dealing much damage to the enemy, but to approach and even be targeted to give the allied fleet a fairly accurate estimate of the enemy's weapons' range, power and possible weak points of the imperial ships.
In response, the commander of the Imperial Fleet, identified through the comm-scan as a certain Admiral Bormius, ordered the launch of all imperial fighters.
While Lothal got surrounded by the planetary shield, the drones and TIE Fighters and Interceptors finally clashed.
The drones didn't stand a chance, yes, but they were so many that they still managed to destroy a good 3% of the enemy fighter-crafts and since the imperial ships had to fire in order to repel some of their formations, the drones did send back the data they were expected to, so now the allied fleets knew the range of the ships and could perhaps exploit it.
"Jaral, I analyzed the data about that Star Destroyer and compared it with Tseebo's database." Jinx said.
"Show us." she ordered and put her omni-tool forward to activate the holo-projector.
A primitive design of the ship in front of them appeared.
Raddus leaned a bit forward to read the name of the project.
"...Bellator-class dreadnought?"
"Affirmative, it's been in development for around 7 years. Even when we acquired the database it still wasn't a unified project."
Jaral mumbled as she looked at the statistics sent now by the drones.
"7.2 km...14 aft thrusters...a pretty impressive arsenal...uh, seems like it's almost unarmed underbelly."
"Affirmative. Though we're still analyzing for a weak point."
"Well, I guess the Protector will have some work on its hand. Let's wait for our allies to soften them up, then launch fighters." Raddus instructed.
In front of them, the Protector waited until the imperial formation was in range and then started to fire with its cannons. The dreadnoughts and cruisers of the Federation started to fire with their mass accelerators and long-range turbolasers.
The enemy formation was composed, aside from the Bellator, of 18 Star Destroyers, 34 heavy cruisers of various type, around 8 carrier ships and no less than 60 light ships, between Arquitens, Gozanti and other types of ships.
The bigger ships also opened fire, mostly targeting the Protector, which was already a grave mistake that showed how inept this Admiral Bormius was: at that distance, not all the shots were hitting their target, thus the powerful shields of the Federal super-dreadnought had even the time to recharge, sometime.
Meanwhile, the federal ships were targeting the cruisers, which at that distance couldn't return fire and, by the time they entered in range of their weapons, the Imperials had already lost 12 ships, including an escort carrier.
"Launch all fighters!" Raddus ordered.
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The signal arrived.
Into the hangar of the Profundity, Ezra, Sabine and Raze were waiting at the commands of Ezra's ship. Once called the Nightbrother, now called the Silver Bullet, because Sabine had decided to give it a silver-gray color instead of the red that Maul had given it years ago.
Next to them was waiting the Ghost. Aboard it were Hera, Zeb, Chopper and Kallus manning the ship, along with a co-pilot provided by the fleet.
"Phoenix Squadron, you're clear to go." the controller of the hangar spoke into the comlink of both the Gauntlet and the Ghost.
"Copy that, Control. All ships, take off." Hera ordered.
The engines had finished warming and Ezra lifted the Gauntlet while Sabine prepared the weapons and Raze took care of managing the energy from the socket.
Behind them there was a squadron of X-Wings, while one of Y-Wings was being prepared.
Hera was in charge of the squadron, of course. The Silver Bullet was technically under her responsibility, but in reality Ezra and Sabine were supposed to act as jolly.
As they lifted the ships, Hera called the teens.
"I know you two are unstoppable, but don't overdo it, guys." she ordered.
The two smirked. "Don't worry, General. If anything, you be careful. I want to see my godchild one day." Ezra quipped.
Hera had already asked both siblings to be the child's godparents. True, there should only be one, but Hera couldn't bare to chooses only one, and since there was a high chance that the child would be a Force-sensitive, it was already written that those two were going to be his/her mentors.
Hera chuckled. "You're not the only one who wants it to be born, you know."
The ships now dashed forward and they led the fighters outside before pointing toward the imperial fleet. They flew among the federal fleet and joined the line of allied fighters that were being launched from all sides.
Among the fighters there was also Wedge and his Rogue Squadron, but Jaral had assigned them to another sector so their ability could be used for another task.
After the fighters, it was time for the bombers to get airborne, positioning themselves between the fleets and waiting for an opportunity to strike. Raddus wanted to use them to target the imperial flagship, but first the fighters had to open a path.
Ezra kept acting as Hera's wingman, then the formations of fighters clashed.
Usually, the rebels had the advantage of more durable starcrafts while the Empire relied on their massive numerical superiority, but this time, their advantage was nullified, because the Systems Alliance was sending in hundreds of its own fighters and interceptors, and they too had some shields, making them superior to the TIEs.
Besides, Jinx wasn't the only AI in the fight. Some of the Federation fighters were manned by Legionnaires equipped with their own AI, based on separate processors like Jinx was, so the imperial pilots suffered constantly from bad communications and targeting systems.
Ezra pushed the Gauntlet to its limits while Sabine used the cannons and Raze communicated with Jinx to redirect the energy of the ship to the WES according to the necessities.
Very soon, the TIEs were decimated, while they could only inflict limited casualties to the allies.
Desperate to keep the starcrafts away, the Imperial Admiral sent the Tartan cruisers forward, but Hera noticed them and ordered the squadrons to pull back before those automatic cannons could cause serious losses and instead warned the fleet.
Edrix then sent forward a group of frigates and corvettes, among them Task Force Magellan, whose weapons could make short work of the small patrol cruisers and open the path to the major ships to the fighters.
Under Jinx's suggestions, Hera used the Ghost and the Silver Bullet to draw the Tartans near an asteroid field.
While the patrol cruisers could follow them, since the field wasn't much dense, they also suddenly became much more limited in their movements, and right at that moment, the Constantinople and a group of frigates came from above them, outside of the asteroid field and with clean shots.
Their Thanix cannons made short work of the 8 Tartans. Only three of them managed to fall back with the fleet.
These losses left the imperials completely open to the swarm of fighter-crafts. A sane commander would have retreated at this point, but the Empire didn't take kindly to everyone who retreated, so comm-scan indicated that the imperial commander was ordering a head-on charge.
True, aside from the Protector, the allied ships had less firepower than their imperial counterparts, but they could take a lot of punishment anyway.
Still, Jaral didn't want to just answer with a head-on battle, so she suggested the two Admirals to make an enveloping tactic while the fighters targeted the engines of the Star Destroyers surrounding the Bellator.
Edrix and Raddus agreed with the tactic and started to make dispositions. They sent the strongest ships in the center while light cruisers, frigates and corvettes moved on the flanks, ready to hit the imperial formation once it mindlessly charged in.
Ezra was then assigned half of Phoenix Squadron to escort one of the Y-Wing squads to bomb one of the Star Destroyers, while Hera took care of another one. The Federation aeronaval forces were using disruptors torpedoes from their own bombers to hit the Star Destroyers at the edge of the formation.
"We should target their shield generator." Sabine suggested.
"Good idea. Phoenix 8," he then said in the comlink. "I'm taking care of their shield generators above the bridge, keep covering the bombers."
"Acknowledged, Commander Bridger." the pilot answered.
Ezra thus veered toward the bridge of the Star Destroyers. The turrets of the ship shot toward him, but not only he had the Force to anticipate the trajectory of the bolts, these were also quite slow. The reason why patrol cruisers like the Tartans were important in anti-fighter defenses was because their turbolaser were less powerful against other vessels, but the bolts were very quick, thus suited to attack small, fast space-crafts.
The bolts of the Star Destroyers' AA guns were dangerous for a space-craft, yes, but they were still very slow, so unless the pilot was flying right above them and the cannon shot at the exact moment it needed to fire, it was possible for an enemy pilot to speed among them and come out unscathed.
When the Silver Bullet was half-way toward the deflectors, the Y-Wing behind it fired with their ion cannons, hitting the Star Destroyer multiple times and disabling his systems (including the shields) temporarily.
Ezra pointed the ship toward the generator on the right. He let Jinx calculate the trajectory and then fired with its proton bolts, which went straight toward it and blew it up. The second one he simply passed near it and let Sabine fire on it with the regular blaster cannons, destroying it.
The Y-Wings then released their payload on the heavy turrets on the starboard side of the ship, blowing them one after the other.
The X-Wings then finished the job by flying behind the Destroyer and using their own proton torpedoes to hit the three major thrusters, blowing them up and slowing the ship down to the point that it was almost paralyzed, then the squad retreated.
Hera and the other squadron did their work as well, and soon the Bellator advanced too much and was isolated. Edrix moved in the Protector and four dreadnoughts to bomb the ship with everything they had, while Raddus led the Profundity and other allied forces to take off the straggling Star Destroyers. The lighter ships of the Empire stood no chance against the heavy cruisers of the allies and were decimated. Very few captains had the courage of retreating and save their crews.
The Bellator was now left alone. All the Y-Wings converged from all directions and attacked it with their ion torpedoes, so did the Federation bombers. The shields of the dreadnought fell after three minutes of endless bombing, which was still impressive, considering the punishment she was taking.
The behemoth even managed to destroy a couple of federal cruisers, the INS Conakry and the INS Toronto, but eventually her weapons and engines were destroyed one after the other.
When it was finally immobilized, Jaral ordered to cease fire and the Constantinople moved in to secure the command bridge before the imperials thought of activating the self-destruction sequence. Another frigate sent in a boarding party near the engines, to make sure the imperials wouldn't try to overload the reactor to destroy the ship.
Things got intense for the next ten minutes. Jordan led the strike team to the bridge together with his Legionnaires and they easily took control of the bridge before the Admiral could do anything to sabotage the ship. The second frigate also sent a team of Legionnaires, and they too easily secured the engine room.
After a couple of hours of fighting, the Battle of Lothal could be considered over. And it was a resounding success for the allies: they had lost only two line cruisers, a few dozens fighters, and other vessels only suffered minor damages. The Empire, by contrast, had lost 72 ships. Their new dreadnought and other three Star Destroyers had been captured and, after undergoing reparations, would be used to defend Lothal.
While they could replace the losses, this was a total humiliation, and the news of it would further ignite the fires of rebellion along the Outer Rim.
When the combat operations were finally over, Ezra landed on the Profundity to get Jaral on board and they headed down to Lothal with the Ghost to go celebrate at the tower.