Once the Republic ships began to fire upon the One Sith’s fleet, Daella’s face lit up. She saw the spear of Republic ships rushing toward the
Unity without slowing down their acceleration.
“
Stop reverse thrust!” she yelled as she held onto the railing before her.
As [member=Cypher] quickly departed, Daella gave no farewell. She remained focused on the situation.
An overview: The One Sith’s initially fleet took up a flat, discus-like shape with the flat end facing the Republic’s fleet. Essentially, it would be as if a circle. In the center was the
Pellaeon-class Star Destroyer
Unity along with a Torment-class Star Destroyer and several Nebulon B frigates. Several of the Scythes along with the majority of the rest of the Nebulon B frigates lined the medium lines. In the outer edges of the circle were the majority of the Scythes.
The Republic fleet initially focused on the
Unity. The
Star of the Republic and
Heart of Coruscant rushed toward the center. The rest of the fleet surely followed close at tail.
Now, the One Sith’s fighters and bombers that had not yet left their hangars poured out into space. With two-and-a-half times the amount of starfighters than the Republic, it might have seemed to be a swarm. The fighters flew in two different directions. Those from the outer half of the One Sith’s fleet flew outward. Those in the inner half flew toward the center. They did so without being prompted by Daella.
Generally, throughout the immediate area of space, One Sith fighters and Nebulon B frigates focused as the point defense against Republic bombers and fighters. Yet, the capital ships of the One Sith were light on fire.
Yet at the center, the
Unity shook as if it would crumble. The
Heart of Coruscant locking its tractor beams on the ship stopped any acceleration forward as planned due to the
Heart of Coruscant’s extreme forward inertia. It also made lateral movements more of a game of chance.
Daella noticed the
Star of the Republic heading toward the
Unity. The bridge was in chaos trying to work out a solution. Daella’s eyes darted around the holomap.
Noticing a Nebulon-B with a flashing red indicator, Daella said, “
Have Nebulon-B #3 move to cut off the tractor beams!”
The order was quickly relayed. The Nebulon, while being smaller than the
Pellaeon, managed to cut off just enough direct line of sight between the
Heart of Coruscant and
Unity that the ship managed to regain control of lateral movement. The Nebulon had begun to crumble at that moment, though. Its debris would only contribute to further inhibit the
Heart of Coruscant’s tractor beams on the
Unity.
“
Fire the right engines at emergency output!” yelled Daella as soon as she got confirmation that the
Unity had more freedom to move.
Then, the
Unity’s right engines turned on at full blast. The bridge quaked once again as the ship began to take evasive maneuvers by turning toward its left. The helmsman made further minute adjustments in order to calculate the
Star of the Republic’s trajectory and what the
Unity needed to do in order to avoid a collision. Daella kept her eyes glaring outside of the viewport. After a long blink, they turned a bright, dark side corrupted red.
The helmsman counted down the seconds until impact. Five seconds. The shaking of the
Unity continued. Four seconds. Three. The holomap showed the
Unity’s trajectory to be at the edge of what they would need to escape. Two seconds. The indication that the
Unity would avoid collision wavered back and forth from predicting collision and evasion. One second. The bridge was definitely clear of immediate danger, yet the
Unity was on the edge of the gray-zone and safe-zone.
At what seemed to be the last millisecond, the
Unity managed to clear enough distance to fly by the
Star of the Republic without a collision. The
Star of the Republic flew by what seemed to be meters - though the distance was probably much greater due to the scale of space.
After avoiding an extremely dangerous situation, the thrusters of the
Unity were killed - forcing it into inertial drift and quelling the quakes. As the bridge began to settle down, gasps began to go off throughout the entire room. Daella looked up to the holomap. A smirk drew itself across her face.
“
We’ve… enveloped the Republic,” said the sensors technician in disbelief.
Breakdown: The One Sith’s fleet initially took up a flat, discus-like shape with the flat end facing the Republic’s fleet. Then as the Republic’s fleet charged forth at flank speed, the center used reverse thrust to inch away. The middle sections slowly backed off, yet not at a noticeable rate. The outer sections hardly moved - relative to the Republic fleet, of course.
Over time, this turned what was a circle with the flat side facing the Republic into a three-dimensional cone.
Up until the last moment, [member=Popo] had the Republic’s fleet focused on the
Unity. With the shape of the cone, the Republic would have been funneled into the center on the assumption that they were retreating. Daella assumed that such was the reason for their pursuit. She also knew that taking the command and control was a likely goal for the Republic fleet to take.
Knowing this, Daella had the One Sith’s fleet begin as a flat circle facing the Republic with the
Unity as the bait. Now, minus the
Star of the Republic, the Republic’s ships were caught in a cone with the more numerous One Sith ships forming the walls of the cone. A classic double envelopment maneuver.
To put it in simple terms, it was as if the fleet battle was a game of rock, paper, scissors. The Republic’s fleet was an ellipsoidal rock. The One Sith’s fleet was the paper to smother the rock.
This omnidirectional surrounding presented several advantages that Daella hoped to exploit. The first was that it would be fundamentally confusing. The second was that it divided the Republic’s direction of fire. The third was that the Republic, which might have had its shields strengthened on the forward side, now had to protect itself from nearly all directions.
A fourth advantage that Daella knew off and hoped to exploit was one created by Popo’s orders himself.
Flank speed.
Full speed and flank speed were distinctively different. [member=Popo] clearly ordered for the Republic’s fleet to accelerate to flank speed, and Daella recognized this through her knowledge of Republic ships. While the speeds of flank speed were definitely greater than full speed, flank speed suffers from two major faults:
- The consumption of fuel can lead to an over eighty-six percent reduction in fuel efficiency in some models of ships.
- It also wrecked the engines and power generators of ships that used flank speed.
Such defects were inherent in flank speed - thus justifying the distinction between full speed and it. Full speed provided a much safer means to travel at high speeds. It preserved the engines’ life while using reasonable fuel efficiency.
In the modern galaxy, the use of flank speed was likely to be minimal. Even the ancient means of nuclear powered ships had no practical use in flank speed. Fifty percent output of a nuclear powered vessel had the ship going at nearly the same speed of one-hundred percent output - just without the added damage to the engine and motor as one-hundred percent output did.
Therefore, the Republic’s ships were likely to be overheated and extremely susceptible to damage in Daella’s opinion. Now with the Republic’s fleet enveloped, the Scythes that populated the outer edges of the initial circle had a good angle at the potentially volatile engines of the Republic.
Commanders of the Sith fleet had been told of Daella’s plan in the beginning. Therefore automatically, the Sith fleet sought maximize their position. The ships at the side of the three-dimensional cone turned toward the Republic fleet and drifted forward to limit the amount of safe space. Starfighters not on point defense began to escort bombers to wreak havoc. As the capital ships of the One Sith focused their shields forward, they were able to freely aim their turbolasers and missiles at the rear part of ships - or their front if that was weakly protected. The Sith were more numerous by capital ships and boasted similar fire power with a supposedly superior position.
Daella would have appeared to be aiming for the Republic fleet's annihilation with such a tactical maneuver.
Throwing out her right arm forward, Daella gave a single, calmly voiced word as her command, “
Fire.”
And indiscriminately, the One Sith attacked the Republic fleet.
