Anakin Skywalker had been a soldier for less than a year, yet his name already traveled from one end of the galaxy to the other spoken with admiration by clone troopers, awe by refugees, and suspicion by half the Jedi Council. The Battle of Christophsis, the relief of Dantooine, the Corulag Breakout each had sharpened his reputation as a commander who could turn hopeless positions into sudden, brilliant victories.
But now the war was changing.
The heist of multiple Confederacy resource worlds including the massive industrial depot Lattice Nine ripped through galactic politics like a detonator charge. The Separatists woke to find entire storehouses of hyper-matter, durasteel, advanced droid brains, and star-ship parts stripped clean overnight. Entire freighter grids had vanished. Hundreds of millions of tons of cargo that fed the droid armies simply blinked out of existence.
To the Republic, the theft was an unexplained blessing. To Count Dooku and Grievous, it was a provocation unlike any other.
And they answered with fire.
The Backlash Begins
The Confederacy launched coordinated offensives across more than forty systems within a month of the heist. The goal was obvious reclaim territory, seize fresh resources, and strike the Republic hard enough to mask their losses.
On the bridge of the Resolute, Admiral Yularen stared at the holomap with a tightening jaw. Red markers blossomed everywhere: Er'Kit, Merson, Rodia, Cato Neimoidia's outer satellites, even the remote mining colonies in the Maldraas Belt.
"They're hitting every soft point at once," Yularen said. "Grievous is stripping sectors bare and pushing the lines faster than our reinforcements can redeploy."
Anakin folded his arms, blue eyes locked on the flashing icons. "They're desperate. Someone hit them where it hurts."
"Someone?" Ahsoka raised a brow. "More like an entire army. You don't rob industrial planets with a handful of ships."
"No intelligence confirms who did it," Yularen replied. "But whoever it was, the Separatists are compensating aggressively."
Anakin didn't say it aloud, but something in him sensed Mandalorians behind the heists. He couldn't explain why. It was faint, like an instinct formed on the edge of a vision. But he pushed it aside. He had battles to fight.
Yularen zoomed the map toward the Outer Rim.
"Grievous's main fleet is advancing toward the Bador Enclave. If he seizes that refueling route, we lose contact with three whole sectors."
Anakin's fingers tightened. "Then let's stop him."
In the Senate rotunda, shadows pooled beneath Chancellor Palpatine's pod as he listened to the latest intelligence reports.
"The Separatists have intensified their war production," Mas Amedda announced. "The loss of Lattice Nine has created instability in their supply lines, but they appear determined to compensate through conquest."
Bail Organa's pod glided forward. "Chancellor, these attacks are growing more violent. Entire cities on Er'Kit have been burned. We need to prioritize civilian evacuation."
"Evacuations cost credits we do not have," Orn Free Taa boomed. "The Banking Clan refuses further loans until the Republic expands its collateral."
Palpatine folded his hands. "Then we shall expand it."
Murmurs rippled.
"By my authority as Chancellor," Palpatine continued smoothly, "I propose extending emergency military powers to ensure new warship orders can be approved without delay. Our shipyards must be expanded and supplied, and more clone troopers commissioned to respond to these escalations."
The Senate exploded with debates some fearful, some enthusiastic, all loud.
Palpatine allowed it to swirl around him, a faint smile hidden in the shadows.
The heists had exposed a weakness in the Separatists. Now he would use it to justify magnifying his own power. More war meant more control, and soon, no one would be able to challenge him not the Senate, not the Jedi, and certainly not the Mandalorians, whose interference had added new unpredictability to the galactic game.
When the Senate's roar began to settle, Palpatine leaned back.
"Let the war expand," he murmured. "Let it strangle both sides. And when the galaxy begs for order, I shall provide it."
The Storm on Bador IV
The Resolute plunged into the Bador system at lightspeed's end, dropping into a chaos of laser fire and burning hulls. The Separatist fleet was already there—twenty Munificent frigates, five Providence carriers, and swarms of droid fighters that turned space into a web of crimson.
"General, the clones on the surface are being overwhelmed," Ahsoka reported.
"Then we hit the command ship," Anakin said. "Take down the brain, the body falls."
Yularen nodded grimly. "Divert all power to forward shields. We'll clear you a lane."
Thunderous impacts slammed into the cruiser as it cut toward the central Providence. Turbolasers lit space in blinding streaks. Fighters weaving like metallic insects hammered the shields, each volley brightening the hull.
Inside the Resolute, clones braced themselves at their stations, hands locked on rails, boots dug in.
Ahsoka's voice remained steady. "We've got tri-fighters closing in!"
"Stay with me," Anakin told her as their starfighters launched from the hangar.
Blue starfighters burst outward, slashing through the droid cloud. Anakin's fighter spiraled, flipped, and unleashed a barrage that tore a dozen droids apart in one pass.
The Providence loomed ahead.
Ahsoka followed tight behind. "Master, I'm reading enormous shield output."
"Then we hit it harder."
His torpedoes streaked toward the command tower. But at that instant, a shadow fell across his cockpit.
A massive Subjugator-class warship decloaked above the battlefield.
Ahsoka gasped. "Master Grievous!"
The Malevolence's younger sister ship: The Cataclysm.
Grievous's voice snarled across open comms, dripping with malice. "Skywalker. Your death will cripple the Republic more than any fleet."
"Always happy to disappoint," Anakin muttered.
The Cataclysm's ion pulse cannon began charging, the glow building.
"Get clear!" Ahsoka cried.
Anakin's fighter shot downward as the cannon fired. A wave of blue energy erupted, frying half the Republic fighters instantly and scrambling the Resolute's shields.
Clone troopers grabbed hold of consoles as power flickered. Sparks rained.
"Admiral!" a bridge officer shouted. "Shields collapsing! Hull breach on Deck 17!"
Yularen gritted his teeth. "Reroute everything to weapons. If we die, we die fighting."
The Line Buckles
Down on Bador IV, the ground war worsened.
Clone Commander Tey had held the trenches for six straight hours. B1 droids advanced through the smoke, stepping over their own fallen forms, while droidekas spun into position, shredding platoons with piercing bolts.
The ruins of Bador's capital collapsed around the men.
"Commander Tey, artillery is gone!" a trooper shouted. "We're losing ground!"
Tey fired his last rocket, blowing apart a spider droid. "Hold the line! Skywalker will break their fleet!"
But above them, Anakin was barely staying alive.
He pushed his starfighter into impossible maneuvers, spinning between the Cataclysm's broadside cannons, skimming the shields, firing torpedoes into exposed ventilation ribs.
Two Vulture droids nearly clipped him, but Ahsoka blasted them aside.
"Master! The Separatists have landed reinforcements on the surface!"
"I know," Anakin growled. "We need to turn this now."
Grievous's mocking laugh echoed again. "Skywalker, you are outmatched. As always."
"Not today."
The Breaking Point
The Cataclysm charged another ion pulse.
Ahsoka cursed under her breath. "If it fires again, we lose the entire fleet!"
"I know."
Anakin pulled up sharply, heading straight for the ion chamber.
"Master, that's suicide!"
"Only if I miss."
His fighter screamed toward the glowing sphere, alarms wailing as heat built around the cockpit. He locked his torpedoes on the exposed maintenance ring.
Just as Grievous fired
Anakin shot his torpedoes.
The pulse began to grow but then the torpedoes hit.
The explosion ruptured the chamber. The ion blast destabilized and backfired, ripping half the Cataclysm's spine apart.
The shockwave hurled Anakin's fighter spinning, alarms blasting.
Ahsoka reached him, grabbing his wing with a tractor tether. "Master, I've got you!"
The Separatist fleet faltered. Without their flagship, the droids fell into disarray.
The Resolute regained partial power.
Yularen slammed his fist down. "All ships push forward!"
Turbolasers roared. Frigates exploded. Clones on the ground surged back with renewed fire.
Within an hour, the Separatist invasion collapsed.
Bador IV was saved.
But barely.
Victory Without Celebration
That evening, Jedi survivors gathered in a temporary command tent. The air smelled of scorched dirt and burning metal.
Ahsoka sat with her arms wrapped around herself. "Master… we almost lost everything."
"Yeah," Anakin said quietly.
He felt the Force around him shaken, darkened. The war was changing. Becoming something far more brutal than any Jedi had anticipated.
Yularen entered. "Skywalker, the Chancellor requests a report immediately."
Anakin nodded, fatigue heavy in his limbs.
As he walked to the holotable, he saw wounded clones lined up in rows some missing limbs, others burnt, others unconscious. Medics hummed between them, applying bacta patches, stabilizing vitals.
A part of him clenched.
If this was only the war's beginning, what would the end look like?
The Chancellor's Hand Tightens
Back on Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine received the casualty reports with a solemn, practiced frown.
"So many dead," he murmured to Mas Amedda. "And the Jedi still hesitate to commit themselves fully. I fear their reluctance will doom the Republic."
Mas Amedda rumbled his agreement.
Palpatine's expression darkened as he read the dispatches detailing Grievous's new ferocity. Dooku's general had exceeded expectations clearly enhanced by Nightsister magicks and Sith training.
Good. A stronger Grievous meant a longer war.
A longer war meant more desperation.
And desperation was fertile soil for tyranny.
Kamino Strengthens the Ranks
On Kamino, rain hammered the transparisteel domes as Jedi Master Shaak Ti walked with Prime Minister Lama Su.
"Production quotas have increased," Shaak Ti said, relief and worry mingled. "We need replacements faster than ever."
"We foresaw the possibility of heightened conflict," Lama Su replied calmly. "Our new accelerated-growth chambers will double output within nine cycles."
Shaak Ti looked through the window at rows of growing soldiers identical faces in glowing tubes.
Her chest tightened.
"So many children bred for war," she whispered.
"Soldiers," Lama Su corrected. "Engineered for loyalty."
Shaak Ti wondered not for the first time whether the Jedi had made a catastrophic mistake entrusting the fate of the galaxy to an army born in tanks.
Her communicator buzzed.
"Master Ti," came Mace Windu's voice. "Obi-Wan has located a Separatist stronghold. Prepare for potential assaults. This war is accelerating."
Shaak Ti closed her eyes briefly.
Accelerating… and spiraling.
The Galaxy Takes Notice
Across the Republic, holo-news outlets broadcast two parallel stories:
ANAKIN SKYWALKER REPULSES SEPARATIST INVASIONandCONFEDERACY LOSES MASSIVE SUPPLY WORLDS IN MYSTERIOUS RAID
Even without knowing Shepard was responsible, analysts connected dots. The Separatists were angry furious and their rage fell upon innocent systems.
Worlds that had yet to see war now found themselves under siege.
Senators demanded answers.
The Jedi pleaded for more time.
Palpatine promised protection.
Behind closed doors, Dooku vowed revenge.
And in the shadows above Mandalore, the Halo rings rotated silently, watching the galaxy ignite.