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Only two ships didn't, a pair of medium sized yachts a little larger than Padme's personal yacht which twisted and turned away, trying to escape the area of space the battle was occurring in.
"Can you stop them?" Harry asked quickly, looking over at Master Fay, gesturing with one hand towards the screen which showed the images of those ships. It was evident to him that they were getting ready to jump to hyperspace.
Master Fay cocked one eye open for a moment and looked at the ships, then nodded and closed her eyes again. On those ships several officers suddenly collapsed, their minds cut off from their bodies, slipping into darkness. The rest of the crew panicked, unable to figure out what it happened, but one ship was still able to make a successful hyperspace jump.
The other drifted, and Harry, linked with Aayla, moved to take advantage quickly. The two Lucrehulks now lunged as one, closing quickly, and Mak, with something approaching un-Jedi like glee, targeted that ship and others with all the weapons that could bear on them. Turbolasers cracked out, and now that the attackers had to worry about the Vultures, the Lucrehulks were finally able to do some real damage to the yachts and merchant ships which were the real strength behind this attack.
The stopped yacht's shields went out quickly, fire raking its hull and smashing its engine to flinders. Four merchant vessels exploded, torn apart and unable to dodge the sudden fire from the larger Lucrehulks. Now Master Fay also lashed out, knocking out any mind she thought looked like that of an officer. Yet at the same time, the others flushed their racks, and dozens of proton torpedoes were now in space.
The Lucrehulks took a battering, their shields fluctuating badly, and the Wookie vessel's shields went down in places. But with the Vultures in the air and their cohesion lost thanks to Master Fay, the attacking fleet could no longer win this engagement. The Lucrehulks were simply too large, and though the Vultures were running on what looked like barely acceptable skill in terms of their robots, there were too many of them. A lot of the Vultures were still destroyed by the gunboats, who were the natural predator of starfighters thanks to their concussion missiles, but they should've still run away.
Instead the entire fleet stayed and fought, barring that one ship which had escaped. When asked about it, the Wookies explained that running away like that, would have been an act of cowardice that would have shamed the Trandoshans, especially after they were the ones who had sprung the ambush. Wookies actually used a word with quasi-religious connotations for some reason that Harry didn't understand.
They had a bit of an issue as the fight wound down. Master Fay got into an argument with the Wookies who wanted to simply destroy all of the ships that had attacked them. Indeed, they were still hammering a few of the merchant vessels which had lost all their defenses into pieces. The enmity between the Trandoshans and the Wookies did not just go one way, after all. But she convinced them that live prisoners would be better in the future. "The fleet here was ordered to attack us by the Trandoshan government. We need to find out why."
Padme nodded grimly. "I would assume that they are worried about the balance of power in the area shifting thanks to the Wookies receiving a Lucrehulk," she interjected, looking through the screen that the Wookies on the other side. "But if so, this could just be the first act of aggression."
The two women's words seemed to carry the day, and Lisher nodded. "We will board the ships then."
"Actually," Harry said, standing up and moving over to join the two, placing a light hand on Padme's shoulder as he leaned over her to be seen in the screen. "Why don't the Jedi take one of those ships? The one that tried to escape with the other yacht. I would assume that the leaders were the ones who tried to run away."
"That's not necessarily the way it is among Trandoshans," Chewbacca rumbled from behind him. "But they could have had orders to run and report the outcome. Or to not sacrifice themselves, in which case maybe there are some leaders on there."
"The individual who was controlling the fleet fled in that other ship; his crew acted swiftly despite my knocking him and several of his lower officers out," Master Fay said thoughtfully. "However I sensed that the second-in-command is on the yacht which did not try to jump out. If we can get any answers, we can get them from him."
"Boarding a Trandoshan ship is going to be tricky," Lisher said dubiously, with a hint of eagerness in his voice despite that. "Are you sure you don't want us to do it?"
"Positive," Harry replied with a faint smile, looking around at his fellow padawans. "Our Force abilities give us a much easier method of taking prisoners than you. And no offense, but…" Harry gestured towards the main screen where the rest of the fight had ended after the Wookie's Lucrehulk had continued to blast the other attacking ships into pieces. "You guys seem to have a bit of an anger issue that might get in your way of taking actual prisoners."
For a moment Lisher simply looked at Harry, then back to Master Fay. "He is not one of your Order's diplomats, is he?"
Everyone howled in laughter at that, more a release of tension than anything else, while Harry pouted, and Padme patted the hand on her shoulder consolingly. "Agreed!" Chewie said after a moment. "Myself and a few of my warriors will go with you. The rest will stay here with Padme."
Padme made to protest that, but Harry held up a hand before even Master Fay could. "This might already be turning into a diplomatic incident, Padme. Chewbacca's right; you need to stay here, safe."
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