**Chapter 774: Victory's Shadow**
**Scene 1: Coruscant – Republic Military Headquarters**
**Dagon POV**
As the *Devastation* and the rest of the fleet dropped out of hyperspace into Coruscant orbit, the girls headed straight for the Jedi Temple to change clothes and refresh themselves. Kuat and the Senate had their grand end-of-year party coming up, and my ship battle would soon take center stage. As if that so-called "Victory Project" could truly surpass what Bothawui and Sienar had been building. Still, I always wondered what an ultra-rich lifestyle truly felt like.
I was sort of there. Thanks to my shares and profits from Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems — with their ship and starfighter production — and the raids on the Prophets' bases plus stealing some of Sidious's hidden funds, my personal account now sat at 120 billion credits. That was still considered small change to the true ultra-rich of the Core, but I spent the vast majority on military upgrades anyway.
The losses from Mygeeto had been heavy but acceptable:
- 12 Venators destroyed, 8 heavily damaged, 4 lightly damaged
- 18 CR-90s destroyed, 8 lightly damaged
- 20 Marauder-class corvettes destroyed
- 18 Arquitens-class command cruisers destroyed, 20 lightly damaged
- 34 Dormean gunships destroyed
- 500 various starfighters destroyed
- 4 Nebula-class Star Destroyers heavily damaged
- 3 Resurgent-class battlecruisers moderately damaged
- 5 Allegiance-class battlecruisers damaged
CIS losses had been far worse:
- 300 Munificent frigates
- 144 Recusant light destroyers
- 22 Lucrehulk battleships
- 171,000 droid fighters
- The entirety of the Muun defense Golan platforms — all 35, with 3 surrendered and now Republic property
- The Subjugator-class heavy cruiser — that 4.5 km beast
- Hapan fleet losses of 80 or more ships
- Mon Cala fleet losses including several of their new MC75 cruisers
We had paid in blood, but Mygeeto was nearly ours.
I leaned back in the command chair at Republic Military Headquarters, reviewing the final tallies. The war was entering its decisive phase.
**Scene 2: Republic R&D Center (Location Classified) – Coruscant**
"Dr. Solumn, it's almost done."
The single blood-and-flesh surgeon in the room spoke aloud in front of the Director. The human medic was busy overseeing six spherical medical droids working on a clone trooper who had been grievously wounded months ago.
"Is it going to work?" Solumn asked.
"It's too early to say, sir — though the initial tests we're running are positive. The subject will live this time, that much I can promise."
"We need much more than simple survival or even partial recovery," the Director mused. "Besides, the latter can be achieved with commercially available meditech."
"I know, sir. However, adding so much tech into a body, especially one as wounded as Ark here was…" The human shrugged.
"We both know that it's not impossible. There are more than a handful of cyborgs more enhanced than our prototype here." Solumn looked unimpressed.
"True, sir. However, there's one huge difference — they're practically works of art, not something that can really be mass-produced. Further, we don't have access to the research of the people who did those enhancements. Most are beyond Republic space and those here are very well hidden."
"What are the prospects for Ark?" Solumn sighed.
"Quite good actually. His missing limbs were replaced with state-of-the-art combat prosthetics — we built them from lightweight armor alloy for increased durability. They will make him about four times stronger." The surgeon sounded proud of himself.
"We were expecting a ten-fold strength increase." The Director wasn't impressed.
"I know. There's a problem with the connections to the blood-and-flesh body — those joints simply aren't durable enough. In latter models which are more enhanced than Ark here, that problem will be solved. Speaking about durability — we've coated his bones with bio-neutrak ceramic alloy which makes them very hard to break. Further, his spine is reinforced by cybernetic implants and so is his skull."
"That's good to know. Side effects?"
"We had to implant him with a couple of devices that help his bone marrow generate the proper amount of blood cells. We even went a step further and poached a few things from Project Ascension — his blood is now more efficient, coagulates much faster and as a beneficial side effect, Ark will be highly resistant to a lot of poisons and toxins."
"Well, that's good at least. Still we'll need much more than this."
"We know, Director. Ark here's just our first prototype. We're just finishing installing his bacta injectors and will start on the sub-dermal armor grafts soon. That will give him unprecedented survivability in combat, though nothing like what we're planning. Unfortunately, a lot of the tech we'll need for Stage II is still theoretical or in the early stages of development. The good news is if Ark here's successful, we'll be able to return tens of thousands of soldiers back to the field within four months. What we learn from Stage I will be invaluable for the next part of this project."
"Hmm… This is better than I feared, though not as good as I hoped."
"We'll get the job done as soon as possible, Director."
**=RK=**
**Ascension I**
"Director!" Doctor Scrin — a Kaminoan mercenary who was the leader of Project Ascension — exclaimed when she saw the Duros enter her domain. "You're just in time." She waved a long, thin arm at him and smiled. "The first batch of volunteers will be decanted shortly."
"From your reports I understand that Stage I has been an unmitigated success," Solumn stated after nodding a greeting.
"Indeed!" Scrin's head bobbed over her long neck and she beamed. "Here we aren't constrained by what peak species performance is supposed to be." The scientist scoffed at the mere idea that her work should stop at what evolution had achieved.
"That was never the idea. We need something more." The Director nodded in agreement. Thanks to this war, they were not only allowed but expected to push the boundaries of science beyond what anyone had dreamed in ages. It truly was a great time to be a scientist!
"We have reasonably safe gene therapy that can bring people to their species peak performance within three months. Once that has been tested," Scrin grinned, "we'll be ready to push further into the next level."
"Good. Walk me through what you've achieved." The Director ordered as they walked further into the facility.
"First were the easy things — stimulating muscle growth, increasing bone density without compromising the skeleton, making the blood more efficient." Scrin waved a hand. "We got that done by combining already existing research and therapies then improving upon them. It took a couple of months, but it was quite simple." The woman spoke dismissively.
"You did much more than that." Solumn stated as they reached a sealed door.
"Of course!" Scrin scoffed. "We improved reflexes and reaction times by tweaking neurotransmitters and upgrading the nervous system. As a side effect, our test subjects have increased pain thresholds, but their appendages are a bit numb." The Doctor shrugged as if it wasn't a problem.
The door slid open and revealed a large chamber filled with hundreds of bacta tanks. Almost all of them were full with beings of various species.
"We also tweaked various organs to make them more efficient, especially when processing various toxins and poisons are concerned. Thanks to the changes, Stage I subjects are expected to have minimal resistance to nerve agents, though they will be by no means immune to them."
"Useful. How do they compare to the Clones?"
"At least as strong. Some will have better reflexes and they will be healing faster. The main issue was tweaking the gene therapy to work on many species. If we were going to improve just humans, Stage I would have been complete two months ago."
"I see. Good work. What have you cooking up for the next stage?" Solumn sounded quite satisfied.
"This will be the fun part — even more efficient organs as well as adding redundancies for anything vital. We already have a thirty percent success rate in adding secondary hearts in humans." Scrin beamed.
"Benefits?"
"Harder to kill subjects. With the improved blood we're developing, they will heal three to four times faster. The downside, as with most of our enhancements, will be increased calorie consumption to fuel them."
"That was a given." Solumn nodded. There always were trade-offs. Scrin's job was to make the benefits worth it.
"We're looking into further strength and speed increases — about four to five times the norm. That would allow soldiers to carry heavy armor and weapons and will make outfitting the troops cheaper — I understand that the power armor we're developing will be very expensive and not practical to outfit everyone with."
"That's true. It's also one of the main reasons we're putting as much resources into this project." Solumn nodded.
"We won't disappoint." The Kaminoan declared solemnly. "We're working on upgrading the nervous system as much as we can — we hope for two or three-fold increase in reflexes and reaction speeds. However, there's a hard-cap we'll be reaching with neurotransmitters. We won't get as good reaction as the Rebirth units that would replace or enhance the nervous system with fiber-optics."
"That won't be a long-term project. We'll be combining the later stages of these two projects anyway." The Director waved a hand in dismissal.
"That would be interesting to see." Scrin nodded. "Next — we're looking at increased endurance, which will take some tweaking in most subjects' systems. However, that won't be available before Stage II is well underway. We still have some problems to solve."
The Director shrugged. He had seen the failures. It was ugly and regrettable, but they learned from those accidents.
"We've also improved the vision of the subjects, added increased night vision and are working on adaptive lenses for the eyes — that should increase accuracy."
"That's splendid."
"We're also looking into biological sub-dermal armor and ways to increase the toughness of the skin without crippling side effects. Those two will be reserved for Stage II or III." Scrin mused.
"You can always use the sub-dermal armor from Rebirth." The Director proposed.
"That's something we're looking into along with a synthetic alloy that should act as a replacement skin. Unfortunately the latter's in the theoretical stages for the time being."
"Time frame for Stage II?"
"At least a month before we can start fully enhancing a test subject to that standard."
"I see. It's better than projected. I want Stage I's testing done ASAP and ready for distribution in the army before the new volunteer units finish training. High Command wants them enhanced before they're deployed."
"Within three months, right?"
"That's when the first new non-clone divisions will be ready for deployment."
"We'll be ready to implement mass enhancements in three months plus or minus a few weeks but we'll need increased funding and resources to create the necessary infrastructure." Scrin spoke after thinking for a few minutes.
"Consider it done." The Director nodded.
**Scene 3: Fleet Status – Republic Military Headquarters**
First, all the good news.
Apart from the 3 new Mandator turned Titan-class dreadnoughts, the fleet I currently have ready for the CIS offensive stands at:
- 190 Nebula-class Star Destroyers
- 80 Allegiance-class heavy cruisers
- 35 Resurgent-class battlecruisers
- 80 modified Invincible-class Dreadnoughts
- 1,400 Assault Frigates Mark 1
- 245 Valiant-class Star Destroyers
- 2,800 Venators
- 350 Venators to be modified with solar ion reactors and Silencer superweapon mounts
- 10,000 of each: CR-90s, Marauder-class corvettes, Consular-class light cruisers, Dormea gunships, Lancer-class frigates, Pelta-class frigates
- 8,500 Arquitens-class command cruisers
- 9,000 Arquitens-class light cruisers
- 3,330 Blood light cruiser/carriers
Plus the flagship *Annihilator*, the *Olympus Mons* strike carrier, 150 Dreadnought battleships, 35 Liberator-class heavy Star Destroyers / battlecruisers.
Then there were the volunteer forces. Apart from Kuat with its own contributions, we had Corellia who sent some of their ships to support us while their main fleet stayed to guard home.
**Corellian Destroyer** — an artillery ship effective primarily against capital ships and cruisers. Fairly heavily armed for its size and very fast and maneuverable compared to some of the other artillery ships.
**Classification:** Pocket Star Destroyer
**Length:** 1,000 meters
**Width:** 600 meters
**Height:** 500 meters
**Armament:** 18 Heavy Double Turbolaser turrets, 22 Double Turbolaser turrets, 42 Laser turrets and 20 missile tubes all used for heavy ship-to-ship engagements and bombardments. A small hangar is set along the axis of the ventral hull housing fighters and shuttles. A large Command Tower sits aft of the main weapons and forward of the three large Engines. I managed to modify them thanks to Sienar and we got 30 of those destroyers. With solar ion reactors the speed is better for an artillery ship.
**Corellian Dreadnaughts** were formidable warships, fielding numerous turbolaser emplacements and concussion missile tubes distributed evenly across their egg-shaped hulls. It was estimated that each such vessel possessed roughly twice the destructive power of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. Originally guard ships without hyperdrives, after Selonia we managed to get 5 of these 2.5 km ships to join us.
I looked at the chrono. Right — a week-long New Year party. And since the Republic was in a far better position than last year when the war started, that meant as Supreme Commander I needed to make an entrance.
The Dragon of the Republic was coming home.