533. Painful decision
On Geonosis, both the battle on the ground and the battle in space have become increasingly fierce.
The fleet of Trench continued to launch attacks, and it had already been strangled with Republic Fleet, turning into a melee. The fleets of both sides were full of firepower.
Republic Fleet originally had the advantage, but at the beginning of the battle, in order to meet the ground forces, they separated more than half of their warships to fight in the atmosphere of Geonosis. As a result, they were caught by General Trench, who was good at catching fighter planes.
Under Confederacy of Independent Systems fleet's completely lifeless attack, Wullf-Admiral Yularen couldn't even delay, so they had to urgently ask for help from the ground.
He is much more experienced than Tactical Advisor Mabel Garson, who previously commanded the fleet. He naturally understands that once the space battlefield is defeated, they will be trapped on the surface of Geonosis like the previous fleet, and this time, they will not have a chance to escape.
But the ground battlefield at this time was also very tight. General Grievous was also not the T-series tactical robot who had previously commanded the ground operations. In order to support General Trench's operations, he pressed all the robot armies and launched a general attack regardless of losses!
In the previous battle, General Grievous had completed his deployment. He first consumed Clone Army's ammunition supply, and then when they were short of ammunition and had to shrink their defense line, he deployed the robot army to all sides of Main Hive Ruins.
But now that the time is right, robots from every direction have launched an attack!
In order to evacuate, Republic commander must load the troops onto the spaceship and transport them away, but the more troops are loaded onto the spacecraft, the smaller the troops left to defend the position will be, and the greater the pressure will be.
If it was at the beginning, they could still rely on the aerial fire support of a large number of Republic warship in the sky, but now that the space battlefield is urgent, they have to dispatch warships to space, which further intensifies the pressure on the ground battlefield.
At this moment, General Trench's fleet only has 2 Deceiver-class destroyer, 3 Defiant-class light destroyer, 6 Munificent-class communications frigate, and 4 Revenge-class light destroyer. But under his command, these warships, which were already covered with injuries, were still attacking crazily.
Even when Dream Sisters led the remaining fighter jets and attacked Confederacy fleet with the help of illusions, they ignored them. General Trench has figured it out. Instead of struggling with these illusions, it is better to focus all the firepower on the opponent's warship.
Anyway, your illusion cannot transform warships. Even if it could, these warships are not as flexible as fighter jets, but they are actually easy to identify. Anyway, you only have more than a hundred fighter jets in total. I will give up these warships in exchange for you! Finally, let's see if your the Force is long-lasting enough or our Hypermatter engine is long-lasting enough!
The battle situation was indeed as General Trench expected. Luna-Meng and Luna-Huan were unable to reverse the situation. Although they led the fighter squadron to severely damage several Confederacy of Independent Systems battleships, Republic fleet still suffered heavy losses.
General Trench was confident anyway. Anyway, the lost fleets belonged to Confederacy of Independent Systems and Galactic Republic, not to General Trench, nor to Fourth Civilization, to whom he was truly loyal. And on the contrary, because Galactic Republic suffered heavy losses in this battle, General Trench will be rewarded.
Among Republic fleet, four Invincible-class heavy cruiser were all severely damaged and withdrawn from the battle, and three of them were unable to evacuate due to damage to their hyperspace engines. Now Wullf-Admiral Yularen are organizing shuttles to take the officers and soldiers on these three warships to other warships.
Not only that, there were 10 Kallak-class light cruiser, more than 30 CR-70 frigates were destroyed, and 7 Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser were severely damaged. If Master Yoda hadn't dispatched warships in time to support, and the surviving Jedi Knight also flew fighter jets to join the battle, they might really have been wiped out.
Throughout the space battlefield area, broken metal fragments and a large number of broken warship wreckage can be seen everywhere. Countless corpses and robots were thrown out from these wreckage. Some wreckage are even burning in the vacuum of the universe. Most of them are engines or Energy Department points, or life support facilities that continuously produce oxygen.
But the fierce battle is still continuing, and new warships are constantly rushing out of Geonosis's atmosphere to join the battle. The advantage of the space battlefield is gradually tilting in the direction of Galactic Republic.
However, in contrast, the situation on the ground battlefield gradually collapsed.
There are still 20,000 ordinary soldiers and more than 30,000 Clone Trooper holding their positions. As more and more spacecraft are deployed to fight in space, they are no longer able to defend the offensive of 600,000 robot armies attacking from all directions at the same time.
"Master Yoda, our ground position has been retreating steadily and cannot be defended." Galactic Republic Tactical Advisor Mabel Gasson said, "Now there is only the last Acclamator-class assault ship left on the ground, even if If all the vacancies on this battleship are filled, it can only accommodate up to 25,000 more people. And we don't dare to let the battleship land any more. If the landed battleship takes off again, all preparations will be delayed for at least half an hour, and this does not include the time for loading personnel. We can't wait..."
His meaning was obvious, now part of the ground troops must be abandoned.
Jedi Knight present looked very ugly, while Master Yoda and Master Windu were silent.
War is always cruel, and such a choice will one day have to be faced, but I didn't expect it to come so early.
"How long can we hold on, the fleet in outer orbit?" Master Yoda asked, closing his eyes.
"It's not a question of how long we can last. It's that we can't let a fleet carrying more than 100,000 soldiers fight in space for a long time... This will turn into a disaster." Mabel Garson said with great frustration.
Master Yoda was silent for a long time and said slowly, "The soldiers who stayed behind helped us defend our position with their lives. This is a painful choice."
Mabel Garson gritted her teeth and said, "I suggest that Clone Trooper be allowed on board. Their value is much higher than ordinary soldiers. Let me give this order! Everything has nothing to do with Jedi Order! Moreover, I am willing to stay and live and die with these soldiers!"
Because his wrong choices made the war passive before, he now decided to take up this responsibility.
Master Yoda closed his eyes and said nothing.
"For the sake of war, Mabel Garson made the right choice. Now, as the living, the only thing we can do is to win this war and make the sacrifices of the deceased more valuable." Master Windu said.
Master Yoda opened his eyes suddenly and said, "I will give the order to retreat. I will bear the responsibility for defeat."
His eyes were extremely firm. At this moment, he made the best decision to sacrifice the 20,000 ordinary people's army to save Clone Trooper as much as possible.
For him to issue this order will undoubtedly bring shame to Jedi Order's reputation again, but Master Yoda understands that if he does not do this and just puts all the blame on Mabel Garson, he will be in vain as a practitioner the Force, walking in the light...
Jedi Knight.
Final orders were given, and Master Yoda personally told the soldiers that they must stay and hold on, but after the fleet left, they were allowed to surrender. The Galactic Republic government will also make every effort to diplomatically urge Confederacy of Independent Systems to at least give these prisoners normal treatment.
Clone Army There will also be 5,000 people staying, but they don't have many complaints. Most of the injured asked to stay, but for those 20,000 ordinary soldiers, this decision is extremely cruel.
After the order was issued, they mutinied almost on the spot, but were forcibly suppressed by 5,000 people Clone Trooper.
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