A Different War
Blaster rounds raced through the city streets as both sides threw everything at each other. The Republic forces refused to give up the territory they had gained and were fighting with everything they had just to hold it. And the Separatists were determined to get rid of the Republic so they could claim the world for themselves.
The Separatist commander growled and shoved the tactical droid next to him, "Get the reserves up to the city center, I want those clones eliminated!"
The droid yelled to the groups in front of him, "Second and Third Platoons forward charge!" A chorus of roger, rogers were heard as they ran forward.
A few clones on a ledge just a head of the main group watched as another droid force started charging. One of them touched his hand to his comlink and radioed back, "Commander they are sending another wave of Clankers at us, looks to be at least two platoons."
The line was quiet for a few seconds before a voice responded, "Understood, pull back to the main unit.." the voice was interrupted by the sound of heavy blaster fire, "We need every man down here now!" the commander shouted as she cut the link.
Several explosions from behind caused them to look back towards the main and saw that the Separatists had rolled up another wave from the opposite side, effectively blocking them in.
"Lets go Sap, we need to get in there and help the Commander." His brother shouted as he pulled Sap to his feet and raced down the cliff firing into the droids from behind.
The young Jedi Commander weaved through the fight dodging blaster bolts with her lightsaber and slashing any droid who got in her way. Suddenly she stopped as a low resounding rumble was heard, causing her to look up, "Incoming!" she screamed as she put up a force barrier around a group of medics tending to a few injured nearby.
Everyone dove for cover as dirt, rock and droid shrapnel flew in all directions, impacting buildings or unfortunate troopers who were too close to the impacts. The bombardment wave lasted for several seconds before finally stopping.
"That was right on top of us. Their artillery is nearly spot on." A sergeant hollered to the Commander who began to help the medics. As he rushed to tend to a few of his brother's who were peppered by debris. He leaned down and took out his micro-medkit and did his best to patch them up, but they were loosing blood faster the he could apply the coagulant spray. But to his distress both of his brothers smiled at him one last time before closing their eyes.
Before anything could be done several more shells rained in, hammering their position, "We need to pull back and regroup!" The Commander shouted, looking above as several droid landers were coming down from orbit. Knowing they were filled with several platoons of clankers and heavy armor, her weakened and already outnumbered forces wouldn't stand a chance against them.
The sergeant looked towards the droid lines and at the landers, "Raven we aren't going to make it." He pointed to the approaching tanks and several platoons of droids, "They don't want any of us to get out of here."
Raven looked down at her comlink and activated it, while praying the fleet could hear her, "Captain Azema do you read?"
"I read you Commander what do you need, we are rather busy up here, the Seps aren't backing down and two more frigates just jumped into the system." She grunted as the Star Destroyer took several heavy hits against its shields.
"We need EVAC now!" Raven shouted as she drew her lightsaber and began deflecting the latest barrage of blaster bolts back at their sources. "We're about to be rolled, we need you."
The link was severed in that instant, causing the captain to shout as she slammed her fists into the Holotank. She turned to the bridge crew, her eyes glaring. "I want gunships down there Yesterday!" She walked towards the front window, "Divert all power to the weapons and shields, take from everything, even lifesupport if you have to. I want them to come home!"
The bridge crew was already in motion from when she slammed her fists down. Everything was diverted, taking from the engines, lights, lifesupport, emergency powers, everything non-essential. The ship began to glow before simultaneously discharging its new found energy towards two of the unsuspecting droid frigates. It stripped them of their shields before they detonated from the impact.
"Captain we've cleared a hole in their formation!" One of the bridge crew shouted as the bridge regained power.
She nodded and tried to contact Raven on the surface.
A faint beeping was heard as the remaining Republic forces were being assaulted from all directions, the young Jedi Commander was deflecting bolt after bolt as her troops pulled back into a large circle in the center of the ruined city.
"Raven your communicator!" The sergeant yelled as he ducked back behind his dwindling cover.
She dropped down and answered it, "Raven here, who's this?"
There was a burst of static before the captain appeared, "Katooni, this is Azema, we've cleared a window and are moving to provide fire support.." the captain's image shook and winked in and out before she continued, "Throw markers and Kiss the dirt!"
The commander unsure of what she meant turned to her forces, "Kiss the Dirt boys!" None of the troopers ignored it, they all slammed into the ground as a barage of Sapphire light crashed down around them, shaking the area.
The shaking stopped after a few seconds as they got to their feet, a few whistles being heard as the troopers patted each other's backs.
Katooni tapped her wrist, "Azema, that was a little close don't you think?" she said calmly.
The captain laughed and looked at her image closely, "You asked for immediate help that was as close to immediate as I could give you."
She didn't respond to the captain, only nodding before closing the link and wiping the grime off of her face with the remains of her cloak.
Shaking off the dirt from his armor the sergeant looked down at Katooni, "At least they took out the Seppie commander as well."
Katooni tilted her head in confusion as he pointed towards a raging ball of flame a half a klick out, she laughed and shook her head, "So much for taking him alive." They both chuckled about as troopers ran up from the gunships.
She looked at them, "Dead and wounded on the gunships first, I want a couple of squads to search for any intel you can find."
Katooni lifted a pair of troopers who had covered eachother to the very end with the Force. They had both been defending a corner when one of them took a round to the shoulder throwing him onto the ground. His brother went to cover him but was taken out as well. With his brother across his chest he fought on until a bolt pierced his helmet.
They returned to the Arc Angel its bays busy with activity from the approaching gunships, troopers running all over the place, setting up triage units and settting up emergency cots. Katooni walked from her gunship towards the turbolifts. A few minutes later she walked onto the bridge, "Sit Rep."
Azema looked up and nodded to the battle weary commander and punched up the fleets position on the tank, "We've encircled the remaining frigates. The strange part is that they had stopped firing shortly after we broke through the blockade."
(Studying the holo Katooni looked at the two frigates wondering what was going on when she motioned for a commlink to the ships. Battle droids just don't stop fighting, I wonder what their plan is. She thought.
"I want all guns aimed at those ships, fire at my command." then the familiar sound of a response chimed.
The first B1 appeared looking around somewhat confused, "Um, Helllloooo?"
The second was shouting grabbing its head and apppeared to be visibly shaking, "Don't shoot, don't shoot!"
The first looked at the other and sighed placing its metal hand over its face, "You're embarrasing us."
The second shrugged, "Its in my programming."
Katooni was trying so hard not to laugh at the two droids, but she quickly composed herself and looked at the both of them, "Why have you stopped shooting?"
The calmer B1 looked at her and said, "We are surrendering, choose what you will do with us, for I value my life and wish to keep it."
Silence filled the entire bridge of the Ark Angel as they were all shocked at what the droid had said, Katooni looked again at the droid, but this time much closer trying to see the droid in the force, but it didn't appear only, all that did appear was its outline with a grey smoke like cloud filling its body, "Why are you surrendering so easily Calm, can I call you Calm?"
The droid merely shrugged with its hand and motioned toward itself shoing that it was going to talk, "You have defeated our commander and rather then fight in a suicide attack we are giving our forces to you. Do with us what you will, we will not resist." It/Calm said as he sat down in the command chair.
Katooni looked towards the captain who nodded in agreement. She turned back to Calm and composed herself, "Commence shut down of all droids on your cruisers, excluding the bridge crew." She glanced toward the shaking B1, "That goes for you as well Jitters."
Both droids saluted, "Roger Roger, Orders recieved and will be carried out as instructed."
The transmission was severed allowing Katooni a sigh of relief, 'I am thankful we won't have to engage them, our ships are already heavily damaged. But having them around will provide extra firesupport, and I won't have to send my soldiers to their deaths in the next fight.' Her mind raced with several confronting thoughts as she returned to the turbolift, heading down to the main hangar bay, to check on the men and give some support.
She emerged from the lift walking ahead as several troopers started to get to their feet and tried to salute, but she shouted, "As you were." They went back to what they were doing, from bandaging their brothers to doing emergency surgery right there in the bay. She scanned for a specific group of troopers and soon found them. It wasn't difficult, their black and silver armor stood out against the ocean of white and red.
As she walked up to her squad, she shouted to the one who was bandaging a regular trooper's side. "Twitch status report on the wounded!"
"300 dead, most of them from Bravo and Echo battalions and we have 120 wounded here in the bays of the Ark Angel, sorry commander but this is everyone, none of our brothers remain on the surface, I only wish they had all come back alive."
Lowering her head she spoke softly, "So do I, So do I." But she lifted her head and shouted for the entire bay to hear, "But let's make sure they didn't die in vain and win this War!"
All movement in the bay stopped and every trooper placed their right gauntlet over their chest and shouted in return, "For Raven, For our Brothers, For the Republic!" Everyone went back to their duties with renewed strength and energy they didn't know they still had.
She nodded and began to help with the wounded, healing what she could and bandaging what she couldn't, but the Force was on their side this day, for all 120 wounded were soon stabilized and ready to go back into the fight, a fight which she knew they had no choice, but all of them would glad die for the Republic.
The young commander returned to her quarters and drifted into a deep meditative trance. This war is turning against us, every time the Republic starts to pull ahead, it gets shut down again. We are spread too far and too thin, with the cloning facilities on Kamino struggling to keep up with the demands for fresh troops. We need a new strategy if we are going to defeat the Separatists and I think I know who to call on for help. After she had gathered her thoughts and changed out of her battle worn cloak and into a fresh one, before collapsing onto her bunk.
Her mind raced in her dreams as she looked for the best outcome for her troops and for the war, but nothing seemed to work. A voice in her mind began to speak, a voice of one of the masters. Youngling to the Outer Rim medical station you must go.
Her mind drifted from the voice of the master to a battlefield, where both sides were under heavy fire, when all suddenly the Jedi in charge of the attack was gunned down by one of his clone soldiers. "Noooo!" Katooni charged towards the fallen Jedi before being shot herself.
She jumped straight up out of bed, hitting the bulkhead and collapsing back onto her bunk holding her head, as two troopers rushed inside. "Commander, you alright?
She rubbed the side of her head, "Yeah, I'm alright. What is there to report?"
They stood at attention, rifles rested against their chests, ""We've jumped into the system and detected a med station near by. We were on our way to inform you when we heard the comotion."
She nodded and followed them to the bridge; one of the troopers walking towards the door noticed her walking in and went to attention, "Attention on deck!"
"As you were, captain status."
"The Defender and Arc Angel are 75 percent operational but the Striker is only useful as a gunboat, her life support systems are fried and major structural failures all over the hull."
Sighing heavily as she looked over the damage report on the datapad befoore she looked up, "Secure the Striker, I want every useful item off of her."
She nodded and waved her fingers over several keys as the station was brought up on the holotank, "Commander we have an anomalous reading coming from the asteroid field on the other side of the system. Low energy readings of some kind, can't make it out, to much interference from the asteroids."
Raven looked up and smiled, "It's one of our Outer Rim med stations."
The clone who was manning the tracking sensors shook his head, "Sorry ma'am, I have the station on the scope but the unknown readings are about 450'000 kilometers away from it.
Katooni looked back at the datapad and gasped, 'He was right, this we will have to investigate later, right now my men, my brothers need those tanks.' She looked up to the bridge crew, "Get us moved over to the station, we need to get the wounded into their bacta tanks ASAP!"
"Yes ma'am." She turned to the bridge crew, "You heard the lady, let's get moving!" The bridge became busy with movement once more as the three battle scarred ships moved to the other side of the system, closer to the station
She walked over and activated the comm, "Medical Station, this is Commander Katooni Raven of the Grand Army of the Republic requesting permission to dock, please respond."
There was no reply for several minutes when the screen chirped as it came online, "This is Republic Medical Station Sorish, you are clear to dock."
As the fleet moved closer, she commed the droid frigates "Calm, Jitters send over repair teams and bridge crew to the Striker, I want it brought back to combat ready. Once repairs are complete, move over as many Vulture fighters as the main hangar will hold . Also after that I want both of your frigates to go dark and begin long range sensor sweeps of the system, you will be our eyes and ears."
Both droids saluted and spoke in unison, "Orders recieved and will be carried out Commander Raven."
She terminated the link as the Ark Angel moved closer to the station careful to avoid hitting any of the six Pelta-Class frigates that were patrolling it, as they began to offload the wounded, Katooni walked towards the command bridge of the station to give them a situation report and to find out what was going on.
The Kaminoan incharge of the station bowed when Katooni walked in, but when she looked up and didn't see anyone, she glanced down and was a bit surprised that it was but a youngling incharge instead of an older Jedi Knight. "Commander Raven?" she wondered.
Katooni nodded and bowed, "I am Commander Raven, is there something wrong?"
At first the Kaminoan didn't answer, and closed her eyes in thought before looking down at the young commander, "Nothing's wrong, I was just surprised to see a youngling come in. Tell me where is your master?"
"I have no Master ..." she answered looking at the Kaminoan who at that moment became very uncomfortable. Ignoring the situation she looked out the main window seeing all of her wounded soldiers.
'Fierfek how am I going to keep them from dying, I lost 300 brothers down there, how many more will I have to lose before this Damn War is Over!' She screamed in her head as she slammed her fists against the glass again and again before collapsing to the floor of the CIC and curling into a ball.
One of the CIC troopers rushed to her side, "Commander...Commander are you alright?" He asked shaking her but she only curled up tighter, ignoring anything that was going on as she let the tears flow.
Suddenly a group of four troopers in bulky silver and black armor charged in and took up defensive positions around her crying form, their weapons raised, "No one move, Twitch take a look at her." The squad leader ordered as they moved into a tighter formation around the Commander.
Twitch set down his gear and started to look her over, "It's nothing serious, all of the stress of the last few days of constant combat had taken its toll and she finally got to her breaching point and had to let it out." he said calmly as he picked her up into his arms.
The squad looked ath the CIC crew, "Step aside, she just needs some rest." slowly the bridge crew moved out their way and they raced with Katooni all the back to the Ark Angel. When they got to the main hangar bay, squads of troopers began to form up in what appeared to be waves protecting them as Shadow squad rushed towards the turbolifts. Once inside they waited before arriving at her quarters, they opened the door and laid her down on her bunk before setting their own gear down and taking turns on watching the door.
Twitch looked at his brothers from his post by the door, "Who felt it first?"
At first none of his brothers said or did anything, all of them staring at each other, none of them really sure how to answer the question. Demo looked up from his pack, he was checking his ordance. "I started to get that tingling feeling on the back of my neck, like when there's ordance nearby. I knew something was wrong, but something told me to go check on her." His brothers simply nodded in agreement.
After that was answered there was silence for awhile before all four of their communicators chirped, all four answered, "Shadow squad here."
"Shadow squad, how is she doing?" Captain Azema asked in concern.
Twitch tapped his comlink again, "She is resting ma'am, all of the stress over the last few days overwhelmed her."
"Understood, let her rest, we can handle everything without our fearless young Commander for a little while." She chuckled and closed the link.
"Its intresting how much she worries about Katooni, but then again so do we." Demo chuckled.
Several days later she stirred in her bunk, rubbing her eyes to see Shadow squad camped out in her room, and from the sent in the air, they had been here the entire time she had been unconcious. "Uh guys?" she asked softly.
The four sleeping soldiers stirred and looked at her, "Glad to see you're awake." Venku said as he motioned for them to start packing their gear. They were packed within seconds and standing along the wall waiting for her orders.
She tapped her gauntlet then spun her fingers in a circle, the four nodded and followed her out of her quarters to the bridge.
As they were walking down the corridor a group of troopers walked past, one bumping into Scar. He turned towards the trooper,"Watch it"
The trooper turned back towards them and laughed, "Or what. You're gonna hurt me with your superior training?"
Before any of the squad could react Scar had pushed him against the bulkhead and extended his vibroknife. "Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod? And i'll show you what my superior training can do as I gut you open real slowly?" Scar smirked inching the blade closer to his throat and lightly tracing it.
Katooni turned on her heel and raised her hands pinning the both of them against the wall with the Force. "Knock it off, You're brothers!"
"We are but then again we aren't" Scar answered, trying to turn away from the Commander but she held them both tighter against the wall.
She glared at them, she was gone only a few days and now they were fighting amongst themselves, "How are you not?"
Scar strained through his teeth, "Trained differently, different armor, different tactics."
"So you might not be exactly the same, but you are Vod. Tal, in every sense of the words. Now I dont want to hear anymore fighting between any of you, Is that understood?" She said sternly as she set them down on the floor and straightened her stance out.
They all snapped to attention and in unison shouted as they saluted, "Yes Ma'am!"
Slowly she raiseed her arm and returned the salute before turning on her heel and continuing towards the bridge with Shadow squad behind her.
Demo activated his internal comm system and motioned to his brothers, "Por a al'verde kaysh gutse." The other three nodded in
The bridge doors opened up and everyone froze as the ship was bathed in red light as the klaxons started to go off. Troopers from the radar station were shouting over them, "Captain were detecting a ship exciting hyperpace at Sector two A - Mark four zero !"
She made a slashing motion at her throat as the red lights and klaxons were turned off, the bridge returning to its blue lighting as she activated the Holotank, "Status on the Unknown?" Looking closer at the ship that had dropped out.
"It looks to be a giant dish, there is heavy smoke and flames all over the ship. It appears to be..."
"It's Hondo's command ship, try and contact them, scan for survivors!" Katooni ordered as she rushed onto the bridge with Shadow squad on her heels.
They tried for several minutes trying to establish a connection, within seconds they finally opened a link, but there was only carnage on the other end. Bodies floated all over the bridge, with several fires across the consoles. Katooni looked in horror as she saw this, in an instant she turned on her heel and raced out of the CIC towards the hangar.
On the way down the lift, she tapped her communicator, "Shadow's EVA!"
With that order the commandos began to seal their suits and checked the seals on one another as a group of troopers watched them, with the leader turning to his men, "Boys we just became useful, seal your suits and get your weapons ready." The group of n ine then walked up to Katooni as she stepped out of the lift.
They snapped to attention in front of her, "General, Air Slicers at your service, we've been trained in EVA and would like to assist on the SAR."
She looked up at the group of Galactic Marines, "It's Commander. Let's move out." Without giving the Sergeant much time to reply she ran towards a pair of larties, "Arrow, Skyjumper lets move it out, we're on a rescue mission."
The two transports sped off out of the hangar, within seconds of the troopers climbing abord. After the doors had closed she turned to her men, "Sidearms only, set for stun just in case."
One of the commandos shifted his shoulders and groaned, "Do we have to stun, commander, why not slot 'em and get it over with?"
She walked over to him and kicked his shin with a little help from the Force, "You know why Scar, and we don't have to bring you back with us."
He backed away with his head lowered and spoke softly but loud enough for her to hear him, "Yes Raven."
The rest of the short trip was spent in silence, except for the soft whir of blasters switching modes and the troopers checking each other's gear and Katooni talking to the pilots, letting them know where the access port was. But when they moved closer, they noticed it was blown wide open with two bodies floating around it.
She sighed and gave the order to disembark, "Shadow split into two teams and Air Slicers split into teams of three, search for any and all survivors." They all split up going their separate directions.
Outside the two pilots were on station they were rotating around the ship, watching for any activity when the situation soon changed, Arrow leaned forward, "Oh Fierfek!" He slammed his first down on the comm, "Raven we've got Boarding pods in four seperate locations."
Onboard the ship, everyone switched from stun to kill, Scar prepping his sniper attachment on his DC-17m. "Hehe, It's Play time."