I am going to start by saying I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to write this. Actually that was a lie; I know exactly why I decided to write this up. History Channel's World War II from Space documentary, plus the RedLetterMedia reviews of the Star Wars prequels, plus a few of my buddies introducing me to World of Tanks the anime AKA Girls Und Panzer.
This was followed by an interesting argument that lasted several hours; the results of said argument were just to intriguing to just do nothing with.
However I probably should mention that I own nothing… Except a laptop, I do own one of those.
But enough of my unnecessary explanations, let's begin the intro chapter.
Hearts of Iron: Chapter I – Galactic Mystery Theater and the Russian Roswell.
Lesser War Room 178XS, Coruscant - The Galactic Republic
As a Jedi Master and General of the Grand Army of the Republic, Obi-Wan Kenobi had always felt that he was supposed to be patch of calm in any storm, to be a rock of tranquility for others to cling to during disaster.
It was a feeling that had helped him achieve his legendary composure.
On the other hand he was certainly feeling less than calm after a briefing like the one he had just had.
Probes sent to the Unknown Regions, mysterious signals, a captured CIS ship packed full of Republic Cadets, several of whom were children of important Senators, being sent to investigate. It was a set-up to be a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
And already he had the making of a pounding headache. Before they had arrived at the GAR war room he and Anakin had already been briefed on some of the details of today's meeting and he could already tell that this was going to be a very long day, one that just didn't want to start.
Between the impending disaster the briefing had implicitly implied and Anakin's horsing around with Senator Amidala he felt a more than a little annoyed.
And on top of everything else, thanks to Anakin's little tryst with the Senator, they were actually several minutes late. It had taken mountains of his composure to avoid lecturing Anakin about the advantages of punctuality…
There would be plenty of arguing and lecturing today, that he was sure of.
Entering the room late, 'but not that late' He had repeated to himself internally, had brought odd looks from his fellow council members. He refused to dignify a verbal response, simply shooting his eyes at Anakin as though that explained everything.
Ok, actually it usually did. Mace rolled his eyes and sat up straighter and Yoda simply gave a little smirk. As if to say, 'after eight hundred years, seen it all and then some I have, come back when you have a real problem.' The rest of the council's reaction was fairly neutral, like they were expecting it.
'Actually,' Obi-Wan thought to himself with a small sigh. 'They probably were.'
However, despite the unnecessary complications, they weren't actually that late. Just managing to take their seats in the cramped little room when the Chancellor rose to from his seat, throwing Obi-Wan an understanding look, and starting the meeting.
Obi-Wan gave the man a polite nod, hiding a sigh, and hoping his already fraying patience wasn't too obvious.
'No' he thought to himself. 'Not just mine.' He didn't need the force to see frustration and the always helpful dose of fear pouring off several of the Senators present.
'Splendid!' He struggled to prevent his lips from quirking at the thought. 'I'm completely certain that that won't cause any irrational behavior.' And several senators visibly twitched, as though they could read his thoughts.
Suffice to say he felt absolutely certain that today was going to go magnificently. He felt his lips quirk up just slightly in spite of himself, nothing wrong with a little internal sarcasm to lighten his mood after all.
"Everyone, everyone please quiet down." The Supreme Chancellor pleaded from his seat at the head of the table, silencing the heated whispers that hissed across the room. In this case "everyone" included several members of the Jedi council, some here in person while a few others attended though hologram, an unusually large number of Senators for what amounted to a military meeting, several important military personnel and of course the Chancellor himself.
As the Senators irritated whispers died to silence, Palpatine gave everyone a grandfatherly smile. "I would like to open the meeting off with my firm belief that the situation is nowhere near as bad as many here have speculated," he shot a hopeful and reassuring look at some of the more panicked company "but I think we should make an effort to dispel the various rumors that have been floating around the Rotunda."
His hopeful disposition seemed to assuage the Senators, who had been twitching in their seats. "So with that in mind, I call this meeting to order. We must learn the truth about these recent events before we can decide how we will act upon them."
He motioned to a man in an Intelligence Corps uniform sitting next to him, giving the man a firm pat on the back as he rose. "Corporal Hival believes himself the most informed on our current situation and has generously offered his information to aid us in this endeavor." With that he sat down, opening the floor. Riyo Chuchi stepped forward immediately.
"Shall we get straight to the issue, Corporal?" Chuchi started the grilling off with a patient smile. "I have heard that the Intelligence Corps intercepted CIS communications," she gave Chairman Notluwiski, a look, "communications that lead to the belief that there new CIS staging areas being constructed in the Unknown Regions. This is correct, is it not?" The blue woman inquired.
The Corporal nodded. "Yes, that is correct, as all the members of the military here with proper clearance would know." Obi-Wan smirked in amusement at the man's dodge, playing the rank card to avoid having the Senate pin the blame on his organization for not informing them.
"And the Intelligence Corps decided the wisest course of action would be to order the launch of nearly a hundredth of our probe droids," came the growling voice of the Pantoran Chairman, Notluwiski Papanoida, "an order made without informing anyone else or asking for clearance to deploy a huge number of Republic assets into deep space." Notluwiski rumbled in discontent, the already fierce man looking significantly more frustrated than usual.
The Intelligence Officer gave a helpless look as Bail Organa began massaging his temples. "Well yes I suppose that was an adequate description of what was decided." He quickly recovered. "Though the Probe droids are technically possessions of the Intelligence Corp, and we do not require of the permission of the Senate to deploy are own assets."
Obi-Wan sighed and rubbed his forehead in solidarity with Bail "Well then what happened?" He his waved a free hand to help the man to dig himself out of the hole Notluwiski had been attempted to push him into.
Slippery as an eel he continued. "Well I wasn't actually privy to the operations at the time, but I later learned that most of them never actually reported in. We sent out over a hundred thousand probes and just over a thousand actually ended up surviving to arrive somewhere." He waved his hands in an unconcerned fashion. "Mostly it was just empty star systems, nebulae, and the scant asteroid field, all very typical of deep space. Only a few probe clusters ended up in actual habitable systems and out of those only one system was promising." He finished by shooting the Senators with a mildly patronizing smile.
"Promising, how?" Obi-Wan left the open-ended question on the floor as several inquisitive looks appeared around the room.
"We detected faint signals from the third planet." He slicked his hair back. "Initially it was believed to be encoded Separatist communications, but after some analysis it was decided that the signals were completely alien and likely heavily encrypted at that." He smirked at the curious looks of several senators. "Completely unlike anything we had on records."
Mace gave Obi-Wan an inquisitive look before speaking. "That was when the probe went offline?"
"Initially yes, the probe's systems picked up powerful electromagnetic radiation from the systems star just a few hours after entering the system." He shrugged before continuing. "We were unable to get the probe into the inner planets to investigate further before the radiation storm knocked it out."
A holographic display in the center of the table lit up and displayed a fast-forwarded version of the probe's flight through the system, paragraphs of data floating beneath giving basic data on the system and some brief information about the probes attempt to translate the signals.
"And that was when you decided to deploy a bunch of teens, including Jedi Padawans, on a mission aboard this mystery ship we've all been hearing so much about." Anakin piped up flippantly from his seat beside Obi-Wan.
The officer, completely missing the obvious flinching of several Senators, brightened for the first time in the entire meeting. "Yes, that Hardcell was quite a find."
Aayla Secura sighed in frustration at the officer's tactlessness as several of the Senators seemed to hiss venomously. "I have heard that the ship used was a recovered Separatist vessel, "She glanced at the other assembled people. "But not that it was a Hardcell, or the contents of the ships manifest. Would you care to elaborate on that for those present who are similarly uninformed?"
Hival smiled and waved his hand, the Holo of the system changed to a detailed schematic of a Hardcell-Class Transport, a Vulture droid, a Crab droid, an Assassin droid and a probe droid. "A few weeks ago, one of our reconnaissance expeditions found a deactivated CIS ship, a Hardcell-class Interstellar Transport floating in hibernation near Mandalore." It's cargo included a flight of vulture droids docked on the outer hull, and large number of Recon-class Probe droids and LM-432 Crab Droids in Rapid Deployment Pods in main cargo compartment," Chuchi raised her hand and Hival preempted her question. "They are egg shaped metal pods about the size of a LAAT/i designed to allow assets to be deployed from low orbit."
Chuchi's hand dropped and he continued. "On top of that there was also a small complement of the Assassin-class Probe droids." He nodded at Obi-Wan." "We believe they were the same type as the one you reported while on the mission with the Duchess of Mandalore." We figured the ship had been sent to spy or sabotage something in Republic space, but that it had been knocked out by an EMP burst from a nearby star or something similar along those lines."
He straightened his uniform and Obi-Wan decided it was a reaction to the glares some of the assembly, Notluwiski Papanoida, in particular, were throwing at him. "So we… re-purposed it I suppose would be the best way to put it, reprogrammed the ships and the on-board droids then covertly gathered a first contact crew including the Intelligence Corps CO, Director Argonne, and sent in a request for a Battalion of Republic Cadets and the Jedi Padawans." He paused and waved his hand and the holo changed to show the symbol of the Republic Cadets. "Mr. Argonne seemed to think that helping out with a first contact mission would be a wonderful training exercise and that it would help take their minds off the war"
"If worse came to worse they would have some experience working with each other." He gave the Senators an annoyed look. "And seeing as the Republic Cadets are military initiates and the Jedi are ranking officers, any experience working together would only be beneficial."
The Chancellor gave a long suffering, almost pleading look and Obi-Wan felt his headache growing. Bail Organa sighed from across the table. "I suppose until everything went wrong."
The representative looked visibly frustrated again as the room faces in the room shifted to grim or angry, Palpatine making a visible effort to stay hopeful. "Well yes, no plan ever survives first contact and all that."
"What exactly happened?" Riyo Chuchi asked quietly.
The representative sighed explosively at the glares. "Three weeks ago the mission, code-named quite appropriately as Operation: Introduction launched from near Dorin and entered the Unknown Regions tracing the path taken by the probe." His hand dashed across the screen and the route appeared on a map of the galaxy.
"The taskforce included the Hardcell and its on-board CIS assets, we figured better to lose droids in any possible action than Republic forces." He gestured again and the ships hologram appeared again, this time with a detailed manifest, listing personnel, supplies and other equipment.
After giving those present some time to look over the displayed data he continued. "The crew was to include Director Argonne, the fifty personnel of the first-contact team including the notable xenologist Dr. Olin Branx, three Jedi padawans lead by ranking Padawan Barriss Offee, and Rancor Battalion of the Republic Cadets lead by Junior Lieutenant Colonial, Riker Linnet. They spent the first three days gearing up; loading the ship with all their supplies then exited the Dorin system for the Unknown Regions." He paused in thought a second. "The task force made their first report having arrived at the edge of the system, which we gave the tentative name, Aldebaran, just under seven days ago."
"Did everything go well initially" asked Chuchi, "or were their obvious problems from the start?"
Hival almost guffawed but seemed to catch himself. "Of course the mission started out flawlessly, even navigation through the Unknown Regions went without a hitch." He gave Chuchi a slightly haughty look. "Everything started out perfectly Senator, and they were under standing orders to withdraw at the first sign of trouble." A more confident look passed over his face as the room turned slightly less grim. "The Director decided it was safe to approach and they logged some basic information about the system while they closed with the planet."
The holographic display changed to display information on the ships journey to the planet. "When they arrived at the planet itself everyone was in high spirits. Dr. Branx advised that they begin by stopping in high orbit around the planet and simply observe and record what they could."
The display changed again to show an analysis of the planet. "As you can see it's a fairly standard Garden world, with seven continents and large interconnected oceans, evidence gathered included higher than normal pollution levels than would be expected for an uninhabited world and the abundance of encrypted transmissions conclusively proved the planet was inhabited."
He paused for a moment and fiddled with his data-pad. "Attempts to gather more complete information on the planet from high orbit were deemed fruitless as Aldebaran 3's unusually powerful magnetic field caused constant interference with the sensors and limited them mostly to visual observation, plus the solar storms from Aldebaran proper were interfering with the transmissions back to Republic space.
"And so they decided to land?" Bail asked.
"No Senator, landing on the planet was never intended, the director was only ever planning to order probe droids deployed to the largest continent. Programmed, of course, with orders to flee if spotted and fire only if there was no other option available to avoid capture. And that was to be after we had gathered significantly more data about the planet and gained Senate approval to make contact."
Hival shot the condemning Senators a terse look and Obi-Wan decided that now was a good time to speak up again. "And if I had to guess, that's where things went south."
The corporal nodded. "Approximately forty hours ago, the task-force communications officer, Junior Lieutenant Ai Papanoida of Rancor Battalion, reported their sensors had picked up a number of incoming objects and we lost contact with them several minutes after that." He blinked and stared at Ion and Obi-Wan imagined he could hear the man's train of through crashing.
"Do you have any idea why?" Mace grumbled, and Hival snapped back into the moment, ignoring Notluwiski's growling.
Hival gave a nervous chuckle and scratched the back of his head. "I would normally presume a solar storm might be blocking communications. It's possible however that the natives misinterpreted the crashed probe as a hostile act, attacking the task-force, damaging the communication equipment, possibly worse."
Chuchi blinked in confusion. "I thought you said that the droids were only to be deployed after Senate approval?"
Hival was suddenly sweating. "You are completely correct Senator, and as far as we know, no assets were ever deployed from the Salutation," He paused at the confused stares. "It's what the cadets named the Hardell." Then he continued. "As I was saying, no assets were launched from the Salutation but if you had been paying attention you would note that, that leaves one asset unaccounted for."
Bail straightened, "The probe that discovered the system."
The Corporal nodded. "We confirmed only yesterday that the probe that had been sent the third planet did actually reach the planet's surface."
He wiped sweat off his brow, visibly nervous. "The probes on-board computer recorded being knocked offline by the solar storm while in transit to the planet. Several days later the probe reactivated after passing through the planets magnetic field. The deployment pod was unable to stabilize itself in time and we believe it crashed, somewhere near one of the planets poles due to the probe's sensors logging temperature data well below freezing and the presence of snow in the video footage recorded after the probe detached from the deployment pod."
Obi-Wan could feel Mace's interest peak in the force despite his outwardly passive appearance. "The probe is still intact?"
"There was video footage!" Baron Notluwiski nearly shouted at the same time as Mace's question.
Now the man's nervousness exploded in the force. "Not anymore." He flinched at his slip and wiped sweat from his hair. "And the footage was withheld to prevent… panic."
Ion jumped up next to his father, looking furious. "And you idiots didn't think that we should have been privy to footage?"
"Can we see the footage Corporal?" Alya cut them off before a shouting match could begin.
The man didn't say anything, merely nodding to an aid and the holo-projector in the center of the table fired up again.
III
1/27/95, USSR - Somewhere outside of Pravda
Nina sat in the radio operator's seat, deep in the walker's armored belly, staring at the fat glass thermometer. It was glimmering in the eerie light cast the little red halogen lights and by dozens of radium painted labels and dials. The liquid mercury inside however remained rebellious, failing to yield even a degree to the tiny shivering Russians fire filled gaze.
She adjusted her electrically heated suit with gloved fingers, fiddling with the cord that plugged into her crew stations outlet, cursing the thermometer under her breath.
It was so cold.
It was stupidly cold.
It was an unreasonably cold.
No human being should be out in such weather.
And yet here they were, lumbering through a frozen pine forest in the ass end of Siberia at two in the morning, looking for some stupid meteorite.
'Stumbling might actually be a better word.' She thought darkly as the ST-5 took another unsteady, clumsy step and only the shoulder straps on her seat kept her head from slamming into the radio for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. And with that drunken stumble Nina's patience with the amateur driving ended. "Watch what you're doing up there you drunk!" She hissed up the hatch at Johan, the vehicles current designated driver.
The German boy snorted from the driver's compartment above her. "You idiots were the ones asking for a driver." The vehicle gave another hard lurch and Nina heard a yelp of pain from one of the side mounted turrets. Immediately after, Anya's cursing started to drift down into the pelvic compartment in the cramped bowels of the vehicle. "What kind of idiot driver can't steer a walker?" The unseen blond hissed from her seat in the left vertical turret.
"I was trained in Panzer operation." His accent stressed the German word for tank. "Not Biped operation."
Personally Nina didn't really like the ST-5 all that much either. It was kind of slow and tended to instability, it had unremarkable armor and it was a superbly cramped for a vehicle three stories tall. And the vehicles overcrowded insides were only amplified by the ST-5 needing a crew of seven. A commander up top in the cupola, the driver, the main gunner, and a loader in the main compartment, A secondary gunner for each of the side turrets and a radio operator/engineer in the pelvis.
It was a lot of people for a very specialized vehicle that didn't see much use outside of the snow-blasted Siberian Taiga forests, where five foot snow drifts could freeze a tank column in its tracks.
Granted it was still an improvement over earlier models. A 76mm F-32 had replaced the cartoonishly oversized 152mm M-10 Howitzer, fixing the tendency for the vehicle to knock itself over when firing the main gun, the side turrets had been standardized, with an auto-loading 45mm 20-K cannon and a 7.62 DT machine gun in each turret. Plus a completely redesigned engine and radiator system, combined with the newer, lighter armor made the vehicle substantially less terrible that its predecessors.
And her battalion's diminutive commanding officer absolutely adored the stupid things.
"Oh don't be so bashful Johan!" The other German in the walker, Rudel if she remembered correctly, chirped from the right side turret. "Plenty of Panzers with legs after all."
"Fuck off Rudel; those all have at least four legs." The walker lurched dangerously and Johan started swearing. "Stability, Fuck!"
"Cut the chatter you morons." The tinny voice of Oleg, the walker's commander echoed through her leather helmets earpiece. "And Johan, please at least TRY to drive in a straight line. We're falling behind the Kharkovchankas were supposed to be escorting." Nina didn't need to be sitting in the cupola to know he was holding his frost-masked covered face in a gloved hand.
Her thoughts fell pack into place as the walkers gait straightened somewhat. Their deployment at all was odd. Twenty five ST-5's and twenty Kharkovchanka exploration vehicles with sleds full of equipment. It was extremely odd.
It was an awful lot of firepower to send looking for a meteor.
That was a job for a single NKL-26, not an entire armored battalion, plus technical support.
"Hey Rudel." Nina called up to the German gunner in the turret across from Anya. "Any idea what's up with all this?"
He snorted. "Well if we're lucky I would say we find an actual meteor." Nikolai's laughter echoed from his seat in the gunner's chair and the Slavic boy interjected. "And if were not so lucky we'll find something else, then we find ourselves in a NKVD interrogation room."
Oleg's sigh echoed in her earpiece. "Nina, call up the observers in the TSH-3, See if they can see anything." He ordered.
"Nina blinked before replying. "Rodger, Commander." Straining against the straps that held her to the seat she quickly flipped the main radio on, quickly flipping to the observation plane's frequency. "This is TZ-73 to BO-3, requesting an update on your observations. Over"
The radio sputtered and the walker lurched. This time Nina's head did hit the radio. The pilots voice started over the crackling wireless as she cursed Johan's ancestry and blessed the inventor of the tanker's helmet. And after several seconds of concentration the pilot's Finnish finally ceased to be gibberish. "73, I have a visual of the crash site at my 3 o'clock, bout a kilometer out. Over"
"Roger. BO-3, please give convoy course correction, Over"
"Wilco TZ-73, Turn right to a heading of 70 Degrees Northwest. Over"
"Understood BO-3."The radio popping as Rudel and Anya started tearing into each other over their last target practice through her helmets earpiece. "TZ-73 Out."
Nina was instantly flipping another switch to the convoy's radio channel. "BO-3 confirms crash location one kilometer away, convoy course correction, 70 degrees northwest. TZ-73 Out"
A blast of cold air shot down from the open commander's hatch as Oleg unbuttoned the cupola and the crew chatter in her helmet died instantly.
A flurry of confirmations and affirmatives echoed through the radio as the convoy's walkers lurched to a gallop into the darkened Siberian forests, crashing through waist deep snowbanks. Blood was in the water.
The hunt was on.
III
Katyusha stood on top of the ST-5, the vehicle was running at full gallop with the rest of the convoy through the icy Siberian night. To stand on a running ST-5 was an impressive feat of balance, one that she had long ago mastered.
It was a skill that she desperately needed, considering she couldn't actually see out of the opened cupola without a stool. She would never lower herself to something so ignominious.
It was one thing to sit on Nonna's shoulders; a stool was another thing entirely.
Plus she knew it made her look like a bad-ass. Standing on top of a walker at full sprint with her officer's cape blowing in the wind, the moonlight reflecting off the Order of the Red Star medal on her ushanka, she knew she made a striking figure. A glorious illustration for her troops to follow and aspire to.
At least she hoped that was what she looked like.
It was even a beautiful night. Ok that might have been a lie, it was cold as fuck, but it wasn't snowing and that meant that the scout plane would be able to see the target without having to kiss the tops of the pines.
To make it even better, not five minutes ago one of the walker's radiomen had confirmed the location of the crash from the TSH-3 overhead, and she had immediately ordered her walkers rushing ahead of the exploration vehicles in a loose W formation.
The other walkers would flank the clearing from the cover of the forests leaving her ST-5 to enter the clearing first. The flanking maneuver was probably pointless, it was just a dumb rock after all, but it never hurt to be careful.
In a few seconds the lead three walkers had burst into the clearing, hers stomping to a stop less than a hundred feet from the crater and she instantly knew something was wrong.
Now Katyusha wasn't stupid. Self-absorbed, infantile, insecure, and bad tempered, absolutely. Even Katyusha could occasionally comprehend those traits that plagued her and those like her. But nobody would ever call her stupid.
And she knew what a meteorite looked like, and the thing in the crater was not a meteor.
Black metal, shaped vaguely like a cup, covered in little geometric bumps and ridges. It had clearly been fashioned by some unknown hand.
And it was very clearly incomplete.
A chilling thought crashed through her mind. 'We've missed something.' Katyusha felt her spine tingled as the other walkers stomped into the flanks of the clearing.
The other ST-5 commanders were half out of their cupolas and Katyusha felt a chill that had nothing to do with the freezing temperatures as the Kharkovchankas bumbled into the clearing, heavy-duty tracks clattering as they dragged their sleds behind them.
'And I am being watched.' She could feel eyes on the back of her neck and she thumbed her pistol, regretting that she had left her PPSH-41 in the rack next to her seat.
The submachine gun would have to wait; there was no way to retrieve it without looking suspicious to whoever or whatever was watching her.
As the last of the vehicles entered the clearing, Katyusha spun on her heel, drawing her Tokarev in a smooth practiced motion.
It was almost too odd to shoot. Not fifty feet behind her, silhouetted against a snow covered pine, was the rest of the not-meteorite. The black metal lozenge shaped thing floated level with her torso, three stories off the ground. A single glowing red eye in its center, focused unerringly on her. Four insectoid limbs twitched below it.
Her pistols snap-shot pinged off the metal near the thing's top antenna. It let out a shrill, alien scream and Katyusha could hear voices shouting in Russian behind her.
As she focused her second shot to the glowing eye, the node below it glimmered blue.
In the next instant her pistol cracked and a trio of gleaming blue bolts spat from the protuberance. Her second shot hit home and the thing dropped like a rock, Katyusha spun atop the vehicle, hoping that turning to the side would present a smaller target.
Her cape swirled as she turned too far. Then someone jabbed a hot iron into the back of her shoulder, a searing pain exploded through her body and she was falling off her walker as her legs gave out.
III
The room sat in stunned silence as the holo finished playing.
"Those were some nasty looking walkers." Anakin was the first to speak.
Amidala shot a worried look around the room. "I hope the little girl was ok."
"For everyone's sake so do I." Bail started. "That probe droid might have caused a diplomatic incident." He sighed and leaned back into his chair. "I certainly see why the natives might have misinterpreted the Salutation's presence."
"So we need to mount a rescue mission?" Obi-Wan's headache spiked as he questioned. "Or a diplomatic one and attempt to explain to the natives, in the most tactful manner possible, that our actions meant no harm?"
"I would hope we could manage both." The Chancellor interrupted with a diplomatic look.
"You're assuming that everyone didn't die on this mission the Intelligence Department threw together." Ion shot back from next to his father, with barely restrained anger.
Chuchi and several other senators visibly flinched at his accusation and Hival paled considerably as the implications sunk in. "Let's not jump to conclusions, even if they were shot down, they are not defenseless." He reassured them. "Your Padawans have their training in the Jedi arts and the Cadets are far from helpless themselves."
"And are the cadets well-armed?" Bail probed.
"Of course, not even counting the various battle-droids they're probably better armed than most militia units, a couple of the richer parents sponsored the purchase of heavier weapons and equipment for the battalions use."
"And they would be under standard first contact protocols correct? Protect the diplomats and scientists, as well as technology and information until given orders otherwise?" Obi-Wan continued understanding what Organa was getting at.
"Obviously they have the standard orders…" He trailed off realizing what that could mean.
"Well isn't this grand news." Aayla sighed with a hand on her forehead. "If everyone didn't die in the crash they might have started a war with the already obviously jumpy natives."
"If I may interrupt," the Chancellor said softly from the front of the table "I don't believe that arguing about this matter will bring us any closer to resolving this issue." He straightened and nodded at Baron Notluwiski. "We should begin organizing fleet components for a rescue mission as soon as is possible." He withered slightly at Padme's glare. "And I would like to see a diplomatic party being organized as well."
There's the first chapter of my crazy idea.
I will try to keep chapters to between twenty and thirty pages long, but I will make no guarantees. If you like the story, have ideas, comments or criticism you would like to share, feel free to leave a review. Or don't do that I don't really care as I am really writing this mostly for my own amusement.
I have quite a bit planned out ahead though, and lots of explaining to do in later chapters. Rest assured that everything will be explained sooner or later. I'll also be posting some analysis of the various vehicles and weapons used during the Clone Wars in a separate place from the main story.
Next Time on Hearts of Iron: Papanoida has an aneurism and Lucchini has a religious experience.
