Ladies and Gentlemen, in this corner commanded by the Hero with no Fear, the pride and joy of the Republic's fleet, the progeny of one of Science Fiction's most iconic warships, the Venator class star destroyer, KUAAAAAAT. And opposing this mighty vessel, something completely new to the scene, commanded by a nameless disciple of the messiah, the product of a bored mind and one to many C&C3 play throughs, the newest addition to the arsenal of, the BROTHERHOOD OF NOOOOOOOOOOD.

Also tech rundown and an examination of just how much the Republic knows about GDI


As Obi-Wan was approaching the coordinates where he was supposed to meet the GDS New Beijing he got the message from Shaak Ti. The Zathrian government had agreed to hand over the refugees to the Jedi, which was why Obi-Wan's former apprentice Anakin Skywalker had gone to Zathrian, under the law an actual Jedi, rather then a designated proxy, had to take the mutants into custody. The local government would deliver the mutants to Anakin's star destroyer the Kuat, which he had borrowed from Master Shaak Ti's fleet, using a shuttle then the Jedi would turn the mutants over to GDI in the uninhabited Kraken system, which they had claimed and begun a large scale mining operation in.

Everything had been gone well in the beginning, the refugees on Zathrian had been rounded up by the locals. The shuttle had taken off without difficulty and was only two minutes away from the Kuat, when a vessel had suddenly appeared a few thousand metres to starboard. It's hull was black and round, with some kind of red crystal or glass embedded across the ship, it gave it the appearance of some kind of giant, space faring beetle. The ship was only half the length of Anakin's Venator class ship but while the Kuat was long and not very tall the mystery vessel was almost as tall and wide as it was long. It hadn't responded to hails and when a flight of fighters from the Kuat tried to approach it, lasers had lashed out and destroyed them and it had begun to close in on the shuttle.

"Lock turbolasers onto the ship. Launch all fighters, protecting that shuttle is the priority" Anakin ordered, normally he would run to his own fighter and join the fight but today he was in command and that meant staying on the bridge and directing things from afar.

"Sir, weapons are unable to achieve target lock, the damn ship keeps disappearing and repapering on sensors" a clone told him

"Switch to visual targeting if you have to, give it your best guess" Anakin replied. Clones shooting by sight didn't offer anywhere near the accuracy of computer controlled guns that used the ship's sensors to hit their targets but a few hits were better then no hits at all. "Fourth and third squadron are to escort the shuttle to our hanger, get all our other fighters to engage that ship"

The Kuat rumbled as a trio of lasers hit its shields and stayed focused on the ship for several seconds before they cut off. In return the star destroyer fired off a full broadside from its turbolaser batteries, including four of the massive DBY-827 dual turbolasr turrets that flanked the bridge tower. About two thirds of the shots missed and those that hit impacted on the ship's shield.

"Report, what's their shield status" Anakin asked the clones manning the sensor stations

"No Kriffin clue sir, it's not a ray or particle shield I think it might be some kind plasma but the ship isn't giving me any clear readings"

"Okay then" Anakin thought for a moment then ordered "Bring our engines to full power, get as close to that ship as you can, give our gunners an easier time"

"Sir, the Zathrian Law Enforcement Authority has dispatched a squadron of cruisers. They're two minutes out" a clone reported as the enemy fired its lasers again and the Kuat responded in kind.

As the Kuat turned to present its bow to the enemy something began tearing through their fighters the republic pilots began to see ghosts on their sensors and within moments the pilots realised that they weren't alone as small, stealthy ships that shared the same colour scheme as their much larger enemy began to attack fighters on the outside of the Republic formation. Squadrons broke off to engage the new enemy but even as a few of the strange fighters, which attacked using smaller versions of the lasers the larger ship used, were destroyed the sensor ghosts seemed to multiply to the point that it seemed there were thousands of fighters hunting the mere one hundred and fifty republic ships.

When the Kuat got to within five hundred kilometres and brought its guns to bear, it didn't matter that the fighter attack was faltering because now the star destroyer had effectively doubled it firepower and even the enemy's fast movements when it disappeared from sensors failed to save it from the sheer volume of fire that was directed at it.

On the Kuat's bridge Anakin ordered "All batteries fire at will. Where's the shuttle"

"Thirty seconds away sir" A clone replied "Hold on sir"

"What, what is it" Anakin said, he could sense confusion and fear coming from the clone

"The shuttle sir it's gone, there was a burst of radiation and now it's gone so are the escort fighters"

Anakin frowned, trying to imagine what had taken out all those ships simultaneously when he was thrown to the floor of the bridge by an explosion that rocked the ship.

"Report, what hit us" he shouted

"Some kind of explosive Sir, gave same burst of radiation as whatever hit the shuttle. I don't know how but it bypassed our shields and hit the hyperdrive dead on and did a lot of damage to the engines" a clone reported

Anakin thought about it for a moment, then he mentally connected the dots and realised the enemy's intention. They had been specifically targeting the Titan refugees and now they had disabled the Kuat's hyperdrive.

"What's that ship doing now?" Anakin asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew

"No idea sir, it's off sensors but our guns don't seem to be hitting anything. I think it's moved away" a clone replied

"Alright then" Anakin said "Recall our fighters and get a laat/i over to the shuttle's last position, tell the crew to keep an eye out for the flight recorder"

"Yes sir" a clone replied "Anything else sir"

"Yes, tell the head engineering I want a report on the status of our hyperdrive as soon as possible. If anyone needs me I'll be in the communications room"


Obi-Wan had gone over all the intelligence the Republic had on the Global Defence Initiative as he waited for the GDS New Beijing to arrive at the rendezvous coordinates he'd been given, it wasn't much and going through the files had taken a while, he hadn't been allowed to bring his astromech droid along so he had to filter out a lot of the less useful information himself. The Republic's only solid knowledge of their military capabilities came from the Titan incident half a century ago, the occasional anti-pirate action outside their territory and reports from traders who'd caught rare glimpse of GDI vessels while delivering and receiving goods, because of how traders were restricted in their movements during the time in GDI's space though it painted a very incomplete, and sometimes conflicting, picture.

Some patterns had been discerned from the reports and the small battles though. GDI favoured ships focused on durability and straight up firepower, with fighters working to protect their mothership in combat rather then acting as one of the ship's primary weapons. For armaments they seemed to have developed mass drivers to the point that they were equal to, or some said even more powerful, plasma weapons the Republic and Separatists favoured and their ion weapons caused electronics to fuse and short out just like the Republic's but also delivered a massive amount of thermal and kinetic energy onto their target, a capability that had never been matched by the weapons Obi-Wan's people had developed and their missiles were usually far more power then their equivalents in the Republic arsenal and were launched in massive swarms, to overwhelm defences and deliver massive amounts of damage.

During the Titan incident and in the following months the Republic had built up a file of the ships employed by GDI, identifying sixteen distinct classes and between eighty and one hundred and fifty individual ships. Then a year after the incident all but two of those classes disappeared from the sighting reports within two months and twelve new ones began to appear, twelve years ago it had happened again and one final time a year ago, the entire set of old classes had disappeared and fourteen new ones had been identified since. There were two differing opinions as to how the rapid change happened, the first was that GDI had built up a stockpile of new ships and put them all into service while at the same time decommissioning their old ones, the other, which was considered more worrying, was that GDI had been able to rapidly design, build and deploy enough ships to replace their entire navy within a few months.

Of their ground forces the Republic had even less information, they had been able to make estimates based on the equipment corporations within GDI's territory exported. Like their ships they made use of mass drivers, although their rifles were mostly primitive ballistic weapons with the occasional large and bulky railgun making it into the galactic market. Their infantry was believed to use a mix of advanced body armour, which had been found to be superior to the similar clone armour in resisting projectile impacts and biological and chemical attacks, and large and bulky powered armour that featured an integrated jetpack, which Republic intelligence believed was issued to an elite unit within GDI's miltiary. GDI also manufactured tanks and walkers that were believed to be used in the field along similar lines to their Republic counterparts but were very heavily armoured, with multiple redundant systems and used ballistic and railgun weapons where the Clone Army would have used blasters.

As for their government, it was known that GDI's leader was called the General Secretary and that he was elected but how democratic the Secretary's election actually was and how the government beneath him was structured was like many things about GDI, a mystery. They knew from the Titan refugees how GDI had come into existence, an asteroid impact had introduced a virulent crystal called Tiberium to their home world and GDI had been established to combat the crystal and the Brotherhood of Nod, a religion that had viewed the crystal and its spread as the key to unlocking the next stage of human evolution. According to the refugees though after Nod's leader, the seemingly immortal Kane, had disappeared while tampering with a tower constructed by the non human Scrin, who sounded like fearsome opponents from the refugees descriptions, Nod had fractured and evolved into several religions that varied from very charitable organisations dedicated to helping the helpless to violent terrorists who sought to bring down GDI and allow Tiberium to spread over every planet in the galaxy. Almost half of GDI's population followed Nod in one way or another.

Obi-Wan sat back in his fighter and sighed, usually he knew more about the people he was expected to negotiate with. He had begun to think that his reputation was causing people to think that he could talk his way out of situations that he practically couldn't, it wasn't a case of waving his hand and mind tricking his opponents into immediate compliance but a measured process of getting small concessions that together achieved his overall goal.

His thoughts were interrupted by a beeping on the sensors, a ship had appeared almost four thousand metres off his fighter's bow, and surprisingly it hadn't given off any sign of its exit from hyperspace. It was unmistakably a GDI vessel, it had little artistry or decoration beyond the GDI emblem, a striking bird of prey with its talons outstretched and its sandy yellow hull paint. It had a large, triangular middle, that reminded the Jedi of an Acclimator class ship, with a thick neck section that connected the centre to a large bulge, in the middle of which was the obvious opening of the ship's main ion weapon, a second neck on the stern ended in a second rectangular section which featured two large engine pods, striking out from the sides were what looked like atmospheric wings, with the necessary flaps, which end in two more engine pods and rising from the central section was a tall, square bridge tower that was flanked on all sides by several of the ship's missile silos. Overall it was blocky and gave the impressing of a tough and functional ship, but its shields were preventing him from getting any detailed scans if the interior, it wasn't a ray or particle shield but it definitely appeared to be a kind of protective bubble around the ship. If he compared it to the intelligence files it was a Kane class, it probably wasn't the class's actual name but the first GDI ship of its type recorded had had GDS Kane printed on its hull and the name had stuck.

"Republic fighter, this is the GDS New Beijing. Am I speaking to General Kenobi?" the ship broadcasted over subspace

"This is General Obi-Wan Kenobi" Kenobi replied

"Follow the flight path we're transmitting to you General, it will bring you to our hanger" the New Beijing transmitted

"Roger New Beijing" Obi-Wan said he gave his fighter's controls a light nudge. As he approached two fighters launched from the GDI ship and took up position above and behind him, considering that most of the ship's weapons were already locked onto him it was most definitely overkill but according to Republic Intelligence GDI's military seemed to favour the 'make sure its dead' approach, several pirate bases had been bombarded to atoms after GDI hit them. The fighters may have been new, they weren't like anything in the intelligence files.

The hanger Obi-Wan was directed to was located beneath the starboard wing, and as he approached the GDI fighters broke off to land in a hanger on the opposite side of the ship. As his fighter passed through the atmospheric shields and began to touch down he noticed that the entire hanger had been emptied except for twenty two people, all but two of which were wearing large suits similar to the power armour GDI exported, a little bit of information he filed away to give to Republic intelligence later. He sensed some fear and hatred emanating from the humans but a few of them also felt genuinely exited. The armoured humans formed two lines of ten on both sides of his fighter while the two unarmoured humans stood at the end of the lines.

As Obi-Wan got out of his fighter a whistle held by one of the humans not in power armour sounded a high tune, then an even higher tune before every one of the soldiers brought their weapons to their sides and saluted forward and the whistle blower shouted, as he stepped onto the hanger floor "General on deck"

As Obi-Wan started to walk down the corridor created by the soldiers the human not holding the whistle walked towards him. When they met in the middle the human extended his hand and said "General Kenobi, I'm Captain Tucker commanding officer of the New Beijing"

Obi-Wan took his handshake and replied with a forced smile "A pleasure Captain"

"If you'll follow me General, we've got a guest room that's been set aside for you. It has holonet access for you to use but you should know General that anything you say will be recorded"

"Thank you Captain"

The Captain turned around and ordered "XO, dismiss company"

The man with the whistle blew another tune then shouted "Company, dismissed"

As the soldiers began to leave the hanger with heavy thumps from their armour, the Captain said "If you'll follow me to your quarters General"

"Lead the way" Obi-Wan replied as the General lead him out of the hanger and into a corridor, then up a ladder of all things and down another corridor, the two men didn't speak during the walk. The ship was much more cramped then Obi-Wan was used to with the corridors usually being two metres across. The Captain showed him to a room that was as spartan as the quarters given to ship crews in the republic navy, it featured a bed, desk and computer screen and a door that lead to a separate bathroom.

The Captain placed his hand on a touch screen by the door and said "If you feel hungry General press the blue button and ask for the mess hall, they'll send something to your room and I'm going to have to ask you to stay in your room unless you're called for. My government has given me authorisation to shoot you if you are found in vital areas of the ship"

"Of course Captain, thank you" Obi-Wan replied, at least GDI was being up front with their hostility, if they were still serious about negotiations it meant he probably didn't have to go through the investigating their intentions part later.

It took him a few moments to find the button that activated his room's computer system, he didn't recognise the symbol on its power button, but GDI had been kind enough to switch its operating system, something called Doorways, to the galactic basic language setting. He logged into holonet and linked to the Jedi council, pictures of the other Jedi Masters appeared on his 2D screen along with a picture of his former apprentice.

"Anakin good, have you secured the Titan refugees" Obi-Wan asked, without those refugees his entire effort would be wasted.

The young knight frowned and replied "I'm sorry master but there's been a problem"

Obi-Wan nodded as Anakin told him about the events of the attack on the Kuat and the destruction of the shuttle. Including that two mutants had survived, their unique physiology rendering them resistant to vacuum and not needing oxygen, they had been taken to the Kuat which would deliver them to the Kraken system only a few hours behind schedule. Obi-Wan signed off as the others moved on to other business that wasn't for GDI's ears, namely what to do about the Separatists' new stealth warships.