Cat and Mouse

Erik was on board the NRW. This was a mission that required precise coordination of the single fleets and squadrons. The battleship had already charged its wrap-engine. The Resolute would pull it with her through the hyperspace directly into the enemies lines. Then they would perform a micro jump behind the blockade and release the transports. Different kinds of transports already occupied the hangar ready to launch: Mainly V-22s and a few LAAT/c's. He himself would go with a small strike team to capture Admiral Trench or at least cripple his ship.

The strike team consisted of Anakin Skywalker, his Padawan Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex and the two troopers Echo and Fives. The demolition team was led by Erik and a scout team

Erik met them at the Shuttle Valkyrie 2929.

"Are you the scout team?"

The first clone, an ARF-trooper snapped to attention. "Clone Scout CS-2207. Demo and Sniper"

The second clone saluted as well. "CS-1004. Communications and Recon."

The last one, he had fresh blue paint on his armor stood up. "CT-3899. Medic and engineering."

Erik lifted his hand to stop them from further introductions. "Names, fellas. I can't remember Numbers so quickly and I know that you have a name. And when you 're at it you might also tell me where you got them from."

CS-2207 pointed at himself. "I'm Boomer. Demolition was my favorite class."

"Kano. My old instructor named me after her father because I reminded her of him."

CT-3899 looked at the ground. "I don't have a name on my own so far. For now I go with Rookie."

Erik patted the man's shoulder plate. "We'll find one for you soon enough."

Boomer looked at him. "How about you, Sir?"

"I'm Lieutenant Erik Winston. During covert or black operations I am Cobra 1-1."

Just then Hawk finished the check-ups on his shuttle and started the engines.

"Welcome on board Hawk airlines." He joked.

Obi-Wan tackled the mandalorian assassin as he tried to kill them. Hadn't it been for the ARCs Mereel and Jaing he would surely be dead now. The two clones had detected the sniper and had immediately fired at him. Kenobi blocked most of the shots aimed at Satine before pushing her into an alley.

Mereel fired a shot from his DC-15x. The bolt cut through the mandalorian iron and hit the jetpack on the man's back. The mandalorian didn't even had time to scream as it exploded.

"Fek. There goes our connection to the contractor."

Obi-Wan emerged with Satine. "Thank you two. Skirata's ARCs I assume?"

"You know our Sergeant?" Jaing asked.

"Heard stories from Republic Commandos about him."

Erik hold up his closed fist. Boomer, Kano and Rookie stopped behind him, checking their surroundings.

"Go." The soldier whispered. Boomer went first and covered the other side of the door, while Kano and Rookie protected their backs. Suddenly alarms flared. "Looks like the strike team is in position." Tremors went through the ship as another broadside of the NRW hit.

Boomer hot-wired the panel so the bulks opened. Throwing in both flashbangs and droid poppers they charged the engine-room. Kano and Rookie followed, blasting their way through the lines of engineers and droids.

Kano sealed the doors as Boomer and Erik set their charges. Suddenly Rookie screamed. "Commando droids!" Boomer reached for his rifle but pulled the arm back in time before the vibro cling could hit him. Kano fired a burst which threw one droid to the side but it stood up again and charged.

Erik wrestled with one, using his rifle to block the sword it used. He lifted his foot and propped it against the robot's chest before pushing it off him. In stead of aiming his rifle he pulled out his side arm and fired loosely into the direction he assumed the droid to be. Electric cracking and the sound of metal hitting the floor told him that he had hit his target. He turned around and fired a few shots at the droid attacking Boomer. The bullet tore through its head, incapacitating it so Boomer could reach for his deece. The ARF immediately fired a bolt through the droid's chest which attacked Rookie. The clone pushed the scrap metal off and swept the last droid attacking his sergeant from its feet. Kano grabbed the dropped sword and rammed into the neck joint, separating the head from the main frame.

Boomer contacted his Captain. "Captain Rex, Carges are set. We advise to leave this ship immediately before we blow the reactor."

Up on the bridge Rex fired his blasters before rolling over into another cover as he hold back incoming waves of droids. Kriff, this was supposed to be a quick strike but they were still here. Next to him Fives took a few shots with his DC-15A. Taking the bridge was a rather easy part. The difficult part was that Trench had called in reinforcements just before the jedi destroyed his com-link.

He heard Boomer's voice coming from his helmet but wasn't able to contact him yet. Echo jumped up and fired his Z-6 into the fray. Since Heavy sacrificed himself the large rotary cannon had become the clone's favorite weapon when it came to blast waves of clankers.

This gave him time to contact the demolition team.

"We're pinned down on the bridge. Leave. We'll find our way out of here."

"But Sir!"

"That was an order."

Erik butted into the line. "We leave no one behind. We'll flank them."

"You're on the other end of the ship, you can't reach us in time."

"We'll get you out of there."

Rex gritted his teeth. "You'll never make it."

Erik's voice was filled with authority and determination: "We WILL get you."

The clone captain looked over his cover and fired at the incoming droids. His DC-15 blaster pistols tore through the simple B1-Droids.

Anakin and Ahsoka were still trying to hack the bulks to buy them sometime. The girl pushed her master aside and put two wires together. With a hiss the heavy doors slid out and closed crushing droids between them.

"Now we have to prevent them from getting through Ahsoka said, before the console exploded. She looked around to see Rex' smoking blasters directed at said console.

Erik was used to climbing through ventilation shafts. To their luck most droids were either deployed outside the ship or were tasked to reclaim the bridge. Taking one of the maintenance trains that run through the entire ship they managed to get through the hull undetected. Came out that Rookie had a knack for slicing into consoles and control the device attached to it.

He stopped the train right below a ventilation shaft. Drawing the ship's blue print on his HuD and sending it to the others he showed them his discoveries. "This ventilation shaft leads directly to the bridge."

Boomer patted his shoulder. "You should change your name. Something with construction or hacking."

"I'll think about it."

Above them the clones were busy setting up traps for the droids when suddenly one of the panels began to move. As it was pushed open they trained their rifles on hit.

"Hold fire! We come in peace." Erik pulled himself up and reached back to help Kano out. Both of them pulled Boomer and Rookie out of the shaft.

Echo lowered his rifle. "And I feared that we would end up in pieces."

Skywalker came to them. "Boomer, good to see you again. Who are your brothers?"

"I'm Kano and this is Rookie. One of the few survivors of the Bane incident on Ryloth."

"Actually I'm not a shiny anymore. I'm Slice."

"Oh, the rookie got himself a name" Fives laughed.

"Now that we are all together how do we get off this thing?" Ahsoka asked.

Rex pointed at the opened shaft. "How about the way they got in?"

Obi-Wan didn't feel completely safe. Another Death Watch member had attacked them. He had to admit that the independent Null-ARCs were deadly efficient. He had met up with Captain Ordo. The clone had publicly landed a larty on the plaza and called them in.

At the senate building he left the group to return to the jedi temple. Master Yoda expected him there.

"Disturbed you are, Master Kenobi." the green alien said.

"Master Yoda. I began to wonder if the Republic does the right thing. We don't treat the clones as human beings. When I last walked through a medical center I saw a lot less clones than were originally transported in. Spending time with the Nulls has given me a new point of view on the matter."

"Great thinking, you do. Not our problem this matter is. Concentrating on Dooku and his dark apprentice we should."

The two teams were pinned down in the hangar. Slice had rigged a few leftover vulture droids so the cannons would fire at one area automatically. This relieved a little bit of the pressure on the defense line but more and more droids began to swarm the hangar. Boomer took a shot into the shoulder. He could feel the limb going numb as he tired to shoot back. Rex tried to make contact with Hawk.

"We need back up, now!" he shouted into his mic.

"Sorry, have a few vultures on my tail. Can't shake them." The pilot answered.

Erik looked over his shoulder and out of the hangar. Behind them he could see the NRW, shooting and taking hits.

"NRW, this is Cobra 1-1. Need a Danger Close Fire Mission."

"Send us the coordinates and we'll make a solution."

It took the gunner in question a few minutes to come up with an idea. He spoke to the gunner next to him and both nodded. They adjusted the aim of one of the main turrets and fired. The three shots cut through the hangar before hitting the blast shield on the opposite side, ripping a hole into it where the droids were sucked out into space. Then an V-22 appeared. Hawk stood at the backdoor minigun and sprayed bullets into the ranks of droids.

"Yeeah! Eat this clankers!" The strike team disengaged the droids and ran for the VTOL. Erik patted Hawk's shoulder. "Enjoy it while you still can. The feeling of real bullets is something else than laser bolts. Our R&D-Group is trying to fit your energy weapon in our guns."

Red laser bolts burned a part of the armor away before The VTOL pulled out. Suddenly a red starfighter rushed past them before turning around and firing at them.

"Ventress!" Anakin growled. The windows were sealed so the gunners couldn't fire but the clones had a solution for that. Shoving the two jedi and Trench into the cockpit they sealed the cabin off and opened the windows to shoot back. Erik felt his seals closing as he took a rocket launcher from under the seats and aimed it. Most rocket launchers were basically a tube to direct the rocket. This one was more like a mobile artillery as the backside of the tube was sealed so part of the exhaust could be used to propel the rocket.

The targeting computer locked on the ship and he fired. The rocket went away. He missed the intended target, the cockpit but at least he managed to damage the shields strong enough to let them falter so the shots from the miniguns had more effect on the ship.

"Chopper 3-8, the escape window is closing. We are ready to jump into a safe distance if you want to blow that thing up."

The pilot pulled a spectacular stunt as he pulled his V-22 between two of the turrets before circling around for the landing pad between the structures where usually the funnels were located on a regular battleship. The hangar's doors closed. The admiral nodded as the navigator pushed several buttons before hitting a red button.

"Performing evasive warp-jump."

Just as the Terran battleship jumped away several explosions ripped the Dreadnought into pieces. The reactor meltdown was powerful enough to pulverize the stern, preventing larger parts crashing into Christophsis' atmosphere.

The other parts were not blown into little pieces. The wreckage collided with the other Separatist ships, the sheer mass overloaded the shields and thus making them vulnerable to the Venator's weapons.

The aftermath of the battle was the capture of Admiral Trench. The man was immediately sent into interrogation with the SOB. Should the man crack they would get an insight into the Separatist military strategy.

Although the battle was a success, the NRW had taken multiple hits during its staying between the enemies. Some were injured and most of the armor was heavily damaged. To the clone engineers who came on board for a few necessary repairs to ensure the save travel to the next dock it was surprising that most of the systems were still working.

"She's a tough bitch." Chief Engineer Chance explained. The woman introduced the clones to most of the controls and machines. Keeping the fusion core running was now the most important matter.

The NRW would also take the wounded clones from the other ships and go for Kamino. Kamino was the closest planet that had a medical center for clones as well a dock for ships of the NRW's size. While the ship was smaller than the star destroyers, it packed more firepower than a frigate.

Plans for a larger version were already sent to Kuat where the heavy cruiser Red Montana was build.

Switch had looked twice when he first saw the plans. The design was simple. An enlarged version of current terran battleships. As a soft-shell he wasn't respected for his fighting skills but for his technical skills. He was ordered to supervise the construction and find a way to copy the powerful fusion core and the turrets. Smaller ships of the 501st and the 212th had already been fitted with the long living drive core and turrets. The Consular-corvettes packed a mean punch now and were surprising separatist raid attempts with their new maneuverability and firepower.

However these weapons were the second generation of energy weaponry. The power the NRW had displayed that Terra had far more powerful weapons and cores. Their only problem was to reduce this power in size for their soldiers. Maybe a deal with wins for both sides could be made.

Erik left the pouring rain of Kamino. He had heard several stories from the clones but being there in person beat all rumors. His platoon was taking part in the clones training to improve their tactics against the robots and learn how to handle republic weaponry. He was running through the citadel course with Catherine as a tag team when he received a message. After weeks of waiting the NRW had been restored. But as this apparently wasn't enough the 501st and the 212th were heading for Kamino. They had intercepted a message. Grievous and Ventress planned to attack Kamino.

The whole open-circle armada was called back to help with the Kamino-Training-Armada.

The KTA was full of shinies who were about to get their first war experience.