Hello once again to you all, and I hope that this update finds you in good health. Once again, another prep chapter, though there are hints of the action that is to come in the future (next chapter, which is already nearly finished) and at the rate its shaping up, the battle for Knothole could consist of three or so six to seven thousand word chapters, so I hope it will be worth the wait.
Once again, I wish to thank everyone who has been so kind and read this story. To those of you who have left me a review telling me what you think, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To those who have merely read, I sincerely hope that this tale has intrigued and pleased you, as I know there aren't many SatAM based stories out here.
Lawyers: I don't own a thing except for my own characters, so don't worry about me trying to make a profit off of this sucker.
Now, here's chapter nine.
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Upon the Edge
Four days had passed since Gunter, Derrick, and Amy had arrived with news of Pinewood's destruction, four days since Norrack had followed them and learned of Knothole's location.
And still, nothing had come of it. No attack or assault, not even a single Swat Bot, nothing that would indicate that Robotnik was coming to wipe them off the face of the planet.
It was making Sally uneasy, and as she stared out at the forest from one of the guard towers she wondered what was taking Robotnik so long. Bunnie was also pretty edgy, if the near constant tapping of her metallic feet against the wood of the tower was any indication.
The princess growled softly to herself as she raised her macro binoculars and did another scan of the surrounding area. She knew that the maniacal dictator was up to something, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what he was hoping to do. Was he trying to lull them into a false sense of security, thinking that after all this time of nothing happening, that the Freedom Fighters would just up and assume that he wasn't coming and let their guard down?
Perhaps he was taking his time, marshalling his forces for a strike that was certain to destroy them. After all, it was entirely conceivable that Norrack might have infiltrated them again, and upon noticing no evacuation, relayed back to his master that the resistance looked like it was going to stay put.
Whatever was going on, the tension around the village was getting to be so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Tempers were flaring, and everyone seemed to be running around on the edge of an adrenaline rush. She and the rest of her friends had found that the best cure for this potential hostility was training, and lots of it.
It had taken some time to get the hang of using the flechette shotguns that Rotor had been turning out, and many of the soldiers who had been selected to carry them had gone away from their first round out on the firing range with a few bruises to show for their work. There was also the small matter of learning how to fight with the energy shields that had been issued to them.
This was where Antoine had come in handy. In his youth, before the coup, his father had trained him in the 'older' arts of fighting, believing that the boy would benefit from the discipline that came from learning the many maneuvers that were necessary to master the art of blade and shield. For all his faults, the coyote had held himself to that, and was probably the only one in Knothole who knew how to handle the two in tandem with one another.
He had proven to be quite a teacher, and while Sally would not delude herself into thinking that she or anyone else was likely a match for the cybernetic killing machine that the vibro blades and shields would be put to use against, she knew for a fact that sheer numbers could overwhelm strength and skill. After all, that was what Robotnik was going to probably try and pull off in his strategy.
She heard voices and looked down. Rotor and several other technicians were heading out into the forest perimeters, every one of them loaded down with EMP mines. These ones were a new version that the walrus had created, ones capable of far greater destructive power than the small one that Sonic had managed to pelt Mecha with. Whereas the original had an effective radius of a mere five feet, these newer models had about seven times that range. However, they possessed a proximity detonator of about six feet. This would presented a nice hybrid solution of them not having to worry about wasting the mines due to too few being caught in the blast and them not going off at all because they hadn't been stepped on.
The princess walked around the wooden balcony that she was standing on, to where she could see back into the village a little better. Almost everywhere, soldiers were scrambling about, getting their various defensive instruments into place. Two rings of trenches had long ago been dug around the perimeter of Knothole, so that if an enemy ever did attack, they'd find themselves dealing with a defensive force that was dug in and presented a considerably smaller target. Also, from everything that Sally had ever seen, Swat Bots were not the world's greatest climbers, so they would really be slowed down in the event that they had to pull back. Complimenting the trenches were numerous emplacements of LEX-275s.
There were also several hastily erected pillboxes that had been placed in the trenches at key defensive locations. Made of fast drying dura-crete with five centimeters of ferrosteel armor bolted onto them, they were like stationary tanks, and that was practically what would be required to get past them. The outer trench held ten such defensive emplacements, the inner one six, and each one held a pair of Lexs, which protruded ominously from murder holes that had been made in the pillboxes, as if daring Robotnik's metallic legions to come forth and be slaughtered.
And come they would, of that, the young ground squirrel held no doubt.
And if he came full force, even those defenses wouldn't hold forever.
There was a clattering at the rope ladder that led up to the lookout post, and she and Bunnie walked over to find that Antoine and Geoffrey St. John were climbing up, signaling that their turn at the watch was over and done with. The princess kneeled down to help the coyote up. He nodded his thanks, but remained silent other than that.
She couldn't help but silently marvel at the change that had come over the guard as he took Bunnie's macro binoculars and immediately set to his job. A few weeks before, the coyote had been something delicately described as a less than ideal soldier, though his heart had always been in the right place. However, ever since Sonic's death, Antoine had become almost fanatical in his devotion to his monarch and his duties. No more did he fall asleep on watch, or fumble through his tasks with mutterings that it was something that was beneath him. Gone too, was any trace of the nervousness that occasionally bordered on cowardice, his usual trademark. Now he was serious at all times, a frown nearly always upon his visage as he stared out, waiting for the enemy to arrive.
And she was not the only one to have noticed. Bunnie had as well, and was still very much worried over the abrupt change in her boyfriend. However, her cybernetic friend had yet to summon up the courage to ask him about it, and Sally herself was torn between pressing the issue and trying to get it resolved, or waiting until after the inevitable battle. It was a tricky situation, and the wrong choice would likely affect Antoine's ability to fight at his peak, something that she desperately need for him and everyone else to do if they were to have any chance of pulling off this defensive action.
She also didn't miss the poisonous glare that the coyote sent at Geoffrey as the skunk pulled out his own binoculars and went to scanning. Something had happened between those two, and she prayed that they'd just forget about it in the face of the real enemy.
Sally and Bunnie quickly descended from their perch, and went their separate ways. The rabbit was going to the garage, to help with last minute repairs and modification to their vehicles, and the princess was heading to the firing range, to get another round of shotgun training under her belt.
The range was rather full as she arrived, with soldiers trying to make certain that their weapons properly calibrated and operating at optimum capability before everything went down, as well as polishing their own abilities.
The range was another thing that Rotor had thought up some time back. They had been presented with the problem of training some of the younger and rawer Freedom Fighters into true and fearsome soldiers, soldiers that were capable of making the split second decisions that meant life or death in their risky trade. Thus, the brilliant walrus had come up with this little beauty, based off of some recovered plans of actual simulators that the Mobian army used to use to train with.
The 'targets' were small remote sensors that created holographic images of the various mechanized units that made up old iron lips' army. These were deployed onto the range, which was about eight hundred square feet in diameter, something that allowed for group tactical training as well. The remotes would move around in an attempt to simulate how Swat Bots and the like actually operated. With a bit of work, Rotor had actually managed to get the remotes to where they were capable of returning fire. Mind you, the lasers of the tiny remotes were nothing approaching what a bot's integrated plasma blaster was capable of, leaving just a small burn if it were to strike you on the arm as opposed to removing it entirely.
The soldiers had a variety of things with which they could train and improve on. Foxholes had been dug to allow them to train in the defensive style of war that was coming, while some of the course was dedicated to open plain warfare, the kind where you had little cover to take advantage of and had to be alert at all times, lest a shot from a flanking enemy catch you in the back. In addition to those, there was also a region that was strew with trees and debris in an attempt to simulate a combination of forest fighting and urban warfare, the two types of skirmishes that the troopers would be most involved with.
What surprised the princess the most was that Derrick was also present upon the range.
The Mandalorian was moving around, taking careful measured shots at his holographic targets, dodging, ducking and rolling whenever the remotes returned fire. He appeared to be completely absorbed in his work, not noticing, or not caring, the reactions of the others to his presence. Some gave him glares that would have taken out a battle tank if such things were possible. Their teeth were bared as they stared at this leftover relic of a bygone era, this enemy soldier who had dared to come among them as he truly was. Others seemed in awe of the near perfect control the old fighter seemed to have over his blaster rifle.
Adding to that sense of amazement was that the Mandalorian had apparently taken the time to polish and clean his armor and his kama over the past two days. The armor now gleamed like polished obsidian, while the kilt like piece of cloth now had his clan symbol, a golden serpent wrapped around a zhaboka, clearly visible upon its black background. As she watched him moving about with the disciplined ease of a seasoned warrior, the princess wondered how the soldiers of the Great War must have felt, when they saw the mercenaries come charging or flying in at them.
After watching him for a couple of minutes, Sally calculated that Derrick was pulling off an accuracy rate of about seventy odd percent, which wasn't very bad, considering the speed at which he was firing, and the fact that both he and his targets were moving around.
He was reacting as years of harsh, real life battles had probably taught him. You had to be fast, to shoot and dodge about, because if you slowed down for even a single second, you were likely to draw fire from somewhere, and a standing target usually went down pretty fast.
A second later, the Mandalorian decided that it was perhaps time to spice things up a bit, as he was starting to draw more fire from the enemy holograms. Even Swat Bots could do basic target prioritization, and they usually went for the guy doing the most shooting. A loud, jet engine whine filled the air as the old warrior activated his jetpack, and blasted up into the air. Reaching an altitude of about fifty feet, he began to fly about, dipping and diving, weaving around in the air in an attempt to avoid the ever increasing number of training lasers that were being thrown his way. All the while he continued to fire down at them, though his aerial maneuvers certainly did not make things easier, something Sally noticed as his shots became noticeably less accurate, though he still managed to drop a good number of targets.
After about forty five seconds of being in the air, he descended, landing in a forward roll as the twin repulsor jets of his pack shut off, and the princess couldn't help but wince as he went up on his back, all of his weight pressed into his jetpack. There had been times when she had rolled with a sack full of explosives strapped to her back, and she always had a nice little bruise as a reminder of what happens when one puts all of ones weight upon a small metallic object. However, bruises beat death.
The Mandalorian came up out of the roll and fired off a couple of shots, taking down another hologram, before diving to one side to avoid fire from its closest comrade. The old artic fox came up once more, and snapped off another pair of shots, eliminating that one.
Then it appeared as though practice was over, as he calmly holstered his rifle, and walked off of the range, coming over towards Sally.
"Morning, Princess," he said, tapping two fingers to the front of his helmet.
After that, he went over and leaned up against the command booth of the range, before unholstering his rifle again, and giving it a once over. Leaving him to his business, the young ground squirrel moved out onto the range, before getting down in a foxhole on the far side of the range and taking aim with the shotgun. She lifted her right arm up to where it was about parallel with her shoulder, forming a pocket that she set the butt end of the weapon into. This was the method that Uncle Chuck had showed them, and it was usually the one that resulted in the fewest aches and pains when all was said and done.
She pumped the weapon, loading a shell into the firing chamber, and then pulled the trigger.
A loud boom echoed over the gun range as the firing pin struck the back of the shell. A fraction of a second later, the flechette pellets streaked out of the end of the barrel, moving too quickly and being too small to follow with her eyes. However, the results were unmistakable, as her holographic target faded from view, the remote retreating from the range.
The gun kicked like an enraged terrapod, but after many hours of practice, the ground squirrel had learned how to deal with that, and she loaded another shell as she brought the gun back down, lining up with the next target. Once more, the shotgun boomed, and once again a target flickered and disappeared. This repeated itself ten more times, until the slug thrower was out of ammo.
Without hesitation of any kind, Sally flipped the gun over, and ripped open an ammo pouch on her belt. As fast as she could, the princess began to reload the weapon, slipping the shells into the gun. It was a painfully slow way to reload, something that had bothered her. But, then again, against something like Norrack, she highly doubted there would be a need for reloading.
Either they'd get him with their first shots, or they'd be dead before reloading even became an issue.
She continued with her training until she'd eliminated all of her targets several times over. Satisfied with how well she had done, she slipped her arm through the strap of the slug thrower, and got it positioned on her shoulder. She then turned, stepping out of the foxhole and getting ready to leave. However, something caught her eye that caused her to stop.
Derrick was walking over to a group of soldiers, who were firing all out on a Swat Bot formation that was advancing on them.
"Inefficient," the Mandalorian remarked, causing them all to look back up at him, heedless of the training lasers flying at them.
"What do you mean?" one of the soldiers asked him, eyeing the old artic fox warily.
"You're using more ammo than you need to on these tin cans," was the growled reply. "Burst fire like that is good for an organic target that's got a lot of armor and needs to be dropped in a hurry, but you and I both know that Robotnik's forces normally have armor and combat capabilities on par with your average dirt farmer militia."
"Then how do you do it, Mando?" another trooper growled, not bothering to keep the disdain out of his voice.
In the blink of an eye, the former Death Watchman had shouldered his rifle and snapped off a pair of shots. The crimson plasma bolts impacted on a holographic Swabot a moment later, and it faded from view, the remote that had generated it beating a hasty retreat off the range. He then turned to face the princess.
"I haven't the faintest clue how this thing works," he said, shrugging helplessly while gesturing out over the firing range. "Can you change it to where the targets are stationary and non hostile?"
Sally nodded and headed over to the control booth, before typing a few commands into the computer. A couple of seconds were required for the new orders to take effect, and then every single target came to a halt and stood stock still.
"Only fire burst or full auto when they're about to surround you," Derrick said in a matter of fact tone, "other than that, you treat a Swat Bot just like you would an unarmored organic opponent." He shouldered his rifle again. "Double tap them, one to the heart, and one to the head." He then demonstrated for them again, and the chosen target faded.
"Make certain you take your chest shot first," the aged warrior said as he brought his weapon back down, "that way you don't have to fight your weapon's recoil to get it back in line. Now, give it a shot."
Shrugging, the young soldiers proceeded to, and were pleasantly surprised to find that the Mandalorians words rang true. They also didn't miss the part about letting their weapons recoil work form them, as most of the time, depending upon the distance to the target, the first shot would kick the barrel of their blasters up. Then they would be perfectly (or very near so) in line for the headshot.
"You can restart the course now," Derrick said, looking over his shoulder to the princess, who nodded and entered the necessary commands.
As the firing range once again became active, the troopers resumed their training, this time with considerably more efficiency. Sally nodded as she looked out and saw them in action, a grim and determined smile upon her face. She still wasn't certain if this defensive action they had planned was going to work, but even if they lost, and all here died, she knew that Robotnik would pay dearly for his victory.
She shook her head a moment later. Now was not the time to think about that kind of silver curtain. With proper defensive management and force deployment, and a pinch or so of divine intervention, they just might be able to pull this off. It was certainly a long shot, but she would not give up hope.
Almost unconsciously, she placed a hand upon her stomach, and felt her determination renewed, the blazing fires once more returning to her eyes.
She didn't care what it took, she would see Julian dead before this war was over.
Her work at the range done, she decided that it would perhaps be best for her to head to the garage, to make certain that the Wraiths were all ready and operating at top condition.
The garage was noisy, as usual, with all the mechanics and combat engineer's running around, trying to make certain that their machines were ready to make their stand against Robotnik's legions.
Not surprisingly, Uncle Chuck was among those working there. Once again, the roboticized hedgehog did the work of four or five of his counterparts, rushing from one job to the next without pause… that it, at least until his electronic eyes fell upon Sally.
The ground squirrel still did not know what to make of the old man. The revelations of the last few days threw everything she thought she knew about him out of joint. How could this man, so kind and gentle, in many ways, the ideal father, have so callously referred to the boy he would raise as a 'prototype?' It just didn't seem possible that the same man who Sonic had always looked up to and admired, whom he had shed tears over (a rare thing indeed) could be the same person who had come up with the idea of creating the ARCs.
Slowly, as if guessing why she was staring at him, Sir Charles put down the repulsor lift generator piece that he was working on, and began to walk over to her.
"Hello, Sally," he said softly, his head bowed and his eyes upon the ground.
"Hello, Sir Charles," she responded, her tone neutral, lacking its normal warmth that it had when she spoke with him.
"Let's go outside… we need to talk," the old scientist responded.
The girl nodded silently, and followed him as he walked out into the village, leaving the din and chaos of the garage behind them.
"I suppose you want to ask me about what's happened over the past couple of days…" Uncle Chuck asked with a bitter tone, leaning forward against a railing.
"Among other things," Sally said, looking over at him.
"When I first started the ARC project with my colleagues, we were all so enthusiastic and excited." He began. "Here was our chance to lend our aid to our country, to fight for what believed in, in our own way. It was like your father said, every single one of us believed that we were exchanging the souls of a few people for the entire nation…"
"So what changed?" she asked, her tone softening slightly, being replaced by a strange curiosity, a desire to know what had happened.
"I think it was when our two ARCs were born," he said, nodding his head up and down slightly as if trying to confirm for himself that that was the moment. "Sonic and Shadow didn't cry much, you know, they just stared around at the world, silently taking it all in." the old Mobian paused for a second, and Sally could tell that he was on the verge of choking up. "I knew, then and there, I could never go through with what I had started. If you saw them, how innocent they were… to turn them into what they were meant to be would have made me worse than Robotnik…"
He paused once again, overcome and unable to go on with his tale, his metallic body heaving with sobs, but unable to shed tears like a normal person could.
Sally felt her anger towards him cool, tempered out by the agony that the mechanized hedgehog was going through. As she thought about it, she remembered back, remembered all the time that Chuck had spent with his 'nephew,' the games they'd played together, the way he had always there when Sonic had needed him…
She forgave the old man then and there. How could she continue to be angry with him, when it was evident that he was now in a hell of his own making, having not only lost his nephew, no… his son, but now having his own past actions return to haunt him?
Not knowing what else she could down, Sally reached out and embraced him, letting the old scientist cry into her shoulder.
Many miles distant, within the smog choked region of Robotropolis, another army was getting set up and ready.
Julian Ivo Robotnik stared down at the legions of Swat Bots that he had assembled. The full twenty five thousand Swat Bots and Hover Bots stood down in the streets, arranged into companies of four hundred. Each one of those had a commander bot in charge of it. They were no different from the rank and file machines that they oversaw, save that they had a slightly superior processing capability so that they might better direct their own troops.
If there was one thing the maniacal overlord prided himself on, it was his ability to maintain strict order under the chaos of a traditional battlefield, and a highly organized chain of command was what kept everything under control. Over five of these companies, a Swat Bot designated as a colonel oversaw them. Overseeing three of these colonels was a high commander, who in turn answered to the general, Mecha. Once again, at first glance, it would have been nearly impossible to tell these higher ranking machines from the ones they were in charge of, as they bore the same color scheme and were constructed of the same manner.
For all his shortcomings in when dealing with guerilla warfare, Julian had a nearly unparalleled mastery of standard infantry combat. After all, he had overthrown the leadership of the Acorn Kingdom, tossed the king into another dimension, and brought eighty five percent of the planet under his control within twenty four hours of the coup's opening shot. One couldn't pull that off on luck alone. Armed with his experience, he had seen no need to paint the officers in a different color scheme or anything of that nature, as such a manner tended to draw attention from the enemy. He might as well just slap a bulls eye upon them and be done with it.
No, that wasn't necessary. Swat Bots identified each other by the serial code of their radio transponders, and they were preprogrammed to recognize when orders were coming from a bot higher up on the chain of command.
Of course, Mecha stood out like a sore thumb, but there really wasn't a whole lot that could be done about that. Besides, he could put up with far more abuse than anything he commanded, and with his processor brain, was more than capable of doing all the split second multitasking skills that were required of an android in his position.
However, there was one unit that operated outside of the robotic hedgehog's authority: Norrack. The ARC trooper answered to Robotnik and to him alone, mainly due to the fact that his mission objectives in this operation were so radically different from the rest of the army. Naturally, though, Mecha hadn't been overly fond of the idea that he couldn't control the cyborg, but the dictator had pretty much told him to deal with it.
The android was still angry about that, Robotnik could feel the simmering rage in his voice every time that he reported in with a notification that another company or whatnot was ready to roll out, but the overlord was positive that he would be fine once he started killing things.
Which was something that would be happening very shortly.
He smiled in a dark and vile manner that befitted a man of his station and attitude, before rubbing his chin with his mechanical left hand and looked down upon the marshalling army of robots. While twenty five thousand soldiers who knew no fear and cared nothing for their own welfare might have seemed like overkill to the layman, Julian knew that it was the right thing to do. Overkill got the job done.
Besides, if the past few weeks had taught him anything, it was that the current model was rapidly becoming out of date. He had plans for a new generation of battle droids, ones far more dangerous and efficient. This seemed like a much better solution for phasing out the Swat Bots than simply putting them in a scrap yard. Might as well have them go out doing something useful.
He had had Norrack make a few scouting probes in and around Knothole before the guerillas' own patrols and mounting exterior defenses had made it necessary to recall the ARC back to Robotropolis, as he wanted no harm falling him before the main event. Everything that the cyborg killing machine had observed indicated that the Freedom Fighters were digging in and preparing to fight it out. This led him to believe that good ole Max was calling the shots. He knew enough of Sally to know that the princess would have staged an evacuation or some sort of rear guard maneuver that would have had his forces chasing ghosts through the Great Forest, and getting picked off from the shadows the whole time.
He realized that they were dug in, and that while his own losses would be quite heavy, he knew that engaging them in one location would be far more preferable to trying to hunt down a bunch of needles in a ten thousand square mile haystack. He held the greater edge in the coming battle despite the fact that defenders usually held a natural advantage over the attackers, and Knothole was certainly a defensible location. The trees were too close together for him to get in any heavy firepower like the Amracks hover tanks, and the canopy the trees had was much denser than it had been at Pinewood, far too dense for any form of close air support or troop deployments. This battle would be decided on infantry alone.
Robotnik was also not a fool, and he realized that the enemy was more skilled than his own forces, but he was confident that attrition was upon his side. They had never gotten an accurate count of how many Freedom Fighters had stationed in Knothole, but he knew that they were ridiculously outnumbered, and in a battle like this, numbers were often the deciding factor.
The primary viewing screen crackled to life, drawing the attention of both Overlanders who were present. Mecha was on the screen, his photoceptors glowing their usual crimson.
The android had been given a few additional upgrades in preparation for this attack. Attached to both of his wrists were a pair of gleaming vibro claws, something he had personally insisted upon after watching the brutal efficiency in which Norrack had used them upon the Freedom Fighters he had killed. His body had also had several heavier armor plates wielded onto it, reinforcing the protection of key systems. These would slow him down just a tad, but Julian figured it was better to have Mecha be a little slower than normal than risk a stray bolt taking him out of yet another battle.
Besides, with Sonic effectively removed from the enemy ranks, it wasn't as if anything those miserable rodents could bring to bear would even be close to matching the android.
"Final checks completed, sir," Mecha said, a fiendish flint coming into his photoceptors, "we're ready to move on your orders."
"Then get moving, Mecha," the overlord snarled, "every moment we delay is one more defense that the Freedom Fighters will have in place."
The android saluted, and then began to issue commands over his comm. system. Moments later, the Swat Bot army began to move out.
Julian smiled once more as he watched them march, every droid perfectly in step with the unit on its right and its left. They moved with a precision and unison that no organic army could hope to match. They were of one mind, one purpose, and nothing would stop them.
Robotnik rubbed his hands together as his grin grew even wider, his mind's eye filled with the visions of Knothole, smoldering and burning.
"This day marks the beginning of the end of their pathetic little rebellion!" he exclaimed, cackling like a mad man.
Snivley, back in the shadows, was ever the pessimist. Though he kept his thoughts silent as usual, and he couldn't deny that by every logical point of view, that the resistance's primary base was about to get ground into dust, he couldn't shake a nagging feeling in the back of his head that before all was said and done, something was going to go horribly wrong.
Mecha looked up into the sky. Appropriately enough, thunderheads boiled and rumbled, with flashes of lightning lighting the clouds up. A smirk came over his face as he marched at the head of the massive robotic army. He had been looking forward to this moment ever since his master had first brought him online, the moment when he might finally be unleashed upon those wretched organics who had humiliated and bested him for so long.
Well, it was time for them to find out just how well they could function trying to defend their home turf for a change.
However, his smile faded when he twisted around and gazed to the rear. Off on one side of the street, keeping himself separate from the rest of the troops, was Norrack. The android's processors burned with something that could only be described as jealousy as he looked upon the cyborg. Once, he would have thought himself above such a petty emotion. Now, though, as he stared at the ARC, he understood why it could be such a prevalent thing among biologicals. While Norrack might have had mechanical components within himself, Mecha couldn't ignore the fact that there was flesh in that body as well. As far as he was concerned, that made the ARC inferior to himself.
Yet Robotnik had still reserved the most important part of the mission for the cyborg.
Mecha bared his metallic fangs in a silent snarl, cursing the day that Norrack had been created. Still, the android thought to himself, the ARC trooper was going to be up against the best the resistance could throw at him, and it wasn't entirely unfeasible that he might get taken offline... permanently
The Mandalorian leaned back against one of the trees, continuing to watch the children as they kicked the soccer ball around once again.
If they had been brought up by his kind, they likely would have been practicing tactics and battlefield strategy, rather than playing ball. It was a very alien scene to him, one he had never fully gotten used to. Still, they were of an entirely different culture, so it was to be expected.
The young fox, the mutant one, ran by, dribbling the ball back and forth between his feet with expert control. This child held his attention as much as Amy did, for reasons that had initially been a puzzle to the old warrior. Something about the child had struck him as familiar, and he'd done a bit of asking about. He'd discovered the boy's name and the basic story of his arrival. There was no way to be absolutely certain, but he had that feeling, the gut instinct that a soldier developed after years of having to make educated guesses when intel came up short.
The child was the proper age, the story would have made some sense, and after all, how many two tailed foxes were there in this world?
Everything bit of information that he had pointed to one conclusion: this boy was Amadeus' son. If that was the case, then he owed the kit a great deal… a very great deal indeed.
At that moment, at that place, the old warrior vowed that he would watch out for the boy, and for Amy. Perhaps, by protecting them in the battle that was coming, he could atone for his past failures, those whose blood stained his hands.
As if to mock him, four people appeared in his mind's eye. Two of them were his species, a mother and her child. The former looked down upon the later, who giggled slightly and then jumped up upon her mother's shoulders, and spoke a few words in Mando'a. The mother responded in kind, before pulling the child off of her back and into a tight hug.
Next to them was a pair of timber wolves, the first was large, muscular and clad in silver armor. His arms crossed and a confident, crooked smile that reached all the way to his blue eyes on his face. At his side was someone that looked almost like a miniature version of him, a boy emulating his father in stance and smile.
A noise left his throat, one part snarl, one part sob, and he shook his head violently to try and clear the image from his mind. He couldn't change what had happened at Malachor, but perhaps the future would find him a more capable soldier.
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Okay, hope you found that chapter worth your while, and I apologize for concentrating so much on my OC, but I'm trying to flesh him out and attempt to make him more real, rather than a cardboard/cookie cutter style character that pops up in some stories.
With that in mind, any advice and comments are welcome, from constructive criticism, ideas on weapons or possible plot devices, flames, etc, are more than welcome.
Thank you all, and good night, or day, depending upon the time that you are reading this.
