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The first thing that Staasi saw when the fleet reverted to realspace was the Sith advance force; fifteen Sith Lancer-class corvettes converging on their position. They were soon backed up by at least twenty destroyers and seven huge Harrower-class carriers. Dozens more ships were visible behind them, not to mention Dromund Kaas's orbital defense platforms and the giant hulk of Darth Acheron's flagship, the Predator.
Five Torrent vessels were the first to enter orbit, the Avenger among them. Several others followed, creating a protective "shield" around the capital ships. Many of the other vessels were forced to drop out of hyperspace farther from the planet, to avoid accidentally hitting Sith vessels when they reverted to realspace.
Staasi gazed wide-eyed at the Sith armada. "All craft, open fire!" He barked.
The support vessels began firing streams of laserfire into the shields of the Sith vessels. Fighters shot out of their storage tubes and began deadly dances with their Sith counterparts. Two Sith missiles scored direct hits on the bridge of the Avenger. Another capital ship reverted to realspace too close to a Sith cruiser and both collided within minutes. Two bombers managed to slip baradium warheads through a weakened section of the Avenger's shields.
The bridge of the Avenger rocked as consoles exploded and fires erupted. Staasi felt something heavy smash into him and blacked out. Fire suppression crews ran to put out consoles and crew alike. Groaning, Staasi found himself on the floor, a nearby dangling support beam smeared with his blood. Several of his command staff were splattered all over the ceiling and walls.
"Launch landing craft!" Staasi roared, ignoring the red mess trickling down his forehead. Emergency bulkhead slammed down across the transparisteel windows, and tactical screens appeared on the bulkheads.
"Sir, at this distance we'll…"
"Prepare the Pods! Launch all Bull and Nexu carriers! Get those gunships through! Revan and the others won't stand a chance unless we get our troops on the ground!" Staasi barked. The bridge rocked again. "Fire the Shatterpoint weapons!"
"We haven't fully integrated all of them into our systems!" One of the ensigns, Staasi thought his name might be Mark, turned and faced Staasi. "This is crazy! We aren't prepared to fire the entire array yet!"
"Then fire the ones that you have!" Staasi unholstered his pistol and aimed it at the ensign's head. He switched off the safety. "I will personally shootanyone who is even remotely responsible for our men on the ground getting slaughtered because they didn't get support from up here!" Marks gulped and sat down in his chair before initiating the firing sequence.
Streaks of blue fire burst out of the Avenger's bow and went through a Sith cruiser, creating blooms of flames as the warheads traveled through the vessel and detonated on the way out. Hull plating shuddered and disintegrated outward from the impact site as the weapons did the job of their namesake. Other heavier versions of the weapon appeared as thin blue fiery beams that traveled punctured through Sith vessels and exited the other side, a good portion of the vessel disintegrating a minute later, causing irreparable damage and destroying the vessel in most cases.
The Goranda and Onager began pushing the Sith cruisers back with their Shatterpoint weaponry as the Semakhi fleet arrived. Resembling graceful sea creatures, their ships and fighters began pounding the Sith fleet, targeting individual vessels rather than firing haphazardly.
"Admiral, I assume that the insertion team was unable to take down the defense network?" Le-bin asked.
"Sadly, no. However, Opila did manage to get a warning to us…while we were en route. We were able to redirect most of our ships to a secondary rendezvous zone just outside their Defense Network range. Opila says if we can land our troops then that'll distract the Sith long enough for Revan to take down the network…and to settle an 'old score'."
A wing of Recluse-class fighters began a strafing run on the bridge of the Predator. Onboard, Darth Harandos sat cross-legged on the bridge. "They have multiple Force-users countering my Battle Meditation." He growled.
"I don't want excuses. Are you telling me that a few Padawans are overpowering you?" The hologram of Darth Acheron asked.
"Nooo ma'am. Just be prepared for some ground fighting."
"Excellent. It's time to test our latest achievements." Several dark shadows sped past the bridge and blasted the Torrent fighters to shreds.
Deep Water took heavy fire and broke in two…and shed the outer shell and became two smaller versions of the Semakhi frigate that it had been. Several Shard vessels, small, spiky and nimble, dove right through overlapping streams of turbolaser fire and dropped beneath a Sith dreadnaught, launching wave after wave of concussion missiles into the ventral hangar once the shields were dropped to allow fighters to exit. Their concentrated beam cannons cut swaths into the hulls of Sith vessels and took out entire fighter wings in one sweep.
Bursts of purple plasma shot out from the cannons on the planet surface, overloading the shields of a Torrent gunboat and ripping it to shreds. Torrent carriers of various classes shot through the Sith blockade, relying on their heavy shielding and armor to take the brunt of the fire from the ground turbolaser emplacements. Smaller shuttles and transports continued towards the surface. Escorted by fighters and bombers, they entered the atmosphere as high-speed red-hot bursts of flames, a fiery entrance fitting of what they were about to unleash. The heavy larger carriers stayed just outside the atmosphere.
Gunships, artillery landers, and drop pods shot out from these carriers, hurdling towards the ground. "Bravo Leader to Command, mission is a go!" barked a communications officer on one of them, the Helljumper.
Shock troopers and commandos strapped themselves into the combat drop pods lining the walls of the sub-hangar deck. "All pods locked and secure," The flight controller reported "Launch!" Permaglass sheaths slid down over each of the pods as one-by-one, they dropped out of sight, leaving only an empty space between the wall and the sheaths.
For a few seconds, the pods just floated. Then, one end on each grew white-hot as the entry thrusters kicked in, launching each pod into the atmosphere. Other larger cone-block-shaped missiles were launched. As they fell, smaller pods containing individual special ops soldiers were launched outwards, and the remaining fuselage contained heavy armaments to be picked up on the ground.
Inside one of the normal pods, a shock trooper tried not to throw up as his combat drop pod entered the lower atmosphere. His tinted visor lowered and the HUD activated. On the upper side of his HUD were small live feeds from the helmets of the other members of his squad. Two were just static, their pods destroyed by AA fire. The others showed men and women with facial expressions ranging from outright fear to anticipation.
His heartbeat increased as the amount of explosions in the sky increased the farther he descended. An Interceptor swooped just a few meters in front of him, before the wings were clipped by an Aurek Tactical StrikeFighter, sending the Interceptor plummeting into a Sith gunship. Both exploded.
"Once you are on the ground, proceed directly to the rendezvous zone!" The commander barked "The Sith are unloading their troops and heavy artillery, and we-ARRGHHH!" His image turned to static.
The trooper grabbed his crash netting as the pod's landing thrusters activated and he hit the muddy plain surrounding Kaas City. For a few agonizing moments, he watched as the ground in front of him exploded in a giant muddy mess.
"Let's go, move it out!" The pod hatch hissed open and the soldier ran forward, grenade launcher slung over his back and rifle in hand. Ahead, another shock trooper went flying as an artillery shell detonated under his feet. His blood splattered against the trooper's helmet. Panting, he ran forward, only stopping grabbing the fallen soldier's ammo bandoleer and grenade pouch.
The trooper made it to the ruins of the old construction equipment used to build Kaas City a thousand years ago. The permacrete walls provided some cover, but that was before the Sith troopers charged in.
Torrent gunships dropped Nexus and Bulls with cannon mounts fixed on their backs and heavy tanks with four large covered treads. Shock troopers ran to operate them, but suddenly came under fire from ground-to-ground flak cannons.
"Go, go, go!" Grenadiers hurled grenades at the enemy artillery positions and ducked behind cover as they exploded. The Sith responded with an overwhelming salvo of missiles that blasted through the majority of the Torrent forces already at the ruins. When the smoke cleared, many men lay on the ground, dead or dying in terrible agony.
The shock trooper gazed down at the body of one of his squad, helmet askew and blood seeping out of a huge hole in his chest. "Sith beasts charging on our western front!" A commander warned. Mutated beasts, rakghouls, and undead charged the soldiers. The first few Torrent shock troopers went flying and the rest dropped into hand-to-hand combat. Fists, wrist vibroblades, rifle butts; everything they had they used. None wanted to be taken, knowing what would happen to them. What was worse; the undead were their own friends and comrades, horribly twisted and tortured until they were just shells of their former selves, filled with hatred and anguish.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. The shock trooper was on automatic, firing his rifle until it ran out of tibanna gas. Then he took his grenade launcher and tore limbs off the oncoming horde. But they still came, regardless of loss of limbs, those who had no legs just crawling. His grenade launcher went ka-shunk. Empty. The shock trooper began running away, firing over his shoulder with one of his two pistols, shots going wild but some hitting the beasts in the head or torso, the only sure way to take them down.
"What are you doing there, Davies!" A heavily-armored commander roared, taking out Sith troopers with the cannon mount of a downed Bull. The Bulls were the larger counterparts of the Nexus, meant to function as light artillery and troop transport at the same time, with space for two cannon mounts on top of the rig on top of the back flatbed. Troops would sit on the flatbed and ride into battle. The fact that Bulls and Nexus also utilized a leg system instead of treads meant that they could crush enemies and kick out at them. This particular Bull had lost three legs, and the last was being used by a couple of troopers as cover.
"Retreating, sir!" The shock trooper barked. It felt weird whenever someone called him by his name.
"Are you hit, soldier?"
"No sir!"
"Well then get back to the front lines!" The commander jumped off the cannon mount, ammo depleted, and ran to a tank stationed a few feet away, where other shock troopers were providing covering fire while more soldiers set up anti-infantry cannons. "When I was in the shock trooper brigade, we didn't have these fancy cannons or assault rifles! All we had in our unit were sticks; two sticks and a rock! And we had to share that rock! So consider yourself lucky, soldier!"
"Y-yes…sir!"
"Damn right! Now get back out there Davies…" The commander's voice trailed off. Davies turned around to see five growling Torrent corpses stumbling towards them, still wearing battered and cracked-open battle armor.
"Eat plasma!" The commander barked, bringing himself out of his shock and letting loose with his rifle. The tank also fired, tearing up the ground underneath the corpses, blowing them to shreds. After a while, the Sith beats stopped coming, leaving only a smoking patch of earth. The commander chuckled, and shouldered his rifle, before reaching for a cigar. Then the smoke cleared, and a legion of Sith Warriors and figures in red wielding lightsaber pikes marched towards them…
"Shitshitshitshit-…"
FWWWOOOMM!
"Change around the letters and you get Sith shit, or shit Sith. Either one means the same thing." Revan chuckled as the Sith commando fell to the ground, his arms going one way and the rest of him the other. Phiran, wielding his own green lightsaber and one taken from a fallen Sith, cut through two Sith Acolytes. Together, Revan and Phiran impaled the last remaining Sith warrior on their lightsabers.
Using the Force, Juhani was muffling the sounds of their fight so that those in the interrogation center wouldn't know how close the enemy was. Well, that was until Revan turned the ten-inch durasteel door into metal splinters with a light tap in the right place and sent the hundreds of razor-sharp shards hurdling into the room like metal daggers, ripping apart the several dozen troopers standing just on the other side.
Darth Feran turned around from his brutal interrogation of Se-ril just in time to see Revan's armored first flying at his face. Feran ducked aside and crossed blades with Revan.
Caras, a human women in her late forties with brown hair and a few grey streaks, brought her lightsaber pike against Revan's other blade. Revan kicked her back before beating Feran towards the window, managing to score a minor blow to his shoulder. Feran hissed and tried to retreat, but Revan gave no quarter.
Xalak, a mostly-machine cyborg (the only sign that he was part living were the few bits of brain cased inside his desk-lamp-shaped skull and the heart encased inside his chest) threw a table full of sharp instruments aside and activated his lightsaber. Juhani activated her own blue blade and body-slammed him against the tube holding Gadon Thek, cracking the glass casing just a bit.
"Uh…it might help if you release us?" Gadon suggested as Phiran Force-shoved Lethe back. The girl stumbled back and ran out of the room. Phiran let her; she wasn't their main objective. With a flick of his wrists, the locks on the restraints opened with a click, and the three prisoners leaped out of their interrogation cells.
"Revan!" Dustil called. Revan Force-pushed one of the salvaged lightsabers he had from his belt into Dustil's waiting hand. Feran snarled and attempted to strike Revan through the chest, but Revan forced him back and prepared a sai tok on the Sith Apprentice.
"NO!" Dustil roared "He's mine!" Feran yelped as Dustil's captive lightsaber was yanked from his belt and activated in Dustil's other hand. Feran scrambled away, robes flapping, as he tried to outrun the furious Jedi Knight.
Dustil, with a lightsaber in either hand, ran after him, swinging each blade leisurely as he advanced on the Sith Apprentice. Revan made to help him, but Darth Caras resumed her attack on him, forcing him to focus on her.
While Revan dueled Caras, Juhani with Xalak, and Dustil with Feran, Phiran grabbed his comlink. "Matthews, prepare for extraction." He activated the transponder, sending their location to Matthews. Meanwhile, Se-ril and Gadon grabbed the rifles from the fallen guards and fired potshots at Xalak in conjunction with Juhani's fast strikes.
"Copy that, Phiran. Be warned; we're tracking thirty-seven bio-signs moving towards your position and around three times that many droids. Oh, and step away from the window." Phiran frowned and glanced at the window that hugged one wall….and saw what Matthews meant. Charging towards them was a Medsteed-class J-45 armored gunship, specifically designed for ramming through walls in a building to either insert or extract soldiers.
"…body slam…" Phiran mumbled stupidly before coming back to his senses and Force-jumping backwards as the gunship crashed through the window.
The forward hatch opened and Torrent marines began spraying fire into the room. Se-ril and Gadon leaped through the hatch, followed a few minutes later by Juhani, who slammed Xalak against the ceiling before diving through. The cyborg screeched, a disturbing high-pitched mechanical sound. He was taken down a few seconds later by a barrage of blasterfire and two missile launchers. The organic sac that held his organs burst open and rained various guts down on the floor.
"Dustil! Come on!" Revan roared. Caras glanced sideways for a moment at Dustil and Revan used the distraction to bisect her. Dustil was in a battle fury, focused only on killing Feran.
"You can kill him in various nasty ways later! We have a schedule to keep!" Revan snapped "Now get on or I will personally grab you and drag you on, myself!" Dustil backed away hesitantly and ran towards the gunship.
"I will kill him." Dustil swore as he climbed through the hatch into the hold.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah; there's always next time." Phiran grumbled as the gunship detached from the prison and took off.
"We've extracted the Hidden Beks and the Jedi, as well as the teams sent to liberate them!" The pilot called back over the roar of battle. "Admiralty Board for you, sirs!"
A hologram of the various Admirals, High Councilors, and Administrators appeared.
"How's the battle going?!" Revan asked as the side doors of the hold opened. They were headed for one of the forward camps.
"Not good! We've suffered heavy losses and it looks like the Sith got themselves some new toys! Our ground troops are being torn to shreds, and reinforcements are at least an hour away. The fleet can't hold out against the Sith." Staasi reported.
[The Shard Jedi that we sent to infiltrate Kaas City are converging on the ground battle, but it will be some time before they can get there.] Upari warned [Opila and his team are currently disabling the Defense Network as we speak, but with the additional firewalls raised due to the attack, it'll take them hours to disable each individual system at a time.]
"We have our rescued compatriots." Le-bin noted "Perhaps it would be wise to retreat."
"NO!" Phiran roared "Tell the fleet to concentrate their attack on the Predator!"
"No good!" Staasi argued "The capital ships can't get into position to bombard it. The Predator's main cannon can obliterate any ship that gets too close, and we can't destroy it if our ships can't get close enough to destroy it without getting blown out of the sky!"
"If we can get access to a boarding pod, Phiran and I might be able to take out that cannon from the inside, and maybe destroy the ship." Revan suggested.
"Launch a boarding pod containing a couple baradium warheads along with us, and we can set them up at the reactor core and set them to blow once we get off the ship!" Phiran suggested.
"It's a suicidal plan, but it may be our only hope." Staasi said "I'll have the Avenger prepare a couple of boarding pods."
"Here's one for the good guys!" Rohlan cheered. The Mandalorian/Jedi of Colin Cel-Drem roared in affirmation and swarmed out of the Mandalorian cruiser on Basilisks. Sith pilots found themselves plucked out of their cockpits and flung into their own carriers by giant metal arms and gunships were rammed by the beskar steeds which emerged with only a scratch to the paint.
"Colin, strafing run on that cruiser, stat!"
"Got it!" Jedi starfighters made tight corkscrews, diving between streams of cannon fire, letting it destroy Sith fighters that were tailing them. Rohlan's HUD map was of little use here: There was so much interference from the constant energy discharges and the way he kept on diving and spinning, all it showed was ERROR-ERROR. He ended up having to shut it off.
Several dark shadows sped past Rohlan. They opened fire and took out several Torrent fighters. "We got new bodies on the field." Rohlan warned his troops "Possibly part of Acheron's new attack force!" Suddenly, one of his fellow warriors dived behind Rohlan's war steed. A few moments later, the female Mandalorian was blown apart. Shocked, Rohlan realized that she had sacrificed herself for him. But the fighter that had killed her was still gunning for Rohlan. He urged his Basilisk forward as the new fighter unleashed a rack of missiles at him. Rohlan went into a corkscrew, causing most of the missiles to destroy one another as they tracked him, but several stayed on course.
Two missiles detonated close to Rohlan's Basilisk. The semi-sentient robotic war steed groaned as one of its rear legs was shorn off. Rohlan cursed and launched a missile at the turret that had done the amputation, but he was still mad. Roaring, he rammed his Basilisk into a Sith fighter. The pilot inside whimpered as a giant metal first smashed open his cockpit and flung him out into space.
"Boss, we can't outmaneuver those new ISF Interceptors!" Jax, a Field Marshal warned before his Basilisk was engulfed in a deadly stream of red disruptor bolts.
"All fighters be warned, these new guys are carrying lightsabers and are wearing space combat armor! They're-" Another Mandalorian went silent as he was beheaded.
Rohlan cursed. The new fighters that the Sith dumped at them were piloted by Force-sensitive Imperial pilots, some of whom were Sith cross-trained in fighter combat. Their faster, more maneuverable fighters were boxing in the slower Basilisks. What they didn't have for armor and shields, they made up with speed and laser cannons.
"Jump troopers, go! Take, take, take!" Their last resort, because the casualties would be so great, the jump troopers leaped out of airlocks and launch bays, propelled by thruster packs and carrying W-SPAK repeating blaster cannon rigs strapped to their chests. They opened fire, and the constant streams of plasma ripped apart enemy fighters.
Jedi flew amongst the troopers, their lightsabers useless against turbolaser fire. The jump troopers found themselves dying by the hundreds from stray or intentional cruiser fire and from collisions with fighters, enemy and friendly.
"Overseer to Bucket-Head, Overseer to Bucket-Head. Anti-fighter units on PRI-OBJ Target Delta-1138 have been disabled. Shields fluctuating. Initiate Breaking-and-Entering Attack Pattern. Prodigal and Geezer will be inserting, I repeat; Prodigal and Geezer will be inserting."
"Roger that!" Rohlan chuckled. "All units, this is Rohlan Dyre! The Predator's way of fighting us insects is currently offline! Swarm it!" He winced as his helmet absorbed the feedback from the cheering. The remaining Basilisks, jump troopers, and Jedi spiraled toward the Predator. The flagship of Darth Acheron was currently pummeling the Avenger and Veritas with its turbolasers. Veritas took two direct hits to its port engine and explosions ripped through that half of the ship, yet it kept on fighting.
Onboard the Avenger, the situation was tense. Five ships had lost life support and were evacuating. Eleven were destroyed. Another was torn in half, yet the crew that was still alive kept on manning the turrets. The Renegade and other light small vessels were faring better, their maneuverability sparing them from heavy bombardment. Currently, the Avenger was preparing to launch two insane Jedi on a nearly-impossible suicide mission where the odds of surviving, let alone success, were less than 15.4%, according to T3-M4. The vessel itself was suffering major damage from the Predator, and most of the other capital ships were being crushed as well.
The ground battle wasn't faring much better. The additional reinforcements of Jedi and Mandalorian warriors helped the soldiers fortify a position amongst the old construction equipment. But the Sith had unleashed their new toys: Sith guardsmen, Imperial commandos, and Sith Juggernauts bashed through tanks like foil every time the Torrent made an offensive.
"I'm getting too old for this." Phiran grumbled as he strapped himself into the ramming pod. An enhanced version of a boarding claw, it was basically a large box with a diagonally-sloped side on one end. On that side was a large square-shaped magnet that extended a few feet on any side of the box, giving it the appearance of a "You are here" map kiosk. Once the pod crashed into the hull, crawler/digger legs would extend and create a tunnel into the side wall of a corridor. Micro-cutters would slice a hole into the wall and the pod's occupants could jump into the corridor.
Personnel sealed the door to the secondary compartment of the ramming pod. Revan and Phiran were strapped in their seats in the primary compartment, which also served as a cockpit for situations where the pod could be jettisoned from the hull and maneuvering thrusters could provide just enough of a push to launch it towards an allied ship. Then the large bulkhead doors separating the preparation room from the launching bay slammed shut.
"Launching Boxer One in three…two…one…launch!" There was a loud whump on the other side of the bulkhead. Boxer One shot out of the Avenger with speeds that would tear a fighter apart.
"Launching Boxer Two in three…two…one-…."
"We have an unidentified mass approaching the launching bay at high speed!"
"Sith fighter. Looks damaged and out of-TAKE COVER!" The launch crew stumbled out of their seats. Only two made it through the emergency bulkheads before the fighter crashed into the bay…straight into Boxer Two and the baradium warheads strapped securely inside.
Even from the distance they had traveled, Revan and Phiran felt the shockwaves from the blast as their pod rocked and bounced, shrapnel pounding dents into their six-layer hull. "Boxer One, this is Staasi. Abort mission; we lost the warheads."
"Load up a couple more!" Phiran snapped.
"A Sith fighter careened into the launching bay. The launch slings are fried and the bulkhead to the pod storage bay were fused by the explosion…but none of that matters since the blast took out the launch control room. There's no more pods at the other bays for ramming tips to be attached to, and by the time we manually remove a pod from the storage bay of the launching bay you exited and insert it into another bay, it'll be a good three hours."
"Then we switch to Plan B." Revan chuckled.
"What's Plan B?"
"Improvisation!"
"…Staasi, tell my wife and children that I love them. And specifically for my wife; tell her she married a madman because he decided to trust the idea of 'making it up as we go along' from another madman."
"Will do, sir. Good luck; Staasi out."
Next chapter coming soon!