-Jitos Syndicate Base, Saiccano, 7:40 Turo Standard Time-
Jumba watched the Durgon cleave through the shield and create an opening for several thousand Armada fighters to break through. "The Federation will be here soon." He announced.
"Really?" Spec growled. "I hadn't noticed." She looked at one of her subordinates. "You. Tell me: how many of the anti-spacecraft guns are up and running?"
"Tw-two hundred, ma'am."
"That won't be enough, Alci."
"You really are stating the obvious a lot today, aren't you, Jumba?" Spec let out a sigh and reclined in her chair. "It might not be able to chase the bastards off, but it can still put a dent in their army." She switched on the comms. "Gunners, to your posts at once and be prepared to fire. Focus on the larger ships as much as you can – those smaller ones can't do much damage to a volcano. Compared everything else the Armada's throwing at us, they're just little gnats." She paused for a moment, thinking. "That being said, if any of the little fighters get a bit too uppity or buzz around more than the others, feel free to take them out."
Jumba watched her for a moment before returning his gaze to the battle. Like as not, one of those 'little gnats' was 626; Jumba wondered which one. Where are you, my failed creation? How are you faring, now that your great battleship has been removed from playing board? Jumba turned and started to leave the command room.
"Hell are you going?" Spec called after him.
Jumba shrugged. "If battle on planet is starting soon, it will be time for Leroy to come out and play."
The space around them thudded with laser blasts, shaking the transport from side-to-side, but so far they had been fortunate enough to escape any real damage: not that Spon expected that to last much longer, considering the frequency with which the viewports lit up and glowed bright yellow. He looked down at Lilo, whose hands were wrapped around his waist.
"How are you holding up?"
She was scared, that much was plain, but nevertheless she seemed a lot calmer than he would have expected as she glanced up at him. "I'm fine." Another blast shook the transport, and Lilo winced. "But how much longer is this gonna go on for?"
"Until we make planetside. Then we'll at least be out range of whatever's responsible for all these explosions."
"If we make planetside." Someone added gloomily.
"We'll make it." Spon tried to give Lilo a confidence he wasn't exactly feeling himself.
They continued downwards, through explosion after explosion, the transport shuddering all the while.
In the space around them, the Armada did battle with both the cannons and the agile Tercan crafts. "Why don't these blasted things ever give up!" Someone shouted as a pair of Tercans followed them through evasive maneuver after evasive maneuver.
"Stay calm over there – I'll help as soon as I can." 626 gritted his teeth and fought to shake off his own pursuer. Tricky little fellow, aren't you? Maybe if I get a little distance, I can think Sure enough the enemy craft dropped back a little, but that was it, and he knew that the odds of him managing to outmaneuver them were rather low. Unless I… He sped up a bit, hoping to entice his pursuer into doing the same, and then slowed down below his original speed. Then, hoping and praying that this would actually work, he pulled up. He yanked back the stick as far as it could go and slammed on the thrusters and was rewarded by pointing straight up and back and lifting ever so slightly above his original altitude, causing his pursuer to overshoot and pass under him. Yes!
Before they could react 626 immediately leveled out in order to take the shot, reducing his former pursuer to a ball fire in front of him. 626 looked around in order to spot whoever had just radioed, found them, and zoomed off to help. Four quick shots later, one of the Tercans plummeted to Saiccano and the other broke off to regroup. They never got the chance, for as 626 was moving to see if he could engage them an Armada cruiser blew them out of the sky.
The radio crackled to life. "Thanks, soldier. I owe ya a million. What's your name?"
"Experiment 626." He pulled up alongside the rescued pilot and threw him a salute. "Watch your back out there."
"What's got you all cheesy all of a sudden?" Adon had been listening in, apparently. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter all that much when we've got bigger fish to fry. You know those cannons they have? The ones that haven't been focusing on us much?"
"Let me guess: they're stopping the troop transports from descending and we need to get rid of them."
"Exactly. Now c'mon – we've got work to do."
Joined soon by Dixon – which caused 626 to have to forcibly suppress a groan – and three other pilots, they broke off from the cluster of dogfights and headed towards their new targets. As the highest ranking one present, Adon issued them their orders:
"You two in the green fighters – take that cannon to your starboard. Blue, I want you paired up with Black Nine, the one piloted by the Raptrian and take the one to port. Black Six, go with red and take the one ahead of us. I'll get the one beyond that."
"Roger, ma'am." 626 and red disengaged from their formation as the others did the same and zoomed forwards. The cannon swiveled around to meet its new foes, forcing the two of them to pull up. As they did so, Adon flew overhead.
"We need to flank it." Red announced as xe banked to avoid cannon fire. "You go right I go left?"
"Works for me." The two dove back down, separating and each taking one side of their target. The cannon whirled around to face 626 in order to shoot him, realized its error and tried to compensate by spinning the other way –
- and was promptly blasted with red's guns as xir fighter flew forwards.
"Well, that went swimmingly." 626 took the chance to scan around; where once there had been four cannons, now there was only one, and from the look of things Adon was about to change that number to a zero. "What now?"
Red shrugged. "Wait for further orders?"
There was an explosion signifying that Adon had eliminated the last cannon, and shortly afterwards her voice came over the comms. "We've got the area cleared out, and others are doing the same with other groups of cannons. Now we need to escort the transports down to the surface.
The hallway turned dark red as Jumba ran towards Leroy's containment unit. Battle is not going well, I imagine. By now the Federation had likely started the process of clearing the airspace for their own crafts to land, destroying all the cannons that they could without anything in their way but little fighters and Tercan ships. I knew we shouldn't have placed all our capital ships in high orbit. If only Alci had listened to him and not been set on her own plan, this would not be happening, he was sure. No sense crying over spilled milk, I suppose. Once he unleashed Leroy, the Federation could send all the fools they wanted; it would just be more meat for his experiment. Except for 626, perhaps.
He reached Leroy's cell and found his creation scrabbling around inside of it. Upon seeing Jumba Leroy immediately froze and turned to face him. "Gaba?" What?
"It is time, Leroy. I need you to fight and kill for good of galaxy. The Federation is invading, and you need to stop them."
"Baaheth jihadi? Meega?" Fight? Me? For half a second a look of horror and fear passed across Leroy's face before the experiment shook its head as if to dispel a thought. A maniacal grin appeared soon after. "Ih! Meega nala queesta!" Yes! I will destroy!
Jumba opened the cell door and handed Leroy a pair of plasma blasters. Leroy slotted them in their holsters and bounded off, cackling it went. As it went down the hallway the experiment admonished itself.
Don't show weakness! Don't! Don't! KILL! You must! It is your purpose!
But the other…
SHUT UP!
There was no time for weakness. Not now, not ever. The master had made that very clear. Even if it encountered the other one. Especially if it encountered the other one.
The troop transport made it to the landing pad more or less unharmed, and 626 and Dixon landed alongside it. As the Federation soldiers poured out 626 decided to bite the bullet and talk to his former rival.
But what in space can I possibly say? "It seems that they've landed without suffering any casualties."
"I can see that." Dixon grunted. "Can you see who's in charge?"
626 craned his neck. "No, I can't. Wait, actually, scratch that – it's…Obrea?" He's down here?
"You two know each other?"
"Yeah. He was the first person I ever met in the Federation, and since then he's –"
"Spare me the details. I get it. Now are you going to gawk, or help the rest of us actually win this battle?" Dixon took off and returned to the fray.
626 took one more look at Obrea and sped off to join him. You still have your own job to do. That job, as he could have expected, was to escort another transport down to the surface. This time he was alongside red, who contacted him as soon as they formed up.
"Be careful with this transport." Xe warned. "Adon said this one had the little civilian girl aboard."
626's heart leapt to his throat. "Lilo's there?"
"That's her name?"
"Yep." Damn it, of all the ships she had to choose one headed right for the surface. "Thanks for letting me know."
"Just don't let it compromise your focus."
"Roger that."
The three ships flew down towards the surface relatively unmolested. The chosen landing site for the transport had been cleared of all potential obstacles, leaving a few stray fighters as the only potential trouble. A pair of them had already singled them out, 626 noticed, and he jetted forwards to go on the offensive. By now he knew the drill easily enough.
Except that with this pair, things went a bit differently: they advanced in parallel, as expected, but suddenly one of them stalled and pointed upwards while the other continued forwards. Wait, what? 626 blinked in confusion before shaking his head. Focus on that one later. Take the one going forwards first.
626 fired off a couple of shots, which the other pilot dodged by banking hard to their port. 626 mirrored their movement, turning his own fighter ninety degrees, and readied to unload another salvo.
Without warning, the space above his tail erupted into laserfire. Damn it! He'd forgotten the other pilot! 626 immediately broke off his pursuit and tried to level himself, but the shots kept coming, and now the other pilot had joined in. Shortly afterwards, 626 felt something he'd been dreading the entire battle: the shuddering thud signifying a hit.
He looked at his computer and took stock of the damage. It had been just a grazing blow to starboard, but from the looks of it the engines over there had taken all of the abuse, and the experiment had no doubt that soon they would go offline.
He growled and shifted the stick upwards. He would have to land, but before he did he would pay his attackers back in kind. They had formed back up behind him, so 626 forced the starboard engines to do one last snap-back before they went offline. Then, before the other pilots could react, 626 fired, blasting one of them out to the sky and forcing the other to take evasive action.
The engines then started to fail, so 626 contacted red. "I took a hit. It's not bad, but I'm going to be grounded. If possible, my intent is to land with the transport."
"Understood." Xe replied. "I'll cover you best I can."
The landing, if not exactly graceful, was at least better than the one back on Kaua'i, and 626 managed to bring his fighter down without even scratching much of the paint. Once he had landed 626 received his plasma guns, opened the hatch, and stepped out into the blazing heat.
The Armada transport touched down a minute or so later, and the soldiers inside wasted no time in exiting. Upon seeing 626 their commander leveled his own cannon at the experiment, who just sighed and raised his own paws in the air.
"Identify yourself!" The commander barked.
"Senior Airman Experiment 626. My fighter's disabled, so it would be my pleasure to join you."
"He is fireproof, sir." Someone added.
The commander lowered his weapon. "Very well. Welcome to the group." He turned back to the soldiers and started shouting orders. "Secure the landing platform! Once the next transport lands we're going in!"
As the soldiers continued filing out they immediately started taking up defensive positions, and as they did so 626 watched and waited for Lilo to appear. When she finally made her way out of the transport, she was in the company of a very familiar Amuan, who saw 626 and jogged over.
Spon opened his mouth, but 626 cut him off before he could speak. "Are you out of your kriffing mind? This is a war zone!"
"I couldn't just leave her on the Durgon! The thing was about to blow!"
"You could have gotten her to an escape pod!"
"There – wasn't – time!"
"STOP IT, BOTH OF YOU!" Lilo shouted at the top of her lungs, causing both Spon and 626 to shut up and stare at her. "Not the time!"
Chastened, the two stared at each other. "Just keep her safe, alright?" 626 looked his friend straight in the eye.
"We both will."
As they spoke the next transport came in for a landing. After all of its soldiers had disembarked the commander of Spon's transport gave to order to advance. All the soldiers formed up, with 626, Lilo, and Spon in the rear, and began moving out.
"Got my six?" Spon asked.
"Always." You and Lilo both. Come to think of it, maybe this was the best-case scenario: this way he could both keep an eye on Lilo and for Leroy.
Leroy watched the soldiers make their way across the landing pad. Where is the other one? Is he here? Is he attacking? It scanned the front, scanned the sides, scanned the back. Yes! I see him! In the back! Leroy laughed and jumped down.
"Stop right there!" Someone yelled. Leroy whirled around and came face-to-face with a man in a uniform slightly different from the ones the rest of his Armada friends wore. A commando. Master warned me about them.
The commando continued to drone on. "In the name of the Federation, surrender yourself! I'll give you until the count of three. One…two…"
Leroy hurled itself at the commando and knocked him on the ground, swatting his gun out of reach with one set of hands while ripping off his helmet with the other. With a cackle Leroy brought all four of his fists down on the soldier's head, over and over and over, listening to the sweet wet sound as the commando's face began to liquefy.
"No…please…mercy…" He begged after a dozen or so hits.
Leroy froze. Mercy? Maybe I should…if he surrendered it would be good of me to…NO! NO MERCY! MASTER WILL BE ANGRY! KILL HIM!
Leroy placed its arms around the commando's neck and snapped it. His body fell to the ground, lifeless, as Leroy walked over to the discarded cannon and took a hold of it. It was strange: killing felt good, as Master had said it ought to, but at the same time Leroy had the slightest nagging feeling of guilt.
There was no time to dwell on that bit of weakness. He had a battle to fight.