Tonight... Clones wear long-underwear. A small boy throws a stone. And a hunter's crosshair tech makes a real wrecker of your day.
-Chapter 134: A Reversal of Fortunes-
Location: Fest
"If at first you don't succeed, use more explosives."
Sitting alone in his private meditation chamber, Yoda sat cross-legged before a hologram of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The bearded Jedi was reporting directly from his cruiser after the recovery of the wayward Gathering initiates.
"Telling, you think, young Petro's comment was." He mused in summary.
"Perhaps so, Master. I cannot be certain, but the way he recalls Ahsoka and Dynnal fighting side by side... I've only heard Anakin's report from the Parnassos incident, but his description about their synergy seems to appropriately fit the scene these Younglings bore witness to."
"Do about this, what will you?" Yoda inquired.
"I'm not entirely sure. The word of these initiates is one thing, but there has got to be more evidence. For the moment, I doubt wholeheartedly that Dynnal is in fact The Wraith. But I cannot shake the apparent coincidence."
"Coincidence, Master Obi-Wan?"
"The Wraith disappears completely and then a few weeks later, Corsair walks into the Council chambers with Dynnal in tow." "Surely I must be drawing too many conclusions."
"Trust in the Force, Master Obi-Wan. Guide you, it will. Seek it, you must."
"Yes, I suppose I must do more of that." Obi-Wan agreed. "Forget what I said, Master Yoda. Dynnal is too great a help to be The Wraith. The way the Younglings emphatically described him, he seems to be more willing to aid us than any other Titan."
"Agreeable that is." Yoda concurred. The two Jedi finalized their conversation before the hologram winked out and Yoda was left alone again. For a moment, he dwelt on Obi-Wan's findings. While the Council could not sense any Force-sensitivity within Dynnal, his very essence was far brighter and more natural than Wraith's had ever been. Even still, Yoda allowed himself the slightest of smiles. "Agreeable, that is, to have a super-soldier aiding us." He mused aloud.
Elsewhere in the galaxy...
Located in the Atrivis sector in the Outer Rim, Fest was a cold and desolate world, covered in snow and ice from pole to pole. Yet those who lived and survived on this barren planet were very loyal to the Confederacy of Independent Systems, namely those who worked in the factories and refineries manufacturing goods and materials to help the war movement as well as the Separatists' own research centre . For that very reason, the Republic was here to put an end to these efforts and deprive the Separatists of another resource.
Considering the staunch loyalty of the locals and the necessity of the goods they produced, the Separatist made to answer immediately and they sent an army... an army of three.
Standing just outside a research compound, as a light snow cascaded around him, Reaper stood still as he conversed with the distant Banshee over holocom.
"You are certain of this?" He clarified in a quiet, simple tone. The helmeted Banshee nodded in affirmation.
"There's no way it wasn't him. From the times he and I sparred, I got to memorize part of his technique. There's no way anyone else can fight like that... even if it was a little sloppy." She stated confidently.
"That would add up with what I found in the Separatist database. The images I captured from Onderon were a near-perfect match to his file." Reaper added, drawing a conclusion he was not comfortable with but had chosen to accept long before this conversation. The silence between them was broken by Banshee's growling.
"If he's betrayed us, then we need to find him and kill him." She determined. But Reaper shook his head.
"No. We should not. We need to capture him, alive." He countered.
"Why? He's betrayed us, Reaper! Give me one, just one, really damn good reason why I shouldn't start hunting him down!" She snapped. Reaper's grey eyes narrowed.
"You're the one always saying the strong get to advance while the weak fall behind. That is your opinion of the Republic and the Confederacy is it not?" He questioned. Banshee simply nodded in response. "Without Wraith, the Confederacy's advancement is in question." The Umbaran paused, reflected on his words, then shook her head.
"I don't understand."
"You will. Given time." With that, Reaper ended the call and tucked the communicator back into his belt. Releasing a heavy sigh, Cai ran a gloved hand through his hair, brushing off the snow that had accumulated. Dealing with Banshee was proving to be more of a chore than anything these days. Her stubborn approach to life, firmly rooted in Umbaran beliefs and the culture she was raised in, was a move contrary to the sense of unity and equality the Separatists were supposed to be instilling. At the rate she was going, she deemed every other super-soldier inferior to her and none of them had the means, by Umbaran standards, to surpass her. Was it she was not military enough? She hadn't had a sense of regimen drilled into her, just combat and battle skills. Cai had been fortunate to grow up in a family dedicated to unity and togetherness, Banshee had been raised in a cutthroat society where backstabbing was commonplace. If you didn't like who was in your way, you removed them however easiest.
His thoughts slowed as the crunching of hurried footsteps pounded through the snow before the pitched breathing of someone nearly out of breath registered with him. Turning to his right, Reaper took note of a small boy racing towards him, his cheeks red and breathing heavily. The super-soldier dropped to his knees.
"I... saw them!" The boy exclaimed between gasps. "They're... coming from... the mountains."
"How many did you see?" Reaper gently asked. The boy shook his head, thick dark locks of hair waving about with his wild motions.
"I couldn't see... any. It's snowing harder... where they are." He answered. Reaper took that in stride and made a mental note to use his thermal scanners most of them time.
"What were you able to see?" He asked in the same calming tone.
"Their armor... blended in really good... but I saw... blue on... some of them." The boy hurriedly explained. The color indicated to the super-soldier that the 501st had come to Fest and he filed that information away. But then, seeing the boy's panting and gasping expression, Reaper placed his hands on his diminutive shoulders and smiled a little.
"Breathe, young Andor. A good scout doesn't need to get his report out in one breath." He instructed. The boy paused and took his advice, slowly his pace and taking deep breaths until he was even.
"Yes sir. Sorry sir." He apologized. Reaper just smiled.
"That's quite alright. Now, you said they were coming from the mountains?" He queried. The boy nodded.
"That way." He said, pointing over Reaper's shoulder. "They haven't reached the fuel station yet." Pinpointing each location on a mental map, Reaper was already drawing up battle plans.
"That's good news." He said, patting the boy on his shoulders.
"I-I saw something else, on my way back." He quickly added, grabbing Reaper's attention.
"What was it?"
"A ship. It was closer to the canyon." Thinking for a moment, Reaper lifted his forearm and triggered a holoprojector, revealing the image of a Republic dropship.
"Did it look like this?" He asked. To his surprise, the boy shook his head.
"It was bigger a-and dark." The vague description did not match anything in Reaper's mental database, usually the Republic was pretty obvious with its color scheme of red and white. Dark meant something else entirely, something he needed to tend to immediately.
"Thank you, Cassian." He thanked the boy, making to stand. "Run along now, little boys are not yet soldiers." He said, urging him to leave before the battle got started.
"Mister Reaper?" Cassian's young voice gave him pause and the super-soldier slowly turned back. "Where's Wraith? Is he coming back?" Cassian's eyes were wide and hopeful, the kind of which appeared only when he was referring to someone of great importance. Clearly, Wraith was something of an icon to this boy and his disappearance had taken a toll. Knowing the hard truth he and Banshee had so recently discovered, Reaper decided he simply could not tell him the truth.
"Wraith was... badly hurt after his last mission. He's still recovering." He lied. "He will come back, I promise." His assurance seemed to be enough for Cassian and the boy gave a slow nod before turning and running away. Reaper watched him go, deeply wishing he could believe his own words.
The super-soldier returned to the steely hall of the research centre, the grey armored forms of his cohorts for this mission, Phantom and Ghost, waiting for him in relaxed positions as they leaned against the walls.
"It's a dry cold, you know? Not biting or chilling you to the bone." Phantom was saying.
"It's alright. Still, I wouldn't wanna live here." Ghost replied. "Snow and ice all year round and the season never changes? Gross." Their chatter died down the instant Reaper arrived, the two female super-soldiers moving to their feet. "What's the plan?" Ghost asked. Reaper took a moment to don his helmet before he powered up a holomap using the same projector on his arm.
"The Republic's Five-Oh-First Legion was spotted moving in from the northwest." He described, quickly pointing to the mountain regions. "Our best bet to intercept them would be here, at this fuel depot. It's been abandoned, meaning the two of you will have the run of the place." Outlining the plan.
"Sounds simple enough. Can't wait to start turning the snow red." Phantom gleefully mused, cracking her knuckles.
"Wait, you said the two of us. What about you?" Ghost asked.
"My local informant tells me another ship has made landfall to the northeast, near this canyon. I'm not sure who or what this is, but I'm going to investigate. If it proves to be nothing, I'll come and help you mop up what's left." Reaper responded, shutting down the map. Ghost gave a quick nod.
"Understood."
"The weather is slowly deteriorating as the Republic advances, a front is moving in. Make sure to use your thermal sensors as often as possible, they'll be your biggest advantage over the Republic. Without them, their armor means they'll blend right in with the surroundings."
"Aw, I hate having to cat-and-mouse it. Gimme a good ol' firefight any day." Phantom complained.
"You're bound to get your wish, Phantom." Reaper told her. "Now move out. You've got to hold that depot and keep the Republic from advancing any further."
Later...
Captain Rex was perfectly fine with snow, even blowing snow whipped up by heavy winds, that was no problem. Especially when his special 'snowtrooper' armor kept him both insulated against the cold and fully function in the extreme weather conditions. What he hated was how his mechanical arm acted up all the time whenever the weather wasn't 'normal'. The creaking and groaning of electrical mechanics grinding away at each other constantly got on his nerves and no amount of anti-stick thermogel was working. Sure, his arm still worked like normal, but it was during times like these where he could just tell it was a mechanical limb and not an organic one.
Gripes aside, Fest had so far been nothing new for the Torrent Company Captain. Having already participated in missions to Orto Plutonia and other snow-covered worlds, Fest was no trouble at all. To him, maybe, as for the rest of his men...
"Who in their right mind would wanna live on an iceball like this?" Sixshot complained.
"Aw, what's the matter Sixshot? Is it too cold for you?" Backlog teased.
"No, it's not the cold. He's got snow in his boots." Ransack explained, the Clones collectively chuckling at their brothers' misfortune.
"It's not my fault these damn seals keep coming apart." Sixshot grumbled. "And I thought these bodygloves were supposed to be insulated?"
"They are."
"When you wear them properly." Another round of chuckling and Rex cracked a smile beneath his helmet. Part of him wished Ahsoka were here to help command this operation, then they could all be one large... he supposed 'family' wasn't entirely the right word, although there was a very familial comraderie that existed among them. Each one of these men held Ahsoka in high regard, like a kid sister hitting the big time. They'd all willfully follow her into whatever hell the Separatists could create, and he would lead the charge gladly. But considering she was chaperoning Jedi younglings at the moment, he supposed there would be another chance down the road.
In the meanwhile, he had to focus. General Skywalker had entrusted him with leading his men in the second of a twofold assault. While Anakin and Appo led a unit to destroy what was commonly known as 'Refinery Row', Rex and Tempest Company were to destroy the special Separatist research lab manufacturing the Phrik super metal, a composite believed to be a key component in super-soldier armor. If that put a damper on their efforts to churn out more 'Clone killers' then he was all for it.
"Jolt, sit rep." The Clone lieutenant quickly strode up beside him, wearing matching snowtrooper armor.
"We're less than a klik out from the fuel depot we scouted earlier. We could set up shop there for a moment and devise our way into the research facility. There's still that village to worry about, I suspect the locals will be none too pleased by our efforts." Jolt reported.
"Yeah, I figured as much. That's why we need to do this quick and quiet, pull the rug out from under them." Rex affirmed. "Let's set up within the depot and get our bearings, but we should use this weather for cover while we can. Might help make our job a lot easier." He added, glancing up at the grey sky and the winds churning up the falling snow into a near-blizzard. Turning around, he beckoned the company onwards and the Clones kept trudging through the snow and ice. Reverb nearly slipped on a smooth patch, but quickly recovered thanks to the spikey grips of his boots.
"Looks like my gear is working. Wonder what's wrong with Sixshot's?" He asked aloud.
"Oh shut it." Sixshot huffed, earning another round of laughter from the rest of the Company.
The sounds of their mirth abruptly died when something metallic rolled across the ground. Jolt got a very brief glance at the object in question and, beneath his helmet, his eyes grew wide with fright.
"Grenade! Get down!" He cried, grabbing Rex and throwing him to the ground as the rest of the company jumped away from the device before it promptly detonated with a fairly powerful explosion for its size. Bits of frozen rock and shards of shattered ice rained down on the Clones, all of them seemingly unhurt if only a little rattled by the explosion. His helmet allowing him to compensate slightly for the deafening noise, Rex shook his head and picked himself up, giving Jolt a nudge as he did.
"You alright?"
"Think so." The lieutenant replied as he shrugged off the shockwave that had laid him out flat. He triggered his private comms, his message quickly transferred to all the Clones in the company. "Sound off, gentlemen. Show me some life-signs."
"All clear, sir." A trooper called Haze quickly responded. Jolt turned and saw him rise to his feet, stretching and rolling his shoulders as he shrugged off the explosion. He was a shiny, one of the new Clones assigned to the unit. His test scores showed he had ARC trooper potential and Jolt was keen to see if he succeeded. A trio of red laser rounds suddenly riddled his torso and Haze fell over, putting the whole company on alert. Rex jerked his head in the direction the shots came from and spotted a set of red optics emerging from the blowing snow. He'd seen similar sets many times before, the sight practically etched into his memory, and he knew what it meant.
"Super-soldiers!" He cried out in warning. "Scatter! Get to cover!" Tempest Company scrambled to obey, more shots streaking through the air and striking the snow, one or two pegging a Clone trooper and dropping them with a cry. Spotting a series of rocks, Rex dove behind them as Jolt followed suit, both of them drawing their DC blasters. Reverb and Ransack quickly joined them behind their cover as the rest of the company found other, similar rocks to hide behind.
"I knew they were in the briefing but I was really, really hoping...!" Reverb griped as blaster rounds peppered the other side of the rock. They all heard the tink of a metal object striking the rock just before another explosion rocked them. Clearly their enemy was packing heavy weaponry to boot.
"Now that they're here, we'll just have to deal with them." Rex told him, pistols in hand.
"Return fire! Keep 'em on their toes!" Jolt ordered, all of them popping over the rock and blitzing the super-soldiers with a hail of blue bolts. The blowing snow hindered most of their appearances, but their optics glowed brightly and offered some targetable characteristics to track and Rex quickly took note of their designs. One of them had two pinpricks of red, set like eyes in a skull-shaped mask, while the other had their entire face taken up by a large red screen that glowed. That one moved the quickest, bounding left and right as they opened fire. At a loss for names, Rex was determined to look them up to learn what their capabilities were.
"Two of them... stars above, how're we gonna handle two of them? One's bad enough!" Ransack asked. To punctuate his words, another explosion sent ice and rock raining down on top of them.
"We stay in this fight as long as we can." Rex answered. "Try to find a weak point!" With a renewed sense of vigor, the Clones popped up and returned fire, shelling the super-soldiers with whatever firepower their weapons could crank out.
From their positions, Ghost and Phantom were not bothered in the slightest. Every blue bolt that came their way merely ricocheted off their armor, leaving a simple, cleanable scorch mark behind. Ghost paused as she reloaded her Relby-v10 with more micro-grenades and made a mental note to thank the eggheads behind her program for developing something so durable yet not clunky. She crouched near the ground, while Phantom, true to her athletic capabilities as a Terrelian Jango Jumper, vaulted around the ground in a side to side pattern, mixing up slides and arc-jumps as she peppered the Clones with her arm cannons.
"Look at 'em: all bunched up and ripe for the kill." Phantom chuckled. "Whaddya say? Wanna move in and dismantle the lot of 'em?" She asked Ghost.
"Nah, lets savour it. We'll just keep them busy long enough for the research centre to lock up tight. Besides, it's a lot more fun to kill them one by one. You can feel their hopes die as their numbers dwindle." Her partner answered as she slotted a final grenade into the launcher.
"You know, you're real twisted when you wanna be." Phantom finally commented.
"Is my slow death wish any different from your blood-and-guts death wish?" Ghost inquired, tilting her head. Phantom paused and shrugged.
"Guess not." She relented. Together they resumed firing, Phantom downing a trio of Clones in quick succession as Ghost arced her next shot so the grenade blew the remains of several Clones into the air when it detonated. Tired of being shot at, Sixshot stood up with his favourite rotary cannon in hand and spooled up the barrels.
"At least this gear's working!" He cackled to his brothers, promptly unleashing a stream of blue rounds that led like a line from him to the super-soldiers. "Come and get some!" He bellowed. He raked his stream left and right, Ghost and Phantom rolling away as scattered rounds peppered their armor. They could handle it, but weren't in the mood to test how long they could endure sustained fire.
"Divide his focus!" Ghost growled into her comms, she and Phantom splitting up further and forcing Sixshot to pick whom he'd fire at. Rex, meanwhile, signalled to two of his men to step back into the blowing snow and use their longblasters to try and land some harder hits while they were blind to the super-soldiers. He watched them move and depart their cover, sprinting around the perimeter of the battle, only to be swiftly felled by Phantom as she turned on a dime and fired, twin rounds slamming into the Clones' heads and killing them instantly.
"It's like they know exactly where we are!" Backlog cried out in frustration. Rex paused and tried to work things out. The only reason why they could still track them is if they had some additional tracking systems installed in their HUDs. If their helmets worked anything like a Clones', but with a few extras installed, then-
A sudden thought came to him, an idea that was incredibly plausible. He then dreamt up an idea on the spot that was so genius he nearly patted himself on the back.
"Jolt, Ransack, do we have any portable heaters?" He quickly asked.
"One or two, yeah." The medic answered.
"Quick, get 'em up and running! And spread 'em out amongst us." Rex instructed. Doing as told, Jolt and Ransack prepared the box heat-producing devices, discovering they actually had four, before tossing them down the line, spacing them out amongst the Company. While the men were confused by the plan, they rolled with it and continued to fire on the super-soldiers.
Phantom and Ghost slowed their assault, their once clear thermal readings now muddled by vast swaths of heat enveloping the Clones until they couldn't tell one form from another.
"Ugh! Thermal isn't working anymore!" Phantom complained as a round pinged off her helmet.
"The hell... where'd all that heat come from?" Ghost wondered aloud.
"They've gotten smart... I'll give 'em that. Switching to infrared." Phantom muttered, toggling her scanners to infrared. With the blowing snow, thermal helped identify the Clones with red and yellow auras amid the dark blue around them. Now, with infrared, she could just make out their shapes amid their cover. "Ghost, blow those rocks to pieces! I want their whole defence littered with explosives." She quickly tasked.
"Can do." Ghost responded, slinging her Relby by her side as she slid open a cover on her gauntlets to reveal a matching pair of micro-missile launchers. Taking aim at the far left rock emplacement, as near as she could tell, Ghost clenched her fist and fired a single warhead. The impact resulted in a deafening explosion that tore apart the front of the rocks, thinning the Clones' cover by half.
"Kriffin' hell!" Reverb exclaimed as he recovered. "You think we made 'em mad?" He joked.
"We won't last long against that kind of firepower, Captain!" Ransack shouted over the din of another explosion as he tended to a wounded Clone. "We need support and we need it now." He added in a lower tone once the ringing died down. Rex thought for a moment and wished once more that Ahsoka was here. She would've changed the course of this fight drastically. But Ahsoka was not here, and they had to make due with what they had. It was then, that another idea came to him.
"Yeah... yeah we do." He said slowly, responding to Ransack. He then turned to the lieutenant beside him. "Jolt! Can we get a signal back to the cruiser?" He asked. Jolt quickly caught on to his idea.
"I'm sure one of the boys has a strong enough antenna!" He replied, quickly sending a com through the ranks.
Above Fest, a single Venator cruiser hovered in stationary position over the planet, keeping tabs on the progress of each of the ground teams. Admiral Yularen stood still as he monitored the progress, noting how Anakin had reported in great success in taking the first of several refineries. Rex however had yet to check in and Tempest Company's position on the holomap had yet to be marked. Yularen was yet to be concerned, Rex was probably taking this mission slowly and carefully as it required a degree of stealth and caution compared to Anakin's forward assault. The plan was for Anakin to make a big noise destroying the refineries to draw in Separatist forces, leaving the research centre open to attack from Tempest Company.
So far, all was proceeding according to plan... seemingly.
"Admiral, we're receiving a communication from the surface." One of the pit officers suddenly informed him. Striding over, Yularen listened in as the familiar voice of a Clone filtered through.
"This is Captain Rex of Tempest Company! We are pinned down by super-soldiers and are under heavy fire, northwest of fuel depot Bek-Dorn-niner-niner!" Yularen's expression shifted ever so slightly as the Captain repeated his situation status. "We need gunships on station ASAP!" He then added.
"They left their heavies behind it would seem." Yularen mused. His mechanical hand flexed, a reminder of his close encounter with The Wraith. He motioned for the officer to respond.
"Acknowledged Captain. Define quantity of opponents."
"Figures two super-soldiers. Repeat, two super-soldiers." Rex affirmed. The officer turned back to Yularen.
"Two of them. Heavily armed and armored." He commented.
"Agreed, it sounds as if he's having some trouble." Yularen responded. "If Captain Rex is being forcibly delayed in meeting his goals then we must oblige his request. That research centre must be destroyed." He determined. "Stay in contact with him, assure him that help is en route and that we need all the details he can give us." Yularen ordered.
"Yes sir." The Admiral then turned to another officer, the one in charge of coordinating the Venator's hangar.
"Roll out strike package Aurek on confirmed targets, authenticate units Osk and Trill for danger-close fire mission. Prep to leave, time fifteen-twenty." He instructed.
"Right away Admiral!"
Orders quickly traveled through the cruiser, Clone pilots mobilizing in the hangar bay as two LAAT gunships were prepped for immediate deployment. Flight crews scampered about as two transports were armed and prepped, engines powering up and weapon relays locking into place. Normally these transports would ferry ground troops as well as small armored divisions to the planet's surface. This time, however, all they would be carrying were trained, accurate gunners.
The assault crews mounted up into two transports, versions with two additional composite-beam pinpoint turrets for extra firepower. The pilots had the engines humming in moments and maneuvered into the launch bay as the massive overhead doors opened up to reveal the curving crest of Fest just beyond them. Leaving the Venator behind, the twin LAATs rocketed forward towards the white/grey world.
"Command this is gunships Osk fifty-four and Trill seventy-six standing by." The leading pilot reported.
"Copy gunships. Cleared to proceed to surface. Confirmed by command, weapons op is a go. Advance to Killbox One Aurek, grid five-seven-five-two-two point zero-three-one, friendlies in the area." The command officer responded.
"Confirmed, Oh-five-four and Tee-seven-six moving on Killbox One Aurek, danger-close. Tell Company to get small." The pilot responded, the information shared with his wingman as the two made a rapid descent towards Fest.
Using Sounder's enhanced communications equipment, Rex had been able to call the cruiser through the deteriorating weather as Tempest Company continued to hassle the super-soldiers. Meanwhile, Backlog fished around his equipment belt for a single piece of supply, soon withdrawing his hand with a special smoke grenade in his grip.
"Got one on me, Cap!" He quickly told Rex, priming the charge.
"Account for the wind, let 'er rip!" Rex ordered, watching as Backlog tossed the grenade out into the open with hard overhead pitch. Clouds of blue smoke, the same shade as the markings on their armor, began to puff up into the air as the device skittered to a halt. "Confirm twenty-man company, northeast of blue smoke!" Rex stated into the comms, which was now triple-linked between himself, the commanding officers on the Venator and the gunship pilots.
"Copy that, Tempest." The pilot responded. "Command, friendlies confirmed, advancing on Killbox One Aurek. Engaging hostiles." He then reported, veering into the wind as his craft shuddered from the blustering gale around him.
"Attack direction north, you're cleared hot!" Rex affirmed. He turned from his comms and looked towards Jolt as he rallied the rest of the company to collectively fire on the super-soldiers. "Jolt! Heat's coming!" He shouted over the din of blasterfire. Jolt nodded and signalled to the men.
"Everyone get small! Laze the targets!" He ordered, each Clone picking a target and opening fire to form a steady stream of blasterfire attacking each super-soldier. From above, they formed near-perfect triangles that glowed blue amid the harsh weather. Meanwhile, Two-Two drew a secondary pistol from his pack, took aim at the slower-moving Ghost, and fired a tracking dart that magnetically clung to her armour.
"Tracking live, sir!" He called to Rex.
"Good work soldier. Latties! Targets are marked, we're getting small!" His captain quickly relayed to the gunships. Soon, he and the other two joined their brothers, weapons drawn and firing away at the super-soldiers.
"Sixshot! Whatever you do, do not release that trigger! Give 'em something to look for!" Rex ordered his heavy gunner.
"Can do, Cap!" Sixshot replied, turning his gun on Phantom and unleashing a steady stream that tracked her motions. They all collectively heard the humming whine of a gunship's engines bearing down on them.
"Heat's coming in! Hold steady!" Rex ordered his men, Tempest Company pressing their attack in turn. Despite their efforts, Ghost and Phantom refused to let up, counterattacking and killing several Clones in the process. But the Clones persevered and persisted, buying themselves just enough time until the gunships streaked in from their side, forcing the two super-soldiers to break off their attack and turn their focus towards this newest threat.
Even at a distance, the gunships wasted no time executing a 1-2 assault; the first leading the charge with a heavy strafing run which was followed up by an equal run from the second. The two forward anti-personnel turrets drew a line of fire across the super-soldiers' position, kicking up a cloud of snow and ice and pelting the two with high-grade fire. Ghost and Phantom disappeared from view as all four of the gunships' laser turrets opened fire on the super-soldiers, switching to two on the closet side as it passed by and pounding them with green beams of searing hot energy. These actions were repeated by the second gunship, heavy fire poured onto the position until even Rex could tell through the clouds of snow and ice that the ground had turned black from the shelling.
The pass completed, the gunships veered off and slowly banked around as the waited for the air to clear so the ground troops could confirm the success of their run. Rex shifted his rangefinder down over his visor, using it to gain a closer view of the carnage. Through the dissipating clouds, he could see a blackened and battered pair slowly trying to rise, writhing about on the ground as they clung to life and recovered from the attack.
"They're... getting back up." He gasped aloud.
"They're still not down? That's usually enough to cut clean through a droid army!" Ransack bemoaned. Thinking quickly, Sounder got on his comms again and hailed the gunships.
"Laaties five-four and seven-six, come around again and use mass-driver payload. Make it rain." He instructed. The pilot understood that their quarry wasn't down yet and affirmed the suggestion.
"Copy Tempest. Command, be advised, Company is requesting mass-driver use." He said, confirming with the cruiser.
"Acknowledged, proceed as necessary." An officer told him and the two gunships swung around for another pass.
Down on the ground, Ghost was feeling the sting of the laser turret impacts, her armor scorched and scarred while portions of her bodysuit had melted and practically fused to her skin. She could feel every one of her injuries, but the Kiffar (like all her Separatist brothers and sisters), had been modified with a high pain tolerance and managed to crawl over to Phantom as the Jango Jumper tried to get up.
"Phantom... talk to me..." She asked through several coughs.
"Prolly... 'bout as damaged... as you are." Phantom groaned. She bore the same scorch marks and burn wounds as Ghost did, the composite beam having seared clean through her body suit to expose bloody burn marks on her turqoise skin.
"Think you can get up? I've got some bacta injectors in my belt." Ghost queried.
"Ooooh yeah... some sweet, sweet bacta." Phantom agreed, knowing she could definitely use an injection or two right now. Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Phantom allowed her optics to recalibrate before the drone of the gunships caught her attention. Glancing to her left, she saw them ready to make another pass, several explosions blossoming above the craft as a torrent of glowing blue missiles were unleashed from the twin mass-drivers. "Ghost! Incoming!" She cried. Ghost turned around to see the airstrike heading their way and acted quickly.
"Get down!" She screamed, throwing herself on top of Phantom as the missiles bore down on them.
From the position of Tempest Company, a dozen projectiles struck the ground and exploded, kicking rock and ice into the air in a mighty shower of debris, quickly echoed by the second gunship unleashing a similar payload that crashed into the same spot with equal force. The twin launchers above the gunship used an electrical arc to vaporize the missiles' propellant into a plasma to create the requisite pressure to propel the ammunition forward, giving it its characteristic blue glow. These turned the missiles into a projectile surrounded by unstable and highly explosive plasma traveling at 2.5 kilometers per second.
In other words, these two ships had just unleashed the equivalent of a small orbital bombardment.
The gunships passed overhead and Rex and his men slowly moved to survey the scene. Smoke and steam filled the air, the ground having turned to blackened rock as ice was melted away by the raw heat of the explosions. Ghost and Phantom had been pitched from their original position, both of them far worse for wear than they had been. The Jango Jumper groaned in pain, her left arm torn away by the explosion while the wound had been forcefully cauterized by intense heat. She likely would've been worse off if not for Ghost shielding her with her body.
Said Kiffar was in a bad way, as Phantom discovered with a gasp. Her legs had both been blown off, her arms were reduced to stumps and there was a hole where her torso used to be. The plasma-powered missiles had bypassed her armor entirely, tearing her apart as she bore the brunt of the strafing run. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, choking on her final breaths as Phantom tried to tend to her.
"Ghost..." She whispered, sounding as broken as she looked. Her armor was blackened and torn, the high-heat weakness of Phrik coming into play once more in favor of the Republic.
"G-Go..." Ghost rasped. "Find... R-Reaper..." The Kiffar could feel her life ebbing away, there was simply far too much damage for her to be worth recovering. "L-Leave me..." Ghost really didn't want to, but she knew the mission accounted for more than any personal ties did. And so, with a gentle squeeze to the part of her shoulder still present, Phantom picked herself up and hobble away.
A mere handful of seconds later, Ghost breathed her last.
Rex and his men advanced on the scene, Tempest Company surveying the barren landscape for any signs of activity. All they saw instead was the dead body of Ghost lying still amid the blackened landscape.
"Rex to gunships, nice work gentlemen." The Captain radioed the gunships.
"Either they scared one of them off or blew 'em to atoms." Backlog noted, seeing one body for the two they'd been fighting.
"Either or, I'm not picky!" Jolt remarked.
"Thank you, Captain. Seeing as we're here, would you gents care for a lift?" One of the pilots asked in response.
"I know Sixshot would." Rex joked, the heavy-weapons Clone frowning beneath his helmet as his brothers enjoyed a laugh at his expense.
"Laugh it up boys, while you can." He grumbled.
"We'll take you up on your offer. I think we should move this body back to the cruiser, some eggheads on Coruscant might appreciate our little present." Rex answered.
Elsewhere on Fest...
Their footsteps were careful, stalking through the field of boulders shoulder to shoulder as they searched for their quarry. The game of cat and mouse had been carrying on since first contact, and while it was by no means how they expected things would go, it certainly was what they were here to do.
He was honestly surprised it had taken the army this long to bring them in. Then again, he supposed sabotaging Separatist war efforts and undermining proxy governments in recently-occupied worlds were slightly more important than dealing with their test-tube babies. But were they grown in a lab? The report wasn't complete so he wasn't sure. All he knew was that these super-soldiers were augmented by choice and applied science, not random-chance genetic mutations like him and his team.
Now they were tracking one such super-soldier, brief back-and-forth encounters teaching him just enough to know his team needed to bring their all. Of course, the weather conditions weren't the greatest.
"Ugh, talk about a kriffing ugly planet. Why couldn't they send us to one with a beach... and a stiff drink... and Twi'leks in skimpy bikinis?" Wrecker had complained upon arrival.
"You're a one-track mind, Wrecker." Crosshair had admonished in his usual gravelly tone.
"I am not! Blowin' stuff up comes before tailhead babes." Was Wrecker's retort.
Of course, that was a while ago. Now they were all serious, focused and quiet, weapons raised and eyes searching as they prowled around the snow-covered terrain, their minds on the job and nothing else. He led the way, calm and collected while he reached out with his sixth-sense. That was the mutation that made him special, his ability to innately track and sense electromagnetic signals. It was also the trait that earned him his name... Hunter.
And right now, his abilities were leading him towards a boulder less than fifty feet away.
"Tech, Crosshair, fifty yards." He told the bespectacled Clone to his left. A brief nod and Tech folded his visor down over his goggles, quickly calculating distance and angles thanks to the proximity sensor technology stored in his helmet. Crosshair folded his rangefinder down and flicked the thermal imager into place, his finger brushing the trigger in anticipation. Within moments Tech drew an EM grenade, gave Crosshair a nod, and promptly threw the device towards the rock in question. Dropping down to a crouch, Crosshair lined up the explosive through the scope of his 773 Firepuncher rifle and pulled the trigger.
A single blue bolt struck the grenade and detonated it, bathing the area in a burst of short-circuiting electrical energy. The Bad Batch paused, waiting, anticipating either a possible retaliatory strike or a successful mission in which they downed their quarry. The former was quickly proven to be the case as Reaper vaulted onto the top of the boulder.
"If you were trying to tickle me, you've succeeded." He growled through his helmet's synthesizer. All at once, the four Clones attacked in sequence, lighting him up with blaster rounds from Tech's twin pistols, Crosshair's rifle, and Hunter and Wrecker's potent DC-17m weapons systems. Reaper merely stood his ground and rolled his shoulders, allowing his new armor to take the punishment.
The new design was manufactured by the CIS with speed and rapid combat response in mind, ensuring Reaper got to make the most of his cybernetic enhancements. His body was now wrapped in a nanotech glove capable of self-repair and largely resistant to most energy-based forms of attack thanks to layers of dispersive microcircuitry. His plating was forged from the same blaster and slug-proof composite alloy as before, only designed with multiple microcomputers to regular all manner of subsystems so that his armor worked in synch with his body mechanics. The new design of his armor also allowed him to store a few extra weapons across his body for better in-field flexibility and combat adaptation.
Drawing his prototype E-series carbine, Reaper unleashed its short-range stopping power upon the four Clones, red bolts peppering the ground, rocks, virtually everywhere as the Bad Batch dived for cover. Wrecker, on the other hand, tanked the shots before he dropped his weapon and used his immense strength to pick up one of the many boulders around him. Reaper could immediately see where this was going and quit firing, raising his left arm as the charging coils in his T1 Dragonsbreath cannon spooled up and glowed red. With a shout, Wrecker lobbed the boulder towards Reaper, the super-soldier snapping up his arm in response and firing a single scorching beam of red-hot energy that struck the boulder and blew it to pieces. "A for ingenuity." He remarked.
Dropping down to the ground, Reaper's arm cannon cooled off as he drew his machete, Hunter leaping out from his cover as he pulled a vibroblade from his gauntlet. They quickly clashed as their blades sparked off one another, Hunter proving more agile and versatile as he moved quickly and rapidly in an effort to find a weak spot in short order. But Reaper was equally quick and sturdy, parrying each jab and slice as he spun around to counter Hunter with each move.
As they duelled, Crosshair removed the barrel of his rifle and swapped it out for an underslung grapple attachment while Tech opened fire with his twin DC pistols, peppering Reaper's back with scattered blaster rounds. Taking aim, Crosshair triggered his grapple and snagged Reaper's arm, yanking it back so Hunter could get in close and drive his knife clear through the super-soldier's arm. Loosing a simple growl of annoyance, Reaper grasped the tether with one hand and pulled hard, lifting Crosshair off the ground and bringing him slamming into Hunter. Pulling the knife free from his arm, his skinsuit quickly repaired the damage as his nanotech flesh began to stitch the wound back to normal.
"Come 'ere tough guy!" Wrecker roared as he charged the super-soldier, Reaper whirling around just in time to catch the burly Clone's armored glove as it nearly crashed into his face. Wrecker immediately tried to throw another punch only for Reaper to catch that one too. He met the mutant Clone strength for strength, matching his capabilities with his mechanized skeleton and augmented limbs. "Oh, I like you!" Wrecker cackled. "Most Seppies go down in one hit. Wait'll you see what I've got in store for ya!"
"I'll pass on that offer." Reaper growled, raising his boot and knocking Wrecker away with a firm push kick. Suddenly, Wrecker pounced on him from behind, a vibroblade at his throat and clinging on as Reaper scrabbled to throw him off.
"Tech! Stunner!" Hunter ordered. Tech pulled a small disc from his belt just as Reaper recalibrated his arm servos and grabbed Hunter by the shoulders. Vaulting backwards and using the sergeant for leverage, Reaper drove his boots into his back and used Hunter like a launchpad to propell himself towards the advancing Crosshair, his helmet smashing into the Clone's gut and bowling him over.
"Reaper! Reaper, do you copy? Where are you?" Phantom's frantic, shaky voice filled his comms as Reaper sprung back to his feet.
"Phantom? What is it?" He quickly commed in response, his wrist blaster shooting the device out of Tech's hand.
"The Republic... they... they broke in... through! Ghost is... she's gone." Phantom replied in broken, fragmented sentences.
"What?" Reaper pried, backing up warily as Wrecker came at him again.
"Ghost is dead!" Phantom cried, sounding distraught and delirious. "They... They attacked us, I need help!" Realizing things had taken a turn for the worse, Reaper cursed himself for not having been there.
"Where are you?"
"Back by the... t-the village." Phantom answered.
"Sit tight, I'm on my way." Reaper promised. Leaping backwards not a boulder, just out of reach of Wrecker, Reaper backflipped away and twisted to land on his feet as he began sprinting towards the village.
"Yeah! YEAH! You better run!" Wrecker hollered after him. Tech quickly sprinted to the scene and helped Crosshair up.
"Well... that could've been worse." The sniper deadpanned.
"Yeah! So when's the next one?" Wrecker asked Hunter, who stood and stretched out his back.
"Slow up, Wrecker. We're not finished with him yet." He replied.
Later that day...
Fest would prove to be a major defeat for the Separatists, Count Dooku ordering Reaper and the wounded Phantom off world to prevent any further loss. Without further super-soldier interference, the 501st successfully destroyed the refineries, factories and research laboratories on the planet... but as Tempest Company packed up and left, an angry Cassian Andor hurled small rocks at the Clones as the boy vented his disappointment and frustration.
In the office of the Supreme Chancellor, Sheev Palpatine and Mas Amedda stood before a holographic render of Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi General had good news to report from Fest, as well as an unexpected but welcome piece of information.
"Captain Rex and his unit were able to stop and kill a Separatist super-soldier. Based on available data, I believe its the one they call 'Ghost'." He was saying. "We've been able to recover the body and we'll be bringing it with us back to Coruscant."
"That is excellent news, General. See to it that the body is taken to the Ministry of Science upon your return. I suspect there is much we could learn from it." Palpatine praised. "Another fine job, General Skywalker. Well done, as usual."
"Thank you, Chancellor." Anakin politely replied with a tilt of his head. "These may be trying times, but we're certainly trying our best."
"All anyone could ever ask for." Palpatine agreed. The communication closed and Palpatine switched off the projector, pausing for a brief moment to consider the stroke of luck they'd been fortunate to receive. Having the body of a super-soldier available to study would surely yield great rewards. They might find an efficient means to defeat them all, or they might unlock the Separatists secrets when it came to augmentation and genetic enhancement. His aid noticed his silence and grew curious.
"Is something wrong, Chancellor?" The Chagrian inquired. Palpatine turned to him with the simple, contented smile he always showed prying reports and inquisitive holocams.
"Hardly. It has occurred to me that our portfolio on the super-soldiers has increased dramatically as of late and now a proper body for scientists to study will surely advance our war effort dramatically... perhaps in more ways than one." He answered. Choosing to act on his notions, Palpatine had a new plan in mind. "Get me in contact with Prime Minister Lama Su on Kamino. It is time to discuss the creation of our own super-soldier."
Elsewhere on Coruscant, within his private study, Commander Thrawn remained preoccupied with yet another information hunt as he researched the 'Iron Demon' of historical lore. Thrawn was by no means a superstitious man or a religious one. But he did believe in logical correlations and plausible physical meaning behind legends and stories. And so far, he believed that the Separatist super-soldier Wraith was somehow tied to the Iron Demon.
His new quest had led him to a find most curious. Before him, on the screen of his terminal, stood an image of the Bururru religious panels: ancient carvings detailing the beliefs and spirituality of a bygone people. Recorded by archeologists, Thrawn had no doubt that they deemed this find significant in their pursuit of understanding the Bururru ways, but also doubted they saw the same important features he was now seeing.
He took in the panels one by one, studying each image in the vivid clarity it was presented. They were sequentional, shaped like the Aurebesh character 'Onith' with a line of images connecting descending columns. The panel to the left depicted a smiling, pale-haired woman with oval eyes. She was running through a forest in full bloom, followed by clouds of butterflies and swarms of frolicking sentients. The panel furthest right depicted a powerful-looking man in dark armor, marching through a lifeless forest of bare branches and barren ground. He had a craggy face and two stripes tattooed over his bald pate; the only signs of life in his forest were a toad being crushed beneath his boot and a line of sentients chained behind him.
A third middle panel depicted a high mountain peak that loomed over both forests, with the barren forest lying to the left side of a dividing river and the forest in bloom to the right. Looking out over the scene from the balcony of a cliffside monastery was a gaunt old man, his arms spread so that one hand was suspended above the dark aspect of the forest and one over the luminous aspect. On the old fellow's face was such an expression of weariness and sorrow wrought from a burden both ancient and mysterious.
These images Thrawn had already compared to existing Jedi texts and confirmed that they were depictions of The Ones; Celestial beings indicative of the various aspects of the Force, as the Jedi claimed. The woman, known as the Daugther, representing the Light Side of the Force. The young man, designated the Son, depicted the Dark Side of the Force. The old man, called the Father, represented the long-forgotten middle path between Light and Dark where both came together in a fusion of beliefs. In the context of these images, they were contrasting opposites pulled together by necessity, a family of unequals forever roped together.
But those three images alone were not what drew Thrawn's attention, nor were they what he studied most intently with a furrowed gaze.
Beneath the panels of the Son and Daughter, new depictions appeared. The first beneath the Daughter was a luminous butterfly with large oval eyes and gossamer wings. Her opposite was a powerful-looking beetle with heavy wings and a craggy head adorned by two raised stripes. To Thrawn, it appeared these panels indicated one of two things. Either these were the Bururru's understanding of each personification or the Son and Daughter were shapeshifters. The latter seemed to prove true with the second set of panels. The left depicted a gryphon, mighty and majestic, the perfect blend of primal feline and bird of prey. Halos of light encircled its broad wings, surrounding the creature in an element of elegance. Its opposite contained a dragon, bold and terrifying, like some ancient progenitor of the modern-day Krayt dragons of Tatooine. Its scaly skin shone like polished metal and its eyes were aflame with the same red light as the raised stripes lining its head.
These forms alone were enough to denote the true potential of each Celestial. Son and Daughter were polar opposites, perhaps only able to be reigned in by the Father. But the final two images gave Thrawn an immense amount of pause.
The one in the Daughter's column depicted a womanly figure made of metal plates, the curves of her body pronounced yet also seemingly otherworldly in their shape. Behind her, a set of four bird-like wings stretched out like in mid-flight, denoting grace and power in addition to the ribbons of light surrounding her hairless head. She had no mouth, only a pair of oval eyes, big and bright.
The panel in the Son's column contained what could only be described as a hulking beast. It was almost a shocking sight to the Chiss as Thrawn studied it. A body covered in the same metal plates as the other, only this being was far more muscular by comparison with noticeable curving lines in the arms and chest like an organic being. Spiked protrusions lined its shoulders as clawed hands reached out to the viewer, clawed feet sinking into the ground on which it stood. His face was far from humanoid, comprised of flat features and a gaping maw filled with razor sharp teeth, jutting spikes lining its chin and jaw. A pair of horns, or possibly tusks, curved around to frame its face and its head was mantled with a crown of horns. Filling the background were a pair of sharp, bat-like wings looking sinister in design. The fire in its eyes was not missed by Thrawn and the Chiss studied the demonic entity with curious concern.
On a separate datapad, Thrawn pulled up a recent acquisition from the Jedi archives. His endeavour to investigate the Iron Demon a little further resulted in him coming across several texts the Jedi had seemingly missed or neglected during their initial investigation in the form of reports from Jedi and Sith alike. These were several thousand years old, but the small details included in each proved greatly revealing.
Thrawn had made downloadable copies to be readable at a moments notice, starting with one from Jedi Knight Kira Carsten and Jedi Battlemaster Bageen Maull. It dated back to the Old Republic and the reign of Vitiate.
"Progress Update Log #354: We encountered the entity known as the Iron Demon during our hunt, we lost a lot of men on ... he wielded what looked to be a flaming sword and appeared to be stronger than what was described by Revan in the texts of Revan and Malak ... He has not changed since the first time I saw him, when he came to visit my father. He looks exactly how my memories picture him. -Jedi Knight Carsen and Battlemaster Maull to The Jedi High Council."
The sections he could not read were due to burn marks in the flimsi, as if they were targeted burns by a lightsaber to crudely censor telling information. Thrawn wondered what they might contain but did not dwell long on the prospects, for there were plenty more reports to be read.
He swiped left on his datapad and glanced through two more reports, the first written during the Great Hyperspace War and the next dating back to the Sack of the Jedi Temple as perpetrated by Darth Malgus. The personal words of Kira Carsen had captured him, though, and Thrawn made a note to explore her angle and Vitiate's connection to the Demon another time. Every sheet of flimsi told part of a greater story that Thrawn was slowly piecing together.
The Chiss set his datapad aside and returned to the Bururru images, noting the scribbled language carved beneath the panels. He was still working on a proper translation, but between everything he had uncovered thus far, Thrawn looked as the beast under the Son with a single title in mind.
He did not need a translation to know that this was the true form of the Iron Demon.
The conclusion he was drawing about this supernatural creature was not a positive one. Everything about it denoted a kind of galaxy-altering power that was inherently dark in nature. He recalled a prophecy written by the Killik Hive, describing a being so powerful and terrifying that their physical appearance in the galaxy was a harbinger for imminent doom. Their descriptions were vague, but everything appeared to point towards the Iron Demon.
But who was its counterpart? He asked himself as his gaze shifted to the opposite panel beneath the Daughter. What was the opposite of an 'Iron Demon'? An Iron 'Angel'? Perhaps there was something to the old spacers lore regarding the Diathim and Maelibus species... Thrawn made a note to research them later, his attention drawn back to the Iron Demon. He considered his earlier findings and brought The Wraith into the picture. Taking the super-soldier's sudden disappearance into account and coupled with the Killik prophecy... Thrawn was not a religious man, but a fearful symmetry was beginning to take shape.
One thing was for certain; if this Demon was as dangerous as the Killiks described, then it had the potential to be a far bigger threat to the entire galaxy than any super-soldier could ever pose.