So I've got an actual job now. That's going to cut into my time writing.
Anyways, E3 really fucking blew this year. I've hated every single presentation except for Microsoft's and Nintendo's. It's like lockdown made them forget how to make me want to buy games.
Read and review.
Foreman analyzed the holographic layout of Wargate that had been sent to them. The surface level was fairly straightforward to navigate, basically an oversized, open-air bunker without several tons of soil sitting on top of it. The underground section, however, was a completely different beast. The main problem was that there was only one way in or out, and that was through a central turbolift shaft that connected most of the facility's levels together. Surrounding said shaft was a ring of what may have been labs years ago, but were more than likely prison cells and the requisite control systems now.
Wargate seemed to spread out at the bottom level, making the whole thing look like a tree and its roots. Additional cell blocks that probably stretched out for a half-kilometer were all set to one side of the bottom, while what was more than likely facilities for Wargate's guards were opposite of that. Judging by the layout of that side of Wargate, Foreman calculated an extreme likelihood of most essential functions of Wargate being there, as well as probably the strongest concentration of armed resistance. What looked like the personnel quarters and armory were near the back, which would be a problem since it was physically impossible to block off access to the armory before the off-duty guards would be able to arm themselves once the attack began. There were a couple other notable areas in that section – a generator room and its backup right next to it one level below, possibly a control room, a storage room, and what was likely the mess hall with a kitchen right next to it.
What caught Foreman's attention was a section that splintered off completely from the personnel section – a straight hallway that branched off into about twelve separate rooms that were all dead ends. Nothing in the layout suggested what the purpose of the rooms was, as they were all of equal size and shape, and Foreman's curiosity would only be sated when they actually had boots on the ground at Wargate to investigate.
Regardless of the mysterious hallway, the rest of Wargate seemed to be highly compartmentalized, and it was highly likely that the second the assault began that the whole prison would go into lockdown, meaning control rooms would be priority targets to lift the lockdown. The automated interior defenses, sadly, did not show up on the layout, meaning the infantry could be walking blind right into a trap.
As Foreman mused on the layout of Wargate, he couldn't help but recall the existence of the Citadel on Lola Sayu. While the Citadel was more than likely destroyed in the wake of the Clone Wars, or repurposed by the Empire, Foreman found it amusing that the shoe was now on the other foot. Where the Confederacy he was part of in the past defended a highly strategic prison facility built to withstand sustained orbital bombardment, Foreman was now part of planning an assault on an enemy asset of similar value.
Returning to planning, Foreman proceeded to calculate how best to reduce casualties once inside. Perhaps irregular Rakata could be mixed in with the organics to provide some form of insight to any unknown technology they would come across.
"Irak squadron, form up for patrol." the flight lead called soon after takeoff, and the three other craft in the squadron, all Hylto-class fighters, formed up in a fingertip formation. The Hylto was basically a metal ball with a front-facing cockpit, with eight agrav pylons rotating around it constantly, and an engine strapped to it. Each pylon was equipped with a laser cannon, and the constant rotation of the pylons meant there was rapid fire, no different in principle from a gatling blaster. Easy to produce and highly effective, they afforded total air supremacy, and even the fighters the Interlopers had with them when they arrived were whittled away by the sheer numbers of Hylto in operation.
"Prepare to pass over Wargate and engage in patrol pattern." the flight lead called again, and there was a series of friendly sensor pings from Wargate's air defenses interrogating their IFF tags. "Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave." the flight lead suggested.
Several seconds later, there was an ear-splitting series of explosions coming from behind, and the patrol flight quickly looped overhead to find that Wargate's air defenses – every SAM site, CIWS, and sensor system had been knocked out in one swift strike in the time it took for them to pass over the facility. Fires were quickly spreading, the suppression systems doing what they could to manage the issue, and black smoke blocked their view of Wargate.
"Wargate is under attack!" Wargate's defense intelligence screamed over friendly comms. "All available fighters, intercept!"
"Heads on a swivel, I'm getting unidentified sensor pings from-" the flight lead tried to say, but his Hylto exploded mid-sentence. The entire squadron's structure immediately collapsed as they broke formation, fighting g-forces as they fought to avoid eating missiles. Other Hyltos were quickly scrambled, and the airspace over Wargate became a furball.
"Altitude restrictions lifted. Go get 'em, Helljumpers!" Void Eye shouted, clearly happy to be back as a SWACS operator after being grounded for so long. A huge wave of Star Reavers came up from tree level, unfolded their wings, and primed their weapons, barreling towards the huge pillars of smoke at Wargate.
"Kath 2, Kath 2!" one of the new pilots called out, firing a missile off at some bizarre fighter that looked like an offshoot of a TIE. With absolutely zero issue tracking, the missile exploded on contact, sending the enemy squadron scrambling for their lives as missile after missile was fired at them. Other, identical aircraft shot out of hidden hangars in the ground not long after, and engaged the Helljumper pilots over the prison. Sensor warning receivers on both sides of the engagement were going nuts from the sheer amount of craft, but only the Rakata had to deal with missile alerts, which was a blessing for the Helljumpers.
The gatling lasers the Rakata had on their fighters were rapid firing, yes, but barely did anything to the shields on the Star Reavers, meaning that for all intents and purposes, they were soundly outmatched. Some of the nuggets among the Helljumpers had panicked from the sudden appearance of the interceptors, but the onboard Raven AI took control and kept them from doing something stupid like going into G-LOC and crashing.
There were calls of Kath 2 and Kath 3 over the comms constantly, and nuggets clogging it up when they got too excited about going for gun kills. The expert pilots, mostly clones who had survived for this long, were pulling extreme maneuvers just to show off – Kulbat maneuvers, Pugalovs, nothing was out of the question for them, even if it forced their Star Reaver slow.. Even the autonomous Star Reavers were bantering over the comms with the organic pilots, which was something new to the clone pilots among them.
Multiple gunships started closing in on the furball, baring their teeth and ready to use their heavy weapons against the Star Reavers. Missile warnings started blaring for the Helljumpers, and they popped countermeasures and turned in hard. Apparently, the seeker head wasn't too great on the Rakatan missiles, and they all dived for the countermeasures, some of them even went dumb and exploded, their sensors blinded and believing they were already at the target.
A multitude of autonomous Star Reavers swung around and quickly wiped out the gunships, meaning that the missile 'threat' was no longer an issue. The knockoff TIEs quickly followed suit, leaving the Helljumpers in complete control of the skies over Wargate. "All pilots, this is Void Eye – all enemy aircraft are either down or no factor. Move to Angel's Third and engage in holding pattern. Anyone low on fuel or ammo, RTB." he ordered as blips from his console leaked through the command channel. "Thundercats, you're up. Hit 'em hard!"
The Thundercats weren't even in visual range yet, but all in the area of operations could hear them unloading their payloads – Alaka AGMs being dropped on tanks, bombs being thrown at fortifications outside of Wargate proper, and white phosphorous being deployed to burn away the foliage around the prison. A handful of Thundercats burned towards Wargate, and began to pound the interior defenses into the dirt. The walls were 'double reinforced volonium-silcrete', but that seemed to mean little in the face of two tons of high explosives. Even the infantry who were caught outside were reduced to paste by gun runs, and soon enough, the assault teams were brought in.
LAATs showed up with little resistance aside from insignificant ground fire, and even that was met with a hailstorm of heavy blaster fire from the ball turrets, which quickly silenced any opposition. Skipping past the walls, they set down in the interior courtyard, and the B1As inside of the LAATs began to rapidly unfold from their storage position, walking out and shouldering their blasters, immediately sighting in on Rakatan guards that were hiding from the organics. The lead LAAT, marked with three claw strikes on the fuselage, set down and let the irregular forces out, consisting of Sawei, Kyra, Nax, Lexi, Knockout, and a handful of volunteers, including some Rakata that had been sent along by the rebels. Additional LAATs came into the courtyard and deployed non-droid infantry, but overwhelmingly, their ground forces were B1As.
Sawei identified the front entrance to Wargate, and ignited her lightsabers to cut the door open, but Knockout brushed her aside. "Allow me." he boomed, before getting his manipulators between the seal and pulling the door wide open, and then promptly bullrushing his way inside as blaster fire shot outside the ruined frame. Sawei followed him in, with Kyra and Nax taking after her, and Lexi pulling rear security.
Effortlessly deflecting bolts meant for their little cluster, Sawei went to cut down one of the Rakata on the far left of the room, but Kyra put a bolt in his head before she could. Knockout, meanwhile, was tangling with an exo that had just entered the room, cackling maniacally as he pounced on top of the armored suit. Blow after blow, the armor plating on the exo was no match for Knockout, and the now exposed pilot let out a scream of terror, before being engulfed by Knockout's flame projector.
Clambering off of the fallen exo, Knockout brushed himself off and glanced down at the battered hulk. "My, that was unusually brutal of me." he remarked, seemingly ignoring every other time he tore into something like a pissed off wampa. "So, what's our plan?" Knockout said, shooting a bolt into the head of some kind of clerk that was trying to sneak up on them.
The room they were in was some kind of reception area, but given their briefing of Wargate, that was actually more of a surprise than anything. Coming in from the main entrance, there were two hallways on both sides at the other end of the room that split around, likely creating a loop at the back, which probably meant the turbolift was just ahead. The reception area itself was incredibly spartan, just a large, basic desk with some sort of terminal built into it. Not even as much as a chair was afforded.
Kyra and Sawei noticed that something was distinctly wrong with Wargate, but they couldn't pin their fingers on it. A growing sense of dread was setting upon them. "You two good?" Nax questioned as more B1As filtered into the room.
Kyra tapped her helmet twice, and then nodded. "...Yeah, yeah, we're good." she stumbled, exchanging a glance with Sawei. Both of them understood what the source of the disturbance was, but the question was whether or not it would get worse or not the further down they went.
Splitting into two groups, with Sawei taking Lexi and Nax taking Kyra and Knockout, they took the two corridors, with Nax going right, and Sawei going left. As it turned out, the corridors did reconnect, and the turbolift was located inside the column they went around. Not only could it fit the group as they were, but it looked like it could support a squad of B1As.
"How're we doing this?" Lexi questioned, leaning slightly over the edge of the lift and looking down, only to immediately regret her decision. "Go floor by floor?"
Nax observed the control panel, tapping at it briefly. "Nope, not with the controls locked down." he noted, tempted to just shoot the panel and see what good that would do. "Anyone got any ideas?"
Sawei peered over the edge. "Your armor has a grappling hook, yes?" she questioned, referring to Nax. He nodded and pulled out his whipcord to show it to her. "You and Kyra can rappel down to the platform below. From there, she and I will lift Lexi and Knockout down with the Force, and I'll come down after."
Lexi wasn't so enthusiastic about this plan, but Nax and Kyra were already latching on to the safety railings with their whipcords. "You're going to what?" she questioned, absolutely not fond of the idea of being suspended in the air with nothing tangible supporting her. "No, no no no, I can get down just fine." she protested while Nax and Kyra descended the shaft. To prove her point, and in perhaps a lapse of judgement, she vaulted the side of the railing opposite of where Kyra and Nax were rappeling. Nearly panicking, Lexi almost lost her grip on the railing, but she thankfully got her footing on some slight outcropping, managing to keep a very delicate balance. "See? Just fine." she insisted, giving a pained smile.
Knockout, however, immediately marched over, grabbed Lexi's hand, and yanked her up. "Master Sapphyra, I do not appreciate this suicidal act of overconfidence." he blared, holding Lexi up by the one arm. "Do not do that again, Master Sapphyra."
Lexi curled her lips and conceded to the droid's demand, and he set her down on her feet. "We're good!" Nax shouted up to them, detaching the whipcords. Sawei motioned to Knockout, and he positioned himself where they had rappelled down. Concentrating the Force on Knockout, Sawei slowly lifted him up and over the railing, sending him down towards Kyra. There was a slight jolt as Kyra grabbed him with the Force, and Sawei let go. After some time, there was a loud thud. "He's down, send Lexi!" Nax shouted.
Sawei glanced over her shoulder at Lexi. Without any sort of warning, she immediately grabbed her with the Force, and started lifting her over the railing. "Woah, woah! You could've warned me!" she complained, fighting the weightlessness and her rapidly increasing breathing. "Don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes, don't open your eyes..." Lexi repeated, trying to block out what was happening.
Kyra grabbed hold of Lexi with the Force not long after she had been lowered, which didn't exactly help Lexi's perception of what was going on. Lexi even felt a slight lurch inside of her as the control was shifted from Sawei to Kyra, and she felt like she was going to throw up from the sensation. Finally, the feeling of weightlessness ended, and Lexi had solid ground under her feet again. Opening her eyes, she saw that Nax and Kyra were watching her, amused.
Sawei, instead of climbing down carefully, simply jumped to one wall of the shaft, hung there for a moment, and then launched to the platform they were standing on. Knockout immediately moved to force the door open, and Sawei quickly formulated a plan to locate a control room to unlock the turbolift, so that B1As could be sent down to clear the other levels.
Dantinian had seen fit to do a surprise inspection of Wargate. Normally, he would have one of his underlings do so for him, but he had set precedent in the past for personal visits, and given Wargate's importance, he had deemed it necessary. That, and the threat of your own leader showing up in person at any time tended to cut down on the odds of underperformance, especially given that Dantinian had a reputation for executing the outright incompetent.
At the moment, he was standing in the troop bay of his personal Ilyx-class transport, meditating on the Nexus in relative peace. Then, the craft lurched to the side, throwing Dantinian off balance. Ignoring it, he went back to meditation, only for the Ilyx to swing to the other side. Unable to concentrate on his meditation, Dantinian headed for the cockpit.
Slamming the cockpit door open, Dantinian was about to tear into his pilot for being careless, but instead took notice of the battle they were approaching. Wargate was under siege, its defenses completely crippled, with what looked like Interloper fighters dominating the airspace. Interloper transports came in from the treeline at low altitude, flying over the walls to disembark troops, with only scattered resistance from the guards. The situation, he presumed, was much worse inside if the Interlopers were so confident as to attack Wargate outright. "Sire, there's-!" the pilot started, likely in an attempt to be spared of Dantinian's wrath.
"Take us back." Dantinian calmly ordered while the pilot maneuvered around missile launches and strafing runs. Without missing a beat, the pilot flipped the Ilyx onto its back, quickly spinning it upright and going into a dive to pick up speed. Staying just above the trees, he hoped to minimize the transport's signature against the missile seekers by using the ground clutter to his advantage, feverishly pressing the button for countermeasures the second he heard a missile tone, but it wasn't enough. One explosion rocked the transport, blowing out the rear stabilizers, and another hit the left engine, putting some shrapnel into the elevator controls and destroying those, too.
System warnings blared and screeched in the cockpit as control surfaces and modules were lost in the rapid descent. A particularly tall slaughtertree struck the right engine, sending the Ilyx careening to the right, where the tail hit another tree, severing that section off and causing the Ilyx to roll onto its side, knocking both Dantinian and the pilot unconscious from the force of the impact.
When Dantinian next awoke, three Interlopers had their weapons pointed at him, fingers on the triggers. He was laying just in front of the Ilyx, launched from the cockpit in the crash. The Interlopers were all wearing identical armor, so he hazarded a guess and assumed they were part of the original group that crashed here. "Stars, this one's ugly." one of them commented in an accented voice, poking Dantinian with his rifle. "He's waking up, look!" another pointed out, sounding identical to the first one.
Clones.
In a flash, Dantinian went from dazed to enraged, and he shot up, grabbing their throats with the Nexus. Choking for air, they clawed at their throats, and with a flick of his wrist, Dantinian snapped their necks. Hearing shouting from the Ilyx, he turned his gaze to the craft and saw another fireteam running to him, weapons at the ready. Again, he reached out through the Nexus, grabbed the men, and threw his hand up, launching them high into the air. Some seconds later, they crashed back down, dying on impact. Scanning the surroundings, Dantinian determined that he was safe, but more would most certainly be on the way.
Finally getting up, Dantinian was about to dart off into the forest to hijack a transport to the closest village, but a heavy rasping from the Ilyx caught his attention. Walking over and looking into the cockpit, Dantinian saw the pilot clinging to life, just barely. One of the support struts had cut loose from its mounting in the cockpit, and the pilot had been impaled on it while the craft was rolling. He was losing blood, fast, and even if the strut were to be removed, he would bleed out anyways. There was no hope of saving him.
Slowly, the pilot opened his eyes, barely able to focus on Dantinian. "...Sire… did I do… well?" he meekly got out, blood dripping from his mouth and nose as his lungs flooded with blood.
Dantinian nodded once. "You have done all that you could." he replied, and the faintest hint of a smile graced the pilot's broken face. Gently reaching out with the Nexus, Dantinian grabbed the pilot's heart. "Know peace in the embrace of the Nexus, child." he said, before crushing his heart out of mercy. The pilot's body seized, and then fell limp, that blissful smile staying. Dantinian quickly got a move on, disappearing into the woods before any more patrols could show up.
"We're almost at the control room!" Nax shouted, barely audible over the mass of weapons fire flying over their heads. Nax, Sawei, Kyra, and Lexi had all broken off to take cover, while Knockout was out in the open with his shield up, occasionally opening bits of it to take a potshot or two at the defenders, basically locked in a stalemate. There wasn't enough cover for them to push up any further without getting shot to bits, but the cover they were hiding behind was pretty strong, some kind of duracrete-type riot barrier that had halfway risen before catching and stopping on whatever mechanism it used, and it was about a meter thick.
"Gun emplacement rolling in!" Lexi shouted out. Poking his head just above the cover, Nax spotted the emplacement being wheeled in by a crew of three Rakata. It looked almost identical to an E-Web, with the exception that it was lacking the generator. Instead, mounted slightly ahead of the main operator was a box magazine – a belt fed autoslug, of all things, and in a particularly heavy caliber, too.
Swinging his pack off, Nax opened it and grabbed the grenade launcher for the DC, quickly detaching the blaster attachment and slapping the launcher in its place, latching it down so it wouldn't fall off. Grabbing a cluster of grenades, Nax shoved one down the barrel, opened the trapdoor to the tube, and loaded the others, before shutting it and immediately firing a grenade at the gun. Impacting on the tripod mounting, the gun had been blown to bits, and the crew fared little better, especially considering the resulting ammo cookoff. "Gun's down! Knockout, drop the shield on my side!" Nax ordered.
"Master Strag, are you sure that-" Knockout protested.
"Do it!" Nax repeated, and perhaps a bit reluctantly, Knockout let the left side of the shield down, and Nax immediately raised the DC towards the defenders. Instead of taking the time to consider the grenade's arc, Nax just shot the two remaining grenades at the wall behind the defenders, sending shrapnel and other bits of fragmentation into their backs, creating a much needed window to return fire. Quickly loading another volley into the launcher, Nax let loose, before ducking back into cover and swapping back to the blaster. "Push up, push up!" he ordered, throwing his pack back on and vaulting the barrier. Sawei jumped ahead of him, blocking blaster bolts and dodging slugs, running past their lines and carving the defenders up with her sabers. Kyra, meanwhile, was lifting guards who were hiding in the outer rings, away from the main chokepoint, while Lexi supported her by shooting them like they were targets on a track. Nax, on the other hand, kept suppressive fire up, and in short order, the stalemate had ended, leaving the control room wide open, wherever it was on the level.
Splitting up to search the outer ring for the control room, Sawei took Kyra around the right side, while Nax took Kyra to the left, leaving Knockout in the middle to watch the turbolift. Running past empty cell after empty cell, they thought the level had been deserted save for the guards. That was, of course, until there was a raspy "help me" coming from one of the cells. Stopping the search momentarily, Nax and Kyra stepped back to look at the source of the plea.
The one asking for help was a Rakata, but not an adult. No, this one was a child, all skin and bones, practically half dead. "...please, help..." the child eked out, stumbling forward with what little strength he had, falling against the cell barrier, causing a ripple effect to spread out from the point of impact.
"...Suns above, it's just a kid." Nax commented in a mix of shock, horror, and disgust. This was his first time interacting with a civilian who was on Dantinian's side of the camp, and it was a child. A beaten, starving child, left alone in a cell to rot, his parents nowhere to be found, and he only looked a couple of years old to boot. Six, seven years old, maybe? He wasn't quite sure on how the Rakata aged, but that was the closest comparison to most other humanoid children.
Kyra quickly blasted the control panel with her '44, and the barrier fell. Carefully grabbing the kid, Kyra propped him up against the wall, grabbed her canteen, and offered him some water. Barely conscious, the kid made a cockeyed glance at Kyra, then to the canteen, then back to Kyra. Pressing his lips against it, he started to drink, until the canteen was bone dry. "Better?" she questioned, trying to appear as non-intimidating as possible to the child, who only gave her a meek nod as a response. "...Where are the others?" Kyra questioned, trying to figure out why he was left all alone.
The child paused, trying to gently swing his arms, only to falter due to his malnourished state. "...The bad ones took them away." he replied, his voice weak, but much clearer now. As if to clarify on who the 'bad ones' were, the child pointed to a handful of guards that had died in the firefight. "I was asleep, so the bad ones didn't take me, but they took the others. When the bad ones come for us, we never come back." the child answered, tears starting to well up in his eyes, and Kyra had an inkling of an idea that his parents had been taken away with them. "That's why the other rooms are empty."
Kyra nodded in response, and ever so gently squeezed the child's hand, emanating an aura of warmth and kindness that the kid probably hadn't seen in a long, long time. "We're here to put a stop to that." she said in a reassuring tone, before pulling out one of the emergency protein bars kept in her duster. Peeling back the wrapping, she gave it to the kid, and upon smelling it, he immediately dug in. "Stay hidden for now, we'll get you someplace safe when we can." she told him. The kid looked up at her expectantly, happy to have something in his stomach for once, and nodded, crawling away to hide under a bench in the cell, mostly hidden from view.
Making a quick gesture that they needed to get a move on, Nax and Kyra sprinted down the remainder of their half of the outer ring, linking up with Sawei and Lexi at a heavy security door with probably three layers of security on it – a keypad, a manual combination lock, and a security scanner. Choosing to instead ignore the security measures, Kyra and Sawei grabbed the door with the Force, and tore it from the frame, throwing it over the edge and sending it falling down several levels. Inside the security room was an armed Rakata, his blaster pistol halfway raised before Lexi blasted him, and he slumped against the console.
Moving in and securing the room, Nax and Kyra gravitated towards the central console, pushing the dead security officer out of the way, their helmets working to automatically translate the wording on the monitor displays, which were obviously security cameras of the rest of Wargate. Soon, the translations started rolling in - 'Level 23 Cellblock A', 'Mess Hall', 'Armory', and so on. However, what caught their attention was a series of identical camera shots of a sterile, empty room with protrusions coming from the ceiling, and the only other notable thing being the rear of a huge double-wide vault door. The security feeds were marked as 'Sterilization Chambers', denoted by some symbol that had no equivalent in Basic. Intrigued, but also disconcerted, they poked around the controls briefly, before finding the one that released the lockdown, and hit it. There was an affirmative click from the console, and the red light above the button turned green. Sawei pressed down on her commlink, glancing at the console. "Turbolift is open, B1As are good to start clearing the prison." she called out, and there was a huge wave of B1As all responding with the same thing in tandem, almost like a collective consciousness. Motion sensors on the wall to the left started tripping, all from the upstairs lobby as the B1As marched to the turbolift to start moving down into Wargate.
Nax flicked through the security cameras, finding multiple shots of cellblocks full of starving Rakata in civilian clothing, packed in like cheap food. "Suns, look at them." he said in disgust, not towards the civilians, but towards Dantinian's treatment of them. "What did they do to deserve this?" he questioned, horrified. Opening the cells with the prisoners in a state like that would be tantamount to murder.
Sawei joined him while he moved through the feeds. "They opposed Dantinian." Sawei answered, sounding as if she knew the answer for sure. "I've seen places like this a fair bit during the days of the Republic, when the Jedi were sent to squabbling Outer Rim dictatorships, but never on a scale this large." she added, seemingly desensitized to the plight of the civilians. "It's always the innocent who get caught up in the mix, but..." she trailed, her train of thought falling off as the feed of the prisoners ended, now showing Rakata floating in stasis tanks, with cargo crates next to them, each one in a cell of their own. The crates had three faces stacked vertically on each side, and the sides grew towards a central point at the top, sloping inwards.
Lexi leaned in, not sure what she was looking at. "...Are those the mind prisons mentioned in the briefing?"
"Could be." Nax replied, tapping his finger against the console in thought. "Could also just be an explosive device to destroy the room if it's breached." he said, second guessing himself.
There was a series of heavy metal footfalls behind them. "Masters," Knockout boomed, and the group turned to face him. "I believe it would be wise to get a move on – the more time we spend here, the more time the guards have to entrench themselves."
The group nodded, before heading for the turbolift to link up with the B1As being sent down to secure the level. A command squad consisting of three B1As passed them by, heading for the control room. Curiously, the middle droid had yellow paint, and most of the armor plating had been replaced by communications and control equipment.
Dantinian had hijacked one of the Interloper hoverbikes, making the journey to the nearest outpost much quicker. Avoiding crashing into the thick brush and the trees was child's play for someone with his skills, and he peeled into one of the underdeveloped paths that splintered off from the main road network. Reaching through the Nexus to sense for said outpost, he quickly found it, and pivoted the bike in its general direction.
After a short while, static defenses started showing up along the path, mostly inert defenses like razor wire and Gargan's Teeth, but a few clusters of mines were visible, probably a mix of anti-armor and anti-personnel. Dantinian rapidly approached the walls of the outpost, and he felt the guards on the gun emplacements tense up through the Nexus, and quickly jammed up their weapons to prevent them from firing on him.
Lifting the bike up and over the entrance barricade, Dantinian slowed down and dismounted in the center of the outpost, and a full squad of soldiers came outside, weapons trained directly on Dantinian. They initially believed he was some particularly daring rebel, but they quickly realized just who they were pointing their weapons at. Standing down, they quickly got on their knees and bowed to him, silently pleading for his mercy.
"You were not trained to be sniveling rats." Dantinian sneered to the men, disappointed in them for grovelling at his feet for doing their jobs. "Rise." he commanded, and the squad quickly did as they were told. Dantinian identified the commanding officer – a sergeant, identifiable by the crimson sleeves on his uniform. "Where is your communications room?" he questioned, and the sergeant seemed like he was about to crumble from merely being asked the question.
"In the back of the barracks, sire!" the sergeant shouted, managing to get himself together to answer his leader.
Dantinian nodded somewhat dismissively. "As you were." he said, before heading to the outpost barracks, volonium trapezoid that extended far enough to fit bedding for two full squads of ten. Heading inside, he ignored the rancid smell of the attached latrine, and entered the communications room. The operator inside turned around, opened his mouth to protest, and then stopped, choosing wisely to simply leave the room.
Seating himself in front of the communications console, he keyed in Noridar's secure emergency line, reserved for himself in case of an emergency. The console sent the connection request, and after a brief wait, was connected to Dunius. "Yes, sire?" Dunius asked, seemingly unaware of the situation.
"Wargate is under siege. The Interlopers are attacking it in force, and I doubt the guards will be able to hold it for more than a day." Dantinian reported, managing to keep his temper under control for the time being. "Have a counterattack assembled immediately, and send a transport to my broadcast location to return me to Noridar. My Ilyx was shot down by the Interlopers on approach to Wargate."
"Shot down, sire?" Dunius echoed, surprised by such an event happening.
"The Interlopers are fielding a new kind of fighter that completely outclasses the Hyltos. The skies over Wargate are hostile. Naturally, this necessitates the deployment of our Ankres and Fulcurs to regain control of the airspace. I'll discuss the counterattack plans when I return to Noridar." Dantinian answered, and Dunius nodded.
"Of course, sire."
Sawei had to admit – seeing the B1As in action was genuinely impressive. Foreman wasn't lying when he said they were superior to the old B1s. They often reacted to new contacts quicker than Nax or Lexi could, but were still slower than both herself and Kyra. That, and more than a few had heavy battle damage, but kept soldiering on as if nothing was wrong.
Level 34 was the final level of Wargate, and was where most of the guards had been concentrated. Heavy barricades littered hallways, laced with anti-personnel explosives and automatic sentry guns to slow their advance down as much as possible. Exos were frequent sights, always coming out whenever most inconvenient, but the attrition was kicking in for the guards, who were faced with an enemy that not only didn't feel pain, but could eat blaster bolts and slugs with ease, and return fire accurately, as if suppression was merely a suggestion to them.
The turbolift just kept bringing more squads of B1As down – for every B1A the guards managed to destroy, three more would just replace it. Some guards were even abandoning their posts, preferring to try and find someplace to hide to save themselves. Those few with a sense of self-preservation were likely being shot by their officers as an example for deserters, but it really only served to destroy morale.
After some fierce fighting, the B1As managed to kill the guards on the autoslugs, paving the way for Sawei and Kyra to finally pop up and tear down the barricades with the Force, and end the stalemate. The barricades crumpled as if a duracrete slab was slowly falling on top of them, letting sandbags, barbed wire, and other defenses spill out on both sides of the barricades. Some Rakata tried to sneak out under the pile of debris, but the B1As quickly saw to it that they had a fresh hole in their head. Another B1A marked with yellow paint stepped forward. "Secure the perimeter!" he shouted, to a chorus of confident "Roger, roger!"s.
The current plan was to split up – half of the droids would go for the mind prisons and the other prisoners, while the other half would go into the personnel wing and finally secure Wargate. Nax, Kyra, and the others opted to volunteer for the latter choice, and they made some brief preparations – checking how much ammo was left and making sure they weren't injured, before the almost literal wave of metal they were with would descend upon the guards.
Leading the charge into the personnel wing was a group of B1As carrying heavy duty flame projectors, the tanks securely attached to the backs of the droids. For how intense of a firefight it was at the turbolift, resistance was nonexistent in the personnel wing. "I've got a bad feeling about this..." Lexi trailed, cautiously eyeing anything that looked like it could fit a Rakata inside. Just as Sawei was about to respond to her, there was a high pitched whine of something akin to a generator starting up. The organics reflexively jumped back, while the droids stood their ground. A brief flicker in the air encircled the group, before materializing into a ray shield, leaving Lexi as the only one outside of the barrier.
"Really just had to open your mouth, didn't you?" Nax hissed, hitting the shield with the butt of his weapon, to little effect aside from producing a loud thud. When that didn't work, he kept prodding for a physical weakness, and some of the droids saw fit to join him, despite the futility of such a task. There was the telltale snap-hiss of a lightsaber being turned on, and Sawei attempted to pierce the shield. Perhaps she should have expected this, but it did nothing.
Knockout, however, was looking up towards the ray shield emitter. It was buried too deep into the ceiling for Lexi to shoot out, but he and Lexi had the same idea to initiate a scan for power signatures with their equipment. "Master Sapphyra," Knockout called out, turning to her. "There's a-"
"-power line feeding the emitter." Lexi interrupted, tracing where that line went according to her HUD's readouts from the scans. "I see it." she confirmed, looking for a way around the ray shield. Fortunately, she found a decent sized vent that she could fit in that probably led to the origin of the wire. Getting down on her hands and knees, she fiddled with the vent briefly, before pulling it off its mounting and throwing it aside.
With a deep sigh, Lexi activated her cloaking device, got down on her stomach, and crawled in. She honestly had enough of vent crawling back on Coruscant, but it's not like she had much of a choice in the matter – it's not like the B1As were specialized for this sort of task. There was a brief crackle in her comms. "Comms open?" Nax questioned.
"Comms open, Nax." Lexi whispered, slinking up to a floor vent that was partially open. Peeking through the slats, Lexi spotted a group of guards in heavy riot gear moving down the corridor towards Nax and the others. "You've got a squad heading towards you now." she quietly reported, before moving forward ever so slowly. The slightest noise could alert the guards to her presence, and she'd be smoked out in no time.
"Gotcha. Ray shield's still up, so we're good for now." Nax replied, and some chatter leaked through the comms. "I'll keep you posted."
Lexi gave a murmur of acknowledgment as she pressed forward, keeping her eyes trained on the wire and making changes to her path as needed. Straight past a set of intersecting ducts, going upwards so that she was parallel with the wire, following it to the left, and then straight down so that she was directly above a vent. Looking down, it was clear as day that this was the control room, manned by a guard who was more or less zoned out, despite the ongoing battle and threat to his life.
Positioning herself so that she wouldn't immediately fall out of the vent when it opened, Lexi carefully got to work breaching the room. Loosening the seals on the vent, Lexi carefully lifted it up and considered how she was going to take the guard down. Briefly thinking about using her blaster, Lexi quickly decided against it. There were probably other guards outside who would enter as soon as they heard the shot, and Lexi would go deaf if she shot him from the vent. It was then that she remembered the knuckleplate vibrodaggers, and after quickly unsheathing them, decided that was the correct course of action.
No matter what she would do, she would be falling out face first. If she messed up the kill, she'd be much slower to recover, and that much more vulnerable. Breathing deep, she slowly slinked out of the vent, basically supported only by her feet pressing against the walls of the vent, and even then she was still slowly sliding out. Preparing to jam her vibrodaggers into the guard's neck, she was mid-strike when he spun around and punched her in the face, sending Lexi flying to the other end of the room, dazed from the blow, her cloak shutting off as a safety precaution.
In the time it took Lexi to recover, the guard in the room with her was charging her with a sword. Thinking quickly, she darted to the right, just barely avoiding the strike, and countered with a stab to his lower abdomen. The guard hissed in pain, but retaliated with another swing, cutting Lexi across the forehead. Stepping back briefly to catch her breath while the guard readied himself for another assault, Lexi formulated a plan of attack.
Re-engaging her cloak, Lexi proceeded to run around the room, deliberately knocking things over and making a mess so that it appeared as if she was running around him clockwise. She did this several times, making sure the guard was tracking her, and he appeared to ready himself to swing where she would be in the next couple seconds, so she quickly turned around. When the guard swung his sword, Lexi struck, driving her vibrodagger into his neck, severing his spine and killing him instantly.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she cast a glance towards the console. There was a camera shot of the corridor the others were trapped in, clearly focused on the open vent Lexi had crawled through. Making a mental note to check for cameras before doing something like that ever again, Lexi approached the console, and Nax's voice cracked through. "Hey, so, remember that squad you mentioned?" Nax asked, and without waiting for an answer, continued speaking. "Kyra just chucked them all back down the corridor. Pretty sure they're dead."
Lexi stood there, dumbfounded for a second, before focusing back on her task. "Saves ammunition, I guess." she replied, before wincing in pain from her wound. It wasn't a particularly deep cut, but it still hurt. "Ray shield's coming down in a second, and uh, I may be on the chrono." she added, finding the control for the active ray shield and shutting it off.
"What do you mean?"
"The guard in the control room saw me going into the vent through a camera, so he was ready for me. Got into a scuffle, and others outside probably heard." Lexi reported, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the door lock was engaged, which it was. Finding the controls for the cameras, she flicked around the wing, taking note of guarded positions, until she found a shot of the door to the control room. A fireteam of guards looked ready to break in. Reaching for her blaster just in case, Lexi continued messing with the console until she found something that piqued her interest - 'Activate Gun Turret' was displayed in red, and attached below that in a submenu was 'Take Manual Control' - perfect. "Heads up, I'm turning a turret on and taking control of it." she cautioned, activating the turret and immediately grabbing control of it before Nax could protest.
In her hurry to figure out how to gun down her would-be attackers, Lexi kept spinning the turret around, fighting the awkward acceleration and delay on the display, until she finally managed to line the gun up with the guards. Pressing and holding the fire button, there was a brief spinning sound, which was quickly drowned out by the hail of slugs pelting the door and ricocheting everywhere, turning the guards into a pile of blood and mincemeat.
Spinning the gun down, Lexi relaxed. "Got 'em. You're good to push." she called over the comms. For the rest of the engagement, Lexi fed intelligence to the others, occasionally defending herself with the turret whenever a guard tried to approach her position. After around a half an hour of clearing the wing, most of the guards were dead, and those that weren't had seen the writing on the wall and surrendered, giving up their weapons in exchange for their lives.
Interrogations would follow soon, but that wasn't their concern at the moment – Wargate was theirs – all had performed their roles admirably, especially the B1As, who had their first taste of real combat, outperforming even the clones when they were at their physical peak. Nax, Kyra, and the others were in the middle of organizing the post-battle cleanup, when one of the Rakata volunteers tapped Kyra on the shoulder to get her attention. "Deepest apologies for this disturbance, Dreamer," the volunteer said in a soothing voice, bowing before her. "...but your attention is required in the Detention Wing."
Kyra raised an eyebrow behind her helmet. "Is something wrong?"
The volunteer was quiet for a moment. "Not quite – the recovery for those who were in the mind prisons seems to be going well – their vitals are nominal and we're seeing brain activity returning, so we can evacuate them to the Dropstorm soon, but..."
"But what?"
"The ones who weren't in the prisons, the commoners, you see, they..." the volunteer continued, struggling with how to phrase it. "They wish to see you in person, Dreamer. With their own eyes."
Kyra nodded, and followed the volunteer to the Detention Wing, the others trailing behind her. The battle damage in the detention wing wasn't quite as bad as it was in the personnel wing, but it was still very noticeable.
The wing was basically all cells, not even the slightest amenity afforded to the detainees, and was completely barren. Some of the security doors that separated cell blocks were jammed to some degree, and the bodies of guards littered the floor. It was a mess. Some of the B1As and other volunteers saw to the prisoners, who looked on in awe at the group passing them by. The few organics assigned to capture the detention wing noted the volunteer, and directed them towards where the largest concentration of prisoners was.
Essentially, the prisoners were concentrated in a large atrium in the center of the wing by the B1As. The atrium was, like the rest of the facility, completely utilitarian, but the B1As had converted it into a makeshift hospital to see to the most dire of cases, while a fresh group of B1Ds had arrived to provide immediate care before extraction. When Kyra entered the atrium, however, all of the Rakata in the room instantly focused their gaze on her, like they were completely entranced.
Seeing the prisoners starved on the camera was one thing, but seeing it in person was another. All of them had been starved severely, leaving not even the slightest bit of fat and exposing their skeletons and, in some cases, their internal organs against the skin. Others had obvious deformities – additional digits, malformed heads, missing eyes, sickly skin pigmentations, and so on. Before she did anything, she sensed their emotions through the Force. There was a pervading feeling of unease and tension coming from the prisoners, who were sure there was some ulterior motive for why they were being cared for all of a sudden.
Kyra carefully took her helmet off, avoiding any sudden movements, but some Rakata still winced from the hissing sound of the helmet unsealing from the undersuit. Once it was properly off, she let her long, white hair fall down, and opened her eyes to look at each and every Rakata that was in the atrium, her bright eyes seeming to pierce into their very being. "I am Kyra Moryne, the Dreamer." she announced, the Rakata listening intently. "I did not ask to be here, nor did I ask to shoulder the burden of saving your species." she continued, and both Nax and Sawei picked up on a kind of righteous fury growing within Kyra. "I know none of you, but I know your treatment – I lived it myself, and what has transpired here is nothing short of a crime. Know this – for every friend you've lost, for every family member who was murdered, for every innocent life that has cried out for justice and been silenced, I will not rest until Dantinian has been deposed." she declared confidently, filled with determination. Most of the Rakata were too weak to say anything, but many of them had the same kind of determined look on their faces as Kyra.
One of the Rakata near the front, an older looking one, raised his fist into the air despite the protesting from a nearby B1D. "Haika Daritha! Haika Daritha!" he chanted, before his injuries forced him to calm down. Others joined him in the chant, and Sawei was immediately put off, and signaled for Kyra to leave. Despite her confusion, she agreed. The thing was, none of them knew what 'Haika Daritha' actually meant – the autotranslators struggled with the phrase, and never spit out a coherent equivalent in Basic, but whatever it was, it had Sawei worried.
Tiro and Baval were overseeing the rebel volunteers at the surface, under direct orders from the Tetrarch. Wargate, the insurmountable obstacle and looming threat to every single cell in operation, had been taken out in one swift blow. Not only was this a major strategic victory, but it also looked good for propaganda purposes – a major facility used to oppress the common citizenry, gone, just like that.
For being out of it for so long, the Interlopers sure knew how to impress in combat. They watched as the Interlopers brought equipment in to take over Wargate – air defense systems, both BVR and CIWS, reinforcement B1As, and logistics vehicles to secure Wargate before a counter attack could be mounted. Their LAATs started landing without reinforcements, and the medical droids started wheeling out and loading the bodies of Virgilius's inner council inside the transports.
The inner council were draped in nothing more than patient gowns. "Look at that, they had Satio and Mailo locked up down there." Baval commented, identifying them by Satio's facial birthmark, which looked like a belt of flames, and Mailo's, which was a thunderbolt running across her face. A couple other familiar faces were rolled out from Wargate – Guu, the one in control of designing the weather systems, Sinu, the head of bio-organic research, and many, many more. The simple fact that they weren't in body bags was enough to give the pair hope that they might be able to help set right what Dantinian has destroyed.
Not long after the LAAT with the council inside took off and disappeared towards the Dropstorm, there was a blaring alarm from the freshly installed CIWS, and it immediately opened up into the sky, firing at enemy fighters entering the airspace. Some of the Interloper droids immediately called in the attack, and started moving the organics, including Tiro and Baval, into cover while the Star Reavers were scrambled,
They had taken Wargate, and now they would have to fight tooth and nail to hold it.
That's all for this chapter.
Remember how I posted some imgur albums a while back of most of the characters up to that point? Pretty much all of them have gone through significant revisions since then, and I'll probably post an updated one soon-ish, provided that I remember. Also, I plan on updating the cover for a third time with said new designs.
Until next time.
-Tweak