Chapter 24: Battle of Destrillion

"I am a genius." Dr. Quartz had been gloating ever since EEK-176 arrived to his laboratory.

"The weapon, Doctor."

"Yes, yes." The Skakoan adjusted his pressure suit. "The OX9 worker droids are bringing it out now." As the Skakoan scientist promised, two OX9 droids carried the weapon out for EEK-176 to see.

"This is the ZPR gatling gun. It has substantial improvements over the old ZGD gatling gun, but it is not intended as a replacement. Like the ZGD, it has virtually no warm-up period before you can fire, but it is more powerful. You could shred lightly armored vehicles with it if you wanted." Dr. Quartz had to fiddle with his pressure suit yet again. "If you would turn around, the OX9s can attach the weapon." EEK-176 did as he was told.

"The ZPR gatling gun is designed as a shoulder-mounted weapon." The long-barreled gatling gun was affixed to EEK-176's back and the weapon was synchronized with the command droid. "When not in combat mode the weapon remains parallel to your back. But if you were to-"

EEK-176 moved the gun into firing position before Quartz finished his sentence. The gatling gun came up and positioned itself over EEK-176's right shoulder without the droid having to lift a finger. The weapon was now an extension of the battle droid. The gun could not be positioned over the left shoulder as EEK-176's command antennas were in the way.

"Precisely," Quartz observed the fluid motion of the weapon. The gun's barrel moved about, tracking pretend targets.

"You mentioned this is not intended to replace the ZGD gatling gun. Would you please elaborate?"

"Yes, as you can see it's a designed to fire over your shoulder and thus requires no hands. It is now an extension of yourself. That leaves your hands free to grip other weapons; I was thinking two ZGD gatling guns. The combined fire from the three weapons would kill all infantry in your path. It should also be useful in dispatching Jedi, for it would be impossible to block all incoming fire from three gatling guns at once."

"You are a genius, Doctor. OOM-9 will be pleased with your progress."

"Good, good. Remember, there are many more great things to come."

EEK-176 uploaded the good news to OOM-9. The battle droid general was elated at Quartz's progress and decreed that EEK-176 would be the first droid to test the new weapon in combat. Combat was not far off for OOM-9's forces.

The ZPR gatling gun was not the only new addition OOM-9's arsenal. A new droid had joined the ranks, the crab droid. In the hanger of the Magna Musai, Commanders Zako and Z23-Y75 were reviewing the new droids laid out before them.

"The Techno Union LM-432 crab droid," Zako read from a datapad. "Naturally, they are amphibious. But they are specifically designed to be deployed over rock, swamp or snowy terrain. Apparently, the dwarf spider droids are having some degree of difficulty with these elements."

"Is that so?" Z23-Y75 studied the crab droids. "I was not aware of such failure."

"Neither was I. Those reports came in from other army commanders." A crab droid had six legs with duranium claws at the end of each leg. The communication antenna of the crab droids' was much shorter than those belonging to dwarf spider droids.

"Their twin blasters are capable of rapid fire or a charged double blast." The two blaster cannons were slung beneath the crab droid's body.

"Copying the success of the versatility of the dwarf spider droids' cannons," Z23-Y75 stated.

"Precisely," Zako answered Z23-Y75's statement. The crab droid was a collaborative project amongst the Confederacy's corporations. Everyone from the Trade Federation to the Hyper-Communications Cartel had a hand in it, though the Techno Union was the primary mastermind behind the droids' production. "They are making a variety of sizes and models for the crab droid, though we were sent only the mid-size heavy infantry series. But we are among the first to get these droids, thank to Dr. Quartz. He is still close to Wat Tambor and others in the Techno Union."

"Right, have them loaded on the transports with the others," Z23-Y75 commanded. The crab droids would taste their first battle soon.

And that battle was about to arrive at a planet called Destrillion. Destrillion was a barren planet in the Outer Rim Territories. From space, it appeared to be a smoggy brown color, and if one would travel to the planet, that's exactly what the terrain would look like. Like so many other Separatist worlds OOM-9 was sent to help, this one didn't play a significant part in the grand scheme of the war. But that didn't mean Destrillion's inhabitants could be left to the mercy of their clone occupiers.

An Acclamator assault ship exited out of hyperspace in front of the planet, quickly followed by the 8th Fleet. The Republic fleet clustered together in orbit around Destrillion was about to get an unpleasant surprise.

"Sir, we can't get a clear transmission from the incoming cruiser," the communications officer informed Jedi Knight Evan Asani.

"They're obliviously under attack from that Separatist fleet," the Venator's captain stated.

"Let the ship pass between us. Once it's through, tighten formation. Their survival is our top priority."

"Yes sir."

"And deploy our fighters."

"Yes sir."

From the bridge of the Magna Musai, OOM-9 watched as the Acclamator neared ever closer to the Republic fleet. It appeared that the Republic was falling for his ruse. "How many ships in the enemy fleet?" OOM-9 was curious about how many victims his trap could claim. "Eight enemy cruiser class, twenty enemy escort class," a pilot droid stated. It was a large fleet. Three Venator star destroyers, five Acclamator assault ships, five Pelta frigates, and fifteen Arquitens-class light cruisers. Without OOM-9's scheme the 8th Fleet might have been faced with a real challenge.

The captured Acclamator had been modified with launch tubes all around its hull. Loaded into those tubes were deadly Void-7 seismic charges. Once the Acclamator was in the midst of the Republic fleet, it remotely fired all seismic charges. From all angles and directions, the shockwaves tore at the Republic cruisers. The V-19 Torrent fighters were especially vulnerable, and many were either cut to pieces by the shockwaves or crashed into each other trying to escape them.

The captured Acclamator kept going, straight into one of the Venator cruisers, and then detonated its cargo of explosives. The blast obliterated the targeted Venator, and splashed several surrounding ships.

The larger ships were still operable after the surprise attack, but fourteen of the Arquitens cruisers were destroyed and all but one Pelta frigate survived. The 8th Fleet charged in directly, firing on the survivors. The battle did not last long. The shields on the Venators and Acclamators were destroyed by the seismic charges, leaving the cruisers easy prey to the Prow turbolasers of the Munificent frigates and Recusant destroyers.

"The battle is lost! Get to the escape pods!" Evan Asani did not need to tell the bridge crew twice. Escape pods clogged the space-ways, several were obliterated the 8th Fleet's continued onslaught. Evan Asani was fortunate enough that his pod made its way down to the planet below.

"Deploy the pod hunters," OOM-8 ordered. "Take prisoners if you can."

Despite the space battle that had just occurred the Republic had not yet lost. They still had ground forces on the planet. And leading those troops was the Jedi Master Koffi Arana. He was an experienced and accomplished Jedi, a far greater opponent than Evan Asani. Koffi Arana sensed a disturbance in the Force. The Jedi Master gave his clones coordinates to where he sensed Evan Asani's escape pod would be.

As the clones took off in a LAAT/i, Arana turned to his commander. "Activate the shield generator and prepare for ground assault. Recall all patrols back to base."

"Right away, sir."

The main base was on a small island surrounded by moat that fed into a river. The water was just as dirty as the ground. Three bridges connected the island to the surrounding area. It was a highly defensible position, which was crucial when dealing with a hostile local population but it also guarded against a formal invasion.

"We've scanned the planet. They've activated a shield generator," OOM-8 informed OOM-9. "Any orbital bombardment would be futile." The Republic typically had bases near major cities, but the base on Destrillion was far from any major civilian settlements. It would have been a prime target for an orbital strike if not for the shield generator.

"We'll take the fight to the ground." OOM-9 left for the hanger bay. OOM-9's troops excelled at ground battles anyway. The 8th Fleet released their usual horde of transports and drop ships, protected by fighter escort, down to the dingy planet.

VACs dropped off homing spider droids at the edge of the battlefield. Trade Federation drop ships, landing craft and Neimoidian transports put down further behind.

The CCC updated OOM-9's troops with the general layout of the battlefield. STAPs and ASTs scouted ahead to watch for enemy attack. The NR-N99 tank droids and platoon attack craft traversed the river. The main force, consisting of AATs, GATs, AMLs, and droid infantry, stayed behind the homing spider droids. The bio cannons came up last. The Vulture droids that protected the transports morphed into walking mode and moved with the ground vehicles. The Scarab starfighters continued to guard the now-empty transports as they returned back to orbit. The few hunter-seekers that came down with the droid fighters hovered low to the ground, sticking with the army but away from the Vultures in case they needed to convert to flying mode. It wouldn't due to have one's own aircraft ramming into each other as they tried to take off.

The droid army came across a few scattered sentry posts. Sentry posts are cheap structures with no offensive abilities, but are equipped with long-range sensors. The sentry posts were destroyed without incident, but the Republic would know where OOM-9's army was now that they ceased transmitting. The sentry posts ultimately served their function; it was now up to the actual clone army to do something about it.

Away from the danger of the droid army approaching the Republic's only major base on the planet, Evan Asani regained consciousness. A wave of grief struck the Jedi as he regained his thought processes. The Republic fleet had been demolished by a Separatist trick. Asani had been in charge, the pain of the failure was his alone to bear.

What made it so difficult was the fact that the fleet had been filled with non-clone personnel. Birth-born volunteers from a half dozen different alien races manned that fleet. If they had been clones it still would have been a loss, but clones were bred to fight and die. Clones didn't have families and friends waiting for them back home, those volunteer troops did. It was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that the soldiers' loved ones would suffer and likely never recover. The ground troops at the base were comprised mostly of clones; hopefully they would stand a better chance against the droids than the volunteers did. As long as the Separatists didn't have any other dirty tricks up their sleeves.

Evan knew he could not dwell on such negative thoughts. He had to turn his attention to the here and now, the present. He could not fight the droid army with grief and sorrow. Asani checked the pod's other passengers, they were unconscious but they were alive. That least there were some survivors, Asani hoped that other escape pods had made it down to the planet. Evan activated the pod's homing beacon and waited to be retrieved.

A mixture of gunship fighters and V-19 Torrents barreled down on OOM-9's army. The hunter-seeker droids uncurled into attack mode and the Vulture droids took to the sky.

On the ground, the droid army faced nothing but a few fleeing speeder bike patrols. As the ground forces neared the base, they split up. OOM-9 intended to have his army cross all the bridges at once, preventing any chance of escape on the ground.

The bio cannons rolled around into positions surrounding the moat. They were not to cross the bridges. The artillery deployed and started hamming away at the base's defense turrets from long range. Two AMLs protected each bio cannon from air attack, though the Republic fighters were pretty much preoccupied with the Vulture droids. The hunter-seekers left the starfighter battle to harass ground units moving about the GAR base.

The clone troopers and GAR vehicles stayed within the island, daring the droids to try and traverse the bridges. OOM-9 and his troops were more than happy to accept the challenge.

The homing spider droids started crossing first, with the droid infantry quickly coming up from behind. The clones did not charge out to meet them. There were two AT-TEs guarding the island side of each bridge. Content with their current defensive positions, the squat walkers traded fire with the advancing spider walkers.

Commander EEK-176 was assigned the first bridge. From his AAT, OOM-9 led the march on the second bridge. Zako and Katen attacked the third bridge.

The clone trooper Helmet was but one of many waiting at the sides of the AT-TEs. The clone was assigned to protect the bridge EEK-176 was crossing, but Helmet had yet to learn just unlucky he was.

Helmet had received his name because he rarely removed his helmet, almost as if he was embarrassed to have the same face as everyone else in the Grand Army of the Republic. The clone troopers watched as the Republic walkers and Separatist spiders exchanged fire back and fourth. The clones just needed the droid infantry to come into range.

Finally the moment had come. But EEK-176 was up with the first line of battle droids. EEK-176 brought up his gatling gun trio into firing configuration and open up. Unlike the red lasers that spewed from the two ZGD gatling guns, the ZPR unleashed a powerful purple color. The ZPR made a highly unique noise as it fired. The command droid easily blasted through the clones directly in front of him, and then swept across his entire field of fire.

EEK-176's gatling gun trio roared, cutting down dozens of clone troopers. The clone bodies started to stack against each other as the armored soldiers tried to take out that single death spewing command droid.

The B1s and B2s alongside EEK-176 also attacked, but they weren't even necessary. EEK-176 was slaughtering the clone infantry all on his own.

Helmet felt something he knew no clone would admit to feeling. He felt the icy embrace of fear. He wanted to throw down his firearm and run for his life. His brothers were being shot to pieces by a single droid. Their armor did nothing to protect them from the incoming lasers. The clones crumpled and fell as if they were made of dry leaves. Helmet's sense of duty won out over his fear but he couldn't just stand in ranks and get killed like an idiot.

Helmet made a run for the nearest AT-TE. If he could just get to cover behind one of its legs he might stand a chance. He fired as he ran, most of the clones were dead now and he didn't have to worry about hitting friendlies. A few of the droids shot at him, but they all missed. The gatling gun droid ignored Helmet completely, still busy with killing the remainder of his brothers.

Helmet was almost at the AT-TE, but it started walking forward. Helmet finally turned his attention away from the droids to look where he was running, and smashed face first into one of the AT-TE's legs. The clone fell to the ground, unconscious.

The bio cannons had destroyed the turrets and started firing aimlessly into the heart of the base. With the turrets gone, the tanks droids and PACs entered the moat from the river and went straight up to the island, bypassing the bridges altogether. Aqua droids, crab droids and dwarf spider droids emerged from out of the water and strode over the undefended beaches of the island.

The NR-N99 tank droids flanked the AT-TEs guarding the bridges. The walkers' primary cannons swiveled over to attack the tank droids, but they treaded units smashed up against the legged vehicles so close that the cannons couldn't aim at them.

The battle was looking good for the droid army, but Zako's group was about to get a surprise. "An enemy convoy is approaching from the rear," 8EX informed Commander Zako. A sizable Republic patrol was returning to base, but would have to blast through Zako and Katen's group if they wanted to reach their destination.

"Turn the fighter tanks around! Blast them!" The GATs were quick to react and challenged the IFT-X fighter tanks. The convoy's three RTTs churned out their clone troops.

"3B3-2998, you're in charge of the frontline. Keep our troops marching on the base. We must keep up with OOM-9 and EEK-176."

"Roger roger," the B1 battle droid responded.

8EX and Zako ran to the rear ranks to assist Katen with the convoy. The Republic fighter tanks destroyed the GATs, forcing the crab and dwarf spider droids to turn their attention away from the clone infantry to focus on the IFT-X tanks.

The clones fired wildly, striking down several battle droids. Katen was hit in her right arm. She crumpled down on her knees.

"Medic! We need a medic over here!" Zako yelled. 8EX stood in front of Katen to make sure she wasn't hit again.

A MED-47 medical droid came zigzagging through the battle droid horde. Cutting in front of a dwarf spider droids, the medical droid finally arrived at his patient.

"You organics are so fragile," the MED-47 droid stated.

"Hurry, she's bleeding!"

"Pain makes one strong," the medical droid started his work.

"I'll show you some real pain if you don't hurry up and fix me!" Katen threatened. 8EX was hit twice in the chest but refused to go down, determined to protect the injured officer. The B2 droid kept his wrist blaster firing into the clone crowd.

Once the STAPs and ASTs buzzed in to assist, the tide finally turned against the clones. The Republic fighter tanks were destroyed by the crab and spider droids leaving the RTTs to fend for themselves. Like ants, the droid infantry swarmed around the large transports.

A single LAAT/i gunship approached the base and managed to avoid becoming entangled in the dogfight in the sky. "Oh no. Not more enemy reinforcements," Zako complained. The gunship kept going straight into the heart of the Republic base, rather than attacking as Zako had thought it would.

From the gunship, Evan Asani looked on at the chaos around him. The battle was not going well. Asani activated his green lightsaber and deflected a few blaster shots. A few of the droid infantry actually had the gall to shoot at the gunship. Evan noticed that the droids were aiming at the open doors of the troop compartment, and their accuracy was good.

A hunter-seeker droid barred the way, but the gunship took care of it with a pair of rockets. A Vulture droid strafed from the side to punish the gunship, the succession of hits causing the LAAT to lose altitude. Asani jumped from the gunship before it smashed into the ground.

The bio cannons ceased firing as the battle droids went further into the Republic base. EEK-176 and his troops were now marching into the base's collection of prefab shelters. Koffi Arana noticed EEK-176 and activated his lightsaber. Before the Jedi could charge in after the droid, he had to flip out of the way of incoming tank fire.

The firepower had come from OOM-9's armored assault tank. "Now, now. We shouldn't interrupt the Commander while he's working," OOM-9 smugly lectured Arana. The AAT fired its secondary laser cannons. Koffi Arana deflected the first of the laser bolts and then used the Force to run up the tank. Koffi's target was the mouthy command droid at the top of the tank. But instead of sitting there like a lump, the droid actually jumped off the top of the tank to meet him.

Midair, OOM-9 struck at the Jedi. Arana was barely able to bring his lightsaber up to block in time. Though he blocked OOM-9's strike, the force of the blow sent him tumbling down to the ground.

Koffi was quick to get back on his feet. He finally got a look at the weapons the command droid held, and why he was able to cross weapons with a lightsaber and survive. OOM-9 dual-wielded two ZK-II war-axes. The battle droids started rotating his wrists at high speed.

Axes spinning, OOM-9 slowly approached the Jedi. "What's wrong? They stop teaching dueling at the Temple? Were you expecting to deflect blaster bolts the entire war?"

Koffi raised his lightsaber. "I didn't realize they started programming battle droids to be an actual threat."

That comment set OOM-9 off, though he was in complete control, OOM-9 decided that a more belligerent stance was appropriate. He charged straight at the Jedi, Koffi was able to parry the first four swipes but had to dodge at the fifth and sixth. Arana tried to topple OOM-9 with a sweep kick but almost lost his leg to an axe in the process.

OOM-9 didn't fall over, but stumbled enough for Koffi to finish it with a Force push. The powerful gust sent OOM-9 back three meters. With OOM-9 out of the line of fire, the AAT attacked Arana again, forcing the Jedi to back off from the droid general.

Arana made a mad dash to the top of the tank, determined to destroy it from the inside out. As soon as Koffi made it to the open hatch a green grenade came up at him. The Jedi flipped, landing on the tip of the AAT's primary laser cannon. A pilot droid clutching a RD-4 radiation launcher came up from the hatch.

KJZ-8267 was the driver of OOM-9's tank. There were still two gunners in the tank, though that could change if the tank's occupants continued to exit the tank and fight the Jedi up close and personal.

Koffi balanced on the tip of the cannon, waiting for the pilot droid to make the first move. It wasn't KJZ-8267 who struck first. The tank's gunner fired the primary cannon, though Arana was able to leap off the cannon and came spiraling towards KJZ-8267.

The pilot droid brought up his radiation launcher to block, and Koffi landed on the long-barreled weapon with his two feet. For a quarter-second the Jedi stood perched on the launcher, until the pilot droid swung the gun and Arana found himself back on the ground again.

As soon as Arana hit the ground OOM-9 attacked from behind. The Jedi Master was still able to parry the droid's attacks and got out of his range again but not so far that the tank would fire at him. Koffi guessed that this particular command droid was expensive and the tank wouldn't risk destroying them both. KJZ-8267 had no such reservations and fired away with his radiation launcher. The toxic grenades wouldn't do much damage to OOM-9, though they certainly would end the Jedi's life.

EEK-176 caught wind of OOM-9's fight and turned to assist the droid general. Once he got into range, he wirelessly signaled OOM-9 and started firing. The Jedi was quick and ran. A clone personal walker got in the way as EEK-176 tried to gun down Arana. The lightly armored walker was shot to pieces in seconds. EEK-176 tried to track the Jedi, but he had disappeared.

"Keep going! Destroy the shield generator!" OOM-9 ordered his AAT. EEK-176 and KJZ-8267 stayed with OOM-9 as they searched for Arana.

The clone trooper Helmet had finally awoken from his unscheduled nap. The droids had gotten past his position and were wrecking havoc on the base. The battle was over, now it was just murder. Helmet blasted a few nearby super battle droids in the back and took off for the landing pad. He just hoped it wasn't crawling with droids yet.

A B2 battle droid and three aqua battle droids attacked Evan Asani. He managed to block enough of their shots to bring the B2 down, but the aqua droids were nearly upon him. They were all suddenly sliced in half by a flying blue lightsaber.

"Master Arana!"

"The battle is lost. We must retreat to the shuttle." The blue saber returned to Koffi as if were attached by an invisible string.

"What about the base? We can't abandon the troops," Asani had failed his soldiers in the space battle; he didn't want to lose the ground base as well.

"There is no one left to save. Our best hope is to regroup at our secondary base." Prompted by a pair of crab droids, the two Jedi took off at Force speed.

Koffi Arana and Evan Asani ran into Helmet as they made it to the Eta shuttle parked on a squat landing platform. No droids had taken it yet, though some B1s started to fire on the shuttle when they realized Jedi were trying to use it to escape. 3B3-2998 was one of the droids trying to stop the ship.

With lightning speed, Arana flipped switches to bring the shuttle's engine to life as destroyer droids rolled up and started hammering away at the hull with their blaster cannons. As soon as it was able, the shuttle lifted off, still drawing fire from the droids.

Arana had to pilot the craft past a few hunter-seeker droids but was able to get through without incident. It was the Vulture droids they had to worry about, but luckily the droid starfighters were still engaged with the few surviving V-19 Torrents that were left.

"Two Jedi and a clone escaped in a shuttle," 3B3-2998 updated OOM-9.

The shuttle cleared the immediate battle zone. No droid starfighters had followed. "Try to contact the other base," Arana ordered the clone.

"Yes sir," Helmet did as he was told. After several minutes of trying to reach their allies, the clone gave up.

"Sir, the base isn't responding. They must have gotten hit like we did."

"What are we going to do now?" Asani asked.

Koffi was silent. There were other ways to find out what was going on. He reached out through the Force, unable to detect any life where the secondary base was supposed to be. He did feel a disturbance in the Force, a feeling of desperation and fear. A battle was nearby, but not at their intended destination. Koffi Arana pointed the shuttle in the direction of the despair.

In a few more minutes the Eta shuttle came upon a battle. Clones and AT-TEs against battle droids and AATs. Koffi circled around and landed the shuttle on the Republic's side of the field. "Stay with the shuttle," Arana told Helmet. The two Jedi exited to assist the clones.

"Sirs, we're glad to see you," a clone captain greeted Koffi and Evan.

"What's the situation?" Arana asked.

"We fled from the base sir. We couldn't hold it and we couldn't get a message out to you. I'm sorry sir. These droids are just so powerful."

The mention of powerful droids brought Koffi's thoughts back to the droids he had fought earlier. Something was really wrong, battle droids had never been this much of a challenge before and there were still others he had yet to see?

An explosion rocked Arana from his thoughts. Thermal detonator battle droids were bombarding the area. The two Jedi and clone captain ran up to the front lines, just in time to see a trio of hailfire droids come rolling at up at them.

The three hailfire droids unleashed everything they had, spraying missiles everywhere, destroying all the AT-TEs. As soon as the hailfires hit empty, they went into reverse and rolled out to safety.

"Infantry, move up!" SSA-719 commanded from the top of a gray and blue AAT. "Form on Sergeant 3B3-888!"

3B3-888 was using the KnKr-1 doomseeker cannon, the clones he blasted popped like zits. The B1s, B2s, and crab droids followed in step with the B1 sergeant.

The two Jedi couldn't believe their eyes. The weapon one of the battle droids wielded was massive. There was no way they'd be able to block its shots. The other droids kept around the droid with the big gun, there was no way for the Jedi to get through or around.

SSA-719 looked through his electrobinoculars and spotted Arana and Asani. "Two Jedi at sector 32. Thermal detonator battle droids, bombard location."

The mortars rained down. The clone captain was obliterated, but the two Jedi were able to stay alive.

The other clones were nearly all killed. "Plasma battle droids," SSA-719 called on the gargantuan droids to fight the Jedi duo. Koffi and Evan were no longer up for a fight. They had turned and fled back to the shuttle, the plasma droids hot on their heels. Bright green lightning slapped at the muddy ground around them, but they managed to get inside the shuttle.

"Take off! Go!" Arana shouted at Helmet. The plasma droids zapped the shuttle as it took off. 3B3-888 aimed the doomseeker cannon as the shuttle flew overhead but couldn't track it fast enough. Rather than blindly fire, 3B3-888 lowered his weapon and let the shuttle go.

The Eta-class shuttle made it out to space, but the 8th Fleet was waiting and was blocking the way of the good hyperspace routes. Koffi opted to make a quick jump to the nearby planet of Dubrillion rather than risk running the blockade.

There wasn't time for OOM-9's army to dither about. They knew where the shuttle had fled. There was no time to chat and make nice with the local government. As soon as the clone remnants were killed off, OOM-9's troops packed up aboard the 8th Fleet and took off for Dubrillion.

Dr. Quartz was waiting for EEK-176 in the hanger bay. The Skakoan scientist was eager for feedback on his recent work. He couldn't be bothered to wait and watch the recording of the battle provided by the droids' connections to the CCC, which would have taken a few more minutes to process and upload. And Quartz would rather hear the droid's opinion first before watching the footage.

"So, how did my weapon perform?" the Skakoan wrung his hands in anticipation. He looked as if he was about to jump right out of his pressure suit.

"It exceeds expatiations," EEK-176 answered.