Fredrick was riding the Persuader in pursuit of the fleeing soldiers. They were falling back just as quickly as they arrived, which in the case of the tanks, wasn't very fast.

The Persuader he was riding was equipped with a pair of heavy repeating blasters and concussion missile launchers. Five tanks flanked his, three had shock rifles, two had ion cannons and all were being ridden by droids. Several other formations similar to the one he was a part of were also in pursuit.

All were moving at max speed, rapidly catching up with the tanks, who were comparatively crawling away.

"Ready your concussion missiles strike the tank on the left, the one with the short wide barrel."

The tank made a beeping noise in response which he took as a yes.

Shielding his eye piece from the back blasts he watched as the missiles streaked towards their targets. The heavy armor of the enemy tanks was blown apart on its weaker rear as the Persuaders charged.

Several STAPS shot past, moving at full speed to intercept the retreating defenders.

"Prepare to open fire, I want as many tanks and APCs destroyed as possible, we need to defeat them now, and prevent them from ever regaining the initiative."

The droid tanks were rapidly closing the gap, the tanks soon coming into blaster range.

"Fire into their tracks!"

Several of the tanks rotated their main guns and fired at the pursuing Persuaders. One was struck in the center track and halted, fire coming out of its center line as its engine erupted. Watching as it skidded to a halt, turning to the left as it stopped.

Fredrick looked at the tank directly in front of him, raising his hand as a blast from its cannon flashed across its muzzle and the ground several meters in front of the tank shot upwards.

"Take that one out, sooner or later it will score a direct hit."

The Persuader turned sharply to the left as the tank in front of them halted and they shot passed it. Fredrick leaped off the Persuader as it dodged the tank, and turned to face it. The turret was rotating to fire on one of the pursuing tanks, but its hull mounted weapon were turned to face him.

The bark of two heavy bolters churned the ground around him, and Fredrick did the only thing he could, he charged the tank. Its sponson mounted weapons could not hit targets that got too close to the front, so all he had to worry about there was the large laser cannon on its front.

He tucked and rolled as it fired, the shot missing him and he grabbed onto the gun.

"Get off my tank heretic!"

Looking up he saw a soldier poking his upper body out of the tank, and grabbing a type of slug thrower and aiming it at him.

"Eat heavy stubber!"

The gun opened fire on Fredrick and he raised his laser cannon, aiming for the soldier. The stubber bounced off his armor and Fredrick found it to be a minor annoyance but it did throw off his aim, so he resorted to firing in one long burst.

The rain of stub rounds halted and Fredrick looked up, the soldier was slumped into the hatch, multiple blasts perforating his body.

"That should do it," he remarked to himself and he climbed up the tank swinging over the laser cannon and onto the top of the hull.

He kicked the commander back down the hatch and noticing he couldn't fit down the hatch due to his bulk he started firing his dual laser cannons down it, hitting the gunner and loader of the main gun.

"This is commander Fredrick of the CIS, surrender now and you will be treated well."

The remaining three crew looked up at the power armored commander of the invasion standing over their tank and they raised their hands.

"I'll take that as a yes."

An explosion rocked the tank sending Fredrick stumbling off the tank and flinging the crew members into the side of the tank.

The tanks had turned around and were engaging his pursuing force, and several more had emerged from positions off to the side of them. It was a carefully staged ambush. Several of the tanks moved to block off an escape.

"Well this is unexpected." Fredrick remarked, as his force was surrounded by tanks and infantry carriers. The AATs hadn't arrived yet and that made the fight significantly harder as he was lacking the firepower to fight the tanks on equal terms.

A Persuader exploded into fire as one of tanks fired it main gun.

Activating the comm-link Fredrick said "We need reinforcements, Carolus can you bring in some of our air force to this area, I need the support."

He ducked behind the tank as an explosion shock the ground around him. Several shouts issued forth as several of the infantry carriers disgorged their troops. One of the soldiers was wearing a substantially heavier suit of armor then the norm, and was engaging the surrounding dismounted droids with their small arms and his uniform marked him out as an officer.

One of the soldiers was locked in close combat with a Super Battle Droid, they were grappling and he slammed his armored force into the droids upper body, right below its photoreceptor and its stumbled and returned the blow, hitting him the face and dropping the soldier.

Looming over the soldier it raised its laser cannon, the Super Battle Droid was about to fire when one of the others shot the droid with one of the heat cannons, melting through its chest plate and leaving the edges bordering on molten.

A voice came in on the comm-link and what that dull monotone voice said made Fredrick's blood go cold. "Sir, we might not be the only ones trying to take over this planet. During my interrogation of the commissar, I discovered that this world was in the process of being evacuated when we arrived. Some sort of race is headed this way."

"What exactly do you mean?" Asked Fredrick, incredulousness in his voice.

Static cut across his comm-link and he shook his head inside the armor, they were jamming him.

He poked out from behind the tank and fired off a burst off laser fire, before ducking back behind the tank. Poking out again he saw the droids falling back towards him, the Persuaders were taking heavy fire from the enemy tanks, and only the ones fitted with ion cannons or concussion missiles were able to return effective fire.

One of the tanks was charging him, its cannon turned away and firing at one of his Persuaders.

He ran around putting the hull of the tank he was sheltering behind between them, and firing at some of the infantry with his laser cannon, its high intensity shots killing several of the rushing soldiers.

Two missiles shot past the tank he was sheltering by and an explosion launched him several feet off to his left. Fredrick was launched unto the ground and he went skidding for a brief period of time before he stopped, hitting a shell crater left by one of the assault tanks guns.

"What the hell is that?" a voice asked from next to him.

Looking up Fredrick saw a pair of soldiers staring at him, one with one of the heat cannons aimed right at him, and despite the thick Cortosis plating which had withstood lightsaber blows in the past and was known for its energy dissipating properties he was unsure of how it would fare against that heat cannon.

Instead he whispered a command to it, ordering the shutdown of his primary eye sensors and activated a pair of extremely small ones which were off the sides of the primary one. He watched as the turned their attention away from what they must have thought was a dead droid and continued fighting.

He smiled to himself and raised his laser cannon and shot the soldier with the heat cannon in the helmet blasting off half his face. The other turned his gun towards Fredrick and started firing at him, his las rounds absorbed harmlessly on the Cortosis plating.

He raised his laser cannon and fired a pair of rounds into the soldier's head, whipping his head back and dropping the man back onto the ground.

A set of explosions ripped the ground around him, and he saw several soldiers ducking back down into a shell crater. They popped back up and began firing their lasers at him.

"Where are my reinforcements?" he shouted into the comm-link.

"Commander Fredrick," a dull monotone voice responded, "they are but five minutes out, twenty AATs, twelve PACs and four HMPs."

Fredrick smiled despite himself, that was over a thousand droids heading in his direction. His position was soon to be swarming with battle droids and the soldiers were none the wiser.

A blast from a tank's cannon destroyed a group of battle droids twenty meters away from him, and one of the large laser cannons he often saw mounted on the fronts on the tank fired into one of the Persuaders piercing its light armor and detonating its concussion missile racks, the resulting explosion sending a shard of its side armor into the ground next to Fredrick.

A pair of STAPS fired their light laser cannons into a charging armored personnel carrier, which crushed one beneath its bulk before the other got enough sense to dart out of the way. He hated how stupid Battle Droids could be sometimes, thankfully the Super version was significantly more intelligent, he thought watching several spilt up to avoid fire from a tank with dual mounted autocannons.

A group of battle droids was forming around him, as he held his ground against the overwhelming firepower of the planet's defenders. Rockets started to impact around them, one of them landing in close proximity to one of his tanks, shattering its hull plating.

Using his free hand he picked up an odd grenade from the ground, it was just like the one the soldier had threatened him earlier with, but he recalled it being anti-tank. He pulled a pin on it and threw it at one of the infantry carriers, the blast obscuring his sight of the vehicle momentarily and when the dust cleared he saw a large hole on the front of it, where the driver's hatch had been.

Fredrick and his droids were being pushed into a smaller and smaller area by the pressure of the armored assault and Fredrick knew that if those reinforcements were late there'd be nothing to reinforce. A flamethrower Super battle droid was covering a squad of soldiers with flames and their screams filled the battlefield. It cut the flow of its flamethrower and Fredrick watched them collapse onto the ground writhing in agony. Several laser bolt slammed into the droid, breaking its armored plating and igniting the fuel of its flamethrower, splashing several droids around it in fire.

A pair of flamethrowers erupted next to him as a pair of flamer B2s opened fire into the advancing forces, and as the fires swept up all around them in burning incinerator fuel. Their screams joined the chorus of the dying around the faltering droids, who did all their programming gave them, but their efforts only availed them a few seconds as the soldiers closed in on them. Several of them had deployed missile launchers and some type of large slug thrower.

"Sir," a voice sounded over the comm-link, "the reinforcements should be arriving in thirty seconds. The infantry in two minutes."

That dull monotone voice was a source of relief to the embattled commander, he only had to hold out for a few more moments before help arrived in the form of Armored Assault Tanks, Destroyer Droids, battle droids and gunships.

A pair of missiles shot down from the sky, smashing straight into one of the tanks. He saw a stream of laser fire stream down onto the enemy force and several of his AATs crested a hill two hundred some odd meters away, and began firing at the tanks, send their armor piercing shells into the sides of the slab sided brute force killing machines.

"Send me a transport, I have work to do." He said into the comm channel and one of the gunships swooped down over him discharging its Super Battle Droid complement and gripping him with one of the many sets of claws it used to hold the droids.

"I have critical work to do."