Chapter 12

Location: Jedi Cruiser Resolute, Republic Navy Massing Point in Deep Space

"And with the destruction of this Separatist fleet the final obstacle to the outer rim via the Corellian Trade Spire is gone, Republic Volunteer Corps forces are now free to advance as far as Bespin. There are reports that some worlds have already declared their intention to surrender to the Republic rather than risk invasion from the RVC," the voice of Erik Syno declared proudly on the holonet transmission on the bridge of the Resolute.

"Well, certainly didn't expect this," Anakin Skywalker said with his arms crossed.

"Indeed, the volunteer forces under Admiral Drexel are certainly more formidable than we had previously estimated," Obi Wan nodded in response, "Almost hard to believe."

"I spoke with Drexel not too long after they destroyed the 19th Task Group. He confirmed to me personally that it was as crushing a victory as the reports are saying," Yularen stated to the two Jedi.

"Which means in roughly two and a half weeks they'd destroyed almost a thousand enemy ships, and taken four strategically important worlds and a dozen other minor ones in the process," Ahsoka accurately surmised.

"That gives even you a run for your money old friend," Obi Wan teased Anakin.

"We'll see, they now have to exploit their victory," Anakin reminded his old master.

"That might be difficult, the commanding admiral of the 19th Task Group deployed their full ground forces before they engaged the RVC fleet. The RVC has more than four million droids to deal with now on Harrin," Yularen reported, "Drexel's deploying his whole army, four hundred and twenty thousand troops, in an attempt to retake the planet."

"They're outnumbered ten to one, that's a lot of droids," Ahsoka responded.

"Yes commander it is, but they are confident that their front, which stretches along the main river near the capital, will hold and blunt the droid attacks," Commander Cody stated firmly.

"Well Cody, can they hold it?" Obi Wan asked.

"We'll see sir," Cody shrugged, "They proved they could take us on, so give them good ground and I'm sure they could."

"I particularly liked that bit of Separatist propaganda their lancer troops butted in on. The boys have been watching that all day," Rex laughed from behind Anakin, "Oh, sorry sir."

"I liked it too," Anakin reassured his Clone friend, "Master, you had to enjoy seeing that. What with you being an honorary lancer yourself."

"I took a few lessons from the Anaxes Knights on their preferred fighting style. It is good to see a much more...civilized manner of war still used to such, perfection," Obi Wan mused aloud, reflecting on the one time on Muunilist he'd led Clone Lancer Troopers into battle.

He himself didn't like blasters, or flying. But the lance and sword, that was a weapons combo that Kenobi had great admiration for. It took years of training and discipline for a person to become as skilled with those as such people as the Jedi and Anaxes Knights. It was what Kenobi termed a more civilized way of fighting.

"So, do you think these...lancers and the rest of their forces will hold?" Anakin asked Kenobi.

"They might have to, with the search on for some new Separatist weapon in the area we won't be able to provide any sort of help."

"What does that mean master?" Ahsoka asked, not quite getting what Obi Wan was getting at.

"It means the volunteers are on their own."

Location: Near the Bridge over the Axii River, Planet Harrin

"Incoming!"

Another explosion rocked their pillbox with them inside, ducking to prevent being hit by shrapnel. Wyatt and Eva hadn't had much rest since the attacking droids began their assault. The columns of droids with AAT's covering them had kept coming. Smoke from fires lit by incoming HAG artillery strikes coated the RVC line on the ridge. But it was now home to an additional three companies from their battalion, meaning the whole battalion was up on the ridge, creating a much denser defensive line for them to defend. However they hadn't been truly prepared for the massive attack coming their way.

"Oh come on!" Eva yelled as she smashed her fist against the sandbag on which she placed her DLT-18's bipod and began to aim for targets.

"Another kriffing division?" Wyatt yelled as he aimed at the lines of droids coming down the hills across from the fields towards the river, this time, being led by Techno Union Enforcer Droids Tanks, Snail Tanks for short.

"Oh they've got tracked ones this time," Eva groaned as she aimed and waited for their artillery and rocket artillery to start off the battle.

The numerous blue flamed rockets rained down onto the droid tanks, smashing the first ranks into oblivion as the droid infantry also took its fair share of casualties. The field was already a wreckage-strewn junkyard. With hardly a place where a destroyed droid of armored vehicle hadn't been. Fires burned on the enemy vehicles that hadn't been retrieved by enemy recovery vehicles and black smoke choked the sky. Fires had burnt out for the most part on the RVC line where the trees of the orchard had been put out and the grass blown away. But a few T1-APC's and T4-A tanks had been destroyed and burned long and hot where they lay.

Artillery from the rear of the RVC line now opened fire, and the blue shells crashed into the enemy lines, further damaging the field of craters and destroyed droids. Starfighters and bombers strafed and bombed the advance lines as more charging droids and vehicles came at Wyatt and Eva. But enemy anti-aircraft fire was thick, and downed several red-painted fighters in the past day. The enemy's own rear was shielded from attack like theirs was. Their dropships provided a great deal of aid, firing volleys of rockets on large-scale strafing runs on the gathering enemy forces through screens of Vulture Droids that would shoot them down whenever F-Wings couldn't get there in time. All-in-all, Wyatt and Eva were viewing the largest ground battle that the RVC had ever partaken in.

"Open fire!"

"We know…" Eva growled as she laid into her repeating blaster and send rapid fire blue rounds downrange at the enemy lines.

Wyatt had done likewise, and with his scope he began picking off droid after droid, blowing away B1's with little difficulty after taking several shots to bring down the supers. The red blaster bolts of the enemy droids smashed into their lines and occasionally scared the two troopers witless when one struck their sandbags or entered through the thin holes they'd left for themselves. Enemy artillery and tank rounds hammered their positions, a shell struck to their immediate front right, blowing a steaming hole in the ground so close they felt the concussion through their duracrete pillbox. But they kept fighting, blasting away as the endless droid blocks grew closer and closer as explosions rippled through the rear enemy lines while the tanks focused on the close-in fighting. A Snail Tank focused its fire on them after Wyatt decided he wanted to take out one of its comrade's eyes and succeeded in drawing the attention of the one that fired six blasts of its heavy cannons into their pillbox and blew away the dirt in front of them and on top of the bunker.

"Keep it up! They're slowing down!" Lieutenant Yuno said over the comms as the droids got within fifty meters of the river.

The RVC troopers kept firing, knowing they had to hold their lines or else get overwhelmed forced back into open terrain. The blue bolts cut away hundreds of droids, and blew apart the remaining vehicles, sending smoke billowing up into the air from the fiery explosions hitting the easily destroyed Snail Tanks. A few droids tried taking cover and get more nimble once enough of their friends had fallen, but that didn't help them very much as the RVC position was still strong. All the while mortars began falling on top of the enemy forces, blowing small craters and blew open the droid ranks if they gathered at all, and a few landed on top of vehicles, adding them to the numerous ones already damaged or destroyed. The second line of enemy forces, this time more numerous made it alongside them as they fired up at the ridgeline and the RVC forces kept firing back, trying to keep the droids from getting down to the road and then into the water where they would cross the river and begin attacking.

But when the third wave reinforced the attacking droids they began advancing in force down the steep cliff to the road. Many of the battle droids grasped onto the Snail Tank's sides, each holding a dozen of them as they crashed into the water and began crossing under the river. Wyatt fired a grenade at one as it plummeted into the water and missed, smashing a section of droid infantry. He quickly reloaded but winced as the tank splashed down into the water alongside others while droid infantry began jumping down as well and began crossing.

"Shit, they're on top of us!"

All of them fired at the droids still on the other side that were streaming towards them and waited for the Snail Tanks to crest the hill and the rocketeers and grenadiers waited for them to show themselves. Wyatt quickly reloaded his Viper grenade launcher and waited for an enemy tank to show itself. His target was a soft one for the powerful weapon he had at his disposal. Immediately upon being ready to fire again he saw the antennae of one pop up to his right as it climbed the hill. Without saying a word he yanked Eva down and poked his blaster out and fired at the top of the droid tank as it crested and the grenade blew a hole in the side of the vehicle and severed its main central track. The vehicle stopped and began rolling backwards from the blow, dead. But battle droids came marching over the summit and opened fire at close range.

Now the RVC troopers took casualties, with their lines increased in density many fireteams had to create forward fighting positions that they had covered with logs and dirt alongside the concrete pillboxes of their comrades. But the droids were accurate at this close range and the defenders were distracted by many of the Snail Tanks breaching their perimeter, and blowing them apart if they could. Another Snail Tank came crashing over the lip of the ridge and fired into the wooden bunker that was in between Wyatt and Eva's fireteam's pillboxes. The four troopers inside it were either killed or wounded before a rocket silenced the enemy vehicle before the battle droids crested the hill.

"Shit!" Eva yelled as she strafed her fire along the line of enemy droids that was attacking them.

"Down!" Wyatt warned as he yanked her down, seeing a rocket launching super battle droid firing a rocket at their bunker.

The rocket exploded against their sandbag barrier, blowing a wave of canvas and dirt into the interior along with a shrapnel cloud they'd both just gotten away from by ducking against the wall beneath the firing slit. But they were both blown backwards against the back wall and Eva was quick to recover and tossed a thermal detonator out of the hole and an explosion blasted away the droids immediately in front of their bunker.

"Get up Wyatt!" she said to Wyatt as she placed herself back at the now more exposed slit and fired away.

"Fall back! Fall back!"

"Eva fall back!" Wyatt said as he grabbed her as she picked off a few more droids.

Both of them scrambled out of the back of the pillbox and into the open to see that a burning RVC tank was in the fighting position to the right and another was backing away as other members of the company were retreating through the deep trenches as droids advanced at heavy cost. Wyatt came out of the bunker first and bashed a B1's legs that was standing on the ground to the side of their bunker with the butt of his rifle. The droid fell and he stomped it into the mud, snapping its head off. A shower of sparks and a B2's carcass falling from behind him let him know that Eva ha just saved him.

"Come on!" their fireteam leader, Corporal Arne, yelled from the more covered trenches as other members pulled back.

The two young troopers sprinted back, staying hunched over in the trenchline as they joined their other comrades who were pulling back. They saw a pair of troopers, one helping their wounded comrade, emerging from a bunker further down get cut down by droids that fired down onto them. Wyatt and Eva immediately avenged them by blasting the four B1's responsible. But they had to pull back again into another row of trenches.

"Hold here!" Lieutenant Yuno himself said as he scrambled to get his troopers into position to return to fire from good cover and took up position at the corner of the trench that the enemy droids were now down inside of and were popping out and firing at them as they tried advancing.

"You okay guys?" Corporal Arne asked as he checked up on them.

"We're good Corporal," Wyatt nodded breathlessly.

"Delta Company, take back the bunkers, we're counterattacking," the comms called out as Yuno as he took out a droid popper and tossed it out and a couple other troopers did likewise.

The grenades went off, and the handful of droids in the trench flashed with electricity and collapsed to the muddy floor as the troopers charged. Yuno himself led the way, but a grenadier behind took a shot directly to the chest and lurched back and fell into the puddle on the bottom of the trench as the rest of the troopers moved up.

Wyatt followed Arne and Faye, their rifleman, as a couple fireteams charged over the open ground and dove to their bellies in front of the first trenches and fired relentlessly into the droids below. A few tanks rushed forward, firing into the few enemy tanks that had pushed forward into the trees, shattering the enemy vehicles. Wyatt fired into a few supers that tried coming around the corner of the trench that appeared just a few feet away within the trench. But he had his weapon grabbed by one of them and then his helmet as he was dragged into the trench and slammed down. But Eva and Faye jumped the super on the right and the droid fell to the ground as both girls fired blaster pistols into the droid's heavy armor. But the second raised its arm to fire at them and Wyatt took his chance to save his friends.

He instinctively grabbed the nearest available object, a shovel, a standard issue one with a vibroblade head for cutting roots. He jumped up and grabbed the arm of the larger droid and pushed it back against the trench wall and both slid back in the slick mud and fell onto the ground next to a smaller destroyed B1 laying in a muddy puddle. Though the splash of mud got on his visor he smashed his shovel into the droid's chest, heavily denting the head and armored chest of the droid. But the gray battle droid fought back, smashing his helmet with a punch from its other hand. This knocked Wyatt back, almost off of the droid and freed up the target for Arne who fired down into the droid.

"Thanks," Wyatt said with a nod as Arne jumped down and grabbed his rifle.

"That's it," Arne nodded, and the group began looking around, breathing deeply as they tried catching their breath after such a vicious battle, "Good job," he said, patting Wyatt on the shoulder.

Wyatt just nodded, listening to the more distant explosions and groans and cries of the wounded that were more nearby as medics began scrambling around to get to anyone calling for help. It was becoming a common occurrence now, here on the front on Harrin. They were fighting against a truly massive enemy force, as the open space in front of them showed. As Wyatt and Eva went to the semi-ruined bunker in search of the troopers from their squad that were in it they could see a dotting of burning or smoking Separatist vehicles and the dots of thousands of battle droids. It was at least a hundred tanks burning out there, yet it was just another attack repulsed.

It was the second time they'd had to retake their own bunkers, but the tanks were a new twist that had cost them pretty dearly. The two troopers had to help get two lightly wounded members of their squad out of the ruins of their wooden and dirt bunker. The third was dead, having been hit almost directly by the blast from the enemy tank. Thankfully the fourth was alright and the other two were patched up and stayed on the line. After that was done they helped clear out the droids they'd blasted or beaten into submission and threw them down the slope to join many others. The Snail Tanks were shoved over the edge by T1-APC's, creating a growing obstacle for enemy droids and vehicles to pass should they get close enough again. With that done the two troopers returned to their bunker, and placed what sandbags they had left on the top of the slit and began cleaning their weapons.

"How many this time?" Eva asked, not wanting to check the company roster.

"Nineteen wounded, eight dead," Wyatt said quietly as he took his pressurized air canister and blew away the dirt and grime on his blaster rifle.

"How many in total now?"

"Twenty…six, twenty-six dead. Most of the wounded will back I think," Wyatt shrugged, not wanting to think about their company-mates they'd lost.

"Hope those droids are finally running out of stuff to throw at us," she said as she looked out at the setting sun, knowing that there was very likely going to be a bombardment or a raid by STAP's.

"They're droids, they never run out," Corporal Arne said as he walked into the bunker.

"Hey, wipe your feet," Eva reminded him, pointing at a wooden board she'd burned the words 'Go Away' into.

"You two okay? Saw your bunker take a rocket."

"We're okay," Wyatt nodded, "You guys?"

"I've only got a couple more rockets left, aside from that we're okay."

"How's the rest of the line holding up?" Eva asked now.

"Scuttlebutt says we're taking the bulk of the hits for the legion, the Clones down there are taking a pounding too and had to withdraw across the bridge and folded in with the 1st Legion's lines," Arne said in response, "Everywhere else…who knows. They don't tell us much."

"Squad leaders, platoon meeting," the comms called out.

"I don't think I wanna know what that means," Arne groaned.

"Sounds like we're going across if I were to guess."

"I personally wouldn't mind taking the fight to them," Eva said aloud as the sun fully set.

Then a red series of waves came over the hills once more as batteries of HAG's opened fire trying to bombard their line once again.

"Incoming!" Wyatt yelled and sure enough a couple other troopers ducked into their duracrete bunkers as Wyatt and Eva made room for them by diving into their square room below where they slept and took cover from bombardment.

They both got down against the walls sitting up next to each other as explosions rattled the lines once more. It was as heavy as ever, and to pass the time the two troopers pulled out a classic game of theirs that they'd been playing since the start of this ordeal, a roll-up dartboard that hung on the wall across from them with six magnetic darts in red and blue. Outside they heard the firing of friendly artillery doing some counter-battery work trying to catch the enemy out in the open as usual. Sometimes they won, sometimes the enemy got away. But the enemy usually got away, retreating under the cover of their own shield.

The ground shook as waves of fire hit their lines. The Taanab troopers took cover in their small duracrete bunkers below ground to wait out the artillery bombardment which could last for an hour or more. It was as rough as war got for troops that had already been through the ringer all day. But they'd have to. But within the hour expectation the bombardment ended, and both young farmers took their helmets off and relaxed.

"Another failed attempt by the big guns?" Wyatt asked rhetorically.

"By both sides," Eva confirmed as she pulled out her canteen.

"Sometimes I hate shield generators," Wyatt sighed indignantly.

"As long as it's ours we don't."

"Doesn't do us much good right here now does it?" Wyatt reminded her.

"Right…hey Wyatt, thanks," Eva said hesitantly.

"That super had to be dealt with eventually, no need," he brushed off.

"No I mean…for everything. You've always been there, through training, through the fighting, never really said how much that meant. It's been pretty hard," Eva said quietly.

"Well you've done the same for me haven't you?" Wyatt replied.

"Because you did for me."

"I guess…you're welcome?"

"Yeah, close enough," she said with a laugh, patting his leg as she decided to lay down.

"Two hours of rest," Arne said from his pillbox, and walked in, "After that we attack."

Location: Executive Building, Planet Coruscant

The reports were astounding to Chancellor Palpatine. He hadn't expected the RVC to perform so well in their engagements against the Separatists. Yet here were intelligence reports saying things that he wouldn't have even bothered to imagine. Separatist chatter was heavy with talk about how to counter the RVC should they engage on another front. The Jedi themselves were curious about the potential of bringing the other six Kuati dreadnoughts out of the core to engage on hard-pressed fronts. And chief among his reports were senators that wanted to get the RVC enlarged and folded in with the larger Republic military.

But that couldn't happen, he simply couldn't trust these volunteer soldiers to do what was needed when the time came. He simply couldn't say that he wanted nothing to do with what had quickly become the most impactful combat unit the Republic had. However there were options available to him in dealing with the RVC so that he appeared to support them and their efforts in contributing to the fight against the Separatists. There was one set of options available to him that he did like, it would give the founders of the RVC what it wanted but give Palpatine what he needed and provide a testing ground for the future under the command of competent and gifted officers, officers that weren't Jedi.

He knew he needed to contact these senators of the War Party, a militarily minded caucus in the Senate that had first-hand connections with the RVC and had a hand in creating this force. If he threw his weight in behind them along with the needed funding bill for new clones his status as being competent in pursuing victory in the war, rather than elongating it as he really planned, would be assured. And for now, what was politically needed was what he needed to do. It was that simple. First, he would need to speak with the Jedi.

Well, that laid some groundwork didn't it? I'm really feeling this story right now guys, I'm on a roll and having fun doing it. So, on to a question or two for you guys.

Are you guys at all attached to the name Republic Volunteer Corps? And if you are fine with a future name change what would you guys name the RVC if it were to be fully integrated into the larger Republic military?

Would you guys like to see Sato show up as a member of the RVC?

Next Chapter Preview: The siege continues, and the RVC finds an unlikely ally.