Hey folks, Grubkiller here.
I just wanted to start off by saying that I'm sorry that I haven't been updating as quickly as usual. I have school and work. It's causing me to have less and less free time.
Anyway, here's part 11.
Hope you all enjoy.
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Mandalore. In the buildings near the Royal Palace. Day 3 of the siege. Concurrent to the events unfolding on Utapau, Kashyyyk, and Coruscant.
Above the carnage in Sundari's streets, a squadron of Republic gunships flew past the glass and steel buildings, heading straight for the Royal Palace. As they got closer, a transmission from Captain Autem came through on Ahsoka's com-link.
The Togrutan ex-jedi reached for her holo-projector, and an image of Autem materialized from her hand.
"Commander, we have a possible fix on Darth Maul in the Royal Palace. The Battalion is en route. Intel gathered by the Nite Owls and Mandalorian resistance indicates that Maul may have indeed obtained a cache of WMDs. Speed is critical. And though you have taken out most of the air defenses, Maul's ground and air forces still pose a serious threat. They're mobilizing for a last stand at the palace."
Ahsoka nodded. "You got it, Captain," she said before she shut her com-link off and looked around to her troopers, with one hand on the handrails above her. "Alright troopers, listen up. It's all hands on deck for this one. If we get Maul, then we can liberate this planet, right here, right now. Lock and load!"
The troopers all nodded, and a series of clicking and hissing noises sounded out as the clones put their helmets on and checked their weapons. That's when the doors opened up, allowing the daylight to flood through, as well as the outside breeze.
Ahsoka squinted her eyes before they properly adjusted to sudden change in light. Then she walked over to the edge and looked down. The gunships flew over the rooftops. When she looked up, she could see through the holes in the city's dome. Through them, she could barely see Autem's task force and Maul's remaining space/air forces hammering away at each other. When she looked down, she could see the rest of the battalion marching forward. A couple dozen AT-TE's, and multitude of speeders and hover tanks moved headed straight for the enemy lines. When they got into range of the enemy forces holding the main road, both sides exchanged fire.
The AT-TE's shrugged off most of the blasts with their armored hulls, and continued clanking forward on all six legs. At the same time, Maul's tanks were trying to hold the line. But they were zeroed in. They soon fell to the combined firepower of both the AT-TE's and the Gunships made each tank disappear into a ball of fire, or reducing them to piles of smoking steel.
Some of the clones inside started to cheer as they watched their brothers get to work.
That's when, suddenly, a maelstrom of flak filled the air around the gunships, shaking them viciously. When two of the ten gunships disintegrated in midair, the remaining eight broke off in different directions. Their passengers desperately clung to the hand rails above as they were jostled around.
"We've got enemy light armor, take 'em out boys," Hawk said over the comm.
The gunships shifted their various weapons to the light hover tanks that were in the road, firing up at the Republic gunships. Every enemy tank that telegraphed their location by opening fire ended paying dearly for it seconds later.
That's when Ahsoka saw figures running around the rooftops. They looked like Maul's troopers, carrying heavy equipment. That's when she saw several rocket trails and muzzle flashes appear in front of her.
"Enemy heavy gunners on the rooftops." She said as she began to deflecting enemy fire with her lightsabers. "Take 'em out boys!"
Rex and the others complied by aiming their weapons out of the side hatch. The ball turrets on either side of the gunship also went to work, using their powerful laser beams to blow away the windows like destructive erasers. Maul's inexperienced infantry also began to fall one by one from the sustained firepower from the clones.
"That's right you horn-headed bastards, run!" One of the troopers called out.
As the gunship slowly hovered over the rooftops, the crew and passengers were far from running out of targets. Then it seemed like there were too many targets, as light tanks seemed to roll around every corner, firing up at the gunship.
"There's more of them, all around us."
"Keep firing."
As the gunship fired back, Ahsoka began to look down. Then she turned to Rex, shouting over the sounds of battle. "Rex. We've gotta take out those tanks!" She exclaimed.
"Alright... what's our plan of attack then?" He asked.
Ahsoka looked at the jet packs that Rex and the others were wearing. Then she looked down at the rooftops that they were flying above, and some of which had Maul's super-commandoes on them, hampering the Republic's advance with rocket fire. An idea popped into her head, causing a smile to spread across her face. Then she turned back to her men as she activated her lightsabers.
"Follow me boys!" She called out before she did a back flip out of the ship's side hatch.
The clones all stood in shock as they watched their commander plummet to the streets below. Then she saw them land next to a trio of Maul's commandoes, killing all of them with relative ease. Then she jumped over the side of a building, landing right on top of a Mandalorian light tank. She started deflecting blaster fire from the enemy infantry, before she reached out with the force and crushed the turret of one tank, before it spontaneously exploded.
Back on the gunship, the clones all looked at each other and shrugged.
"Well come on boys, fire up those rocket packs and get to work. Come on... move it, move it!" Rex ordered.
Echo, Jesse, Hardcase, and Kix used their rocket packs, and flew out of the open bay. Rex followed, and soon, they were right over Ahsoka, firing down on the remaining commandoes.
The veteran clone officer aimed one of his DC-17's at a retreating commando. He led his target, and when he was confident, he squeezed the trigger, and the bolt flew straight and true, into the Maul warrior's jetpack. The warrior screamed as his pack acted up and made him spin out of control, before crashing and exploding against the side of a building.
That's when they saw a pair of Mandalorian Fang fighters hovering over the rooftops. As it fired on Hawk's gunship, which was taking evasive action, the enemy ship's ramp lowered. A trio of Maul troopers started to disembark.
Ahsoka smirked. 'Oh no yah don't', she thought to herself as she threw a lightsaber at the ramp like a boomerang. As it spun towards the Maul troopers that trying to disembark, one of them saw it coming, shouted something inaudible, and either dove over the side of the ramp, retreated into the ship, or were sliced apart along with the ship's ramp. Then Ahsoka sprinted towards the ship, summoning her blade again and using both of them to deflect laser fire along the way. When she was close enough, Ahsoka force jumped up into the ship's open hatch just before it closed behind her.
She landed in a crouched position, with both of her blades pointed up towards the ceiling. When she looked up, she saw three Mandalorian troopers staring at her.
"Jedi, kill her!" One of them said as he reached for his blaster, only for Ahsoka to touch the ground the emit a shockwave on the ground, which pushed every single trooper against a different bulkhead. Ignoring them, se sprinted to the back of the ship, were the engine was.
Satisfied that the coast was cleared, she slashed at the door's locking mechanism, and the door opened for her automatically. Her eyes brightened and her smile spread across her face when she saw the main reactor that powered up the engines. She swiftly slashed at the power coupling that carried power to the engines, and then she ran out of the room, sprinting towards the nearest airlock. Two Maul troopers were in her way, and she used a force push to blast the door open, and the two troopers out of the ship, where they plummeted to the embattled streets below. She jumped out of the ship and back onto the rooftops, just as the ship lost altitude, spun around, and entered into a fiery crash at the base of a building cross the street.
She nodded to herself, deactivated her sabers, and walked back to her men, with an extra swing in her swaying hips.
As she walked up to her men, she saw her squad securing the rooftop.
"You boys missed me?" She asked jokingly.
"Of course," Rex said as his men laughed and he reached for his comm unit.
"All gunships, unload half of your passengers and tell them to secure the rooftops surrounding the royal palace. We've gotta clear a path for the gunships."
Moments later, after giving the order, Ahsoka and Rex watched as several dozen Clone Jet Troopers hovered down and started blasting at the Maul troopers that controlled the rooftops. Some of them started firing rocket launchers at the AA tanks below.
As this happened, the Shadow Collective forces line broke, and the infantry started to pull back to the palace. The AT-TE's continued forward, stomping their way through the streets and over the abandoned enemy equipment.
There was very little that could stop this reinvigorated Republic offensive.
"Alright, let's take out what's left of the enemy armor and get a move on," Ahsoka said.
Sundari, near the royal palace, day three of the siege.
On the rooftops that surrounded the palace grounds, Ahsoka's men were about to take out what was left of the AA tanks that kept the sector locked down. Hardcase aimed a launcher at the last tank below, while Rex stood behind him, loading the last rocket into the breech.
As this was happening, yellow blaster fire rained down on the rooftop from a pair of Mandalorian Kom'rk bombers. They hovered above, raining heavy cannon fire upon the small Republic strike force.
"RREEEEX!" Ahsoka called out impatiently, as she continued to deflect blaster fire. "It's getting a bit hot out here."
"Working on it, Commander," Rex said as he put the rocket in all the way. He tapped Hardcase's helmet. "Let 'em have it, trooper!"
"'Bout time," Hardcase said as he pulled the trigger, and a plume of smoke shot out of the back of the launcher. The rocket flew towards the last of the local armored units, and exploded in a ball of fire.
With the way clear, the Republic offensive was restarted, and the regiment marched towards the royal palace under the cover of heavy artillery.
But Ahsoka and her men were still pinned down.
"We're gonna need a ride out of here!" Jesse called out.
"Just keep holding!" Rex shouted as he fired his dual blaster pistols at the enemy troopers, who advanced across the roof under the cover of close air support.
Suddenly, when it seemed that all hope was lost, a volley of missiles flew out of no-where, causing one ship to be engulfed in a large explosion. Ahsoka and the others were taken aback, and watched as the other ship turned to face the new threat.
It turned out to be none other than Bo-Katan Kryze and her flying warriors. "Nite Owl lead to the soldiers of the Republic. We've got your back, Tano. You guys miss us?" She asked over the comm, jokingly.
Ahsoka allowed herself to crack a smile before she spoke into her wrist comm. "Kryze. For once it's actually good to hear from you!"
"Let's take this bird down and get on with the show." Kryze said before cutting the transmission.
When that happened, every Nite owl warrior started using blasters to harass the ship, which was struggling to swat the flying pests that swarmed it. "You heard her lads, concentrate fire on the engines!" Rex called out as he aimed his weapons at the ship's exposed engines.
Eventually, the sustained firepower became too much for the Gauntlet fighter, and the engines began to smoke before belching flames. It then spun out of control and crashed into a ball of fire.
Everyone watched in satisfaction as a column of smoke arose from the streets.
Seconds later, one of the troopers broke the silence. "Commander, can we attack the palace now?"
Ahsoka turned to the trooper and cracked a sly smile. "Why trooper... all you had to do was ask."
Later, Ahsoka's regiment faced the palace.
Bo-Katan and her warriors jetted in, with Bo landing next to Ahsoka. Some of the Clone troopers had just equipped themselves with jetpacks. They would assist Bo's forces in the sky, and try to take out the remaining enemy emplacements guarding the palace.
Kryze turned to face her warriors.
"Warriors. Today is the day of our glorious victory. Before we begin the final battle for the freedom of our historic homeland, I want to thank all of you, Night Owls, Colonials, and Republic troopers alike, for your self-sacrifice and courage," Kryze said.
The Mandalorians cheered. This was their hour more than it was for Ahsoka and her men.
Ahsoka smiled.
'She might pull Mandalore together after all', Ahsoka thought to herself, no longer concerned about her ability to lead.
Bo-Katan turned around.
"For Mandalore. Charge!" She shouted as she and her warriors jetted up into the sky.
Ahsoka ignited her lightsabers and motioned her troopers forward. Mandalorian laser bolts flew towards her and her men, but she deflected every bolt that flew in her direction. Many of Ahsoka's troopers fell as well, but the kept charging nonetheless. They had to bust open Gar Saxon's frontline.
Lucky for the Republic forces, they could do just that.
The AT-TE's held back and blasted the Shadow Collective tanks that were dug in near the front of their defensive line.
The Nite Owls flew towards the enemy frontal positions and fired the rockets that were mounted on their jetpacks. Their missiles destroyed several anti-personal repeating blaster turrets.
The way was clear for Ahsoka's men.
Hundreds of orange Clone Troopers from the unofficial 332nd Legion, Ahsoka's Loyalists, charged at the Shadow Collective positions. They vaulted over the enemy barriers and started getting into a heavy up close brawl with Maul's forces.
Up above, Republic gunships and fast attack fighters harassed the enemy from above, peppering the palace with rocket fire, and clearing a way for the infantry.
Ahsoka jumped up and slashed at a death watch trooper's jetpack, forcing him to spin out of control, before he crashed into a repeating blaster-turret and exploded. When she jumped off of him, before his epic crash, she used the force to smash two more into the ground as they flew by. They smashed into the ground before scraping across the ground due to the momentum caused by their jetpacks.
The Clones pushed forward. Maul's forces were falling back.
When that happened, the AT-TE's marched forward, their heavy and secondary weaponry blasting away at everything that got in their way. Unfortunately, some of the things that would get in their way was enemy firepower.
A pair of heavy anti-tank cannons blasted the lead tanks. One AT-TE was hit in the cockpit and exploded. The six-legged tank collapsed onto the ground, lifeless.
"Take out those cannons!" Ahsoka ordered.
As most of Rex's men were in the middle of an all out brawl with Maul's forces, they could not get on those guns.
But a few of Bo's Night Owls could.
They swooped in with their jetpacks and flew towards the two cannons.
They strafed the guns to take out their crews, before they used rockets to take out the guns themselves.
It was clear.
Ahsoka's men pushed further into the ruins in front of the palace. Maul's troopers continued to charge out of the palace, while his Super-Commandoes, if they weren't dogfighting the Nite Owls, swooped in from the palace rooftop to bring death from above.
The AT-TE's pushed further into the ruins. Their heavy cannons pounded away at several bunkers.
Holes were blasted into the sides, and anyone inside was either vaporized or crushed by debris.
A platoon of AT-RTs charged forward with Ahsoka's men.
That's when another pair of heavy cannons fired on the AT-TE's. Another tank was hit. Twice. One in the cockpit, and another in the dorsal section that connected the front and back. It collapsed onto its side while flames shot of its interior.
Ahsoka, Rex, and Rex's squad took cover behind several makeshift barriers with a few other clone squads.
"Damnit! More of those guns! And bunkers!" Jesse shouted.
"What are we gonna do now?" Kix asked.
"Maybe we can use harsh language. Lucky for you guys, I've got six barrels worth of it," Hardcase joked as he held up his rotary gun and started spinning the barrels.
"Cut the chatter you grunts!" He shouted before he turned to Ahsoka. "What are your orders Commander?" Rex asked.
As he asked this, another group of Shadow Collective commandoes swooped in. The AT-RT's and the troopers around them fired up at the sky. More than half of the Maul commandoes were hit and spun out of control. But the rest fired their missiles. The missiles collided with some of the AT-RTs, which exploded and took several troopers with them.
Ahoska became frustrated.
"Grrrrr! We need to get past these defenses and into that palace. Rex, take your men to the right. Take out the gun and clear out the bunker. Hardcase! Toss me some detonators!" She ordered.
The hyper-active trooper reached into his back-pack and threw her a few detonators. She caught them and looked at her troopers.
They all looked back.
"I'm gonna go left," she said before she looked back at Sgt. Coric, who was taking cover a bit of a ways back, laying down fire on the palace with several other squads from Torrent Company. The armor was hanging back with the other companies.
"Coric!" She shouted, trying to get his attention over the sounds of battle.
"Wha'da'ya need Ma'am?!" He shouted back.
"We're gonna take out the emplacements on the other side of these barriers. Contact Kryze and the rest of the company commanders. I want you all ready to move up with the armor when we've taken out those emplacements!" Ahsoka said, shouting out her command.
Ahsoka saw Coric nod his head in understanding. "You got it Commander!" He shouted back before he went to speak into his comm, presumably to contact the others as Ahsoka ordered.
"You ready Rex?" She asked.
Rex turned back to the other troopers, who all checked their weapons and nodded. Rex turned back to face Ahsoka. "Let's do this," he said.
Ahsoka smiled. "Now!" She should before jumped over the barrier.
"You heard her lads, let's go!" Rex ordered before he charged off to the right.
"Yes Sir," Echo said.
"OOHAH! I live for this," Hardcase said.
Ahsoka charged at her assigned cannon. She landed on the barrel as she summoned a powerful force push to blast the crewmen away from the cannon and into a wall before they even noticed her. She then took her swords and dragged them behind her as she ran across the length of the barrel. When she jumped off of the cannon and landed on the ground, the cannon exploded behind her.
Ahsoka looked to her right to see Rex's men sprinkle their cannon with blaster fire before two of the troopers demolished it with thermal detonators. It went up like a fireworks display.
They then stacked on the door of the bunker to breach it. Echo place a breech charge on the door. When the locking mechanism was destroyed, the door slid open and the troopers ran into the two-story bunker to clear it out.
That's when blaster fire from the bunker on her side started to hit her position. She blocked and deflected dozens of laser bolts, but the Shadow collective troopers inside were too well concealed for her to get a good angle on them.
So Ahsoka charged the bunker and threw two of her detonators at the bunker, using the force to put them through the bunker's outer wall.
With her montrals, she could hear screaming from inside.
"Stang! Grenades!"
She must've hit something important, like munitions, because a powerful explosion ripped a massive hole in the roof. It was big enough for her to jump through. No one was upstairs, that was alive at least. So she went downstairs. As soon as she got to the bottom of the stairs, the last Maul trooper ran out the ground floor exit.
When she ran out of the exit, she saw Rex and his men exit their bunker, which had smoke pouring out of its gaps. They linked up at the bottom of the stairs that led to the palace's front entrance.
"Nice work," Rex said, complimenting Ahsoka's handiwork.
"Thanks," she said as she continued deflecting more and more laser blasts from Shadow Collective forces that continued to pour out of the building and rain down heavy fire onto the plaza.
The fire from Maul's forces was murderous.
But so was the Republic's. The AT-TEs, along with the heavy cannons near the Republic's outposts, fired at the palace. Holes were blasted into the sides, and Maul troopers were blasted off of the roof.
Ahsoka peaked over her shoulder real quick and saw Appo and the rest of the Battalion pushing forward, whilst laying down heavy fire on the front of the palace.
"Nice of you to join us Coric!" Jesse shouted.
"I assumed that the explosions meant 'advance!'," Coric said.
"Ha! That's one way to put it!" Echo shouted.
"Less yappin', more blastin'!" Hardcase shouted as he fired his rotary gun at a group of Maul troopers.
The artillery from the AT-TEs intensified. The enemy firepower was getting thinner and thinner until nothing was coming out of the building.
The bombardment continued for a few moments when Rex spoke into his wrist comm.
"Cease fire!" Rex shouted.
The Republic fire fell silent. Nothing was being fired back down at them. All was quiet ... for now.
"Advance!" Rex ordered.
Everyone moved up the stairs. Rex and Echo were the furthest along, with Ahsoka right behind them. They were nearly at the top when one more Death Watch trooper revealed himself from behind a column, with a few security troopers.
It was Gar Saxon, the Commander of Maul's forces. He pointed his blaster at Rex and fired. "Victory or Death!"
As he shouted Ahsoka pushed Rex out of the way and deflected the oncoming blaster bolts, killing two of his henchmen.
"Grrr! Block this, Jedi scum!" Saxon hissed before he used his wrist vambrace to fire a jet of flame at her. She used the force to stop the jet of flame. The wall of flames parted when it hit her hands, continuing to spew in two directions on either side of her. Ahsoka then summoned a shockwave that sent Saxon flying into a wall. He dropped to his knees,but he recovered and got back up.
"This galaxy will burn. And you along with it. That's a promise!" he said vindictively as his remaining troopers tried to push Ahsoka and her men back down the stairs to the palace. Gar Saxon then jetted off to the side behind the pillars with his rocket pack and flew round the side of the building, avoiding blaster fire from Rex's men.
The Ahsoka and the clones finished off the remaining Maul troopers. The clones then secured the staircase and the front entrance.
That was made clear when Ahsoka's comm device went off. She answered it.
"Tano! We can't do this alone. We need you and your men to take that building. Maul's reign of terror ends today!" Bo-Katan said.
"Understood!" Ahsoka said in the device. before she walked over to the top of the stairs. When she got there, she turned around to look at her men.
"Alright boys, get ready. We may be close to the end, but Maul is far from finished. We need to stay sharp, and be ready for anything. We can do this. We have to do this. For all of our friends who didn't make it, and for all of those who've suffered under Maul. That's why we need to finish this battle today, before he can do it again," Ahsoka said, looking from trooper to trooper.
"You heard her lads, let's go!" Rex called out.
Everyone shouted. "OOHAH!"
"Come on!" Ahsoka called out before turning to jump up the stairs to the front door.
The battalion, in complete silence, trudged up the stairs behind Ahsoka in slow motion. (A/N: Lagging due to over exposure to pure awesomeness)
"All together brothers! For the Republic!" Someone shouted.
Ahsoka used the force to throw the last of the detonators that Hardcase tossed her earlier. They hit the door and exploded. The door was damaged. As Ahsoka charged the door, she turned around in a 360 degree circle and charged up a force push, which she used to make the damaged doors fly open. Several Maul troopers on the other side, went flying.
Ahsoka ignited her blue lightsabers and charged through the entrance with her men. Blue laser bolts illuminated the hallway as the Clones gunned down every Maul trooper that was in the hall. It wasn't even a fair fight for these Mandalorians, as they all fell to the enraged clones that stormed the palace.
Ahsoka pounced forward with her sabers, ready for the sting of battle.
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There's part 11 folks. Part 12 around the corner.
Hope you've enjoyed.
This is Grubkiller, over and out.