The First Contact War
Chapter 5
Christophsis
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Luke Sparrow on Christophsis on Highway 9, Days after Republic Invasion 12
Luke Watched the Colum of battle droids march down the highway completely oblivious to him and a squad of Marine Scout Snipers and three squads of Marine Raiders. The wind blew over his Armor with its Adaptive Camouflage Cloak that had turned itself a blue-green colour to blend in better.
"Command this is Hunter 2:1 permission to engage," Luke Said over the comm looking down the scope on his Marksman Rifle.
"Hunter 2:1 permission granted, Command Out"
"Marines wait for the snipers to take out the droid leaders before you engage, Snipers engage on my mark" Luke radioed over the comm.
Luke looked down his time six scope and aimed at a droid commander sitting in the top of the tank. He found it stupid to paint it yellow as it gave away its rank to the enemy. Steadying his breathing he called out. "Mark "He pulled the trigger.
The discharge of an MR-T5 could be heard as the shot flew into the droid's head as five other shots could be heard hitting their mark. The Marines then opened up with their AC160 rifles and LMG-5s. The droids were slow to react as they always were without their commanders and were cut down under a hail of gunfire. Luke focused his sights on a super battle droid felling it with one hit. He could now hear the sound of motors from Charlie squad. The impact of the old HE shell still capable of felling light armoured vehicles tore apart any enemy droids in range. By now the droids had worked out where the Marines were on the right side of the highway while Luke and the Scout snipers were still hidden on the left. The LMG-5s cut down the battle droids with their rate of fire being unmatched except by the Republics version of the minigun. Bringing three of them had been a good idea. What was once a hundred battle droids was now less forty retreating stranglers that were easy pickings for the Marines.
"Enemy tanks crossing the bridge!" a Marine yelled.
"Detonate the C17" Luke ordered into the radio. A Marine could be seen reaching for his detonator and pressing the trigger. BOOM. The bridge went up in a massive explosion cutting of a separatist route of attack on the left flank. However, any celebrations were cut short by the steady clanking sound that was getting closer. Luke peered out from cover and saw an Octuptarra Droid tank walk up the debris onto the highway.
"Hastings flank right and hit it with your SMAW we'll draw its fire" Luke ordered into the comm.
"Copy sir "Hastings responded before running off through the ruble.
"Covering fire! Snipers aim for the eyes!"
A hail of blue plasma sailed towards to droid doing little against the droid. This did, however, catch its attention and fired off shots towards the Marines sending debris flying. Luke shook himself of the ruble that landed on him before continuing to fire at the droid. Come on Hastings one job, one job he thought to himself.
"Man down, Medic" Luke Heard from across the street and saw two Marines dragging a third who was missing his lower right leg that could be seen with a piece of metal cleanly slicing through it. He watched as the Marine was moved to safety, leaving a trail of blood to be the medic could look at him. Luke pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. The whoosh of a rocket could just be heard over the firefight and the sound of a successful impact taking off its round head, causing it to topple to the ground due to the momentum of the rocket.
"Command this is Hunter 2:1 we need immediate CASEVAC on highway four" Luke said over the radio.
"Hunter 2:1 CASEVAC notified, ETA three minutes"
"Thanks, Command "Luke then switched frequencies "Bantha 2:1 do you read, what is the status on other bridges"
"This is Bantha 2:1 we read you, charges set waiting to blow, Sit back and enjoy the fireworks "Amy's voice could be heard over the comm. Luke then heard a massive explosion saw three plumes of black smoke from the other bridges. He smiled at a mission well done.
"Alright Marines CASEVAC in two minutes, I want everyone ready to leave"
"Yes, sir!"
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Forward Defensive Line, one mile west of Joint Republic-Orion Base, Crystal City, planet Christophsis, Outer Rim Territories Corporal John Sage.
"Enemy spotted" yelled a fellow Marine. John grabbed his AC160 and ran to some cover in a ruined building. Then he saw hundreds of B1 battle droids and super battle droids and three Octuptarra Droids. Opening fire, he saw his plasma continue to soar towards its blurred tanned target. The target started becoming less blurred as the plasma impacted its target which now was a large metal body with a tan colouring and the plasma impacted it, causing the metal around it to melt and tore through the metal casing of the body and pierced deep within the metal and wiring within the body and to a stop in the dead centre of the robotic body. He quickly looked around at the street below him; he was currently on the ninth story of a toppled building overlooking the street where the main fighting was happening. Below him, several clone troopers had taken up cover behind the defensive wall of crystal rubble built in the street and were continuously firing at the incoming battle droids. Fighting alongside them was every able infantryman and women that the Field Marshall Dommel had stationed there as well as a Titan tank that was now maundering to attack. Luckily Slick didn't do too much damage to the fighting capability of the Republic and Earth forces last night, he still badly crippled it. All Republic aircraft were either destroyed or so badly damaged that it would take more than a day to fix and OAG aircraft were low on supplies. All but less than two Republic AT-TEs as the Republic called them, survived while a few Republic AT-RT as the Republic called them had managed to make it. Slick did some damage on the UEG Forward Operating Base's weapons depot but he still missed the armoured vehicles. There were about ten Titan tanks and some M4-Trojans APCs that were similar to the M2-Bradley that were positioned behind rubble firing at the approaching droids. These Trojans were using their 30mm Plasma rifled cannons that were raining an average of thirty shots per minute which destroyed as much enemy heavy units as it could, such as AAT tanks, NR-N99 Persuader-class droid enforcer tanks, Octuptarra Magna tri-droids, and other armoured machines.
It also helped that the few machine guns available were set up in cover behind the front lines so to increase the time available to fire at the mass of droids.
"Sage, radio for support" ordered his sergeant.
"Command we are under attack send immediate support, repeat we are under attack we need assistance"
Despite a large number of droids, they sent and the recent sabotage, the soldiers were holding out but they wouldn't last much longer unless reinforcements arrived soon. Down below he could see two figures that stood out amongst the mass of UEG soldiers as well as clone troopers racing towards the front lines to help hold off the wave after seemingly endless wave of machines. One wore dark robes while the other wore bright white ones, both stopping to observe the chaotic battle and were conversing between each other. John then noticed something that he didn't a few seconds ago. To his horror, the droids were now getting much more near to the front defensive positions then they were a few seconds ago. He picked another target, one in the front of the enemy's advance and fired at it.
"Incoming enemy rocket, MOVE!" someone yelled.
John picked himself up and ran towards the exit but the rocket was to close. John felt a massive blast that lifted him of his feet as pain overtook his world, causing blackness to fill his vision.
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Same Place. Same time. Private Thomas Laskey
Laskey was running up the street to being the battle was raging. He stopped and took cover behind a destroyed AT-TE walker. He poked his head out of cover in time to see a rocket smash into a building destroying the room it hit. He looked to the front where UEG Marines and clones were blasting away, occasionally a red laser would hit home and a clone or marine He popped out of cover behind the AT-TE's leg opening fire before returning avoiding a few blaster bolts. His helmet felt a little slipperier with the amount of sweat that started pouring on his face.
"We never should have sent the ships back for supplies." shouted a frustrated voice to his right and he turned his head to see two men he never thought he ever see, let alone be close to. Standing less than 10 feet from him was the two Republic generals, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker.
"Well it wasn't my idea to send the ships back!" snapped Skywalker to Kenobi, clearly annoyed.
"Alright, men, second wave incoming," Kenobi ordered the clone troopers who were standing next to him. Skywalker turned to one clone that stood out with his armour having blue markings, a shoulder pauldron, a skirt or kama as the clones called them, and an antenna coming from the side of his helmet.
"Rex, you and your men follow me." ordered Skywalker as he, the clone 'Rex', and a few other clone troopers with strange backpacks on ran to in a direction that wasn't toward the fighting and disappeared from Smith's sight.
At the same time, Kenobi turned to a clone with yellow armour markings and ordered, "Cody, battle positions."
'Cody' gave a nod and yelled to the other clone troopers around them, "UP TO THE FRONT MEN!" and they, minus Kenobi, raced to the front of the defence line, taking positions. Smith's gaze followed them and looked ahead to see some more clone troopers, and marines race to the front.
"I don't you should be sitting down now young one." said a voice with a slight chuckle and Buck turned to see Obi-Wan Kenobi standing over him with his lightsabre in one hand while deflecting a stray red bolt.
"Uhh, ye-yes sir." stuttered Thomas as he stood up at attention as best he could.
"What's your name young one?" asked Obi-Wan Kenobi with an eyebrow arched sounding curious in his tone.
"Private Thomas Laskey sir," said Thomas trying to hide the fear in his voice.
"I can sense your fear, you must put it aside or else more men will have to die because you didn't help" said Kenobi and Thomas gave a nod and then the two started running to the front and just as they reached it, Thomas stopped behind the wall and watched as General Kenobi with his blue lightsabre and charged over the wall to next to some rubble in the street ahead. Soon a group of clones went over the wall to follow the general and went for cover behind some isolated boulders even though four of them were hit and killed by red blaster fire a fifth called for a medic. Upon seeing this, a group of a group of marines laid down covering fire as two more marines ran towards the downed clone. Grasping and arm each they pulled the clone back behind the defensive line but not before one was hit in the leg and used his arms to pull himself over the wall into cover. Just as they took cover, two AT-RT walkers raced past the wall and charged out towards the enemy, blaster guns firing at the droids, one of the Octuptarra droids quickly took them out though. Smith looked forward and saw the droids getting closer and quickly raised up his AC160 let plasma fly towards the enemy. Thomas then saw out of the corner of his eyes could see Kenobi in front of him his left hand in a fist as he raised it up and jerked it down. The two ASTs down with them began to unleash their withering firepower upon the advancing droids, their rockets destroy clusters of droids, their miniguns killing the survivors. One of the Octuptarra droids began to fire at them and destroyed one and knocked the other over from the force of the blast, rendering it useless.
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Artillery Support Defensive Line, nearly a mile west of Joint Republic-Earth Base, Crystal City, planet Christophsis, Outer Rim Territories. 1000 hrs/10:02 am.
Only a few yards behind the Forward Defence line was the main artillery lines of the Republic forces. In a line were the Republic's cannons which were raining down blue plasma that now increased their fire as they got the order from General Kenobi. In front of the Republic, cannons were thirty mortars unleashing hell onto the enemy positions. While the artillery pieces and mortars were keeping the enemy at bay, a total of two Republic AT-TE walkers and ten Trojans were currently making their way to the front to aid the infantry in the fight against the advancing droids.
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Forward Defensive Line, one mile west of Joint Republic-Earth Base, Crystal City, planet Christophsis, Outer Rim Territories Thomas Laskey
Just as Thomas put the empty clip into his ammo bag and pulled a loaded one and loaded it into his rifle, he heard the whirling artillery come back but more than it was a few minutes ago. Suddenly the enemy's infantry machines were pounded and thinned as the blue plasma cannon shots and Dozens of HEAT shells hit the enemy's positions and caused smoke to billow over the enemy as well as make the ground shake like a violent earthquake was happening. Despite that, the Octuptarra Magna tri-droids returned with large red laser cannon fire that destroyed several walls and boulders that marines and clones were hiding behind. Thomas looked over the wall towards the Octuptarra and saw a black shape jump from a building and land on the top of the second one from the front and a blue beam sprouted from the shape and blocked red beams that shot at him. Shortly afterwards, four or five white shapes flew in a straight line down to the ground and fired blue beams at the fourth Octo from the front which was slowing it down and surprisingly, it didn't react to them firing at it. The third Octo from the front had begun firing at the black shape on the top of the second Octo but the shape blocked the red beams with ease.
"That Skywalker guy is one crazy son of a bitch to rodeo one of them octo thingy's" remarked a marine.
"COME ON THEN!" shouted General Kenobi at the top of his lungs as he raised his lightsabre up and point it to the enemy, like the way officers from the old wars like the of old would do to lead a charge. Soon after every clone trooper had started climbing over the wall and began to charge the enemy machines. As if knowing they were charging, the artillery bombardments stopped hitting the area in front of them and instead pounded at the enemy positions several yards away.
"What the bloody hell are those guys doing? They're going to get themselves killed!" asked a marine shocked at what the clones were doing.
"What do we do now?" shouted another marine infantryman unsure of what to do just as the clones were nearly gone and the only ones behind the wall were the marines.
"What the hell do you think soldier, we cover them!" shouted Captain Irons as he began barking orders to the Marines assembled, "Alpha two-six, cover them with the mortars, Delta One-Two you get those machine guns focused on the Super BDs. Delta One-One and One-Three you follow me, we're Oscar Mike!"
Soon the other officers began barking orders and the others followed their orders and provided cover fire for the clones and Jedi General while Thomas raced forward with his squad and Delta One-Three. The captain ran over the wall and began to run to the forward most piles rubble on the street which was as close to the machines he and the two squads could get without being hit.
"Wade, Lopez, take out the forward most Octo with the SMAWS." ordered the captain as he fired two rounds and hit two B1 droids.
"Yes sir," said Wade as he and Lopez picked up their SMAWS and fired their HEDP or High Explosive, Dual Purpose, rockets which pierced the Octo's armoured head and destroyed it and the whole octo collapsed to the ground and with the foremost and the fourth octo down, that only left two of them still standing.
"Nice shot guys," shouted McKenzie as he set up an LMG-5 light machine gun and he was ready to fire at any machines he saw but he didn't pull the trigger. Thomas looked forward to see that despite the danger the clones and General Kenobi had put themselves in and suffering numerous losses, they managed to take out nearly all the regular and super battle droids in the area and all that was left was a few B1 stragglers and the two octos. Thomas looked up to the now current forward most octo and Skywalker himself was standing there on its head deflecting shots from the other remaining octo which was itself under fire from the clones who followed him in their small ambush. Skywalker deflected a large red beam back to it and it was hit. Its centre exploded and the octo finally fell due to the deflected bolt hitting it and also because of the relentless barrage of blue plasma bolts that hit it until it collapsed and the clones held their fire. Upon seeing it collapse, Skywalker then jumped down and sliced off the leg of the octo he was previously standing on and permanently taken out the Octo. As he landed on the ground and then with lightning speed, he took out two remaining B1 battle droids. After slicing across the last B1's chest area, he then stood almost triumphantly with his lightsabre still activated.
"Now that was awesome," said McKenzie to the other marines present. Now that this wave was eliminated, the rest of the marines rushed forward and stopped alongside the clones behind the last octo that Skywalker had taken out, which provided some good protection. Thomas and the two squads he came with rushed forward to join the others and Thomas had rushed to get to a position near the two Jedi Generals. He was close enough to them that he could hear their conversation.
"We're gonna need some reinforcements," said Skywalker as he blocked a few bolts with his lightsabre.
"We haven't been able to get through to Admiral, Rear Field Marshall Dommel yet."
Wait if they haven't, then they do even know of what's going on here? Thomas said in his head upon hearing what Kenobi said.
"FRIENDLY TANKS INCOMING FROM THE SOUTHEAST!" shouted a marine from an unseen position. Thomas turned around to see a group of AT-TEs and M4 Trojan APCs pull up and stopped to fire their guns on enemy positions.
"And just in the nick of time, the bloody machines are running." shouted another marine with happiness clear in his voice and some of the guys began to cheer as they saw the machines retreating.
"They're pulling back?" asked Skywalker surprised by the machines' retreat and suddenly there was a thoosh sound as twelve Zeros flew overhead.
"Attention all ground forces the Calvary has arrived, you can sit back and relax now" As Thomas watched them fly overhead and saw them drop their JDAM payloads on where he assumed the enemy tanks were. A humming sound echoing through the air as everyone started to quiet down and soon from around the corner of the buildings up ahead, a Republic shuttle appeared and flew overhead and headed in the direction of the Joint Republic-Earth base. Seeing the shuttle, the soldiers and clones started cheering again.
"The reinforcements are here" yelled a clone in the distance.
"It's about fucking time they showed up." said a marine. While many of them were cheering, there were a few who weren't. Thomas was one of them, all he did was watch the shuttle fly out of sight and back to the retreating forms of the machines now under attack by the Marine Air Arm.
"Looks like help has arrived," said Kenobi and Thomas turned to the two and saw a blue and white astromech droid rolled up and stop by the two Jedi. Most of the others were busy setting up a perimeter, tending to the wounded or collecting and/or counting the dead.
"Good to see you survived Thomas," Said Kenobi walking towards him.
"I took your words to heart sir" He replied.
"So who's the kid? Asked Anikan now walking up.
"Private Thomas Laskey 2nd OAGEF sir," He said snapping off a salute.
"Aren't you a little young to be a..." Asked Anakin not sure what branch he was from.
"Marine sir, the Expeditionary Force is technically part of the Marines except with its own structure, rank and name. And I wouldn't be a Marine without these "He pointed his shoulder where the tab saying MARINE where "Took me Seventeen weeks to get them"
"Good to hear now if you'll excuse us we have a shuttle to be at" Excused Kenobi.
"Understood sir, see you around," Laskey said before returning to his Squad.
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Field Marshall Dommel in orbit above Christophsis aboard the UEG Terra
"Give it to me straight how many men did we lose?"
"We lost a hundred and twelve men, three Titan Tanks and four M4-Trojans, two zeros and thirteen Lightnings"
"That's better than I expected, we shouldn't have left with the Republic to resupply, if we had stayed we could have prevented reinforcements from arriving"
"If we had stayed we would have run out of fuel. We need fuel to power the Hyperdrive as ours isn't a proper one and can't run on Nuclear power unlike our Warp drive that does, and we can't use the Warp Drive until the data necessary is collected in two months' time "pointed out his assistant.
"Very well then. The Chancellor has requested that we assist in the mission to return the baby Hutt to Jabba. Have Luke and his squad go and notify him to take three other squads with him as we'll be guarding the Albion system so our ships can colonize it"
"Right away sir"
"Sir the Separatists on the planet have activated a shield and our forces can't shoot through it"
2622 March 15th Earth Standard Calendar, Luke Sparrow Earth FOB next to artillery positions, just arriving after bridge op, 1 hour after the shield went up.
"Landing now. It's going to be a hot landing"
"Hot landing?"
"What does the pilot mean?
"We're about to find out" Luke said. As the side door opened it revealed a scene of chaos. Artillery, clones, marines, ASTs and armoured vehicles were all firing at this massive red dome that was slowly approaching protect the droids who were firing out of it.
"What the fuck happened while we were out, I leave for two hours and this happens!" Luke said. Jumping out with the rest of the Marines, he ran to were the marines and clones where fighting before taking cover next to Rex. He could see marines and clones dead leading up in a trail to the current position.
"Rex Status report!" Luke yelled.
"Sepi's put up a shield Generator that we can't scratch. Skywalker and his padawan are trying to take it down and General Kenobi hasn't been seen since we assaulted them inside the shield fifteen minutes ago and has been captured" Rex explained.
"Shit" was all Luke could say as he fired his M416 at the droids. By now the shield had just reached their defensive line. Any droid outside the shield was cut down but for every droid killed they lost at least two of their own.
"There are too many!"
"Fall back!" Clones and marines began to fall back another hundred yards to the next defensive line with pockets of clones and marines along the side of the road covering them.
"Man down!"
"Medic, we need a medic here"
Luke took cover behind a chunk of housing on the road and two clones joined him. This force field was really annoying him. Letting of some burst at the shield in a vain attempt to weaken it. Then mysteriously the shield lifted revealing the droids to the combined small arms fire from the infantry and vehicles. Now the artillery unleashed a massive artillery bombardment down on the helpless droids and the air dominance secured by the Earth aircraft was about to give the droids all-out assault a really bad day.
"Hastings! Hastings!" Luke yelled as a young marine with glasses came running over to him "Broken Arrow" This made Hastings look stunned before he reached for his radio.
"Broken Arrow, I say again Broken Arrow"
"What's Broken Arrow mean?" a clone next to Luke Asked confused.
"Broken Arrow is used when an Earth unit is about to be overrun, it calls in every combat able aircraft within range to assist"
"Force almighty" murmured the clone.
The droids just stood there not doing anything making them sitting ducks for the artillery and incoming aircraft. Luke went to his radio to talk to the circling aircraft.
"Enemies approaching at 1, 5, 0!" A zero swooped overhead unleashing its powerful cannon on the droids and dropped its four JDAMs on the droids.
"Now at 1, 5, 8!" two lightning's flew over unleashing cannon fire.
"Now at Limer Charlie 6!" A warbird hovered momentarily unleashing its rocket pod and nose mounted duel miniguns spewing blue death down on the droids.
While Hastings called in the aircraft, the clones and marines watched for the next two minutes as the combined might of artillery and aircraft wiped the floor with the exposed droids. Many began cheering, pumping their fists in the air.
"Commander this is General Whinstone meet me in the Command Centre, the Field Marshall has a mission for you"