Aboard the Wrrhwugh, Both System
Against the King's wishes, the Wookiees had spent days attempting to copy as much of the SpyNet data as they could, in preparation for handing it over to the Bothans. The copies, however, always ended up unreadable. When it became apparent that it could take months for the Wookiee analysts to figure out a way to create readable copies, Harwakokok the Mighty ordered the Wrrhwugh to jump to the Both System immediately.
Mere moments after arrival, Harwakokok the Mighty changed his mind.
["These are the people we were preparing to grovel before!"] Harwakokok the mighty snarled, his voice echoing off the bridge's walls. ["If we had arrived just one day earlier and given the Bothans their data, Separatist hands would be all over it!"]
Projected on the holodisplay in the center of the bridge were two fleets, Republic and Separatist, scattered in an entangled mess between the Bothawui asteroid belt and low orbit. The badly outnumbered Republic vessels seemed to be attempting to regroup closer to the planet.
Despite a battle still being raged, the Bothawui-Bothans were broadcasting a most peculiar system-wide repeating message announcing their pre-emptive surrender.
Woshyrryagh shook his head. ["We have to do something. Those are chemical weapons!"]
["Yeah,"] Merumeru yawned, stretching in the seat behind the bridge's security station. ["Cut our losses, jump to hyperspace with the SpyNet data, and use the Astrith and the criminals we captured on Pantora to decipher it."]
Woshyrryagh bared his fangs. ["I cannot believe my ears! We came here to make a new alliance, and we are retreating because they are under attack!"]
["They've already surrendered,"] Merumeru shrugged.
["The Republic is engaged in a fighting retreat,"] Harwakokok nodded. ["It's already over, Woshyrryagh. We need to take this data back—"]
["INCOMING VESSELS!"]
["Raise shields!"] barked Harwakokok. ["Spin up the hyperdrive!"]
["Sir, they're Bothan vessels. Hailing us."]
["What do you mean Bothan vessels?"] Merumeru asked incredulously. ["Where could they have come from."]
The holodisplay panned over from the planet to the empty space between Bothawui and Botha'ahir. Coming up on the Wrrhwugh's stern were thirty vessels, some Munificent-class vessels and other Separatist makes, but also a few rectangular assault cruisers Woshyrryagh had never seen before.
["They probably are going to Bothawui to fight back against the Separatists,"] Woshyrryagh suggested.
["They could just as easily be flying there to join the Separatists,"] Merumeru snarled.
["Put them through,"] Harwakokok said gruffly, taking up a formal pose in front of the holoprojector. ["This is—"]
"Civilian Vessel," a female Bothan voice interrupted in thickly-accented Basic. "There has been a Separatist invasion of this system. I advise you to leave."
With no holopresence appearing, Harwakokok roared at the projector itself. ["Civilian vessel?! This is the flagship of the Kachirho fleet Wrrhwugh."]
"In that case, we could use assistance. Fall in at the rear of the fleet—"
Frothing at the mouth at the insult to his vessel and his status, intended or not, Harwakokok kicked the holoprojector, roaring so loudly that his voice echoed off the walls. ["NOT EVEN A THANKS?! WE WILL JOIN THE BATTLE WHERE WE CHOOSE, BOTHAN WORM!"] With a dismissive wave, he ordered the transmission to be terminated.
["You can't—you can't be serious!"] Merumeru stammered, mouth open in shock. ["Just a moment ago—"]
Harwakokok the Mighty stepped up to Merumeru, leaning into the Captain's face. ["WE ARE WOOKIEES!"]
Woshyrryagh stiffened, relieved by the announcement that they would be helping Bothawui, but distressed by the spontaneity and complete lack of forethought Harwakokok displayed.
["Yes sir, of course sir!"] Merumeru said. ["You have a plan, I assume."]
Harwakokok bared his fangs. ["Woshyrryagh. You have some idea where our forces may be of assistance."]
["I am not a starship Captain, but uh… Well…"]
Harwakokok put a hand on Woshyrryagh's shoulder, squeezing it tightly. ["You said we had to do something. You have been to this world before and know more about these creatures than I do. Now, I repeat myself, where?"]
In truth, Woshyrryagh had never once been to Bothawui. However, he did have an address for Lir Sey'les's sister's house, in Ashnenvisk, a town in the polar region near where one of the Separatist fleets were positioned.
["Ashnenvisk, sir. Lir Sey'les is there. It's probably why the Separatist fleet is over the north pole."]
["The north pole then… Helm, half-thrust! Position us immediately behind the first row of Bothan vessels! We'll fight alongside them and render assistance to the Republic fleet. Make no mistake though, our goal is the pole."]
o.o.o.o.o
Admiral Scirocco
Aboard the Spyglass
Scirocco's flagship hung back, keeping its distance from the Republic counterattack while the Providence and Munificent-class cruisers took most of the fire. The tactical droid missed captaining a more powerful Providence dreadnought, which was more nimble and had far more firepower to bear. Though, conducting a battle from a DH-Omni support ship did have its advantages, particularly one so modified.
Perhaps I should have the Naliju Gale modified with advanced listening equipment while it is undergoing overhaul.
A male human voice and a female Bothan voice emitted from the signals station at the rear of the bridge.
"Kestrel, we are taking heavy fire."
"Understood, Warden, we'll see if we can take some of the heat."
Scirocco's white-painted hand immediately slammed on the com button, opening a channel to the Providence-class vessel Overcast. "Change positions immediately. Move behind the Warden."
"By your command, Admiral," replied the monotone of TQ-810, the Overcast's T-series captain.
The Overcast fired up its engines, quickly moving into broadside position between the Warden and the Kestrel, which slowed down as it exchanged fire with a new target in its path.
"We are getting a transmission from the surface, Admiral."
Scirocco left the signals station, walking across the bridge with heavy footfalls as he approached the communications station. The most likely scenarios occurring to the tactical droid were not good.
The holopresence of a command droid, B1-902, appeared on the projector, gripping a flimsiplast folder in his right hand.
Unable to even fathom what this less-competent model had possibly initiated communications for, Scirocco thrust his arm towards the button to terminate the call. "Maintain radio silence unless it is an emergency. Communicate with the Sparx if you need air support."
"Admiral," B1-902 blurted out quickly, "Isk-Peth procedures have been initiated."
Isk-Peth was the Separatist procedure phrase for the set of procedures to be followed when the potential for at least half a petabyte of data had been uncovered
Scirocco held his finger on the power button, then withdrew it. He stood up straight, diverting most of his processing power towards the holocall. In the background, something about the battle outside seemed to be bothering some of the crew, but the Admiral ignored it. "If you are malfunctioning, I will terminate you myself."
"Translation droids are going over the data now, Admiral, but it seems that Permafrost Motel was a Bothan SpyNet field headquarters," B1-902 announced proudly. "The vehicles marked with the strange sigil were following SpyNet directives. Someone named Niyusk used this datapad right here, and we've already broken through the security" he added, brandishing a device. "They seem to be surveilling a local named Lir Sey'les, but there are variables which do not seem to compute."
It shouldn't have been so surprising to Scirocco—The Bothans were known for intelligence-gathering, but to uncover a trove of information on that level in a remote town made absolutely no sense. However, a SpyNet operation made much more sense than a military maneuver or a drill of some sort.
That the Ж-marked vehicles had failed to put up much resistance, could suggest untrained operators using an ad hoc method of distinguishing allies from foes. That the Republic was here, operating in a remote region of the planet with no facilities to repair or supply military spacecraft, could suggest that they were either involved or investigating the matter themselves.
A nanosecond later, the implications of it all hit Scirocco like a brick wall. When we bombarded the Ж-marked vehicles, we were killing potentially valuable sources of information hundreds of times over—thousands of times over!
Scirocco shook his head, his processors whirring. He was not programmed with strategies for how to handle self doubt. "Order all of your forces to use non-lethal firepower! We will cease all aerial bombardment."
"Roger roger." B1-902 scratched the back of his head uneasily. "Um, Admiral, we are facing fierce resistance behind the hospital shield, and what about the clones?"
"Terminate the clones below officer rank. Secure all other organics in the town for interrogation."
"Roger, ro—"
Sparks erupted from the holoprojector, licking Scirocco's hands as they filled the air with smoke. The floor shook and eerie blue lights flashed through the viewports.
A few droids on the bridge collectively said, "Uh oh."
"Status report!" Vartell yelled, unable to hide his frustration as he turned to the viewports. While he was telling an OOM commander droid how to do his job, his incompetent crew had allowed something to happen.
Through the viewports, now split in two, the burning wreckage of the Overcast slowly fell into Bothawui-4's atmosphere. The Warden hung back, visibly damaged with craters and rends all along its hull, but not destroyed. Seven Spacer Coalition ships, and an older Republic Dreadnought-class, had come to reinforce the five Republic Venators—and in the background, all around Bothawui, dozens of Bothan vessels were engaging the scattered Separatist forces, with the Lucrehulk battleships and carriers in particular receiving a vast amount of attention.
"We are returning fire," announced one of the pilot droids. "The ships Count Dooku warned us about have come, and the Kestrel has deployed ships to the surface. So has that old dreadnought. We are taking fire from—"
"I meant shield status!" Scirocco interrupted, pushing the pilot droid out of the way and taking his place at the helm. "They deployed ships to the surface?"
o.o.o.o.o
Woshyrryagh
In Bothawui-4's atmosphere
["Incoming vessels coming up on our stern, they're Republic!"] yowled the pilot.
Woshyrryagh looked through the small viewport in the hatch. The five Auzituck transports and three Z-95s deployed from the Wookiee flagship had been joined by at least two dozen LAATs, and many more ARC-170 and Y-Wings. Some of the gunships were transport models carrying tanks, small TX-130s and a couple larger designs he didn't recognize dangling below their undersides.
After Harwakokok the Mighty's abrupt change of demeanor—clearly to maintain the visage of Wookiee strength, Woshyrryagh could not help but wonder if the Republic captain had only deployed transports to the surface because the Wookiees had.
Defying Woshyrryagh's expectations, however, the Republic squadron veered off in a slightly different direction.
["Where are they going?"] Merumeru asked.
The copilot relayed the question into the subspace radio, then looked up with an answer. ["Captain, they say they are heading to the hospital where Republic and all of the local survivors are holed up, and that we are welcome to help. They even gave us the coordinates of their landing site."]
["All of the local survivors?"] Merumeru asked. ["They said that?"]
["Sounds like the hospital is a better place to look than Lir Sey'les's sister's house,"] Woshyrryagh muttered, thinking aloud.
["Change course. Follow the Republic to the landing site."]
o.o.o.o.o
Lir Sey'les
With the droids unable to advance on the hospital through the courtyard walls, they continued charging through the speeder lot up to the front door. The Republic survivors had withdrawn around the side of the hospital, using the exterior corner of the building for cover. They had since been joined by a few pilots and a pair of AT-RTs who had blasted their way through the droids surrounding the forcefield, all the vehicles Jural had brought with her aside from a pair of swamp speeders having been destroyed in the initial airstrikes.
Still unarmed, Sey'les stood towards the rear of the group, with Jural and the clone medics officers as they tended to the growing number of wounded troopers, vehicle crew, and pilots. She was trying to think of a way to get the Republic troopers to trust her without also revealing she had once been a Republic Direct Action Operative herself—before being discharged for sedition and deported to Bothawui.
"Seven—no eight more!" Sey'les could hear one of the clones yell. "These ones are, wait… Are they shooting stun blasts?"
The distinct high pitched squeals of blasters set to stun resonated through the air. A rainbow-shape of blue arcs from half of a stun blast flew past the building's corner, the other half disappearing into the hospital's wall.
"Those are stun blasts!" Sey'les gasped.
When the clone at the front of the pack ducked behind the wall, swapping out his power pack, another took his place.
"Why the sudden change in tactics now?!" asked the Aqualish Lieutenant Commander, whose surname Sey'les had since learned was Zgil.
Another group of droids emerged through the forcefield, enshrouded by the smoke from the gunship wrecks. Two orange-marked Battle Droids crouched low as they walked at the front, seemingly unarmed. Under a barrage of covering fire, they ran quickly, briefly disappearing behind a row of speeders parked in the lot. When they re-emerged, it was clear they were carrying explosive charges.
"We've got engineer droids moving up with a breaching charge!" shouted one of the clones shouted at the front of the group.
"Take them out!" A Sergeant ordered the troopers manning one of the two swamp speeders.
The speeder gently hovered to the side, maneuvering away from the edge of the building to shoot around the corner with its anti-infantry beam cannons.
"BELAY THAT!" Zgil shouted.
Blaster fire was already banging off the hull of the swamp speeder as it retreated back around the corner. An anti-armor grenade landed just short of it and exploded.
"Just because they locked us out doesn't mean you sacrifice them to the droids," Sey'les snarled, stepping out of the makeshift cover established around the wounded.
Zgil shook his head. "We don't have time for this—but that's not what this is about. We allow the droids to breach the building, which will create a point of ingress for us to fall back into."
Completely insane, Sey'les thought, but held her tongue.
"Sir, the droids could be waiting out beyond the smoke in ambush," one of the clone Sergeants said, coming to the same conclusion as Sey'les.
Over the top of the smoke, the towering hulls of two MTTs could be seen, no doubt accompanied by a platoon or two of AATs and other armored vehicles given the rumbling din of repulsor engines.
"Croc's right, sir," Jural shouted, firing off a few pot-shots at the approaching group of battle droids, but ignoring the droid engineers. "There's also the fact that if the droids breach those doors, there's no telling how the civvies inside will act. If we blast our way through the droids, we might just find ourselves locked in the lobby."
"We're not debating this. When the charges go—"
The discussion was brought to an abrupt end by a thunderous explosion. Around the corner, the droids had detonated their explosive charges.
Over the ringing of her ears, Sey'les could hear Zgil screaming.
"GET THE WOUNDED! GRAB EVERYTHING YOU CAN!"
Sey'les took the front end of a stretcher while a clone medic grabbed the rear.
The ion jet fans of the swamp speeders howled as they hovered forward around the corner, spraying their blaster and beam cannons ahead of the group, the AT-RTs bounding off to another flank to catch the droids in a crossfire.
She nearly let go of the stretcher when she stepped on a droid head but kept walking. Stun blasts hit the now-destroyed speeders in the parking lot, but a few went high, impacting the side of the building overhead.
Before she and the clone medic carrying a wounded pilot got to the door, she could already hear that things weren't going as planned.
"DANK FARRIK!"
The hospital doors had been damaged by the explosive charges, but were not fully open. One of the clones had pried his fingers in the widest part of the crease between the doors, pulling as hard as he could.
A cylindrical object flew through the air, bouncing onto the steps of the hospital with a metallic clang.
Danger sense blaring, Sey'les yelped "GRENADE!" And dropped her end of the stretcher and ducking to the ground. The wounded Clone pilot let out a grunt as his head and shoulders bounced on the permacrete.
Rather than exploding, however, the canister let off a soft hiss, white fog filled the air.
"It's just smokescreen," Jural snarled. "Pick him back up, Lir and—Something wrong. I think I… I don't know." Towards the end of her utterance, the Bothan fell to her knees, then rolled from the top step.
Zgil walked backwards up to the door, brandishing his blaster and covering his tusks with his officer's cap.
Poisonous gas? Sey'les wondered, stepping as far away as she could from the canister while remaining in cover. "Transpirators!"
"We don't have any that will fit Bothans or Aqualish," the clone medic said, trying to move the pilot by himself.
Kriff this stupidity. Sey'les stepped up behind the nearest Clone, reached into his holster, un-velcroed the strap, and yanked out his blaster pistol.
"Hey—what are you—Arrgh!" The Clone rammed the butt of his DC-15 into Sey'les's chest, sending her stumbling backwards. "DROP THAT!"
Still holding the blaster, Sey'les turned around and ran as fast as she could, jumping over the hood of the nearest speeder, leaving the thick white smoke behind.
"STOP HER!" Zgil screamed, then coughed and sputtered, inhaling the nauseous fumes which were becoming thicker and thicker.
Reacting to every pulse from the Force, Sey'les zig-zagged across the muddy lot. Lethal bright blue blaster shots from the clones, completely protected thanks to their filtered helmets from whatever it the Separatists were using, flew past her.
To her right, the largest group of battle droids yet surged forward, taking advantage of the chaos in the Republic lines.
Humans screams, accompanied by ever decreasing amounts of DC-15 blaster fire, seemed to indicate that the clones were losing.
Blast, I should have hijacked one of the AT-RTs. The courtyard wall is three meters tall. I can't climb that. I am not strong enough with the Force to jump high enough, but maybe I can run along the wall and—SHTAK!
Sey'les took a huge breath as five more canisters fell from the sky, three in front of her, one bouncing off the roof of a parked speeder to her left, and the other nearly hitting her on the head.
She dove to the ground, a stun blast flying over where her head had been a second ago. Sliding on the icy slush, she dug her left glove into the snow to stop herself from continuing forward, then rolled onto her back. With two quick blaster shots, the battle droids that had been following her crumpled to the ground.
"What was that?" a tinny droid voice asked from somewhere in the dense smoke.
The urge to breathe was nearly overpowering, but Sey'les gritted her teeth, and continued jogging. When the smoke cleared again she took a huge breath and began panting, her spit dripping to the ground.
What if the toxins are still present in the air here, but in lower concentration? What if—
The sound of an E-5 set to kill echoed off the courtyard walls. Sey'les shuddered, sensing the life leaving one of the clones who had been knocked out by a stun blast, then another.
Sey'les sprinted as fast as she could through the darkness. Clone after Clone was dying, stunned then methodically shot. She couldn't figure out why the Separatists were stunning the clones before killing them, but she did not want to hang around and find out.
The white smoke was both a threat and a blessing. While it seemed to incapacitate anyone who breathed it in, it also provided Sey'les with much needed cover. By the time Sey'les reached the wall, the canisters were empty and the cold wind carried the remaining smoke away.
"What's that?"
"Hey! A Bothan!"
Running, Sey'les jumped up at an angle, setting her right foot against the wall near the corner, then pushed her foot from one part of the wall to the adjacent one. Before she knew it, her plan was working.
Wind ripped through her fur. A sensation of both pleasure and pride replaced fear as her plan began to work. Though blood was rushing to her left side though as the forces of gravity worked to pull her down, she managed to smile brightly, flashing a feral grin as stepping higher and higher.
It's working! It's—kriff.
A BX-series commando droid suddenly moved into view. As Sey'les ran overhead, the droid stretched his arm up to grab her.
Still less than two meters off the ground, Sey'les drew her blaster and blasted the droid in the chest. The impact scored the plate, but failed to punch through its armor.
Kriff everything!
With a yelp, she dropped into the ground to avoid being grabbed, but hit the still-standing commando droid's chest nose first. The taste of blood filled her mouth as the fleshy wet part of her nose pressed into the cold metal surface.
Blinded by pain, Sey'les stepped back and fired another shot, missing widely. "DAMN YOU KRIFFING DROIDS! JUST DIE! JUST—AHHHH!"
Every blade of fur on Sey'les's body shot up as an arc of electricity zapped through her body. The commando droid jabbed his stun baton into her abdomen, twisting it as he unleashed another jolt.
"Why hasn't this one been knocked out?" asked a B1 with yellow command markings, scratching the back of his head as he stepped up next to Sey'les, accompanied by four other B1 Battle Droids and a towering white-colored Super Battle Droid variant with a massive rifle.
"Unknown." The BX-series droid raised his stun baton again, causing Sey'les to to raise her hands pleadingly.
"Wait, with her injuries that could cause fatal damage! Remember our orders!" The droid commander protested.
"Roger Roger." The commando droid uttered bluntly before drawing his E-5, aiming at her face and squeezing the trigger, sending forth a merciful stun blast.