Vanguard
Chapter 8
"Stay down"
[Dantooine, old abandoned military facility]
[Two days later]
Longarm was beginning to come back to finding himself on a small bed inside a small dark 10x10x10 room with the only source of light being a dull red light similar to that of the prepping room, he begins to look around seeing if he could find a way out but the only way was a single door that seemed to be locked and most likely under heavy guard. He begins to move but quickly finds out his hands had been cuffed by an advanced locking mechanism utilizing a special electromagnetic field binding the two cuffs together. He tries to pull them apart but gave little effort to do so, he only wanted to test the strength of the field, he looks around again and then at himself to find himself without any weapons which didn't surprise him at all.
Several quiet minutes later and the door swung open allowing Asajj Ventress to walk in accompanied by two armed BX-Series commando droids and a OOM droid commander carrying a remote pad, she finds the SPARTAN awake laying there and comments with sinister intent in her voice "You're finally awake . . ."
Longarm comments sarcastically "Sorry to keep you waiting . . ."
She scoffs "Indeed . . . now I want to know everything in that little metal head of yours, or I'll have to resort to more extreme measures."
"Like what? Another round in the simulation room? Yeah try replacing all those droids I scrapped."
"No! I'll have a medical droid come in here and administer a truth serum so you'll tell me everything I want to know no matter what" she hissed.
He sets himself up on the bed and laughed "Ha! SPARTANs don't break that easy."
The assassin frowned "We'll see about that . . ." she took a step forward and states "Sources inform me that you have a ship from your own galaxy, you will give me the location of that ship and the details behind it."
"Sorry miss, not going to happen."
"Perhaps you misheard me . . ." she moves closer to the SPARTAN and calmly waves her hand across Longarm's helmet stating with a calm voice as she attempts a mind trick "You will tell me the location of your ship . . ."
The SPARTAN stood up towering over the assassin and states with a cold fearless tone "Not. Happening."
The commando droids steps up and takes aim ready to shoot the SPARTAN but Ventress waves them to stand down and said "Very well, have it your way . . ."
In the next instance, Longarm was hurled across the room smashing into the walls, ceiling, and floor viciously before finally slamming against the back wall where Ventress had him pinned with the force and she begun to squeeze around his neck, she asks with a more forceful tone "Tell me about the ship!"
Longarm decided to give the non-classified information so he utters with some difficulties "UN-SC Va-guard, des—troyer class . . ."
Asajj demands "Go on . . ."
"Coor-dinates . . . Alp—bite –me—syst-em . . ."
The droid commander presses several buttons on its tablet and reports "Uh I don't see a Aplbiteme system on the registry Mistress."
Ventress snarled "That's because there isn't one you idiot!" and slams the SPARTAN against the wall once more before dropping him on the ground, she turned to one of commando droids "You, go fetch a medical droid and bring a canister of truth serum now!"
The droid responded with a low "Roger Roger" before marching away, she then turned to the other commando droid "You, stay here and watch over him. If he as so much moves an inch shoot him but I want him alive."
The droid nodded and watched Ventress and the droid commander walk away as if they had other matters to attend to, once they was gone the droid took up its post near the door and kept its optics firmly locked on the SPARTAN who sat there against the wall barely moving from the beating he just took from the assassin.
Several silent minutes passes before Longarm looked up to see the droid standing guard, he chuckled lightly "Ha, you know it's funny."
The droid ordered "Quiet."
But the human disobeyed "Or what? You going to shoot me? You'll risk killing me and we both know that isn't what she wants.
The commando droid walks over and slams the side of its gun against Longarm's EOD helmet and yelled "Quiet!"
The SPARTAN continued talking however "Wow hitting me upside the head, that's low man even for you, keep that up and I'll be dead for sure!"
The droid had had enough of Longarm's ranting and immediately aims its blaster right up against the SPARTAN's temple, at that very instant he broke free of his restraints using his augmented strength and lunges at the commando droid that was taken by surprise. He pushes the droid's right arm aside with his left hand pointing the gun elsewhere and simultaneously throws a devastating right fist that smashed into the droid's head and virtually destroying it, he lets the droid hit the ground with a loud thud before retrieving the fallen blaster.
A B1 battle droid called out from outside "Hey! What's going on in there!?"
Longarm rushes over to the side of the door readying his E-5 blaster before the droid threatens "Report! Don't make me come in there!"
He hears the door hiss open and a watches a droid walk in, the battle droid quickly notices the SPARTAN and yells "Hey! You're not authorized t—"
He quickly shoots down the droid and rushes out the door where a squad of droids waited for him, a droid from behind scoffs "Ha! We have you surrou— WAAH!"
The SPARTAN quickly grabs the droid and uses it as a shield just mere seconds before the others started shooting, while his hostage was taking the hits he returned fire with deadly accuracy taking down the remaining droids before dropping his dead droid shield onto the ground. With the guards now dead he needed to find a way out of the facility so he could leave the planet, he had only hope that Ahsoka was close by to help him. But in the event that she was not he needed to find a ship on his own, figure out how to use the hyperdrive and the coordinates of the planet he had in mind, the only logical thing that came to him was the base's network array and data storage servers. Nonetheless he needed to leave the detention block before more guards arrived to investigate, on that note he runs out of there where he ends up in a network of narrow tunnels interconnected with one another and begins his search.
In a network tunnel not too far off, Ventress and the OOM droid commander were making their way to the base's CIC center when the alarms immediately sounded off alerting the other battle droids nearby and setting them to combat status.
Asajj turns to the commander and asks with a scowl "What's going on!?"
The droid takes a quick look at the pad it normally carries and reports "Uh it appears the prisoner has escaped . . ."
"What!?" Ventress asks bewildered, she then asks "Where is he going!?"
The commander responds "Unknown Mistress I'm seeing reports of blaster fire in multiple sectors with no clear indication of direction, however the prisoner is approaching Armory B-3."
The assassin quickly orders "Coordinate with the local units and tell them to deny that SPARTAN access to that armory, I don't care if they have to kill him at this point!"
"But Mistress, what about the information he has?"
"That information dies with him, as for the ship someone will eventually find it and that is when we strike."
The commander nodded "Roger Roger, coordinating with local units and sending them to Armory B-3."
Longarm was proceeding down through the tunnel network gunning down any battle droids that stood in his path while staying on the move, so far he's taken down two squads of droids that stood little chance against the SPARTAN's determination. He looks farther down the tunnel and finds an opening coming up soon and it was heavily guarded by B1s and B2s indicating a room of importance, he realizes a full frontal assault would prove too difficult and risky so he quickly activates his camouflage and vanishes from thin air.
A B1 battle droid standing guard near the armory hatch looked around seeing twelve droids, four of which are super battle droids, it then turned to a droid next to him and asks "Hey."
The B1 droid next to it asks "Yeah?"
"You ever wonder why we're here?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"Eh I don't know . . . an honest—" at that moment blaster fire violently erupts inside the room they were all standing in and before the droids realized what was happening, six battle droids already laid on the ground with blast marks across their chest.
One super battle droid readies its wrist-mounted cannons asking in a deep voice "What was that!?" moments before the SPARTAN they were sent to stop materializes right in front of their optics.
At that moment the remaining droids took aim but Longarm was far quicker on the draw now dual wielding a pair of blasters and gunned down the remaining two B1s standing behind him before turning his attention to the four super battle droids that were still processing what had happened. Two of them were quick to react and began firing away with their repeating cannons sending red energy bolts in every direction trying to get a clear shot on the SPARTAN that simply refused to stop moving. He soon started to feel the effects of Spartan Time once more and time grinded to a near halt, laser bolts slowly passed around his moving body and his first target was acquired, a super battle droid that was utilizing both of its wrist mounted cannons putting out twice as much blaster fire. There was no clear way of approaching the droids on the ground but fortunately there were other ways for the SPARTAN to reach his targets, he discards the two blasters in his hands and moves to one side of the open room where he rushes for the other end where he uses his built up momentum and strength to run up the side of the wall for a brief time. Once he reached the top he exerted most of strength into his legs and launches himself from the wall sending him soaring through the air straight towards the droids that were having difficulties keeping on target, he then throws up his right shoulder and comes crashing down onto the center-most droid with his armored shoulder smashing into the droid's faceplate causing the droid to topple over. When Longarm lands on the ground he comes back up throwing a right fist catching the droid to his left in its side where its armor was comparatively thinner than the front, his fist slams into the metal chassis with the sheer augmented concussive force causing several internal components to break. The super battle droid behind him prepares to fires so the SPARTAN quickly responds with a devastating roundhouse kick to the droid's lower torso area, the blow threw the B2's balance and caused it to topple over backwards where it crashed into the fourth droid and took it down as well.
Longarm's time perception returned to real-time and he picks up a blaster before holstering it and making his way to the door where an interlocking mechanism was placed, he kneels down and breaks the covering off exposing the mechanical gears and wires before muttering "Alright what do we have . . ."
Despite being in a whole new galaxy and everything seeming so foreign to the SPARTAN, it didn't take him long to figure out that Republic electrical wiring and system management were not too far from being similar to that of the UNSC, then again this facility is heavily outdated, and splice several wires together causing the heavyweight shielded doors to activate and open revealing the goods inside. When he walks in he found himself in blaster Valhalla seeing standard issue blaster rifles, carbines, rotary cannons, rocket launchers, thermal detonators, riot shields equipped with shielding technology, and much much more. He started nodding to himself thinking 'Alright now things are getting good around here' and started grabbing only the essential things he need to break out of the facility until he came across his own weapons that were confiscated from him. He grabs his combat knife returning it into its sheath and the DC-15S carbine but decides to leave the makeshift accelerator rifle knowing that where he was going he wasn't going to need it.
Once he had taken the weapons he needed to break free he walks out of the armory and finds a small handheld hologram projector lying on the floor with a blinking green light, he asks himself with a quiet voice "What's this?"
He picks it up and presses on the blinking button causing the holocrom to activate and display information regarding hyperspace drives, manuals on how to operate them, and a seismic scan of the base showing all the rooms and tunnels that would help him find a way out, he smiled muttering "Thank you Tano . . ." and stores it for safe keeping before moving on.
Ventress along with the droid commander waited at the final large open room before the main entrance, she knew that the SPARTAN would have to come through here if he ever wants to leave this place and that he had to fight for it. Fortunately she had a company of two hundred and fifty battle droids ready to fight alongside her, one hundred and eighty of them were B1 battle droids while sixty were B2s leaving the last ten to be BX commando droids.
The OOM commander droid reports "Mistress, reports show that the prisoner has reached the armory and is now making his way to the entrance. No doubt he will come through here."
"Good" Ventress said "He will fall before me like all those had done before, how much longer till he arrives?"
"My best estimate will be three minutes tops."
"Good, once he arrives this ends here."
They waited patiently for those three minutes until they started to hear gunfire in the hallway ahead of them, the commander tensed up a bit but Ventress remained calm and collected reminding herself that she needed all her power to overcome this dangerous and angered foe. The blaster fire drew closer and they could see faint glowing specs of red and blue travel back and forth before the shooting immediately ceases only for slow heavy footsteps to take its place. Each metallic step echoed through the tunnel into the large room where everyone stood ready, each step resonated and instilled fear into the droids that were supposed to not know fear but unfortunately they were routinely updated by the separatists for better combat effectiveness but that granted the individual droid emotions.
Minutes later and a figure slowly came into the light of the room, black metallic feet and legs soon followed with a chest and arms carrying a rotary blaster cannon beneath the waist, and lastly the dark helmet that always seemed to bring fear and dread with its black soulless visor.
The SPARTAN stood before the entire company of droids and Ventress and roars out with confidence "Who wants to pray to god!?"
Ventress smirked seemingly amused by Longarm's attempt and said "You won't be getting out of here alive you realize that?"
He responds "Oh yeah, in fact there's three ways this is going to play out. The first is what you pretty much dead, I die and everything goes back to normal for this galaxy but not before I shove my fist down your throat. Second is that you all stand down and let me pass, no one gets hurt, but where's the fun in that right? Third, we can have ourselves a little party and make things fun for all of us, and I walk away with my head held high like nothing ever happened. So what's it going to be Ventress?"
Asajj had already made her mind up long ago, she draws her lightsabers and activates them showing the two glowing red blades itching for a fight, Longarm grins as he says "Alright, me first . . ." and takes aim with the rotary blaster cannon.
The OOM command droid finally gives the order "ATTACK!" resulting in the entire company to march and the SPARTAN began firing away sending a storm of blue bolts in every direction knocking down droids at a rapid pace seconds before they began to return fire.
Longarm ducked and weaved through incoming blaster fire while at the same time firing off bursts of lasers bolts taking down as many as he could as fast as he could but the droids were slowly pressing the advance and if he stayed in this position for too long then he will be overwhelmed. He lets out a another burst of fire taking six droids down afterwards and quickly sticks a thermal detonator onto the bottom of his blaster cannon before firing off one last burst and then hurl the rotary cannon towards the droids. While the weapon was still hurtling through the air, the SPARTAN then draws his clone carbine and an outdated republic repeating blaster and began gunning down droids with rapid succession until the cannon landed in the middle of a cluster of approximately fourteen droids where it detonated remotely destroying all those around it. The explosion cued the SPARTAN to start his assault and charged head first into the fray blasting down droids left and right while avoiding enemy fire through the use of impressive acrobatics, Ventress started to grow frustrated seeing how Longarm was tearing her droids apart and he isn't even out of breath and yet it surprised her. Two days ago in the simulation bay he destroyed eighty four battle droids singlehandedly and now here he is decimating a company of droids, what was driving him to fight harder than ever before? Time began to slow around her as she watched the angered SPARTAN in slow motion discard his repeating carbine and holster his clone blaster before pulling out his combat knife in a reverse grip and another combat blade of republic origin and slowly tear her droids apart with such ferocity but yet with such grace. She watched his body movement seeing it move so smoothly like an artist calm and gentle, that's when it struck her. Ahsoka mentioned that Longarm had been fighting a war for twenty five years so how else could he be so skilled in combat, those seemingly endless years of war with the Covenant made this man become the ultimate weapon, a killer with little emotion for his enemies whatsoever. She watches the SPARTAN drive his titanium blade deep into the face plate of a super battle droid destroying the components inside before retrieving the blade and stare into her eyes through his dark visor, this sent a shiver of fear through her making her finally realize that she had made a grave mistake of taking on such a dangerous beast of a soldier. The SPARTAN-ll started to run with both blades ready to cut and tear straight towards Asajj regardless of the standing droids that tried their best to shoot him, time catches up with her and Longarm was closing the gap extremely fast with the sheer intent of finishing this one way or another.
Ventress throws up her blades in preparation of the inevitable attack just mere seconds before the SPARTAN lunges at her with his right handed blade in full swing. He passes by her missing her as she quickly steps out of the way but was too late to avoid the titanium-carbide blade making a cut across her cheek and come back swinging her blade high in order to decapitate him, but he anticipated this and immediately ducks before dropping low and swing his left leg in a 360 spin where he catches the assassin knocking her off her feet. She slams onto the ground on her back just as he gets back up and prepares for the killing blow but a pair of commando droids came to her aid and engaged the SPARTAN with their sharpened standard issued swords accompanied by whatever few droids that were still fighting to some capacity. Ventress took this time to quickly get back up before she watched those same droids that came to save her get torn and ripped apart by the SPARTAN-ll with relative ease.
Asajj felt the sheer hatred swelling up in the black soldier as he begins to approach her at a brisk pace, the hatred and determination he held within him inspired a whole new level of fear making her realize that this monster was going to be relentless in his attempts, she states with anger and a hint of fear "You're no mere mortal! The hatred within you is unlike any I've ever seen, how!?"
The SPARTAN continued his approach stating "Funny thing about that . . ." until he came within arm's reach and threw a fast right fist straight into her stomach, the impact of the force caused the assassin to vomit for the briefest moment before she fell limp onto the ground where she then looked up to see him standing over her.
He places his right foot on top of her chest and applied pressure to ensure she couldn't escape, he bends over where his intimidating helmet was hanging over her head and says "I am very much mortal, but the thing is that I have been fighting a war ever since I was a little boy. You've just made the worst decision of your life to fuck with a SPARTAN and you'll pay the price for it."
He stands back up tall and applies even more pressure onto her chest with his boot making the assassin cringe and grimace in pain, he then asks "You know what the Covenant calls us SPARTANs?" he takes out his DC-15S blaster and aims the barrel directly at her face and finally says "They call us demons for a reason . . ."
His finger began to squeeze on the trigger but suddenly a shot rang out and struck the SPARTAN in the back making him stumble forward off of Ventress who was relieved to get air back into her lungs. He turns around to see fresh droid reinforcements flooding out of the tunnel he came from all charging and firing away, he wanted to stay and kill Ventress for what she's done to him so far but he also realizes that this was not the time and place to do it anymore knowing that he was needed elsewhere. He returns fire sending several blue bolts of energy back at the oncoming battle droids before turning tail and run for the facility's landing pad where he'll take a ship and get as far from here as possible.
Asajj was starting to slowly get back up feeling the bleeding cut on her cheek from his knife when a battle droid asks "Mistress are you alright? Shall we pursue the prisoner?"
She answers "No, we lost enough troops today. Prepare our ship for launch, if we can't beat him on the ground then we'll follow him and destroy him in his ship."
The droid acknowledged "Roger Roger" before heading off to perform its task.
Asajj looked around her seeing her entire company of droids essentially devastated with very few survivors, this was clearly a lesson to her and a lesson she would not forget.
Longarm finally reaches the landing pad outside under the night sky and found only one ship available to him, a Utapaun Porax-38 Starfighter that are commonly seen being used by separatist magnaguards and wealthy private owners. This large dark grey fighter craft featured dual heavy engine blocks that were capable of independent hyperspace jumps on both wings with a centralized fuselage with a cockpit up front with a dome-like glass viewport and two fire-linked blaster cannons. The SPARTAN rushes over and enters the open cockpit where he then pressed several buttons to close up the hatch and start the engines up.
He pulls out the holocrom he find on the ground earlier and starts looking through the information it had muttering "Alright c'mon c'mon how do I fly this thing . . ."
The details contained within the device was only regarded to the hyperspace drive so he sighs in frustration and began pressing several buttons seeing what would happen, he eventually flips a switch on his left and push forward what appeared to be the throttle lever to his right before suddenly feeling the entire craft jerk forward and shake as it begins to lift itself off the ground.
The SPARTAN laughed "Haha! Alright now we're talking!" before grabbing hold of the center pilot steering handle that featured two handles with triggers set on an axle that turns much like a steering wheel in a car.
Fortunately he had participated in the UNSC's SABRE program to know how to pilot and fight in most space capable craft, he pushes the throttle to full power and pulls back on the steering handles guiding the craft up into the planet's atmosphere and eventually into orbit where he comes to his final challenge, find the coordinates of his desired destination and initiate the hyperspace drive. He finds the fighter's nav-computer and found it already loaded with coordinates of nearly every known system in the galaxy which was pretty common among all ships of any class or affiliation, he took some time sifting through each planet taking careful looks at each one until he finally found the one he was looking for. The planet is considered unpopulated in terms of civilization but it is still inhabited by sparse villages with limited capabilities, the planet was located in the Suolriep Sector at grid coordinates J-18 in the Outer Rim Territories, the backwater planet was known as Saleucami.
The SPARTAN started talking to himself "Alright let's get back home, entering grid coordinates J-18 and initiating hyperspace . . . let's hope this damn works."
He enters the coordinates and pushes a different lever forward which caused the hyperdrive to activate seconds after the ship's sensors detected a unknown signature on scopes, he didn't have time to investigate as the stars around him turned into lines and the ship launched itself into hyperspace.
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