Titanomachy

by TheLandMaster

A narrow escape sees an entire fleet of the Militia Army dragged from the Frontier and into a galaxy far, far away. And it seems in the end, war awaits them no matter the destination. But the Sentinel Corps are steadfast, and Commander Elyse will make sure her people prevail. After all, they have the help of Titans... But will it be enough?

11. Chapter 10

ABOARD THE JEDI CRUISER TRANQUILITY, EN ROUTE TO RENDESVOUZ POINT…

"So, everything's in order?"

"Yes, Rose, everything's in order. It was in order the last five times you asked it, it'll be in order on the sixth."

"Well, something could have gone missing!"

Bless her heart, Rose Summer was many things, and almost all of them were positive, but when her pre-mission anxiety kicked in, it really kicked in. Not to the point of actually impairing her judgement or decision-making, true, but certainly enough to cause the young colonel to enter a repeat pattern of obsessing over their preparations for whatever mission they were to undertake at the time. In this case, it was the check-up for all the gear they had brought for their escort mission… or, more accurately, all the gear Rose had brought for their mission.

The guns had been expected, she always had been something of a gun nut, even if this time the selection had been quite… out there. Sure, the LSTARs and Cold Wars might have been a tad exaggerated, but they could still be somewhat useful in a pitched firefight, and the explosives could serve for useful (if very destructive) traps… But the only explanation Rose had given to the Thunderbolt launchers, the Rampart minigun, and her own anti-material railgun rifle with enough punching power to go through tank armor was "precaution", whatever that could mean.

Not only that, but Rose had also requested, and earned permission, to bring with them two teams of Spectres, each one with their own Stalker Mk II HWS unit, and with all mechs loaded with anti-Pilot combat protocols.

All of this, for the escort of a VIP prisoner. Or, as Hikari had so wonderfully described, a VVFIP.

Aka, a "Very, Very Fucking Important Prisoner".

Thankfully, the crew of their assigned ship had been all but welcoming in assisting Team Vale with loading up their "belongings" into their own room, a surprisingly spacious living quarter that had allowed them to pile up the crates of ammo and assemble the mechs in a line on the back, leaving plenty of space for collapsible bunks and a foldable repair table for their equipment. It wasn't anything close to either the new corporate dorms they had on Coruscant, or even the bunks aboard the Orpheus, but for this limited time-being, it'd all suffice.

However, all that assembly process had only been the first hour or so of their travel.

The rest? Boredom. Or at least, boredom for everyone that hadn't been Rose fussing over their stuff. Because sadly, aboard a completely alien ship, they didn't have many people to really talk to, or activities they could partake in, leaving the rest of Vale to twiddle their thumbs inside their room for the last twenty minutes…

"… Ah, what the hell."

That is, until Hikari threw herself off from her bunk, arms crossed behind her back as she slowly made her way to the door.

"And where are you going?" asked Eis aloud, the young woman's eyes narrowing in suspicion as she glared daggers at her squadmates' back.

"Well, I am going to not act like a couch potato and go meet up with the fine folks aboard the ship," replied the blonde with a smile and a shrug. "I mean, we got some time to kill before we get to our target, and I don't wanna look like an asshole to the clones."

"Also you're bored."

"Also I'm bored," conceded Hikari to Noire, who had yet to look up from her data pad as she perused yet another document about their new home galaxy, before taking a hold of her helmet and slipping it atop her head. "But c'mon, you really gonna tell me you're not curious about the stuff these guys have seen out there? Bet they got some cool stories to swap… C'mon Kat, back me up here."

The mute, however, merely rolled her eyes and did a "so-so" movement with her hand, only to quickly return her focus to running maintenance on her monomolecular, depleted branthium spear, a reply that earned a huff and a shrug from Hikari. "Whatever. Point is, I'm going. You're free to come with me, though! You too, Rose."

For a brief moment, their team leader did not reply, instead looking somewhat hesitantly around the room and all of the equipment still leftover. Finally, however, the red hair gave out a tired sigh, then pumped her fists together in what was probably an attempt to look ready.

In actuality, it only made her look positively adorable.

"You're right, enough negativity!" called out their team leader with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "Alright, let's go out there and show these clones what we can do, team!... Well, provided you all want to go. Does everyone want to go?"

"I'll pass," piped up Noir, the woman giving a wave of her hand as if by after-thought. "I'll keep an eye on our gear, though, make sure everything's prepped." Showing that she shared the thought process, Kat promptly sat up from where she was resting and walked over to sit down beside her black-haired teammate, giving a dainty wave of her hand with a cheeky smile.

"… Alright, fine, let's go meet the clones," finally admitted Eis, the woman promptly throwing her coat on and holstering her sidearm, White Glint, to her thigh. "I suppose we can afford the free time."

"Come on, I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

"We'll see."

-O-

MESS HALL OF THE TRANQUILITY, TEN MINUTES LATER…

"So I slapped that det-charge on, pressed the button and BAM! The whole tank went up in flames!"

The round of cheers and laughs from the clones gathered around them echoed inside the mess hall was downright deafening, especially with just how many of them were now packed inside the gigantic room and circled around the three Pilots who had claimed a small corner of the mess hall for themselves, their MREs forgotten as Hikari and Rose regaled the troopers with tales of their many, many exploits, while Eis sat off to the side and sipped from her packet of juice.

And yet still… she couldn't quite complain about the situation.

Sure, the fact all of them shared the same face, even if they all had taken a moment to add something to differentiate one another more easily, was something that Eis would take some getting used to, and the sheer scale of their numbers was far beyond anything she had gone through aboard Militia warships or in their bases… but in the end, it still brought forth the same feeling of familiarity that she had grown used to having every time her team would be hounded by the regular soldiers back home.

Only, the clones weren't used to hearing tales about Pilots. To them, the Jedi were the benchmark of "superhuman" as it would, something other living beings couldn't hope to match up by any normal means. But now? Now, they were hearing about the exploits of this band of (mostly) normal humans, who through tech and skill, took on insurmountable odds in the craziest of manners… and won.

Perhaps it wasn't quite the morale booster they expected, but maybe it'd help with putting any worries about working with other Pilot teams in the future to rest.

In return, it was quite something to hear the clones talk about the battlefields they had gone through. The Frontier natives were no strangers to some of the wilder locations their stretch of space could reveal, like Pandora's islands being in perpetual zero-G, or the perpetually-frozen wastes of New Kyiv, but the enemy had always remained the same: day in and day out, the Militia would fight the IMC, with the only change being if they had a new fancy toy or prototype to test out, and even that tended to be rare with how scarce their holds in the Frontier had become.

But here? Here, the Confederacy would constantly churn out weapon after weapon, recruit allies as fast as they could bring them in, and rotated their fleets around so frequently that the clones could find themselves fighting in as many as ten different planets in the span of a few months. It was grueling, brutal, and a testament to the clones' hardiness that they kept going regardless.

And if there was one thing the clones would always praise, it was their generals, the Jedi.

Granted, while Rose and Hikari had been quite enamored with the idea of what they had dubbed "space magic" (or, as the data packets and the clones had repeatedly called it, "the Force"), Eis had been more… skeptical, one could say. Not of its existence, of course, the presence of so many documents pertaining to its study served as enough proof. Rather, it was more its application in combat that the white-haired Pilot doubted. An active combat zone didn't quite lend itself to being the kind of ambient an order of peacekeepers focused on a mystic art and swordsmanship would thrive in… until the tales told by the clones, that is.

And with how enthusiastic and reverential they were, one would have to be a complete idiot not to believe their recounts of the Jedi's actions: not soldiers, but warriors, carving their way through enemy ranks like a mower through grass, dodging and blocking shots like they could foresee where they would hit down to the inch, and wielding this… Force, to perform feats which her own humanity had required advanced technology to match.

It really was a strange, strange galaxy they had found themselves in…

"Man, you Pilots sure go through some crazy stuff," called out one of the clones with a chuckle. "You'd fit right in with the ARCs."

"Oh, I heard about them!" replied Rose with just as much cheer, the young colonel's eyes almost shimmering with excitement. "They're your special ops division, right?"

"Yep. Tough as nails, second hardest training in Kamino, top of the line gear… being an ARC is a benchmark for most of us."

"Unless you're a bred commando, then you're just kriffing better from the get-go," said another trooper with a mix of grumbling and respect, though which was greater was hard to pin. "ARCs can't do any of that fancy stuff you can, either…"

"Is it true you can travel through time?"

"You mean Phase Rewind? Nah, that's not time travel."

"Oh… then, uhh, what is it?"

"An interesting question! See, it all works through the process of manipulating quantum pathways left behind by the equipment's own spatial manipulator…"

As Rose began on her very technical explanation that both Eis and Hikari could see was making some of the clones go cross-eyed, the other two Pilots took note of a different group of soldiers silently entering the mess hall, seemingly uninterested in mingling with the other soldiers. The fact their armor, though somewhat similar to the clones' own, was painted a deep navy blue, covered in strange white markings, and overall looked far more regal than the more utilitarian clone armor.

That their leader wore a helmet with his visor removed, revealing his noble-esque features that seemed to rest in an expression of constant superiority only made the entourage look even more out of place.

Calmly and carefully, Hikari scooted closer to another trooper, and lightly prodded him in the ribs, the young woman waiting for the clone's trance-like state to end before she pointed a finger at the new arrivals. "Friends of yours?"

"Nah, those are Senate commandos," replied the trooper with a surprisingly neutral tone of voice. "Normally they work in Coruscant only, but with how high level our new prisoner is… guess they're not taking any chances."

"Huh… and the guy with the stick up his ass?"

"Hikari!"

"That is captain Faro Argyus. Heard he has quite a service record under his belt, it's why they gave the job to him… but aye, he does seem like he's got the stick, doesn't he?"

While the clone turned away to attempt to refocus on Rose's continued rambling of higher-dimensional science, Eis was left to stare at the insufferably smug grin Hikari had aimed at her, only for the white-haired Pilot to instead let out a resigned huff and draw out her communicator from her hip. "Noire, how are things there so far?"

"Everything's quiet, as expected," replied her team member with a thankfully-not-annoyed voice tone. "Kat's finished maintenance on the mechs, we're gonna put them on stand-by just in case… oh, and careful, she set up the high-voltage traps on the door, so… yeah, better watch out when you come back."

"Ugh… duly noted—"

Attention, all hands. We are approaching the rendezvous point. Return to positions and prepare for prisoner transfer. I repeat, all hands…

"Well, no rest for the wicked, I suppose…"

"Took the words right out of my mouth. Hey Rose! Mission time!"

"Oh, right! Umm, sorry guys, guess we gotta go!"

And it seemed the clones shared of the sentiment. Just as Rose leapt over the gathered group in a surprising display of agility, the clones took to their feet and began filing out of the room, with those who had their helmets off quickly putting them back on as they readied themselves for the upcoming mission. For their part, Rose, Hikari and Eis took off at what could best be described as a "power walk rhythm", the three quickly covering the distance towards their room to be met with both Noire and Kat standing outside, both already fully in gear bar their weapons.

It was time.

-O-

Twenty minutes later, Team Vale was fully geared up and awaiting the Republic Consular-class to finish docking with the cruiser, standing at attention with their weapons held at the ready and surrounded by a team of six red-and-black Spectres, all fully geared as well.

And while they hadn't brought all their weapons with them, the five Pilots still cut an impressive figure with what guns they did have.

Rose carried a Nemesis energy rifle, her custom revolver "Thorn", and of course, "Shining Ruby", her pride and joy of a sniper rifle. Beside her, Hikari hefted her own custom weapon, the shotgun "Breacher", along with an L-STAR machinegun and a Mozambique hand cannon, the weapons looking far more proportional in the oversized cybernetic arms she had swapped out her regular models for.

Not to be outdone in firepower, Eis had chosen to bring a CAR SMG and a pair of RE-45s held by two robotic arms jutting out from the small of her back, while Noire stood by far more casually with a Mozambique, a Prowler PDW and an old, weathered VK-47 Flatline that had the words "Night Panther" carefully etched onto its stock.

As for Kat…

Let it not be said the diminutive mute did not know how to cut an intimidating figure. Decked out in her full Pilot gear, with a Mastiff hanging from her back, an Alternator at her hip and a dangerous-looking black-and-gold hand cannon on her leg, Kat was carrying a shocking amount of firepower for someone so small.

But if there was one thing that definitely looked out of place in the small girl, was the folded spear hanging from her waist opposite of the Alternator, its serrated blade promising pain and suffering to anyone who was caught in it.

Add to it the R-301s, EVA-8s and the two Rampage LMGs the Spectres were carrying, and indeed, the Militia escort party seemed ready to downright fight a war all by their lonesome. Granted, not all of their arsenal was present, with the Stalker Mk. II units and most of their heavier weaponry having been left behind on their room, guarded by some auto-turrets and all the various traps Kat and Noire had left behind, but that was mostly out of common sense than anything else. After all, it'd be better to keep some aces up their sleeves.

… Plus, the ship's crew might not take well to the anti-personnel mechs armed with guns capable of turning a human body into mist and the programming to incentivize said actions freely walking around. But those were thoughts better left for the future.

Right now, the five women merely waited and watched as the Consular-class transport eased itself onto the dock, and after only a short pause, connected itself with the extended airlock tube. Once the connection was fully set and secured, the Pilots had only to wait a few moments before the doors to the airlock opened, revealing the arriving prisoner and his escorts.

While they weren't as overtly dangerous as the Militia force, the number of clones surrounding the cuffed Neimoidian was enough to show how seriously they were taking this operation. But more than that, it was the sight of the two cloaked figures who lead the party out of the transport and towards the gathered "welcome committee" that truly drew the attention of the Pilots.

It would come a day where they'd get used to seeing the Jedi, but today was not that day. Still, let it not be said that Vale did not keep their composure and professionalism as they watched Luminara Unduli and Barriss Offee pace towards them with a seemingly natural grace. Once the two parties finally came face-to-face, Rose snapped into a picture perfect salute, her stony expression hidden behind her helmet. "Team Vale, present and ready for our mission, general," said the young colonel, her tone a far cry from the more informal one she had used just a while ago. "Awaiting your orders, ma'am."

"At ease, Pilot," replied Luminara with a calm, almost matronly voice. "Thank you for joining us. Though introductions would be welcome, I'm afraid we must make haste with our current mission. I fear the Separatists could be planning to strike us at any moment to reach the viceroy. For now, let us take him to his holding cell."

"Affirmative, general."

And so, the now far larger group took off down the halls, their steps echoing amidst the metal walls as the entourage made their way through the halls of the Tranquility. Once or twice, they passed by some of the crew or security, who made clear their disgust towards the passing prisoner, judging by both the sneers from the actual deckhands, and from the shift in posture from the troopers.

"This is outrageous!" shouted the Neimoidian with all the self-righteous and proudful anger he could still muster while being led-slash-pushed forward by the armed escorts. "This is a miscarriage of justice! I demand my litigator!"

"Due process is afforded to those who have not committed high treason, viceroy," smoothly replied Eis in turn, the Pilot barely sparing a glance over her shoulder as she led their Spectres unit forward with her T.E.C. kit. "Your rights will be decided once we arrive on Coruscant."

"And what would you know of my rights? Aren't you strangers from another galaxy?"

"Indeed. Sadly for you, however, I am quite an avid reader, viceroy. And I am quite aware of the litigations and rules pertaining to your arrest, so believe me when I say, your days in a cell will be quite long."

The grumbling that comment elicited from the prisoner made Eis grin under her helmet, her professionalism kept safe under the metal and glass hiding her face. The clones, however, were far more open with their amusement, if the chuckles her comment elicited were any sign. Even Barriss couldn't help to smile, though Luminara retained her stoicism as she kept an eye on Gunray. After that little exchange, their walk continued far more silently, until finally the party crossed paths with someone different from the ship's regular crew.

"Greetings, general," said captain Argyus as he approached the group, his helmet held under his arm. "I'm afraid our return will be somewhat delayed. We sadly over-stressed the hyperdrive taking the direct path here, so the engineers require some time to perform repairs and maintenance. In the meantime, we have the brig all ready for this… traitor."

"Very good, captain," replied the Jedi in return with a short nod, before she turned her attention to the rest of the escort group. "Commander Gree, you and the Pilots will accompany me and my padawan to the brig for the viceroy's interrogation. The rest of your man are free to return to duty on the Tranquility."

"Right away, sir."

"Interrogation, eh?" drawled Hikari with a dangerous glint to her eyes as she turned her attention to Gunray, a predatory grin clear in her face as she slowly "cracked" the knuckles of her combat prosthetics. "Well well, guess we're gonna get real acquainted, viceroy~"

The sweat that started building on the Neimoidian's brow made clear what he thought of that.

-O-

DEEP SPACE, SEPARATIST MUNIFICENT-CLASS FRIGATE, HANGAR

Asajj Ventress was not someone who could admit fault easily. If one were brave or foolish enough to ask her about it, she would readily offer plenty of explanations on how her failures were due to the fault of others, before promptly executing the asker for their insolence. Of course, the only person to ever have called out said failures, was the one person she deferred to: Count Dooku.

However, against all odds… Ventress found herself doing something she had never done before.

She found herself considering her most recent failure.

The mission to Rugosa was to be a simple affair: eliminate the Republic envoy, and assure the cooperation of the Toydarians by having their king witness the strength of the Confederacy. The fact the envoy had turned out to be Grand Master Yoda had already been a damper to that plan, even with the many troops she had brought to eliminate potential threats, but in the end, it had been the appearance of the previously-unknown "Pilots" which had truly thrown things into disarray.

Oh, she could blame her loss to their downright exotic technology, or on the fact their were so excluded from the Force she couldn't even properly sense them or their movements, or even how they were never supposed to be there at all… but in the end, that didn't change the fact she had lost to normals. Common soldiers, using slugthrowers, had bested an assassin trained by a Sith Lord in the arts of the Dark Side.

It was unforgiveable.

But now, she had a chance to redeem her past failures. Dooku had made clear that Nute Gunray was to be rescued by any means necessary… or, failing that, silenced so he could not spill any secrets. And for that, they'd need to board the Republic cruiser, thus their planned ambush.

"COMMANDER VENTRESS."

The rumbling bass of an approaching B2 grappler droid served to draw Asajj from her introspective revelry, the assassin turning to face the hulking machine with a scowl. "What is it?"

"INFILTRATOR CONTACT RECEIVED. REPUBLIC SHIP SOON DEPARTING."

"Then we are off. Prepare for the hyperspace jump."

She would not fail.

Not again.

-O-

ABOARD REPUBLIC VENATOR-CLASS CRUISER TRANQUILITY, BRIG

When Barriss had been told by her master that she would be working alongside the newly-arrived "Pilots", she did not quite know what she would be met with. Word-of-mouth and rumors had already traveled around Coruscant and even into the Jedi Temple, coupled with the reports that had been given by the clone troopers and Jedi who served alongside or encountered the Pilots, had given enough information into how they fought, but not to what they were like as people.

So when the Miralian found herself staring at five women who couldn't be much older than herself, wielding enough firepower to put most bounty hunters or combat droids to shame and acting with professionalism that would have made Gree weep in happiness… Barriss was not shy to admit she had been caught quite flat-footed by it.

Not to mention the many bits of metal grafted to their bodies that she caught glimpses of while they escorted Gunray to the brig.

Now, normally all Barriss would have to do to accurately interpret a person would be to sense them through the Force, discerning their inner thoughts and possible intentions that, physically, they could hide through discipline and training… but today, this was not an option. Because there was nothing to sense from the five. They were like voids occupying space, filling the world with the shape of a humanoid that moved, talked and acted like a living being, paradoxically not possible yet at the same time just there.

"They… certainly are interesting company, aren't they?" asked Barriss softly to the passing Gree, the Miralian switching her gaze between the patrolling "Spectres", Noir operating a tac-pad, and Kat… filing her nails while she lazed about in a corner. "Though I don't know quite how to feel about this…"

"You mean because of their age?" asked the commander in return, his expression perfectly calm even as he cast his own stare at the two girls standing inside Gunray's cell along with Luminara, both Eis and Hikari making themselves as threatening as possible while Luminara interrogated the Neimoidian. "Yeah… I know I'm being a hypocrite when I say this, but… I don't like seeing kids this young looking like this."

"Like… this, commander?"

"Like veterans, sir." Seeing the quizzical look Barriss was giving him, Gree motioned to Rose, still standing at attention facing away from the two, hands resting atop her weapon in what was clearly a customary way. "You normally don't see younglings this well-disciplined out there… it reminds me of some of my brothers back in Kamino. The ones with combat experience."

The silence that slipped in between the two apprentices was sadly an uncomfortable one, and neither had quite the drive to dispel it by speaking up once more, considering the ugly subject that had reared its head just then… until, thankfully, someone else pitched in.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that."

And who else would it have been, but colonel Rose Summer herself, the young Pilot somehow zipping up to the two with nary a sound.

"I mean… yeah, I never even dreamed of being in a situation like this… but we all knew there could… some 'unforeseen dangers' in the battlefield" said the young Pilot with a tone of voice that seemed both far too wise for someone her age, and yet still innocent and hopeful. "We all signed up for the fighting knowing it could end up costing us, you know… but we know that we gotta keep fighting. Otherwise, innocent people are gonna get hurt instead."

Suddenly, and without prompt, Rose began to slowly and methodically remove her gear from her torso, until she was reduced to only her bodysuit-like shirt covering her skin. And before either Gree or Barriss could say anything, turned around and pulled open even that…

Revealing beneath it the intricate metal spinal column grafted onto her back, along with all the artificial muscles and skin surrounding it.

After a moment more revealing said implants to the two listeners, Rose once more redressed herself, and began returning all her gear to their proper place on her body. "Sometimes we lose a couple things in the way, sure… and sometimes we decide to sacrifice part of us to keep ourselves going… but at the end of the day, as long as we're moving forward, that means we're still alive, right?"

And it was with those final words, and a calm smile of acceptance, that the young colonel left the conversation, choosing instead to rap one hand against the shield door of the cell to grab the attention of its occupants, before twirling one finger in the air and walking away.

-O-

"What was that?" asked Gunray with no small amount of trepidation as he watched the black-haired girl walk away, his gaze flitting wildly between the Jedi and the two mercenaries standing inside his cell. "What did that mean?"

"It means, viceroy… that our leader wishes for answers."

With how calmly she had said those words, Eis could have very well been talking about what was for lunch in the cafeteria. Instead, the white-haired woman snapped her fingers and pointed to Hikari, who eagerly stepped away from the wall she had been leaning against the entire time, while Luminara began to carefully pace around the two Pilots.

"As I said before, viceroy, I have taken the liberty of perusing the many, many texts and books pertaining to the legal bindings and codes of conduct expected of a mercenary corporation hired by the Galactic Republic. Strictly as a personal project, I'm sure you understand. A lady needs her hobbies, after all."

As she continued to speak, Eis calmly circled around the table until she stood behind the Neimoidian, and placed one hand on the alien's shoulder, pressing with just enough force that Gunray became acutely aware of how much strength her body held.

"So imagine my surprise, viceroy, when I discovered that for all intents and purposes… we are not held by any such treaties."

WHAM!

And with a most undignified yelp of surprise, Gunray saw Hikari put a hand clean through the table, crumpling a large piece of it into a ball before letting it fall to the ground with a thud.

"That, buddy, means I can fold you like a piece of paper as long as I want, and no one would arrest me for it~"

"Of course, we wouldn't want to anger or disappoint our contractor," added Eis with a smirk, her eyes briefly turning towards Luminara's carefully schooled expression before the Pilot paced around the table back to the door. "Don't worry we'll give you some time to think this offer over. But remember, viceroy: the clock's ticking for you."

And with that, both she and Hikari moved towards the door, just in time for Gree to lower the forcefield and allow both of them to leave, leaving a wary Luminara and a terrified Gunray inside the cell. Both Pilots quickly joined their team leader and the padawan waiting outside, the former staring at them with crossed arms and pride… and the latter, with shock and surprise.

"Is… that how you conduct your interrogations?" asked Barriss with a tinge of unease, her eyes briefly flitting down towards Hikari's arms, something that earned a chuckle from the blonde Pilot.

"Eh, sometimes. Last time was more fun, though."

"What?"

"Oh, last time Hikari punched through the wall of the interrogation room, dragged the guy to the hallway through the hole and started shouting at him at full volume until he started crying and wet himself," was Rose answer reply, delivered in a perfectly cheery tone, followed by a high five to her teammate that only made Barriss and Gree's horror grow. "It was great, I think I still have a recording of it somewhere… Well, things for later. Alright team, form up!"

And with that, Rose was back in her Command Mode, clapping her hands and drawing the attention of the rest of the Pilots in the room, who quickly stood up and walked towards their leader.

… That is to say…

"Okay, listen up, we- … Girls?"

All but one.

"… Where did Kat go?"

For indeed, there was a conspicuous absence of the shortest of Vale's members, having vanished without a trace.

While Barriss, Gree and the commandos looked around bewilderedly for the disappeared Pilot, Noir looked down at her tac-pad when it let out a tune of a message being delivered. The second the girl saw what had been messaged, her expression became carefully, forcefully neutral before she let out a long-suffering sigh and began kneading her brows. When the rest of Vale tilted their heads in confusion, all Noir did was raise the tac-pad, and reveal the message sent to it.

Got some bad vibes all of a sudden, gonna check something real quick

Back in 5 3

- Kat

P.S: Get ready!

"… Oh, that can't be good."

As if to punctuate that, the entire ship suddenly shook, shaking everyone off balance for a moment. Once the tremors had passed, Gree steadied himself against the wall and activated his comm brace. "Bridge, status report! What's happening?!"

"Two Separatist frigates just jumped in and started firing!" came the reply through the communication. "They're dropping fighters and boarding pods on top of us, they're trying to breach us!"

"Dammit…" With a growl of frustration, Gree quickly switched frequencies and set his communicator to the entirety of his company. "Green Company, to arms! Prepare to repel enemy boarders!"

"Well, if they're here for the slug, they got a fight waiting for them," said Hikari with a snarl as she slammed her fists together, a comment which earned a round of nods from the rest of Vale. Right at that moment, not only did Luminara exit the cell, Argyus also arrived with his commando unit, all of them hefting DC-15s carbines and looking ready for battle.

"Droids are already pouring into the Tranquility, and are pushing us hard," said Argyus in utter seriousness as his men took up position around the cell block. "It seems they want to split our forces and open a path leading here. Master Jedi, colonel… I'm not happy asking this, but I require assistance. If our weapons or shields get taken down, we'll be easy pickings."

"We will see to the defenders, captain," replied Luminara, the Jedi already withdrawing her lightsaber from her waist. "Barriss, remain here and keep watch over Gunray along with the troopers. Let no one through. Gree, you'll come with me."

"Yes, master."/"Yes, general."

"My men will remain here and help keep watch over Gunray. I'll head to the communication center and try to organize our troops. Colonel Rose—"

"Noir, Eis, go back and grab the remaining mechs and guns, then head to the reactor," called out Rose as she readied her Nemesis rifle, already marching to the door even before Argyus could finish speaking. "Hikari, you're with me. We're gonna give the clones some back up."

"Heh, you got it, sis!"

"What about Kat?" asked Eis, her eyes on her team leader even as she synchronized all of their systems together.

"Knowing her? She's already onto something. She'll ping if she needs help."

As if to confirm such a thing, immediately an all-clear signal was sent by the mute girl, one that also revealed her location and direction, which at least served to diminish some of their worries.

"Asked and answered… Alright, Vale, move out!"

And with that, the group took off and split from one another, some remaining behind, some rushing to join the battle.

They had a ship to protect.

But as he turned away from the others, however, Argyus couldn't help but grin in self-satisfaction. The plan was coming along wonderfully.

Now, all he had to do, was get his hands on his future gifts to his newest entrepreneur.

-O-

TRANQUILITY'S VENTILATION SHAFTS, EN ROUTE TO ENGINE ROOM

As she carefully maneuvered her way through the air ducts of the cruiser with the aid of the Force, Ventress made sure to keep her ears open for the updates her droid forces continuously sent to her earpiece. And thankfully, so far everything had gone according to plan: Argyus' data regarding the meeting point for the prisoner transfer had been accurate, allowing her frigates to arrive with the element of surprise in their favor. The massed deployment of fighters had also made it far easier for their boarding ships to slip past the cruiser's anti-air defenses, though as expected, the loss of Vulture droids had been quite steep.

Still, that did not matter in the grand scheme of the plan. With her forces now deployed within the Republic cruiser, the clones would be unable to deploy their own starfighters, giving her ships plenty of time to weather the Venator's superior firepower. And even if she lost the Munificents, she could always procure a method of escape from the cruiser's hangar.

What truly mattered was that she acquired, or neutralized Nute Gunray. His secrets could not fall into the hands of the Republic. To guarantee that, she would make sure the cruiser couldn't escape mid-combat.

After all, even if their hyperdrive was somehow repaired amidst the active combat… the cruiser could go nowhere without working engines.

First, she'd destroy the primary engine room. Then, if that wasn't enough to draw away the guard forces in the detention center… well, Ventress could always improvise more creatively.

Finally, after many twists and turns inside the nearly claustrophobic metal tunnels, Ventress came upon her destination: a simple metal grate blocking the exit to the sprawling main engine room of the Venator. As silently and as carefully as she could manage inside the cramped vent, Ventress gently pushed the grate free with the Force, and floated it above the hole, leaving just enough space for the assassin to slither her way out, and perform a Force-assisted jump towards the engines' machinery. Thankfully, Asajj had managed to put just the right amount of strength into the jump, allowing the assassin to land and slot herself on a somewhat awkward-but-thankfully-hidden alcove amidst the pipes and metal of one of the engine cores, with just enough line of sight to keep watch over the door and catwalks below her.

"COMMANDER, REPUBLIC FORCES ARE REGROUPING AND FORMING CHOKE POINTS. PRESENCE OF JEDI AND MILITIA REINFORCEMENTS CONFIRMED BY AGENT," called out one of her B2 droids through the commlink, the noise of blaster fire loud enough to almost drown out the heavy bass of the droid's voice.

"Redirect outlier groups towards our main forces, strengthen our pushes," hissed the assassin in response while she scanned the room for the best locations to place her explosives on. "Request reinforcements from the frigates if needed."

"PROBABILITY OF SUCCESSFUL DEPLOYMENT FROM FRIGATES IS BELOW 50%-"

"You have your orders, proceed with them."

"UNDERSTOOD, PROCEEDING."

With the conversation finally over, Ventress allowed herself a moment to heave out a weary sigh, one hand massaging her temple just so to try and push away the budding migraine, before she refocused on the task at hand…

Fwoosh.

Just in time to see someone enter the engine room from the door ahead of her position.

Pressing herself against the metal as close as possible, Ventress inched her way forward to try and catch a glimpse of the "intruder". Luckily, it seemed the new arrival did not care much to hide their presence, strutting into the engine room with a complete lack of awareness or attempt at stealth… not that the girl could have been stealthy regardless, what with her garish choice of hair color and equipment.

It was only the embroidered patch on the clothes of the new arrival's shoulder and back that made Ventress realize that she had just found herself a lone, isolated Militia Pilot, seemingly oblivious to her presence or of the attack currently underway. In other words, she was the perfect prey for an ambush… but the memory of her first defeat served to curb Ventress' arrogance before it could get out of control. Instead, the assassin carefully maneuvered herself through the engine's alcoves, always keeping one eye on the still-unaware Pilot as she daintily walked down the walkway, gaze flitting here and there with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Once she was close to the ground, Ventress used the Force to lower herself with nary a sound, and slowly withdrew her lightsabers, though she was careful to keep the blades off until the last possible second.

Said second quickly encroached as she made her way towards the Pilot, the girl still turned away from the Sith acolyte as Ventress readied herself to strike down her target, both arms raised and ready to activate her lightsabers… when something completely unexpected and baffling happened.

At that exact moment… the girl turned around.

Without a care in the world, the Pilot turned around directly towards Ventress, gave the assassin the cattiest of smiles, followed by a dainty wave of her hand… before shattering into so many motes of light.

The assassin barely had time to register this sequence of events before she felt sudden death encroaching upon her, pushing Ventress to throw her body back as fast she could.

This in turn saved her from being skewered head to toe by the Pilot wielding a glowing orange spear that promptly began to melt down the floor it had just struck.

The Pilot Ventress had just seen disappear into light, yet had somehow teleported above her without the acolyte sensing or noticing in any form since the moment she had walked into the room. Said Pilot promptly pulled her spear free with almost contemptuous ease, masterfully twirling it around before propping it against her shoulder and turning a catty smile to the still-watching Sith assassin… a smile that did nothing to hide the sheer bloodlust and MURDER the girl was emanating.

With an annoyed growl, Ventress ignited her lightsabers, and shifted herself onto a ready position, the crimson blades of her weapons bathing her in a blood-red light amidst the darkness of the engine room. "You… may be a complication."

The silent giggle she got in return only served to reinforce that notion.

-O-

"There's too many of them!"

"Hold your ground! Don't let them through!"

"We need reinfor—ARGH!"

"Rider's down! Kriff, where are those riot shields?!"

It would be a cold, sad day in hell before Green Company let a bunch of clankers roll over them in any way, doubly so when they were fighting aboard one of their own ships. So when their commander ordered them to push back the Separatists' boarding parties, the clones took to the task with all the ferocity and determination their Mandalorian genes afforded them.

Sadly, determination could only do so much against the columns of super battle droids marching ever-steadily through the corridors towards Green Company's hastily-raised chokeholds. The only cover they could properly get were the alcoves, and those only held one close at best, and though they weren't exactly scarce, there were far more troopers than there were holes.

The bodies that littered the floor were proof of that cruel reality.

Still, Green Company made the droids pay for every inch of ground they took: behind the advancing B2 columns laid the smoking and burned chassis of the many super battle droids that had first charged the Republic gun lines, now nothing more than scrap hindering the march of their fellow machines.

But that was still not enough to stop them. And if the clones couldn't muster up reinforcements soon, their victory would be paid with far too many bodies.

As if to punctuate that fact, two more troopers were hit in the chest by enemy fire, dropping them without either of them being able to utter a sound in return.

"Force dammit, where are our reinforcements?!"

BOOM!

Whichever clone had said that, it seemed the universe had a strange sense of timing and humor indeed towards him.

For not a second after he had said such words, something exploded in the midst of the super battle droids with an absolutely devastating blast that damaged a fourth of the droids, knocked aside half of them, and left the rest reeling from the smoke and resulting shockwave. The clones, thankfully, were farther away enough from the blast zone that it did not affect them as badly as it did the droids, but they were still left to try and peer through the smoke to discern who had been responsible for the sudden attack.

They didn't have to ponder long.

"Coming through, tin cans! OUTTA THE WAY!"

From one of the few side-passages the droids did not bother to block, Hikari charged out, her L-STAR spewing out a torrent of large red particle bolts, each hit melting off a chunk of a B2's plating until the shots managed to fully pierce their armor and began instead to damage the far more vulnerable electronics underneath. On and on the machinegun fired, until finally its heat sinks could take no more, and the gun flared open with a hiss, jetting out steam as its coolant system kicked in.

That mattered little to Hikari. Without a moment of pause, the Pilot settled her LMG onto the small of her back, and took out her Mastiff shotgun instead, quickly racking the slide before unleashing hell on the droids that had slowly started to recover their footing, slam-firing wall after wall of charged particle waves that rocked the B2s that were on their feet back to the ground in a manner that, were it not for her bionic arms, would have also sent Hikari down to the floor, flat on her ass.

Furthermore, she was not the only one joining the battle. Over Hikari's shoulder, rapid bursts were fired by Rose from her Nemesis rifle as she picked off joints, weapons and even weakened spots on the droids' armor with deadly precision, the young colonel perfectly avoiding hitting her sister even amidst the chaos on the engagement. Whenever the energy cell ran dry, already Rose had a fresh one in her hand, reloading the weapon in a split-second before beginning her attack anew.

"We got our reinforcements, boys! Push forward!" shouted one of the clone troopers, his morale reinvigorated by the arrival of the pilots. His brothers, sharing of the same high, quickly took to arms once more and pushed forward, rifles firing a storm of blue blaster bolts as they went on the offensive. Now forced into a crossfire, the B2s had to choose from one target or the other, and either option punished them: the clones now had gained enough ground that more cover was available for them, allowing the troopers to more safely engage the droids, while the Pilots had firepower on their side, their weapons doing to the machines what took several clone troopers to achieve in damage.

Soon, bit by bit, the renewed assault began to truly push back the B2s, some even tripping over their fallen brethren and leaving them easy pickings to be taken down. Hikari's Mastiff was soon replaced by the now-cooled L-STAR once more, increasing the rate of fire against the droids, and thus the number of casualties, while any stray blaster shot aimed at her was blocked by her right arm's integrated barrier shield, while Rose easily weaved out of the way of what little got through towards her.

However, it seemed fate wished to throw yet one more wrench into the Republic's luck. Amidst the mass of super droids still left, one of them went unnoticed, a deadly mistake. For rather than being a standard model B2… this one was instead a B2-HA super battle droid.

This fact showed itself fatal when, after being provided the briefest of windows, the machine quickly fired a rocket that sailed over and around its compatriots, quickly arching its way towards the clone troopers…

BOOM!

"Argh!"

Before detonating right in front of the mobbed clones, sending many of them flying into a sprawl not unlike that which the droids had suffered moments before. Bodies tumbled to the floor, against the walls and even atop one another, some of them eerily unmoving, while others thankfully stirred, but remained floored and groaning in pain. Still, this was enough to put a halt to the clones' push, allowing the Separatist forces to finally group together once more, ready for one last push. As if to punctuate their renewed assault, several of them turned their guns towards Hikari, who could only growl in anger and hunker down under her hardlight shield, left to watch as the heavy droid readied another rocket, and fired it at the defenseless troopers…

wOw

Time slowed to a still.

It was always like this, whenever the implant was activated. With her perception, reflexes and physical abilities pushed far past human limit, Rose Summer could see the world not as multiple, moving pieces on a canvas, but instead as a lone, motionless scene where nothing and none but her could move and interact with.

For this second stretched to eternity, time was a commodity, easy to attain and waste.

And time was exactly what Rose intended to use right now.

With a casual push of her legs, the Pilot almost glided forward, calmly making her way through the stopped blaster bolts that peppered the air with as much ease as someone walking through a room filled with hanging ornaments. Behind her, afterimages of her previous movements marked her path, each one just slightly different from the previous as Rose made her way to the recovering droid group, one hand already reaching for Thorn.

Thorn, like Shining Ruby, was something that Rose had built with care and love, over many a sleepless nights, with materials and parts acquired by less-than-legal methods, and a few violations of safety rules and gun control laws.

A consequence of allowing Gauss to opiniate on the process.

Still, both Elyse and Deanna had authorized and covered for her actions, the commander even giving Rose tips on how to properly tune both guns. And in the end, she had two weapons that she was only capable of firing after her skeleton had been taken out and replaced with an augmented one, her muscles surgically reinforced, and recoil dampeners shoved inside her arms and shoulders that Eis designed from scratch to properly handle the kickback of the guns.

So when Rose hefted Thorn at the droids and pulled the trigger, she still made sure to properly brace herself as the high-explosive armor-piercing hand cannon round flew from the weapon, only to halt in the air just like all the other shots fired by the droids, each of them larger than her thumb and loaded with enough custom compounds to tear a football-sized hole into a human wearing a full suit of armor.

Rose couldn't wait to see what they would do to the robots.

Once the clip had run dry, the Pilot re-holstered Thorn and instead moved towards the rocket the heavy droid had fired, the warhead already in flight towards the clones, poised to kill them all.

So, against any and all common sense, Rose took hold of the rocket and turned it around back towards the heavy droid, making sure that it was properly aligned towards its new target. And now, all she needed was to set up the last step.

So, rushing back towards the clones, Rose took hold of Shining Ruby and swung it over her back, the rifle already powered and ready to fire.

Whereas Thorn was a weapon made to commit borderline war crimes against human-sized targets (at least, in Eis' words), Shining Ruby was made to commit guaranteed war crimes against heavy mechs and up. The firing system had been built from the ground up without any chemical propellant agents. Instead, it used a series of electromagnetic coils powered by a small Branthium power cell to push the tungsten/neo-titanium AP rounds at Mach 35 speeds out of the gun. The resulting impact of the round against anything below the heaviest of armors was enough to create a hole the size of a human torso, and continue flying through several more plates until it encountered a dense enough object, or it disappeared off in the distance. Anything organic caught in its trajectory would, naturally, be turned to outright mist by the sheer power, and the first time Rose had tried out the gun without her current recoil dampeners, she had been flung back four feet with one arm dislocated and the other broken.

The B2s, while very sturdy, were built to ablate thermal energy from blaster bolts, not direct impacts from a solid round. It was time Rose tested her weapon against them.

Checking once more that all the pieces were in place, Rose huffed one last breath, took position ahead of the clones, carefully shouldered Shining Ruby…

And let time resume its flow to her.

wOw

To Rose, her actions had taken two, up to three minutes to undertake, a consequence of her senses being turbo-charged by her spinal implant.

To the rest of the combatants, however, said actions were undertaken by a red-and-black blur that sped through the droid ranks at speeds high enough to boggle the mind, several of them exploding into balls of shrapnel and molten metal, before the blur coalesced itself into Rose Summer, kneeling on the ground and holding a disproportionately large rifle in her hands, seconds before she fired.

There were no words in any of the galaxy's many, many languages to describe how LOUD the weapon's fire had been. Even through the sound proofing of their helmets, the rapport of Rose's rifle made their heads rattle like a tank had fired in the halls, not helped by the echo ricocheting off the walls over and over.

And yet, all of that utterly paled compared to the carnage that the Pilot's actions had caused.

All at once, a dozen B2 droids had massive chunks of them blown apart by Thorn's explosive rounds, their metal armor doing near nothing against the armor-penetrating munitions that could rend through the armor of light vehicles. Oil and torn parts flew out in a display that would have been sickening if done to a living being, launching the wrecked droids back through sheer force of impact… but said carnage was dwarfed by what a singular shot from Shining Rose did to the scant survivors.

The electromagnetically charged tungsten/neo-titanium munition's effect on the straight line it had been aimed at could simplistically be described as "a line deleted from reality", and it would still be perfectly accurate. Everything where the round passed simply ceased to be, ripped apart by supersonic speeds no human or machine could feasibly react to: metal was made into atomic dust, lightning crackled in the ionized air, which rippled as a vacuum trailed behind the flying bullet…

And what little molten metal was made from the walls dripped to the floor as the round tore its way through the ship nearly unimpeded, disappearing upwards into an unknown direction.

As the last of the totaled droids fell into a lifeless heap onto the floor, the clones watched aghast at the brutal destruction wrought by a single person as the uninjured picked themselves up and slowly began to rise…

"… Oohhhh, it did go through the walls…"

The muttered, pitiful groan that followed from Rose that followed not a moment later, however, quickly made them all turn their heads towards the still-crouched Pilot, who had lowered her weapon to the floor and was staring at the melted crater left on the hallway's wall by Shining Ruby's projectile.

That several more holes were quite visible through the first one only made the shivers of fear from the clones stronger.

"Kriff… just what the hell kind of fights you people get into?" asked one of the clones, a medic judging by the markings and tools strapped to his belt, as he pushed himself off the floor and rushed to the side of his injured brethren, even though he himself was nursing blaster burns in a leg and arm.

"The nasty kind," replied Hikari nonchalantly as she walked over the wrecked droids, casually checking them for activity, and putting a her-sized-fist-sized hole onto the ones that were somehow still twitching even after being thoroughly demolished. "Sis, your implant."

"Oh, right, yeah…"

At that prompt, Rose quickly opened up the back of her uniform and exposed her mechanical spine to the outside world. A moment later, jets of steam shot out from her back, covering the Pilot's back half in a grey cloud as she let out a relaxed sigh. "Phew… forgot how much it heats up when I do that…"

"You alright?"

"Yeah, think I just pushed it a bit more than usual…"

Once the steam was done exiting her body, Rose pulled her suit back on, and activated her comm unit. "Eis, Noire, how are things on your end?"

-O-

"As smoothly as it can be!" shouted Eis into the radio as she fired all three of her weapons around the corner, a storm of bullets striking the closest B2 droid in its joints until the robot dropped in pieces onto the ground. Another quickly took its place, wrist-mounted repeater blaster firing away at the defenders entrenched behind the mobile particle barriers erected by the Boarding-type Spectres covering the clones. "Would you care to explain what just ripped some of the droids we were fighting to shreds, Rose!?"

"… I… may or may not have fired Shining Ruby…"

"Of course you did, what else could it have been, WHY did you fire that thing indoors?!"

"It was faster that way!"

"She's not wrong," calmly called out Noire, even as she fired a burst from Night Panther at a heavy super droid who had just began aiming its rocket launcher at them, detonating the warhead before it even took flight and enveloping the droids in the resulting explosion. "Helped out a bit too."

"It's the principle of the matter, dammit!" shouted back Eis in exasperation, even as she replaced the empty clip of her C.A.R SMG, only to have to duck behind the wall once more when a blaster shot fired at just the correct angle almost gave her helmet a new breathing hole… something which seemed to, at last, push Eis' patience just a tad over the edge. "ALRIGHT, THAT DOES IT! EVERYBODY BACK, I'M SENDING IN THE STALKER!"

"The what!?"

Whichever clone had shouted the question, his answer was not vocalized back. Instead, it came in the form of the large, heavily armored mech with arm-mounted machineguns, back-mounted recoilless cannons, and totting a Rampart HMG like it weighed nothing at all charging directly at the droid forces, letting out a wordless electronic roar as it fired its massive handheld gun at the B2s to devastating results, while blaster bolts struck the Stalker's vehicle-grade plating and exploded into useless red sparks. In contrast, the oversized rounds fired by the huge slugthrower torn off chunks of the B2's bodies, even as the droids stood unflinchingly at the advancing wall of death that was the Militia combat mech.

And when the machine closed the distance, they did not have a prayer of a chance.

Heavier plating and build won over, and the Stalker began to literally tear its way through the B2 units, hitting and smacking them with its limbs while wantonly firing both its handheld and wrist-mounted guns. At such close ranges, there was nothing the droids could do, their more simplistic AI unable to properly react against a mech whose programming included extensive close-quarters combat subroutines. Limbs were torn off, bodies smashed, and oil coated the surfaces of the hallway, the carnage proceeding to unfold as, slowly, the clones stopped firing their weapons and instead watched the Stalker go to work on the B2s, all while Eis looked on with the utmost air of superiority and smugness a human could possibly output.

"… You know… I'm glad we don't have to fight your droids," called out one trooper with a hint of uncertainty, only to wince hard when he watched the Stalker pick up a B2, tear it in half lengthwise, then toss the halves at the two remaining B2 that were still standing. "That's a whole new level of messed up…"

"Remind me to show you videos of a Mandrill battle," replied Noir in a completely deadpan tone.

"I don't think I want to see that…"

While the soldiers and Pilots watched, the Stalker slowly made its way to their objective: the boarding pod still lodged against the Tranquility's hull. Once it reached the hole, the mech aimed both its Rampart and back-mounted cannons at the pod's interior, braced itself properly, and unleashed hell upon the Trident ship. Heavy ordinance capable of reducing humans to chunks exploded inside the boarding pod, causing a fireball that swept out of the hole and against the Stalker, who remained in place and continued to unload bullets and shells onto the Separatist ship, until finally, one particularly large explosion detonated inside, likely a fuel line in the boarding ship's engines, and the entire deployment room was destroyed in a fireball hot enough to char the skin off any biological standing in front of it. The Stalker, built to withstand shots from anti-armor weaponry, weathered the blast as easily as one stands against a breeze, before promptly turning around and returning to Eis, its hull covered in singed marks and nicks from the detonation.

"Well, that's one pod down," said the Pilot with a sigh, holstering her weapons and sending out a signal for the mechs around them to stand down and assist with whatever wounded that were still unattended, before reaching up to activate her communicator. "Rose, how are things on your end?"

"Still pushing strong, obviously!" replied not their colonel, but Hikari, the blonde sounding ecstatic even over the din of gun and energy fire. "Rose's fine too, she's just a bit busy machinegunning her implant."

"… You mean the highly dangerous, highly experimental implant?!"

"Relax, she's just fine. You know the boss, she's built tough."

"Ugh…"

"We'll mop up the stragglers here and go meet up with general Unduli. Have fun, Eis!"

And with that, the radio went dead, just as the sound of the grenade launcher built into Hikari's combat prosthetic went off through the connection, no doubt aimed at some other unfortunate group of Separatist droids. Putting that aside, Eis walked up to the clones, took hold of her emergency aid kit and went to work in helping to treat the injuries along with the Spectres and clone medics. "Sometimes I do wonder how we survived this long…" muttered the white-haired woman, as she carefully inserted bio-foam and liquid sutures to whatever burn holes remained unattended, while the Spectres used hyposprays to inject medical compounds directly into their bodies.

"Skill, training, and also a heap of luck," called out Noir promptly as she went over the downed B2s and began to tear out components and bits that seemed intact and important enough. "By the way, what happened to the other Stalker?"

"I left it guarding our room."

-O-

So far, everything had been going flawlessly.

Argyus would never admit it, but the plan Ventress had thought up was not half bad: cause chaos inside the cruiser, make sure things grew hectic enough that he could sneak out amidst the commotion, and secure some of the technologies the Pilots had brought aboard while Ventress focused on recapturing (or silencing) Nute Gunray. Simple, but ingenious, and it could quickly be adapted against unexpected factors.

But most of all, it meant Argyus had a straight shot at reaching the Pilots' room undetected, all thanks to the careful deployment of droids to keep all the clones away from the area, and guarantee his window of opportunity.

The captain couldn't help the grin that grew on his face as he carefully and silently made his way to the room, his eyes and ears still alert for any possible surprises or unexpected guests, but thankfully, nothing seemed to be close by, and soon, Argyus found himself staring at the unguarded door leading to the Pilot's room. Taking one last look around to confirm he was truly and completely alone, Argyus withdrew his access key from his belt, slotted it into the control panel for the door, and waited. It barely took seconds for the panel to confirm his authorization codes before the door slid open, allowing the traitor access to a treasure trove of technology that the Separatists would surely pay a fortune for.

"Now, let's see what they've brought…" whispered the Senate Commando, carefully making his way inside the room.

Sadly, Argyus had made one mistake. One simple, fatal mistake: he had entered a room with security measures prepped by Eis Blanc, under orders from her team leader to make the room unassailable.

So, the moment he stepped forward inside the room, his head was promptly grabbed, then removed from between his shoulders by a Riot Drill mounted underslung on the arm of the Stalker Mk. II standing guard just to the side of the door frame.

And with that, the door closed, figuratively and literally, on captain Argyus's traitorous plans.

-O-

"If anyone tries breaking in, it'll handle them."

"Right…"

With that conversation finished, both Pilots continued their duties, loosely keeping their ears open to the sound of incoming hostiles, all the while the clones did their best to clear out the hallway, while others moved on to reinforce other teams. And while Eis had her mind focused on the medical treatments she was currently performing, Noir found herself wondering…

What was Kat doing at that moment?

-O-

Oh, what a day!

What a lovely day!

Pure, unadulterated joy filled Kat's heart and mind as she danced across the engine room like a ballerina, firing her grappling hooks against walls, catwalks, ceiling and even the ground below to pull herself in maneuvers that would have emptied the stomachs and rattled the brain of anyone stupid enough to copy her.

The advantages of eschewing most of your born-with biological tissues for metal augments were oh so WORTH IT!

And she even got to fight melee. MELEE! How long had it been since someone threw down with her with honest-to-goodness melee weapons that weren't a glorified big knife or their fists? No sir, this bald harpy instead had brought two of those amazing laser swords (lightsabers, that's what Rose had called them…) and was now trying her best to split dear little Kat in two.

Keyword being trying.

Oh, by no means was the… Sith, was it? Sith slow or unskilled. She was actually pretty good! Knew her stuff, had good coordination, could keep attacks and movements economic… not bad at all for someone with still-organic sinew and muscles.

"Rrrraagh!"

Oh, right, fight…

With her usual patented Smug Smirk, Kat danced around the thrown slab of metal and fired her grapples onto the walkway once more and jettisoned herself forward, firing her old friend "Silence", down at the bald woman, who quickly stepped aside to dodge the .50 HE rounds that were left to smash against the floor with a series of quite loud bangs. A shame that she had learned to dodge those instead of blocking them with the swords like she did the first times she fired the Mastiff.

That had been quite a surprise…

Right as she closed the distance, Kat switched on her jump kit and pirouetted over the woman's double slash retaliatory strike in a twirl of exhaust fire, quickly righting herself for the landing before whipping out "Melody" and sending a slash of her own at the bald woman, who retightened her guard a second before the super-heated branthium blade could separate her head from her neck, leaving the bright crimson blades to struggle against the haft of her spear.

Gotta remember to thank Gauss for the new haft, this thing's so damn good…

The momentary pause was put to an end just as swiftly as it arrived when, with a snarl, the Sith pushed back and began to quickly lash out with her swords in a dizzying display of attacks, her swords' blades leaving near-solid arcs in the air as they attempted to hit Kat, and failed to get past Melody's haft or blade, who in turn lashed out to try and carve a few nice little open gashes onto the pale assassin's body, but were rebuffed in turn.

The fact said assassin was having to put a lot more strength in parrying said blows than Kat had to do the same against the Sith's blows only made her smirk grow wider.

It was time for a bit more fun, though.

With another boost from her kit, Kat spun like a top and swept Melody into a wide arc, batting the sabers aside and opening up the Sith's guard for a blow directly to the heart… and then backflipped away, a quick hop added at the end for the extra distance, allowing Kat to simply pose and prop Melody atop her shoulders, still giving the assassin a catty (ha!) smile all the while.

Growling, the assassin righted herself and took up another ready stance, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "You are quite an anomaly, aren't you?" asked the assassin with a low, threatening tone. "Your comrades are all soldiers, but you… you're a killer, aren't you?"

Kat, naturally… did not reply.

Well, the hardware for her integrated body cloak had to fit somewhere, and she had never had a use for her vocal cords anyway… so instead, she simply looked up and tapped her chin in a classic childish manner, making sure to tap one foot for that extra disrespect, before shrugging nonchalantly.

The woman, in return, merely scowled harder, twirling her swords in a clear attempt to calm herself. "No matter… killer or not, I won't let you stop me. I won't fail my master."

Well, if she was used to some back-and-forth banter, today would be a day of disappointment. And it seemed the woman realized that, for the second she finished twirling the lightsabers, she rocketed forward with a burst of speed that, again, was quite impressive for someone with more meat than metal, and reared her arms back in a clear wish to restart the fight. Just before the assassin could begin the song and dance again, however, Kat fired her grapples behind and up towards the ceiling, and reeled herself away from the crazed bald lady.

Time for a little sleigh-of-hand.

Just as she disappeared into the darkness of the engine room (and wow, it was very spacey, she'd have to remember to pitch it as a Gauntlet arena), Kat activated her Cloak, and let herself disappear from the visible spectrum. Then, with a little mental note, she fired up her custom Holo Pilot Nova, and readied four different copies. Only after they were prepared did she drop the cloak, and as one, the five Kats took off running against the walls, Melodies held at the ready. To the assassin, it would seem like she had suddenly multiplied into five different copies, each one running with perfectly natural moves, and reacting as if the world had mass and physicality. So it was no wonder that when the five all jumped and readied themselves to attack the assassin, she chose to jump and spin herself around, swinging her lightsabers like she was cosplaying a hyper-deadly blender, and indeed cleaving through all of them.

Including Kat.

Who, a millisecond before the blade made contact with her, disappeared into the Phase Shift dimension, leaving behind specks of light no different from the holograms that died out when struck by the assassin. Only instead of being bisected, Kat found herself landing back on the ground on a world that visibly shifted, twisted and wavered in tones of grey, white and silver, never stilling for even a second. It was a dizzying, nauseating sight, hence why Pilots didn't particularly like being in said space for more than the brief moments their Shift devices allowed them to.

Kat didn't quite see why, though, this place felt just fine. Homey, as a matter of fact, but oh well…

So instead, the young woman rose while wiping some dust off her clothes, then refocused her attention onto the assassin, who was now carefully watching her surroundings, blades raised and poised to strike or defend against anything her opponent could cook up. Oh, if only the assassin knew…

With an eager grin, Kat calmly walked towards the guarded assassin, calmly putting away Melody in lieu of pulling a long butterfly knife from the sheath in her chest and twirling it around with expert dexterity, while with her other hand she drew Silence once more from its holster, until she finally stopped right behind the assassin, making sure to match her turning around to always stay behind her. Right as her Shift was about to end, Kat's smirk slipped into a bloodthirsty grin, and she aimed the butterfly knife squarely at a point in the assassin's body where no organs should be, and her hand cannon at her exposed thigh. If there were, well… mighty unlucky.

And so, the Phase Shift ended.

The assassin was fast.

Kat was faster.

The knife's monomolecular blade easily punched through the woman's clothes and flesh, blood spurting from the wound as a scream escaped her and her entire body tensed, the assassin even dropping one of her lightsabers in the process. That split second of inaction allowed Kat to draw the blade up and out while also shooting through the woman's left leg with Silence, before backflipping away from the sloppy retaliatory slashes the woman gave in return, leaving her free to twirl the knife around tauntingly as blood dripped from the exposed blade, Kat even going as far as throwing the weapon up and catching it once it came back down.

The assassin, however, did not fall to the taunt. Instead, she merely hissed and grunted in pain, blood dripping onto the floor from both holes on her body as her grip on her lightsabers turned bone-white from rage and her eyes seemed to shrink to pinpricks.

Good, good, let the rage flow through you… thought the Pilot evilly, even as she closed the knife and moved to grab Melody once more, ready to restart the melee.

Unfortunately, that's when the assassin decided to stop playing around and instead brought back the space magic.

Specifically, with a nearly unhinged scream of anger, the woman thrust her free hand forward and blasted everything in front of her with a push of the Force, ripping pieces of the walkway free and sending them as a crude storm of projectiles with the clear intent of turning Kat into some grotesque modern art piece. Obviously not wanting to have random metal stuck inside her body (that she didn't pay or wish for), Kat gave up on drawing Melody, instead activating her jump kit to jump up to dodge the wall of shredded metal pieces. Just as she did, however, the assassin aimed her hand at Kat instead, and suddenly the Pilot found herself held in place like she was wrapped in a giant, invisible hand, pinning her arms against her torso and halting any movement, even when she tried firing up her Jump Kit's boosters to push her away. As a last resort, Kat swiveled the grapple launchers of her kit backwards and shot them at the wall, but though the metal darts indeed buried themselves inside the metal, no matter how hard the reeling mechanism strained, Kat did not move an inch.

This… was a more problematic situation.

"You… and your friends… are proving to be an annoyance…" snarled the assassin through winces of pain, even as she holstered her remaining lightsaber and replaced it instead with a pair of blue patches covered in gel, which she placed over her stab and gunshot wounds with a hiss and wince of pain. "But… no matter… my mission is to retrieve Gunray, or silence him. I will not fail my master…"

Suddenly, the assassin wrenched her hand back, and Kat found herself flying forward like a ragdoll, one of her grapple launchers breaking off and the other coming loose from the wall to flop down onto the ground, until she was floating a mere foot away from the pale woman, who had now retrieved her sword, and reignited her lightsaber once more. "And it will not be a lowly, disgraceful criminal who will stop me."

Now, were this any other Pilot who did not have the survival instincts (or, as Hikari would put it, the insanity) that Kat had honed across the years, they would certainly have panicked under this situation, too lost in their emotions to make a proper escape plan, and would thus die. But Kat wasn't any other Pilot, and she most certainly did not panic under stress.

Grow somewhat nervous? Maybe a bit, she had that right after all, but most definitely not panicking. Instead, just as the assassin readied herself to put that lightsaber through Kat's torso, the Pilot fired up the Phase Shift, and hoped that it would take her away from the invisible grip currently holding her.

The good news, it did: the moment Kat activated the kit, she felt the pressure on her body disappear and drop her like a sack of potatoes onto the floor.

The bad news: she had horribly misjudged how out of it the assassin would be. The second Kat had touched disappeared, the pale woman bodily threw herself forward while redrawing her second lightsaber, her goal clear as she madly dashed towards the now-unguarded door leading out of the engine room, somehow ignorant of the large hole currently gushing blood that should have kept her from running in any form.

That wouldn't do at all.

So, the moment she was ready, Kat rushed forward as well, even as she drew Melody free once more, the spear's blade still glowing brightly amidst the monochrome Phase dimension as she rushed to try and stop the assassin from escaping. This time, however, Kat abandoned calculating the proper timing necessary to avoid being attacked in retaliation as she phased back into real-space, Melody already half-swung and ready to lop off the assassin's head.

This time, however, both were equally fast, and the results were somewhat more… balanced.

The good news: Kat did manage to dodge the retaliatory strike from the left lightsaber, and while this forced the Pilot to redirect her attack from the head to the body, her swing did connect with the assassin, something that Kat positively relished as she watched the woman's left arm be sliced clean from the limb proper from the shoulder down, spurting blood into the air a second before the super-heated blade cauterized the wound, spreading the smell of burned meat into the air.

The bad news: Kat was not fast enough to completely avoid the subsequent swing, which had been aimed at where the Pilot's torso was, but which she narrowly managed to redirect away by leaping into the air.

This, however, left her legs fully open to attack, and like a hot knife through butter, the assassin's laser sword cut off both of Kat's legs, right at the height of her thighs.

Goddammit, and I liked those legs too…

That was the first thought that crossed Kat's mind, before she flopped face-first onto the ground like a sack of potatoes, Melody slipping from her fingers and sliding off the edge of the walkway and down into the pit that was the engine room to join the assassin's removed limb.

Speaking of said assassin…

Kat had seen angry people in her life. Angry, pissed off, livid, foaming at the mouth… if one named it, she had seen it, mostly because she had been the reason for said reactions, and it was admittedly… cute, when it happened. Downright adorable, especially when they started shouting stuff like "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" or "I HATE YOU!" or those weird noises they'd make when they got angry enough.

None of those applied to the all-encompassing fury that seemed to roll off the assassin, who was outright snarling as she started at the stump that her arm was now, her pupils shrunk to downright pinpricks, her entire body vibrating, and…

… Was that lightning on her arm?

That was the last coherent thought Kat had before the woman howled, and aimed her remaining hand at Kat's prone body. And from the outstretched limb, a mass of lightning bolts shot out, wrapping around the Pilot and electrocuting every inch of her mechanical body at once while also lifting her into the air and tossing her against one of the console pillars still left intact from the battle, which promptly bent and crumbled under the weight of the Pilot's body.

To Kat, the experience could best be described as… unpleasant. Even with the lack of true nerve endings on her body, the wiring and electrical components could still conduct the lightning back to what few organic bits she had left, aka her brain and spinal column. And when your body was tailored to diminish the lag of communication between your central nervous system and the actual physical body… well, pain receptors or not, that shit hurt.

At least the lack of vocal chords kept her screaming to a good, round zero.

Still hurt like an absolute motherfucker.

Thankfully, soon the lightning died out, and Kat slumped weightlessly against the wrecked console like a drunkard, her vision glitching out and stray bolts still running across her limbs. Her emergency first-aid Stim dispensers quickly fired up, flooding her body with the nanomachine-infused chemical and rushing to repair whatever damage they could to keep Kat from keeling over dead. The fact the lightning had apparently fried her Phase Shift and Holo-Nova systems only served as the turd cherry on the shit cake.

Still, not all was bad. Even through her glitched vision, the Pilot could see that the assassin's light show had put an even harsher toll on her body, judging by the way she slumped forward gasping for air and sweat trickled down her head.

S-S-S-S-Suck on thaaaaaaat, you bald har-har-harpy!

Both fighters remained in their respective states, barely able to move, until finally one of them pooled all her efforts to will her body to move, and continue on with her mission.

And unfortunately for Kat, it had been the assassin, not herself to do so.

With what was clearly an overwhelmingly strenuous amount of effort, the Sith dragged herself to the edge of the catwalk as she put away her remaining lightsaber, replacing it instead with a handful of small half-orbs that she haphazardly threw down to the pits of the engine room, the soft clink of their impact barely audible to either Pilot or Sith, and made clear to the former what was soon about to happen.

So, with what were clearly tired and laborious steps, the assassin paced towards the door, grunting with strained effort the entire way, leaving Kat to heave out a silent sigh before she opened her (miraculously and thankfully undamaged) comm link, quickly pinging up an SOS signal to the rest of Team Vale.

Guess that's what-what Rose meant-t-t-t-t-t-t with "playing around too much"… OooooOOOOOOOooh, I'm gonna hear an ear-arful…

Just as the jumbled thought crossed her still-rebooting mind, Kat suddenly became acutely aware of the moment the beeping from the bombs left behind grew louder and quicker, and a new realization came upon her, even as she furiously tried to activate the manual reeling mechanism for her jump kit's remaining grapple.

That maybe, just maybe… she should have talked with her leader about all this.

And that if she lived through it, she'd actually put in some effort to listen to orders.

-O-

I fucked up, laser sword bitch made me shorter come pick me up please

When the message arrived for the other four members of Vale, with a beacon to mark Kat's location, they knew something had gone wrong.

"Sis?!"

"Eis and Noir, get to the prison cell now! Hikari, with me!"

So it was no surprise that immediately, Rose jumped to action and barked out orders as fast as she could, both girls taking off in a maddened sprint to where Kat's message had been sent from. The clones that had still been accompanying the two Pilots halted in surprise for a moment, before quickly taking off after the women, weapons held at the ready just in case trouble found them midway there.

And as it just so happened, trouble did find them midway there.

Said trouble took the form of two oversized blue B2 droids barreling through the hallway's wall, one of them bowling over several of the clones, the other smashing Hikari against the opposite wall, the Pilot letting out a cry of pain as she was pressed between two metal objects.

"Hikari!"

"Go, get outta here!" snarled the blonde in return, already grappling the B2's arms with her own augmented ones, their servos whirring and groaning as they struggled against the larger droid's. Behind her, the clones did their vested best to rally up and fight the remaining droid, who ominously stalked towards them, borderline ignoring the blaster fire directed at it.

And while the decision was clear, it still pained Rose to turn her back on her sister, and instead dash away from the battle, leaving the sounds of blaster fire and conflict to disappear around the corner as she fired up her implant and dashed through the halls with every scrap of strength her limbs could give, leaving behind her a long trail of afterimages that had yet to disappear when she had run halfway to the engine room.

By the time she neared the engine room, the threshold use warning started beeping in the corner of her HUD, but Rose ignored it, simply running faster until she reached the door leading to Kat's location.

The sight of the grapple hook buried into the wall opposite of it, and the cable running into the room, made it clear where she was.

Without a second to spare, Rose rushed in and followed the cable to where Kat was laying, atop a broken console, and trying to reel herself away from the building inferno that the colonel could see rising from the engine room's pit. Just as the implant began to shut down, Rose grabbed Kat's legless body, slashed the grapple line in two with her kukri, and made a break for the exit, jump kit flaring to life for extra speed.

Sadly, that was when the implant's safety measures kicked in, and forced it to time out.

In that instant, it was Rose's own perception of time that slowed down, likely from all the adrenaline, and forced her to see the fireball rising closer to her, bringing with it pieces of heated metal, all of it already starting to tear apart the damaged walkway.

Five meters. Five meters were all that separated the two Pilots from safety. The jump kit could and would cover that distance easily… but the explosion would still hit. The shrapnel would still hit.

So in the split second before they were both overtaken by the fireball, Rose did the one thing she could to keep her teammate safe: wrap herself around Kat's reduced form, and shield the woman from the flames that licked over their bodies, and the metal shrapnel that flew around and at them. Thankfully, even if not made to protect against something of that strength, their suits held back enough of the shrapnel that only a few larger fragments cut through the reinforced materials and reached the skin and flesh beneath… that is, until Rose and Kat were a scant meter away from the door.

Just as they were going to fly clear through the door, one long piece of super-heated metal shot up from the explosions below, propelled by secondary detonations triggered by the burning fuel in the engines, and at a speed fast enough to achieve armor-piercing capability.

All of these factors combined, along with sheer bad luck, were what allowed the fragment to fly through a thin gap in Rose's curled form, and punch straight through her helmet's metal visor.

Not enough to fully enter… but enough to reach her left eye.

Rose's scream of pain was lost amidst the cacophony of the engine room's detonation, and was then cut off completely when the two crashed into the hallway's wall, protected from the fires and explosions thanks to the doorway's geometry. Even so, the impact, coupled with the strain of overusing her implant, the fatigue of combat, and the shock from having a piece of heated metal gouge out her eye were too much even for Rose, and slowly, her consciousness began to slip away.

The last thing she saw through her now-halved field of vision were Kat, shuffling in her grasp but thankfully alive, and the blurred form of Hikari, one arm torn off and with wires dangling from the sheared limb, desperately shouting her sister's name as she and the surviving clones rushed to her side…

-O-

"COMMANDER VENTRESS, CONTACT HAS BEEN LOST WITH—"

"SILENCE, DROID!"

Ventress grunted and hissed as she dragged herself towards the abandoned cruiser's access hatch, her strength already sapping away along with the trail of blood she had left behind on her way to the docked ship. The sound of battle had slowly begun to fade away as the Munificents' fighter squads were slowly but surely whittled down by the Venator's own fighters and anti-air defenses, and there was no doubt that soon, the two frigates would be destroyed. Still, the detonation of the engine room would have surely caused enough internal damage to weaken the Republic cruiser, at least enough to cause fluctuations on the power grid and damage other systems.

And while it would be tantamount to suicide to Ventress to try and reach either a boarding ship or the main fighter hangar while in her… injured state, the Consular -class cruiser the Jedi had used to come aboard would suffice as an escape vessel.

And how fortunate was it that in the chaos of the attack, the Republic had seen fit to leave only a token guard force keeping watch over the ship. A guard force that now lay scattered on the floor, their corpses covered in blaster burns caused by the few B-X units she had brought along.

They had not been able to assist with retrieving Gunray, thanks to that infernal GIRL who Ventress now hoped had burned and melted in the fires of the engine room's detonation, but they at least had not been useless. And they would still be needed, considering she was in no condition to pilot the starship, and would instead need to be thrown into a bacta tank before she exsanguinated completely.

"Take me… to the medical bay… and get us out of here," snarled the Sith assassin, even as she almost missed a step and collapsed to the floor, only being kept upright by a B-X droid that now had propped her remaining arm across its frame.

"Commander Ventress, the infiltrator has yet to return or contact us," replied the droid unprompted as the Separatist party entered the Consular-class, with the droids quickly splitting up to take up whatever posts were required, bar the ones escorting their leader to the medical bay. "We were likewise unable to reach Viceroy Nute Gunray's cell."

"It's… no matter… I've already… solved this… loose end…"

Try as she might, however, Asajj could not force herself to stay conscious no more. Blood loss, injuries and the sheer stress of having utilized Force Lightning (and wasn't that a most WONDERFUL development…) had completely drained her of strength, leaving the Sith little more than a puppet with cut strings dragged by her laurels by the B-X droids until they finally reached the Consular's medical room, at which point the commandos quickly took to work placing their leader inside a bacta tank and linking her up to all the necessary equipment.

Moments later, the small cruiser uncoupled itself from the Tranquility, its engines quickly flaring to life as the hijacked vessel fled to hyper-jump range, leaving behind a damage Republic warship and two Separatist frigates slowly breaking down and burning under the admittedly diminished but still relentless fire of the Venator. And by the time the V-19 Torrents or even the Tranquility could do anything to intercept, the Consular had cleared the necessary distance and had jumped away, disappearing into the void of space.

And aboard said ship, even while unconscious inside the bacta tank, if one were to see Asajj Ventress' face, they would see a shockingly relaxed expression of satisfaction. And why shouldn't she be satisfied?

After all, her mission had been completed.

-O-

Inside the Tranquility, Luminara and her clone troopers had finally finished off the last group of droids still threatening their ship, with the very last B2 super falling prey to the Jedi Master's blade as it futilely attempted to gun her down, finally putting an end to the incursion aboard the Republic ship. With the deed done, Luminara deactivated her lightsaber and stowed it back into her robes, replacing it instead with her commlink, which she promptly activated. "This is Luminara Unduli to bridge, status report."

"Separatist ships are breaking down, general, they'll soon be destroyed, and their fighter escorts are no more… but we have a problem."

"What is it?"

"The ship you've arrived on has been hijacked, likely by the Separatists. It's jumped away from the area… and we're unable to pursue. A saboteur has managed to destroy our engines."

Quietly letting out a weary sigh, Luminara turned back to look over what clone troopers had survived with her until the end, and quickly took note that while there were still quite a few troopers trailing behind their general, she could see both that there many missing, and that the ones left were starting to slow down. And as the bridge operator had said, their ship was now dead and adrift. Whether she wanted to chase down the escaped Consular, it was beyond their capabilities at the moment.

So, with resigned acceptance, Luminara instead turned back around and began walking down the hall, the clone troopers slowly following her. "Very well… activate the distress beacon, and try to locate the ship's transponder signal. It can't have gone far."

"At once, general."

Once the bridge crew cut the line, Luminara changed channels on her commlink, and instead patched it into both Barriss and Team Vale's frequencies. "Barriss, colonel Rose, come in. What's the status on the prisoner?"

When she received no reply, for a moment Luminara considered that perhaps either party had shut off their communications, or that perhaps their commlinks and radios had been damaged or destroyed. Before she could repeat her call, however, the Jedi Master finally received a response through the communicator from her Padawan.

"Master… we have a problem," replied Barriss, her tone strangely and worryingly subdued.

"What is it, Padawan?"

"It's Gunray, general," suddenly replied Eis through the link, and rather than being subdued, Luminara could hear the barely-repressed anger filtering through the commlink. "We… we failed our mission."

"Gunray is dead."

~O~

Me, holding a crystal ball marked "Canon" in my grasp like I'm Jack Horner, staring into it with utter seriousness… before promptly dropping it to the floor, and smashing it to pieces.

Oops c:

Time to torture you all with a cliffhanger.

Apologies for the delay, I deleted and rewrote the climax for this chapter two times before I settled for something more final. I'm also sad that I'm not THAT good at fight scenes, which means I couldn't do much justice to the Kat VS Ventress scene, but I hope it's enough for you fellas.

Still, here it is, and indeed it's hit the 15k word mark, meaning it's yet another TheLandMaster45 patented Big One.

With this done, I shall now double back to Man from the Moon and continue the fun adventures of both torching Mary Geoise to the ground AND the jolly good times of a horde of slaves desperately trying to escape their situation.

You know, fun times!

'Til then, gentlereaders!