In the Hikari sector of the outer rim, there once existed three moons and one planet. It had been the cradle of a tribal civilization, unknown to the rest of the galaxy. Their humanoid bodies grew scales and their bones deformed thanks the harsh environment of their acid and carcinogen infested planet. Since the age of the Rakatan Empire to the epoch of the High Republic, their civilization somehow flourished. Stagnant but comfortable in their tribal community, never wishing to explore the stars.
In the span of two centuries, they were slowly killed off. Not from the acid, nor even the constant radiation that was emitted from the ground but instead from a black hole that had formed from the corpse of a nearby star, just beside their home-world. It ate up the three moons like small pebbles before slowly chewing away at the planet. The oceans of acid flowed upwards and the cancer-infested trees were evicted into the air, slowly making their way over several months upward and past the event horizon, eaten up by the mouth of the universe. The core mantel of the planet had been exposed, a giant crater formed on the eastern side where the black hole silently gnawed at it. It was as if it had taken a giant bite out of the planet, with bits of rock and flora that had been lucky enough to lose the black hole's pull still floating in the expanses of space.
For one side of the planet, it was as if life had never changed. There were no signs of distress among the local wildlife, now without the presence of the tribal reptiles that had once inhabited the area. Most explorers had stayed away from the planet upon seeing the oceans of acid from afar and detecting high levels of radiation from the surface. The forests of deformed trees and plants and all sorts of other aberrations cemented their decision. Slowly but surely the black hole would eat up what was leftover over the span of another century.
Ron watched the acid world from afar, the glint of the black hole caused a malfunction in his photo-receptors. He banged his palm against his head and soon enough the error had been rectified.
"This is it," Ron looked back to Rev, OOM, and C-05 behind him in the cockpit. Their stoic faces betrayed the excitement running through their bodies, "Get in position R-56V"
"Copy," R-56V said.
"Come back to us alive"
"I will, it's your command and I have never disobeyed an order"
"I trust your word. Focus on the task before you, adapt to changes as they come, and you will certainly make it out alive. Now go"
With a small thud, the fighter detached and sped forward, disappearing into the yellow expanses of the dying planet before them.
"They should be coming any minute now. C-05, prepare to oversee your squad," Ron commanded, glancing over his shoulder.
"Roger sir," C-05 took his leave and settled into position in the lounge, near the entrance to the dorsal turret above.
R-23E clambered up the ladder to the blaster above. It had been an easy choice deciding who would man the turret. No one else had such accurate and efficient aim as R-23E.
"In position," R-23E reported to C-05.
"Copy," C-05 said. He watched as Rags and R-U5 prepared their equipment for any possible damage they might sustain. C-5B and C-6C stood nearby, listening to their quick lessons, learning the names for each tool and how to use each one in case they needed to help with the repairs.
Down below in the cargo bay, OOM lined up his squad, going over new strategies he had formed from his time studying generals from past wars. It had been obvious to him during his entire time as a security officer in the Separatist navy that their close quarter combat protocols were quite outdated and were badly in need of upgrades and refinement. They were only updated a few times towards the end of the war to compensate for their newly developed units such as the commando droids. OOM felt great satisfaction with his newfound freedom. It was everything he had wanted out of his time in the navy. At that moment he had realized what Ron was fighting for.
"Lastly, do not enter a narrow hallway if you don't need to. Remember, we are defending. Pushing forward in such a small ship will only cause further issues, only do so if they are damaging the ship's systems or planting explosives or if I specifically give the order to do so," OOM said, pacing from one side of the bay to the other.
B-35 stood in the middle of the group, his large frame towering over the rest of the droids. R-7B listened intently to OOM's orders and new strategies, finding them fascinating. He'd only ever thought about the tactics embedded into their programming that they would usually use every day. Meanwhile, C-37 sulked in the corner of the bay after being scolded by OOM for proposing the idea that he use his thermal detonators to blow apart the lower half of the ship in the case of a boarding party.
"Steady yourself against the walls if we are hit by any torpedoes and make room for our mechanics if any damage is sustained in the bay," OOM continued, "Now go and assume positions, keep a close watch on that hallway, B-35"
"Roger, roger," B-35 boomed.
The squadron silently moved into position throughout the cargo bay as designated by OOM. He'd made it clear that they were free to move around just as long as they maintained appropriate distance between each other, "A torpedo can turn a bundle of droids into scrap metal quicker than a single circulation of the electricity coursing through your bodies," He'd said.
Up in the cockpit, Rev spotted the first signs of Imperial forces acknowledging their position. They had deployed a probe droid in their area. It's radio signal had been painfully obvious seeing as they were droids themselves. Luckily, it had only identified their ship's signal and nothing more. It gave no indication that it knew they were battle droids.
"They've spotted us. If our calculations are right, they'll be here within the next five minutes," Rev reported.
"Let's hope so, we only have so much room for error," Ron said.
He set a timer within his internal clock for five minutes and flew the freighter further out west of the planet, on the side that bore no signs of damage from the black hole.
On the fourth minute, Rev picked up the presence of a much larger ship, it's size making the freighter look like a small stone in the abyss of space. Just as the timer hit the fifth minute, the recon ship exited hyperspace, right behind their freighter.
Ron tapped into his communications line he'd set up with the rest of the droids on board, "Enemies are in sight, prepare for combat"
"What did I tell you Officer Gorren, they are such morons that they decide to idle in our own territory," Commander Zeiron said with a chuckle.
"You were right commander," Gorren said. He was so close to ranking up, it was only a matter of time. All he had to do was continue sucking up to Zeiron.
"Even with our outdated technology we'll be able to defeat these Separatist insects," Zeiron turned over to the rest of the command bridge, "Send out a squadron of fighters, I want to savor their defeat. Make it slow"
The Republic V-wing fighters screeched their way towards the slow and lumbering freighter.
As they neared, a barrage of blaster-fire tore through their squad, blowing three to smithereens within the span of a second. The last surviving V-wing pulled off from formation before the fourth bolt could evaporate his ship. He barrel rolled and attempted to align his sights back on the freighter but was met by a solid wall of light.
"You live up to your reputation, R-23E," Ron commented.
"Thank you sir," R-23E replied.
Ron set his sights back onto the recon ship above. It approached them slowly, giving him enough time to set the freighter to full throttle and time for Rags to hijack the Imperial's communications array. He sent over the audio from the Imperial's now unscrambled channels over to Ron.
"What happened?!" An Imperial shouted over the line.
"The squad was wiped out, commander," Another reluctantly reported.
"What do you mean wiped out?!"
"They were all destroyed sir"
"Impossible! Man the turrets, concentrate all firepower on that freighter!"
"They're out of range now"
"They're headed for that planet, send out another squad to intercept them before they reach the surface"
Rev tapped on Ron's shoulder, "OOM tells me he's seen that type of ship before. It's a Republic light cruiser, used often for supporting other ships. It only has enough room for twelve fighters"
"Three less than what I'd anticipated. That buys us some more time," Ron said.
"If OOM is right, only eight fighters are left with the four R-23E took out," Rev noted.
Sensors began flashing within the cockpit, "Another squad of four coming our way," Rev reported.
"Link to my body, that way you can relay your reports to me instantly. First send me the distance between us and them," Ron said, shuffling in his seat to accommodate for the space they would need to connect.
Rev pulled a wire from his hand and plugged into Ron's main torso, sending him reports of their distance.
Just as they began to near the planet's upper atmosphere, the fighters caught up to the freighter once again. Learning from the previous squad they spared no time in attacking, shooting flurries of blaster fire towards their position. Some shots managed to land but were dissipated over the shields. Ron pulled up to dodge the rest of their bolts, leading the fighters away from the planet.
Shields down by five percent, Rev sent through their link.
R-23E got to work, mowing down two with a quick burst from his turret. The other two managed to get away due to being further spread apart than the previous group and the turret being unable to move quick enough for R-23E's quicker systems. He nearly pulled the wheel off in frustration.
The remaining fighters dipped below the freighter. They passed over from the underside, managing to score more hits on the ship.
Shields are at eighty five percent, Rev reported.
The fighters made the mistake of rolling too far up in front of them as they came in for another pass.
Ron jerked the wheel downward, letting loose his own response of blaster fire on one of the V-wings, turning it into a spinning ball of fire.
The other escaped his line of sight and retreated to the rear of the freighter. They were now close enough to the planet that it nearly enveloped their whole view. The last remaining V-wing desperately fired a cluster of ion torpedoes at the freighter.
Ron pulled the wheel back as far as he could, performing the best barrel roll he could with such a slow ship.
One torpedo managed to get close enough to nearly skid off the shields and temporarily blinded Ron as he leveled the ship out. The rest attempted to circle back around but exploded in the middle of space.
R-23E saw his chance to attack the minute the freighter had leveled out. He fired on the last fighter, landing a hit directly on the pilot, casting him out into space.
"Only one squad remaining," Rev reported to the whole crew. He soon regretted his words. In the heat of their battle with the squad of V-wings, the Imperials had sent out a transport ship, catching them completely off guard. It had barreled toward their position, flying just below their line of sight and out of range for their sensors. Rev only caught wind of it once it appeared on their radar. By then, it had already docked with the ship, "OOM, prepare for combat, they're boarding"
"Copy," OOM replied. He was set up at the foot of the stairs, to his left some dozen meters B-35 stood ready, watching over the hallway leading to the hatch where the Imperials had docked.
B-35 brought his wrist blaster up, "Enemies detected"
Suddenly a cylinder popped up as the hatch opened. It exploded with flashes of blinding light and a cacophony of noise. Luckily the droids were mostly unaffected by flashbangs. It only blinded and deafened them for a brief second before their CPUs corrected the error.
The first Imperial boarded, his gray armor hung loose around his body as he jumped up and began firing down the hall. For a moment, B-35 witnessed as the fear in the organic's eyes intensified as he realized the occupants of the ship were droids. He shot a single bolt into the Imperial's head, causing him to slam down into the floor.
The rest of the Imperials flooded in, revealing the small squad of eight troopers before them, not counting their dead squad mate that they used as cover. They were restricted to a narrow hallway with small alcoves constructed on either side that they used as cover. Those at the front attempted to push up but were met with heavy blaster fire from B-35 and R-7B. The hallway was only big enough to accommodate two people in width. Both Imperials leading the charge staggered as shots met their targets, their armor managing to keep them alive. With such a small hallway, however, it was easy to fire a few accurate bolts down the hall towards the droids. B-35 tanked every hit, R-7B leaned out to the side from behind him just as OOM had instructed them.
The rest of the Imperials sought cover in the alcoves while some blindly fired down the hall from within cover. Both of the Imperials that had been unfortunate enough to lead the charge cowered within cover as they sought to remediate the pain of their wounds. They'd only managed to make it halfway down the hall.
"B-35 pull back, let the door close. You are sustaining too much damage," OOM ordered.
B-35 stepped to the side, R-7B following close behind.
"Let them push up, they can't go anywhere. C-37 scan for further explosives," OOM said.
C-37 stood on the right side of the door, his CPU focusing on his scanners, "None detected sir"
"Double check, scan for even the slightest hint of a thermal detonator or improvised explosive device"
"Scanning again"
B-35 cooled down his blaster seeing as there was a lull in the fighting, "Enemy heat-signatures are moving closer"
"I'm watching the door," R-7B replied.
C-37 pulled back and readied his own blaster, "I detect only one other explosive, another flashbang on the hostile closest to the door"
"Noted," OOM said.
The door slid open but no Imperials peered out, instead they fired controlled bursts of blaster bolts, preventing the droids from pushing in. B-35 detected a heat signature in one of the small alcoves within the hallway that was in his sight. The Imperial trooper was preparing his flashbang and had let his guard down. He fired a series of shots at the organic until he turned bright red from the blaster fire he sustained. A few seconds later, the Imperial went cold, "One hostile eliminated," B-35 reported.
"Good work B-35, hold position," OOM ordered.
The rest of the Imperials, following their training, finally charged forward and fired a few shots covering their advance until they reached the foot of the doorway. One of the Imperials spotted C-37 on the left and fired a burst onto him. He managed to leap out of the way with one of the bolts hitting him on the leg, leaving only a singe mark.
B-35 took out the Imperial shooting at him with a few well placed shots in the gaps of his armor near his neck. He clutched at his throat and fell over with a whimper of pain that soon turned into a gurgle. The other Imperial at his side pulled back into the alcove beside him, using the body of his fallen squad mate to cover his legs that were left exposed in the hallway. B-35 didn't hesitate to attempt a few shots at the Imperial, managing to land a hit on his arm, causing his blaster to fall out of his hand. He shuffled as far back into cover as he could, pulling the body higher to cover his arms.
"Cease fire, B-35. We can deal with that one later," OOM commanded.
The door closed once more.
Up in the cockpit, Ron had been listening intently to the Imperial's radio while continuing to steer them towards the dying planet before them.
"Sir, there are Separatist droids aboard the ship. We need backup," One of the troopers reported.
"You won't be getting any, that transport is the only one we have," Zeiron responded.
"We can send it back, retreat with it and gear up with more equipment"
"I give the orders around here, Sergeant. You and your men will stay aboard the ship while the transport returns to restock. I have sent out our last fighters, they will cover your retreat, pilot"
"Detaching now," The pilot said.
"OOM, get rid of those Imperials on-board, they have nowhere to run now," Ron ordered.
"Perfect," OOM replied, "C-37 get on this side. B-35 open the door but stay to the side, don't overexpose yourself"
"Roger, roger," B-35 said, waiting for C-37 to move into position behind him. The doors slid open as he moved forward. Immediately he began firing down the hallway. R-7B leaned out from his side, just enough to fire at one of the injured Imperials hidden in one of the alcoves. The trooper was hit in the thigh and let out a pained yelp. He pushed as hard as he could to hide himself further within cover while attempting to save his own life by returning fire. The trooper's bolts sprayed wildly, the fear overcoming his senses. R-7B fired another few shots until the Imperial jerked suddenly as a bolt hit his head. He tumbled forward out into the hallway, his heat signature turning cold.
There was nowhere left to hide for the invaders on the right side of the hallway, where the droids faced.
"B-35, peek further in," OOM commanded.
"Roger," B-35 said. He took a few steps to the right and spotted a trooper directly in front of him, only a few meters away. The Imperial managed to get a few hits in on B-35 until he responded with a quick burst onto his face. The force from the shots at such close range pushed him back with such intensity that his helmet cracked in half.
"Only four left," R-7B reported.
The rest of the Imperials laid down fire down the hall, forcing B-35 to pull back for a moment. R-7B took the opportunity to send his own share of bolts down the hall, managing to hit one trooper in the head, "Three left," he said as a blaster bolt sizzled mere inches from his face. It always enraged him when an enemy managed to fire a blaster bolt so close to his face. He responded with a wild burst that stopped all incoming shots. His blaster hissed as it overheated, his CPU almost did the same as he grew impatient with his weapon.
B-35 sensing the tactical advantage they now held, side stepped further out of cover into the hallway. The rest of the Imperials continued to fire in controlled bursts with most of their shots landing on B-35. With R-7B and C-37 at either side of him, he pushed forward. B-35 fired on one of the Imperial's foot, causing him to lean out and clutch at his wound instinctively. He jolted upwards and back for a moment as a bolt landed on his stomach. R-7B fired at another Imperial's head. The trooper was saved by his helmet but not for long as R-7B fired another few bolts at his knees until they gave out, causing the invader to stagger out into the hallway. His body was riddled with blaster fire until he no longer moved. C-37 shot the last Imperial in the torso, the pain forcing him to stumble further back into the alcove. He fell out into the hallway, clutching his chest with a deafened groan and stopped moving soon after.
"Threat is eliminated," OOM reported immediately to Ron.
The battle had only taken a few short minutes.
Ron dipped the freighter into the atmosphere of the acid planet, "Copy that. R-56V, we are approaching your position, be ready to attack"
"I'm ready sir," R-56V replied.
Another group of V-Wings managed to catch up with the freighter as it lowered further into the planet. More blaster-fire began battering the shields.
Shields are at eighty percent, Rev reported directly to Ron.
The fighters were too far away for R-23E to inflict much damage, most of his shots were evaded with ease.
"This battle is where it counts so none of you go off on your own again," One of the Imperial pilots said over the radio.
"Always so stuck up Johnson, gotta let loose if you wanna do some real damage to these guys. You saw how the last two squads ended up"
"I have more hours in the cockpit than all three of you combined, don't lecture me"
The last remaining squad of Imperial pilots were even more dispersed than the previous and flew just out range of the dorsal turret, with some even dipping below the freighter's line of sight.
"So these are their most experienced pilots," Ron noted.
"Seems like it. That's smart of them. They damage us with their less experienced pilots first then try to kill us off with their best ones," Rev replied.
"That is an old but effective strategy," OOM said over the radio, "Their commander is competent at the very least"
The freighter shook as the V-wings landed more hits.
Shields at seventy five-, Rev suddenly reeled back in his chair, They all fired their ion torpedoes at us!
Ron pulled the wheel as far back as he could. Most of them flew over in a flash of blue lights but two rocked the ship, throwing most of the droids inside to the floor.
Shields at twenty percent, Rev reported. He almost flinched when he saw the numbers lower further as the V-wings continued to press their attack.
The freighter finally entered into position within the planet, flying just above the trees below, losing the V-Wings for a brief moment as they adjusted to the foul environment.
"R-56V, we are in position. Things aren't going to plan, attack now," Ron ordered.
"Roger sir," R-56V responded.
A great wind began to stir among the trees, making their twisted forms twitch and shake. Out from the depths of the forest R-56V shot out upward towards the freighter and shot one of the V-wings in pursuit to pieces.
The rest of the attackers split off, only one flying below the freighter stayed in position, continuing to fire barrage after barrage at the ship.
In one harsh pull of the throttle, Ron slowed down the ship to a near stall and dipped down behind the V-wing, blowing it to pieces with a precise hit on the engine.
"Two left," Ron said over their radio, putting the ship back to full speed.
Off in the distance behind them, R-56V spun in circles as he evaded the remaining V-wings. They were slowly but surely taking down his shields. Every second a single percentage point was taken off.
"Return to me, R-56V," Ron ordered.
"I can't, they're both focused on me," R-56V said.
Ron calculated the timing of their plan once more. Their shields were slowly returning and Rags and R-U5 were busily taking care of the interior damages they sustained.
"I can't help you. Try and lose them in the forest," Ron suggested
R-56V did a barrel roll and lowered into the forest, doing his best to dodge and weave between the trees. His fighter was nearly caught against one that had been misshapen by the radiation into a circular pattern. The attackers followed close behind.
Ron continued at full speed ahead of R-56V, sending him coordinates of their location to regroup. The Republic light cruiser ship loomed overhead, it's blaster's almost within range of their position.
"We are running out of time, get to my position," Ron ordered.
R-56V pulled out of the forest as the freighter came into distance. As the two V-wings behind him pulled up, he dodged back into the forest and looped back around behind his attackers. One of the V-wings sped up and left the other behind. R-56V pulled the trigger as soon as his sights landed on target.
The Imperial attempted to pull away but to no avail, R-56V's CPU tracked his path with ease, "You're a damn snake, Johnson!" the pilot said before his ship was blown to pieces.
"I was just making sure you wouldn't steal my kill," Johnson said, laughing as he watched his squad-mate's ship tumble to the ground.
Johnson swooped in front of R-56V and landed enough shots to finally bring down his shields, damaging one of his wings.
"I'm too damaged to keep fighting, returning to you now. I'll need covering fire" R-56V reported.
"R-23E can cover you. Go full throttle, we can see you from here. Get that fighter behind you within range of the dorsal turret," Ron replied.
R-56V kept quiet as he focused on dodging incoming fire. His circuits buzzed in delight when he finally reached the freighter, at which point he pulled up. Johnson followed suit but was met with accurate fire from R-23E.
"Damn!" Johnson said before his ship was blown apart, the remnants tumbling down into a pit of acid.
R-56V docked with the freighter and hopped up into the hallway where he was met by the countless bodies of defeated Imperial troopers.
"Was it a good fight?" He asked R-7B as he passed him on his way up to the cockpit.
"It was, I'll make sure you get to fight with B-35 next time. He's a tank," R-7B said, looking up at B-35's battle-scarred chassis.
"I don't doubt it," R-56V said before he returned to Ron in the cockpit, "I was late, I apologize"
"Only by a few seconds, we have time," Ron replied.
He prepared his CPU for their last encounter and rose back into the stars above.
"We are running late, should we recalculate?" OOM asked over the radio.
"No, the time doesn't matter so much as the position. That Republic ship is in a good spot. Not ideal but good enough," Ron replied.
"I hope you're right, it's moving forward now," Rev said.
Ron tapped back into the Imperial's communication's array. In a few seconds, Rags would begin jamming it, preventing the Imperial's from calling for backup.
"What are the pilot's reporting?" Commander Zeiron asked.
"Nothing," An Imperial trooper replied.
"Are they still alive?"
"I'm not sure sir, there's no way of telling from here"
"I'll give them a few more minutes before I call in reinforcements. Keep that transport ship ready, if they get in range again, send it out"
"Understood"
Ron steered the freighter below the Imperials just out of range of their sensors until he was finally in front of them.
"There they are. I want all forward batteries firing on that damned ship immediately!"
"Right away sir"
The freighter dipped back down below the Republic light cruiser where the starboard turrets began their assault.
Shields recovered back to fifty percent but are taking damage again, Rev reported.
We're going to sustain a lot of damage here, don't get too panicked, Ron replied.
The batteries of the Republic ship were quite ferocious, featuring quad-lasers rather than the standard two. Rev watched helplessly as the shields went down by ten percent for each shot they sustained. Ron swayed the ship from side to side in an effort to reduce the amount of damage they took. It didn't help much, the turrets were far too accurate. R-23E did his best to return fire but the cruiser's shields absorbed most of his shots.
Shields are at critical levels, ten percent, Rev said.
Ron smashed the throttle forward fully and pulled up above the Republic cruiser. The forward batteries were caught off guard for a moment, but the operators adjusted to the change in seconds.
One percent, Rev said.
We're almost there, Ron replied. He watched the coordinates displayed on the ship's terminal before him, waiting for the exact moment to pull away.
The hull is now taking damage, Rags reports some systems are now offline, Rev said, clenching the arms of his chair.
Ron ignored him for the moment, and pulled back towards the planet just as the outer edges of the black hole appeared on the very edge of the planet to their left. The glaring void immediately caught the attention of Zeiron, the gaping void of light sparked an aching in his eyes and a headache to go along with it.
"Pull away! You idiots should've spotted this on our sensors!" Zeiron shouted.
The entirety of the freighter shook as another quad-laser impacted the hull. Streams of steam and sparks erupted all over the interior of the ship.
The hull is nearly destroyed, get us out! Rev said.
Keep calm, we're out of range now, Ron signaled back, "How bad is it?" He radioed to Rags.
"Very. I don't know how we're still flying. The oxygen systems are gone, some of the power lines are cracking, and the cargo bay has enough steam in it to cause overheating. We had to pull B-35 out of there," Rags said.
In the corners of his vision, it was as if something was jamming his vision as the image of the cruiser behind them began distorting and pulling apart. He'd never seen a black hole tear apart a ship in real time before and almost pulled his attention away from the cockpit to witness the event but more and more alarms began screeching in front of him. The entirety of the freighter shook and rattled with such ferocity that he had trouble keeping his hands on the wheel. His vision had begun to blur from the rough and constant movement. He looked at the terminal and began shutting off all non-vital systems.
Eventually the shaking calmed but was still violent enough to make it difficult to walk anywhere.
"Will we survive an entry into this planet?" Ron asked.
"I doubt it," Rags replied reluctantly.
We have no other choice, Ron said privately to Rev, "Everyone, hold onto something, I'm going to try to land"
He steered the ship headfirst into the atmosphere. The rattling grew exponentially in ferocity and the cockpit window glowed red hot as they plunged into the atmosphere. His sensors reported that he was beginning to overheat due to the ship's cooling system being turned off. He manually overrode his automatic shutdown to prevent overheating and tried his best to stay powered on. His CPU had just begun to throttle itself to prevent damage when the shaking eased up. He was having a hard time keeping his hands from moving on their own as he made an emergency landing in the sea of deformed trees below, toppling over a few seeing as there were no clearings. They made a bumpy landing that rattled the whole ship once more.
He looked over to see Rev had shutdown and was laying face first on the ship's terminal.
Several error messages began appearing on his photo-receptors. He turned his auto-reboot back on and immediately shut off.
Ron felt a tugging at his shoulder as his photo-receptors had begun to power on. He looked up to see Rags, his distinctive red painted shoulders now appearing much brighter than before.
"Ron, the ship is repaired. Everyone shut off except for the both of us. My reports indicate we've both overheated," Rags said, leaned up against the terminal in front of him. He was slumped against the ship's terminal, making it seem as if he were exhausted, "I have been working non stop for two days straight, I hope you don't mind the fact that I used the generator without Rev's approval"
"Shut down, staying powered on won't do you any good. We've sustained too much damage to risk anymore," Ron said, his vocalizer crackling with static.
"Right away," Rags said, he fell face first onto the floor immediately after.
Ron attempted to stand but found some of his joints had been fused together from the extreme heat. For a moment he felt blank. His thoughts failing to go anywhere, and his decision making algorithm faltered. He looked down to see the wire still connected between himself and Rev. He concentrated all power to leaving him a message, Order R-56V to take us back to Akiva. He strapped himself into his seat and rebooted into recovery mode for the second time in his life.
A flash of startup messages flooded Ron's system. He scanned the area upon fully powering on all of his subsystems. The rest of the crew were now in one of the rooms of the factory back on Akiva. It was recently fitted with all sorts of furniture for the droids to use, even though they didn't really need them considering they weren't capable of getting tired.
Beside him, Rev watched as Ron scanned the room, waiting for his photo-receptors to land on him.
"Welcome back," Rev said, shifting in his seat to face him head on, "I'll send you a report of everything that's happened the past few days, I figured you were going to ask for one. But first, did you see any error messages when you powered on?"
"No, only the usual messages I see on boot," Ron replied.
"Good, Rags didn't detect much damage on you either, other than your joints being melted and your whole chassis being hotter than usual the day after we crash landed. Everyone suffered damage from the radiation but R-U5 found a solution to that, he had us get soaked in the river," Rev looked over to the rest of the group as they turned their attention to the both of them, "I'll send the report, I'm sure the rest of the crew wants to talk with you"
OOM came up to him, "You did well to stay powered on while we entered the atmosphere. We surely would've crashed without you. The others were so inspired by your actions that they all worked on making sure you were all right for the entire day after Rags repaired the ship," He leaned up against a table behind him, "The ship itself is functional but requires more attention from what Rags and R-U5 have told me. We'll need to begin gathering materials for the repairs soon"
"Soon? Why not now?" Ron asked.
"I decided we should stay hidden. The Imperials are searching for the missing recon ship and are on full alert. I don't know how long it'll take for them to calm down but it should give us time to research more areas for hideouts, and look for a home planet, of course," Rev replied.
Ron let all of this new information process for a moment, "We're almost there. We can almost have a planet to call home," Ron stood and faced the rest of the droids with OOM and Rev at his sides, "I will assign everyone different subjects to research. We still have much work to do," He looked between Rev and OOM, "I'll send you two everything I've planned out so far. First thing's first, we'll have to find a stable market to find resources …"
The dim image of a man in a white uniform appeared before officer Norman, "Sir, we've located the remnants of recon ship N-5B. The ship's log we recovered indicates they attacked a group of Separatists in the Hikari sector"
"Separatists? Ah I see, so he went against orders did he?" The commander replied.
"That's what it looks like sir"
"It's good that he's dead, otherwise he would've been killed by Lord Vader for insubordination. Actually, I would've liked to have seen that"
"He also placed a bounty on these Separatists"
The commander laughed, "Without my permission as well? And with Imperial money to back it. Oh how I loathed that idiot. Remove the bounty, we won't have need for scoundrels and mercenaries to work for us soon"
"Already done sir"
"Oh and call up officer Yvon, tell him he's been promoted to commander, I'll send him more details later"
"Right away"
The image cut out soon after.
A/N: That'll be the end of part 2, next is the third and final part. Let me just say, battle scenes are hard to write. I'll be improving this one and the previous big fight on Akiva (that one especially) when I finish the next chapter or once I finish the entirety of the story, which should be...soon. Most definitely before the end of the year (for future readers that's 2023). At the very least, there will be four more chapters. Though, each part has been about ten chapters so it'll most likely be more. Anyhow, thanks for reading.