Episode 3: Blizzard Force Deploys
Chapter 2: A Tour Of Hive Boreas
Last time we saw Anakin Skywalker and his helpers on Hoth, they had just met Brutus Wayne and Elsa Volkoff, two VIP's whose goal was to take a peek at the hive city's defensive capabilities and see if they were good or not. The young Jedi General is hoping that his fortifications will pass the test, but even the slightest mistake in the design will severely damage his reputation... and the test hasn't even started yet.
"Now that we know the aviation facilities are poorly armored, we should probably move on to other parts of the hive's overall structure," Wayne said, gesturing towards a teleporter that would take Anakin and the rest of the 301st to the opposite end of the city fortress.
Gungan Professor Bunks did have a key question to bring up though.
"Remember the Stargates that were used back in Episode 1? Do we have any of those, by chance?"
"Actually, yes, we do," Anakin said. "But they're rather incomplete at the moment, our mages need more training and practice in order to conjure them, and by the way, quit breaking the 4th Wall!"
Then, out of absolutely nowhere, Elsa remembered something that would greatly trouble her, something that was unforgivable for a Throne Warden of Snezhnaya... she had left her brother Alexei, the ruler she had sworn to protect, BACK ON THE SAILING SPACESHIP IN ORBIT!
"WAIT! Hold on, I accidentally left someone behind back in space, my brother! He's the king of the realms of Sirius, and it's my duty in the royal family to protect him! I need to commission a landing craft to bring him back down here. It would be nice if you'd lend me a hand, Anakin."
But Anakin didn't care, and neither did Wayne.
"Well, isn't it your fault for leaving him up there in the first place?," Anakin said.
"Don't worry about it, we will be able to fetch him later."
Elsa felt angry that her new teammates were getting in the way of her responsibilities, but she kept her frustration contained.
"Okay then, but I have to make sure Alexei's safe. So we better be relatively quick here."
Following that, the crew moved on and began their tour of Hive Boreas, which covered so much distance, every segment required teleportation.
Survey 1: The Surface-to-Orbit Turbolaser Batteries
Anakin Skywalker was in charge of introducing Wayne and Elsa to the different parts of the fortress, with Senin Vant, Har Har Bunks, and Beidou tuning in whenever they needed to.
"Thisss here is a W-165 heavy planetary sssiege gun, designed to engage the very biggesst fleets of starshipsss at immense distances, with a maximum yield of 40 petatons, or 40 quadrillion tonz of TNT," Vant said, gesturing to a sky-piercing, armored cylindrical tower surrounded by flak cannon batteries, with an enormous twin-barreled turret poking out of the top. The laser barrels alone were big enough to fit an AT-AT walker inside of them, and still have room for more.
"How many of these do you have working?," Wayne asked. "And are they only limited to this spot on this planet?"
Anakin scratched his head.
"The thing is... yes, I put all of the turbolaser turrets in one area. C'mon, why would I need to scatter them across the Hoth system?"
"Because in this case, you're putting all your eggs in one basket," Elsa said. "If you had the turrets stationed on all the different planets, their ranges and blast zones would overlap with each other, and they'd just be able to shoot at more ships throughout the whole solar system. Think about it! Overlapping fields of fire."
"That's a good point," Anakin replied. "But I'm just getting started, and you'll want to see the rest of my mastery in base-building."
Survey 2: The Living Quarters and Barracks Management
"If this is a hive city, where are the residential areas for everyone that built it?," Elsa asked.
Professor Bunks pushed the teleporter button again. "Right here."
The team reappeared in a different section of the complex, this time on a vehicle bridge hanging over a vast array of barracks and housing districts. Outside of them, loads of people were marching in the freezing weather of Hoth.
"Bring us inside," Wayne requested.
Now they were in a cramped dorm room, filled with a mess of bunk beds, heated blankets, and pillows, workbenches, cooking gear, plumbing equipment, cleaning supplies, and assorted furniture, in addition to soldiers' weaponry hung on racks. This chaotic pattern of living space was all too common in Hive Boreas, at least 95 percent of the Republic troopers' quarters were like this.
"What a pigsty!," Elsa proclaimed.
"Ehh, I don't think it's that bad," Beidou told the snow queen.
Survey 3: Naval Spacecraft
"Did you assign a fleet to defend the Hoth system?," said Wayne. "Because I didn't see anything accompanying the Lupus Rex when it got here."
Anakin didn't feel ashamed, or even troubled by this blunder.
"Umm... I kinda spent all my resources putting together and fortifying this hive city stronghold. I don't have any warships on hand. All the vessels that helped with construction went back to their owners."
"You can't be serious!," Elsa yelled, in annoyance. "How could you mess up logistics this badly?!"
"Relax," Anakin said back. "I'm sure you'll like what's next. This project has a lot of surprises left."
"I dunno," went Beidou. "This whole master plan of defense has proven to be pretty mediocre in terms of strategic value. We do have brute force and sheer numbers on our side, though, and I'm grateful for that."
To change the chat, Har Har Bunks spilled the beans about the 301st Regiment's most embarrassing secret (or, perhaps, its commander's most embarrassing secret.)
"What's mediocre is that Senin Vant, one of our commanding officers, used to work for the Covenant."
The Githyanki soldier picked up on this instantly and flew into a rage.
"SHUT YOUR FFFFUCKING MOUTH, FROGFACE!," he screamed at the Gungan alchemy professor.
Everyone heard it.
And Anakin found this hard to believe.
"Vant, you used to serve the Covenant? Why didn't you tell me this?"
"Because it would've gotten me plenty of hate!," he retorted. "I'm loyal to the Republic now, so what's it matter? In fact, I despise the Prophetsss so much, I wish the Covenant would invade this place, so I could eviscerate their asssses!"
"Wow, he's a defector!," Beidou said, her breath taken away by the revelation.
"We need to keep him around to tell us more," Wayne declared. "You know, about how people actively resist one of the multiverse's most dangerous authoritarian regimes, who will go out of their way to exterminate entire civilizations that don't comply to their demands."
"I guessss I could give you more details, now that you know," Vant told them. "It's a long story."
Then Anakin used a remote control to activate the teleporter again, and this time, the destination wasn't even near the hive city at all.
Survey 4: The Not-So-Secret-Weapon
"Where are we now?," Elsa said, clearly mesmerized by the ceiling and walls of the dim room, which were decked and adorned with all manner of glowing wires made of magical metals, such as Chlorophyte, Terrasteel, Manasteel, Mythril, Ghoulium, and Pig Iron.
"If you wanna find out," Anakin told her, "let's head through that door on the other side."
And so they did.
What was on the other end of the door gradually gave away the ludicrous scale of what the Republic forces had been building.
Hundreds of artificial constructs, robotic sentient beings known as Warforged, were locked in stasis pods, using their immense brainpower to move... whatever THING that Anakin and company were standing inside. A "tiny" window port 10 meters high in the colossal control room revealed just how big that THING was. Har Har Bunks looked down and almost fainted from shock and awe alone, because he could see thick layers of clouds several hundred meters below.
"This is the Overlord Titan we're inside of," Anakin said to the party. "It's the ultimate failsafe in case a massive fleet of warships shows up in orbit above Hoth. An 8,500 meter tall behemoth war machine that bears a fusion generator big enough to supply energy to 2 dozen turbolaser guns. And it's piloted by an extremely advanced artificial intelligence system, utilizing Warforged constructs."
The party was speechless for a little bit.
Then Wayne brought up a valid point:
"What if someone hacks the system and makes the robots turn against us?"
To which Anakin responded:
"Yeah, that'll never happen. Let's finish this job, so you can judge my decisions."
Survey 5: Communications, command and control
The second-to-last stop was the StarCom Center: A wide chamber dedicated to efficient communication across the hive, filled with a dense tangle of electronic components connected to a central supercomputer, including wires, cabling, circuits, transistors, capacitors, diodes, dynamos, switches, motors, solenoids, and God Emperor knows what else.
"I'm amazed, this is a really clean and orderly room," Elsa muttered, somewhat sarcastically.
"It has to be messy," Anakin claimed, "because Beidou insisted on cramming as many electronics in here as she possibly could, in order to ensure people all across the hive city can communicate effectively."
"How effective are communications, command and control around here, anyway?," asked Wayne.
Beidou grinned ecstatically, because now she could brag about how she masterminded the systems that the Night Lord was asking about. After all, she didn't agree with many of Anakin's designs.
"This unspeakably complex bundle of machinery is connected to a small, common comlink, that every person in the hive city wears on their clothing. That way, not only can everyone talk to each other telepathically, if they desire to, but we can also broadcast widespread telepathic messages in case of dire emergencies, that are able to reach a billion people in just a few minutes. And even better, everyone has a portable teleportation device to get them where they need to go most!!!"
"The whole fortress complex can assemble and prepare for battle in a very short time due to these factors, which is remarkable when you consider how many people live and work here. But wait, there's more to know. The command, control and communication array can be used to automatically pilot any vehicles, vessels or war machines we have here, meaning we can preserve the lives of crew members, and make calls to our allies in deep space, meaning we're never without help for long."
"This is probably the most profound, astute and clever feature I've seen so far in the hive fortress," Wayne proclaimed.
Anakin gave Beidou a dirty look, envious of her getting the praise, and she just grinned maniacally.
Survey 6: Order of Battle
The very last test was the most important:
"What equipment do the soldiers have, what is the numerical strength of the army, and how well defended is Hive Boreas overall?," Wayne asked Anakin and the three aliens by his side.
"To summarize things," Anakin said, "Our troops are exceptionally well-armed, even by elite standards. Vant, tell him what I mean."
Senin Vant's response was:
"There are nine different main laser firearms in circulation at sssquad level. The E-11, A280, DC-15, and DLT-20A blaster rifles, the S-5, DL-44, DH-17, and SE-14C blaster pistols, and the A180 modular blaster family. Every trooper also has ak-sess to various handheld explosives, like armor-piercing grenadez, demolition charges, landmine kits, thermal detonators, and melta bombs."
Elsa was taking notes on everything she had heard.
"Best handheld weapons, check. Ideal use of portable ordnance, check."
Har Har Bunks continued the summary.
"We also have full access to the massive vehicle motorpool that the Grand Army of the Republic has standardized. Armored tanks, both tracked ones and antigravity models, military walkers, airspeeders, nautical warships and submarines in the frozen seas, various combat aircraft and spacecraft, like bombers and fighters, gunships, dropships, transports, recon planes, you name it, it's here to defend the hive city. In addition, we have genius tacticians like Brutus Wayne and Elsa Volkoff to help us coordinate plans!"
"And yet I had to basically waste 300 billion credits on a spelljamming battleship because Master Skyblunderer here had the idiocy to not make use of a defensive fleet," Elsa said scornfully. "Hurry up already with this talk! I need to get my brother down here safely!"
Anakin didn't know how to respond to the Throne Warden's sudden impatience and anger.
"I..."
Wayne interrupted the argument that was about to start, with a compromise. He also gave Anakin a lecture and his honest opinion about Hive Boreas.
"How about instead, I give him some criticism that's actually constructive, and then we fetch Alexei," he said first.
"Lord Skywalker, now that we've finished analyzing what you've been working on, I will tell you what I personally think. Don't mind Elsa, here's my words:"
"Your ideas for defending the hive city were not that bad, and you did a splendid job with the immense resources at your disposal. The issue is that you put all your defenses in one place, or rather close to each other, and you didn't invest in any sort of naval battle group to counter enemy warships in orbit. It was executed poorly."
"Speaking of naval tactics, you do remember that all spaceships leaving hyperspace have to do it just outside any solar system's heliosphere to avoid collisions with planets, asteroid belts and moons, right? If you put some of your stuff on other worlds in the Hoth system, it would dramatically delay or damage any warships forced to cruise through interplanetary space. And that's everything I can say about your project which became Hive Boreas."
Anakin STILL didn't know what to say.
Then he took a deep breath, and said,
"I'm glad you gave me this advice, and informed me of my mistakes in tactics, strategy and logistics. I have 5 more months to spend on Hoth, and I will use that time to improve our battlements."
"Now can I have a shuttle and get my brother back?," Elsa said.
Wayne smiled, which was something he rarely did. Maybe Elsa having a family member (somewhat) nearby reminded him of his dead parents, taken from him by cold-blooded crime.
"Nobody's stopping you," Anakin replied, noticing the hopeful look on Wayne's face, which he knew hid tragedy and woe behind it.
But just as he told Elsa that she was free to reunite with her brother after the long, tense discussion about siege warfare that nobody liked, he received a call from someone he hadn't heard from in a long time: His former Padawan, Ahsoka Tano.
"Master Skywalker? I'm on my way right now, on a race against time. Unfortunately, I have some really bad news to share."
Back in orbit, on the Lupus Rex...
Alexei Volkoff and the Snezhnayan troopers in the spelljammer's cabin were having the revelry of their lives. First everyone had eaten plant-based bacon-wrapped steak made of astral marijuana and hemp, getting them really, really high, and then they washed it down with fruit juice-infused amasec wine. The resulting intoxication made the troopers behave in the most repulsive and disgusting ways, engaging in acts of despicable debauchery and sadism.
They rampaged into the agricultural greenhouse section of the ship, which produced all the crew's food, and killed a bunch of Squigs, Banthas, Dewback Lizards and Direhorses, shooting and beating the poor herbivores to death. Fortunately, the gardens of the greenhouse were left (mostly) intact, but all the animal protein had been wasted, minus the seafood.
Then they started firing their guns into the air, burning holes into the superstructure of the spelljamming ship. It was a complete waste of ammunition, silly and pointless.
And they even went a step further, taking off their clothes and running around naked, while hooting and screeching like apes... including the crewmen who were aliens or from a fantasy race.
Because most of the other troops on board were busy maintaining the gunnery stations and patching up the star sails, it was up to the spelljammer captain, a powerful High Elf mage who moved the ship and took orders from Elsa, to stop the ridiculous spaceship orgy from getting any bigger and any more deranged.
ZZZAP!
The Spelljammer scrambled Alexei and everyone else's brains and nervous systems with a lightning bolt, causing them to spasm in pain uncontrollably. They all groaned in agony, regretting every single immoral choice they had made in the last 30 minutes.
"STAND DOWN, BASTARDS!," the Spelljammer screamed.
"I, Captain Tarragon, do not tolerate misbehaving or lollygagging of any kind! Wait until your sister finds out what you did, Alexei!"
The nobleman quickly realized what horrible things he had done, especially for royal standards, and he was afraid what his protector and older sibling might think of him because of his misdeeds. He had betrayed her trust. And beforehand, he certainly didn't think he'd feel this guilty.
Back down on Hoth...
Elsa tried calling Alexei on her comlink, but he wouldn't answer. When that failed, she tried calling the spelljammer captain, Tarragon, but he ignored her too.
"What the devil is going on up there?," she thought. "They dare disobey me?"
Anakin was talking on the comlink with his Padawan, Ahsoka, who was en route to Hoth, but not for a good reason. Quite the opposite, actually.
"I hope your project to fortify Hoth has been a success," Ahsoka said, sounding scared to death, and very worried. "Because two teams of Spartan-IIs, RWBY and JNPR, told me a whole navy of zealot aliens obsessed with Time Lord artifacts are on their way to the Hoth System."
A gathering winter storm approaches... and the Covenant is closing in on its objective. Yet the Prophets don't even realize that they are pawns in an even bigger conspiracy, one that will shake the multiverse to its core...
TO BE CONTINUED...
