CH. 3

Cool air seeped in through his armor regardless of the protection provided by his kute. Desert worlds offered little in terms of reprieve be they day or night, and Ryloth was no different. Perched prone on one of the countless stony canyon sides of this planet, the hue of his armor and the shapeless manner of his hooded poncho allowed him the appearance of just another rock feature. Time meant nothing. All sensation was meaningless. All that entered his consciousness was the world beyond his scope; all else was nonexistent. Low winds blew up through the canyon carrying small gusts of powdery sand which swirled about like wafting smoke. All was silent. All was still.

It came over the horizon. The glowing yellow and red in a sea of dark blue displayed in his scope's thermal setting was all that was needed to snap him out of his trance like state. His finger inched towards the trigger. Crosshairs zeroed in on the luminescent blip. It was getting nearer. The sound finally reached him, a distant warbling of a land speeder. There was no armed escort; no need really, this area had long been considered to be firmly in the Empire's control, far from the more antagonizing sectors of the planet. This was just a simple drive through the countryside for all they knew. The fact that Aemos was even here was owed mainly to his exceptional skills in stealth. The pad of his index finger rested on the trigger. His breath steadied. The speeder grew closer, and he now could pick out figures sitting within the cockpit. Four people: one driver, two guards, and the target. Imperial. The speeder had now reached the canyon's entrance. He could see the poor guy's plastiod blast helmet from here.

His eyes honed in on his target; a gaunt, lanky man by the name of Operations Manager Haynz Wakkler. He had been tasked by the Imperial Ministry of Industry with overseeing the opening of a new Ryll mine within the region. The di'kut had been rounding up the nearby local twi'lek population in preparation for the project and had made no effort to be subtle about his methods. His lack of finesse had unsurprisingly turned against him. Constant guerilla attacks by local resistance groups led by the one and only Cham Syndulla brought progress to a crawl and had damaged his standing in Ministry command severely. With each passing season, victories between Wakkler and twi'lek resistance flipped back and forth; Wakkler would subjugate a settlement, and Syndulla would sabotage an Imperial facility or convoy. Ground was gained and lost constantly by both sides, with little permanent progress being made. Finally, Wakkler had decided that enough was enough, and had begun razing small villages to the ground as a show of force, rather than simply subjugating them. Syndulla had wanted to send a message in return; one that could only be made effective if it were to come by the hands of a professional. Enter, the Mandalorians. Aemos had just come off a job with Zael and Evet on Zolan when Carolus sent out a call for a sharpshooter, and naturally, Aemos obliged.

It all happened at a pace that felt both like a millennia and a microsecond. Aemos released a breath, and in between one heartbeat and the next, the trigger was squeezed; a furious golden bolt of hyper-energized tibana gas tore its way through the dark canyon. The bolt struck home, shredding the man asunder in a fine puff of ash. Sparks, smoke, and torn cloth was all that remained of the visiting imperial officer. A painful death, disintegration. To feel every atom lose its bonds and have every molecule of your body be rent apart in slow motion was an agonizing way to go. Still, it was an Imperial official; couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.

'A good kill.' Aemos thought as he watched the driver and guard's panic. 'Better wrap this up and get back before Zael decides it's his turn to cook.'

A second bolt striking the speeder was all it took to disable it, sending the rest of the Imps careening out of the craft and onto the dusty ground. They'd survive. Probably. One of them at least. Somebody needed to give the message after all… Speaking of messages.

"Goran, this is Ne'tra Gal; come in, over…" Aemos said, having activated the commlink on his vambrace.

"Ne'tra Gal, Goran, send traffic." A familiar voice responded over the crackling of the commlink. Nera's voice with her Concord Dawn accent, a lingering present from her father, radiated an air of satisfaction. She loved the use of code names; too much in his opinion, but she was better at coordination than anyone else, so they were all stuck with it.

"Mission accomplished; target eliminated." Aemos muttered into his commlink, a small amount of cheer seeping into his tone.

"Solid copy Ne'tra Gal, stand by for further tasking..."

"Standing by." Aemos said, eyeing the scrambling imperials with a mixture of faint glee and faint apprehension. Confusion bloomed in the back of his mind; the plan was to take the shot, confirm the kill, and get out right? Had the plan changed?

"Ne'tra Gal, this is Goran, narudar forces have gone and pinned themselves down in a valley twelve clicks east of your location; narudar al'verde requests that we send in an assist and escort them to extraction point Cherek. Are you able to divert and link up with them?" Of course the Rebels screwed up, how could they not? Those amateurs never were much good in a fight, and like always, they came begging actual warriors to fight their battles for them. Aemos wanted to complain; the piss poor combat skills, low grade equipment, constant lack of viable intel, and entitled sense of moral high ground made working with these aruetiise an absolute chore. Most Mandalorians had come to the consensus that, as a general rule, the Rebel Alliance were almost painfully unprofessional.

"Can do Goran, Ne'tra Gal moving to assist. Can you do me a favor and tell narudar al'verde to pull their brain out of their shebs and send in people who can actually fight their way out of a wet paper bag next time?" Aemos asked, a joking lilt to his voice.

"Afraid not Ne'tra Gal; they may have shallow skulls, but they have deep pockets." Nera quipped back with equal amounts of amusement.

"Well as long as they fill ours. Tell Zael to keep away from the cooker, I shouldn't be long." Aemos said, backing away from his perch.

"K'oyacyi, vod."

"Oya vod, oya." Aemos eyed the surviving Imperials, now helplessly racing back out of the canyon. The scum likely wouldn't die from the trek back through the desert to civilization, but they certainly would have a bad time. Their survival was a necessary evil, regrettably. His finger fought to inch back to the trigger.

'No.' he thought 'Live now, die later. They'll die all the same soon enough.'

-R-R-M-

In the large cargo hold of the Providence, a space was cleared out where had once been a columnal stack of crates. The freed space did little to lessen the mass of equipment and necessities that still remained in the room; long, winding corridors of stacked containers reached up to the tall ceiling in an aimless maze. Harsh white light bleared down upon the dull metal floor and the walls of cargo in the hold. In that cleared out space, stood seven figures surrounding an oblong object which lied upon a metal table.

Carolus stared at the thing before him with undisguised interest; Rollo, Nera, Skald, the twins, and Evet shared similar looks on their faces. At first glance, it looked like one of those old Naboo yachts with it being all smooth and chrome. What had them stumped though was the design of what could only be a snowflake etched upon its side. A maker's mark they assumed. Disassembly only raised more questions. It was clear that this thing was made by some relatively clever minds, the exact measurements and uniform layout indicated as much, but the canister of grey powder raised some eyebrows. The probe, for that's what it could only have been, was configured in a way that the powder was meant apparently to be its power source. The fact that the powder was now inert led them to conclude that whatever energy was within it had been depleted somehow; the circuitry was primitive but would have probably worked if it were given power, as there was no evidence of faulty construction.

"…So…we still sending out that probe droid?" Zael asked, lacking for anything better to say.

"Yes, it's best that we get a good look at our new neighbors before we go knocking on their door. I'd rather not have to go full on Indomitable if we can help it." Carolus nodded, earning a snort from Skald.

"And us?" Rollo asked. Carolus didn't take his eyes away from the probe, studying the object carefully. He didn't like the idea of sharing a planet with other life forms; too much of a risk of war, which would normally be preferred, if not for the fact that they simply couldn't afford a legitimate conquest at the moment. Inversely, the presence of industry promised that the Mandalorians would not have to begin from scratch; being marooned in the wilderness was something Carolus wanted to avoid as much as possible. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Your orders remain unchanged; we wait for further information. Until then, check and prep all your gear again, we can't afford to mess this up." The Protectors plus Rollo nodded before scrambling off to complete their tasks. A chime came from Nera's commlink, forcing her to step away from the other two for a moment. Skald turned to Carolus and studied him for a moment.

"'Go full Indomitable' huh?" Skald asked, earning a grumble from the lone Mereel.

"It got the point across, didn't it? Besides, we don't know how far along these people are; we might not be equipped enough for a full-blown incursion."

"It could be done; we'd just need to be smart about it." Skald said assuredly, punching Carolus' shoulder.

"Like I said, I'd rather it not come to that if we can help it." Carolus said, sending Skald a punch of his own. Nera returned, helmet donned and posture stiff; Skald noticed her first and drew himself up slightly, in a near instinctual reciprocation of tension. Nera offered Carolus a cursory bow to which he returned.

"Our own probe is ready and waiting for your order, Mandalore." She said, excitement shining through her modulated voice.

Carolus nodded, "The order is given, let's get this show on the road."

-R-R-M-

Had anyone outside of a token few kept more than a passing interest, the people of Remnant would have joined their resident astronomers in their apprehension. Meteors were not unheard of; small bits of debris would occasionally fall to the planet and burn up in entry every now and then, and larger pieces that survived entering the planet's atmosphere were something of a fanciful phenomenon. This meteor, to put it in common terms, was just plain weird.

The thing that had gripped Remnant's modest astronomy community's attention was this meteor's behavior. As the meteor neared the planet, teams of astronomers worked to chart the object's flight path and had come to the conclusion that the thing would crash harmlessly into the ocean. It didn't have the speed or mass to cause anything catastrophic, and its computed destination was far away enough from any land mass to be an issue. Knowing they had done all that they needed to do, the scientists all patted each other on the back, said good job, and then began to discuss lunch. Then the darn thing changed course. Talks of fajitas died out at that point and the race to chart the new path began. No one knew how it happened; ideas were thrown around about how it might have been an effect of their shattered moon's wonky gravity, attraction to gravity Dust, magnetism, even aliens. The last one was a joke at the time of course, but the man who had said it would later on lord about how he was right all along.

Regardless, the object's new path was marked, and the scientists paled at the answer. A picturesque holler in Sanus, in which laid the village of Duskenhill. A road directly leading to Vale bisected the village; it got a lot of traffic, a lot of trade, a lot of people. What had begun as simple scientific inquiry quickly devolved into a dire race against time. They had only done calculations of an aquatic landing, but the numbers that they were now getting for a ground landing were looking worse and worse as the minutes passed by. The object's mass didn't seem to change meaning that it wasn't breaking apart in atmosphere. The velocity it was going at was projected to progress enough to level anything within half a mile's radius. Nothing would survive. Calls were made. Duskenhill's village head waved it off. They couldn't afford to evacuate the whole village, the process would take more time than was asked for, and it was probably nothing anyway. The Kingdoms' astronomy programs were some of the most underfunded and overlooked ventures; barely anyone considered them to be anything more than a money pit. Simply put, they had little to no credibility. The Kingdom's Councils were of no help either, bureaucracy was a slow-going beast, and a village was going to become a crater soon. Meteorites didn't care if appointment forms were signed in triplicate. Appeals to Huntsmen and the Huntsmen Academies bore better fruit, but Beacon was the closest and they only had so many Bullheads. Not everybody would make it, and not everybody seemed to want to either.

So with somber hearts, they watched and waited as the death-bringing space debris neared the atmosphere. The Huntsmen wouldn't make it. The evacuation wouldn't ever happen and over 2,000 lives would be lost. They had never felt more like failures than in that moment. All they could do was sit back and watch as the meteorite brought death and destruction onto an innocent populace. They felt helpless. Hopeless.

Then the thing moved again, and that was just about it for the astronomers. Beleaguered shouts of indignation mixed with cries of joy, and petty curses were hurled at the object on screen. It had become gratuitous at this point and the accursed ball of space junk had moved to a safe distance far from anything resembling civilization. Its speed eased, which should have been impossible. A few scientists swore that they would go searching for it when it landed if only out of a desire to beat the crap out of it when it did. This thing seemed to have decided that the laws of physics had somehow offended it and had made it it's personal mission to defy every rule in the rulebook. The eventual impact was abnormally small too, however that was only inferred from the seismic activity picked up and the discovered crater; when the site was investigated, no remains of the meteorite would be found.

Certainly scared the crap out of the birds, that was for sure.

-R-R-M-

Qrow Branwen had been the first person on scene when the object struck. He hadn't been expecting anything other than a space rock upon his approach, but now, after two and a half hours of trailing this thing, he could safely say that it scared the crap out of him. He had seen quite a lot of high tech in his time, being a Huntsman that ran in the circles of rather important people allowed him to see some pretty cutting edge stuff. Atlas' overreliance on gadgets and tech always ground his gears, but even he had to admit that their eggheads knew their gadgets. He had seen camera drones before, Atlas ones too, and for all that he wished that Atlas was trying to spy on Vale – in which case he would merrily demolish this thing piece by piece- or simply lost an experimental piece of tech – also resulting in its destruction- Qrow simply could not convince himself that it was Atlas tech… And that scared him. The object was saucer shaped with several lenses of varying size, painted blue and grey with a single long antenna sprouting from the top; two spindly appendages dangled on either side of a small gun-like protrusion, and a meager warble announcing its defiance of gravity.

It could have been someone else's. Some unimportant nerd with too much time and money on his hands wasting it all on a one off project that somehow went into orbit… Then crashed back down… without a scratch… Yeah who was he kidding, the drone itself wasn't much to be impressed about, but the falling from the sky was the clencher. It wasn't Atlas, it wasn't Vale, it couldn't be Her, just not her style; what could it be really? Aliens? Qrow felt that the longer he watched the thing putter about, the more insane he grew. And that's all it did too: just float around looking at trees, rocks, and even the sky. Occasionally one of its tiny little arms would pick up a leaf and bring it close to its largest red eye, then it would carelessly drop it and continue on with its happy little quest. It was eerie. Qrow shifted, silently dropping from his perch on a branch to behind the large oak's trunk. It was passing by and he couldn't allow it to detect him. His hand hovered readily over Harbinger, he knew he'd be fast enough to bisect it should the need arise. Peeking his head out again, his thoughts ground to a halt as he saw the object staring squarely at him, it's inquisitive mission paused. Qrow didn't move, maybe it's vision was based on movement? No, unfortunately not, as it quickly swung forward and around in an effort to get a clear view of him. Cursing his characteristic bad luck, Qrow knew he couldn't shift again for fear of the little craft seeing; instead, Qrow lunged outward quickly, hoping to surprise it with a harsh arcing swing. The little craft reared back with an aggravated chittering and attempted to beat a hasty retreat, flying off up and away in a desperate attempt to escape; Qrow cursed, shifting his blade into its firearm format and firing. Two shots glanced off the drone before the third struck true and sent it falling to the ground lifeless.

Qrow breathed out a tension releasing sigh, sheathing Harbinger while bringing his flask up to his lips with his off hand. Ozpin would need to hear of this. Qrow had seen a lot, heard a lot, done a lot; whatever this was, Qrow had a feeling that this was something new.

-R-R-M-

AN: I am now superior to Valve, for I have counted to 3! Sorry for the 2 year long wait y'all, not gonna make any excuses, but I am happy to say that I am back! Kinda. Sorta. I'll do my best to make semi regular updates as long as I have inspiration. On the bright side Ch 4 is already in the works, and I have a lot of major events for this fic planned out already. The only issue is connecting the interesting parts with connective tissue that take me forever to think up. Sorry again for the wait. Have an awesome day and Happy New Year!