Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with a commercial aim. It is not for sale or rent.
Phase 29: Tainted liberation
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Part 3
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Coronet City
Corellia
So, this was what being at the entrance of the Corellian Hells felt like, Kenobi mussed. Smoke and dust cut down the visibility to practically nothing, only to glow hellishly with every weapon release in the vicinity. Droids converged on their position from three sides, with everyone firing everything they've got into the billowing heavy-on metal soup that was the air.
Between the smoke rounds, burning wrecks, and blasters melting what they struck, Obi-Wan didn't want to think about what would happen to anyone unlucky enough to be outside without a respirator. People like the scattered pockets of civilians who didn't make it to the cut-off forces at the center of the city.
The visibility was terrible, which was a feature. The Droids focusing on Kenobi's command was a feature too, kind of.
How they did it, on the other hand, was anything but typical.
"I say again, they're using a wave charge as a cover for heavy weapons teams sneaking upon us! Watch out for them!"
"We've got infiltrators approaching the perimeter. They're bouncing from cover to cover and using the attack as a distraction to come in closer!"
Those were among many of the filtered reports that reached Obi-Wan so he would know what was coming at him.
Instead of using his eyes, Obi-Wan used the Force to observe the avenue down the road. That allowed him to at least partially disregard the choking clouds of smoke cutting down visibility and degrading sensors alike.
"This will have to do," Kenobi muttered to himself. He switched his communicator on the general command channel. "Banshee One, we've got your firing position secured. Deploy forward and open fire on the previously discussed map grid as soon as you're in effective range. Be advised, you'll be firing blind."
Now they just had to hold this position for the next few minutes…
What followed would have been deadly stumbling in the dark if it wasn't for the Force. Blaster bolts and missiles came tearing their way through the smoke, which was already glowing from all the energy constantly discharged within it. The metallic filaments meant to mess up with sensors heated up and burned, illuminating indistinct shapes dashing through hell.
Grenades flew in all directions. Hot metal scythed through GAR positions, only to be often deflected by rapidly deteriorating armor. The same was true for the Droids – the lighter models were simply unable to survive in this environment save for luck. In the same regard, any lightly armored troops thrown into the fray wouldn't survive for long.
This was the kind of warfare Obi-Wan hadn't imagined even in his darkest nightmares, yet now he presided over it. He did so in theory anyway. From his forward position, Obi-Wan was unable to effectively command this part of the battle, much less the whole assault. His purpose was different, and he hated it, primarily because it left him too much capacity to think and feel.
The constant terror, violent deaths, and the agony of the wounded washed over him in a constant stream of stimulation. Soon, something stirred deep within the city, and the Dark Side answered. It crashed down like a diseased frozen river, choking down the light and feeding on all the suffering and terror.
All the distraction Obi-Wan got was deflecting the odd blaster bolt that came too close to comfort or push away the next barrage of missiles. From time to time, he would notice a larger group of Droids making their way forward unmolested. Kenobi would do his best to either direct fire their way or throw something suitably heavy with the Force to ruin their day.
Most of the time? He was stuck as little more than the ordinary grunts, feeling alone, even if surrounded by allies.
The bone-chilling effects of the Dark Side seeping through fully isolated armors didn't help things either.
A familiar, yet not, presence flared in power. Despite the distance, it had the distinct sense of Ahsoka, yet the Dark Side clung to it as if it was perfectly at home there. The Force stirred, the telltale sign of a major work underway. Soon, the disturbances were too much, robbing Obi-Wan of the ability to perceive anything but a churning storm through the Force.
Distant thunder hammered down, its echoes reverberating throughout the whole city. Forked tongues of pure power lanced down from the sky in the distance, potent enough to be almost clearly visible throughout the smoke.
Force Storm, Obi-Wan's mind supplied. He had read about it in the archives when researching Veil, and more recently, Zash. It was an ability of the Sith Sorcerers of old. Of those Sith alive nowadays, only Veil and Zash should have been able to pull off something like this. To think that Ahsoka had the power for it, not to mention the training… What did that damn woman do to the young Tano?!
The lightning storm was violent enough to make the Droid's assault falter briefly, buying the Republic soldiers a sorely needed brief respite. It was just enough to drag the wounded back, resupply with fresh ammunition, and rush in more reinforcements. More importantly, a modified artillery emplacement finally made its way to the bulge.
Obi-Wan couldn't have timed it better if he tried. The lightning storm just ceased, plunging the whole battlefield in a moment of stunned silence, when a blinding ray of power flashed above the GAR positions. The specially modified particle beam merely warmed up the air with only a tiny fraction of the energy is delivered to the target, which was its key selling point. Under most circumstances, delivering that amount of energy to a target would have devastating side effects on and around the path of the shot. Thanks to some technological marvel of containment, the direct fire artillery favored by the GAR didn't have such an obvious drawback.
A beam of pure energy potent enough to cut through modern warship armor had no trouble slicing through buildings. Two five-second shots accounted for two of the skyscrapers turned into fortresses by the enemy blocking the way. While Obi-Wan couldn't see their collapse due to the billowing smoke. However, everyone could hear the wail of collapsing durasteel and the almighty deafening crash that followed. Small, dull explosions followed when minefield detonated while being buried by tons of metal.
After a few more buildings received the same treatment, there would be little in the form of direct enemy resistance to shop them from reaching Ahsoka and the besieged locals. If the Droids wanted to stop them, they would have to come out from their strong points and meet them in the open among the rubble.
"All units, advance! The reinforcements are to form up on our flanks!" Obi-Wan ordered. The artillery platform needed to survive just a few more minutes and it would be able to finish up clearing the way.
Kenobi was going to ensure it had the time, even if it killed him.
Heavy tanks and IFVs surged forward, followed by assault infantry.
The momentum was shifting, Obi-Wan could feel it. If they could maintain it and link up, then they would have achieved their primary objective. Doing so would almost make the price in blood worth it.
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Part 4
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Coronet City
Corellia
For the Republic special forces deployed on Corellia, the titanic clash of armies laying waste to the capital was little more than a useful distraction. Squads of cloaked soldiers wearing some of the best armor money could buy, used the chaos caused by the GAR assault to infiltrate in squad strength through the front lines. When they passed by the directly contested zones, they had to carefully sneak through the fighting. Those who made it without running afoul of unfriendly fire, had to often crawl from cover to cover in order to avoid Droid units racing to reinforce various defensive zones. Those machines were in a hurry. They lacked the time, inclination, and more importantly, experience, to pay heed to the odd atmospheric disruption that might signify a cloaked commando skulking around.
Instead, if they paid those signs any thought, the Droids would have chalked it off to odd phenomena caused by all the nasty contaminants and energy choking down the atmosphere. That was a fatal mistake, which allowed multiple commando units to avoid contact and begin searching for their critical targets.
Not all infiltration squads were that lucky. The cloaks of a few troopers would flicker at the wrong time and place due to the heavy smoke, right when one of the smarter Droids looked straight at their position. The results were almost universally deadly. Of the discovered units that decided to stand their ground, or had no choice but to do so, a single lucky squad survived long enough for friendly forces to break through to the position they hunkered down – an abandoned and emptied gun store, which had reinforced walls.
Most detected squads spread out, with the compromised troopers trying to lead the enemy away from their cloaked comrades. It even worked a few times, allowing isolated fire-teams to continue their mission, while the rest of the squad ran for their lives.
In all the chaos raging throughout Coronet, it was a scout unit detached from the Duros heavy armored division, who got lucky in the end. There were only four of them left by the time the scouts reached their target - a worse for wear warehouse complex, that shone on their scanners with power emissions off the charts. The other half of the reconnaissance squad had to lead away a group of Commando Droids who noticed them due to a malfunctioning stealth field.
The remaining scouts huddled on the fifth floor of a nearby empty residential building, trying to decide how to proceed.
"There's a lot of metal protecting that place," Sergeant Brassus pointed out. They could see at least a company worth of Droids holding a perimeter around their closest side of the warehouse. The machines did their best to stay concealed. That was likely in order not to give away the importance of the building they guarded. "Drax, how much demo do we have left?" He asked the unit's demolition's expert.
"Enough to lever couple of city blocks. We're packing the good stuff for this exercise."
"How close does need to be to the shield generator, or its power source to knock them out for good?"
"Very close. Those things are made to take punishment – we aren't looking at a mobile system stripped of as much secondary systems to reduce weight."
"It's going to be a one way trip," Max, the sharpshooter concluded.
"If the reactors go up, we'll waste the surrounding districts anyway. Unless we can get in and out unnoticed, then there's no reason to bother trying to get away. If the metal doesn't take us out, the explosion will. Then, there's all the other metal we'll be pissing off by removing their top cover…" Drax shrugged.
"Perhaps we should wait for reinforcements?" The last scout, Rhino, asked.
"If they aren't here yet, we can't be sure they'll make it in time, or at all." Brassus decided. "Max, you're on top cover. I, along with our optimist here," the Sergeant, patted Rhino's chest plate, "we'll create a distraction. Drax, you're going in and making sure that shield goes down no matter what. Now here's how we're going to do it..."
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The mission turning into a one way jaunt behind enemy lines greatly simplified things, Drax decided. It was shame he wouldn't be there for the liberation of Duro. Then again, if it was going to be anywhere as bad as this operation, he wasn't sure if this wasn't some kind of twisted blessings by the gods he stopped believing in a long time ago.
While that tough old bastard Brassus and the rest of the squad discussed how to best get themselves killed to buy him time, Drax was busy rigging all his explosives ready to blow up, along with a death-man's switch. All he had to do was get close enough to the target, and at that point it wouldn't matter if the Droids located and shot him. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, though at least it was going to be quick and painless.
The same couldn't necessary be said for the rest of the people he had been training and fighting for a few months now. To Brassus' credit, he might be a wheezed old geezer, but he didn't even blink at suggesting they were all about to die for other people's mistakes. To be fair, every volunteer in the new Duros units had to be ready to do precisely that – including the mistakes of their homeworld's government, who left Duro not sufficiently defended due to policies going back generations.
It was both heartening and sad, that there were soldiers in the division who hadn't been born, much less stepped foot on the homeworld, who eagerly enlisted if it meant they could aid in it's liberation.
As things stood, too many of them weren't going to live long enough to attempt liberating it to at least see Duro once with their own eyes.
Drax kept working and tried to push those morbid thoughts aside. Those issues were nothing he could or should worry about now. All he could do for his people, fellow soldier sand the Republic was see to it that the damn shield went down. Besides that, there was only hoping that enough people in the Republic shared the sentiment and were willing to pay the price to see this crazy war fought to the end.
There was nothing else to it really.
He rigged the last detonator and double-checked that everything was in order. Only when Drax was certain he won't blow up by accident, he began working on the dead-man's switch. That one was simple, the only hard part was splicing it into the armor's limited medical suite.
"I'm ready," Drax walked back to the other scouts. He found them sitting on the ground in the corner of what used to be an office, and using pieces of furniture and debris to mock-up the enemy positions outside.
"Good. Judging by the sound, the rest of the army is throwing itself against the enemy and that has to be a bloody affair," Brassus nodded at the demolitions' expert. "We've got a plan that might get you close enough to guarantee the shield goes down."
The plan was simple in the end – a diversion of a two-man team, who would ensure being discovered trying to sneak in, then create a ruckus that might give Drax better odds for a quiet insertion.
An awkward exchange of farewells followed, and four ghosts headed for a meeting with destiny.
=RK=
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