Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed or Star Wars. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not created with commercial aim. I make no money from it.
Phase 26: The dust of the stars
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Part 1
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The Lucky Lady
Hyperspace
en Route to Korriban
For six months the modified long range explorer ship flew far away from frequently used hyper-lanes avoiding any and all populated systems ever since she left Hutt Space and clandestinely entered Separatist territory. In that time, the Lucky Lady made just two proper stops to refuel and conduct some maintenance using pirate ports hiding in largely empty systems where no one had any business visiting. The rest of the time, the small Clone crew masking as mercenaries were busy plotting hyperspace jumps that avoided any chance of running into either Separatist or local patrols, something they thankfully didn't run into. Even with all the hidden upgrades courtesy to the Republic military, the ship wasn't meant for heavy combat, especially so far away from any chance of support.
While the ship did live up to her name and successfully avoided any danger, her crew remained on edge, wrought with tedium, boredom and worry about their brothers and the war they had to leave behind, even if their participation had been indirect for more than a year now.
"We're one hour out." Eltee's voice came over the speakers in the large-ish passenger compartment, where the rest of the crew were killing time playing cards.
"It's about time." Sergeant Holt, the man in charge of this particular band of misfits put down his hand, relief evident in his voice. "All right, you reprobates, suit up, check your gear. Inspection in thirty."
"Damn it, Sarge, I was just about to clear you all out!" Cifor exclaimed and threw down his own cards.
"Tough luck, brother." Kal, the engineer, grinned. "Do you think we'll hit pay-dirt like back on Hoth?"
"We're the best and that's why the General sent us all the way out here." Holt declared. "If there are surviving caches, we'll find and recover them."
"And then we'll bring them back and might help end this damn war!" Cifor nodded eagerly.
"We already did more than most." Kal pointed out. "We brought the Silencer schematics and examples of the critical components. Through that single operation, we're responsible for more destroyed enemy ships than anyone but the best fleet commanders!" He jumped up, showing a disturbing amount of energy. "We're going to do one better this time, I know it!"
"The General did warn us that we aren't likely to find any such game-changer this time around." Holt had to be a spoil-sport again.
"Nonsense, we're to get back some special equipment for the General, which will help keep him alive! This has to be as important as the Silencers!" Cifor exclaimed, while they were making their way to the armory.
"Either that, or we'll run into another death-trap." Kal suggested innocently.
"That's why we've got a whole container with disposable droids in the cargo hold."
"Don't remind me, I spent half the trip making sure they'll be in working order. Why we couldn't get new machines for this trip, I'll never know!"
"If we run into an inspection or something it would be harder to explain." Cifor pipped up as they entered the armory. "We aren't exactly posing as one of the best mercenary outfits, you know!" He pointed at the racks of armors, which while appearing to be worse to wear, were still suitably thick and had a lot of modern technology incorporated below the shabby exterior. The same was true for the various weapons.
"We better not." Kal muttered.
"Unless we slow-boat it all the way back, the odds of running into local security, or worse, Seppies, will be high." Cifor added.
"We do have the coordinates of a listening post we'll be visiting before deciding how we'll get back to friendly space." Holt reminded them.
"And we'll likely have to sneak in, perhaps even assault the place if we want to get anything of value." Cifor sounded gleeful at the idea of some action after being stuck on the ship for months on end.
"The crew there is supposed to be loyalist actually." The Sergeant had to play devil's advocate.
"Supposed is the key word, Sarge."
"Let's first find some equipment that will justify this whole trip and then we'll worry about bringing it back to the General."
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Unsurprisingly, the first two potential sites they hit were worthless. The first, a rogue asteroid capture on a slow orbit around Korriban's system was simply gone. The second, a small bunker buried below the sands of one of the old Sith homeworld's deserts had been plundered a long time ago, leaving it open to be filled up with scorching sands.
The third site they could access in relative safety was about thirty light years away from Korriban, in one of the countless utterly unremarkable and generally worthless systems spread all over the galaxy. This one contained just a tiny blue dwarf, a small planetoid that could hardly be called a proper moon, much less planet and a distant ring of debris. It was deep below the surface of the airless rock where they hit found the first intact cache in this part of the galaxy.
Descending through kilometers long shaft carried by thankfully still operational elevator, made the Clones grateful that they did have proper access codes for the facility. First, the place was insanely deep, buried close to the cold core of the "moon". Second, one of the primary reasons to put it so deep was nothing less but insane Sith paranoia – there were more than enough weapon emplacements within the elevator shaft alone to stop a small army, if one had the bravery to try a frontal assault. The three troopers descending surrounded by twice their number of droids were almost afraid to speculate what would wait them at the bottom.
They weren't disappointed. The elevator's descent ended within a cavernous chamber. Moments after they reached the bottom, dozens of lights came to life, illuminating the chamber with cold, sterile light, which gleaned off hundreds of polished metal chassis.
"Sarge, I hope for all our sakes that those codes will continue to work."
"Me too, Cifor, me too…" Holt's tongue wet his lips, while he warily examined the contents of the chamber. At least a battalion of war-droids stared back and more than two thirds of them were now online, glaring through their crimson photo-receptors.
"Identify yourselves." An artificially modulated voice echoed throughout the chamber.
"Sergeant Holt, here on orders by Darth Vael. Identification…" The Clone began reciting a long series of codes. The echoing voice interrupted him five times, requiring additional code-phrases, before a long buzz carried over the assembled droids, which gave the impression of relaxing.
"I'm glad that the codes we retrieved and those the General recalled were enough." Kal sub-vocalized.
"Me too, buddy. Me too." Cifor answered.
"Authentication successful. You and your party have access to this facility, Sergeant Holt. Long live the Empire!"
"Long live the Empire?" Cifor tried, earning himself withering looks from his brothers.
The droids on the other hand? They let out a collective hum that somehow sounded approving.
"Cifor, unless absolutely necessary, keep your mouth shut until we're back to the ship!" Holt ordered.
Ten minutes later, the three of them reached the facility's control center and gained full access to it's secrets.
"There's a hangar with two battleships in here?" Kal exclaimed.
"And enough droids to crew them among other things…" Holt confirmed while browsing down the manifest. "Those ships weren't here when the General visited last."
"Is his stash still in place?" Kal inquired.
"Cifor, we're about to find out." Holt said and called up a map of the facility. "That's the artifact vault. We're going to check it, while Kal will take charge of the droids and go do a diagnostic on those ships' systems."
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Part 2
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Holterra Clinic
Coruscant
For nearly a month, Clone Force 99, along with a regs similar to them, thus possessing various beneficial or at least not harmful mutations, found themselves stuck on Coruscant and regularly visiting couple of Clinics dedicated to genetic research, treating various disorders and if someone was wealthy enough, crafting genetic modifications for them. The odd orders, which came all the way from the top only began making sense after meeting the doctors at Holterra, who did explain why they required multiple examinations of decidedly odd Clones.
Sergeant Hunter could perfectly recall his small unit's first visit, where Wrecker and Tech didn't even pretend to try keeping their curiosity in line. Naturally, his overly large friend put things clearly and to the point, if overly bluntly as usual.
"Tell me, Doctor, why should we let you prob and prod us, perhaps even stab us, orders or no orders?" The large Clone glowered threatingly, which was even more effective nowadays thanks to his glowing prosthetic eye. While the glow was mostly for effect and could be shut down when discretion was needed, it did make Wrecker even more dangerous and rough looking than before and that was saying something.
The Doctor, a short, yellow skinned furless Devaronian woman looked up at the Clone and rolled her eyes, not impressed in the slightest. "Your Genral Veil hired us to fix you all up. If you insist on aging at rapid pace and croaking in a few years, if you somehow manage not to get yourself shot with that attitude, be my guest. There are countless of your brothers who would eagerly get their genes fixed and provided they survive this bedamned war, live long enough to actually enjoy their retirement." She sneered in a sharp tone that carried far.
"I for one would prefer not to croak any time soon as you put it, ma'am. Wrecker here is a big softy, don't mind him, he's just shy and tends to be a bit contrary when meeting new people." Tech smiled widely and did his best to push his much larger brother away from the Doctor.
"Leave the woman alone, Wrecker. I'm old enough already, anything that can be done so I could enjoy few more years is a good thing." Crosshair added in his usual cold tone.
Hunter glanced at the team's sniper and did his best not to wince. Crosshair was one of the oldest Clones around and it showed – his short hair was graying already and while his face was weathered, there were signs that he was growing old, even if that hasn't been able to slow him down yet.
"Why did you need us in particular?" Tech asked, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet.
"Genetic diversity. While the primary aim is to fix up your aging, making sure we don't mess up something is important as well as increasing your resistance against genetically targeted bio-weapons. The Separatist did show that they aren't shy in using bioweapons already so that was added to our to do list by General Kenobi after he got in charge of the military."
"At least we have commanders who care in command now." Crosshair muttered. "It almost makes up for everything that happened lately."
"Anyway, follow me, we'll need blood samples and to conduct some scans of you. We should have the preliminary therapy ready for human testing within two weeks and then we'll need volunteers. Do think about it." The Doctor brought them back on topic and waved them to follow her.
That particular conversation happened three weeks ago, a week ago, the Bad Batch did volunteer for the cure, in no small part because of Crosshair. Now, they were back at the Clinic for more tests so the Doctors could see if the cure worked as advertised and most importantly, if there were any side effects. The only thing the Clones did feel was tired and hungry, which was to be expected according to the Doctors – the various vectors used for partially rewriting and fixing up their DNA needed fuel after all and the process was expected to keep them under the weather for a few weeks, perhaps a bit longer or shorter for outliners like the four of them.
They met the same Denvaronian female, Doctor Jenis Liira, who led them into by now a painfully familiar sterile room for the testing and bloodletting. Everything went as expected, no side effects so far, though even more tests would be needed before making sure there would be no unpleasant side effects.
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Republic R&D Complex
location classified
Coruscant
The Jedi Coup and it's aftermath, especially the former Director being caught trying to experiment on a crippled Sith after her confrontation with the now dead Grand Master of the Jedi Order, sent shock-waves through the premiere center for military Research and Development on Coruscant. Due to the war, some of the best scientists and engineers from all over the galaxy were gathered there to ply their trade and some of their efforts were already changing the face of warfare. Admittedly, the achievements of smaller facilities and the odd individual were not to be discounted, even though most of the people working at this particular place would usually scoff at the very idea.
Many of them did believe themselves to be the best after all, the cream of the Core's scientific minds.
Others however, lacked such high opinion of themselves, though those were usually concentrated among the engineering corps working in the R&D facility. Engineers usually, but not always, were practical people after all.
In this particular instance, the crew working on part of Project Crimson Dragon, did find a practical use of a suggestion from General Veil, which on the face of it was less than practical. Because really, who needed humanoid form machines twenty or thirty meters tall? Any such thing would be too large, a great target and the mechanical complexity would make most walker look the height of practicality and good design. Then again, there were environments and situations where walkers were useful…
The idea of those so called Mobile Suits on the other hand? Utterly impractical for combat or so the design team charged with examining and developing the idea concluded. They were about to give said conclusion to their superiors and move on something actually practical, when one of the younger engineers did make a suggestion, one that was kind of obvious in hindsight… who ever said that the Mobile Suit concept had to be a military platform in order to be useful? What about construction? There were large scale projects, including warship construction being carried out every day all across the galaxy and those did use all kinds of heavy equipment. From that point of view, twenty or thirty meters tall humanoind machines with actual hands didn't sound so out there.
After that idea came to light and the stunned realization that they might actually make the concept work, the team threw themselves into work and a few weeks later they had a concept design that could be useful in heavy construction. Further refinements and a prototype demonstrated that there was some merit to the concept, which eventually led to the first limited production run of the Vanguard Engineering Mobile Suit, with a batch of thirty going to Kuat for field testing in the shipbuilding industry.
While awaiting results, the now renamed Vanguard Design Team went to work for more specialized variants, including a military implementation – an unit to aid Combat Engineers, though pointedly not meant for direct combat...
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