Episode 6: The Green Tide
Chapter 7: WAAAGH Back At Ya (Part 3)
"Never before was so much owed by so many to so few."
-Winston Churchill
"Do not go gentle into the endless night, rage, rage against the dying of the light."
-A quote that sums up the grimdark genre of fiction... which arguably includes everything from Warhammer and Berserk to Shadowrun and Game of Thrones.
The real multiverse war has begun. The Dark Lord Vecna has unleashed his brand-new army upon an intergalactic manufacturing center. And at the center of it, the defenders of peace and freedom fight a seemingly hopeless battle, beset on all sides by foulness and corruption. All appears lost... but maybe this game of chess still has a few moves left.
Phase Three: Inside the Grand Core factory complex, with the Orks closing in on all sides (continued from the last chapter)
The surviving Kyoshi Warriors had delivered the worst news yet- the Greenskin menace had gotten past all the outer defenses, forcing the Republic's defenders to retreat or evacuate, and was rapidly making progress towards Grand Core itself. Furthermore, Korra's army unit was cut off from assistance, about to be slaughtered to a man, with no hope of rescue, and all the other troops were crammed inside the factory complex, with nowhere else to go.
In their darkest hour, the company of heroes continued to frantically search for a way to avert their impending demise, but nobody believed in miracles, especially in circumstances like this.
"So, this is it, huh?," Anakin said, with a lack of emotion his voice. "We're all going to die here, in a short while?"
"Well, I hate to admit it, but the jig is up," Noelle uttered.
"It's game over, and we're the ones in the video game," Prince Sidon added.
Even Jedi Master Amaranth, Anakin's close friend and Beidou's mentor, was ready to admit defeat.
"You are all being truthful, to say the least. And given how long we've served our Republic, I suppose our doom was going to arrive one way or another. I don't have anything else to say."
But one person was not accepting the inevitable. Once again, it was Monty Oum, the sea otter emissary who had joined the battle for the purpose of giving vital information and secrets of paramount importance to the Republic's defenders.
"Oh, COME ON! When were you people ever the ones to give up, even in the face of overwhelming, even impossible odds? My mother once taught me that there's always a way out. Ships and sharks, that's what she called the expression. There's always light at the end of the tunnel. So, accordingly, there's gotta be something we can do to turn the tables."
Anakin wasn't convinced by this notion.
"How are we supposed to be optimistic when the odds are stacked against us a billion to one? And what can we possibly do to turn the tables?"
There was a brief pause in the conversation, which ended when Beidou brought up an idea to address what Anakin and Monty were discussing.
"Come to think of it... I just remembered something! The only way to effectively fight magic, such as the light and dark sides of the Force, is with stronger magic. The Orks attacking us were created using dark side sorcery, specifically by spreading a specialized fungal plague to countless hosts. And I do recall that there is an extremely powerful light side spell in the Jedi archives that explicitly targets fungal biology. One of us should ask Master Amaranth about it, he certainly knows more than I do."
Amaranth had a look of shock and horror on his face, implying that the spell Beidou was describing had potentially catastrophic consequences and side effects.
"No! I won't allow it. The Cleansing Blaze is a blatant Force-fueled weapon of mass destruction. Additionally, channeling that much power and energy through a Jedi's body could very likely burn up their soul in the process. It's too risky."
"Does it look like we have a choice?," Sidon noted.
"I don't care if I get put in a coma, or end up dying horribly!," Beidou shouted. "What matters is a future where people can live in peace and freedom! I'll gladly sacrifice myself."
"It's better than letting this whole planet get destroyed, depriving trillions of people of essential goods and services," Monty pointed out.
Amaranth realized he had no other options.
"Assemble all the Jedi here, and every other magic user we can get our hands on," he said grimly. "They already know that if they refuse, they'll die later anyways."
In just 90 seconds, over 500 of the Republic's greatest heroes had assembled in the factory's main hall. They had all been informed that this forbidden ritual, the Cleansing Blaze, was the only way to save the Forge World from total destruction, and as a consequence, they were willing to put their lives on the line as the source of the procedure's Force energy.
"I wonder how many Jedi will end up dying because of this course of action," Noelle said, bringing up a valid concern.
"If the act is meant to be taken for the greater good, and more importantly, the battle somehow turns in our favor, then their sacrifice will be unequivocally worth it," Monty replied.
"Let's hope this works," Sidon commented.
Amaranth, Beidou and Anakin led the Jedi Knights in channeling the Force. The main issue with the Cleansing Blaze was that while it was extremely deadly to fungal creatures like the Orks, merely performing the technique drained the user's life force. So the performance had to be as quick as possible, to minimize casualties, otherwise the Jedi would begin to drop like flies.
To be more specific on how the Cleansing Blaze worked, it was in truth a holy bacterial pathogen conjured by the light side of the Force, which spread through a planet's atmosphere and caused the cells of parasitic fungi to spontaneously combust. The spell was harmless to every other type of lifeform, as it was solely meant to cleanse a location of fungal necromancy, hence its name.
The other soldiers in the main hall watched the intensely focused Jedi with shocked and awestruck expressions, as they were rendered speechless by the fact that the swashbuckling space wizards would actually be willing to go this far, potentially sacrificing their own lives for the sake of saving this planet and its infrastructure.
The entire occupied space inside the factory began to glow with the chromatic iridescence of an intense rainbow, as the power of the Force began surging forth from where the legion of Jedi was standing. The increasing brilliance of the colors was surreal to look at, like something out of a vivid dream, but it was in no way a pleasant experience. Everybody could see what was happening to the Jedi involved in the ritual- their bodies literally began to melt, and then disintegrate into dust. For every few seconds that passed, one Force user met a tragic end.
If this kept going on, Anakin, Beidou and Amaranth would die too, and the remnants of the Republic forces would be deprived of their leadership and their strongest fighters. Was the sacrifice really necessary, and was it going to accomplish its goal?
One thing was for certain, though, the Force users were digging their own graves, while following the orders they had been assigned.
This grim truth undoubtedly meant that it was only a matter of time before someone else tried to forcibly cancel the ritual, nolens volens style, whether the Jedi liked it or not.
Several people pointed blasters at Amaranth, Beidou and Anakin, in a last-ditch effort to get them to halt the magic.
"I can't believe I am saying this... but stop the spell, or we'll shoot you, and ourselves too!!!," Noelle roared.
"You heard her, that's more than enough suicide!," Monty insisted.
The Jedi listened, and Amaranth made a gesture, putting an end to the ritual of the Cleansing Blaze. Only 100 Jedi remained out of the 500 that had landed on Gordasha. The rest had put their lives into the God-Emperor's hands.
"Woe to me, what a waste of life," Master Amaranth lamented. "It was all for nothing. I was wrong when I believed in being positive."
He had taken Anakin's now unconscious, barely breathing body, and laid it down on a table for everyone to see. Master Skywalker had put himself into a coma during the conjuring of the Cleansing Blaze. Regardless of that fact, he was going to join the same fate as his comrades.
OR WAS HE?
Right when the company of heroes was utterly devoid of hope, Beidou noticed something odd on Grand Core's computers and planetary maps.
"EVERYONE! You gotta see this! YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE IT! We're BACK FROM THE BRINK!"
Her teammates evidently had no idea what she was referring to, but they headed over to the monitor screens anyway.
What the protagonists saw was something straight out of a miracle- the very concept that they were firmly instructed to not believe in.
Up until this point, the global maps of Gordasha shown on the computer monitors were largely covered byenormous splotches of green- representing the largest horde of Orks on record in recent history.
Now, the green splotches had disappeared entirely. And everyone knew what this meant.
"Holy hell, our precarious gamble actually worked!," Sidon said, jumping for joy.
"The day is won!," Monty declared. "Once Anakin is out of his coma, we can tell him the good news!"
The survivors cheered, laughed and did a big victory dance of sorts. Some of them were reacting to the apparent miracle in humorous ways.
Just outside the factory entrance, Sergeants Katara and Sokka had recovered from their injuries after a few hours of immersion in a medical bacta tank, and were playing a game of fùtbol with an Ork's head, while Aang, Toph, Zuko, and the Kyoshi Warriors handled the bloated corpses of the mutated Greenskins, stuffed them full of magic explosives, and created fireworks that looked spectacular but smelled like a pile of crap.
Meanwhile, Korra's army was knee deep in rapidly disintegrating Ork bodies. The Republic commandos were just seconds away from being torn to shreds, when suddenly, the fungus monsters began twitching rapidly, like they were sick with a fever, and began dropping to the floor, lifeless, as if the Grim Reaper himself had decided to intervene and start cutting some puppet strings, putting an end to the act.
"Is it really over?," Korra said, in an incredulous voice.
"Just like that, we've won?," Keyleth replied, equally shocked by the unforeseen change of events.
"Don't get too cocky," Thianna told both of them. "I should have mentioned earlier that Captain Merik and our hippopotamus fire support squads are all DEAD. We could have ended up the same way if this unexpected anomaly didn't occur."
"I agree on that, we shouldn't let our guard down," Ziggs added.
In spite of what Thianna had said, the surviving Republic commandos began celebrating their abrupt and instant victory, setting up fireworks, grilling food on the barbecue, doing spray paint art on the city's rubble, and partying in whatever way was possible. The civilian population were quick to notice that they were out of danger, and as a result, lots more guests joined the V-Day festivities.
However, back in Grand Core's main building, a very different attitude had spread amongst the galactic patriots. Amaranth and Beidou were still uneasy and tense, as were their companions. What could possibly be the problem now?
It turned out to be extremely blatant.
In a shocking sudden revelation, Anakin woke up from his coma, having been tenacious enough to shrug off the side effects of the Cleansing Blaze, and mentioned a detail that nobody else had thought of, surprisingly:
"Was the ritual... successful? I'm not dead, and there are still Jedi left standing, so I'm guessing it was. If that's the case, we still need to destroy the obelisk back in orbit."
Everyone turned and looked at him.
"What did you say?," Beidou asked, having not paid close enough attention to what Anakin was speaking of.
"Oh, NO!," Amaranth exclaimed. "We somehow forgot to destroy the one thing that brought all the Orks here in the first place! How could this be? Then again, the Maker isn't exactly good at writing certain types of plot twists."
"Enough with the metafiction stuff, Master Jedi!," Monty said, scolding him. "This is no time for jokes! The longer that enormous chunk of magic space rock remains intact in orbit, the more likely that bad things will keep happening to us!"
"Well, I don't think anything that happens now could possibly be worse than fighting a billion smelly, heavily armed, homicidal fungus monsters," Noelle assumed.
How wrong she was...
Just as Noelle said that, and many of the heroes were beginning to acknowledge their single fatal mistake, a hellish howling roar punctuated by blaring static echoed throughout the entire ruined city, instantly turning the sudden victory over vile tyranny into asituation devoid of hope, where everyone was going to lose... except for Vecna, of course.
Piles of Ork corpses, stacked as high as mountains, began to pour out from "evilized" Stargates in the wastelands just outside Gordasha's futuristic arcology cities, and the fungal biomass started to contort, then fuse together. The giant heaps of fungus flesh were reassembling themselves into vaguely humanoid shapes, with external features rapidly emerging, including clawed hands and lumpy feet big enough to crush skyscrapers, and armored skin protected by layers of chitin more than a hundred meters thick.
The transformation concluded with a truly horrific sight, as the mycological constructs each grew a goat-horned head with demonic red eyes, pointed ears, a bulbous nose, and most noticeably, a drooling mouth with adamantium tusks jutting out from it, which could chew on nautical warships like a domestic dog would do with jerky treats.
The Beasts of Armageddon had arrived.
Expectedly, the defenders in the city ruins were the first to see the Orkish Kaiju monsters. The citizens who had previously emerged from the subterranean safe haven to celebrate fled back into the tunnels in an uncontrollable panic, and once again, everything spiraled into chaos.
"I knew something was off about our little victory," Katara grumbled.
"And evacuating everyone isn't an option, there's just too many people!," Sokka added.
"It's not like the tunnels or our available escape spacecraft will protect us from those... THINGS," Zuko said, stating another fact.
"Just imagine the destructive impact of the weapons they could hold and wield! They could probably blow up the very planet we're standing on!," Aang admitted in frustration.
The people in the outskirts of the city, specifically in the first defensive cordon, (including Korra's platoon,) were in the most danger of being utterly eviscerated by the newly summoned eldritch abominations, and yet again, the odds were stacked against the Republic's forces in the outright worst way possible.
"Why the HELL do things keep going south?!," Korra shouted.
"Maybe that's just the way things are meant to be," Thianna grumbled. "No matter what we do, it's always futile."
Keyleth and Ziggs weren't on board with the attitude of their comrades, though. The gremlin and the druid were still looking at the glass half full, for some reason.
"You may think I'm delusional, but we should already have a solution to big-ass Kaiju," Ziggs pointed out. "Maybe the factory could supply us with some very, very large bombs! I mean, it's meant to be used to construct some of the Republic Grand Army's most crucial assets."
"Ziggs might be correct," Keyleth told the despairing crowd of troopers. "Grand Core's Standard Template Constructs are all intact, and they should hypothetically be ready to build new weapons."
Then Thianna received a message on her comlink from Anakin, which reminded her that there was a single catalyst making the whole invasion possible:
"If anyone out there is listening, pay attention! We've been doing the wrong thing the WHOLE TIME. The answer to getting rid of the Orks is floating above our heads in orbit around Gordasha. I'll elaborate... all we need to do is destroy the moon-sized obelisk which brought the enemy here in the first place."
"No matter how much ammunition we spend, we cannot fight off a horde which has the power to keep regenerating its numbers. Our new plan will rely on every skilled star pilot we can get our hands on, including the best ones the Republic can offer. The only hope we have at stopping this crisis is pulling off a spaceflight maneuver which has been dubbed nearly impossible, with only one recorded successful attempt in ten millennia... the Holdo Maneuver."
"I believe this is our only chance at ending the Siege of Gordasha and putting the odds back in our favor. Good luck, everyone, and may the Force be with you."
After Thianna read the urgent message from Anakin, everyone else's comlinks in the squad were pinged too, and soon, the entirety of the remaining Republic personnel knew what the final objective was. Time was running out, though- the Beasts of Armageddon, the Orkish Kaiju, were beginning to glow brightly with fungal bioluminescence, while standing in place, as if they were on a countdown to triggering a truly catastrophic event...
Phase Four: Warping To Victory With The "Holdo Maneuver"
Author's Note: Yeah, I hate the Star Wars sequels, but I just thought this particular moment from the Last Jedi was so absurd, it needed to have some kind of stupid explanation for why it works at all, and why it DOESN'T make all other forms of interstellar combat obsolete.
The entirety of the Jedi-led strike force assembled around a table with a holographic display showing the Obelisk of Odium in orbit around Gordasha, as well as the dozens of Armageddon Beasts just outside the world's ravaged urban areas.
The discussion at hand was rather troubling, to say the least- it focused on the question of how to achieve the Holdo Maneuver, ramming an enemy vessel at lightspeed, during a spaceflight battle, which meant being reduced to subatomic particles... something that was considered a necessary loss.
Beidou had repeatedly insisted that Anakin's idea was based on nothing more than an anecdotal tale from thousands of years ago, and argued that even if the Holdo Maneuver was legitimately possible and able to be weaponized, it was still dependent on a one-in-a-million chance at best.
To which her master, Amaranth, said:
"Do you have any better ideas to suggest, my dear Padawan?"
After Beidou stopped trying to debate with Anakin, the team went onwards with the plan. Finding eager pilots wasn't the hard part- plenty of civilians had lost their homes and families during the siege, and were perfectly willing to blow themselves up in a selfless sacrifice, proving that a man with nothing to lose was a force to be reckoned with... HOWEVER, the hard part was estimating just how many pilots needed to be sacrificed in order to perform the Holdo Maneuver successfully.
The amount of time between a spaceship accelerating fast enough to distort reality and proceeding to entering hyperspace was so minuscule, it was classified as Planck time- the smallest unit of time possible. Nobody could have superpowered reflexes fast enough to get this right, so an alternative solution needed to be found.
Fortunately, that solution wasn't far away at all.
Digging through the factory's standard template construct (STC) archives, Noelle, Beidou, Anakin, and several other engineering experts uncovered a hefty stockpile of prototypes of a potent device, the Distortion Motor, that could slow down the effects of time during spaceflight, by utilizing the power of the Force.
In a more accurate description, it channeled arcane energies through the pilot's body, letting them make decisions in unbelievably small amounts of time. In a nutshell, if the Distortion Motor was powerful enough, it could enable a spaceman to exploit the tiniest window of opportunity possible, and react fast enough to crash a ship at lightspeed just before it boosted into hyperspace.
"According to the research we've done," Sidon explained, "these prototype devices should be able to let us better exploit the absurdly tiny period of time it takes to make the Holdo Maneuver work properly."
"That is correct," Monty confirmed. "Precise timing is of paramount importance. Though Anakin should probably explain who Admiral Holdo was, to give us more context on what we're doing, and how desperate our mission is."
Hearing what the space otter diplomat said, Anakin elaborated the details:
"Admiral Holdo was just a half-baked, incompetent naval commander serving during the Galactic Republic's early colonial days, a buffoon who got all of her comrades killed during the First Battle of Exandria."
"Her plan during that battle was to hide an entire expedition fleet in the clouds of a nebula, unaware that the indigenous forces, piloting enormous versions of spelljamming ships, were skilled in probing and navigating through those birthplaces of stars."
"When Holdo's stratagem backfired, and her comrades were blown to oblivion, she felt so guilty, she tried to ram the enemy fleet at lightspeed, kamikaze style. And for some strange reason, God Emperor only knows, she had the means to make this space combat maneuver succeed, against all odds."
"Well spoken, Master Skywalker," Noelle said. "Without further ado, let's get these Distortion Motors hooked up to our starfighters."
Since the crew members knew that every second mattered in this operation, the task at hand was done with unprecedented speed and haste. To do any less would condemn the entirety of Gordasha to being terminated by fungus nukes the size of skyscrapers.
"We need the best pilots available," Beidou told her allies. "I'll fly if nobody else wants to go out with a bang."
Luckily, (and woefully,) there was a surplus of people who believed in the cause with enough conviction to sacrifice themselves.
"I'll do whatever it takes to ensure a better future, even if I won't ever get to see it," said Clone Captain Rags, who you might remember from Episode 2.
He was leading a suicide attack on the Obelisk of Odium, alongside 150 other pilots, including several veteran clone troopers, most of which would serve to distract enemy orbital defenses and Orkish starfighters, leaving the remainder to conduct some Holdo Maneuvers themselves.
Joining Rags was an ensemble of other accomplished veterans, including Sergeants Sokka and Katara, whose Bender unit had been relocated to the last intact airfield, and a Spirit Bomber Squadron directed by two field commanders, Thianna and Korra.
"We'll teach our mortal enemies that mushrooms are meant to be used for food and medicine, not for nuking planets!," Sokka exclaimed, trying to make the best of his situation.
"How can you be enthusiastic at a time like this?!," Korra growled, scolding her subordinate.
"Might as well be a jester when you're part of The Expendables!," Thianna smugly said.
"Let's just get this death trap of a space battle over with," Katara concluded.
The last-ditch, last stand attack on the Obelisk of Odium incorporated several of the most advanced and state-of-the-art models of starfighter that the Republic had in its arsenal, such as A/SF-01 B-Wing heavy fighters, GA-TL1 Longsword strike bombers, KB-12 Fire Raptor dogfight gunships, and V-65 Xiphos super-maneuverable interceptors.
It was worth noting that there were enough prototype Distortion Motors lying around in the STC stockpile to equip every single ship, but that detail hardly affected the odds the pilots were up against.
There was another concerning and demoralizing fact to acknowledge, as well- the Grand Core contingent, which included Anakin, Beidou, Amaranth, Noelle and Sidon, largely stayed behind, as did all the other members of the 1st and 2nd defensive cordons, like Aang, Toph, Ziggs and Keyleth, but only because there were no operational combat spacecraft left behind for them to fly.
To the company of heroes, inconveniences like this didn't matter.
Because once the preparations were complete, there was only one thing left to do: FINISH THE FIGHT.
Either the day would be won, or the Republic's economic power and morale would be permanently crippled. The only possible path to victory for the freedom fighters relied on an infinitesimally small suitable moment, but still they stood firmly, against an unstoppable bastion of evil. They acted in defiance of the cruel indifference of the universe, in defiance of what could be called fate.
If a higher power would not intervene and save everyone from this hopeless situation, then ordinary people would take action, and make the choices to determine the outcome.
What happened next could be changed! Even in the bleakest moments, there was always a choice! A better future, of progress, unity and forgiveness, was WORTH FIGHTING FOR, no matter how distant it seemed.
And most of all... courage need not be remembered... for it is never forgotten.
Soundtrack for this scene in particular: Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Demon Dragon Final Boss Theme
The orbital assault:
In a matter of minutes, the Republic legion's last surviving squadrons of starfighters were on their final approach to the Obelisk of Odium, positioned some 500,000 kilometers out from Gordasha itself.
But before they even came within firing range, they were immediately swarmed by thousands of Orkish space superiority fighters. The ugly and brutal enemy vessels were literally cobbled together out of scrap metal and other salvaged trash, yet still flew reliably, thanks to Lord Vecna's incomprehensible reality-warping powers.
"They're attacking us from all sides!," Clone Captain Rags announced, as if the urgency of the scenario was not apparent already.
"Less talk, more shooting!," Sergeant Sokka responded, while satisfying his itchy trigger finger with a computer keyboard, which was hooked up to the weapons systems of the Y-Wing he and Katara were piloting.
"Sokka, memorize your weapon keys!," Katara told her battle-brother. "We've got to get these garbage attack craft away from our Holdo Manuever crewmen!"
"Wait, who's going to make the sacrifice?," Thianna asked, not out of fear, but out of morbid curiosity. "We've got nothing to lose here! Right?"
To put everyone's doubts to rest, a UNSC Longsword strike fighter painted in Glorious Water Tribe Regalia sped ahead of the main squadron.
"Korra?!"
"Yeah, the goddamn Avatar is back in action! I'll handle this, so all of you can go home and watch the sunset... that, I promise!"
Sokka and Katara made a sharp turn with their Y-Wing and then flew directly behind Korra's starfighter.
"If you need a turret gunner to watch your flanks, we've got your back," Katara said, while giving Sokka the signal to operate the Y-Wing's fearsome tail gun, consisting of a twin-linked rotary blaster cannon that could fire at a rate of 10,000 shots per minute.
Korra's attackers began to drop like flies, the explosions from the Orkish planes creating a virtual fireworks display in space. Rags then promptly moved his X-Wing into position and began chasing away any other bogies that got too close.
"They can't hold us back forever!"
Thianna reinforced that statement by firing a salvo of cluster munitions at the Obelisk of Odium's closest point-defense turrets, giving her allies more precious time.
"Make your ancestors proud, for the glory of the Republic!"
Thanks to all those contributions, the Obelisk's outermost systems of protection were now temporarily weakened. It was time to put the Holdo Maneuver into action.
Korra's ship made the final push:
"Activating Distortion Motor in 3... 2... 1..."
BOOOOM!!!
An enormous explosion engulfed the entire structure of the Obelisk, sending the Republic starfighters spinning out of control but otherwise unharmed, while a cloud of cosmic dust was left behind from the cataclysmic collision.
"Is it... finally over?," Sokka asked, trembling in his seat, as if he was freezing, like the vacuum of space just outside his cockpit.
"We have no choice but to wait and see," Katara replied, visibly tense and on alert.
"Surely Korra's selfless act of martyrdom will have meant something?," Thianna mused.
When the miniature nebula left over from the explosion dissipated, the squad's worst fear was made dreadfully obvious: The Obelisk was not destroyed by the blast made by Avatar Korra's ship going supernova. In fact, the massive object didn't even appear to have a single scratch on its surface.
Even the company's most prominent optimist, Katara, was stricken with despair.
"After all we've done... it's still not enough? Are we predestined to fail?"
Clearly not caring what the Water Tribe warrior said, Thianna persisted with trying to keep the group's fighting spirit and morale alive.
"We've fought this hard, and come this far. And there's no such thing as a truly invincible enemy. We will regroup our squadron and fight our way through the gauntlet again!"
"Hold on," Sokka voiced with concern. "We've just lost all communications with Captain Rags! Where'd he go? And what's he doing?"
There was an agonizing moment of silence over the radio before a voice answered the call:
"You already know the answer to that, young wolf. Remember Thianna's joke about us pilots being expendable?"
Rags was going full-on Leeroy Jenkins, accelerating his X-Wing in a rapid attack run back towards the Obelisk. Except it wasn't a Leeroy Jenkins moment, because he had a scheme for victory in mind, plus the aid of all the clone trooper pilots involved in the space battle.
"Oh, my God-Emperor. Is he going to ram the space monolith too?!," Thianna said, somehow bewildered and stunned by the clone captain's audacity. "And look at that, our entire wing of escort pilots is accompanying him!"
"Even if all the clones planned to do the Holdo Maneuver simultaneously or in rapid succession, with the goal of having at least one person out of many getting it right, a good portion of them would not make it past the enemy defenses," Sokka summarized.
"Then what are we waiting for?," Katara voiced. "There's no time to lose, and everything is at stake! Let's help out our comrades, one last time!"
With that said, the reinvigorated Space Suicide Squad went in for another round of skirmishing and dogfights, to settle things here and now, once and for all.
If there was any good news, it was that the blast from Korra's unsuccessful Holdo Maneuver had utterly eradicated the initial swarms of flimsy, ramshackle Ork attack craft that had proved problematic for the Expendables.
Furthermore, the nova blast didn't destroy any Republic vessels, it merely threw them off course, since their energy shields were extremely durable, and designed to handle large indirect explosions from turbolasers and macrocannons.
The bad news, however, was that bigger, more durable and more heavily armed Greenskin starfighters were taking the place of the little ones.
Rags and his clone pilots were quickly assailed by a collection of gunships, fighter-bombers and interceptors, and were forced to steer away from the Obelisk, making a nerve-racking, painstaking effort to shake off their pursuers. At this point, they wouldn't last long, unless someone came up with a tactic to turn things around.
Fortunately, Sokka had an idea. Years of meticulously studying spacecraft functions and systems meant he knew hidden information about certain vessels that even the clone trooper pilots weren't aware of.
"Captain Rags! Your shield generators can do something special to get rid of these pests!"
"What might that be, Sokka? I'm in a bit of a life-and-death struggle right now, so make it quick!"
"Tap these buttons on your X-Wing's control panel, in the order I tell you! Green 12, Yellow 5, Red 3, Purple 18. They should trigger a hidden functionality that is universal to all the ship models we brought to this dogfight!"
Not even hesitating, Rags pressed those four designated buttons, as did Katara and Thianna.
Without warning, a mystical layer of rainbow-colored Force energy emerged from the hull of each starfighter in the Republic contingent. Whenever an enemy ship shot at this peculiar chromatic energy shield, their attack was reflected back at them, dealing ten times more damage in measurement of explosive energy.
The resulting colors from the detonations shined so bright, it briefly looked as if Gordasha had a second, very small sun. Now that their spacecraft were essentially invincible for the time being, the heroes could concentrate on their main objective.
"These are the best buttons ever!," Thianna exclaimed. "Now let's break the fourth wall and put an end to this madness!"
Rags led the way in his X-Wing, through a churning maelstrom of directed-energy beams and explosive ordnance. The Obelisk was immense, with the diameter of a dwarf planet, but it was ultimately meant to be destroyed by tiny, expendable fighters, not expensive capital ships like Star Destroyers.
Such a weakness wasn't actually that easy to exploit, though, even with the rainbow force fields Sokka had managed to activate- because within minutes of intense void combat, three dozen clone pilots had lost their lives, their force fields overloaded by extremely excessive amounts of enemy fire. If the squadron didn't pick up the pace, and carry out that impossible spaceflight technique, then this whole desperate gamble would all be for nothing.
"Forget the mission, we're dead anyways!," Sokka said, his mind beginning to shatter from the pressure of the dire circumstances.
"SHUT UP!," Katara snapped back, her fanatical anger overtaking her in the heat of the battle, though even she grudgingly admitted that there was no escape from this doomsday event.
The already disproportionately unfair dogfight had turned into a one-sided massacre, and the few remaining survivors closed their eyes and waited for the inevitable... but Rags, that ever-faithful clone trooper... well, let's just say, HE WASN'T HAVING IT.
At first, he seemed to accept his terrible fate, like everyone else.
"Damn it... Just like that, I've failed you... Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka... my dear friends. It really was all for nothing."
However... by some extraordinary cosmic miracle, his determination and conviction returned to him.
"...You know what? NO. I refuse to believe this is the end. My mind feels like it's splitting apart, insanity setting in, like everything I've ever been taught is a lie. But deep down in my heart, in my soul, there's a burning feeling that won't let me give up, even if my destiny is to die."
"This isn't just about the Galactic Republic, is it? If the puppet master orchestrating this entire war gets past us... they'll spread tyranny and chaos across all of existence. Everyone's hopes, dreams, freedoms, and desires for peace, vanquished in an instant. A multiverse without love, compassion or empathy."
"BUT I WILL NOT LET THAT HAPPEN. Not even in a billion years. Right now, everyone in my life, everyone in this moment of existence... I can feel their hearts beating as one."
"And we all have ONE purpose, ONE GOAL. To defeat YOU."
"Nameless Evil, Tyrant of the Cosmos, Corruptor of the Noble, Destroyer of Innocence, MURDERER OF MY FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND BROTHERS IN ARMS, I DEFY YOUR AUTHORITY!"
Right when morale had dropped to zero, and the concept of victory here seemed completely nonexistent throughout the entire multiverse, the clone soldier in charge of the failing operation did the unthinkable, and accomplished the impossible:
He turned on his Distortion Motor, and through sheer willpower, fulfilled his duty as a defender of the Republic. Admiral Holdo would be proud indeed, even if she was as incompetent as the history books suggested.
The resulting cosmic explosion sent the dreaded Obelisk of Odium and its payload of invasion forces back to the beginning of everything, which is to say, the enemy was reduced to nothingness, not even subatomic particles remained.
And by some extraordinary, miraculous coincidence, the blast didn't even harm the remaining Republic starfighter forces. Maybe Rags and Korra's acts of selfless altruism, giving up their own lives in order to save the lives of countless people they didn't know, somehow attracted the favor of an unknown being that was the polar opposite of the Nameless Evil. Or maybe it was just cartoonishly bad writing on the Maker's part.
Either way, it was a deus ex machina. When all hope was lost, an unexpected event saved the day.
"He... actually did it," Thianna said over the communications, both saddened and relieved. "We've won at last. But was the price truly worth it?"
"Regardless of the death toll, we can all agree that Rags' shot was one in a million," Sokka stated.
"Now let's go home, my partners in crime," Katara gratefully told her comrades and older brother, as they flew back to Grand Core, a beautiful sunrise on the now clear horizon, shining upon the rubble and ruin of a civilization that refused to die that day, in spite of the suffering and destruction.
A new wave of cheers and festivities broke out across the utterly wrecked hive city when the last remnants of the brave and the bold came swooping down in their battered starfighters. Meanwhile, the green menace had disintegrated and faded away, the fungal Beasts of Armageddon stopped mere minutes before they had the chance to detonate.
After a long, bloody and unimaginably costly battle, which was reported to have lasted seven terrible Terran days and nights, Vecna's latest insidious scheme had finally been thwarted, and the Dark Lord had suffered his first defeat as well as a major setback in his plans.
Gordasha was still standing, and Galactic Republic bureaucrats were already working on a plan to rebuild the Forge World's infrastructure, stronger than ever before, with even more industrial output. That being said, the plan would have undeniably been scrapped if Gordasha was destroyed by the Greenskin horde.
But although the battle had been won, and a decisive blow had been struck, the war was far from over.
Nonetheless, that last statement really didn't matter to Anakin, Keyleth, Thianna, Sidon, the Bender Crew, or any other member of the big, badass, over-the-top company of heroes that had contributed to the victory.
All that was important right now was that this nightmare was finally over, and that Gordasha was able to be rebuilt. The protectors of liberty would deal with future problems and threats when the time came.
For now, though, they had a moment of respite and solace.
"If one desires peace, you must be prepared for war."
EPILOGUE:
In the aftermath of the planetary invasion that devastated Gordasha, Anakin Skywalker and his fellow Republic commandos were providing much-needed aid to the homeless civilians, working at a soup kitchen, cleaning up large piles of rubble, and hauling construction supplies, among other jobs.
The restoration effort was picking up its pace, but it still had a long way to go before the Forge World would be able to produce large quantities of industrial goods again.
In a surprising move, Anakin took the role of Mr. Control Freak, being one of the Jedi Order members overseeing and monitoring the city cleanup effort.
"The medical products you gathered go in this stack of crates, Beidou. And Thianna, make sure to use that strength of yours to help the firefighters move around their hoses and extinguishers. Moving on with things... Sokka, Katara, you two are in charge of debris removal. Join the other Benders in the effort, they are short on sorely needed manpower since many of their comrades were wounded or killed during the battle."
His partners and assistants were happy to obey these orders, honestly.
"Yes sir, Master Jedi!," Sokka, Katara, Thianna and Beidou said in unison, before moving on to work on their designated tasks.
"There is still a long road ahead... but let's just take this day by day," Anakin thought to himself.
Taking a brief break from his job of community service, he sighed, sat down, and felt a pleasant sensation that he hadn't felt in years... he was at peace, knowing that people were working together for the common good of civilization during hard times.
Yes, the war was inevitably going to continue, but the famous Jedi felt content to live in the moment.
That's when the Force proceeded to rudely intervene and fill his head with NONSENSE!... or perhaps extremely important information.
"What the hell... WHERE AM I???"
A hallucination wormed its way into Anakin's brain, shifting his view to a strangely-designed space vessel flying through the stellar void- the Covenant's Forerunner Dreadnought, also known as the Anodyne Spirit, which had been hijacked and turned towards a new destination by House Anniera's cyber warriors back in Episode 4, Chapter 2.
The lucid vision then gave Anakin a clear look at the Time Lord device originally stolen by the Covenant in Episode 3, at the climax of the Siege of Hoth. It had been properly stolen back by pragmatic folks who planned to uncover its secrets for the good of the Republic.
The primordial relic, which was shaped like an archaic police box, of all things, was beginning to faintly radiate energy, and when this happened, a voice in the prophetic dream spoke to Anakin:
"If you truly desire to win the war to end all wars, you must continue your journey elsewhere, Knight of the Republic. Seek an audience with the Mechwarriors of House Anniera, who are currently traveling to the naval base and shipyard of Kronos Alpha."
"They are on a quest to solve the mystery behind the Revenant Box... but in reality, it is you who will inform them of its purpose, the power to bring beings back from the dead."
"Your mission is to deliver this crucial message to Janner Wingfeather and his two siblings. You must hurry, though- the Dark Lord and the Nameless Evil are getting closer to discovering our plans as we speak. If Vecna gets his hands on the Revenant Box, the consequences will be irreversibly catastrophic."
Anakin had one question for the theoretical Force ghost, who had yet to reveal their identity:
"I've received visions like this before... most recently, right before Gordasha was besieged. Are you the same voice from before? Who are you?"
The Force ghost wouldn't budge on this topic, but stated precisely why it was Anakin that was so important in this grand scheme.
"As of now, that matters not. The answer will come in time... so make your old master Obi-Wan Kenobi proud, and do what you believe is right. This mission needs you, Anakin. There are not many people in the Milky Way Galaxy, or even beyond, in other galaxies, who have the sheer determination that you do, combined with your passion for engineering and science. Your unique skill set is instrumental to winning the war to end all wars. And you certainly don't want to see a future where everyone is a slave from childhood, right? You would fight against that, harder than everyone else... because you used to be a slave yourself!"
Anakin made up his mind, and with that, the apparition departed, seemingly content with Anakin's resolve.
"I guess I've gotta stay true to myself... I can always do more to help my country. If this is a war to end all wars, then I'm going to keep fighting until my duty is fulfilled. Whatever comes next, you can bet I'll be thereto make a difference."
"Everyone's doing their part, right? And I know I'm not alone in my dream."
"So what can people do against such reckless hate?"
"Ride out and meet it, and end it for good."
When Anakin woke up from the trance, he was in a hospital bed, accompanied by Ahsoka, of all people. She had recently received news of where her Master was, and was understandably very thankful he had survived the absolute chaos of the attack on Gordasha.
"Master Skywalker, you're awake! You suddenly fell asleep in the middle of helping with the city rubble cleanup! And nobody could shake you awake! Aside from that... what do you plan on doing, now that the latest crisis to strike the Republic has come to a halt?"
Anakin's response?
"Get the keys to our starfighters... we've got another mission on our hands. But this time, it's just me and you. We've got business to take care of."
"Because from what I'm predicting, this mess is about to get a whole lot bigger."
SEASON 1 FINISHED!!!
Author's Note: After a year and a half, Starhammer 50k: Wave 1 is finally complete. I'm proud to announce it! But there are issues to be addressed with this storyline, too.
As I pointed out earlier, this fanfic does have the feature creep problem of incorporating too many franchises, which is why Season 2 will try to stick with the ones I have already derived content and characters from. Franchises will be added to the SH50K multiverse at a much slower pace.
Additionally, the biggest problem with my writing is that I struggle to write especially long and detailed story plots. Novel-length works aren't really something I am able to write, and as such, I prefer anthologies and short stories. Detail in particular was something I had a hard time with here, too- I often have an epic picture in my head, but I am unable to bring it to paper. I don't know if I'll ever get over those obstacles, but as long as I write, I'm probably going to end up learning something.
Honestly, I just wanted to finish SH50K Wave 1 by the end of this year, because I have a lot of other projects to work on, including some original ideas and amateur worldbuilding concepts that I might share on the Internet someday.
Now that I've finally completed my first fanfiction book, it's time to get working on my second, or add more details to my original tales, which may not ever become published novels, but will almost certainly be out on the Internet for everyone to see at some point.
Thank you for reading my stuff.
-Spuddies