"The Terran Systems Alliance Navy during its days of infancy was not the proud capital ship heavy force it is today, but rather a collection of whatever ships the similarly infantile TSA could manage to afford and maintain, whilst also being flexible enough for their still developing naval doctrine. Its initial force would consist of eight Dreadnaught-class heavy cruisers developed by Rendili Star Drive, and twenty Consular-class cruisers developed by the Corellian Engineering Corporation, alongside a single ship on the Gladiator-class of frigate originally built for the United States Navy.
These few original ships would be joined by a smattering of other designs such as a pair of Lightning-class destroyers and six Berlin-class corvettes, alongside a further pair of Gladiator-class frigates, by the time of the Sol Campaign. The only other ship of note was the TSS Valkyrie (CCV-1), the first in what would become a long line of Terran warships that bore the name 'battlecarrier'."
-The First Void Walkers: The Tale of the Terran Systems Alliance Navy during the Clone Wars, published 2039 A.D./24 ABY.
Thomas felt something shake him.
"Tommy" a voice called out. Jerking awake, he realized it was Will standing over him.
"Your time for watch, man," he said.
Thomas nodded at him, groaning as he moved to take his place in the middle of the room as Will took Thomas's former position to go to sleep.
Thomas kept his eyes on the door and his ears open for any possible sounds that would indicate someone entering their building. He could still hear the distant firing of what he thought might've been artillery rounds.
He sat there for over an hour, doing his best to keep from losing focus and letting his mind wander.
Thomas then heard a shuffle from behind him. Snapping his head around, he realized it was just Addie shifting around. After a few more seconds, she sat up, rapidly blinking her eyes. She then spotted him looking at her.
Thomas motioned for her to come over so as not to wake Will. She then got up and sat down in a chair next to him.
"Couldn't sleep?" Thomas whispered.
"Hard to after today," she replied. The pair sat in silence for a few moments before Thomas spoke.
"So, where are you from?" He asked. Sarah looked at him with a deadpan stare.
"That's your first question? After the day aliens invaded?"
Thomas shrugged. "Trying to break the ice. As well as not dwell on our situation for now" he said.
Addie looked at him inquisitively before speaking.
"Alright, how about we just go back and forth then?" she said. "I'll tell you something, you tell me something".
"Fair enough," Thomas replied, motioning for her to start.
"I'm from lower Maryland. Decided to join the army to get away from the family oyster business."
"Didn't know that Maryland had oyster farms," Thomas said.
"There are dozens up there," Addie replied. "Not the biggest business, but it'll pay the bills. Your turn."
"I come from a smaller town just outside of Norfolk, Virginia. My family always preferred the navy, grandfather was a fighter pilot in the Pacific. I, however, wanted to keep my feet on the ground. So I joined the army out of high school and haven't looked back since."
"Why'd you want to join up though?" Addie asked. "Don't really make a decision like that on a whim."
Thomas sighed. "I always felt that there was more to my life than just working a nine to five at an office. The stories my grandfather would tell me, limited as they were in detail until I got older, made me want to help people in the best way I could".
"Yeah, I know how that feels. I've gone my whole life wanting to fight for a cause actually worth fighting for" Addie said. Her gaze steeled.
"Perhaps this is our chance. We can beat these bastards back to the factories that they were made in. Then turn those factories into so much rubble they'd think it was just normal rocks."
"We do that, we can keep those they'd harm safe. That is the mission after all, despite how Will is likely to brag about his kill count on the way there" Thomas joked.
"You two seem to know each other much better than someone you just met during basic. What's the story there?" Addie asked. Apparently, she was more perceptive than Thomas had thought if she was able to pick that up from only a few sentences of conversation.
"We've known each other since we were kids. He's from Texas originally, parents moved after his father joined the navy and got based in Norfolk."
Thomas chuckled. "He certainly kept the redneck attitude, if not the beliefs. Anyway, we met up at school when we were about eleven or so, had a scuffle with some douchebag bullies, been friends ever since".
Addie snickered. "That certainly one way to meet a friend."
"Alright, something else about me I suppose. My parents are from Scotland, moved here just before I was born, so I don't usually have the accent. People do say it sometimes slips through when I'm mad though."
"Care to show?" Thomas asked jokingly.
"I think I'll save that for later," Addie replied smirking.
Thomas smiled back. It was good to just talk to someone. Helped to focus the mind, rather than just let one constantly worry about what was to come.
They simply listened in silence for some time after that, the distant sounds of war having lessened during the night but were now beginning to pick back up. Right as two and a half hours had passed, Thomas went to wake Will, his shift having been the last before sunrise.
"Hey bucko," he said. "Time to rise and shine."
Will groaned and struggled to his feet. "Alright boy and girl," he said, rubbing his eyes and then grabbing his machine gun. "Let's get a move on back home, shall we?"
The trio stacked up on the door before slowly pushing it open.
Nothing.
Thomas exited first, followed by Sarah, and then by Will. As they pushed out back to the front of the building, they constantly checked their corners, halting at every noise that sounded close by. Eventually they made their way to where they came in, noting that the ray shield that had activated the previous day was still up.
Even from ground level however, they could see dozens of aircraft battling it out above the shield, some even crashing against it.
"Okay, let's move," Will said.
Hundreds of miles off the coast, a new force prepared to join the battle in Charleston.
Dozens of warships closed in on the port city, headed by a pair of massive aircraft carriers, who planned to launch dozens of aircraft and missiles into Charleston as soon as the shield came down.
Though for now, fighters would suffice. Onboard the USS Independence and USS Ranger, F-14D Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets were being slung off the catapults as fast as the catapults could gather steam. Once they were all in the air, the number of aircraft totaled over forty. All dead set on scoring the greatest number of kills for their squadron that day.
However, before they could even begin their approach towards the city, the carrier's aircraft controllers called in several dozen bogies incoming from the coastline.
Via coordination from multiple different radar systems and AWACS aircraft, they were able to eventually identify them as a group of over sixty Vulture droid fighters and Hyena droid bombers. The fleet immediately tightened their escort screen, and the fighters climbed for altitude. Going to action stations wasn't needed. They'd been at them ever since they had pulled within four-hundred miles off the coast.
As they closed to just over eighty miles from the fleet, interceptor missiles began to launch from various vessels. After nearly two minutes in flight, they began to close with the Separatist fighters. Just as many were about to hit, the droids activated their jammers. Many of the missiles then went wide, missing sometimes by feet, other by several dozen yards.
Not all the droids were that lucky, however.
Eighteen missiles hit their mark, sending eleven Vultures and seven Hyena's down in flames. The others kept up their advance towards their own weapon release points. The fleet launched interceptor after interceptor, many of which failed to track fully to their targets, whilst others managed to hit.
By the time they reached the target zone, over a third of the attacking force had been destroyed.
Now it was time for the aviators of the U.S. Navy to show who ruled these waters.
The F-14s led the charge into the fair, locking up the droids with long range AIM-120 missiles, the F/A-18s right behind them. The droids tried to evade and jam the missiles, but it was no use. Over a dozen more hostile aircraft fell from the sky. One Tomcat swung onto the tail of a diving Vulture. Quickly locking the droid up, he then launched an AIM-7 Sparrow at it. It deployed electro-chaff, as it had come to be known amongst the pilots of Earth, but the missile ran straight and true, blowing the fighter's wing off...
"Splash two baby!" Peter B. Mitchell yelled in excitement as the wing of the Vulture he had just shot down tumbled through the sky in front of them.
"You are trying to get us killed, Mav!" his back seater, Sam Wells exclaimed.
Peter, callsign Maverick, only grinned.
"Come on Merv, where's your sense of excitement?" he asked.
"I'll be excited for the kill when we're not in the middle of a furball!" Wells, callsign Merlin, said with frustration.
He wasn't wrong either. Having been launched from the USS Kitty Hawk nearly an hour earlier, the pair's Tomcat, alongside nearly seventy other aircraft, had been sent to assist in the battle over the city of Los Angeles.
Whilst Air Force aircraft had already been fighting over the city for nearly two days and done serious damage to the CIS's ground and air forces, their pilots had to rest at some point.
Hence the Navy and Marines were called up to take their place for the time being. Two carrier strikes had already been conducted whilst doing these intervals between the branches, and now the third strike was well underway.
Maverick pulled the Tomcat up into a dive, lining up behind another Vulture, itself trailing an A-6 Intruder pulling out of its bombing run. Given the proximity of the Intruder to his target, a missile shot risked hitting it instead of the Vulture. So, he pulled in behind the droid and lined up for a gun kill.
He pulled the trigger for less than two seconds. Dozens of 20mm rounds slammed into the Vulture, the majority centering around its head module, and tearing the fighter apart. Spiralling out of control, it went down and down until...
It splashed into the water. The Hyena bomber that had been aiming for the USS Guam would never see another battle.
Once that last bomber sank beneath the waves, the Guam returned to her fire support mission. The Japanese Self Defense Forces were currently heavily engaged in downtown Tokyo, and despite numerous airstrikes, as well as naval gunfire and missile support, the droids were not letting up their assault.
Guam kept up her barrage, laying shell after shell down range. Having fired off all but four of her twenty-four Tomahawk cruise missiles, she was practically down to her guns alone to help the troops in the city.
Nearby, the USS Missouri and the JS Yamato did much the same.
The Missouri and Guam, alongside the USS Forrestal Carrier Battlegroup, had been sent to beef up the security in the Western Pacific only weeks before the invasion. Joining the USS Midway Carrier Group already homeported there, as well as local JSDF ships, it made for a substantial force.
The JS Yamato on the other hand, was a rather interesting tale.
The former Imperial Japanese battleship had been captured by the allies in the aftermath of the Second World War. She was then taken as a war prize by the United States and taken across the Pacific to the homeland of the enemy she had spent her entire existence fighting against. Wasting away tied to a west coast pier in Bremerton, Washington, she escaped the scrapyard only by bureaucratic gridlock and sheer luck.
When Britain, France, and the United States had wanted to reactivate the aging battleships in their reserve fleets to counter the newly reinvigorated Soviet Navy in the early 1980's, the Japanese government offered to assist with the construction of new factories that would make the newer shells, barrels, and other equipment required to do so cost effectively. They had requested only one guarantee in exchange.
They wanted the Yamato back. Modernized and refitted for modern naval combat for use in their own navy.
This was initially rejected by the U.S. Government, who started to take steps to finally scrap the ship. However, with the Japanese offering to pay for the reactivation work to be done in an American Yard (which they pretty much had to do as Japan lacked a military shipyard with a big enough dock for the ship for an extended refit, baring a single dock in Yokosuka), alongside paying for the ship itself and the financial assistance with the other ships, the offer was eventually accepted.
After nearly four years in and out of drydock, she would be finally commissioned into the JMSDF in 1986, alongside a newly purchased JS Yonaga, the former USS Oriskany, whose own role was that of an anti-submarine carrier.
Now, the massive battleship (redesignated a coastal battery ship) would fight alongside her once fierce enemies in defense of its homeland.
As the pair of battleships and their escorts closed into firing range alongside the Guam, yet another wave of Hyena bombers and Vulture droids broke through the fighter screen around the ships.
The Hyena's launched dozens of proton torpedoes at them, whilst the Vulture's dove in for strafing runs.
The aging vessel's Phalanx CIWS fired at everything in sight, whilst the nearby destroyer Kongō shot out several SM-2 interceptor missiles at the torpedoes and the bombers that launched them, successfully neutralizing over twenty torpedoes and four bombers.
But it just wasn't enough.
Three torpedoes slammed into the aft of the Guam, destroying her aft starboard and centerline five-inch turrets.
Another slammed into the destroyer Fletcher, destroying its starboard superstructure. Yet more torpedoes struck the helicopter destroyers Hiei and Haruna, tearing the ships apart from nearly bow to stern. Fletcher would then come alongside the Hiei to attempt to evacuate as many men as possible.
Twenty minutes later, the Fletcher would pull away as the pair of Japanese destroyers began to slip beneath the waves with the loss of nearly a third of both ships' crews.
On the Guam, the situation was marginally better. Whilst the torpedoes had caused major damage to her aft sensor equipment, her aft 12-inch turret was still able to fire. As if the ship itself was lashing out in rage at the deaths of her crew, her main battery spoke in unison, targeting a set of AAT tanks near the Tokyo ports.
The shells slammed nearly directly on top of the lead tank, practically atomizing it, alongside destroying those tanks which formed the leading elements of the formation.
The Guam, alongside the Missouri and Yamato, continued to lay down shell after shell, with one of Yamato's shells in particular landing barely a few hundred meters in front of a flight of F-15E Strike Eagles going for a strike on a building housing a number of droid snipers.
The lead Strike Eagle launched a JDAM, which headed straight towards a window on the building's third floor...
The nearby World Trade Center #5 shook from a missile strike as a pair of A-10 Warthogs flew over. LAV-25 IFVs fired down the street as Marines advanced toward the Phalanx of battle droids. Simultaneously, F-16's launched several JDAM at several Persuader-class droid enforcers behind said phalanx, utterly annihilating the slow-moving vehicles. Not all were destroyed, however.
Several more Persuaders advanced on the LAVs, whilst the Marines were forced to pull back to avoid being overrun. Nearby Bradley's attempted to assist, downing another pair of enforcers. It wasn't enough.
The Persuader's heavy blaster tore into a trio of LAVs, tearing them apart. They then turned their guns onto the retreating marines, killing several.
The battle for New York City was not going well.
The city's massive skyscrapers limited the effectiveness of non-precise artillery, leaving only direct attack munitions effective. The CIS's advance had been swift, capturing nearly 60% of uptown Manhattan, leaving the center of the city under constant assault from heavy armor and waves of infantry.
"Damn it!" Staff Sergeant Ray Tomar exclaimed in frustration. He and his squad were hiding behind the wreckage of one of the LAVs, just a street over from the Persuader's engagement with the Bradley's, firing as opportunity allowed.
"Got thirty hostiles 600 meters out sir! They got a Spider-droid with 'em!" one of his men, Private Steve Rose, called out.
Ray looked just around the LAV's aft wheels. Just over two dozen B1 droids were slowly advancing on their position, and just as Rose had said, one dwarf spider droid was amongst them. Its medium heavy laser cannon could blow Humvees apart with a single shot. It had to be taken out before it got within range of the other remaining marines about 200 meters behind Ray's teams' current position.
"Williams! Bring your rocket up!" Ray ordered. Corporal Renea Williams raised the team's SMAW rocket launcher up upon her shoulder.
"Rose, Grant, with me. We'll draw their fire."
The three went around the front end of the LAV running for a large piece of debris from a building, firing at the droids to draw their attention. They returned fire, with the Spider droid firing a pair of bolts that impacted only a dozen or feet in front of their new cover.
Just as the droids had their full attention on the group of three Marines, Williams raised her launcher around the corner.
"Clear backblast!" She yelled. The marine behind her called out 'Clear!' and she fired.
The nearly ten-pound warhead launched at a speed of over 700 feet a second, with barely two and a half seconds between launch and impact. The Spider-droid's head practically disintegrated, with the explosion also taking out most of its escort, whilst the last two droids standing were quickly shredded by rifle fire before they could retreat.
"Ha! That's what I'm talking about!" Rose said in maniacal glee.
"Good work Williams! Now let's get back to the line, move it!" Ray said.
Despite their personal victory, the strategic situation in the city remained the same. If there wasn't a change in who controlled the momentum of the battle, the Americans faced the possibility of losing their most famous city.
In Hamburg however, it was a different story. Leopard tanks fired their guns almost non-stop. Challenger II's flanked their German allies, whilst French Dassault Mirage 5's flew overhead. The combined forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, fought together with a zeal that many would not have imagined over fifty years earlier.
Whilst the CIS had landed their transports at Hamburg-Finkenwerder airport and the coastal swampland that surrounded it, they had taken a surprisingly long time to advance on the city proper.
Giving the defenders plenty of time to shore up their forces.
Even before the main vanguard of NATO arrived, the German Army had blunted the attempted assault on the city. With the arrival of the militaries of France, the U.K, Spain and the U.S., the Separatists were quickly and efficiently beaten back to their landing ships.
With an unexpected flanking amphibious assault supported by a massive naval force including six aircraft carriers and dozens of escorts, the Separatist forces were driven away from the airport and deeper into the marshlands. The terrain then became the biggest enemy to the Terran forces. Whilst the mud made it practically impossible for tracked and wheeled vehicles to go any further, hover tanks had no such weakness. Both sides attempted to draw the other out of their defensive positions with no success. Instead, dozens of smaller battles between various artillery and tank units, alongside numerous air strikes, became the norm.
Standing in contrast to the German port city, Moscow was holding on by the skin of its teeth.
T-series tanks were everywhere to be found. Su-27s, Mig-29s and dozens more fighters scrambled across the sky. All the while infantry attempted to hold off the waves upon waves of droids surrounding the city. The collapse of the Soviet Union three years earlier had led to much of the former superpower's strength being divided amongst its former republics, and even then, much of the equipment had fallen into disrepair since the collapse of the Soviet engineering worker force in 1985.
Even with that handicap however, the Russians were still fighting for every inch of ground against the largest single droid army on the planet. Shell after shell, fired from dozens of AAT tanks, smashed against the lines of T-72s and T-80 currently defending the outskirts of the city.
"AAT spotted, seven hundred meters! Gunner, Sabot, send it!" cried the commander of the T-72BV3 People's Wrath, a man who was named Ivan Aleksandrvich Chorkov, an experienced staff sergeant and tanker in the Russian Army, though he occasionally slipped up and still called it the Red Army from time to time. This man had been a grizzled veteran of the Afghan War. He had seen so much death, destruction, and carnage that nothing could phase him.
Or, so he had thought.
His gunner confirmed the order, pulling the trigger. "Sent!" was his cry. The 125mm smoothbore cannon shot forth its payload, rocking the tank with the force of the recoil and emitting a mighty roar as the autoloader went to work already loading a fresh round in from the carousel storage unit beneath their feet.
The armor-piercing fin-stabilizing discarding sabot was one of the greatest inventions of Earth's history in tank warfare. Designed and fielded first during the end of the Second World War and perfected further in the proxy conflicts of the Cold War, the sabot could pierce through most armor like a hot knife through churned butter. Against the tanks fielded by the CIS, it was having a deadly effect, as those had been designed to deflect superheated plasma, not defeat purely kinetic rounds.
The AAT was no exception to this.
The sabot crossed the distance between Stalin's Wrath and the enemy tank in under half a second, and found its mark, easily punching through its armored hull and hitting the tibanna gas tanks used for powering its weaponry. The AAT exploded in a brilliant ball of flame; its turret being tossed a good thirty meters in the air before it came crashing down in a violent heap of twisted metal.
"Confirmed. One enemy tank destroyed," Ivan proclaimed, confirming the destruction through the tank's thermal rangefinders. "Driver, get us into another spot. I don't want to be a sitting duck for these sukas so they can do the same to us," he ordered, remembering how many Russian tanks he's seen in his lifetime be violently destroyed thanks to the placement of their ammo. The driver did as he was ordered, moving towards another tree line while Ivan popped his head out of the turret and started to scan for further threats from the air and land, all the while trying to shut out the incoming panicked chatter on the radio as Russia desperately tried to defend their most precious city. One phrase kept coming up.
Cargo Two-Hundred, which in Soviet terminology meant men killed in action. They, like their ancestors, were spilling much blood and treasure to defend their Motherland.
It had to be worth it.
In hyperspace, the Republic fleet was rapidly approaching Sol. On the bridge of the Resolute the three Jedi, alongside their clone commanders and Yularen were analyzing a hologram of the Earth.
"In terms of ground forces, recent intelligence tells us that the engagements in the regions of Japan and Germany seem to be going quite well for the Terrans. The other battles, however, are still in flux." Yularen said.
"The Russian capital is still being assaulted by thousands of heavy droid units. Across the North American continent, there are three separate fronts being fought over, with a fourth resulting in a Terran victory just yesterday," he continued. As he spoke, the hologram highlighted the locations he referred to, which had various data points alongside them.
"I'm noticing that this battle is the only one in which a ray shield is in play," Anakin said, gesturing to the southeast of the continent.
"From what we have gathered it was planned to deploy them at every drop point, but many of the transports that had them were either shot down, or the generators were destroyed on the ground before they could be activated."
It was then that Cody decided to speak up.
"We will have to divide our forces in order to turn the campaign around quickly. We can't afford a protracted campaign with just the resources we have on hand."
"Alright, here is what we will do," Obi-Wan said. "Once we punch a hole through the orbital blockade, we'll put our efforts into the battles that will benefit the most from our assistance, those being the ones in the United States and Russia. Cody, you will lead half the 7th Sky Corps to the city of Los Angeles, whilst I will assist the Russians with the other half."
"Anakin," he continued, turning to look at the man in question. "You and the 501st will have to handle the American eastern coast."
"We always get the tough jobs, don't we?" he asked with a smirk whilst turning to his Padawan and Captain.
"Ahsoka, Rex, you'll head to Charleston whilst I head to New York. You'll have to land some forces deep inside the shield to outflank the droids. The rest of the men will help the Terrans push the droids' lines back. Once you destroy the shield generator, our bombers will be able to level the playing field."
"Consider it done Master," Ahsoka said.
"Once we exit hyperspace, I'll contact the Terran fleet," Yularen said. "They were last reported to be in a holding pattern over the planet of Venus. If we can catch the Separatist fleet in a pincer, then we could potentially destroy it before they have a chance to escape."
"Let's see if we can get them to drag their ground forces back to their ships before we close that pincer. The more we can kill on their ships, the less casualties we'll take on the surface" Obi-Wan recommended.
"A fair idea sir" Yularen finished.
It was then that an officer approached the table. "General, we'll be exiting hyperspace in just over thirty minutes."
"Thank you, trooper," Obi-Wan said. The clone saluted in response and walked away.
"Rex, Cody, get the boys ready in the hanger. We deploy as soon as we breach the blockade." Anakin ordered.
"Yes sir!" the clones replied.
As they made their way off the bridge, Anakin turned to Ahsoka.
"You think you're up for this? This isn't going to be a simple walk in the park" he asked her.
"You've trained me well. The Seps won't know what hit them. I'm more worried what impression I'll make on the locals," she replied.
She then smirked. "But what I'm not worried about is what the score board is going to look like."
"Oh really? Well, we'll see who comes out on top this time. If I recall correctly, I won 120-97 at Devron" Anakin said.
"And I'm going to double that, just you wait and see."
After what seemed like an eternity of walking, even though it had only been about an hour, the group of U.S. Army troopers took a moment to rest inside a broken-down house. Just like the day before, they hadn't exactly been traveling in a straight line. Between having to dodge dozens of droid patrols and checkpoints, they'd only covered maybe four miles of ground. Even if the lines hadn't moved from the last time we'd been there, they still had several more to go.
"How the hell are there so many of these guys?" Will said as yet another patrol went on by.
"From what I've heard; the bastards are all about quantity over quality," Sarah replied.
"Well, that's nice to know. I'll be sure to show them how much quality matters then," Will said as he grit his teeth.
"We need to pick up our pace," Thomas said, interrupting their conversation. "At this rate we won't get out of here before they have the entire city locked down."
"How?" Sarah asked. "We stick our necks out in the open for even a second, someone is bound to see us and call down the wrath of god."
"I don't know how, but if we don't-."
"Heads up! Get back!" Will interrupted, pushing the other two deeper into the building and forcing the startled pair into cover near the opposite wall. Thomas wondered why Will had done such a thing when he heard it.
The distant clanking of battle droids. Dozens of them.
Thomas looked through a crack in their cover as the droids came around the corner, revealing a massive column of them ranging from B1s and B2s up to Crab and Dwarf Spider droids. Then came a trio of AAT tanks, their gun barrels glinting menacingly in the midday sun.
Then the tanks stopped.
Thomas pulled back instinctively, and the three Terrans tensed. Then they heard a voice, deeply mechanical in nature.
"Yes, General Kalani?" it asked.
"What is the status of your engagement with the Terrans?" another such voice, presumably General Kalani, responded.
Thomas looked through the crack again as what he then recognized as a tactical droid aboard one of the tanks responded.
"Current forces are not sufficient to keep Terran forces at bay. At their current rate of advance, they will reach the secondary lines of defense within the next four hours. Requesting sufficient orbital support to attack Terran supply and logistic hubs, and an additional two divisions to repel Terran armored formations. With these additional units, I calculate the probability of a Terran victory at 1,394 to 1" it said.
The tactical droid in the hologram the former one was holding was silent for a few seconds.
"Your request will be granted," it said. "With these resources you will destroy the Terrans before they regain the initiative, or you will be destroyed alongside them."
"Of course, General Kalani" it emotionlessly replied.
After disconnecting the transmission, the droid motioned for its troops to continue their advance. After the clanking of their heels had finally gone silent, Thomas turned to the others.
"Well, at least we know we're still in the fight," he said.
"Yeah, but for how much longer?" Will asked. "You heard what the droid said. They're bringing down more of these bastards soon."
"Doesn't matter for the moment as we have no way of telling anyone what we heard," Sarah said. "But this does give us an opportunity."
"To do what?" Thomas asked.
"To take out some of their command structure," Sarah replied. "That droid is probably in charge of at least a large number of troops. They love their chain of command, so if we take him out, we could seriously hamper their ability to reposition across the city, giving our forces the advantage" she finished.
"Now hold a minute. That's a pretty big ask" Will said. "It would be us three versus what is practically half a battalion at least. Not even including any other guys who are definitely going to show up once their boss is under attack."
"I'm not saying it's going to be as easy as find him and shoot him, but if we just keep running back and forth on the way to base, we're just going to end up dead before we get there with nothing to show for it."
"If we just-"
"We should go after him," Thomas said. Will looked at him as if he had grown a third eye.
"Are you serious?! It's practically suicide!" he said.
"What do you think we signed up for, Will?" Thomas asked. "What do you think we were trained for? It was for this. Our chance to possibly turn the tide of an entire war! This is our chance to do something very few are called upon to do, and as such we must do it. For the sake of our brothers and sisters we might save by doing it if nothing else."
Will closed his eyes and sighed. "Damn you and your sense of righteousness," he said, opening his eyes. "Fine, let's do it. But what's the plan exactly?" he asked.
"Well, we're going to have to find him first. Which will be relatively simple" Sarah said.
"Simple how?" Thomas asked. In response Sarah pointed to the road where the droids had traveled through.
Leaving dozens of footprints behind in the dust and debris in the process.
"Just like hunting any other animal. We follow the trail."
Earth Orbit
CSV Redundant
"Our forces have finished withdrawing from Tokyo and Hamburg and are ready for redeployment," Kalani told Tuuk. "The advance in New York has stalled, as has the one in Los Angeles. Charleston has also seen significant setbacks with Terran forces still attempting to regain the initiative. Our forces in Moscow, however, have had more success though they are still heavily engaged by the Russian military."
"Casualty estimates?" Tuuk asked.
"Estimated Terran losses range from 40,000 to 90,000 troops and up to 1,400 heavy vehicles and aircraft. At the current rate of attrition, up to a million additional droid units will be needed to force a surrender."
Tuuk sighed and placed his head in his hands. This was not going as well as he had hoped.
"Sir, several ships exiting hyperspace!" a droid alerted him.
"Identification?" Kalani asked.
Just then the ships arrived, revealing a sizable Republic fleet.
"Republic. Markings indicate elements of the Open Circle Fleet. Twelve cruiser class, thirty-six escort class, sixteen transport class."
Tuuk slammed his hand on his chair's armrest. Just when he thought this couldn't get any worse!
"Set formation delta-24 and launch fighters! We must not let them breach the blockade!" Tuuk ordered.
Hundreds of droid fighters and bombers streamed out the Separatist ships' hangers, heading straight for the Republic fleet.
On the bridge of the Resolute, Admiral Yularen looked out the viewport at the enemy fleet.
"Commence attack! All ships launch fighters and fire at will!" he ordered.
Fighters, for once exceeding the number of their CIS opponents, streamed out of hangers and into the void. At the same time the Republic fleet closed in on the blockade, its Venators taking the lead escorted by several cruisers each. All the while the Acclamators remained in the rear, waiting for their opportunity.
Dozens of turbolaser bolts raced back and forth between the fleets, whilst fighters made strafing runs and tangled with their counterparts, whilst bombers launched their payloads. A pair of munificent frigates were the first to fall victim to Republic fire, shortly joined by a Lucrehulk that was caught by the Resolute and her sister ship Triumphant and their dozens of Y-wings and ARC-170s. In return, several Hyena droid squadrons managed to break through the Republic fighter screen and launch torpedo runs on the Venators Valiant and Renown, severely damaging them, whilst a pair of Consular cruisers were caught out in the open by the Redundant and subsequently destroyed. Then yet another pair of frigates fell victim to Negotiator's turbolasers.
This left a large gap in the blockade. One that the Acclamators exploited.
They rushed into the gap, joined by several hundred gunships, both infantry and vehicle carriers, launched from the Venators and a sizable fighter escort. As they slipped past the Separatist fleet, they split up and set course for the four remaining battles raging across the surface.
Aboard one such gunship were Ahsoka, Rex and several other clones. Their drop point was to be downtown Charleston, whilst their four Acclamators landed behind Terran lines and brought their much heavier equipment in the long way.
"Double check your gear boys, we don't want to be surprised down there" Ahsoka said.
As the clones did so, Rex stepped into the center of the gunship to get their attention.
"Alright men, we all know what we're here to do," he said. "The Seppies have decided they want this piece of real estate, and the locals aren't so keen on letting that happen and neither are we, so we're going to help them out with this little endeavor but be on your guard until we establish contact. They are likely to be very trigger happy for anything that isn't wearing their uniforms right now, and civi's are likely to still be scattered around. Do I make myself clear?"
"Sir yes sir!" the clones replied.
As the clones continued to check their gear, one turned to another.
"So, these guys just use slug throwers?" the former clone asked.
"Yeah, apparently they're not like the ones you're probably thinking of though. They have high rates of fire and a big punch! Can't wait to try one out! Don't worry though Jesse, we won't let you get hit by some pointy rocks," the other replied.
"Oh, I'm sure you will Hardcase. Just make sure you don't have to be the one Kix fixes up again will you?" Jesse replied.
"Thirty seconds out from the drop point Commander! We're going to have to run the gauntlet to get through the shield!" the gunship's pilot said.
"Do what you do best Hawk, we need to get down there" Ahsoka said.
The flight of gunships streamed toward the city, still covered in the shield as the intelligence reports said. As they approached, a flight of Vulture droids fired on them. Returning fire with their forward cannons and their side-mounted particle beams, they were able to soon bring down one of the fighters, though not without losing two of their number in the process.
As the Vultures blew past the gunships, a pair of F-16s also roared by them in pursuit, clearly seeking to destroy the droids before they could do any more damage.
The gunships then slowed their approach and passed through the shield, those inside feeling a slight tingle as they did so. Only seconds after doing so, they began to target various droid units along the way into the city. Rockets, laser cannon rounds, and particle beams began to tear into the droids, who struggled to retain unit cohesion amongst the aerial firepower now arrayed against them. American infantry and vehicles surged forward at their arrival, reinvigorated by the sight of the utter destruction of so much of their enemy.
As the dropships reached the frontline, they disgorged their complement of infantry, as well as AT-RT and AT-TE walkers. Ahsoka, Rex and the others jumped out of the gunship and joined the fray, the clones blasting any droid they saw whilst Ahsoka covered them with her lightsaber.
"Go go go! Keep them pinned!" Rex ordered the other clones. The droids attempted to put up a defense, but the Republic's finest tore them apart with ease.
Time to show the natives how it was done.
"Well, that's certainly something" Thomas said, watching what he knew were Republic gunships flying overhead, releasing their ordinance as they went.
"Looks like the Republic decided to get off its butt and help out" Will noted.
"Come on! We need to keep after the tactical droid before we lose its trail," Sarah emphasized.
So, the trio kept along, listening to the sounds of war all around them as they went. Only a few minutes later, they came across a field of destroyed droids and dead soldiers. An Abrams was wrecked nearby, having been partially crushed by a fallen building.
Will slowly moved to check each trooper's body. None were still alive. He then solemnly took their tags and their ammo. Thomas then noticed something peculiar.
"Hey, look at this" he called to the others who came over.
It was a B1 battle droid. Mostly intact saves for some minor exterior damage.
"Seems mostly intact," Sarah said. "Why isn't it working?"
Will lifted the droid and set it up against a nearby wall. The three examined it until Will spotted something.
"Here! Look at its neck" he said. Sarah leaned in, noting that it seems to be broken at its root, like it had been smashed by either a heavy object or was forced to bend using brute strength.
"It seems like the root broke rather than the neck itself," Will continued. "If I just..."
He trailed off before spotting another droid, this one blown in half. However, its head was still intact. Will walked over and grabbed it by the neck.
"If I just put some pressure at this angle..." he said. Then the droid's neck snapped to one side, sparks flying from it. Will looked at the others triumphantly.
"Their neck will break. That'll allow us to get a lot closer to that Tactical droid without having to shoot all the guards" he said.
"Nice work brother," Thomas congratulated.
Sarah then walked over to a Super battle droid and fiddled with its armor plating. "I think this thing's armor only covers the upper torso. Looks like some rifle rounds didn't penetrate it up here, but right below it they went right on through," she said, pointing to the respective places she spoke of. "If we can hit them below the torso, it should at the very least disable the damn things" she finished.
"Well, now that we know how to kill them, all we have to do is find them," Thomas said.
Suddenly an explosion sounded from far up ahead, red laser fire coming at them immediately after, sending the Americans scrambling for cover behind a nearby car.
"Found them!" Will said.
"Yeah, yeah, you're damn hilarious!" Thomas yelled sarcastically.
"Not the time guys!" Sarah emphasized as she fired back.
"Will get set up on the trunk! I'll cover you!" Thomas ordered.
As he fired through the car's broken windows, Will did as he said, his machine gun sending dozens of rounds towards the now advancing squad of battle droids. His rounds caught the first pair, but the remaining three took cover behind their own cars.
The Terrans continued to keep the droids pinned down, until a round from Sarah hit one directly in the face, killing it. The last pair stepped out near the end of their car, rapidly firing at the trio to keep the Terrans pinned this time. Sarah then pulled a grenade, waited three seconds, then threw it.
"Grenade out!" she yelled. It bounced down the street, landing just in front of the droids. One of which picked the dang thing up and looked at it before it blew up in its face, taking its partner down with it.
"We need to move now!" Sarah said. The troopers immediately ran to a nearby alleyway, hearing the clanking of more droids coming up the street. As they ran through a connecting alley, a pair of supers rounded the corner on the other end, and immediately fired upon them. Sarah and Thomas fired back whilst they dove into the alley's left side outcroppings whilst Will did the same on the alley's right. In a panic, Thomas fired his grenade launcher at them, blowing the SBDs into nothing but piles of scrap.
"Come on!" Will said. They continued to run, reaching the other end of the alley and entering the next street. They then ran down that, eventually entering a nearby storefront, checking their surroundings for any further sign of the enemy.
Then something odd happened.
Stop her.
Thomas froze. "What the hell was that?" he thought.
Stop her.
There it was again. An odd sensation in his mind. Like some sort of warning.
In confusion he looked at Sarah. She was hugging the corner of a window, about to use it to look down the street.
STOP HER NOW.
Thomas immediately yanked her back as she went for a look, causing her to yelp. Not even a millisecond after, a red bolt went through the air where her head would have been.
"Sniper!" Will exclaimed. Yet another shot rang out as he dove away from his own window. This droid seemed especially trigger happy. To test that, Thomas threw a piece of wood out in front of the window. Sure enough, another bolt appeared, barely missing the board.
Ahsoka blocked several bolts sent her way, a pair of which she reflected to their originating droids. Rex then moved up beside her.
"These should be the last droids in this area" he told her whilst firing his pistols.
"Good, we can't push all the way to the coast by ourselves. We're going to have to wait for the Terrans to catch up" Ahsoka replied as Kix nailed the last droid in the head.
"Commander," Jesse said as he ran up. "Gunship 459 said it spotted a trio of Terran troops under heavy fire about five streets down. They tried to radio them but got no response."
"Anybody else close enough to assist them?" Ahsoka asked him.
"Negative, we're it," he replied.
"Then let's get a move on boys, we got some troopers to save."
"We need to flush this thing out," Tom said.
"Those shots came from across the street," Will replied.
"I'll draw his fire. He shows himself; you shoot him to pieces!" Sarah ordered. As she ran out into the street, diving behind various pieces of cover as the droid fired on her.
Thomas followed the laser fire, spotting the droid in a second story window of the building just opposite theirs.
Two of them actually. Most likely the sniper and its spotter.
"Second story, right side!" he called out to Will as he fired on it. As Will joined in, one of the droids took a round to the head and collapsed, whilst the other took several rounds to the chest, which seemed to simply bounce off as it pulled away from the window.
"It's repositioning. Lets-."
"TANK!" Will screamed, pulling Thomas down. Just as he did so, a thunderous boom sounded barely twenty feet from them. Thomas looked up to see a Persuader tank rolling down the street, accompanied by several battle droids.
The group of one Jedi, twenty clones and a single heavy walker hurried down the various streets. Along the way they noted the shattered wrecks of many Terran and Separatist vehicles. They did note with slight relief that there were many more wrecks belonging to their enemies than their allies, however.
As they began to approach the street the gunship had described, they began to hear rapid blaster fire.
"Time to pick up the pace guys," Ahsoka said. The clone did as she ordered, the walker following them engaging in a sort of sprint of its own to keep up.
"Come on!" Will yelled, pulling Tom with him. Sarah met up with them as they ran further down the street, the tank unable to properly hit them due to the street's narrow confines and its lack of a turret. That didn't stop it from trying though, as several blasts from its heavy repeating blasters detonated either just behind or in front of the soldiers.
As they kept running, Thomas slowly began to fall behind, which Will noticed.
"Wilson, don't you dare lose to me in track now!" he said. Before Thomas could even reply several cannon rounds hit the overpass the trio were travelling under.
The structure rumbled, then began to break apart before a few seconds later, it collapsed. Luckily, Will and Sarah were already clear on the other side.
Thomas didn't share in their luck. Panicking, he dove back the way we came as the building came down over his head.
Ahsoka began to run slightly ahead of her men. She picked up her pace even more as she heard the collapse of some sort of structure. As she came around the corner, she saw two people attempting to pick themselves off the ground. As she ran towards them, one saw her and aimed his weapon at her.
"Identify yourself!" he yelled. Ahsoka then saw that his head was bleeding, and his arms were shakingly holding his weapon. It was clear that he was running on adrenaline and not much else.
"My name is Ahsoka Tano. I'm a Jedi with the Republic and I'm here to help you," she said whilst deactivating her lightsaber and holding out her hands in a placating gesture. It was then that the other soldier spoke up.
"You're a Jedi?!" she asked desperately whilst barely standing. Before Ahsoka could respond, she continued.
"One of our guys is stuck on the other side with the droids! Please go help him!" she begged.
Ahsoka's eyes widened.
Tom was lucky to only be caught in the extreme edge of the debris, though he was still almost completely buried in concrete. Groaning in pain, he tried to lift it off himself, only to find his arms and legs completely pinned.
He couldn't even grab his pistol or knife to defend himself.
Then he heard it again. That damn clanking.
As the droids came around the corner, they almost instantly saw him.
"Well, looks like we have ourselves a survivor," one said in its high-pitched voice.
Rex and the others came running around the corner. Not wasting any time, she turned to them.
"Rex! Get Kix to look at him!" she said, gesturing to the wounded soldier. "Jesse, you and your squad with me!"
Ahsoka then ran up and used the Force to jump up near the top of the debris wall, the clones climbing it behind her.
Thomas continued to struggle to free himself as they walked over. Then another droid appeared.
This one Thomas recognized as the sniper that had targeted him. Which was sort of easy given the over a dozen dents across its torso, courtesy of he and Will.
Its dark brown armor and glowing white eyes set it apart from its fellows, as it seemed to rage at the Terran in silence.
"Shall we take him prisoner?" one of the B1s asked the sniper.
As she reached the top, Ahsoka looked down to see the other soldier the woman spoke of, with a commando droid and a squad of droids standing before him.
"This one has caused us enough trouble. It shall not be permitted to continue its existence" the dark droid replied as it raised its blaster towards Thomas's face.
The trooper struggled to free his arm in desperation. He was about to die, he thought, and there was nothing he could do about it—
Thomas heard what sounded like a hiss of energy. Suddenly, the droids were blown back away from him, landing in a heap about twenty feet away.
Then a figure landed in front him, a glowing green blade in their hands.
"Jedi!" the droids screamed as they immediately opened fire. The Jedi blocked every shot sent her way, slowly but surely reflecting them back at her opponents, either destroying their weapons or destroying the droids themselves outright. The dark brown droid was the last to lose its blaster but instead of giving up, it pulled out a sword and charged her.
The Jedi dodged the first downward swing, then when it attempted a follow-up, she used the opportunity granted to her to slice off one of its legs, making it fall to its knees. The crippled droid then swung at her own legs, but she used the force to hold its sword arm in place, before slicing off the offending limb. She then reversed her swing and took the droid's head off at the neck, which clattered to the floor at Thomas's buried feet.
She then turned to face the tank that was still at the end of the street, its hull swiveling to target her. Yet before it could even get a firing angle, a bright blue projectile slammed into its center mass, blowing the tank apart.
"Nice shot, Spot" the Jedi said, to which Thomas heard a garbled reply. She then turned around and rushed toward him as white armored soldiers, which he recognized as Republic Clone Troopers, began to land next to him using grappling hooks from above.
"Hold on brother, we'll get you out of here" one of the clones said as they began to lift the debris off Thomas. The Jedi then used the Force to assist two of the clones with lifting the biggest piece which was pinning his legs. He began to cough up a storm as they did so, the massive uplift of concrete dust catching up with the trooper.
"Who... who are you?" Thomas asked the Jedi between coughing fits as he sat up. She simply smiled in response.
"Ahsoka. You?" she asked in reply whilst offering her hand.
"Thomas" he replied, smiling, and taking her hand.
Little did he know how much his life would change because of this one meeting.
Hello all! History had been made on this day. The Republic has made landfall on Earth, and the course of the Clone Wars has been forever changed. Looking forward to the next update, which should only be a few days away, where we will check back in with Obi-Wan and Anakin, whilst Ahsoka and our lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) trio battle for the remains of Charleston. See you soon!
Now onto the reviews:
keotaka1: Well, wait no longer!
Selen01: Not quite, which will become much clearer in the future.
jmantsch0702: Miniaturization won't have much of an impact on the wider galaxy, but will play a key role in Terran tech, allowing for certain advantages. The main weapons of Terran warships are actually coil-guns, so not too far off from mass drivers.