“It...It’s at 56%” Said the Droid at
the command station.
Admiral Borvant’s mind frenzied silently
behind his hyper-defracting eyes. The sensory
spheres vibrating in his alien skull as he
watched the mirriad screens being projected
before the command chair. He had to deal with
so many evolving situations, and he knew he
had to make decisions quickly. But there were
so many factors, and so many of them in his
favor!
His flagship, the Confederate Pride, was nearly
the equal of the Malevolent, and his fleet
was one of the largest in the entire Sepratist
Alliance. He had been tasked by Count Dooku
with defending Raxus Secundus itself! He was
not only undefeated, the Sisteen Admiral was
undefeatable!
The Republic would never even dare an attack
here. That failing government was ever on
the defense, ever scrambling to secure their
own holdings! It was clear as day that the
heart of the Confederacy would be safe, here,
under his care till his death in the far future.
All of these things were true, and yet…
“Um, now it's at 50%” Said the droid.
The admiral blinked. How long had he been
thinking? He needed to be making decisions!
But the factors! So many factors!
“OK, order the eighth battlegroup to move
to point delta and-” The admiral started
to say.
“Uhh, Battlegroup eight has been destroyed.”
The droid interjected.
The Admiral blinked again, and began reassessing.
“Fine, combine whatever is left of the fifth
and fourth battle groups, and send them to
pont delta to begin clearing the enemy to
create a forward rallying point. We have to
prepare for General Grievous's reinforcements.
Have the reserves from the other hemispheres
converge on us and begin assaulting the nearest
enemy flank.” Said Admiral Borvant.
“Also, vent sections E through Q into space,
that ought to stop the enemy boarding party
dead in their tracks.” He added.
“Um, Admiral, it's not reeeeally a boarding
party, it's just one-” Began the droid.
“Whatever it is, it won’t deal with the
vacuum of space well, so do it.” The Admiral
snapped.
“Well sheesh.” The droid said, relaying
the orders and venting the sections.
“Good, now, have battle group forty through
fifty begin missile bombardment of that enormous-”
“Admiral, the only battlegroup out of the
ones you mentioned that is still responding
to orders is forty four. All other ships are
drifting or destroyed.” The droid informed.
“I thought you said we were at 50% fleet
cohesion!” The admiral yelled.
“Well, we were. But now its 43%. A lot of
ships have just stopped responding to orders
for some reason.” The droid said.
“Also, on an unrelated note, the intruder
is still advancing, in fact, it is coming
faster now.” The droid added.
The admiral groaned. He did not have time
for this!
“Fine, send in the commando droids, droidicas,
and seal those sections off, I will deal with
what is left later. Let me know when the intruder
is destroyed, otherwise, let me focus!”
The Admiral said.
This enemy was a vicious puzzle indeed, each
ship was a Titan, and they had split up, maintaining
no particular formation, which was wreaking
havoc with the logic centers of his Tactical
Droids. Indeed, with so little knowledge of
what each ship did in this alien fleet, and
their significance, it was hard to know which
ones to single out for destruction...which
was proving also difficult.
The enemy ships were rugged and armed to a
bizarre extent, wielding weapons that Borvant
had never seen before. Still, he was confident
that their sloppy assault would begin to buckle
any second now. His thoughts were interrupted
as a loud thump sounded behind him, past the
sealed doors which led from the bridge into
the rest of the ship. He ignored it, giving
more orders before jumping again as it sounded
off once more.
“What is that noise?” He demanded.
“Probably the intruder.” The droid said.
“What?!” The Admiral blurted.
“Haven’t the Droidica’s stopped it yet?”
He asked.
“Uh, the Droidicas were destroyed seconds
after encountering it. The commando Droids
are about to find it though. Do you want to
see?” The droid asked.
The Admiral sighed and nodded his bulbous
head sharply.
“On screen!” He ordered.
The droid complied, bringing up a hologram
of the intruder, who was in the process of
ripping and tearing its way through one of
the bulkheads. The figure was a massive armored
monstrosity, seven and a half feet tall at
least, and as bulky as a bull reek. And yet
for all that, the thing was agile as well,
at least for its size.
Each massive, gauntleted hand was crowned
by a long, burning claw at the tip of each
finger, fingers which it was using to rend
its way through the ray shielded doors of
his ship! The claws had fields of their own,
fields which burst and frayed the power of
the ray shield emitters like a child's finger
might pop a soap bubble. Borvant grit his
teeth, his huge brain pulsating as he tried
to compute his options.
Then the commando droids arrived, hopping
and leaping like jedi as they began firing
their blasters into the space marine’s back.
The bolts sizzled and hissed, but did absolutely
nothing to the bulky beast of a warrior, who
turned to regard them with mechanical contempt,
tearing at the bulkhead twice more before
spinning and lunging at the commandos.
“I had thought they would be more agile.”
The admiral mused as he watched the warrior’s
opening strikes.
The Acrobatic droids flipped and spun away
with ease, and though there was a practice,
a grace even, to the warrior’s wide , arching
sweeps, he was certainly no match for a jedi
when it came to swift movement.
At least, those were his thoughts before,
in one, sudden back handed swipe, the warrior
neatly bisected all of the jumping droids
while they were caught in mid leap. As the
pieces of the droids fell all around the red
and gold clad warrior, understanding struck
the genius alien admiral.
“Wow, how did he do that?” The droid marveled.
Before he realized it, or stopped himself,
Borvant found himself answering.
“He figured out and predicted their movement
and attack patterns, from watching them for
just...just a few seconds!” He said.
Even as he spoke, he knew he was still not
doing the warrior justice. He had not missed,
not truly. Every single swipe he had taken
had been aimed towards making the attacking
droids react with exactly that jump. Like
dumb animals to the slaughter, he had coralled
them and herded them straight into their defeat,
having learned everything he needed to know
just from what he had seen with his single,
sidelong glance.
The warrior, for the admiral was now truly
convinced that it was a flesh and blood warrior
and not some droid, stared up at the camera
which was recording him, glowing eye lenses
somehow projecting a malice which struck Borvant
just by bearing witness to it. The commandos
wriggled and writhed around the marine’s
feet, toross halved, arms severed, but heads
still intact. Without looking away from the
lenses which watched him, the warrior lifted
his foot, and crushed one of them.
The admiral flinched back, the anger, the
raw hostility projected by the act enough
to shock him to his core. Who were these people?!
What in the galaxy did they want?!
“Shut it off!” He ordered.
Nothing happened.
“Droid! Did you not hear me? I said shut
off this monitor!” He barked.
Crunch, the warrior stepped on another commando,
and another. How could he make killing droids
look so brutal? Seem so hateful? Borvant looked
over at the B1 manning the command console
and saw it shivering and covering its photoreceptors.
“Blast you, shut this off right now or I
will have you scrapped for parts!” He bellowed.
“B-But I don’t want to look at it!”
The Droid squealed.
Crunch. Crunch.
“Do it!” The Admiral insisted.
“OK, ugh, um…” The droid muttered, peeking
from between its fingers.
Crunch!
“Ahhhh!” It shrieked, pressing a button
almost at random.
Instead of shutting the screen in front of
the command chair down, it projected it as
a larger hologram on the central emitter,
depicting the massive, glaring marine in in
high definition, three dimensional malice
to the entire droid bridge crew. Crunch. The
crew screamed.
“What are you doing you bolt head!? Your
making it worse, I said shut it off!” The
admiral roared, throwing his cain at the droid
in question, and knocking it on its head.
“Uh, sorry! Sorry!” The droid said as
it frantically worked its controls with both
hands.
The image zoomed in on its face, its baleful
stare now the only thing that could be seen.
But not heard. Crunch.
“Ah, wait, I got it!” The droid said,
and finally the image shut down.
“About time!” the Admiral yelled.
“Send everything! Everything, and I mean
everything!” He ordered.
“R-Roger roger!” the droid affirmed.
“Now give me a report on the battle groups…”
the Admiral started to say, trailing off as
a light set the distant void silently aflame.
The sight left him speechless, celestial fire
blossoming out into a golden, haloed sphere
before him, thousands of kilometers wide.
Flickering auroras came alive along the ray
shielding of his ship, plainly visible as
ribbons of rainbow fire which wound and spun
around his, and every other ship near him.
It sat there, burning in the place the northern
hemisphere fleet had just been, for all the
galaxy seeming to resemble a...a…
“A star…” breathed out Borvant.
Slowly, the ball shrank, diminished, and flickered
out, and the admiral, no longer lit by its
unnatural light, seemed to gain hold of his
senses once more.
“The fleet! What is our fleet strength!”
He demanded.
“Um, well, to me it looks like we are now
at...22%” Said the droid, flinching as he
did.
Borvant was aghast. But not for long, for
soon, fear replaced everything and anything
else he was capable of feeling.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The sound was so close. He stood up, passing
through the holographic screens which were
projected before him, and looking back towards
the large door which led to the bridge.
Thunk. Thunk. Crack.
Wide scars spiderwebbed all across the surface
of the door, but only briefly. Before the
Sisteen speratist could draw his next breath,
the door shattered like glass, its fragments
spiralling out as lethal projectiles. Droids
were smashed and sliced in half, consoles
crushed and left as little more than sparking
ruin. But by sheer luck, Admiral Borvant found
himself intact, though knocked to the ground,
still conscious when the armored intruder
strode onto the bridge.
His every footstep seemed casual, easy, and
yet it trembled the ground, his massive metal
boot sinking into the deck plates an inch
and a half each time. It was like this thing,
this space marine, was too hard, too heavy
for this universe. Like an invasive entity,
a lion suddenly lost in a world made of meat
and cotton candy. Despite thinking all of
this, feeling it, and all the fear that came
with it, Borvant swallowed hard but rallied
his resolve.
“Y-You will never win this battle!” He
shrilled at the warrior, his translator automatically
translating each word into the guttural tongue
of the invaders.
The Space marine strode around the spot where
the admiral lay, seeming not to notice him,
looking around at the bridge, his air, that
of casual interest, almost indifference. The
droids had already fled, those that were still
operational at least, leaving the two of them
effectively alone.
“You might manage to land on fair Raxus
Secundus, but General Grievous will be here
in a matter of hours!” He added, climbing
to his hands and knees before rising unsteadily.
The marine walked up to the left most side
of the bridge, reaching out a clawed finger
to trace lightly along the segment of transparisteel
there, the treasured sphere of Raxus Secundus
laying just beyond. He did seem to freeze,
however, at the mention of general Grievous.
The sisteen smiled.
“Yes, thats right! General Grievous! The
greatest tactical genius in the galaxy! You’re
occupation will last only hours, your victory
is an illusion!” The defeated admiral brazenly
declared.
The marine turned back to look at him, hand
still extended towards the sphere of the world,
and shook his head. At first, Borvant thought
he sensed anger in the denial, but was corrected
as he heard the space marine’s voice for
the first time as he started to...laugh.
The bastard was laughing! The Speratist grit
his teeth and was about to respond, when the
marine spoke, the Admiral’s translator converting
the words for him. Or rather, word, for he
only spoke one, and he spoke it as a question.
“Occupation?”
Borvant blinked, absorbing the implication
of how that question had been phrased. But
before he could properly react, the marine
had moved. The claw sparked to life, and the
transparisteel shattered. Space yawned wide
and the admiral, along with the wrecked droids
and debris, were swept up and towards the
sudden breach, though the marine himself stood
stock still, adhering by weight or technology
to the ground in spite of the vacuum.
Borvant had long feared that he would die
suffocating in the void of space. It was a
common enough dread among any proper navy.
But the Marine spared him that fate, passing
his burning claws through him as the alien
was sucked out of his own ship, being diced
and emolated all in one swift motion.
Davik Thune, chapter master of the Crimson
Razors watched the enemy Admiral, or rather,
his pieces, float away into the void, still
chuckling to himself.
“Occupation…” He said to himself, shaking
his head again.
With a twitch of his thoughts, he activated
the Vox within his Terminator power armor.
“Yes Master.” Said the Captain of his
ship, and de facto Admiral of his fleet, Alarak
Norn.
“We have a few hours before the arrival
of their most respected commander, a general
Grievous. Lets ensure we give him something
to properly....grieve when he arrives.”
Said the Chapter Master.
“Yes, my lord. Should I make ready the Cyclonic
Torpedoes?” Asked Alarak.
“Nay, we shall not waste such fine weapons
on this...filth. This shall be done in the
old way. Prepare for orbital bombardment.
Attack Pattern Sins of Charity.” Said Davik.
“Very well my lord. We shall make ready
the Macro Cannons, the Bombardment Cannons,
the Lance Batteries, and the attack wings.
We shall make ready, my lord, to brutalize
them without mercy or quarter, as you command
it.”
Davik grinned, his filed teeth fitting perfectly
together in a shark’s own smile.
“Then let it be done, I grow weary of this
weakness. Let us teach these Confederates
the meaning of War.”
