Star Wars: Warlords of the Sith (Closed/Started)

[Mr.Ivebeenframed]

"Commandos, begin final weapons checks. You are here to serve the new Dark Lords directly. Do not disappoint them."

Meria began to ready herself as they entered the Coruscant system. She started to get restless, pacing about the ship just to keep her emotions in check. She didn't like being cramped inside a ship for very long. It reminded her too much of the days she was tied up in the engine room and the only way she could keep track of time was the whines of the engines. She glanced at the commandos, trying to get a read on them.

She didn't quite trust them even if they fully "dedicated" themselves to the Empire. Meria remembered the trust the Jedi had with troopers centuries ago and how that lead to their downfall. Master Khan wasn't one to skim on details especially on those rainy days, and her other Master loved to tell that tale over and over again to bring up how foolish they Jedi were. Whether they are now was hard to say but Sidious knew something that they didn't and now she was ready to find out what.

Meria brushed the top of her Vibrosword hilt, feeling the slight vibrations the blade had. It helped her calm down as they approached their intended destination.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"We'll be setting down fourteen kilometers out, using a crater as cover. That's as close as we can get without setting off an alert. The jamming device will remain onboard. On your signal I will transmit commands for it to activate, then all communications in the hemisphere will cease. As soon as the jamming goes up the droids will be on high alert, so we must act quickly. Stand by for realspace." With a hum the mottled blue-white of hyperspace gave way to starlines and then to stars. This far out Coruscant itself was just another star, the distant sun only a speck, the only thing of note the massive gas giant, a swirling mass of blue shot through with red and green, and the moon they approached, a dim, ugly gray rock floating in space.

"We'll hit the lunar atmosphere in forty seconds. Stealthing is perfect." Contact with the atmosphere was undetectable from the inside, a paper thin shell of trace gas the moon barely held onto. "Be advised - the gravity here is roughly one-fifth standard. Adjust your tactics accordingly. Vacsuits are in the storage lockers."

 

[socialtangent]

"Looking forward to this? Bet the ride over must have bored you to tears. Itching for a fight, all that good stuff. Well, don't worry. I'm sure there will be plenty of droids to slice up."

She regarded the Bith carefully. His comments were very much laced with condescension. "I am capable of surviving periods of inactivity," she replied bluntly. "But your concern is noted." She raised a curious eyebrow. "Unfortunately, I'm not quite certain if the droid defenses will be moved by a soulful jizz-wail routine."

 

[Mr. Omega]

"Just make sure you leave enough of them for the rest of us."

Thalo gave a quick titter, walking between the two other Sith, remaining silent until his original target spoke up.

"Unfortunately, I'm not quite certain if the droid defenses will be moved by a soulful jizz-wail routine."

"As much as I'd love to prove you wrong, it seems like our good Chiss friend wants a lot of the actions, and who am I to deny him his chance at glory?" He gave him a bow, taking note of his equipment. "I'll offer support, and keep my eyes open for any additional traps. So hack away at those poor targets, knowing that Thalo Maru is at your service."

He waited a second for them to prepare a sarcastic response, preemptively cutting them off "After all... we need each other for this. I know that it's in our nature to try and step over each other, but I'd like to think we're smart enough to not give in to our more... ugly urges as soon as our crusade begins?" He was actually speaking sincerely this time, showing that the obtaining of power should come before the displays of it.

"Well, are we ready to go?" he said, his eyes sweeping the room to find the other Sith, leaving to go suit up.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

The transport sat down, and before five seconds had passed from touchdown the commandos were through the airlock and on the ground. "This is Vornskr One, landing zone secured."

"Copy that, Vornskr. You're clear to move to combat operations positions." Zana slid down the ladder into the hold and suited up, then headed for the airlock.

Thirty minutes later they were in a patch of rocks a kilometer from the edge of the base. An array of droidekas that were likely older than every living thing on this rock put together, a few dozen visible from this angle. Utterly still, just watchimg and waiting. There were a cluster of duracrete structures as well, ugly cylinders, some of which bristled with starship grade cannons and missile launchers. "Hypercomm relay is going to be armored. I await your instructions, My Lords."

 

[FalloutJack]

Naturally, Sirus had suited up for the occasion, smiling at the mention of stealthing. It was like that droid was speaking his language. There wasn't much else to do on his end before landing. He'd been largely prepared for hours, even getting bored. So, with that, they landed and piled out of their shuttle. This inevitably led them to their current standpoint: The rocks. Sirus looked down at the Droideikas discreetly. This was fortuitous...

"Hypercomm relay is going to be armored. I await your instructions, My Lords."

"Very well. It's my intention to gain quiet entry, to sabotage or pain targets in order to streamline the process when the attack is to come. If you have any idea where the hypercomm relay is, let me know. I, personally, want to find the droid relay. With a little work, I can turn these guards to our side."

It wasn't a sure thing, but he had studied these designs before in his readings. Nemoidian-produced droids such as these usually had their every command fed remotely, leaving them with only a limited on-board machine intelligence. They didn't adapt very well, but it was hard to confuse them sometimes and- Wait a minute... If there WAS A relay, wouldn't that mean their jammer could just knock their higher brain functions out? Or they'd go crazy. That was a test for a later time. Once any last words had been said, Sirus self-cloaked and proceeded at a gradual pace. He approached the area so that he was at-level - but still at a distance - with the droideika guards. Was it possible to sneak between them without arousing suspicion? He knew that sometimes the assassin's stealth ability shimmered subtly and seen if close enough. Such a fact had saved his own life, on occasion.

 

[socialtangent]

Aria donned her vacsuit, although reluctantly. Echani preferred to fight with as little encumbrance as possible, and she was no different. It was light, as far as vacsuits went, but she could still feel it constricting her natural limberness. Of course, it was this or suffering a quick death in vacuum. A necessary trade.

As they traveled across the desolate surface, she found that the minimal gravity proved to be more irritating than the vacsuit. If she had to fight out here, Ataru's acrobatics would not serve her well. If anything, it would make her a floating target. And with her mobility already hampered, it would prove to be troublesome. She cursed quietly and hoped they would be inside soon.

"If you have any idea where the hypercomm relay is, let me know. I, personally, want to find the droid relay. With a little work, I can turn these guards to our side."

"I would not count on that, myself," Aria interjected. "Those droids are ancient. There's no guarantee that they are still even operational, let alone combat ready. It would be better to simply disable them. Besides, they are no match for the commandos, let alone us."

 

[blaze96]

Lampay had followed the others in his vacsuit, using the time spent walking to focus on feeling the energy of the area rather than simply observe. He did however notice the change in gravity and was glad he followed the Way of the Krayt Dragon, admittedly his stances wouldn't be as strong but at least he could still manage a fight should it come to that. Looking over the droids it was likely that it would come to it.

"If you have any idea where the hypercomm relay is, let me know. I, personally, want to find the droid relay. With a little work, I can turn these guards to our side."

"Unless these droids are older than the battle of Naboo, they would have independent processing and control units. We could slice individual droids but that would be time consuming and not particularly useful. I wouldn't be surprised if the droids still worked..."

He looked to the commandos.

"...I would be shocked however if they could defeat a force which had long before defeated these things. Admittedly our troops are not the clone army but I should hope your commanders would have taught you how to defeat droids should you encounter them. Not to mention they would expect you to defeat droids far more advanced than these."

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"Absolutely, My Lord." The commando leader said, then indicated a cropping of rock. "Anti-armor, mark that position, go! Sniper, take up position behind the rise. Demolitions, set up your mortar. All units prep ion. My Lord, their shields are inactive. We could neutralize these droidekas with a sudden first strike as the jamming goes online. To protect their flanks the other Droidekas would have to turn and engage, rendering their rear vulnerable to a flanking attack."

 

[Mr.Ivebeenframed]

Meira suited up. Her cybernetic limbs allowed her to put on the suit faster but adjusting the constrictive nature of the suit was something she had to get used to. She followed the others to the relay and she scanned the defenses while the others were discussing tactics. She noticed some of the commandos taking positions along the rocks. While they would make an excellent distraction, these commandos would be useful later on. She scanned the droids as well, seeing that the ones that lay their path are much older than all of them combined. These were the old battle droids of the Trade Federation and she wouldn't be surprised if these ones saw action all the way back to the first rebellion on Naboo. These droids were deadly in pairs let alone squads of them but they didn't respond well to flanking maneuvers. The commando leader was right in suggesting a flank attack but Meria wondered more about the unseen threats or the threat of a quick reaction force from the base. She took stock of her comrades, only to see Sirus missing.

"Commandos, one of our comrades is flanking them as we speak. We need to activate the jammer then proceed with the first strike." Meria said, beginning to walk away to the other side. "I'm heading to the other flank in case reinforcements come from the relay."

Meria got low and began to make her way to the opposite side. She stuck as close the rocks as she could, trying not to be noticed.

 

[FalloutJack]

"I would not count on that, myself. Those droids are ancient. There's no guarantee that they are still even operational, let alone combat ready. It would be better to simply disable them. Besides, they are no match for the commandos, let alone us."

Both Aria and Lampay made their points about his little side-mission involving droids. They were old and perhaps encoded differently. The clincher of it was that they apparently had no shields either. Thay made them far too weak to even be useful as good cannon fodder. Pity, really. It could have been fun...

"Very well. I'm pushing forward, then."

They knew what they were doing. If these machines were so low in their fighting capability, then their ability to spot an invisible enemy would be nil-approaching-zero. Sirus therefore moved past the guards in a low-walking sort of jaunt so as not to even make the dust fly, using the weakest point on the defense line he could find. Let the others deal with this. Their troops were indeed very good. Sirus was not flanking them, per se. He was passing them to go for the compound instead. He wanted to gain access to the command center.

 

[Pm0n3y]

Ja'Ysr followed out behind the others, his vacsuit fitted and primed. The bulky suit did nothing to aid maneuverability, and the slight lack of gravity only made the ordeal even more troublesome. He did his best to increase the speed of his gait, and approached the Commando Commander as the Twi'lek sped off to set up another flanking position. Acknowledging the Commando, the Chiss looked on as the Human male began closing in on the compound's entrance, bypassing the droids entirely. Maybe he was making it look easy, but the male made it seem like this particular mission would be even easier than than he was anticipating. "That's disappointing, really." Mostly because the mission already felt easy enough to begin with.

He was never one for stealth, but Ja'Ysr knew how to follow by example. As the human moved forward, Ja'Ysr moved up, taking up the position the human once inhabited, reestablishing the flanking position. "Hm." It didn't take much for the Human to clear the droids, as the shimmer of his stealth shield helped prove that. Ja'Ysr stood up straight, a hand caressing the long hilt of his lightsaber.

"Guess there's no more need for stealth." He rushed from behind his cover, upon the nearest droid instantly. All he needed to perform was two strikes, one to disarm the droid of its weapons, and another to give it a horizontal slice right down its middle, efficiently cutting it in half.

"The advantage is ours. Commandos, open fire." He gave the signal over the hum of his silver blade before seemingly gliding over to the next droid. He figured he should be fast. Even as he may have never faced one personally, he's heard the stories told about these legendary droids. And he knew it would only be inevitable until one of them activated their shields. He wanted to cut them down before they could get that chance.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"Jammer deployed." Zana said. As one the commandos opened fire, grenades streaking from the Anti Armor position and blasting apart Droidekas, while the sniper put shots into control circuits and actuators. Blue blaster fire tore into the Droidekas, and within four seconds of thr jammer coming online fourteen Droidekas were destroyed on the main attack vector. Immediately the Droids went on alert, shield bubbles coming active and their cannons spraying streams of blaster fire at their attackers. While the chassis were old they were obviously well maintained and upgraded.

"The longer we keep jamming the more likely it will be detected. My Lords, you must press the attack."

 

[blaze96]

"Very well, let us move quickly and be done with this before it becomes too much an issue." With that said Lampay immediately increased his speed with the force to catch up to the attack. He was glad to have been made to practice Form V as he entered into the ranger of their fire and had to slow down. He could deflect the shots with his single red blade as he advanced. With their shields up he was unlikely to kill anything but it allowed him to close the distance to the line without dying.

Lampay was soon enough close enough to one of the droids to strike, he immediately slashed horizontally cutting it in two at the midpoint. He followed this up by throwing the parts at two other droids with a push, damaging the two. The momentum was kept up by pushing towards other in the group and repeating the process.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Thalo gave a silent nod and leaped into the fray. "The Chiss is one for action! I like it!" he said to himself, landing a bit of a distance from where the fighting was taking place. He was a bit behind the others, finding some cover to look for a target.

When he couldn't find a droid, he closed his eyes, reaching out with the force. "Perhaps a little trickery is in order..." he could feel a few, with less being around each passing second as his comrades went to work. Still, he noticed a straggler, and gave a Bith equivalent of a grin. "Ah ah ah... now that won't do." His studies had covered technopathy, but his experience was limited. Something to practice later. Perhaps on that replica... no, too useful.... He couldn't make the Droideka self-distruct, but he could stun it.

Once the furthest one was stunned, he reached out to another one, stunning it as well. This time, it was swiftly destroyed by a Commando. "This could work nicely..." he muttered, finding any Droid he felt might have been being troublesome and giving them a little bit of help on their way to the scrap heap.

 

[Mr.Ivebeenframed]

The battle began with laser fire streaking towards their intended targets. Meria's flank route lead her to the side of the mass of Droidekas although there were a number of them already down when she got in position. All of the droids were facing the Commando positions with some of the other Sith facing the droids head on. For simplicity's sake, Meria turned on her lightsaber and rushed towards her nearest enemy.

The red plasma bisected the first droideka while a second swipe of took the blaster arms of another. The other droidekas nearby started to notice their lack of allies to their flank and began turning so Meria used the Force to push them off balance as she sprinted away to another target. Her cybernetic legs carried her quickly to another droideka that hadn't turned yet so with a slash of her lighsaber, the droid never got the chance to.

 

[FalloutJack]

After he had passed the line, Sirus heard the order to begin the assault and then his comlink cut out as the sounds of blaster fire and ordinance could be heard/felt through vibrations of the ground. Seen? Okay, he spared a glance, but only to see the sudden carnage of machinery being cut through. He'd made a wise decision. While forces positively bristling with weaponry laid waste to the line along with his fellow Sith, he would penetrate deeper and carry on the mission.

The Droidekas are pulling back slowly, tightening the perimeter to soak their losses. Most of the structures have no real way to access them in a short period of time, and by appearances are probably the power generators and sensors for the base shield and surface to orbit weaponry. One of them is narrower than the rest and has a small pressurized interior, most probably the hyperwave array.

Sirus made for that one, figuring that a pressurized interior meant easier access, plus it looked to be their immediate goal, the one they wanted taken down quickly. The assassin picked up the pace a little to find access to the inside. Locked or not locked, he was getting in there to tear that relay apart!

 

[Elfgore]

Alrayn remained silent throughout the rest of the orientation. He let the fools think what they will. He remained silent as they boarded the transporter. He remained silent throughout the entire trip. Alayn had one thing he cared about. Getting to the God damn point. All this talk of strategy and planning just bored him.

Alrayn put on his vacsuit with relative ease. The tool was quite common in the smuggling trade. As soon the commandos opened fire on the Droidekas, Alrayn opened fire with his blaster pistol. A few other of his fellow Sith decided to go in up close and personal, Alrayn enjoyed a small chuckle at their expense. Using a blaster was about a hundred times safer. Alrayn's blaster pistol was closer to that of a fully-automatic blaster than that of a pistol. Multiple green lasers shot from the barrel streaking towards the Droidekas. The first few shots were harmlessly absorbed by their bubble-shields. After a few hits, they were like bugs under a boot. They broke as soon as one of his bolts hit.

Minutes dragged on as he fired. He had lost count at seven kills and just kept firing away. The Droidekas finally started to retreat after taking serious losses. Alrayn cracked a smile at the enemies retreat and turned to one of the Sith commando next to him. "Say, I looked pretty badass, didn't I?" The Sith commando remained silent. Alrayn shrugged his shoulders and turned back to retreating Droidekas. Alrayn's smile grew slightly when he knew the fun was just getting started.

 

[socialtangent]

The low gravity did not allow Aria to unleash her combat skills in their fullest, but with the Force to guide her hand, she had no difficulty in holding off the barrage of blaster bolts from a cluster of four ancient Droidekas. The red lances of energy were deflected by the red of her own blade. Some of the reflected bolts collided with the ground, turning bits of rock and dust red-hot. Others crashed into the Droidekas' shields, causing the blue bubbles to shimmer. Despite their age, the combat droids were still reasonably functional.

But not for long.

The shields of one of the Droidekas collapsed and Aria saw her opening. She leaped forward, using the Force to help guide her trajectory. Once in range, her lightsaber's blade sliced through the unshielded Droideka's armor with no resistance. The droid fell apart into three smoldering pieces. Aria stopped her forward momentum by digging her heel into the dirt, quickly turning to face the other three droids. They were awkwardly turning to face her, which left them vulnerable.

She reached out with the Force and hurled the remains of the ruined droid at the closest one nearby. With no air resistance to account for, the chunks of droid slammed into the shield and caused it to collapse completely. The force of the bombardment caused the Droideka to topple over. Aria quickly moved to dispatch it with a few swipes of her blade, using the remains of this droid as more ammo to hurl at the remaining two. Charred metal collided with shielding, and then with droid. Aria's lightsaber made short work of the now useless droids.

With a smug grin, Aria wondered how the Jedi had trouble with these machines.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Shorn by the blades of lightsabers, blasted apart by grenade and rocket, broken under the Force, and perforated by blaster fire, one by one the Droidekas fell, until the lunar surface was once again still and silent. As the hyperwave repeater was torn apart communications came back online.

"Zana here, I report all enemy targets neutralized...belay that." She drew her pistol and put a few shots in the twitching remains of a droideka. "All targets now neutralized, my lords. I've sent the signal for the droids to unpack and begin their work."

It had been a bit of a slipshod attack, but the results were hard to argue with - one minute and forty-seven seconds from beginning to end, a less than fifteen percent chance that the momentary jamming was even noticed much less made anything of, and not even a single injury.

A few minutes passed before the droids arrives, they then began their digging, deploying massively powerful lasers from their chassis to reduce the durasteel to flowing molten metal, while hoses sucked up the molten metal and pumped it away. A hole quickly formed, twelve feet across in the center of the plug as the droids slid into the ground, every so often the hoses twitching as the droids extruded more.

"On a cosmological scale this won't take long, but I hope you brought a deck of cards."

* * * *

Six hours passed as the droids bored their hole in the plug, and Zana and the Commandos made the most of it, slicing new code into the defensive batteries and theater shield controls.

"Repairing the hypercomm would be a pretty quick fix. When we're done we can turn this moon into a trap, might relieve some pressure on our forces."

As Zana was making her report the droids scurried out of the hole on their spidery legs, one emitting a series of whistles and chirps.

"They found the access hatch, one point six kilometers down. Commandos, break out the cables."

One of the commandos set to work at the edge of the hole, setting up a device that looked like a massively overengineered pulley. He pulled a switch on it and it fired a cable down into the darkness that abruptly went taught. The commando then hooked some kind of gripping device on it.

"Just grab onto that device on the rope." The commando indicated two grips, both with triggers. "Left side ascends, right descends."

The other commandos did the same, setting up a total of nine of the devices. "I won't be accompanying you here, my expertise is of no use down there."