A Whole New World (Closed, SWG, Attn. C'tan)

[The Covenant Remnants]

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Slipspace
Explored Tranquility, Fleet of Blessed Vigilance
Unknown time and date

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Heretics. That’s what they all were now. Heretics, cursed fools, wanting nothing more than to defile all who wish to truly thread the path of the Great Journey. Those were the last words of the Prophet on board the Explored Tranquility, before the Fleetmaster slit his throat and threw his carcass off the ship. And yet, these accursed words still stuck in the heads of most of the crew, from the Fleetmaster’s bridge officers down to the lowliest grunt, almost haunting them as they continued their journey.

‘Are we traitors, or have the Prophets simply betrayed us?’ One Sangheili thought to himself. This Sangheili was none other than Fleetmaster Rothamee, a relatively outspoken Fleetmaster, who had been in control of the Fleet of Blessed VIigilance for at least thirty years by now. He never particularly liked by his peers, always seen as too cautious, calculating, nowhere near as overly zealous as them. Despite this, most of his military career showed that he was, if nothing else, a decent, if slightly too cautious, leader. As a result, he was put in command of the Fleet of Blessed Vigilance, a fleet tasked with exploring worlds and sectors of the galaxy the Covenant had yet to visit, recording data and seeing if they would be of any use. It was obvious they just wanted him to stay away from any real conflicts, to the point where he had not heard about the Human-Covenant war until long after it had started. Of course, this meant that, once the reports of infighting on High Charity came in, he could easily slip away, forgotten by the Covenant entirely.

It had been almost 5 months since the Fleet had left slipspace. It had almost been as long since Rothamee had actually slept, at most napping for a few hours on the bridge itself before returning to his duties. He did this mostly to keep anyone who had thoughts of taking command from him (of which none of the bridge crew had plans for, at least not yet). This self afflicted journey was a way of preserving his fleet, not only from the now ensuing Great Schism, as some were beginning to call it, but from the rest of the galaxy. He knew there were many who were going to take advantage of the Covenant’s infighting, and he wanted to make sure his fleet wasn’t crushed by them. Of course, if his calculations were correct, this would be the last hour they were to spend in the seemingly alien dimension that was slipspace.

“Fleetmaster, we will exit slipspace in thirty seconds!” An officer on the bridge shouted towards Rothamee, noting to himself that they reached their destination earlier than he’d thought “Good, prepare external sensors and cameras once we exit, I want to make sure the entire fleet made it.” Rothamee shouted back, trying to ensure that none of his ships decided to abandon him.

From the inside of a covenant ship, one would barely be able to tell when one entered or left Slipspace, at most a faint rumble alerting them. if one were to look at one from space itself, it would be a spectacle in and of itself. What seemed like dozens upon dozens of ghoulish, purple portals, seemingly rips in the fabric of space and time itself, opened up. out of them came eighty ships, ranging from relatively small, at 300 meters, to almost impossibly large, such as the 28 kilometer behemoth known as the Explored Tranquility. All in all, it was very much an intimidating fleet, and unbeknownst to it, it was also intruding what would very soon be enemy territory.

Meanwhile, after a quick check revealed that the fleet had made it more or less intact, with the exception of a single CCS battlecruiser, which Rothamee assumed either got lost, was destroyed in a slipspace accident(rare, yet extremely fatal occurences), or simply deserted the fleet. A quick scan (and a quick glance through the external cameras, for that matter) revealed that the fleet had appeared, just as Rothamee predicted, a few hundred thousand kilometers away from a planet.

“Fleet, close distance to that planet.” He ordered, the light cruisers moving towards it first, followed by bigger ships, followed by the Explored Tranquility itself. “Contact the Field Marshal, he will be glad to hear he will now have something else to do but count his troops.” Rothamee ordered, before a small hologram of the Field Marshall appeared in the middle of the bridge.

As with most Covenant fleets, the Blessed Vigilance had its own Field Marshal, in this case, Kurva Zaromee. He was generally well liked by other Field Marshals, in contrast to Rothamee. Normally, he would be serving with distinction on another fleet, however, he had the misfortune of accidentally mispronouncing a Minor Prophet’s name in the middle of High Charity, right in front of the council. Because he was too popular to simply execute, like the prophet ordered at least a thousand times in one minute, they instead simply placed him in the fleet, and told the enraged prophet that he was dead in order to calm him down. Of course, Rothamee was impressed with the Field Marshal, seeing the various troops now under his command improve by a fairly large margin.

“I’ve been thinking you’d forgotten you even had a few hundred legions under your command Rothamee, I take it they will finally be put to good use?” Zaromee asked half jokingly, to which Rothamee chuckled slightly. “I will need a few of your rangers to scout the planet, but keep your legions ready, Field Marshal.” He said. “I wish to make a stronghold out of this planet?” He asked, getting a quick nod from the Field Marshal.

Just as this was said, about 20 ships in the Fleet began to diverge towards the planet, mostly the smaller CRS and SDV’s, some slowly cruising towards the planet’s atmosphere, others diving straight into the planet itself at a surprising speed. The Explored Tranquility herself, far too large to even come too close to the planet, instead launched thousands upon thousands of smaller craft, mostly Type-52 Phantoms, alongside the older Type-25 Spirits, and newer, and far more lethal Type-56 Liches, all descending upon the planet.

As all of this continued, Rothamee began to think to himself, beginning to contemplate his current situation. While it seemed as if he was currently doing well, he and his troops initially distracted by their newfound luck, as well as the seemingly habitable planet they had found, it was clear that he would have to do something about the fact that not only was his fleet thousands upon thousands of lightyears away from its closest brethren, it was also now declared heretical. Of course, the Fleet was still loyal to him, at least for now, but he knew he would eventually run into problems, and when he did, he would see whether or not he brings about a new Covenant, or if he’s simply cut down as his fleet falls apart around him.

Rothamee’s thought process was cut off as soon as he heard another officer on the bridge beginning to shout at him. “Fleetmaster, unidentified ships detected.” Rothamee sighed, initially fearing the worst. “How could they have followed us here? The Jiralhanae thought our path was Suici-” He growled in his rough, raspy voice, but was quickly cut off by the officer. “They are not Jiralhanae, Fleetmaster, they emerged from the moon orbiting this planet, unidentified class and model.” The officer continued to rattle off various different notes about the ships, before pulling them up on an external camera.

Rothamee’s initial reaction to seeing them advance upon the his fleet was laughter. Five almost miniscule ships, seemingly smaller even than the diminutive frigates the humans had used back in their galaxy, showed up to challenge him. A quick glance through both the Explored Tranquility’s sensors and external camera also revealed that dozens of smaller fighters, seemingly arranged in an upside down V, with a symmetrical line across them, swarmed around the ships. Truth be told, Rothamee became unsure if they were truly an enemy force, or just a group of ships which, in their attempts to flee, had managed to run straight into his fleet.

“Sir, incoming transmission coming from their lead ship.” The Officer then told Rothamee. “I could use a good laugh, patch it through.” Roramee responded, wondering how they intended to fight him off.

“This is Chairman Chi Cho of the Pantoran Assembly, you are trespassing in Pantoran territory, and shall leave this system at once, The planet of Orto Plutonia is under my jurisdiction, and none of you shall-” He continued his ranting, boring and irritating Rothamee. “Order a few light cruisers to strike, they should make quick work of these fools.” He ordered, as the rest of the fleet that wasn’t deploying troops to the planet now began to advance.

It was here, that Rothamee now realized he was in for a few shocks. The first one, was the surprisingly fast speed of the unknown vessels. In comparison to even the CRS light cruisers that chased it down, they were fast and maneuverable, heading towards his own fleet faster than it was towards them. The second surprise would come when the shooting started.

The small flotilla of CRS light cruisers, relatively expendable, yet still dangerously well armed, 300 meter ships, advanced towards its newfound foe. The Cruisers then began to deploy two different fighters, the light, expendable, yet maneuverable Type 27 Banshee, as well as the heavier, more well armed, yet even more maneuverable Type-31 Seraph.

It was once the enemy and the Fleet engaged that things quickly turned for the worse. All five of the enemy ships immediately opened fire on the closest ship to them, a CRS cruiser, the Unhindered Minister. Thousands upon thousands of green and blue lasers, similar, yet still quite different to the Covenant’s own plasma, flew towards the ship. Unhindered Minister, while still one of the more maneuverable of the Covenant ships in service, was still not maneuverable enough to evade most of the fire directed towards it, which began to strike the ship. It began to glow brightly, as its shields took the brunt of the force. The Unhindered Minister returned fire with its own weapons, dozens of bright, white lines of energy moving towards all of the ships, striking their own shields. As this went on, the other ships in the Covenant Fleet quickly attempted to join in, two other CRS cruisers already engaging.

As the big ships fought, swarms of fighters, a mix of Banshees, Torrents, and Seraphs flew in a chaotic mess, attempting to shoot eachother down. It quickly became apparent that the Banshee’s were little more than prey to the Torrents, their lack of shields and relatively ineffectual firepower making them deathtraps. The Spirits, on the other hand, were a more even match for the Torrents, capable of shooting them down with their twin heavy plasma cannons, and quadruple class 2 projectile cannons, their relatively small size and manuverability also proving to be an asset. It quickly became a surprisingly bloody mess, which began to concern Rothamee.

This concern grew to outright doubt as the Unhindered Minister’s shields were slowly being depleted by the far more maneuverable foe, before depleating her shields outright . All the while, said ships seemingly capable of withstanding far more firepower than their size would suggest, surviving Pulse Laser fire from at least three ships. Of course, even more ships began to join in the fray by this point. At least two dozen ships worth of fire poured into the enemy fleet, Pulse lasers, now followed up by Plasma torpedoes, began to ravage the ships’ shielding.

It had taken five minutes, but before long, one of the enemy ships’ shields had begun to falter. Before long, it’s shield was entirely gone, and soon enough, so would the rest of the ship. Thousands upon thousands of pulse lasers, all fired from the dozen CRS cruisers firing upon it, quickly ravaged the hull, making the ship unrecognizable. the Unhindered Minister still felt the power of the enemy fire, it’s hull being racked with explosions.

Rothamee watched the battle from a distance, watched as the Unhindered Minister was heavily damaged, watched as at least two of the enemy frigates began to finally suffer heavy damage themselves. It brought a frown (or at least the Sangheili equivalent of a frown) to his face, as he now realized the enemy fleet was a lot stronger than he would have imagined. He now grew more concerned, he knew that this was nothing more than a small defense fleet, after all, the Covenant had often left a similarly paltry amount of ships to defend something of minimal importance, why would they do any differently?

It had taken a few more minutes for the outcome to be clear. The Unhindered Minister was to be scuttled, the ship having suffered internal explosions and damage that essentially put it out of commission. Two other light cruisers have also taken heavy damage, albeit still being in an operable state. at least four others had taken light damage, and the rest of the dozen light cruisers were unharmed or simply had their shields stripped during the fighting. The enemy ships fared little better, all of them destroyed, their crews died fighting valiantly to the end. Rothamee began to curse himself for his lack of care in dealing with the enemy fleet, and grew incredibly concerned. He knew this was a sign of things to come, and he did not like it one bit.

[The Ctan]

Coruscant
Two Hours Later

The Compact-Centrean Trade Trade Legation was a new construction on Coruscant, a towering skyhook that hung, almost motionless, above the cityscape, the two thousand kilometre line dangling from a spindle to which a Recusant-II class destroyer was docked, with another two thousand kilometres above, surrounded by big freighters like suckling calves. The spindle section was double ended, a reversed hourglass shape, wider at its midriff than at the ends, where it tapered down in deceleration/acceleration shrouds around the nest of cables constituting to the great tethers and their tracklike networks. It was a vast wholesaler’s market, where light freighters jockeyed for position with bus-like worker transports and the light shuttles of traders operating throughout the system. A ring of brightly lit landing bays surrounded the station’s middle levels while the levels above were fitted with hundreds of docking rings for worker transports to offload and take on the station’s staff of thousands quickly. Above and below, rows of quadlaser turrets bristled, and big ball mounted ion cannons and tractor beams stood ready to do their work should the station be threatened. That the huge station also served as a floating gun platform whose turbolasers could defeat chaos ships with ease was the topic of conspiracy theories everywhere.

Through the lines of other vessels a sleek blue shuttle with red diplomatic lines across its wings flew with quiet assurance, heading up a level to a private docking bay that looked over the two and a half kilometre length of the warship docked alongside the station’s hull, its organic shape bulked with antennae and rectennas. Entering the atmosphere field, the shuttle extended a pair of skid-like legs and landed, hydraulics steam gushing from it as it landed, a ramp coming down.

Disembarking, the Councilwoman was confronted by razor-straight rows of white armour, the Centrean Army soldiers snapping to attention at barked command from their pauldroned officers, before presenting row after row of the long guns they used, IE-39 blaster rifles, with vibroblade bayonets fixed and gleaming oddly in the light as their powered up blades vibrated at a frequency faster than the eyes of most organics could truly perceive. Dozens of the soldiers had met them, and stood with perfect stillness. The Centrean Army was reminiscent of the Thrashians, backward in some ways, in others, bolder, their troops were surrounded, even on this occasion, by the near-invisible blur of the active deflectors mounted in their chest and abdomen plates, whose power cells made circular indents on them. The technology to provide personal shields was regarded as hardly worthwhile in most places, with truly useful models pumping the user full of hard rads that often restricted them to droids, still, it was possible, even if they were unreliable, and the Centreans since the alliance with the C’tani had learned a whole new respect for such things. The men were not clones, either, row after row of differing height and build, nor were all men, or even all human, here and there variant helmet and even body patterns accommodated a variety of races, particularly the Togruta.

At the head of the row stood Colonel Vanden, whose shining cap and groomed sideburns fitted with the latest fashions, and whose beige-tan tunic showed his position in the ground forces, the five coloured buttons on his rank-plate blue, gold and red, indicating his position as a staff officer.

“Honoured Conclave Representative,,” he said, saluting, bringing up a brown leather glove to his swart brow. “Welcome to the Dual State Legation.”

“I wish I could be here under better circumstances,” Representative Ryo Chuchi said, “Thank you.”

“This way please,” he said, turning on his heel and leading through the hangar, to an elevator, crossing past a line of customs booths with constantly cycling announcements in text and verbally, “Be aware this is a droid-emancipation zone, all restraining bolts are illegal, all non-binary droids must be examined for sapience. Spice above sixteen milligrams must be declared, spice export requires permits, violators will be punished.”

From the office level of the Legation, storms of construction ‘droids, all binary droids of course, could be seen, setting about the construction of the vast station, adding more and more to its size; it was far from complete, after all. Beyond this construction hung the vast shape of the Invincible, its two and a half kilometre frame swarming with vulture ‘droids. Chuchi was reassured by the size of this bulwark, for it was these people’s military she had come to ask for.

What did shock her was the ‘droid inside the windows, decked out in clothes, which was unusual, its bronze polished head bowed slightly. “Welcome to the Legation, Representative, I am Sub-Scrivinier A1-5E, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said. A1 rating was traditionally, in some parts at least, a restricted rating given to certain droids, but even then, she’d never heard of a droid holding a high governmental position.

“Sub-Scriviner? People… voted for you?”

“Into the Centrean Congress, yes, the position of Sub-Scriviner is appointed by committee to those acting with certain authorities,” he sad, “Welcome, please make yourself at home.”

With a strange feeling of nervousness, she sat across the expansive desk from the ‘droid, looking into its broad photoreceptors which bulged out sideways from its head, she frowned. “How?” Momentarily, decorum and circumstance was forgotten.

“I am very old,” the droid said, “I have acquired a well developed personality since,” the ‘droid said, “including a distinct flare for rhetoric, and of course, a reputation for impeccable management in the Oseon System, but please, I believe we have more pressing matters,” the ‘droid said.

“Ah, yes, of course. It’s about a… fleet.”

“The fleet,” the droid said, its hand opening in an expansive gesture, waving freely, palm up, lifting its hand as if to short-cut much of the conversation, “now approaching your world?”

“You already know, huh?”

“There is little that is available on the holonet that is not understood by our people, Mentor has already analysed the fleet and found a match in her records.”

“Mentor?”

“Mentor is the guardian of this galaxy, the details are not entirely known, even to me,” A1 said, “but she is immensely intelligent, and liaises with the Centrality government, along with the Compact and Corporate Sector, often. I decided to consult her when I received your request.”

“It was quite simple really,” a female voice said, a hologram shimmering into view, a human female with her brown hair worn worn short, but with a long fringe swept aside from her eyes, “I have access to Menelmacari and C’tani databases, from which it’s easy enough to find a match, they’re a culturally diverse bunch, but they tend to call themselves the Covenant, there are many splinter groups of the same force, however” Mentor said, “they come from the same place that our aforementioned friends do, though happily for everyone involved their technology is considerably less advanced, behind our own in many, though not all, respects, too. Though there are a lot of them.”

“Then you know far more than we do at this point, we’ve not received much in the way of communications since the battle, we believe they’re preparing an invasion, but from what’s available on the holonet the details seem very much unknown.”

“Why haven’t they replied to our signals?” Riyo asked, “is it a translation issue?”

“I do not believe so,” Mentor said, hands on her hips, “Looking at the public information circulating on the holonet, both your government and a few slicer groups have tried High Galactic, which is also spoken extensively in their home galaxy, “it seems unlikely they’d not have translation, but I should be able to drag their languages up and encode some messages for your people in them.”

“Let’s discuss our options if talking doesn’t work,” A1 said, “it will take time to assemble a fleet sufficient to outnumber them, but it will be, potentially, easier to dislodge them with a strike force. There is another option of course,” he said.

“We need to explore any and all options that might lead to the aid our people,” Chuchi said.

“With your permission,” A1 said, “we will contact the Jedi Order.”

__ __ __

Jedi Cruiser Justice
Within the hour of Representative Chuchi's Meeting

Achan Jura held his hands out, eyes closed, he did not see the swirl of hyperspace through the radial corellian style window at the prow of the Justice, first of her class, he did not need to look to see though. “Two marks and three four,” he said, and the pilot adjusted course fractionally. “Smoothly to three point two four negative now,” he said. The force astrogation power was hard to master and few were able to do so these days, but Achan was quite able.

He opened his red, sparkling eyes, “Prepare to drop out of hyperspace, we will soon arrive,” he said.

“Yes Sir,” the ranger pilot said.

“You have the bridge,” he said, going aft, heading to the ship’s converted hangar bay, in the midsection of the ship, where a rack of four fighters were stored around a boarding section in the middle of the chamber.

There, in the middle of the room, stood Espaa Valorum, a man of tall, imposing height, and a narrow chin, he was garbed in heavy battle armour, the standing with a wry smile. “Let us be clear,” he said, “We need to confine ourselves to our primary mission, the rescue of this man,” he said, as a hologram was projected by his R3 unit. “Baron Notluwiski Papanoida, Speaker of the Pantoran Assembly, the Justice will be remaining here, while we approach the planet using hyperspace rings, and enter the planetary atmosphere as far as possible from the main bulk of the enemy fleet, here,” he said, as the image switched to the moon and the larger world it orbited. “We will then be able to use our ships’ stealth capacities to travel in atmosphere to this rendezvous point here, outside the capital city,” he said, “Once we identify the location of Baron Papanoida, we evacuate to the Justice using the escape plan we have already discussed, and as necessary, some of us remain behind, Questions?”

“Do we know how well the Pantorans are holding out?”

“The Pantorans are quite militant, but have not experienced war in many aeons, but there’s a lot of slavers on the borders of wild space, they’ll do their job, but it’s worth assuming we’re talking about a city entirely in enemy hands by now. Assistance forces are on the way, too, but we can disregard them as a prospect and focus on our mission, for now at least. We’ll soon find out more when we arrive.”

Pantora System

The invasion’s architects might barely notice at first, six planetary diameters out, four new contacts, that suddenly split into seven, as the fighters jettisoned their hyperspace wings, a pair of jedi bombers an IL-4 Macar fighter, freshly produced under contract by Walex Blissex for Rendili Stardrive, a successor to his earlier Eta-2 Actis, produced with a few hints from Menelmacari and Necrontyr design, including its name, followed up by a heavier and better armed Whitecloak fighter. Within moments, this small flotilla was hurtling toward the planet.

Moments later, as they accelerated as though all the hounds of King Adas were on their tails, in spiralling corkscrewing evasive patterns, the hyperspace rings of three of the four ships exploded, detonating with simultaneous flashes, calibrated to blind a wide spectrum of sensors pointed at them.

[The Covenant Remnants]

Pantora, 2 hours into the Covenant Offensive

Suecr Ithomee had not seen combat in quite a while. Indeed, the entire fleet had never particularly been combat heavy, only occasionally being drawn into conflict when its support was needed, such as during the Harvest and Eridanus offensives. There he saw glory, elevating from the rank of Minor to Major, and gaining command of his own squad. Or so the tales went. In truth, Suecr felt a horrid feeling come across him, as he stood inside the inhuman, fanciful yet militaristic Phantom dropship that carried him and his squad.

He had never particularly liked flying in them, even though he was well aware of their many advantages, unlike the poor fools forced to travel in Shadows’. Of course, today, he was to step in one, and today he was to help capture a major city from the resistance, both military and civillian, of the locals defending the moon.

In truth, the very thought of constant, everlasting war, be it against humans or this new race, was beginning to drive Suecr mad, not ravingly so, not yet, but an acute being could spot that it was clearly beginning to make a mad, disturbed shell out of a once proud individual. He knew only two things mattered to him, that his men should survive, and that he find a way to escape the hell he was about to be dropped into. Of course, the most obvious way was to die, not that he would simply kill himself or let himself be killed easily by his foes. No, he was still a slave to his race’s mentality, he would die with honor, or he would not die at all.

From what he’d heard, things had gone mostly to plan, aside from the unexpected resistance from the planet’s local forces. He had heard that lots of resistance was coming from this sector, perhaps a sign that there was something important there. This belief was reinforced by the amount of enemy forces that attempted to retreat back to the sector as well, forces that were generally wiped out with a very liberal application of orbital firepower whenever possible. This however didn’t stop enough of them to make what appeared to be a last stand, a final defense of something important enough to warrant dying for. Whatever it was, the Covenant would make sure that as many of them died for it.

* * *

It was thought by many Pantorans, himself included, that things couldn’t possibly get worse for them than they currently were anytime soon. These thoughts were quietly shattered the moment the Pantoran fleet was swept aside like a flea, and an unknown aggressor now marched in Pantora’s cities. At the moment, the only good news Baron Papanoida had was that his children were safe, and that, for the moment, the aggressors, the so called ‘Covenant’ was having a few issues outright with taking the cities, but aside from this, it was nothing but bad news piled on top of more bad news.

The Baron had practically been Chairman ever since Chi Cho, and the rest of the Pantoran Navy, had practically been annihilated, leaving him to have to take the helm. Of course, he was practically reduced to taking shelter in the Assembly building, him and whatever officials remained taking shelter in a secret room withing the building, a fairly large, yet still seemingly cramped bunker, hiding underneath the massive spire that was the Assembly building. Inside the bunker was a large holomap of the city, at least a dozen guards, and a variety of other holoprojectors, mostly relaying news, footage, and information to anyone inside the room.

“This is hopeless, we all know they’ll start coming after us soon enough, we should just surrender an-” One of the officials, a fat, portly Pantoran stated out of desperation, only to be cut off.

“So that the barbarians at the gates can rip us to bits and kill us in their bizarre rituals? I’d rather die here than surrender to them.” Another, a younger woman carrying two blasters in her hand spat back, only to be told by the guards to put her weapons away.

Truth be told, Papanoida had no interest in surrendering, but he had even less interest in dying, especially not with his children near. His only hope now was that the negotiations with the Centrality went smoothly, and that they would come to Pantora's rescue soon enough.

* * *

Explored Tranquility

Rothamee still felt the heavy presence that was his concern weigh him down. He knew that something was going to come, some enemy force that didn’t particularly want unknown invaders. They would come in either a massive armada, one designed to wage war against anything that dared to interfere in this galaxy’s affairs, or they would come in a small group, a small group that was always far more than it seemed. It was perhaps a strange thought, but he had heard enough about what a single Demon could do to not ignore any possibility of there being Demons in this new galaxy.

“Fleetmaster, we picked up something, it looked like a small group of ships, fighter sized.” He was alerted to this, which now confirmed his suspicions. “They’ve blinded our sensors before we could get a closer look, though we should be able to restore them soon enough.” Rothamee felt his concern had grown in weight, threatening to make him crash through his ship and into the darkness of space ‘below’ him. He pushed it aside for a moment, as he began to think about how to deal with these potential adversaries.

“Hrm. . . continue to observe them, order the fleet not to open fire unless fired upon first.” He knew they alone couldn’t possibly hope to destroy the entire covenant fleet if they were merely fighters. There was something on the planet that they wanted, and he wanted to make sure they didn’t get it.

[The Ctan]

Pantora

Espaa Valorum’s jedi bomber crashed, and he drifted to the ground on the repulsors of his ejection seat.

Just as planned.

The intent of the jedi had not, for the most part at least, been to land, it was easier to pick a softish crash site like a field and set the fighter to self destruct, than worry about trying to hide it and keep it secure. His R3 unit had ejected too, coasting down toward the ground on the pyrotechnic flame of its rocket motor. The Jedi had his webbing un-strapped before he hit the ground, stepping out and landing on his feet with a catlike grace, buoyed by the force. He presented an imposing figure.

The traditional brown garb of a Jedi Knight hung over bronzed armour made from plastoid, the same principle technologies as used by mandalorians, sun guard, clone troopers, stormtroopers and many other armies throughout the galaxy, though this model was custom made by jedi artisans on Ossus.

There had been some in the Conclave who had suggested that the jedi should not wear armour, to suit a politically driven, policing role, but the independence that had preserved state sovereignty throughout the galaxy had also given the Jedi order an implicit ability to tell such armchair knights that there would be no compliance to such unrealistic demands. His forearm mounted a compact shield generator that could create a buckler-like field, to further increase survivability, allowing it to be wielded alongside his lightsaber to increase deflection options considerably, while his helm’s visor could be raised over his head, and was worn under the hood of his cloak, a concession to the need for a less threatening appearance, and only parts of the armour were visible through the tabard and cloak worn over it, the cuirass, close to his neck, pauldrons over the truncated sleeves of his robes above the armour beneath gleamed in the Pantoran sunlight.

R3 landed beside him with a thump of rocketry, treads slamming into the soil and kicking up dust.

“Let’s move,” Espaa said, consulting the computer built into his right arm, the first waypoint appearing on the small screen as an arrow and a range, less than half a mile. He was pleased with his landing. This part of the mission was still important.

The bomber had been used to fire a spray of concussion missiles and proton torpedoes, its stealth characteristics were adequate to reduce the chance of detection in the air, but there would be no missing the impact of its landing. Some of the missiles had been targeted at areas known to have no inhabitants, while others had been programmed to lock onto enemy landing ships’ signatures. The missiles did not have to destroy their targets to perform their function, merely distract from the Jedi knights’ landings. They were hundreds of miles away, and fired in almost random directions from a point miles from where Espaa had come down, making it near impossible to work out where he’d been headed or what target he’d wanted to engage. But caution was important, and speed, more so.

A brisk walk, to allow the ‘droid to keep up, brought him where he’d hoped to be, he came to a station.Station meant something different on the Outer Rim. It was a place where colonists could pick up essential supplies, a general store in the frontier. Pantora wasn’t as outer rim as all that, a homeworld of its own it lacked the frontier feel, but the term would do. Pantorans looked at him with curious or wary eyes, the invasion had not come here yet, and he could feel that many wondered what side he might be on, he let them wonder, he had no business with them, and it would hardly do to disclose it. He came to what he’d been looking for, the first waypoint. A used swoop shop, speeder bikes and swoops hovering on the lot.

It didn’t take him long to spot what he wanted. “That one,” he said to R3, pointing, “go void the warranty while I pay.”

The ‘droid bleeped and warbled at the old joke, trundling up to the formidable 74-Y speeder, with its trio of blasters and beefy engine, an expensive model with some aftermarket customizations. In a thrice, arc welder and cutting torch were out, making modifications.

“Sir, I really must object,” the shop ‘doid said, buttling over as though he was watching someone disobey a dress code.

“Five thousand Centrean Dactarii, in nova crystals,” he said, to forestall complaints, holding up the crystals in their solid wafers labelled with purity attestations. “I need a bike, quickly, in fact I need that one.”

The shopkeep’s photoreceptors swivelled and widened, “Maybe… I think I will withdraw that objection,” he said. Nova crystals were portable wealth, and Espaa had long learned that they forestalled many, many complaints, from organics and ‘droids alike, and always carried a goodly amount of the precious substance. It wasn’t like anyone would mug him, after all.

“Thanks,” he said, “It’ll be off your lot right away,” he said, turning back to watch R3 work, stepping into the lee of the building, feeling over-exposed.

The little ‘droid had already cut out the traffic control transponder, and thrown it aside, and was plugged into the machine, juicing it by disabling safety limits built into its control software, and disabling several sensors and civilian communications patterns Espaa didn’t bother with, to reduce its emission profile.

Espaa lifted the R3 unit onto the back of the bike, and strapped it in place, this had been part of the reason he’d chosen such a large bike, satisfied by the purr of its engines, the Jedi Knight mounted up, shifting his sabre from left hand side cross-draw to right hand side short-draw. “Let’s go,” he said, gunning the engine with a roar.

CNS Rebellion

Commander Doruss of the 891c Akorec-class strike cruiser Rebellion entered the bridge naked but for his jewellery. This was not unusual, however, as he was a Hutt, and uniform requirements for the giant sluglike beings were lax in view of their culture. He wore an ornamented shoulder-piece bearing his rank-plaque, five coloured plastic buttons on a metal plaque, in a single row, three blue, two red, augmented with a pair of rank cylinders. Commanding a crew of one hundred seventy eight, not counting two hundred non-sapient ‘droids of sophisticated binary type, but including conventional ‘droids, Doruss was not well thought of among the fleet, his occasional risk taking having been amplified by speciesism into a reputation for almost ludicrous indifference to the lives of his men.

“Major Bressic, Major Kayle, welcome aboard,” he said, saucer like eyes swivelling to regard them. Bressic wore the black of a shocktrooper officer, while Kayle wore the beige of a ground forces commander.

“Commander,” Kayle, the more senior, said, with a crisp salute. “Pleasure to be here. Our men are halfway secured, have we got any word of the mission yet?” He knew it was Pantora, but actual mission details had been light on the ground.

“Nothing yet,” the hutt said, with a slight frown, slithering to the broad command podium with its improved repulsor-field inertial dampers arrayed around it in lieu of a traditional seat, drawing the code cylinder to his left and inserting it in the flower-petal like computer terminals. “Prepare for hostile landing on plains terrain, two companies of armour to debark and engage hostile ground forces as directed.”

“Oh well,” Kayle said, “from what I hear about the enemy, they’ll at least be up for a stand-up fight.”

Bressic donned his helmet, his body armour flexing slightly, plasteel helm giving him a bucket-head appearance. The grey officer’s field armour contrasted sharply with his black uniform, he might have donned full armour, were he not riding in a juggernaut today.

“I’ll be in my command-vehicle,” he said, “Sir, Adras,” he said, nodding to Doruss and Adras Kayle respectively.

Heading aft, Bressic marched into the ship’s combat bay. The Akorec-class was not a big ship, two hundred fifty meters long, it was essentially an armoured box with a cluster of laser cannons, and a large cargo bay amidships. There, ranked up, were armoured vehicles. A series of tanks and A6 Juggernauts, binary loadlifters slotting missile after missile into their honeycomb patterned launchers. The huge machines were infamously unsubtle, but Bressic liked them and had been pleased to get a posting within the Heavy Armour Brigade.

Each of the huge vehicles had a crew of twenty, and the company had ten of the massive machines, positioned snout to tail in the hangar, lighter vehicles around them, AT-TEs and others. Fully loaded this ground force might fit thousands of men in this force, but they carried merely a few hundred white armoured shocktroopers, who loitered about on guard or assisted in arming the vehicles.

“Sergeant,” he said, pausing to regard a shocktrooper with a short carbine and a leather pauldron, markings making it hard to tell which soldier it was, he guessed it was Keryn.

“Sir,” she said, confirming his guess.

“How’re the men?”

“Ready to crack some heads, sir,” she said, “who’re we fighting.”

“Don’t know, all we know so far is that command thinks we’ve got superior firepower.”

“Now those are words you can say twice sir,” she said. ‘We’ve got superior firepower’ was a term that any soldier loved to hear her comrades say.

He grinned, passing by a Lesat trooper who carried a tremendously oversized battle rifle, and he climbed into Armour-6, his Juggernaut. He sat in the rear cockpit, and grinned at the bridge crew, “Put me on company wide,” he said.

“You’re on sir,” the communications officer said.

“Cresh Company, this is Major Bressic. We don’t have full information yet, about our target, what we do know is that we have been asked to respond to a brutal invasion of the peaceful planet of Pantora, which is being assaulted by hostile forces. We know we have superior firepower, but they have numbers. We are to land and clear a landing zone for Major General Sevrus’ motorized division to advance on the capital. What they have for armour, we don’t know, but we’re confident. Major Kayle has asked me to remind you that the standard combat rules apply.. first vehicle to stamp or roll over an infantry target drinks free for a week.”

[The Covenant Remnants]

Outnumbered, outgunned, outmanuevered, those words nicely described the rather horrid situation one of Pantora’s remaining battalion’s within the city were in. They already found themselves trapped, as the unknown enemy forces now surrounded what remained of the battalion, now reduced to barely a platoon. Their original plan, to try and reach the Assembly building, was abandoned for an attempt to try and survive the unknown onslaught.

The ‘battalion’ found itself now forced into a building, even then still feeling unsafe as the alien artillery blasted away, and alien infantry would attempt to assault shortly afterwards. So far they had repelled the assaults, but never without significant casualties, as it seemed the enemy rifles were extremely potent at these close ranges, a near miss capable of giving horrid and often fatal burns, as many pantoran soldiers now realized to their horror.

However, if there was one thing that truly terrified them, it was their snipers. Their eerily accurate snipers, built like giant birds, and with a similarly keen eye. All it took was the slightest and shortest peek out a window and what seemed like at least a dozen beams would strike, before anyone knew it, leaving their targets headless before moving onto the next. To fire back at one sniper would only end with the death of the Pantoran who tried. All in all, the situation was quite terrible indeed.

***

On the outskirts of the city, Lapyip stood with the rest of the Unggoy, patrolling mindlessly. It was a menial task, especially since the fighting, or what remained of the fighting, was happening closer in the city. Lapyip and his comrades did not mind this, even if their commander bemoaned the situation constantly. They were happy enough loitering around the quickly prepared defenses of the city outskirts, waiting for an enemy that more than likely would never arrive, or so they hoped.

All around him stood signs of battle, as well as signs of a quite poorly handled occupation. Sangheili, Unggoy, and those accursed Kig-Yar all patrolled the outskirts, occasionally entering buildings to inspect their occupants, usually peacefully, though the odd plasma fire or two could still be heard here and there. Phantoms flew overhead, Shadows flew through the outskirts, passing the shields cheaply and crudely placed around to try and prevent enemy armor from entering, obviously not intended to stand for long in any serious battle. Watchtowers were erected, as Kig-Yar overlooked anything with those evil eyes of theirs. All in all, the security was quite poorly done and haphazard, typical of the more incompetent Covenant Legions.

Espaa Valorum watched from far across the plains, macrobinoculars held to his aquiline Coruscanti features as he watched them, observing their strength and numbers, crouched down, the Jedi Knight was subtly shielded from view, the drab clothing of his order over the body armour presenting one issue with observation, another being the shroud of the force that made him seem almost to sink into the very stuff of reality itself, as though he had somehow submerged himself in air. Espaa’s many battles in the past, missions against renegades and rebels, civil uprisings and megacorporate takeovers had long augmented the training he had recieved on the verdant plains of Ossus in such observations, and he mentally tallied such things carefully, making notes and passing them by secured subspace stutter-comm to his fellows, murmuring a whispered addition verbally, before he lowered the macrobinoculars and retreated to his mount, vehicle sitting there, and looking at the hologram projected by the astromech. “What do your sensors show R3?” he asked.

A map appeared in the air, hazy blue lines of holorpojection showing images before him, of the closer side of the city. Astromech sensors could detect all kinds of things that even a Jedi could not, and the models used by the Jedi Order, a long history going back thousands of years, their own traditions and heritage, were customarily augmented with only the best sensors. Lines of emission and areas where communications could be detected locally appeared on the map, along with a suggested route to the target.

The striated rocky landscape with the deep bogs and pools of surface water half frozen over the taiga presented many barriers to line of sight and detection, huge rocks stippled the ground, and banks of mist hung in the air along with smoke from the city’s minaret spires in the distance.

Espaa nodded. “This will do nicely,” he said, putting the macrobinoculars into one of the compartments on the speeder and re-placing his helm on his head, augmented vision scaled to a minimum; a jedi needed no reticule nor ammunition counter, if it were not for the risk of blinding weapons, he would not bother with polarizing eyepieces at all and simply get a transparisteel eye-slit in his visor, but that would be foolish. “Let’s ride,” he said, and the ‘droid warbled its assent, as they shot across the landscape, whirling past cover and through the mist, on a route that took them close to Lapyip’s position.

Even if most of the Covenant forces were unaware of what was coming towards them, courtesy of the mists that seemed to obscure parts of Pantora, it was when at least one patrolling Spirit detected a mysterious object headed towards the outskirts with its motion sensor array that they were placed on alert. Lapyip himself, on his commander’s orders, placed himself upon the Shade turret, believing it to just be a fluke, though still obeying his commander. The Spirit, carrying nothing more than basic supplies towards the front, could do little more than try to follow whatever it had found, and perhaps fire upon it as the need arise.

The Jedi were trained to make decisions instantly, before they even had a second to think, to trust in the force. But the force’s decisions were well made. To veer left would result in being visible to other guns, to go right would result in entering a minefield, the transport forward, well, if it was necessary to fight it, then the jedi did not entertain doubts. Almost puppet like, his hand raised in autonomic reflex as he reached out with the force, raising himself slightly from the seat and making a distinct, sideways gesture toward the enemy even as he came into view, the force guiding his actions almost instantly, the grip on the extragalactic barbarian’s leg aimed to send him sprawling away from the weapon he manned.

Lapyip quickly began to feel a tugging sensation, before being violently thrown out of his turret, quickly beginning to pick himself up. “What was that?” Another unggoy seemingly asked, as Lapyip quickly attempted to bring himself back onto the Shade. “I don’t know, shoot it!” He shouted fearfully, as his sector of the outskirts now flared with Unggoy and Sangheili, all prepared to defend their sector.

At the same time, faced with a sudden decision, the Spirit now trained its gun onto its target, firing blueish-purple shots at it. Whether it was simply a unaware civilian or an actual enemy mattered little, it was getting too close to the Covenant forces and the city. Both the Spirit and the infantry below assumed they were prepared to deal with the issue, even if they would soon find themselves to be quite wrong.

Espaa’s finger squeezed the trigger on the handlebars, double blaster rifles on the dorsal side and a pair of blaster cannons on the underside stitching a pattern of fire across the Unggoy nearby as the ship slalomed to one side, skittering across the ground before the Jedi leapt from it, the red blaster bolts continuing for a moment as he held the trigger with the force, R3 also jetting clear in a moment as the speeder began to decelerate and slow, the little droid taking its arc welder to Lapyip’s groin as it landed, another hatch containing a reserve of fuel opening and extending a fuel line from it, both leapt from the site of the speeder, all three going in differing directions, Espaa sprinting toward the Shade with a terrifying speed, zipping over the ground to leap into it, while the R3 unit continued to electrify what were presumably the unggoy’s private parts.

The unggoy squad and their Sangheili commander all leaped for cover, some more fortunate than others as they attempted to return fire, even as at least half of the squad lay dead. The Spirit behind them continued firing at the unknown assailant, now reporting what was becoming a more serious threat to the rest of the legion below.

Lapyip soon found himself in quite terrifying pain, screaming as he now felt an intense burning through his groin. “Ack! Stupid thing!” He shouted as he tried to slam his hand into the strange machine’s head, or at least he assumed it was its dome was its head. The rest of his squad being occupied by the blaster bolts meant that no aid was coming his way soon, as he tried his hardest to push the droid away, leaving the Shade completely empty and easily available for Espaa to enter in uninterrupted. The Jedi’s foot reached out to the side of the thing, jumping oddly upon the turret to bring it about in its repulsor-bearing, the thing spinning slightly under his weight as he reached out for the controls and grasped the trigger, guided by the force, a jedi’s actions were swift and decisive, and he soon had the thing pointing skyward, drawing a bead in front of the Spirit and firing repeatedly, trigger working to fire plasma bolts into its path timed to intercept the mid-section at the rear of its tuning fork shape.

The Spirit, even though it was quite well protected against most incoming fire, even that of a Shade, still appeared to look quite uneasy, as it slowly began to retreat, gun still firing, at least until the Shade’s own firepower began to strike its own weapon, quickly melting and breaking it apart after only a quick salvo. Now useless against its foe, the Spirit began to make a full retreat, heading towards the city. Its request for reinforcements, however, did not go unnoticed, as three Phantoms now began to approach, far more well armed and prepared against a threat, each firing their three plasma turrets as they unloaded reinforcements several dozen feet away from Espaa. At the same time, the only other survivor of the squad posted there, the Sangheili, now began to approach the Shade, plasma rifle in hand, and fully intent on killing this new foe.

Espaa, dismounting, formed a fist, the forearm of his armour releasing an energy shield about the size of a dinner plate, angled-forward the shield caught the first blast of the plasma rifle. No one who had seen a jedi fight on the edge of lava or burn through a blast door with their energy shield would question how the robes that overlaid his plastoid armour did not cinder from the passage of the plasma bolt as it deflected on the shield, while the Jedi’s other hand reached out to yank the dismounting barbarians toward him, from their transports, into the area where their own ships were firing, as he leapt from the Shade, spinning in the air as he practically swam through the air ten or more feet in a bound. The plasma bolt, deflected into the Shade turret from within its firing compartment, would hopefully set off some sort of chain reaction.

As the Phantoms opened their side doors, in order to allow most of their troops to exit the dropships quickly in comparison to the gravity lift, said troops now found themselves flung violently towards the Shade. many of them, mostly the weaker unggoy and kig-yar, died instantly, the rest dying instead as the phantoms’ fire incinerated them, even before the Shade had exploded viciously. The Phantoms continued firing regardless at the Jedi, their crews seemingly horrified at what they had done, as well as what they were fighting. It was no mere demon, they reasoned, it was something else. They began to retreat as well, perhaps fearing that the seemingly human monster would try to use whatever evil sorcery it used to glide to try and strike at them.

Espaa ran toward the nearest Sangheli in the periphery of the blast, yanking the weapon arm downward and bringing the buckler-shield up into his triple-jaw with terrible force, amplified beyond the limits of mortal men,hitting like a gunpowder cannon, the broad surface ramming forward and breaking the speed of sound in the last foot of its travel.

The nearest Sangheili, a Minor sent in along with a small strike force now making its way towards his position, looked upwards at the foe, only to find his arm violently thrust downwards, and soon a violent slam broke at least two of its mandibles, screaming in pain as he tried to punch the human with his other hand, a strike that would normally be lethal against humans, a punch thrown out of sheer instinct and fear. The rest of his squad slowly backed away, weapons, mostly plasma rifles and needlers, now trained at the foe before them. Espaa staggered back, the blow reduced by armour and by the aegis of the force that allowed Jedi to fall hundreds of meters and grab a speeding aircar without having their wrists broken or torn asunder. He stood alone, surrounded by a ring of foes.

The pause in the battle as the enemy began to fear him was pleasing, and Espaa revelled in it for a moment, a temptation. The warble of his mechanical companion, for he was not truly alone, scooting away from an enraged alien of the lesser sort brought him back from such thoughts for a moment, and the jedi reached out, twitching his fingers in Lapyip’s direction across the field, resulting in the unfortunate Unggoy’s feet being pulled out from under him once more, toppling him forward to the ground.

He looked back at the squad, and held out a hand, open. A cylinder from the right hand side of his belt-kit detached, and shot into his hand. It looked like nothing so much as a piece of small piping that had been adorned with all sorts of additional things. Were it a bit longer it might make a decent club, but as it was, it was not particularly intimidating. His thumb pressed a stud on its length, and a blade of narrow plasma emerged with a distinctive snap-hiss, the blue-white blade narrowly collimated and given a traditional hue an adegan crystal. He moved barely at all, the blade simply and languidly following as he brought it into a high guard position over his head. A single step, a sweeping motion, and with considerable economy, he moved forward. The blade passed through the injured Sangheili lengthways, shoulder to hip, diagonally across the body, and transitioned into a low guard position, designed to prevent the opponents ahead of him from gauging the position and angle of his blade, and to keep his grip difficult to see, before transitioning outward from that position again slowly.

The Sangheili was dead before he knew it. His body ripped in two just as Lapyip toppled over. The small team in front of him initially hesitated, the unggoy in particular seemingly ready to break out in fear and run. They finally gained their opportunity as they saw at least a half dozen blue orbs of pure energy, more than likely coming from several Wraiths, quickly descend upon the human before them, the entire squad now running as quickly as possible, the Sangheili, and especially the Kig-Yar in particular far faster than any normal human could hope to match.

Espaa leapt upward as the artillery, or what he presumed was such, came down toward him, spiralling over toward Lapyip, blade held away from his body as he crashed into an acrobatic landing, “R3, time to move on,” he said, and the ‘droid tootled an acknowledgement, as the Jedi approached the prone little creature before him.

The explosions engulfed the area in which Espaa previously stood, leaving several large, burning holes where they stood. This mattered little to Lapyip, who now found himself face to face with the human before him. He stood motionlessly, fear paralyzing him as he simply stood in his orange armor, his gas mask being the only thing that kept him from revealing the fear in his eyes. He felt as if he was already dead, regardless of what his next decision was, not that he could think of anything to do at this point.

Espaa looked at the terrified alien, his own face hidden behind his visor, as it stood looking up at him, breathing heavily, before releasing the stud on his lightsaber, blade vanishing back whence it had come, while he stowed it again, reaching out to call the grunt’s fallen pistol to his hand to prevent him shooting the jedi or anyone else for the short term, or perhaps out of curiosity, the shield vanishing too as he mounted the speeder bike again and accelerated away toward the river-side of the city.

Lapyip would suddenly collapse after the human left, lying alone as he stood in the devastation, reinforcements to the sector arriving too late to make an appreciable difference. All they would gain was eyewitnesses and a trail of destruction, something that would prove both very worrying and interesting to the Field Marshal, no doubt. Certainly, it was time to try and finish what they had started before any more ‘interlopers’ would begin to interfere even further.