--Collab between Nariata, Gcold, and Unknown.---
Anora braced herself behind the cover of the barrier as the guns of the gun ships roared to life. Anora and her large strike force found themselves bracing their bodies against the barrier, praying to any number of forces that the Grand army built their barriers to survive this type of fire. Dust was kicked up into the air as the gunships fire slammed into the metallic surface of the building, all around Anora visibility dropped. What was once a simple destroy the gun mission had quickly turned south as they found themselves now pinned down. Anora flicked on her comm and spoke a quick order to her forces. "They will slow their fire as they start unloading their forces. On my mark fire at the gunships." Moving her body back Anora began to size up the force before her through the thick layer of dust which now hanged in the air. Though her vision was only greeted by the sleek frame of the gunship. She was prevented from seeing their army in it's full force making Anora estimate that this force was much larger than her. Their plan had a bravado feel to it. Rather than letting the troops unload from a safe distance they were unloading well within weapon range and without any cover. She assumed either there was many Jedi or even more clone soldiers on board. Fully expecting the former, Anora hoped for the latter.
Carefully watching the cannons cease firing, Anora's eyes began to dart towards the left hand side of the ship where several ropes could be seen falling to the ground. Patiently waiting, Anora counted the seconds before her eyes filled with an image the first of the soldiers beginning his decent to the ground. Anora knew that if she could catch even a few of the soldiers huddled just under the rope before they began their attack in force she would have an easier time surviving this encounter. Anora allowed her eyes to follow the first of the soldiers as he fell from his ship. Lower, lower, and lower still her eyes flowed with the man until he was a mere second away from touching down on the ground. "Open fire!" Bellowed from her lungs to which her team responded with a near unison rise over the cover and squeezing the triggers of their guns.
Halfway down her rope, Nya saw the barrage of blaster fire. Bolts of all colors whirled around her while she quickened her descend. Somehow, depiste the volume of fire directed at them, none of them found their way to her. A security officer below her was not as fortunate, the man took two shots to his chest and another to this head the moment he hit the ground.
"Spread out and move forward," Nya ordered as soon as she landed. Around her, most of the Republic forces have managed to land safely, with about only three casualties. The reason was because some of their enemies still focused their attacks on the gunships, hoping to neutralize her fire support.
"Ma'am" The pilot called out, "We're taking heavy fire, need to pull back."
"Copy that" Nya answered, she knew that the gunships are invaluable to their efforts, losing them means losing all possibilities of extraction. "Pull back to safe engagement distance and wait for my mark."
While the aircrafts took off to retreat, Nya's ground force inched forward.
"Fire and maneuver," She heard the clone commander, Zed, say. Adding to his command, Nya and her officers made similar attempts.
"Zed, put some grenades up there." Nya requested. Not waiting for the clone to respond, she reached into her grenade pouch and produced a fragmentation grenade. Pulling its pin out, Nya threw the explosive towarded the barricade.
"Frag out, get ready to push."
Anora stood behind the barricade using her dual lightsabers to deflect as many bolts as she could. She saw her Mandalorians do what they do best, placing well placed shot after well placed shot at their enemy. But she also noticed what the droids were doing, and with an angry tone she began barking a simple order "Droids, what are you- fire at the soldiers not the ship." A nearby B1 battle droid looked over to her and asked with it's annoying voice "But ma'am, what about the soldiers on the ship?" Anora was about to strike the droid done when she a small object caught her eye flying through the air. It took her a second to realize what it was, its round shape and flashing red light indicated that it was a grenade. Anora knew that if her eyes were any judge that the grenade was heading right towards her. With the chaos around she knew she could not focus on the small object and force it away. Pushing the small button on the grip of her lightsaber, the red blade disappeared from sight as she readied her right hand to use the force. She targeted not the grenade, but rather that B1 battle droid who dared question. The droid was quickly levitating just above the ground, his head and arms flailing from left to right as his speech descended into a confused "whaaaaat?" Throwing her right hand out, the droid soon followed suit as he began his intercept of the grenade.
The droid screamed in terror as he flew through the air. Nothing in his programing prepared him for this encounter. He was simply doing his job, to fight the forces of the Jedi and Republic when his own commander decided to use him as a droid projectile. The droid saw the grenade just inches in front of his chest and he prepared for the resulting explosion. But all he felt was a slight thud against his chest before he fell back planet side. After a softer landing than expected, the droid began to get up. The droid saw the enemy diving away from him, and this made him even more confused. His last words were "What the-" as the grenade that was at his feet exploding, send his parts and shrapnel flying around the area.
Anora reactivated her lightsaber as the explosion rocked the nearby area. A blue bolt from one of the trooper was it's first contact. Angeling the blade Anora tried to deflect it to hit a target but the round simply flew many yards away into the ground. A second round tried to make yet another hole in the chest of Anora but this too was deflected away into the ground. She noticed a Jedi among the troops as she blocked a third bolt. He had just pushed Spar and Tobi, as well as four or so droids, into the back of the wall. Seeing Spar quickly get up and resume fighting was comforting for her yet Tobi did not move. Anoras eyes quickly darted over to the Jedi to size him up and she was suprised to see him keeping his distance, body facing towards her. His defensive opening stance suggested he wanted the fight to go to him. Anora fancied the thought for a brief second before she blocked yet another pair of blaster bolts. She knew she would need to get out of here soon if she were to survive however that Jedi was not going to let them slip away. She shouted to the Blackguard near her "Fann, i need you to keep that Jedi busy." He responded in a quick voice "Ma'am?" Anora turned her head to face the many fully. "If any of us have any change to escape it is if someone stays back and provides a distraction." Her voice broke uncharacteristic as she gave him one final order "Should he win you know what to do." The man gave a nod with an easily seen reluctance to it. He turned his body towards the Jedi and force jumped towards him.
Anora quickly turned her body and began to run towards the area where the final Mandalorian soldier was working to find a way to disable the gun.
------Meanwhile in space-----
Vansk watched her screen as the reports of the Republic forces assaulting Anora's squad began to filter in. She could be seen barking orders to homever was was around. Asking one if any bombers could do a pass or if there was any word on any other forces that could be diverted to assist. The answer was always a resounding no. Vansk did not let her concern show, even though she cared for the young Anora she knew she volunteered for this battle. She knew Anora was capable, powerful and deadly. If she could make it through the roof Vansk knew she would be able to survive anything.
Vansk watched and would have watched until she was safe but was interrupted by an emergency broadcast from the CIS commanders. "Warning, all fleet commanders are ordered to fall back to safe zone Alpha-one one. Armageddon is delayed, i repeat Armageddon is delayed. T-minus twenty minutes to hyperspace jump."
Vansk felt a moment of breathless, whatever this Armageddon was it had turned the single greatest victory of the CIS to sheer ruin. Vansk knew that they would be dead in the water if they did not hurry, but she needed to send a message to her forces still on planet. She quickly moved over to one of the many people on the bridge and spoke in a very direct tone "I need a message sent to our forces still planet side. How long till you can send?" The worker turned from his console and replied in a shocked tone "Ma'am, with this ecm bo-" Vansk quickly interrupted "I don't care." She spoke in a threating tone "How long?" The man quickly responded with "Twenty minutes ma'am." Vansk began to walk away as she spoke "Good, we have just twenty minutes before we jump. Let our brothers and sister know what is happening."
Witnessing the destruction of the B1 battledroid, Nya couldn't help but smile. She always found the droids reaction amusing, especially prior to their destruction. It must something about their programming, probably humor designed to dampen the dreaded sense of defeat.
Beside some exploding droids, Nya and her allies also made good progress against their force wielding opponents. She saw a lightsaber wielding combatant, presumably the leader, falling back the AA gun. Nya took this opportunity to rally her squad. Waving her arm at the barricade, the republic forces charged forward. At the forefront of their charge, Nya briefly ducked behind a piece of debris while returning fire. After the short pulse, Nya took point once again. She ignored the blaster fire around her and made her way directly to the barricade, taking cover behind it, she saw that most of her squad have made it to the barricade.
"Commander Zed," Nya spoke and the clone crouched beside her. "How is your squad doing?"
"We have three dead and another wounded," the clone answered, "and you ma'am?"
"Two dead and two more wounded," Nya explained. It was impossible to have a casualty free battle, especially not against this kind of foe. They can always mourn later, for now they have to finish the fight. "Have you seen our Jedi?"
"I saw him charging off a moment ago," Zed stated, "he's probably engaging the dark jedis now."
"Ok, let him fight the darksiders." Nya replied. "We'll take out the rest of them. Over the barricade, attack!"
The Mandalorian at the rear of the gun had been working furiously with a plasma cutter trying to get to the center of the power conduit. The metal of the anti-air turret was made out of a thick shelled durasteel alloy and the plasma cutter need time to make a large enough gap for him to place the remaining thermal detonators in. He heard a quick moving figure nearby that had was missing the normal metallic tip tap of a droids foot. He quickly grabbed his side arm and aimed it towards what he thought was a clone, but quickly lowered it when the familiar form of the Blackguard armor came into view. He quickly lowered his gun and was preparing to return to finish making the hole but Anora was moving to do it herself. It took here one more minute to finish the cut before he force pulled the small circular block out. The Mandalorian quickly began to throw whatever Thermal detonator into the hole, and he linked it to his wrist guard. Anora prepared to begin the process the process of cutting a hole to escape into when the Mandalorian began firing his pistol.
Anora face and with it her eyes darted towards the direction he was firing and saw their enemies trying to vault the wall. The Mandalorians shots were accurate, sending a trio of clones falling to the ground with blaster holes in their chest. He spoke in a hurried tone, "Make us a hole, i will cover you." He said as he fired another shot, taking down another clone trooper. Anora flipper her right hand saber making it face the ground before plunging it all the way just below the hilt. She began pulling the saber in a circular formation right around her position. She was making the hole large enough even for the biggest of her squad.
A line of republic fighters vaulted the barricade on both sides of Nya, the remaining droids attempted to fire back but was quickly put down. Nya saw the non-droid foes were now falling back, their leader cutting the ground with a lightsaber. Suddenly a B2 battledroid appeared in front of her, wrist blaster moving to her direction. Without a second second, Nya lunged at the droid while drawing her baton the same time. The droid was surprised by her sudden assault, in the brief moment it had taken to readjust its aim, Nya brought down her cortosis reinforced weapon on its metal hull. The baton caught the droid in its full center, causing sparks to fly and stumbling the droid off its aim. Following her last hit, Nya slammed the tip of her baton into the B2's "head", where its controlling units were located. The cortosis top penetrated the control center, causing Nya's opponent to crumple in a pile.
Jumping over the destroyed droid, two Mandolorians caught Nya's eye. They were running back to their leader, who had almost managed to cut a wide circle on the ground.
"Concentrate fire on them," Nya pointed to the organic fighters. On her command, Nya's officers and the clones joined Nya's own blaster fire. The crosshair of her KX-60 found the chest of a Mandolorian, a barrage of light quickly followed as Nya pinned the trigger. The Mandolorian was knocked back the the first barrage but remained alive, moving closer to her target, Nya fired another burst, putting the commando out of his misery.
Her allies have now taken out the other retreating Mandolorian, in the distance, she saw what appears to be Morrin engaging another force-sensitive enemy. Two more Mandolorians and two dark jedis remained on the turrets side, with a couple of droid stragglers being cleaned up by republic forces. Nya shouldered her rifle once, pointing toward a commando nearing the turret's wall. However, her trigger finger was met with only a disappointing click, signaling the end of her rifle's ammunitions.
"Perfect time to run dry," Nya cursed. Her rifle was build for law enforcement, therefore lacked the capacity of common military rifles. While she carried extra power cells for it, switching to sidearm is always faster than reloading. Nya dropped the rifle and swapped to her custom DH-17 pistol, with the enemies fleeing, she took some quick shots without aiming.
As Anora finished cutting the hole in the roof of the building she quickly used the force to push the cut circle down and create a barrier. She called out over the comm link "Everyone fall back to my position, we're getting out of here. Droids covering fire." Her men began to fall back but the enemy was already on them. Spar and the Mandalore were quickly running through the droids that still stood fighting off those who had come. The security forces made a massive mistake by joining the fight without clearing out more of the droids. They would surely lose more members than they would have. The first to reach the hole was her fellow Blackguard who promply dropped down into the darkness below. Anoras eyes darted towards where the remaining three Mandalorians were running. She watched as a bolt blasted into the Mandalorian named Tobi, while it did not kill him right away she watched as the shooter finished him off with another bolt. The first Mandalorian to arrive was the Mandalore himself. He was limping heavily as it appeared he had been injured. Behind him was Spar, who was running through droids and troopers alike. The Mandalore jumped down followed by Spar, and as Anora was motioning for the last Mandalorian to jump down a blaster bolt tore into his leg. Anora was about to rush to his aid but he waved her off. "Get out of here, protect the Mandalore!" He shouted as he drew a secondary side arm and painfully dragged himself towards the wall of the anti-air gun. Anora looked back as the man shouted "GO" again. She hated to leave him behind but she needed to flee. And as fate had deemed so, a stray bolt fired from some random source glanced her shoulder. Though the wound was not bad, it affected her balance and as she landed she sprained her ankle in a most painful fashion. Her scream bellowed in the dark coridor as a Mandalorian came to her assistance.
---Meanwhile, back on the surface.---
"So this is how it ends" Thought the Mandalorian. His name was Sawyadi, a veteran of many armed conflicts throughout his long career as a Bounty Hunter and along side his Mandalorian brothers and sisters. His eyes were flowing from left to right as he scanned for the first clones to be unlucky enough to come in the sights of his dual pistols. His right arm was hung suspended in the air while his left coddled the detonator for the charges. His right hand was pointed to where he thought the chest area of the clone troopers was, granted it would only work if they came from his left hand side. Sawyadi let out a heavy sigh as the sounds of the battle began to falter as more and more droids fell to his enemy. He knew his life would come to an end in one of two ways. Either he would be shot before he could kill a clone or two and detonate the bombs with his last dying breath. He did not fancy going out like that, he fancied being able to empty every last shot he had before he detonated the bombs. He chuckled as the sounds of battle fell to one last hysterical screech from a B1 droid. A pair of clone troopers slowly made their way around the turn but were met with two blaster bolts to their chests and the sound of a clicking noise as Sawyadi's gun ran dry.
"Finally you betray me." He said as he held the gun up to his face mask. A trio of clones approached from the opposite side and ordered "put the gun down, now!' Sawyadi turned his face towards them and with a hint of sadness in his voice spoke "If you insist." Tossing the gun towards the nearest clone Sawyadi raised the detonator and planted his finger firmly on the detonator. One of the other clones quickly fired landing three shots into the Mandalorian. The detonator rolled out of his dying hand before a large explosion rocked the area as the detonators went off.
---Five minutes later---
Through the dimly lit and musky smelling hallway ran the remains of Anora's squad. Beaten and bruished, Anora ran with her left arm over the right shoulder of the Mandalorian named Spar. The injuries sustained from the fighting just a brief moment ago prevented her from keeping up with the group. The Mandalore faced a similar fate, his leg was injured much like Anora's and thus could not run as well either. Though she insisted they were to leave the Mandalore and her behind, a plan that the Mandalore accepted, her squad dragged their initally reluctant bodies along as they made there way to the nearest service elevator. As they neared, the Blackguard named Tash Dronos let go of the Mandalore and quickly rushed to the control panel. A look of relief would have been seen gracing his face as the elevator arrived quickly. As the doors opened, the surviving four members of a team which one totaled around thirty rushed inside before the quickly began their decent.
"They arrived so quick." Spoke an exhausted Mandalore "We lost so many good men in that fight." Anora responded in an equally exhausted tone "We did. Many of our comrades are dead or dying all over this pathetic district." Her tone changed near the end. She was growing angry as the injury in her right ankle and left shoulder began to send waves of pain through her body. The sudden stop of the elevator on the twenty fifth floor caused her ankle to send another torrent of pain coursing through her body. "Piece of shit." She spoke in a soft, angry tone. "Tash, why have we stopped. I thought you said this led to the sub level fifty." Tash was already on the controls of the lift, franticly trying his best to get it moving again. As he realized it was a lost cause, he turned his head slightly to the side and spoke in a somber tone. "Ma'am, the controls busted. Seems to be corrupted data. I don't think our enemies did this, the lift probably hasn't seen use in years." He spoke as he used his fist to strike the panel. "There's another lift some ways away, any luck we can make it there before the Republic comes looking." Anora grunted at the news, but knew she could not stay long. "Alright, let's move out."
The elevator door slid open as Tash pressed the button revealing a mostly empty, dusty and above all else, dark area. The Mandalorians turned on the flashlights on the sides of their helmets, allowing four bright beams of light to pierce through the darkness. Spar was the first one out of the elevator, followed by the limping Mandalore. Their guns were raised and their fingers were on the triggers. Slowly they moved their heads and guns around, the bright lights did not reveal any devils in the darkness and so they lowered their guns. "All clear ma'am." Spoke Spar as he returned back and offered his shoulder to Anora, who returned her left arm around his shoulders and spoke quickly. "Let's go."
Kal flipped the last card, a seven. Combined with the 13 already showing, that made 20. "Pure Pazaak" he said, scrapping up the credits on top of the crate. "I'm surprised I'm beating you," he said to the group's most avid gambler, Po'mali. "Usually I have to get pretty lucky to win against you.
"Sorry," said Po'mali. "I was just thinking about this area. With an elevator leading strait here from near the Jedi Temple, this would be a great place to set up shop. We could turn one of the warehouses into a salvage store and Pawn shop, and get rid of some of the salvage we have sitting back at the base, taking up space."
"You're right, it would make a good shop location." said Kal. "Didn't know you wanted to quit the salvage game though."
"I go wherever the credits go, and right now, I think there are more credits in selling salvage to the top-siders than there is in getting the salvage from the lower levels. Besides, when the shop starts to take off, the money the salvager's get for their finds will go up, and everyone will be better off.
Kal thought about it for a second. "Makes sense." he said, "but you're going to need quite a bit of starting capital to buy inventory and hire people to move all of that junk up here. Tell you what, I've got some credits saved up back at base. Mind if I invest five thousand in your shop, become your business partner?
"I've got some extra credits too. I'll invest two thousand." said Tek.
"And another thousand from me." said Briansk.
"I have no credits." said Aichkay, "only spare parts, and I'm not letting you sale those."
"Fair enough." said Kal, then looked at Po'mali. "We'll want something else here too, for your patrons and the salvager's that come up here with you. A club, maybe? You could move your games up here, including that old Pazaak table you fixed up. Make some money on the gamblers too."
Before he could get a response, the indicator above the lift started to show that it was moving to the surface. "Ok, people, get ready," said Kal. Everyone grabbed their stuff and stowed it, then went to their positions to wait for the enemy.
When they saw that the enemies had walked or limped out of the lift, and the doors had closed, Aichkay and Po'mali lobbed firebombs at them.
"Ambush!" Shouted Spar as he was the first to spot the make shift bombs in the beams of his helmets light. Anora quickly gave the man a gentle force push to free her good arm. Manipulating the force around the bottle with her left hand, she managed to slow the bottle down and bring it to a stop. Her eyes quickly scanned before her, trying to find where this bottle was sent from before noticing a faint bit of someones body sticking up behind the barricade. A mere second after catching it Anora gave the bottle a good force throw, sending it smashing into the front side of the barricade. The explosion and resulting fire engulfed the front side of their position. The explosion, and resulting fire, both illuminated the surrounding area in a bright yellow glow and sent molten fire flying over the top of the barricade. Tash tried to do the same but he could not get a good grip on the one heading his way, instead it was forced down to the ground a few feet in front of him and the Mandalore. The latter had the reaction time to avoid the moving form of the fire, the former was not so lucky. The fire quickly covered the bottom part of his legs as well as catching his cap on fire. The pain rocketed through his body like nothing he has ever felt before, resulting in a mad scream that echoed through the room.
Anora quickly looked over and saw his plight and knowing the Mandalore to have a Cyroban grenade, shouted as she drew her light saber "Put him out quickly!" Spar moved over to her side as the Mandalore quickly reached towards his belt. His reaction time was slower than normal due to the injury he sustained above but in a few seconds he had the grenade out. With one click of the round red button, which rested dead center of the Cryoban, the device came on line with a loud and noticeable beep. With a second push, and a second beep, the device was set to fire suppression mode. The Mandalore, with a quick turn of his body and a even quicker flick of his wrist, tossed the grenade at the feet of Tash. A loud cloud erupted, spreading out over a wide area around the target. The fire quickly died and disappeared from the body of Tash who fell over onto the ground as the sudden chill shocked his body. The Mandalore readied his weapon and rushed to the side of Anora.
Aichkay, Tek, and Po'mali ducked down behind the barricade to keep from getting burnt, barely being missed by the liquid that splashed over the barrier. Po'mlali thought quickly, however, and drew a fire extinguisher from his pack, spraying the flames until they went out.
Seeing that their enemies were injured, Kal motioned to Briansk, and they walked up to the their foes. As Kal neared the Sith Lord, he drew his vibroblade with his right hand, and his lightsaber with his left, bionic arm. Igniting it, he walked up to the woman. "Stop right there Dark Jedi. I can't let you hurt any more of my people."
Briansk drew her vibroblade as well, walking up behind the Mandolorian that had just rescued a dark Jedi. Though he was injured, he seemed to be the most formidable of the non-force users there.
The remaining three stood nearly back to back as their assailants began to approach. The Mandalorians were about to fire but a quick and near silent "Don't shoot" " could be heard escaping Anora's lips. The Mandalore and Spar quickly turned their heads ever so slightly, and let out a nearly unanimous "Ma'am?" "If they wanted to kill us they would have shot us by now. They're trying to scare us. Be ready for anything." "Tash, you ok?" He responded with a quick "Yeah" as he tried to raise himself up, but it was clear he was in a lot of pain as he fell right back down. She was about to speak again but her voice embraced the silence as she saw a man approach their position, vibroblade in one hand and a lightsaber in the other. He wore no robes of the order and firebombing was not their ways, Anora was at a loss for who he could be. Anora listened as he spoke and let out a clear laugh at the last statement. Keeping her opening stance tight, and ready for anything, she spoke
"Coming from the man who just happened to fire bomb us for no reason. State your business with us, you are no Jedi." Her tone was harsh, filled with a hint of anger and above all else carried a seriousness to it. It was clear she was not happy, and this man better be prepared to die if he made an attempt on them.
"You attacked us first." Kal responded. "Or are you denying that those were your droids that attacked the salvage team on sublevel 284?" Po'mali activated the section's overhead lighting, and Kal started moving slowly to the left, trying to reposition himself to avoid fire from Tek's heavy repeating blaster should it come to a fight.
Anora followed this man with her eyes as he began to move to her right. Her eyes flinched for a second when the overhead lights came on, but after they adjusted she began to take in the man standing before her. Behind her helmet her eyes scanned the man from head to toe, noticing everything that stood out to her. The bionic eye was the first thing she paid a second of attention to, this most likely allowed him certain advantages over her. Her eyes moved lower down his body, keeping her head still as she did it, noticng the bionic arm and the lightsaber. The arm most likely gave him tremendous power while the saber was something she had not expected. It was clear from his height, his weaponry and the additional parts that this man was neither republic nor Jedi. He was most likely some criminal or salvager, and judging by his concern for what the droids are doing on that level she suspected it to be the latter.
As she responded, her tone had not changed from before but now added a slight bit of surprise. "I deny your" she paused for a second before spitting out the final word "claim."
"Then maybe you can explain why four battledroids, four super battledroids, and four roller droids were that far down." He came to a stop, having moved out of the way of Tek's blaster. A purple tendril of energy ran down the blade of his lightsaber, from the base, almost to the tip, dissipating as it reached the end. "They have to belong to your group." he said, refuting her claim. "No one else would have access to CIS droids."
As the man continued his speech, Anora could not help her anger from building. This man was trying to defend their attack on her squad by using the actions of a droid who's intelligent was easily surpassed by most children over the age of five. Her head tilted ever so, while enough to be noticeable it was not a deviation from her opening stance. She let a moment of silence fall over the room as she stared into the mans eyes through her mask. If she were in better health, and not surrounded, she would have loved to bring the fight to him. A few seconds passed by and not a soul moved nor did one make a sound. With the tension rising quickly, Anora retorted in a quick and angry voice.
"Do you know what's happening right now?"
Kal responded to the Sith's question. "Your group, and its CIS allies, are attacking Corusant. The Jedi and the GAR are defending the planet, and have probably decimated your forces, forcing a retreat. Am I close?"
With a laugh quickly responded "Not even close." Pausing for a second as she used her head to motion up above them. She spoke in a very quick and blunt voice "Above us there are thousands of ships engaged in the largest space battle of the past century. Around us the surface plays home to countless battles spread over vast distances. You know what that means right?"
Kal thought a moment. "You are conquering the planet? Or at least trying. I doubt the Jedi and GAR will make it easy."
Anora began to slowly move to her right. She knew this would put their enemy more ill at ease but she needed to make her point. Spar quickly spoke in a near silent voice "Ma'am what are you doing?" to which Anora simply replied "Trust me." She continued the slow motion for a couple seconds until she found herself near the badly injured Tash. Looking down at his legs she could tell that whatever was in that fire bomb, it certainly did the damage. She saw that the front of the leg armor had spared the area underneath it from much of the damage, but the sides and rear of the legs were both covered in various sick colored burn marks. The damage spread as far as half way up the cape. She paused for a second.
"Not as easy as i would like, but we have a plan." She paused again as she looked at the man who seemed to be their leader. As she spoke again her tone was filled with a slightly mocking sound "My point being this; do you have any idea how many droids are at the airfield alone?"
Kal looked at the Dark Jedi. "Thousands, I would guess, maybe tens of thousands. But droids are easy to handle. I doubt you have enough Dark Jedi and Mandolorians to handle all of the Jedi. It would take a combined force the size of the GAR to do that." Kal paused, studying her movements. "The Jedi and the Republic aren't really our concern, though. If they want to go to war, it's their people that are being hurt by it. They never should have tried to stop the Seperatists from going their own way."
Anora listened to his response and his final comment calmed her down. It seemed many people were finaly understanding the point of the war. She spoke in a slightly less angry and blunt tone "Thousands upon thousands of drones alone. Many Dark Jedi and mercenaries are also there as well." She paused as she motioned her lightsaber towards the man slowly "Do you think i give the orders to each and every droid?"
"It doesn't matter if you are the Commander in Chief of the entire CIS military, or just a unit commander, though, based on the fact that the Mandalore himself is following your orders," he motioned with his head towards the injured Mandolorian, "I'd say that the first is far more likely. You are at least high enough in rank to be trusted with the assault on the Jedi temple, the most dangerous target on the planet."
"I only care about your people moving into my territory, killing my people. The CIS droids demanded that the salvager's they ran into surrender, called them Jedi dogs. When they refused, the droids attacked. If your droids can't tell the difference between salvager's and Jedi, maybe you need to fix their programming. That team did have a Gray Paladin with them, but that's not a Jedi, and it shouldn't be hard to program them to tell the difference."
"But as long as you leave us alone, keep us out of your war, I won't complain too much. If the Jedi or Seperatist leaders want to lead their people to their deaths, let the people decide what to do about it."
Anora felt the anger quickly return to her as he spoke. She listened to each word he said, and studied his calm demeanor as he spoke. She tightened her grip on her lightsaber as he finished. This man nearly killed her friend, obviously he was prepared to do the same to her and squad yet he talked as if he was a police man reminding a young kid not to break the law. He only showed emotion when he talked about what those droids did. In her mind this was repeated many times in a short span. He was justifying his actions that he took against her squad by what droids did. Droids! In her mind she began to desire charging this man down and sinking her saber deep into his chest. However, she knew her to be too weak right now and her injuries would only hinder it. So as she reluctantly spoke to the man, she began to think of what to do next. "We're only here for the Republic and her Jedi guardians. Civies are off limit for droid targeting. They only target those who have raised weapons or lightsabers. But you justify attempted murder by the actions of droids?
"Droids only follow their orders, and their programming. As their programming wasn't corrupted, and I saw their code themselves when we salvaged them, their behavior is the responsibility of their programmer and their CO. The salvager's may have raised their weapons in readiness, but they wouldn't have fired on them first. I had assumed that you ordered them to attack us, or to capture the sub-levels for use in your war. If they were merely scouts, then maybe both sides share the blame. If you can adjust their programming, however, or order them not to attack sub-dwellers except in self defense or defense of the organic members of your team, I think I can convince my people that they won't be attacked again. That should be enough to settle on a peace agreement between our two groups."
"We can't risk a battle between the two of us. Both sides would suffer heavy casualties. Besides, you won't do too well down here without a guide. There are too many risks, creatures, poisonous plants releasing deadly pollen, even things that thousands of years ago were humans, twilek, or the like, but are now more closely related to monsters from some holo-drama."
Anora did not like the idea of trusting this man nor his forces. But a surprise message suddenly appearing on her HUD quickly forced a shocked and worried look onto her face. It was from Vansk, it was a simple text message yet it drove home a newly formed hopelessness into her mind.
---That message from Vansk---
"Anora, Armageddon has been delayed. The CIS have ordered all ships to pull back to consolidate strength. We will return, go to fall back plan Delta one."
Delta one, Anora thought, hide in the sub levels and blend in until new orders came. A feeling of intense despair fell upon Anora as she looked towards Tash. He slowly returned her gaze, the Mandalorians whispered to each other "Delta one, what's that?" They all would have read the same message but Anora seems to be the one who was most struck by it. She had been on planet for only a couple hours yet the space battle had already been lost. What has happened?
She spoke in a quick voice, missing much of the Anger from before, being replaced by one of confusion. "My friends and I are injured. We have Jedi and GAR actively looking for us and we can't" She paused as she couldn't believe what she was about to say "turn away your help."
"From now own," he said, "We'll assume the sub-levels to be neutral territory between you and the Republic. We'll try and convince the Jedi to hold to that,but they can be quite stubborn sometimes." Kal motioned for his people to come out from hiding. "If you need to talk, we'll be setting up a trade center here to try and sale some of our salvage to the rich top-siders. Might have a club too. The people here will be able to get in touch with me. My name is Kal," he said, deactivating his lightsaber.
"And I'm Anora." She paused as she deactivated her lightsabers and the Mandalorians lowered their weapons. Spar quickly rushed to Tash's side and began to check on him. "If the Jedi and Republic learn we are any where down here, they will come in force. We will try and be out of your district before trouble arrives."
Kal walked over to the injured man. "There's a clinic on sub-level 32.," he said, looking at their injuries, "A man by the name of Drask. He's a bit crazy, and may want to give your people implants, but he's a good doctor, and the Jedi wouldn't think of going there." Kal looked at Po'mali "help Mandalore walk." Kal knelt down beside the burned Dark Jedi and held his hands over him, using the force to "scan" his body for damage. "Minor neural damage, second and third degree burns. Definitely needs Bacta. Unfortunately, that's a bit expensive down here." He stood up and looked at Anora, then signaled for Aichkay to pick up the injured Dark Jedi. "There's a Hutt not far from here, on sub-level 7, who sales Bacta and other medical supplies, including chems, to gangs and other criminals. I could take you there, let you buy the Bacta on your own and save some credits. It looks like you'll be down here for a while, and will need to stretch what credits you have as far as possible."
"You'd be surprised how long one can last when the CIS is backing you." She said. Her voice was quickly devoid of all emotion, the news had already hit her hard. She was unsure of her self for the first time in many years. She had learned to rely on the CIS for many things for this battle, the least of which being support. With "Im sure he could help." Her voice and her head held a hint of confusion.
"Aichkay, reactivate the lift, all levels." When he was done, they were able to use the lift to get to the other levels. As an added bonus, the Jedi wouldn't know which level they were on, which would delay them long enough to get the injured CIS troops medical help.
