EIGHTH // JEDI TEMPLE // CORUSCANT
There was a whining whirring noise outside the balcony of the archives with the rumble of thunder, or perhaps engines in the distance. A smile crossed the face of Eighth. "No." Chittering and clanking of various bug forms could be heard outside the room as the bug forms began to swarm. "You have already been warned to stop interfering-" There was a roar of engines as two ETA Actis-2 fighters appeared at the balcony, Replicators within the cockpit while others swarmed walking around outside the craft. Without any further warning, and with no seeming regard for the human-form replicator in the room. The two starfighters started firing wildly into the archives.
MOI AWAY TEAM // WARSPITE // CORUSCANT ORBIT
One minute they were talking super-weapons and plans of mass destruction, the next second they were talking about
ship exchanges and boxing tournaments. The second after that? Alarms were blaring, and officers were jumping out of their seats and running about to their duty stations. Carolina turned to the two agents who were with her.
"North, South go help with damage control. I'm going to head to the CIC to liaise with the Director to see if we can deal with this swiftly.""Got it.""Already on it."The two twins just looked at each other, nodded and then ran in two different directions. Meanwhile, Carolina followed the flow of traffic in the command staff towards the command centre of the ship, which she had to admit made a lot of tactical sense being that it was buried deep within the ship's structure. Rather than on the outside of the vessel, which practically gave your enemies a target.
She stayed at the back of the room now, merely observing.
Mother of Invention // High Coruscant Orbit
With advanced sensors, and a little more distance from the planet Director Church smiled as he saw the ships rising into orbit. Their position gave them a clearer line of fire, as well as the time to notice the vessels split into designated attack groups—three for each vessel in their rag-tag fleet, all except the late show. "FILSS" The automated voice sounded from around the bridge.
"Yes, Director?"
"Firing control for the MAC gun to my terminal-"
"Yes, Director."
"-Captain!"
Captain Burnes looked up from her position on the bridge's lower deck.
"Sir?"
"Fire at will."
"Yes sir."
The ship roared to life as the turrets were brought online, their targets still out of range however tracking and calculations for intercept had already begun being calculated. He could hear the
whirr and
clunk as missile pods and bays opened. Three longswords roared passed the glass of the bridge. He pulled up a holographic display of the theatre of combat, watching the blips rapidly approaching. Pulling his view away from the rest of the fleet, he couldn't worry about their battles just yet.
A message tracked across the screen. [ALPHA: TARGETS MOVING FAST. NO CLEAR MAC SHOT, LONGSWORDS WILL HAVE A MINIMAL WINDOW OF INTERCEPT BEFORE THEY BLOW STRAIGHT PASSED]
The Director nodded. "Understood."
It was time to see what these Replicators were made of.
KUUN-LAN // MID CORUSCANT ORBIT
"
Priority alert!" Rhys turned around from the viewport as Eadwine spoke. Already there was scrambling throughout the bridge. He walked over to the display. Red blips spread across the map. "Incoming fighters, appear to be breaking into seven distinct groups. Accelerating rapidly."
"Launch Acolytes."
"Already forming a defensive screen-"
"Intercept?"
The senior analyst shook her head. "They're moving too fast. I advise setting a defensive line, allowing them to come into our line of fire." Rhys nodded his approval.
"Do we have any Hive Frigates available?"
"Two on standby."
Rhys nodded. "Excellent, launch both them and sentinel drones. I want a full shield around the Command-ship. Have Hives launch and deploy drones."
On the outside of the vessel, over a dozen drones spewed loose from the ship's hangar. The drones moved a set distance from the Kuun-lan, once they were in position, beams of energy lanced out from drone to another. Creating a solid line, when four drones linked up the space was filled with
bright energy creating a shield."Scans indicate the enemy vessels are composed of a terrestrial fighter, our data packet from the Republic indicates it is something called a V-Wing-" The hologram updated to show the original frame compared to what it was now. "-each fighter appears to have several layers of these Replicator blocks. This will likely make them highly resilient to weapons fire."
Rhys nodded. "Relay this information to the fleet, prepare for combat."