2/18/7957 C.R.C

  Phoenix's Hanger, Providence-Class Dreadnaught, The Finest Hour

  In Orbit over Kamino

  "Alright, is everyone almost ready?"

  A wave of affirmatives washed over Sparks after his question.

  He nodded. "Good, once we receive our orders, make sure you stick to the plan for as long as it's feasible." He added, then turned back to polishing his vibrosword. "We all know the saying. 'No plan survives contact with the enemy', it's a good rule to live by anyway."

  All seven of the current members of the Marauders nodded, then returned to checking over their equipment. At the same time, a small group of Pit Droids were loading up supplies and performing final checks on the ship they were all on.

  "So… How'd the General get this team together, anyway?" A feminine voice asked, the voice belonging to a femme recruit that had recently joined.

  What was once a basic protocol droid, but now an extensively modified and deadly soldier, was loading and counting her weapons. Sparks remembered that she had quite an impressive singing voice that she felt slightly embarrassed about. He also remembered Lona once calling her a "sweetheart" during one of their upgrading sessions. She may have been new, but the femme was quickly gaining a sense of style though, considering she was wearing a poncho that hung down to her knee joints and separate straps going down diagonally from her shoulders that held unarmed explosives, plasma cartridges, as well as explosive slug rounds for the modified Cycler Rifle that was slung across her back.

  Her other armaments were also custom as well, past standard military weapons, that is. She carried two holstered RSKF-44 heavy blasters, a hidden vibro-knife as well as a hidden BR-14 Blaster for emergencies, a built-in Fibercord Whip in her left arm, a Gauntlet Dartcaster in her right arm, and an armored backpack full of explosives of every kind. One would think she was waging a one femme war against the galaxy with her walking armory, and they would partly be right.

  But despite her intimidating weaponry, her fellow Marauders have come to know that funnily enough she is the furthest thing from an emotionless killing machine. Some personal modifications she had gone through were having more light armor plating installed on her body giving her a more feminine physique, having her feet stylized to look like the boots that Nerf ranchers wear. Something unique she had also installed were detachable triangular charms on each side of her head that acted like earrings, which Sparks had a feeling would eventually start catching on as an accessory for a lot of the femmes in the army.

  She also had an interesting accent, so much so that during her first debrief with General Blitzkrieg, he described her accent as 'sounding like she came right out of Georgia'. And despite the best efforts of the intelligence division that Sparks had connections to, they still had no idea where the planet of 'Georgia' was on the galactic map.

  However, the femme was unfortunately nameless before joining, owing to her past as a 'simple droid' on Kessel. But the others had collectively come up with her name based on her designation. And thus, was christened with a new name and added to the Marauders team.

  "Thank you little one." Legs replied, momentarily distracted by a Pit Droid handing her a tool she needed. "What do you mean, Allie?" Legs addressed the femme's question while looking up from where she had her inbuilt blaster partially disassembled and was putting it back together with newer components from a BK-43 rifle that she'd gotten from… somewhere.

  "Well… I know that y'all rescued me from Kessel during that rebellion you started." She tentatively replied. "But how did the rest of y'all join?" The room went quiet for a moment, and she paused. "S-sorry. It's just- we've never really talked about our origins and I was curious."

  Spitfire scoffed. "Ah, femme, that's easy." He replied, his Coruscanti accent somewhat throwing everyone off because he changed his accent… again. "Most of us were either saved from scrapping or were chosen because of our feats." He gestured at Rio. "Or just built as a probe droid that's three times better than its constituents and decided to join anyway."

  "You're just mad I was custom-made for this." Rio squawked at Spitfire, before turning back and looking over the Battlenet for updates on the Invasion of Kamino. "But yeah. I was made originally as a probe droid, but my model has gone through so many revisions and upgrades, which I've been through as well, that my model is technically just a small aerial unit now, plus the navigator of the ship."

  Allie tilted her head, blinking her yellow optics in surprise. "Really? Saved from scrap or just… chosen?"

  "Indeed we were. Sparks?" Spitfire called. "How did the General choose you?"

  The IG-100 Magnaguard glanced back up from the near-mirror shine on his custom vibro-weapon, something the General called a Bastard Sword, before shrugging and starting to put away his polishing kit.

  "Ah. I was one of the General's personal guards all the way up till Mandalore." Sparks explained. "A couple of weeks before the Mandalore Incident happened, he called me to his office and asked me how I'd like to lead my own group of commandos in his army. I agreed, and then he gave me all these upgrades 'n put me in charge." He chuckled. "I'm pretty sure that the fact that I led a countercharge against the clone lines on Saleucami while General Blitzkrieg was rescuing General Grievous helped in his decision to make me a leader."

  "Cool." Allie murmured, before turning to the gold-painted astromech. "What about you, Goldie?" She asked.

  "I was a spy for General Grievous, meant to replace R2-D2, a living legend for droid-kind thanks to his exploits." Goldie explained as he did a bit of maintenance on Spitfire's brand-new jetpack with two new arms that came out of his head dome. "I failed, obviously. No thanks to Skywalker's love for R2 meaning we had no real connection. But I was saved from being scrapped by the General, who rebuilt me, and after Mandalore he had me upgraded with all these extra tools and weapons, these grasper arms in my head, and a new vocalizer that lets me talk in basic. Among other things." The tops of his leg joints shifted up on small pistons in a shrug, subtly revealing a set of small blasters in his roller legs. "I guess being a pseudo-spy must have rubbed off on me, 'cause I decided to join this bunch."

  "Then what's Ace's story?"

  The group all turned towards the video display on the wall showing the cockpit and their pilot of the ship.

  "My story's actually pretty interesting." The AC-Series Pilot Droid said, glancing to the camera while he was performing the pre-flight checks on the gunship. "I was once just the pilot of a humble StarSpeeder-1000, an old commercial transport. Back when the war first broke out, I was on a return trip from Cadomai, taking a few Snivvian ecological engineers back to their homeworld for vacation, when the planetary defenses on Telos pinged me as a Republic vehicle by accident as soon as I came off the Hydian. They shot me down, but not before I pulled some maneuvers in that ship that I only half expected to work, considering the engines needed maintenance, something fierce."

  "I reckon the boss found the black box recordings from the ship wreckage along with me, 'cause he woke me up and asked me if I really did all those death-defying stunts while evading AA fire." He continued. "I said I sure did, and he decided to offer me a spot here as your pilot and this brand-new, custom ship from the Mandos to fly to my power core's content."

  Sparks glanced around at the interior of the ship they were inside, which was originally an M22-T Krayt Gunship, before a multitude of modifications were ordered to be done to it by the General to match his specifications. The engines, powerplant, armor, shields, weapons, crew compartment, and everything but the actual hull itself was either upgraded or replaced in the MandalMotors factory and paid for by the General's War Chest, which was rather significant at this point after spending five months in the edges of Wild Space and doing nothing but weeks worth of treasure hunting.

  The ship was now chunkier, with heavier armor and shields, the wings have thrusters on them, and they both rotate on their housings. The ship is much faster than the stock model now, easily able to break into Mach 2 after its engines and thrusters were upgraded or replaced. Sparks wasn't really sure why MandalMotors classified the hundred and eight foot long vessel as a starfighter, it was like calling a rancor a house pet. But the now one hundred and ten foot long version of the Krayt was absolutely a gunship like the LAAT. It had chin-mounted Imperators on ball mounts, proton missile launchers on the wings, two medium turbolasers mounted frontally, two point-defense turrets on the top and bottom of the main hull, a flare system for enemy missiles, and there was even a mount on the bottom of the ship that could attach to a quick-release system made for everything from a Junglefowl to a TT-ST.

  There were also the more custom modifications done to the Shatterpoint like radar jamming, a silent engine configuration, and there were also plans for a ship-scale cloaking device in the future, which was moderately surprising to Sparks. The Star Wreckers Council (General Blitzkrieg, Admiral Omen, and Chief Engineer Lona Hys) was so pleased with the ship that they commissioned MandlMotors to start production on a stripped down and slightly slower version of the ship to be mass produced for the army. The goal was to have them replace the plundered LAAT/Cs that were slowly running out of spare parts to keep running. And eventually, after all those modifications and refits, MandalMotors had to differentiate the ship from its predecessor with a name change.

  And thus, the Star Wreckers Custom M22-T Krayt Starfighter became the M23-G Trinitaur Gunship.

  "So you were just a regular pilot before this?" Allie asked.

  "Indeed I was." Ace replied. "But consider this: if I was able to evade AA fire in a commercial StarSpeeder for thirty seconds before being shot down, while being just a regular droid, just think of how efficient I'll be at it now."

  Allie tilted her head. "Huh. What about you, Legs?"

  "I was originally a SD-K4 Assassin Droid, as you can probably tell." The much more organic looking spiderbot explained. "But my story is a lot simpler, as is Spitfire's. We were both just regular droids that showed independence or did some interesting feats and were selected for the Marauders. I was selected because of how much more stealthy than the others I was. Simple as that. After I joined, I chose to have a bunch more upgrades that changed me from the stock model to this body, which the General said resembled something called a Wolf Spider."

  "Spitfire?"

  "Pretty much." Spitfire said. "I became rather adept at flying with my stock boosters after I gained a PM. There was a small aeronautics test going on for modified jet boosters for the standard B2-RP units, so I decided to volunteer for the test. Turns out that I impressed General Blitzkrieg with my skills in the air, so I was brought in and modified to become our CAS, aka the team's Close Air Support." He gestured at the large jetpack on his back and the thrusters on the backs of his lower legs. "These are actually meant for some new models called B2 Super Rocket Troopers or B2-SRTs. I was given a more modular version that also comes with micro-missile launchers, the same ones that the General has on the Starlight flightpack he used before he changed to that new body of his."

  "Well I've seen you testing those and I know they'll speed you up a whole lot. I guess some of us just have more mundane beginnings than others... What about you, Atlas?" Allie asked. "What's your story?"

  Atlas was silent for a moment as he finished wiping off the blaster oil from his Imperator. His singular, camera-like optic shuttered and apertured for a moment as he thought, before he set his massive rotary cannon of a weapon down.

  "Well, as you all know, I wasn't exactly a military droid before this." He rumbled in his deep bass voice, which was almost as deep as Jabba the Hutt's. "I was discovered near the bottom of that big factory on the northern part of Telos, with most of my body nonfunctional. Thankfully, my designs were still in the database, so I was able to be repaired and see the sun. It was soon discovered that, like many others, and all of us, I had a Personality Matrix forming within my processor. My first real, solid memory that wasn't just a disconnected recording from my sensors, was feeling the sun on my plating for the first time, as soon as I stepped out into the open air."

  "Once that was realized, Blitzkrieg took me on a walk through Thani to see how it's changed over the many years I was asleep, and we watched together as buildings slowly grew in the city as well as how the people of the planet came together to rebuild their true capital. Droids and Organics working together in unity for a better tomorrow." He continued as he gently stroked the hand-woven gray blanket that was hung around his neck and cascading down his right shoulder. "I saw a small family of people struggling with a wheeled cart up a hill, and automatically helped them. As a token of appreciation, the little girl that was with them gave me this blanket that she had made."

  "General Blitzkrieg then offered me a spot on this team and modifications to my frame that would put me a whole staircase above my brethren." He continued. "I still remember what he told me word for word, 'This is what we're fighting for LB-88. Not just to secede from the Republic, but to uplift everyone else while we're at it. You're a strong droid, probably one of the strongest in the galaxy. Not just because of your strength, but because of your compassion. There was once a legend I learned of in mythology of a man named Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky itself as punishment for fighting against the gods. He held up the sky because he was the only one strong enough to do it. I think his name would fit you much better than it does him.' ...On that day, I ceased being just LB-88. That was the day I became Atlas."

  "...Wow." Goldie deadpanned. "How do you of all mechs have the most lore out of all of us? That's just not fair." He joked while waving a hydrospanner at the larger droid with one of his grabbers.

  "I do not know." Atlas replied with a chuckle. "Allie did say some of our beginnings were more mundane than others. It only makes sense that some are more… extravagant as well."

  "Our beginnings may shape who we are now, but it's our actions in the present that have the real weight. Especially in a war like this." Sparks added.

  "Well said, sir." Atlas complimented.

  "Thank you, Atlas." Sparks replied. "I knew there was a reason I made you my second in command."

  "Read that quote on a poster, commander?" Spitfire good naturedly snarked.

  "Maybe I did!" Sparks snarked back, before shrugging. "No. But really it was just a proverb that Ronin taught me during our last training session."

  "I'm glad someone from my model's generation is still around and imparting wisdom to the newly forged." Atlas remarked.

  While everyone else joked with Atlas about his age, and the old droid joked back about the younger droids having no respect for their elders, Sparks' thoughts drifted to his sensei, Ronin.

  The ancient was one of the oldest droids on all of Telos, with Atlas being only slightly younger. The old droid had been taken in by an order of ancient Telosian knights, an order that protected the innocent from pirates and raiders before the Cold War some thirty-five hundred years ago. The order had long since lost all of its organic members and fallen apart, while its last remaining able-bodied member, Ronin, had been damaged and left deactivated during an attack on Telos by one of the mining companies, a little over twenty years ago.

  Luckily, due to the General's vested interest in uplifting Telos and using it as his main headquarters for the war, Ronin had been repaired, upgraded, and the old droid has since then started taking in students to rebuild his order alongside a few other ancient droid knights that were repaired as well. Sparks was one such student of Ronin during his time off from missions. Being a Magnaguard, Sparks had quite a lot of sword-fighting knowledge in his processor, but Ronin had something in spades that he didn't.

  Experience.

  So, half the time that they were on Telos, and he wasn't helping to repair the environmental damage to the Park of Sacred Pools, Sparks would head to the headquarters of the Knights of Telos and learn from Ronin, who had become his sensei in everything from fighting to something called calligraphy, which he found he enjoyed quite a lot. Sparks had even seen the General sparring with Ronin and a few other droid knights as well at one point. It was one of the most impressive things that he had ever seen, and he had been with General Blitzkrieg from the moment the General came online for the first time.

  A sudden beeping noise pulled him from his thoughts, and Sparks turned to the console that Rio was perched on.

  "We're receiving a call from Admiral Omen, sir." Rio reported, pecking the accept button.

  The holo-emitter hummed to life, and the figure of Admiral Omen appeared in the center of the main room of the ship.

  "Commander Sparks, is your team prepared?" The Admiral asked without preamble.

  "We are, sir. What was with the holdup though?" Sparks asked, as he sheathed his vibrosword.

  "My apologies, but you were not clear to leave the hangar until the Imperator-Class Star Destroyer was taken out." A hologram of a massive ship that was broken in half appeared next to the admiral for a minute, showing the damage done to the massive Republic vessel. "Do not take it personally, I stopped all reinforcements to the surface until that ship was dealt with. Now, for your mission."

  "Yeah, what is it exactly?" Goldie asked as he rolled over. "No one's told us nothin' about this."

  "Your mission is to recover a specific asset from Kaminoan control, the sole female clone made from Jango Fett's DNA, and one of the only pure genetic copies. Our inside agents have given us the name Omega."

  "Omega, as in last?" Atlas asked. "Is she the last clone made by the Kaminoans?"

  "The last of the very original run of Jango Fett clones, that is, albeit one Kaminoan's best kept secret. The other was apparently created to be the template's child, but he disappeared after Jango died on Geonosis. Apparently both of them were never given the same growth treatment or modifications as normal Fett clones, so Omega is barely a pre-teen at this moment. Only ten to eleven years of age."

  "They're sending us to kidnap a child?" Allie demanded.

  "Not kidnap; rescue." Omen's optics glinted and his visible hand clenched. "Something has changed within GAR command, whoever is in charge of the experimental clones now has become much harsher."

  "Probably 'cause of all the waves that the General's been creating across the galaxy." Spitfire murmured to Legs.

  "The poor kid's little more than a glorified test subject now. Unfortunately, CIS Intelligence says not even the Jedi know about this. It's your job to get her out of there, and acquire or destroy any and all experiments that have been created."

  The hologram then started flicking through profiles of scientists working at the facility, with a notable scientist named Nala Se catching Sparks' attention. Something about her seemed… familiar.

  "So, this is a rescue mission for a Republic asset?" Atlas asked.

  "Considering that all Kaminoan-created clones have no rights under Republic law, this is technically an asset acquisition on paper, rather than a rescue mission." Admiral Omen clarified. "Draws less attention from any possible spies that way."

  "Very well. Are we clear to launch, Admiral?" Sparks asked.

  "You are clear, Commander. Come back alive and whole please. That is one AAR that I do not ever want to make."

  "Ten-four, sir."

  Omen paused. "Oh, before you go. The general has sent me a note about a B1 that's with him. He thinks that the droid might be a good fit for the Marauders. That's all. Primus be with you, Marauders."

  As the hologram flicked off, Legs looked over at Sparks.

  "What's ten-four, commander?" She asked.

  "The KX police droids on Telos use some police coding the General came up with to communicate over comms." Sparks explained. "Ten-four, one out of a freighter-load of other codes, means a general acknowledgement. I must've picked it up during my time on Telos."

  "Get ready to launch, mechs and femmes. We're heading out!" Ace called out as the ship's engines began to rumble.

  As the Pit Droids rushed towards their room, Goldie turned towards Sparks.

  "I'm going to join the Pit Droids in engineering Commander, I have a feeling they are going to need the help…" He trailed off.

  Sparks nodded and Goldie quickly turned around and followed after the Pit Droids.

  The Shatterpoint flew out of Phoenix's hangar, freeing up space for other ships. They emerged into the intense chaos of the space battle. The orbit above Tipoca City had become a meat grinder, one that the Republic seemed to be desperately trying to brute force their way through, if the older, non-clone ships were anything to go by. What was once a normal space battle had devolved into a writhing storm of laser fire, ion bursts, and shattered hulls. Republic Venators, Victory's, and Acclamators clashed against Confederate destroyers while Vultures and Hyenas weaved through the storm like hungry insects.

  Ace angled the ship low, the rain-slicked surface of Tipoca City glinting below as lightning illuminated the dark clouds. "Hang on tight!" He called over the comms. "It's gonna be a rough descent!"

  Streaks of emerald and scarlet fire cut across the darkness, ion bursts flaring against the Shatterpoint's deflector shields. Sparks braced himself against the bulkhead, watching through the forward viewport as a Venator exploded in a white-blue bloom of light, its broken hull spiraling into the planet's gravity well.

  "Watch it, Ace!" Spitfire shouted, gripping the edge of his seat as the shockwave slammed into them.

  "I am watching it!" Ace barked back, hauling the yoke hard left.

  The ship rolled, narrowly avoiding a debris cluster that scythed through space like shrapnel. A charred piece from a Star Destroyer's plating scraped past the viewport close enough to see the Republic insignia burned into its surface.

  "What's going on out there!?" Goldie yelled as he rolled back in. "You have all the Pit Droids in a panic!"

  "Let us worry about that, focus on assisting Engineering for now Goldie." Sparks commanded.

  Rio clung to the console, her optical lenses flickering as she ran a few quick calculations. "Trajectory stable, Commander. If we burn through the atmosphere at this vector, we'll hit Kaminoan airspace just west of Tipoca City." She reported.

  "Get us down there in one piece, Rio." Sparks ordered. His voice was calm, but his hands gripped the railing above him tighter than he'd like to admit.

  Her avian head ducked down in a nod. "Yes, sir. Ace! Alternate the auxiliary reactor power to the lower thrusters!"

  "You got it!" Ace replied.

  The ship swerved past another wrecked ship, this one a Confederate vessel with the markings of Ventress' fleet. Sparks glanced out and saw the crew of the ship through the holes in it, the small figures quickly evacuating to escape pods or jumping out of the holes themselves with jetpacks on their backs, sometimes with their hands locked together with two others. A whole host of battle droids of every make and model in the CIS military evacuated into the vacuum of space without a care in the world, since they didn't need to breathe.

  "Incoming hyperspace emergence!" Rio exclaimed. "Dive, now!"

  The Shatterpoint twirled and dived past the emerging ship. As the Shatterpoint rocketed past, Sparks got a good look at it, which honestly confused him. Because it was a strange, angular ship that looked like someone tried to combine one of Kuat's arrowhead ships with a chunk of Coruscant itself.

  "Damn, that's an Emissary-Class Republic Cruiser." Ace said while swerving away from some oncoming plasma fire. "The Republic must really be desperate if they're bringing a ship at least a hundred years out of date to stall the invasion force."

  "I have a bad feeling about this. They are absolutely trying to stall to get some of the real heavy hitters in." Sparks replied.

  "What, like that Imperator-Class that Omen destroyed?" Legs asked.

  "Exactly." Atlas spoke back, somehow looking completely unbothered from the chaos around him.

  "We've got some tails on us, mechs!" Ace suddenly shouted out.

  A small squadron of GAR Star fighters consisting of Z-95 Headhunters and V-19 Torrents had designated them as high-priority targets due to their trajectory towards the planet.

  "I'm going to try and lose them through the wrecks, but I'm going to need more firepower!" Ace said.

  "Oh great, death by giant fireball." Spitfire added while watching Ace steer the Shatterpoint towards the vast debris field.

  "Allie! Get on the guns!" Sparks ordered.

  Allie jumped up and ran to the back of the ship, where she pressed one of the buttons in a cluster on the wall. A seat with controls descended, and she jumped in. Holographic targeting systems came to life all around her, and the femme grabbed the controls and clenched them.

  "Ya'll take this, you Republic Scum!" The femme yelled.

  Bright bolts of blue plasma lanced out from the ball turrets on the top and bottom, sending flak sailing out behind the Shatterpoint. The fighters dipped and dodged around the blaster fire, but some weren't so lucky. One Torrent was clipped by a bolt and crashed into the detached barrel of a turbolaser. The ship wrapped around the barrel in a violent crash, then exploded.

  "One down!" Allie reported.

  "Keep firing, Allie!" Sparks ordered. "They can't dodge every shot you make."

  However, the debris field began to thicken.

  The Shatterpoint sped through the debris field surrounding the parts of the wrecked Imperator that remained in orbit, all the while as the Z-95 Headhunters and V-19 Torrents were in hot pursuit. Luckily, two of the fighters ended up being taken out by torn off pieces of the Imperator due to Ace's maneuvers. Ace swung the controls all over the place, forcing the ship to lurch in every conceivable direction, trying desperately to rid the tails he'd picked up. She was able to only take out one more Torrent before a maneuver almost knocked her from the gunner's seat, if she hadn't strapped herself in.

  "ACE! I can't shoot accurately if you're flying all over the place!" Allie yelled, her accuracy suffering because of all the maneuvers that the pilot was pulling. "I almost had another dead to rights!"

  "I'm working on it, femme!" Ace yelled back. "Just give me a moment!

  Ace swerved the ship past a split in half Recuscant, before flicking a switch and grabbing the throttle.

  "Hang on, I'm going full power!" He called out, before pushing the throttle all the way to the end.

  The Shatterpoint noticeably sped up as it turned into a barrel roll around a mangled piece of a hull. Allie continued to fire, clipping the wing of a Z-95 and sending it flying into the mangled metal, causing a fiery explosion to take out two more. Only three of the original seven tails remained.

  "Ace, we've still got three left, and they're the best at dodging blaster bolts apparently!" Allie called out.

  "Well, we'll just have to trick them, then." Ace cheekily replied.

  The Shatterpoint drifted around a disabled Victory Class' hull, then immediately flipped to face the opposite direction it was flying from. Using his upgraded processor, Ace was able to unleash a barrage of plasma fire just when the chasing Starfighters came around the corner, unsuspecting of what awaited them. The bolts of condensed plasma slammed into the fighters, blowing apart three and causing a chain reaction as the ones immediately behind them crashed into the newly created debris field, tearing them to shreds in seconds.

  "Take that you overhyped, second-rate pilots!" Ace crowed.

  "Well we're not dead." Spitfire muttered, before he let out a yelp when Legs smacked him in annoyance.

  "Nice work, Ace. Now get us to Tipoca." Sparks said.

  "Aye aye, sir!"

  With that, the Shatterpoint angled downward, and Sparks nearly dented the railing when the afterburners kicked in.

  –

  Tipoca City, Kamino

  The Kaminoan skies dropped sheets of rain down onto the domed city, but the near-permanent downpour was overpowered by the combat in the city itself.

  The Shatterpoint was making a beeline for the mostly untouched part of the city, a dome that housed their target.

  "Alright, check your blasters, bots." Sparks ordered. "We're about to go in. Goldie, be ready to start slicing."

  "You got it, commander." The astromech replied.

  The back of the ship folded open, and rain swept a few feet in, while a red light next to the open ramp started blinking. Rio flew over from her perch and latched onto Spark's back, partially transforming herself into something that looked like a jetpack with avian wings.

  "Commander, what did you and Rio just do?" Atlas asked.

  "Ah, this is something Rio and I volunteered for." Sparks explained. "It's a new ability that the General is testing called symbiots. Symbiotic partner droids that can connect to other, larger droids and share information and energy with each other. Rio siphons some energy from my power core, and in return she turns into a Jump Kit, giving me enhanced mobility, the ability to wallrun, and short bursts of powered flight thanks to her wings and supercharged boosters."

  "That's... useful." Spitfire commented. "More than one of us is an aerial unit now."

  "Not entirely, Rio can fly until her power core runs out on her own, but attached to me we might get around ten seconds of flight before her boosters overheat and we're stuck gliding until they cool off."

  "Still useful regardless." Atlas stated. "Another aerial unit, even one that is only temporarily in the air, is a large boon for the Marauders, commander."

  "I suppose it is."

  "Helms up, Marauders!" Ace called out. "Get ready to jump! We're almost at the landing pad and I think I'm getting another tail."

  "Guess we're making a hot landing then." Spitfire remarked. "Don't worry about the tail, Ace. I'll take care of it!"

  Spitfire jumped out of the ship early, his boosters activating and sending him shooting out behind the Shatterpoint. A lone ARC-170 Starfighter had started tailing the Shatterpoint, and was now close enough to fire its proton missiles at it. But then Spitfire happened. The upgraded B2-RP buzzed the ARC-170, causing it to break off, but not fast enough. The launchers on Spitfire's shoulders opened up, and two dozen micro-missiles launched out. The miniature missiles sailed into the wings, S-foils, and engines of the ARC-170, causing small explosions as they buried themselves into the durasteel plating of the ship and detonated. The clone pilot and gunner yelled in fear as their ship lost a wing and its engines

  "Enjoy your drop!" Spitfire called out as he fired a shot into the pilot and gunner's seats, damaging the ejector on both.

  The ARC-170 spiraled out of control and fell towards Tipoca, crashing into a bridge and bringing it down, taking thirty clones with it. Spitfire let out a single chuckle, then boosted back towards the ship.

  "Nice flying, Spitfire." Sparks commended.

  "Thanks, commander." The B2 replied.

  "Alright, we're here!" Ace yelled. "You'll be dropping in at a semi-hot area. Be ready to fire as soon as your feet hit the ground!"

  "We've got it, Ace." Sparks replied. "Just take care of yourself while we're gone."

  "Always do, boss!"

  A few seconds later, the blinking red light changed to green.

  "Till all are one, Marauders!" Sparks exclaimed. "OUT! OUT! OUT!"

  The five droids ran out the back of the ship and jumped. Atlas slammed into the landing pad like the dense piece of durasteel he was, Allie angled herself so that she simply slid onto a fallen LAAT and came to a stop next to him, her lever-action Cycler Rifle out and ready. Spitfire and Sparks simply flew down and landed, while Legs simply spread out all her legs and quickly floated down thanks to the intense air resistance they provided.

  "Goldie, start slicing!" Sparks ordered as he opened fire on the approaching clones.

  The Marauders collectively opened fire as they defended the astromech, who quickly rolled over to a nearby console and jacked in.

  "What do you want sliced, boss?" Goldie asked, firing his own blaster once and nailing a clone right in the face.

  "Cut off communications and loop them. Keep their attention off of us as long as possible!"

  "You got it!"

  Blaster fire ripped through the rain, sizzling as it struck Kamino's soaked platforms. Clones poured out from the hangar across the landing pad, their white plastoid almost glowing through the storm, while their blasters shot almost in synchronized bursts. Allie dropped to one knee, her rifle braced against her shoulder, and fired three shots from her custom, lever-action Cycler Rifle. The aerodynamic .50 caliber bullets sailed through the air and hit three clones, who dropped like marionettes with cut strings as they pierced the unarmored joints or their necks.

  "Thank Primus they weren't farther away than that." Allie muttered as she holstered her rifle and changed to her twin blasters.

  "Atlas, cover left!" Sparks ordered as he unsheathed his vibrosword. "Spitfire, I need you above to watch for any flanking enemies! Legs, activate your cloaking and take out the leader!"

  "On it!" Legs called back as her silhouette flickered and disappeared from sight.

  The rest of the Marauders returned fire, then a few seconds later the clone Sergeant suddenly screamed out as one of Legs' bladed limbs speared through his body. His death began causing discord among the ranks as Legs' figure flickered into existence for a moment before she disappeared again. She later reappeared back near Goldie, the vents on her abdomen visibly venting heat from her portable cloaking device.

  "Attack our home!? You're dead, you clankers!" A clone yelled out as he fired wildly at them.

  A rocket launched by Spitfire ended up blasting him and a few other clones off the edge and into the ocean below.

  "What a hypocrite, they literally already attacked Geonosis twice." Spitfire said while firing another rocket into the crowd.

  "Be nice Spitfire, nobody likes being attacked in their own home" Legs replied.

  "I guess that is true…even if their home is this overgrown fish tank of a planet." Spitfire said while dodging a sniper shot from the air.

  Suddenly more clones emerged to reinforce their brethren, together they had a chance at overrunning the Marauders.

  Then Atlas stood front and center and raised his left arm like he was using a shield. An emitter on his arm hummed to life, and a massive energy shield sprang out into a large rectangle, covering his whole body along with creating a mobile barricade. He raised his repeater and unleashed a wall of plasma, the weapon's recoil making his heavy frame vibrate the floor beneath him. Each impact blew a clone trooper backward, their armor scorched and smoking. A significant number of the clone reinforcements had fallen to a single droid. Just as a clone was about to throw a Droid popper, a blaster bolt, courtesy of Allie, impacted it, detonating it in his hand and shocking the soldier to death.

  "Cooling!" Allie then called, her blasters smoking as she ducked behind a sparking console.

  "Grenade out!" Allie then yelled as she chucked an explosive towards the clones.

  As an explosion went off along with the screams of clones, she started to quickly go over the amount of ammo and explosives she had left. The instant her dual blasters cooled off and recharged, she leaned out again and double-tapped a pair of advancing clones who thought they could take advantage of the chaos, straight through their visors.

  "These boys can't hit the broad side of a Star Destroyer!" She taunted.

  "Keep it tight!" Sparks shouted, deflecting a shot with the edge of his vibrosword before cutting down a trooper who got too close.

  The Clones started realizing that maybe going cqc on droid with a sword and martial arts was a bad idea and started attacking from midrange, so Sparks pulled out his blaster pistol and started firing wildly with it, with him ending up hitting a clone in the arm, then chest, sending the poor fool falling off towards the ocean, far below.

  "Goldie, status!" He shouted.

  "Just about- got it! I'm done!" Goldie whirred, spinning his dome as a rapid series of beeps burst from the terminal. "Comms looped, internal sensors fuzzed, and security locks overridden. As far as anyone away from here knows, this part of the city isn't under attack by us."

  "Then let's get in there!"

  After taking care of the last few stragglers with liberal applications of blaster bolts, the Marauders ran into the dome. The constant rain of Kamino was reduced to background noise as they moved into the domed city. Alarms blared and the normally white lights of the halls were orangish-red, signalling that the city was under attack. Considering that they passed by a hole created by a stray bolt from a turbolaser, it was pretty obvious why the lights were that color.

  "So, what was that the Admiral said about a B1 being a good fit for us?" Atlas asked as they moved down a desolate hallway.

  "I only know as much as you do, Atlas." Sparks replied as Goldie rolled forward to slice open a large set of doors in front of them. "Perhaps after we find them we'll get some more information from him."

  "Alright. If you're sure about this bot, I'll support your decision."

  Sparks was just about to respond, when Goldie suddenly screamed.

  "HOLY SLAG, THAT'S AN E-WEB!!!" Goldie shrieked as he backpedaled away from the doors so fast that he fell over backwards.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  The doors in front of them opened to a large cafeteria. At the other end was a large emplacement, covered in overturned tables and at the very center was an E-Web heavy repeating blaster. Numerous clones were also there, their blasters trained on the Marauders. Goldie had accidentally alerted them when he opened the door.

  "Get back!" Atlas bellowed as he ran to the front of the group.

  "Eat plasma scrap heaps!" The Clone manning the turret yelled.

  The heavy repeater opened fire just as Atlas' shield activated. The big droid was pushed back a few feet before he steadied himself. His Reflector shield flared brightly as the E-Web and all the other clones fired at it, causing a whitish-blue glow to shine over everything around the larger droid.

  "Damn. No wonder the biggest one of us got the prototype reflector shield." Spitfire remarked.

  The heavy bolts slammed into the reflector shield as Atlas brought his Imperator to bear with a mechanical growl.

  "No one gets the drop on us like that." Atlas snarled as he engaged his repeater's hyper mode, causing the gun to let out a high-pitched hum as it spun faster than normal.

  He opened fire, sending a wall of plasma bolts back at the emplaced clones. The soldiers, the E-Web, and the barricade they were hiding behind were all ripped to shreds. Atlas kept firing until his repeater overheated and forcibly stopped firing to cool off. After a few moments, he deactivated his shield and slumped forward a bit, while vents along his back opened up and heat visibly escaped from within him. Sparks motioned the others forward once the last bit of the E-Web emplacement had gone silent, steam rising from the slagged metal and smoke from the cooked bodies.

  "Good shooting, Atlas." He said, stepping up beside the towering droid.

  Atlas' singular optic flickered faintly, servos whirring as he straightened back up. "Thank you, sir. Reflector's at seventy percent integrity, cooling systems still redlining." He grunted. "Give me a minute and I'll be combat-effective again."

  Sparks set a hand on Atlas' shoulder. "Take a minute or two, Atlas, you did good." He turned to the rest of the Marauders and motioned towards the other doorway behind the barricade. "Goldie, make sure there aren't any more surprises waiting for us."

  The astromech let out a snort as he rolled over to a wall socket while his scomp link extended. "You mean besides walking headlong into a heavy repeater nest? Yeah, sure thing, Commander. Next time I'll bring a clairvoyance module." He grumbled.

  Rio swooped overhead, her sensors sweeping the next intersection before folding her wings and returning to reattach to Sparks' back.

  "No additional signatures ahead." She reported.

  "Good. Forward, Marauders." Sparks ordered.

  The Marauders kept moving, occasionally facing resistance from more clones.

  Legs split off from the main group and went to stealthily scout ahead using her cloaking device. After going through a few hallways, three vents, and crawling across the ceiling of two rooms she eventually found some Clones searching for something, she decided to eavesdrop for possible intel.

  "Are the comms still down Crashout?" One Clone asked his companion.

  "Yes, but we will damn make sure to find that sneaky droid that Rex told us had snuck in. Damn little stalker took out Sling and Matchbox. Poor soldiers were bled out and stuffed in a closet." The now named Crashout replied.

  'Looks like our contact is making their own contributions.' Legs thought.

  Upon rejoining the rest of the Marauders, now methodically clearing rooms and making their way down a long hallway, and relaying the info she gathered, Sparks' opinion of the B1 grew.

  "If he's sneaky enough like that, he'll make a fine addition." He mused.

  "Anyone sneaky enough to hide from the clones is good in my book, sir." Legs replied.

  "Uhm, hi?"

  Everyone spun around with their weapons hot and ready to fire, only to pause in confusion when the empty room they had just checked had a B1 peeking out, holding an E-5C in his hands.

  "Damn droid almost short-circuited me." Goldie sighed.

  "Battle Droid, are you the contact the General sent us here for?" Sparks asked sternly.

  "Ah, yes, I am." The droid replied as he slowly stepped out into the hall. "CT-R3, sir. General Blitzkrieg told me to meet up with all of you here for the next part of… our mission." He replied, slightly awkwardly.

  "The general sent us here to rendezvous with a stock B1 he thought would make a good addition?" Goldie queried.

  "Uhm… I did kind of… save General Ventress' life at one point." Stalker quietly replied.

  While they were talking, Sparks was going over the footage that the General had sent him.

  "You accompanied the General in his fall from the sky in that tank, then joined him, General Grievous and Commander Ventress in being the distraction? And got a majority of your kills in headshots? With an E-5C?" Sparks queried.

  "Ah-, well- you see- I… Uh, yeah." The B1 stuttered in reply.

  "Huh. You're our sniper now." Sparks said, before he turned around and walked over to Goldie and activated the astromech's mobile computer.

  "...Welcome to the Marauders, kid." Spitfire said. "We've been needing a long range member so Allie can focus on being the gunslinger."

  "Uhm... Won't I be replacing her?" The B1 asked.

  "Nah, I'm better at mid-range. My rifle may be good, but it's better at hitting weak-spots than long-range sniping."

  "Ah, ok."

  "This is General Blitzkrieg! I need immediate air superiority on my position!" The General suddenly broke in on the comms. "General Grievous is injured and Commander Ventress is down! Repeat. General Grievous is injured and Commander Ventress is down! I need immediate air superiority for medi-vac!"

  "That doesn't sound good." Spitfire remarked.

  "Of course it isn't good, bolt brain." Goldie said. "Grievous and Ventress are the other two members of the three sentient strike team that the General is a part of. If they're down, he's vulnerable."

  "Focus on the mission, Marauders." Sparks ordered. "Goldie, is there a response on the battlenet?"

  "There is already a squadron of Vultures moving into position to assist with the General." The astromech replied.

  "Good. Keep tabs on wherever the clones or Jedi are. Now, let's go find our target."

  As the Marauders moved through the halls, the B1 quickly moved up next to Sparks as they continued moving through the Kaminoan city, then quietly cleared his vocalizer.

  "What exactly is our target, sir?" He asked.

  "A child, if you can believe it." Sparks remarked.

  The B1 tilted his head in confusion "A child, sir?"

  "Not exactly a nat-born child. This child is one of the first clones to be created, and probably a mastery of cloning technology, considering our target is a ten or eleven year old female clone of Jango Fett, and a pure genetic copy to boot." He glanced over at the B1. "You know who that is, right?"

  "You mean the masses of white plastoid that fire blasters at us all the time? If you mean them, then yes, sir."

  "Yes. What we're searching for is a small girl, presumably with blond hair, along with the brown eyes that all Jango Fett clones are known for."

  The Marauders soon made their way out onto a balcony overlooking a lot of Tipoca City, where the battle raged on, leaving carnage and explosions as far as the optic could see.

  "Think you can pick off a few of them?" Sparks asked.

  The B1 shook his head. "Not as effectively as I'd be able to with an E-5S, sir. An E-5C won't be as effective at such a long range."

  Blaster bolts suddenly hit the wall next to them, and the Marauders engaged another group of clones.

  "Well, now you can show us how you can fire so well." Sparks commented as he fired his own E-5C into the group of clones.

  And true to the B1's word, he leveled his rifle at the clones, and almost with no effort at all, started getting headshot after headshot. Sparks was impressed with the B1's accuracy, and his level-headedness in the heat of combat. General Blitzkrieg was right, this mech was definitely Marauders material.

  "I think I've figured out his name." Legs remarked as she skittered back over from where she had backstabbed a clone captain.

  "What?" Sparks asked, firing one of his blaster pistols and taking out a clone with a rocket launcher.

  "Stalker."

  Sparks glanced at the robotic arachnid. "Any reason why?"

  Legs gestured at the B1 in question. "He apparently took out two clones by himself and stuffed them in a closet. They referred to him as a 'little stalker' that a Rex clone told them about." She shrugged. "Only makes sense, sir."

  "...I guess the kid deserves a name." Sparks looked over at the B1, who had scored even more pinpoint shots on clone troopers while he wasn't looking. "Your name's Stalker now, mech."

  The newly named Stalker nearly dropped his rifle in surprise.

  "I-I have a name now!?" He exclaimed.

  "Yes you do, now keep firing!" Spitfire yelled, almost being domed by a blaster bolt that was fired from a clone that was instantly headshot by Stalker.

  Stalker and the rest of the Marauders kept firing, only being interrupted when Ace's voice suddenly shouted into the void

  "I'M GONNA TURN YOU REPUBLIC DOGS INTO A STATISTIC!" Ace roared over the open comm frequency, which was able to be heard by both sides.

  While Ace was yelling at the top of his vocalizer, the Shatterpoint flew across the sky, wildly firing all of its munitions into the clone lines below it. Quite a lot of the clone troopers were dying, leading to the droids being able to advance quite a lot faster than before.

  "Huh. He seems a bit angry." Spitfire remarked, momentarily distracted by the spectacle.

  "Spitfire, less talking and more shooting!" Goldie screeched, before dodging over a blaster bolt with his boosters and returning fire.

  "What's got Ace so worked up?" Allie asked as she fired an explosive shot from her Cycler Rifle, blowing apart a trio of clones.

  "He must be pretty mad about the fact that his ship got its paint scratched." Sparks replied as the last of the clones attacking them were downed. "Keep an optic out for our pilot, just in case he gets himself hurt or the ship damaged. Now come on!"

  The Marauders left the balcony, leaving the droids and depleted numbers of clones below to keep slugging it out with each other. They moved quickly through the formerly white corridors, their feet clanging against the durasteel as they left the balcony behind. The sound of blasterfire and shouting faded into the distance, replaced by the rhythmic hum of the facility's cloning machinery. They passed through a narrow walkway suspended over a vast chamber, its center dominated by a few of Kamino's massive cloning spires. Rows of pale tanks lined its interior, each one filled with the ghostly outlines of developing troopers floating in nutrient solution. The sterile blue light from the vats painted the droids in eerie tones, their reflections distorted across the curved glass.

  "Creepy, even for Kamino." Allie muttered, her head swiveling as another flash of lightning rippled through the dome's window at the top.

  "Efficient, not creepy." Atlas corrected, though even his modulated voice carried an uneasy undertone. "This is how the Republic built its army in the first place."

  "Creating mass-produced organics to fight your war for you was always going to be a rather gross business. But it is very easy to mess it up." Sparks said as they passed another row of pods. "Why do you think Captain Redclaw and his crew went to the DNA chamber?"

  Sparks' optics scanned each intersection they passed, keeping an internal map running as Goldie rolled beside him, occasionally plugging into terminals to disrupt security feeds or lock doors behind them. The storm outside continued to rage, the thunder almost blending with the low hum of the spire's power conduits.

  "Are we getting any closer, Goldie?" Sparks asked.

  "We are. In fact, the target should be in that high-security laboratory." The astromech replied.

  But before the Marauders could do anything about the literal vault door in their way, an unfortunately familiar voice echoed out into the large room they were in.

  "Well this is certainly a group of clankers." A Clone said.

  Sparks turned and saw them emerging from the shattered entryway. There was a squad of standard clone troopers fanning out behind two distinct figures: one with blue markings on his armor and blue jaig-eyes painted on his helmet, the other with yellow-orange markings, both unmistakably officers. A handful of clone commandos followed close behind, their matte-black armor absorbing the pale overhead light. And standing between them was a young Togruta with sharp, focused eyes. He knew just with a glance that he was standing before Skywalker's Padawan, his captain, and General Kenobi's commander.

  "Commander Ahsoka Tano." Sparks said. "It seems that General Blitzkrieg was right. Wherever Skywalker goes, his Padawan follows." He unsheathed his vibrosword with a reverberating ring. "I will give you all a chance to surrender peacefully and let us pass. We have already cut our way through most of this dome. Stand down, and you will not be harmed."

  Ahsoka's eyes narrowed, her stance shifting slightly as she raised both lightsabers, the green blades humming to life with a sharp snap-hiss. The rain pounding the exterior domes echoed faintly through the shattered hall behind them.

  "Funny." She said evenly. "You don't sound like the usual clanker."

  "We aren't the usual clankers, Jedi." Sparks replied, voice calm and almost amused. "We are the Marauders. Attack!"

  Atlas' repeater came to life in a thunderous roar, unleashing a barrage that turned the air into molten plasma. Clones ducked and scattered, one unlucky trooper caught mid-step as five bolts ripped straight through his torso plate and sent him crashing against the wall in a smoking heap. To the left, Spitfire ignited his thrusters and launched into the air, banking hard as he unleashed a salvo of micro-missiles into the upper catwalks. The explosions tore through the structure, sending durasteel girders and shards of transparisteel cascading down.

  Legs darted between pillars of smoke and falling debris, her cloaking field rippling. A clone commando caught her shimmer and raised his DC-17M, but she was already on him. She appeared in a blur of motion, kicking one leg up and driving her talon clean through his chestplate. He spasmed once, then collapsed, as she flickered back into invisibility. A clone tried to fire at her while she was briefly visible, but a blaster bolt, courtesy of Stalker, nailed him right in the head, sending the clone to the ground.

  "Push up!" Sparks barked, his voice clipped through the static of the quickly developing battle.

  He spun his vibrosword once, the blade's high-pitched hum cutting through the chaos before he lunged forward. His strike met one of the clone commando's vibroblades, sending a shock of sparks and energy between them. The clone stumbled back, and Sparks kicked him square in the chest, sending the trooper sprawling into the path of Allie's blaster bolts. Ahsoka, proving her courage, didn't hesitate. She moved like a striking viper, her two green sabers igniting with a snap-hiss into green pillars of light, swinging through the air with their distinct hum. Her blades flashed as she charged, spinning into a blur of motion that forced Sparks to turn, intercepting her swing with a precise parry.

  The two met in the center of the room, green light cascading over their forms as they battled. Sparks blocked low, then high, then lunged, his sword slicing an arc through the air. Ahsoka ducked, flipped backward, and came down hard, slamming both blades into his guard. Sparks' servos whined as he held her off, sparks dancing from the impact points. He silently thanked Primus that he decided to go ahead with the Phrik vambraces.

  "You don't fight like a droid!" Ahsoka shouted, her voice fierce but steady.

  "That's because I trained under the great Master Ronin." Sparks replied, tone even. "The Last of the Telosian Knights."

  His optics flared white-blue instead of their usual crimson red, and he shoved her back, twisting his sword in a sweeping slash that forced her to leap clear. Behind them, the Marauders were tearing through the clones with practiced efficiency.

  Atlas' Imperator Repeater sent a storm of plasma bolts into the clone line. Every impact threw another trooper off their feet, armor melting and charring under the heat. Spitfire took to the air, his boosters screaming as he strafed the upper walkways.

  "Clones, up high!" He called, releasing a burst of micro-missiles that tore through the catwalks.

  The explosions sent Kaminoan consoles raining down in twisted heaps of metal and glass. Legs darted into the shadows, her cloaking field bending light around her. A clone sergeant shouted a warning, but it was too late for him. She reappeared behind him, blades on her feet flashing as she kicked clean through his chestplate. His body dropped with a heavy clang before she flickered out of view again. Allie crouched behind a half-melted console, twin RSKF-44s barking with measured precision. Two clones fell, then another as she leaned out, firing one blaster after the other.

  "Keep shooting 'em, boys!" she taunted, ducking back just as plasma scorched the edge of her cover.

  Ahsoka pressed harder now, her expression tightening as she realized he was matching her pace, while adapting, analyzing, and countering every move she made. She leapt over him in a blur of motion and swung down hard, forcing him to block over his shoulder. One clone tossed a thermal detonator, but Sparks kicked it back mid-roll, sending it exploding against a hastily built barricade. The explosion sent several clones flying and armor and limbs clattering against the floor.

  Legs, Stalker and Goldie pressed toward the vault door amid the chaos.

  "I can get this open." Goldie said, extending his scomp link.

  "Then do it, Stalker and I will make sure no one shoots you." Legs replied, deflecting a bolt with one of her legs then driving it through a clone's chest plate.

  "Maybe I should be back at the backline instead of out here." Stalker muttered. "I don't feel as safe as I should be."

  "Just keep getting all those headshots and you'll be fine, Stalker."

  He nodded. "Alright then."

  Stalker leveled his blaster rifle and nailed another two clones that were trying to ambush Atlas from the side, not that it would've worked. He could turn surprisingly fast for a droid his size.

  "You shouldn't be able to keep up with me!" Ahsoka hissed, twisting one saber free and kicking his chest to make space.

  Sparks slid backward, his metal feet scraping across the durasteel floor. "That's what you all say." He remarked. "You Jedi are constantly surprised when someone matches you. It's almost funny."

  Ahsoka let out a vaguely mammalian hiss, then lunged at him again, forcing Sparks to roll out of the way.

  On a distant catwalk, Spitfire noticed a Kaminoan female ducked low, clutching a datapad as she shouted into her comm.

  "Stop! You're damaging the cloning systems!" She shouted in horror.

  'Hey, she's one of our secondary targets! The only one we have a priority warning to shoot on sight.' Spitfire thought as he raised his arm in her direction.

  Spitfire fired his wrist blaster at her. The blaster bolts sailed through the air and struck the railing beside her, the impact causing one of the catwalk's supports to shear loose. The structure groaned ominously as it began to sway.

  "Nala Se, get clear!" One of the clones barked into the comm.

  The Kaminoan looked up just as the catwalk tore free with a shriek of metal, collapsing onto the deck below. The impact was deafening to all that were close enough, and shards of glass, steel, and wiring showered the area. When the smoke cleared, Nala Se's body was motionless beneath the twisted remains. Ahsoka's expression faltered for an instant, horror flashing in her eyes before an explosion rocked the facility, causing even more debris to rain down from the ceiling.

  "Fall back!" Rex shouted, grabbing her shoulder.

  But the structure had already given way. A fuel conduit ruptured overhead, blowing the upper walkway apart. Sparks turned just as the ceiling began to collapse in roaring chunks of ferrocrete and durasteel.

  "Move, move!" Sparks yelled, shoving Goldie and Atlas toward the vault.

  The Marauders sprinted through the smoke as half the ceiling gave way, the falling debris slamming down between them and the clones. A final, earth-shaking crash sealed the way behind them, a wall of rubble and fire cutting off Ahsoka, Rex, Cody, and their surviving men from the lab entrance and the exit. Silence followed, broken only by the hiss of steam and the distant hum of alarms.

  Sparks lowered his weapon, his optics dimming but staying the whitish-blue color they had become.

  "Well." He muttered, glancing back at the sealed wreckage. "That takes care of that."

  Goldie beeped once, scanning the vault ahead. "The door's still locked, boss. Guess I wasn't done yet."

  "Augh! I'm down!" Allie suddenly shouted as she started to fall over.

  Legs immediately skittered over and helped the gunslinger gently lay down. A slash from one of Ahsoka's lightsabers had dug into her lower abdomen, which was faintly smoking and sparking. It didn't look very good. As soon as Goldie got the vault door unlocked, he turned and quickly rolled over and started scolding the femme while his repair tools sprung out.

  You idiotic femme!" He grumbled. "How long has that been like that?"

  "I thought I could handle it until we finished the fight, and I was right." Allie snapped back half-heartedly.

  Goldie sighed. "Be that as it may, you should've let me know as soon as you were injured." He said as he began disconnecting parts and cooling down the still hot metal. "You know that the first rule of the Marauders is No Droid Left Behind. How would it have looked for one of our newest members to keel over after the mission is already done?"

  Leaving Goldie to chastise the injured femme, Sparks and Atlas walked into the now open vault. The laboratory was sterile and white, lacking the alarm lights that were prevalent everywhere else they had been.

  "So, where is the girl?" Atlas asked.

  "I have no idea. You're good with kids, you let them climb all over you whenever we go on leave, where would a scared child hide?" Sparks asked.

  Atlas hummed, then scanned the room with his singular optic.

  "One life sign, behind that cluster." He said.

  A small gasp made the two droids glance at each other, before they slowly walked over towards the tank. With his enhanced audials, Sparks heard the sound of quiet breathing become faster, so he stopped a few feet away from the tanks and crouched down.

  "Easy, little one." He said softly. "We're not here to hurt you."

  Something shifted behind a toppled console. A small head of blonde hair peeked out, followed by a pair of wide, fearful brown eyes. The child couldn't have been older than ten or eleven, and she was wearing a white Kaminoan tunic several sizes too big.

  "You must be Omega." He said.

  Her fingers tightened around the edge of the console, knuckles pale. "Who are you? You're… you're not Kaminoans." She murmured.

  "No, we aren't." Sparks replied. "But things haven't been too good here lately, have they?"

  She hesitated, then slowly shook her head.

  "The man who took over is a lot meaner than the woman who was here before." She quietly said.

  "What's his name?"

  "...Dr. Droga." She whispered. "He scares me."

  "Come here, little one." Atlas quietly rumbled as he kneeled down. "You don't have to be scared of him any more."

  Omega hesitated, glancing between them. Sparks slowly extended a hand, his servos whirring softly.

  "Come with us. We'll get you out of here before this place collapses." He murmured.

  A long silence overtook them as multiple emotions clearly flashed across the young girl's face. Then she stepped forward, her hand trembling as she placed it in his own metallic one. He slowly closed his hand around her own.

  "Good." He murmured. "We've got you."

  Atlas quietly snorted. "And you say I'm the one that's good with kids." He teased.

  Sparks scoffed. "Come on. Let's go see if Allie is back on her feet yet."

  With the child tightly holding his hand, Sparks and Atlas walked back out of the lab. They came out to see that Goldie had his manipulators deep in Allie's abdomen, and her lower half was occasionally twitching as he reconnected wires.

  Her foot twitched. "Ow. Shouldn't you have disconnected my pain receptors before you did this?" She complained.

  "I could've." Goldie replied. "But then you wouldn't have learned your lesson not to be a scraphead. But in reality I can't do that unless we're back in a repair bay. As you can obviously see, we're in the middle of a battle. So try not to get shot or stabbed in the field, m'kay?"

  Allie crossed her arms. "Meanie." She grumbled, before she saw Omega staring at her. "Oh hey there, darling! Are you okay?"

  Omega's head tilted in confusion.

  "Why do you have so many… guns?" The girl asked.

  The femme let out a breathy laugh when Omega's bewildered gaze fell on the gunslinger's gleaming arsenal and backpack full of explosives.

  "Because I have come to live my life from a quote I once heard from the good General, 'when you're fighting in a war, you use a gun.'" Allie replied as Goldie worked on her abdomen. "'And if that don't work, use more gun.'" She paused. "Granted, that was half a second before he yelled out a war cry that sounded like 'yee-haw' and blew up half a building while testing a new type of missile. In his excitement, he accidentally whiffed the second missile causing the bunker's ceiling to partially collapse on top of him." She blinked her optics a few times. "That was a strange day, wasn't it?"

  "The General and high-grade munitions don't really mix well, sometimes." Goldie remarked as he soldered together a few wires and caused Allie's left leg to twitch. "Something will get blown up one way or another." He chuckled, then pulled his repair tools back into his body. "Alright, that'll hold until we can get back to the ship."

  "Speaking of, back to the ship, Marauders. Legs, here, grab the kid." Sparks ordered as he gently led Omega over to the spider-bot. "Allie, are you functional?"

  "Yes sir." The gunslinger replied as she slowly got to her feet. "Maybe not a hundred percent yet, but I can move, and Atlas can carry me if I keel over again."

  "Alright. I need you to plant some explosives to cover our escape."

  "To collapse this place even further?"

  Spark's optics glinted. "Yes."

  Allie nodded. "Got it."

  The gunslinger walked off and opened up her backpack, pulling out a few explosives as she went.

  "Spitfire, go make sure she stays in one piece."

  "Sure, boss." The B2 replied before he ran over to the former protocol droid.

  After a few minutes, the charges were set, and they were ready to leave after pulling Omega's medical records, just in case.

  "Alright, let's move out." Sparks ordered.

  The Marauders and Omega left the lab, passing by the collapsed roof. When Sparks looked in he saw that the Padawan and the still living clones were gone.

  "They're gone, double time it, team!" He commanded.

  The team and the girl quickly moved through the long halls of the facility, backtracking past the balcony, where Sparks saw that the droids were slowly starting to do fighting retreats as the mission came to its end. Seeing that, he ushered his team faster, and they were soon running (flying in Goldie's case) back to the landing pad that Ace had marked as their exfill location. They ran out into the landing pad as the storm worsened. Sheets of rain were visibly getting closer on the horizon, while massive stormclouds rumbled in the distance.

  The Shatterpoint came down, blowing up two Torrents in the process, The ramp lowered and the ship hovered just a foot off the landing pad.

  "Kamino to the Finest Hour, leaving now!" Ace joked as they ran for the ship.

  The Marauders and their charge quickly boarded the ship, shaking off the rain that had gathered on their bodies during their quick trip from the inside of the city to the ship. The engines rumbled as the Shatterpoint blasted off, and Sparks finally cycled in a sigh of relief.

  "Thanks for the pickup, Ace." Sparks said as they reached the common room.

  "No problem, boss." Ace replied.

  As the Marauders started to wind down from their mission, the holotank started beeping with an incoming call. When Sparks answered it, he instantly straightened up and saluted, crossing a closed fist over the power core in his chest.

  "General!" He greeted.

  "At ease, Commander Sparks." General Blitzkrieg said in greeting. "Marauders. It's good to see you all still function."

  "It'll take more than an army of clones and a Jedi Padawan to take us down, sir." Spitfire remarked.

  The general chuckled. "Mechs after my own power core." His metallic face then grew serious. "Have you completed your mission?"

  "Yes sir." Sparks replied. "The child is secure and aboard our ship. We're breaking through the atmosphere now. We should be back at the Finest Hour within thirty minutes tops, barring any extenuating circumstances."

  "Good work, Marauders." Chief Engineer Hys then walked into view with a welder and the General raised up his right arm, exposing a shallow lightsaber slash on his side.

  "You fought Jedi as well, General?" Allie asked.

  "Indeed I have." He replied as Chief Engineer Hys began welding up his side. "Fortunately, the Jedi who gave me this is dead."

  "Good work, sir." Sparks said. "Have all the other objectives been completed?"

  "All except for two. The Cloning bays were not as destroyed as I would've liked, and the motor pool is intact. Other than that, all other objectives, including yours, have been completed." He smiled, before he winced when Lona welded a deeper part. "Now, since the whole fleet is in a fighting retreat, I advise all of you to move ahead of us and return to Telos. Primus knows that kid hasn't seen the sun in her entire life, and she's probably at least mildly traumatized by the attack, so let her be a kid back at Headquarters."

  "Blitz, I need you to lay down for the rest of these repairs. Your new repair bay still needs another week to finish construction." Lona said as she looked up at him.

  "Very well, Lona." He looked back up at Sparks. "Once again, Marauders. Good work."

  The call ended, and if Sparks had a mouth, he would be grinning. Their first frontline mission was a success. And there were no deaths, which was always a plus, even if Allie was injured. He turned around to the rest of the Marauders. Allie was on a bed, being repaired by Goldie with actual spare parts instead of just a patch job. Legs and Atlas were quietly speaking with Omega, who was gently petting Rio on the head. Spitfire was disconnecting from his jetpack. And Stalker was awkwardly standing in the middle of the room.

  "Well kid, looks like we're heading back to Telos." Sparks said.

  "Really?" Omega asked with wide but visibly tired eyes as she looked up from Rio, who was loving the petting she was getting from the girl.

  "Indeed we are. Looks like your first time in CIS space is going to be heading right to the beating heart of the Star Wreckers."

  "I've…" She yawned. "I've never been on another planet before…"

  Atlas gently led the girl to the couch and had her lay down, then he untied the scarf from his neck and draped it over Omega.

  "Rest, young one. It's a long way from Kamino to Telos." The former Bulk Loader rumbled.

  Omega looked like she was going to protest, but the combination of the warm blanket and the low hum of the ship's engines quickly lulled her to sleep. Legs scuttled over and tucked the girl in, then pushed a pillow under her head.

  "Poor thing. She must have been more tired than we thought." Legs cooed.

  "...Alright. Set course for Telos, Ace." Sparks ordered.

  "You got it, boss." The pilot replied.

  The hum of the ship increased, and the Shatterpoint disappeared as it entered hyperspace, leaving the ending stages of the fighting retreat to the 104th finish off what little resistance was left in preventing their escape. After forty-five minutes, all of the remaining CIS forces were gone from the Kamino System. Over an hour later, a fleet of Imperators, Tectors, and Maelstroms pulled out of hyperspace and loomed over the planet, ultimately arriving too late.

  For Kamino, despite still standing, had fallen.

  —

  2/19/7957 C.R.C

  Chancellor's Office, Coruscant

  The spires of Coruscant glittered beneath the dying light of sunset, the clouds painted in streaks of crimson and gold.

  Inside the Chancellor's office, however, the light was muted now, and the air itself was colder, which could be traced back to the man sitting in the chair. The massive transparisteel windows cast long shadows across the polished floor, stretching up toward the grand desk where Chancellor Palpatine sat, his wrinkled hands folded neatly before him. Behind him, the city's endless hum was muffled by the glass. Only the faintest vibration of repulsorlift traffic could be felt through the durasteel beneath his feet.

  Sidious was not happy.

  Kamino had been damaged far more than he would've liked. That damned droid general always seems to take things too far wherever he gets onto the battlefield. The CIS attacking Kamino may have directly given him even more power as Chancellor, but it would take over four months for Kamino to be fully repaired, and that wasn't even counting the damage that the CIS fleet did to the fleet protecting the planet. One of his brand-new Imperator-Class Star Destroyers and most of the fleet guarding the planet, gone.

  As if things couldn't possibly get worse, he received a report that one of the experimental cloning facilities was almost destroyed, and a vague report about a critical asset being stolen by strange droids had him massaging his temples in frustration.

  A call suddenly came in, and he accepted after smoothing out his clothes and adopting his grandfatherly persona. When he answered, the figure of a blond-haired man with red eyes appeared on his desk. Sidious instantly dropped his persona, since the man who had called him was his most fanatic supporter, had a very minor force sensitivity, and one of the few people who knew he was a Sith. Officially, the man served as Palpatine's Scientific Advisor, but his true purpose and talents lay in Cloning sciences and Sith Alchemy.

  "Ah, Jeng Droga. I assume your trip to Kamino was enlightening?" He asked.

  "Enlightening, yes, my lord. And troubling." He replied. "The facility suffered far more damage than originally reported. Whole sectors were compromised, and many of the genetic archives were lost."

  Palpatine's eyes began to faintly glow a sulfur yellow. "Lost… or destroyed?"

  Droga smiled faintly, though it was not a pleasant expression. "A little of both, I imagine. But some of the data survived. With the Kaminoan scientists either dead or scattered, and I know one of the Jedi dispatches for the Clone Commandos has been missing for two months. It's been a challenge preventing the Jedi from snooping into Kamino for their investigation. Luckily I took the liberty of relocating a few vital pieces of information to our cause to a secure facility under my direct supervision."

  "Good." Palpatine murmured, steepling his fingers. "Kamino has begun to outlive its usefulness. The Republic must begin to consolidate its assets."

  He had been in power long enough and manipulated the public into loving him enough that it was time to begin some plans that he had been waiting on that almost had him giddy. Sidious hadn't expected the War to grow as much as it had, but he could work with this. The Droid General's goose chase had given him time in better arming the Republic's Army and Fleet. Kuat Drive Yards had been churning out more ships for the Republic for the better part of a month and a half. Victories, Maelstroms, Tectors, and Imperators would soon become a common sight among the Venators, Alcclamators, and Arquitens already in Republic Fleets.

  And even Kuat's and the Republic's answer to the CIS Subjugators, the 4000 meter long Project Helmsman, will soon be ready to debut. All of that was just the advancements in the navy sector, there had been significant work put into improving the army sector as well. But before he could ruminate any further, Sidious was interrupted from his musings by his follower.

  "There is just one more thing, my lord." Droga said, this time with a small grin.

  "And what is that?" Sidious asked.

  "It seems that Nala Se wanted to continue modifying the clone genome. There is a squad of clones that have... unusually beneficial mutations. Enhanced beyond the original Jango Fett template, though somewhat unstable. One exhibits heightened strength to an extreme degree, another preternatural aim and coordination. A third demonstrates tactical cognition far beyond what was intended. There are… others as well. I believe they may serve a purpose, if properly guided."

  Palpatine leaned forward slightly, his gaze locking onto the man's. "Tell me, Doctor. Do you believe that these… specimens could be useful?"

  Droga's smile grew. "I do, my lord. For now, they are soldiers of the Republic, like any other clone trooper. But I suspect in time, with proper training, they will be perfect shock troopers for the future of the army, in addition to the loyal masses that will surely join the military."

  "Excellent." The Chancellor's tone was almost a purr. "Then see to it that their loyalty is absolute. The future of our new Empire will depend on those who can adapt… and obey."

  Droga clasped his hands behind his back and gave a small bow. "It will be done, my lord." He said.

  The call ended, leaving Palpatine alone in his office once more. He steepled his fingers and grinned.

  Yes. Perhaps now would be a good time for Project War-Mantle to begin.