First Encounter With The Enemy From The Deep [Metal Lords PVE]

[null3]

Harris' Fleet came out of hyperspace, it drifted for a moment. Admiral Harris stood and looked with confusion.
"Where are we? Why have we stopped?"
"I don't know sir, the ship is not responding to any commands or maneuvers. Weapons are sluggish, hyperdrive is disabled and the engines are overheating. The rest of the fleet is reporting similar issues, except for Commader Greene and his Venator. His ship is on lockdown with a hager that wont open."
"I have a bad feeling about this, keep a look out for enemy ships. And cycle the shields, try to diagnose the problem so we can troubleshoot the rest of the fleet. I want to know what's happening as soon as possible."
The officer nodded, then the comms officer stood and ran to Harris, "Sir, we have multiple contacts approaching fast off the Port side. and lots of them."
Almost on cue, and without orders from Harris, the rest of the fleets' cannons lit up in a fury of cannons, pointed to a point in space. Harris ran to the window and witnessed hundreds of landing craft barreling towards the fleet.
"All weapons fire!" Launch all fighters! Contact the others, we need to get into defensive positions now!"
An alarm came over the ships speakers and the hanger opened as pilots rushed to the ships in the hanger. This was the first mass usage of Harris' Experimental TIE forces. The pilots through on there targeting helmets, closed the hatches and launched there ship. From the working venators, Hundreds of fighters and bomber flew towards the incoming threat. The entire fleet sluggishly moved into a more defendable position. Harris began shouting orders at the bridge officers.
"Get the 1st Defense Battalion mobilized. We need stormtroopers at every possible defendable position in this ship. I'm gonna go get geared up."
"Yes sir!"
The elevator door to the bridge closed. Harris stood in the elevator waiting. The door opened and he jumped out and ran through the hallway past squads of the stormtroopers in their white and blue armor. He came around to the doorway of his quarters and it slid open. He jogged to a box on the floor next to his bed and put in a pin. It slid open and he grabbed the contents.
Harris' door opened as he charged out with a steel chest plate, a helmet on and a blaster in his hands. He jogged to the lower command deck. The door sled open and he lowed and walked through.
"Lieutenant! Send out a distress beacon to the lords. Send them our coordinates and tell them we are under attack!"
[member="HK-36"]

 

[HK-36]

​

​

[member="Fleet Admiral Harris"],

What Harris and his men came to see would be a bizarre and alien sight. Surrounding their patrol fleet were strange elongated ships with long muscular and armored tentacle-like tendrils twining and writhing through the empty void of space, grotesque vessels seemingly forged to resemble appearance and movement of giant cephalopods like floating squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish. Their visage would be fitting should Harris knew who the ships belonged to, unfortunately the Metal Lords failed to brief him before hand about the true dangers of journeying through forgotten and hidden hyperlanes, for the arrival of these ships would be as much of a surprise to Harris as it was to his droid employers. HK however would recognize the vessels' design the moment he would see recording of the alien forces moving against Harris and his patrol fleet from the distress beacon.

"Oh khark me with a stick."

The droid would mutter while reviewing the footage in his palace-station orbiting Denon, watching the masses of mechanical tendrils and the large bloated ships reach out and move towards the patrol fleet under Harris' command on a repeating holograph loop sent out by the distress signal, along with their coordinates,

"Send out a call to all available Metal Lords, we need to muster reinforcements for Fleet Admiral Harris as soon as possible. Call upon any mercenary contacts in the area willing to work with us, we will need some auxiliary forces supporting us, especially if more of those brain-sucking demons show up. If they will ask what is the reason behind this emergency, tell them,"

HK paused for dramatic tension,

"The Deep Ones have found us."

And so a call was sent out to Metal Lords like [member="Lord Mettallum"], [member="WD-334"], [member="AD-8"], and [member="Archim Calixis"] among others to come with aid for Admiral Harris and his ships, and to mercenaries like [member="Sol Damerin"] and [member="Kurenai Yumi"], although they would not be given as much of a description about what was to come as the Metal Lords and their forces, after all this would not be the first encounter many Lords had with these creatures, but should the mercenaries knew what they would face aboard these foul tentacle-covered ships, they just might charge extra. So as far as Sol, Kurenai, and any other mercenaries knew, they would have been hired for a search and rescue operation from within hostile ships.



However there would still be some time before any help came to Harris, until then he would be left alone to face the enemy ambush. The interdiction field which pulled his fleet from their hyperspace route came from a large and heavily armored Cruiser. Covered in thick armor plates the large ship would soar towards his flagship, its tentacles extending out as from their length tractor beams would activate, aiming to guide Harris' ship closer and anchor him down as the unknown vessel begun to engage in a boarding action with Harris and his forces.

As the shadow of the large ship loomed over him a response would come in from the Metal Lords' capitol over Denon, a garbled transmission as apparently whoever these creatures were interfered with outside communications after the distress beacon was sent out,

" Tzzt - Harris, they - tzzzt - Deep - tzzzt - Force - tzzt - Do not - tzzt - close, they - tzzzt - brains! You will - tzzzt - thralls!"

Shortly after this message Harris and his crew would feel sensation of creeping and overwhelming dread washing over them. The sensation would be sudden and crushing, it would be clearly unnatural, some sort of active Force presence like Battle Meditation. Whatever was inside that cruiser, it had considerable presence or abilities in the Force.


Outside of the large cruiser there would also be multiple frigates with potent turbolasers designed to overpower capital ship deflector shields, corvettes projecting anti-starfighter fields of flak and fast firing quad-laser cannons to go up against Harris' starfighter details, and swarms of Deep Ones' starfighters scrambling out of their cruiser flagship. What all these vessels of various sizes had in common were their similar shapes, rounded and bloated bodies with multiple writhing tentacle-like tendrils that twined and flailed in repetitive patterns or lashing out against closest enemy ships as the vessels sped and slithered through the empty void of deep space the battle took place in.

 

[WD-334]

WD-334. Now known as the Obsidian Shield, shield to the Metal Lords. It's first task under this new title; answer the call against what [member="HK-36"] called 'The Deep Ones'. They would regret standing against the Metal Lords. The war droid's flagship, the Obsidian Fist arrived from hyperspace, flanked by the Tartan Cruiser Obsidian. "HK-36, aid has arrived. We shall-" It paused upon seeing the enemy. It had not seen anything alike what they faced, and it left the droid without words. Immediately, the war droid set about preparing it's own small force. The first objective it thought up, was to secure Admiral Harris's ships, and safety. It still had yet to learn many things from the organic admiral.

Going over to the holotable aboard the bridge, the droid pulled up a view of the battlescape. [member="Fleet Admiral Harris"]'s were being closed in on. "Send a squadron of T-32's to assist, guarded by a squadron and a half of V7-Fenrir" the droid ordered, knowing that was their entire starfighter complement. But first they needed to secure Admiral Harris's forces. They would need all the help they could get for this fight, organic or not. And WD-334 still viewed them as an ally. It had a sworn duty to protect them. "Secure defensive position, target any incoming fighters. Attempt to move the Obsidian toward Fleet Admiral's fleet to aid in anti fighter combat."

"HK-36, I shall secure the Fleet Admiral's ships. Will he need support against any boarding attempts?" It had transports ready, if it was needed for some face-to-face combat against these...things.

 

[Sol Damerin]

The contract from the Metal Lords reached Sol just as he was thinking of booking passage off Tatooine. The Wandering mercenary had no real strong feelings about the droid faction, other than his normal level of habitual distrust for any sort of authority, so once he checked the price being offered and confirmed it was good for a simple rescue op he accepted the job. After he did he wondered what the catch would be, there was always a catch.

It took a little longer to find a shuttle willing to drop him off at the gathering point than it did for his normal destination of somewhere else, but he found a pilot willing to go a bit out of there way for a little extra coin. As they approached Sol transmitted his credentials to the Metal Lords and he waited for permission to dock. Once given he disembarked waved off his ride and waited patiently to be told just what they were doing.

[member="HK-36"]

 

[Kurenai Yumi]

The CIS was good and all, but the recent lack of activity from diplomats securing their new worlds let Yumi with a lack of task to do, not being in a high enough position meant little paper work, and training was only fun for so long, she needed a challenge, something exciting to do. As such the ex-mercenary was scouring the holonet for any high paying jobs while inside her star fighter, the higher the pay, the harder said job was usually. Soon though one of interest came up, "The metal lords, hmmm, I know there history, but what would prompt them to send out this message... could it be... they are rare but happen.... perhaps it will be worth my time".

Plotting in the coordinates her black red Eta-2 Actis-class interceptor hyper-drive ring engaged, the ancient craft rocketing off into deep space, headed in the direction of the predetermined location. While in hyper space Kurenai sent back a responding message, 'I know what is happening [member="HK-36"], and I look forward to such a challenge'. After a few minutes the craft came out of hyperspace, the following battle playing out before her, it was ture, the Deep Ones where here.

A full enemy fleet had ambushed one of the Metal Lords fleet, and though it seemed reinforcements where here, judging from a fleet off to the side just beginning to launch fighters, it was anything but a fair fight. "This is where the fun begins".

[member="Sol Damerin"] l [member="Fleet Admiral Harris"]

 

[HK-36]

While [member="WD-334"] already managed to muster his fleet and quickly get to Admiral Harris, HK was still dealing with logistics of organizing his own larger forces and getting the mercenary auxiliaries together before making his way to meet at the position. While it did mean that WD and Harris would be left alone to face the large fleet of squid-shaped ships, it also bought more time to allow mercenaries like Sol time to catch up with the droid ships before they went into combat.

Either way, HK would sent a message to WD quickly,

"Yes, do not let his ships be boarded or pulled in by their tractor tendrils!"

As HK sent that message, comically enough, WD would be able to see that large mechanical tentacles from the Deep One cruiser flagship were already latching onto the admiral's flagship, writhing around them and pulling them close into its grip as swarms of smaller alien boarding shuttles danced around the two entangled ships.

"If they will get boarded, you need to send your own forces to reinforce them! Those things feed on organics and control their corpses, but many of their powers are useless on droids."

The older droid informed and ordered other Metal Lord. As soon as WD's ships would enter real space in the area, some of the Deep One frigates and corvettes would shift quickly in their position, facing his own fleet with the tentacles aimed right at them, starting to close in. However after few minutes the vessels would suddenly stop and turn sharply, opening up their broadsides to WD as they opened fire in barrages of high impact turbolasers. The other droid could probably figure out by their behavior that the Deep Ones were capable of discerning which ships were manned mostly by organics and which by droids.


[member="Kurenai Yumi"],

Yumi's message got HK a bit surprised, not because a mercenary seemed to have a direct line to message HK, that was actually very easy as the droid often multitasked and replied to messages or caught up on his paperwork while he was in the middle of combat, it was the fact that she knew about the Deep Ones that surprised the droid. Not many beings knew about them as the Deep Ones tended to stick to deep space and far reaches of the Galaxy, far away from centers of civilizations, the only reason why the machines knew about them was their tendency to travel through Hidden Hyperlanes, which the Deep Ones shared, long forgotten ancient networks of hyperlanes the droids had access to just because many of them were around when these hyperlanes were still used. But then again, the droids and Deep Ones were not the only ones who used such networks, nor were the machines first to encounter them, so it was not out of realm of possibility,

"If you know what they are then you should know what they can do and how to fight them. Conveniently enough they seemed to have been able to ambush one of the few of our fleets crewed mostly by organics."

For now HK omitted the fact that Metal Lords actively hunted the Deep Ones when they could and were fairly effective at it, at least their nomadic components, so the creatures probably watched them, waiting for opportunity to strike with vengeance,

"By the time you will arrive there they will probably already attempt to board one of our bigger patrol ships. Many of us are coming with reinforcements but it will take us some time and our reports indicate presence of a Kraken-class Cruiser, you will be on your own for a bit and the fighting will be heavy, contact Lord WD-334, he just came in there with a quick response fleet and we tasked him with counter-boarding the Squids to save our troops."

The droid informed Yumi before ending the transmission, seeing if she will have any further things to ask him or report before she will go into combat.


[member="Sol Damerin"],

It was by that time that HK would notice Sol's presence, shortly after Sol made his way into the hangar where soldiers were assembling aboard a grim looking renovated Venator-class cruiser, one of the old Republic models from Clone Wars that honestly looked like it was about to fall apart on the outside, however underneath its outer layer it was fully repaired and patched with recycled durasteel and quadanium. Although it might have put some doubt in Sol's mind about how much they would last in combat aboard what seemed to be an ancient derelict vessel at first, it was not an extraordinary sight among Metal Lord ships, the droid engineers and scavengers were very proficient at repairing and patching up ancient ships to battle-ready state, much of their fleets consisted of ancient scavenged vessels.

The droid commander would have just been passing by the mercenary as he inspected and directed his various troops in the Venator's hangar, barking orders, motioning to stands of armors and weapon racks, usual commander crap, as he nodded to Sol courtly after passing him by with a,

"Soldier,"

However the machine took a double take as he realized Sol was not one of his troopers, taking few steps back to make his way in front of Sol once more, the machine wore some sort of dark organic looking armor, like a fleshy membrane that covered his tall and slender body, wrapping over the skeletal frame like sinewy muscles, clad in a protective armor layer of thick chitinous plates. If Sol could see enough of it from beneath the cover of machine's dark flowing cloak, he would be able to recognize it, probably, as a Vong biot armor.

"Wait, who the khark are you?"

HK asked as he leaned in slightly, scanning over Sol's face, making it clear the question was fairly rhetorical as he answered it himself. Before HK's approach most soldiers and even officers just kind of ignored Sol, being too busy with getting themselves ready for combat or just not caring, which was an echo of the way he would be welcomed into the system, when asking for permission to dock the response would be a more cordial form of "Sure, whatever." As much as Sol disliked authority and being told what to do, the Metal Lords, or at least those elements under HK's control, seemed to dislike or avoid enforcing their rule over the area or being too strict about security.

"Oh yes, the mercenary, Sol was it?"

The droid asked as the ship they were on jolted slightly and picked up on speed rapidly, through the force fields separating the hangar from cold embrace of space they would be able to see stars elongated before quickly being suddenly replaced with a blue tunnel, indicating they just made a jump to hyperspace, and with it Sol would have been more or less stuck with HK and others. Most of the soldiers in the hangar were droids, some seemed intelligent, either shouting orders much like HK or actively suiting up for combat, picking their weapons of choice, changing out some components for last minute pre-battle customization, while others were already standing in neat rectangle formations in front of their transports with a blank expression from their skeletal bodies, and a rifle or electrostaff in their hands at the ready. There was a good chunk of organics there as well, humans, Wookiees, even some Herglics, all getting ready for combat like everyone else, so Sol would not be standing out that much, especially since other organics had a look of mercenaries around them as well.

 

[AD-8]

AD-8 received the distress call when he was examining one of his smaller ships, he quickly rushed back to the fortress class cruiser that was his tempory flagship, a larger ship was being planned. He mobilised the fleet and they set course for the distress signal.

They were about to come out of hyperspace in his fleet he had 3 Freedom class cruisers, 2 Tom Falk escort cruisers loaded to the brim with fighters, 2 Myrmidon class frigates and his flagship, a Fortress class cruiser. The whole ship lurched as they came out of hyperspace. He saw the fleet of the 'Deep Ones'.

"Oh God"

[member="Fleet Admiral Harris"] [member="WD-334"] [member="Sol Damerin"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="HK-36"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

While he waits Sol looks around the hanger bay with mixed feelings. On the one hand, these guys were a giant mix mash of random people and droids from all walks of life. The ships were bordering on derelict and order seemed to be the fevered dream of a madman. On the other hand, it was the laxest military operation he'd ever seen and everyone seemed to be doing their job anyway. He had to respect a commander that could get people to work without having to enforce overwhelming levels of discipline. He didn't think anyone could pull it off but apparently, this Metal Lord had.

Speaking of the big metal boss man himself walks bye and greats Sol casually like he was any other member of his army. The part where the droid then whirled and immediately questioned just who Sol was, was kind of amusing though the merc reframes from laughing and from answering the rhetorical question. The ship lurches underneath though Sol maintains his balance as he meets the Metal Lord's gaze. "Yes sir, Sol Damerin." He answers the second none rhetorical question but doesn't follow it up with one of his own. He generally didn't ask his employers too many questions, it tended to lead to awkwardness.

[member="HK-36"]

 

[HK-36]

[member="Sol Damerin"],

Well at least the other man wasn't much of a talker, HK liked that, it left more room for him to speak then, but it would seem that even machine would not have much time to talk as he received a notification from other Metal Lord forces that [member="AD-8"] reached the scene of the battle, jumping in as reinforcement to fight the Squid Men, if HK and Sol wouldn't get ready in time, other machines and their soldiers would get to have all the fun.

"Good, good."

HK nodded to Sol,

"I will be frank, Sol, you look like you have some experience behind you, like life chew you up, chitted you out, and you are still standing. If I am right in my assumption then good, because it means you are just the type of a soldier we need on this thing."

The droid would turn around motioning for Sol to follow him as he head out towards the ranks of soldiers getting themselves ready and the temporary armories being set up to make mobilization easier.

"These are the Iron Company, mercenaries like you, who have fought under my command since the days of Omega Protectorate. At one point they were one of the fiercest companies around, but old soldiers die, and the young have grown complacent and untested, rare is to deal with the old eldritch horrors and Sith the Protectorate had to struggle against. Most of the time it is just shooting at ranks of faceless stormtroopers, it all just so fething boring, and boredom does not make good soldiers."

HK would turn around then to face Sol once more and produce a holodisk projector from one of his satchels, the device that should tell Sol everything he would need to know about his enemies before the fight, offering it to Sol,

"We call them the Deep Ones, this disk will tell you everything we know about them. Whatever armor or weapon we have and you want to use, you can take, we do not lack in funds, make sure you will have a good helmet at least. Find yourself a good squad of men, make sure there will be at least one droid among them, and prepare for boarding the Deep One flagship as soon as we enter realspace. The bastards are skilled in telepathy and illusions, their thralls are easy enough but if you see one of the Squids, just let the droid handle them, otherwise you might start seeing things that are not there, shooting at people you should not shoot at, the disk will tell you more."

The droid motioned to the holographic projector he handed to him and then pointed to his chest,

"This mission is about survival, not destruction. We go in there, we do our job, and hopefully by the end of the day the patrol that got ambushed survives, your squad survives, and you will survive. There are a lot of things I am willing to face, but widows or mourning mothers are not among them."

 

[Lord Mettallum]

Allies: [member="HK-36"] [member="Sol Damerin"] [member="AD-8"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="WD-334"] [member="Fleet Admiral Harris"] @Others
Enemies: Deep Ones
Lord Mettallum was busy preparing his forces for combat with the deep ones. After making sure all his fighter squadrons were ready for combat and his troopers ready for onship combat he looked at his crew in the his ship's bridge.

"Is The Metal Throne ready for hyperspace if so head to the Deep ones location and let us hope the organics who have requested us are not already dead also please send a message to the Exile telling him that I Lord Mettallum will be assisting in this mission"

Once Lord Mettallum's ship exitted hyperspace at the location of the Deep ones he saw their many ships and of course some of their ships changed position to deal with him. Lord Mettallum only brought his Lucrehulk to the battle since he has no other capital ships and he was sure the hundreds of starfighters his ship has in its hangers would be enough to combat and defeat the Deep ones. Once in position Lord Mettallum Ordered all his fighters to exit The Metal Throne and assult the Deep one ships closest to The Metal Throne.

 

[Riamah]

Location: Hyperspace route between Coruscant and Denon
Fleet: Two Commerce Class Space Hulks (Kagemni and Hor-aha) and one Corvette (Tarkhan) each with three squadrons of fighters

Ra'a'mah knew her small fleet wasn't meant for battle as Overseer of Merchants, she was more on the business side of things within the Metal Lords. However, she wasn't totally helpless in space. When the distress beacon went off from Fleet Admiral Harris, she had no choice but to respond.

Opening a link to the others within the faction, she sent word she was on her way with her ships.

"What are we up against?"

Ordering a change of course, the ships took a new route through the hyperspace lanes and would arrive in about an hour. It would be enough time for her to learn what they were up against and prepare a course of action.

[member="Lord Mettallum"] [member="HK-36"] [member="Sol Damerin"] [member="AD-8"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="WD-334"] [member="Fleet Admiral Harris"]

 

[Sol Damerin]

Well, the droid commander sure liked to talk. He also certainly knew how to flatter a human. Sol had always wanted to be told he was ugly by a giant bucket of bolts it gave him the warm fuzzies deep down inside. He follows and listens to everything HK-36 has to say but he doesn't form much of an opinion. Iron Company looked to have seen better days but so did everyone the almost casual order to just join a squad and make sure it had a droid was interesting, as was the insistence on a helmet. Sol didn't like helmets but didn't think explaining that would make much of a difference.

The holodisk in interesting and once he is dismissed, instead of finding a squad or picking out gear Sol would find a place to sit and read. Know thine enemy was usually a pretty good philosophy and one he took to heart. Once he knew what they were up against he would find a helmet, he still didn't want to wear one but HK-36 would probably ask questions if a man who read everything on the deep ones didn't wear one. The Droid wouldn't know that Sol, well couldn't necessarily throw off everything the squids threw at his mind but he could throw off most of it, probably. He was fairly good at using The Force to throw off mental attacks.

That all being said he did have on thing to say to HK-36 before he got to all that. "No widow or mother for me. If I die you won't have to worry about it, just chuck my body in a dumpster if it comes up" Ah gallows humour the favourite kind of humour of the mercenary, at least the ones who knew how to have a good time.

[member="HK-36"]

 

[Kurenai Yumi]

A turbo blaster whizzed past Kuenrais fighter as she performed another strafing run on one of the small enemy corvette, aiming to damage its engine, the ancient craft still packing a reasonable punch. She had never faced the deep one in proper combat, usually bearing witness to the aftermath of an attack and reports by others, and said reports did not seem to even match up to the real thing. The looming ship of with tendril sending shiver up her spin as it literately mawwed away and the craft it was currently latched onto, 'intimidating, and practical'.

A loud beeping sound resonated through her ship, as a missile lock on was detected from a enemy ships, several seeking rockets streaked towards the small red craft, it seemed they had had enough of the pesky fly. Pulling hard interceptor into a steep dive around the enemy ship, dodging and weaving between small outcroppings in the 'Deep Ones odd ship' trying to get the misses to friendly fire or loose their tracking.

Coming away from the hostile corvette several bright lighted arose from behind, indicating the missiles had detonated against something other then her ship. "All right, that down and....", a sudden crash and jolt from the side of her ship sent the small craft spiraling out of control as it headed back to the Metal Lords back up fleet, "What the fuck was that"? Looking out the window to her eyes widened to see a large chunk of metal lodged in the side of her ship, destabilizing one of the engines, "......... I just got this repaired too".

Kurenai fought against the controls as the ship span in a collision course for [member="HK-36"] flag ship, aiming for the hanger where the other mercenaries had gather, "Come on, just a bit further". The craft hit the floor hard, skidding around a bit, sparks flying everywhere, a defeating screech echoing out, before finally coming to a stop just short of the wall, a small plum a smoke coming from the left engine. Opening the cock pit Kurenai stood up, brushing a few loose strands of hair from her eyes while inspecting the damage, she would fly again, the small fighter had seen worst and lived, " *sight*... another happy landing".

[member="Sol Damerin"] l @Ra'a'mah l [member="Lord Mettallum"] l [member="AD-8"]

 

[AD-8]

AD-8 looked around at the chaos of battle, arcs of light flying from ship to ship, creating giant flowers of flame.

"Launch all fighters, all ships concentrate fire on the weapons on their flagship, boarding parties to your ships"

AD braodcast this message across his fleet, commanding his troops. The bridge was busy, everyone knowing their place and doing their job. AD looked out the window to [member="Lord Mettallum"] newly arrived ship, a battlecruiser of an old design, dating back to the clone wars. ADs flagship, the A-10, was nearly finished bieng manufactured in the shipyards over Hakassi and would be comparable in size to mettallums new flagship. 'Lord mettallum the preacher' or whatever he called himself was not much more than a religious fanatic to AD, apparently he was even making his own religious magazine, but he didn't show it, he wanted to stay on good terms with his fellow metal lords so he was never at risk of bieng turned on or ganged up on. He brought up a comm channel with [member="HK-36"]

"Where do you want my boarding parties?"
[member="Sol Damerin"] [member="Ra'a'mah"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"]

 

[WD-334]

[member="AD-8"] [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="Sol Damerin"] @Ra'a'mah [member="Lord Mettallum"] [member="HK-36"] [member="Fleet Admiral Harris"]

The war droid gave an affirmative bleep over the comms to HK's end, then gave out orders. "Prepare a boarding party. Main objective; protect Admiral Harris's crew. Fend off any boarding attempts." The war droid made it's way to the docking tube as the Victory II aligned itself to Harris's ship, and the boarding vessel readied itself. "Admiral Harris, if you can hear this transmission, be aware of my forces. We are coming aboard to provide assistance." HK's information about this foe would prove handy, but it also meant that Harris's forces may become under their control. While they were allies, the war droid still followed some Imperial protocols. That included the extermination of any allies turned foes, unless it was told otherwise.

 

[null3]

Harris' throne was rattled by the landing craft wrapping it's tentacles around the hull. Harris and his men quickly drew their weapons. They lined up facing the wall and waited.
"Boom!"
The hallway exploded, knocking Harris and several troops to the ground. Smoke filled the room and warning lights began flashing. The men struggled to get up. The soldiers grabbed their weapons, and from a crouched position began firing into the smoke.
"Admiral, Friendly forces are attempting to land, I'm allowing them aboard."
The voice echoed through his helmet as he stumbled to his feet. As the smoke cleared, several cephalopod-like creatures became visible. Quickly Harris began firing at them, one fell and he stood completely. He began gunning them down and had killed three when one of his stormtroopers turned from the fog and fired at him, hitting him in the arm. The trooper began screaming and was swiftly gunned down by the other troops.
"What the he'll was that?"
Quickly the stormtroopers lifter Harris and carried him from the action.

 

[HK-36]

[member="Sol Damerin"],

"Geez, that is depressing."

HK muttered at Sol's comment at first before calling out to him,

"I will make sure that we will find you the nicest dumpster within Droid Space then!"

As he turned around and walked away to attend to other duties, waving him off to dismiss him. The rest of their journey would have probably been pretty mild, nothing too exciting, just continuous preparations for combat, troops getting into formations, shuttles being loaded up and prepared for almost immediate launch, various droid-forged starfighters and bombers would be prepared for scrambling with their pilots finding their positions in the cockpits. That position probably had the highest number of organics in comparison to droids among all Metal Lords, as quick as droids were they could not replace the gut feeling that most skilled pilots developed over the course of a long career. Besides, when a droid was specifically designed for the purpose of piloting a starfighter and gained a position as a pilot, they usually preferred to just upload their minds into a droid-starfighter body in order to control the whole machine directly rather than as a separate body piloting it through controls. Indeed there would be many mechanized starfighters moving around the hangar, from the serpentine Wyvern-class to the large heavily armored Mechanical Dragons stomping around slowly in careful heavy footsteps, an offshoot of the infamous Mandalorian Besu'liisk War Droids, modified many times over throughout the Metal Lords' secret exile from the Galactic Scene until finally reaching their current form.


Soon enough a rumble would be felt throughout the ship and the alarms blared a signal that they were about to revert into realspace as the blue tunnel of hyperspace visible outside the viewports disappeared, replace by the black star spangled field of deep space. However almost as soon as they entered the battlefield more alarms blared as [member="Kurenai Yumi"] managed to almost immediately crash her vessel into the newly arrived flagship.

"Watch out!"

"Cover!"

Soldiers called out as Yumi breached through one of the hangar force fields, quickly entering the hangar and heading towards one of the squadrons of Wyvern-class Drone Starfighters preparing to take off, one that HK was actually just inspecting, As her starfighter collided into the floor, skidding across it the Wyvern drones lifted off, pouncing and lunging out of the way, using their repulsorlift systems to quickly hover over Yumi's craft and heading to safety to avoid any possible collision or explosions that could result.

HK however was not so lucky, so just as Yumi's starfighter slowed down to a stop a loud CLANG of metal hitting metal could be heard.

" *sight*... another happy landing"

"Just get the f-[beep] into the formation."

A voice would be heard from under the tip of her starfighter as it was suddenly lifted up from underneath, HK strained himself standing up from below it, clutching the belly of her craft and freeing himself from its weight and dusting himself off before motioning over to one of the transports.

"We are going in as soon as we can and we are going in hot. There is an older grim fellow around him called Sol, go find him and get acquainted, I could use the two of your working together alongside me in there."


Even despite the sudden intrusion of Yumi creating a shower of sparks within the hangar by crashing into it there would be a noise of roaring engines and ships pushing out from the hangar into the space as various starfighters were scrambled and first dropships were sent on their mission.

As for HK, the droid would board one of the older Protectorate combat dropship models along with two of his Greycloak honor guards and some handpicked Iron Company comrades, there would have still been room for Sol and Yumi to join him aboard, of course if they wanted they could have tagged along with their own squads, either way, they would be leaving soon and the combat was not that far away from there.

 

[Xardas]

[member="Lord Mettallum"],

HK would sent back an affirmative response to Mettallum to let him know he understood and his own ships were on the way to intervene as well.

@Ra'a'mah,

To Ra the droid would have sent a dense datafile on what the Metal Lords knew so far of the Deep Ones as well as the looping holorecording they received from Harrison about the various interdictors and Deep Ones vessel at the time the ambush against their patrol fleet was sprung. That should have been all that Ra would need to know of their ancient enemies before facing them.


As to the [member="AD-8"] HK would send him orders,

"So far it looks like their boarding attempts are confined to Admiral Harrison's flagship, go and join [member="WD-334"] and his counter-boarding forces to protect our organic allies. See if you can push your way inside the Squid ship and attempt to take it over, learn what you can of who the commander of their vessels is."

Outside of that the Metal Lords who were already on the scene would see the Denon fleet come in, headed by the large restored Venator-class Cruiser, spewing out squadrons of various starfighters, bombers, and dropships almost as soon as they arrived. This was not time to mess around and it very much seemed like the forces were well experienced in conducting such maneuvers, or perhaps they were getting themselves into situations like these far too often.


[member="Fleet Admiral Harris"],

As to the Deep One ships,

The squid-like nautiloid vessels begun to stir and writhe more furiously, disturbed by the sudden appearance of increasingly greater numbers of mostly droid vessels, their initial advantage was quickly disappearing, with the patrol fleet controlled by Lord Admiral Harris still being the juiciest, and pretty much only valid target for boarding attempts, knowing very well how badly boarding attempts on mostly droid-manned vessels ended for them in the past.

The various squid frigates and smaller cruisers tightened their formation, starting to circle around the main large flagship which was not entangling with the Venator the man was controlling, trying to strangle it still as various squid boarding pods begun to spew enemy soldiers aboard, what's worse the cruiser itself and its large boarding tentacles would attempt to drill and burn their way into the hull, creating direct entryway into the enemy ship. Meanwhile the frigates and corvettes surrounding the two entangled ships renewed their focus on artillery fire against the newly arrived enemies, greeting them with high intensity long range fire to keep them at bay as well as creating a dangerous starfighter defense-screen. Their goal was not to keep Metal Lord reinforcements out, but also to keep Harris and his crew trapped inside.


Meanwhile aboard the Kraken-class Cruiser,


Within the putrid darkness of the Kraken's bridge, a collection of thin, withered, robed figures would float about, lazily shifting through altitudes and positions as the elongated thick tentacles extending from their faces writhed and churned excitedly as they felt the battle progress in their proximity,

Fear. Panic. Machine-Obedient life death, confusion.

One of the Sorcerers reported to their commander,

Triumph. Hungry for blood. Hungry for essence. Vengeance. Machine-Obedient, Young Thralls, Us-Obedient.

Xardas retorted in a series of ideas and images being sent out from his mind and relayed to his officers and closest subordinates. If there was one thing that the Deep Ones knew well, was how to really frack with an organic's mind, a skill that Harris's soldiers would know about now too well as some of his troops begun to sway under the influence of oppressive mental shadow that emanated out from the Kraken's belly and washed over them, turning some of them into the control of the Deep Ones.

Even Harris would not be completely spared from it, as his soldiers would try to move him away from the front lines his mind would suddenly flush with images of gore, flames, and death, along with flashes of visions of skeletal beings with large swollen guts and bulbous squid-like heads spewing forth elongated tentacles.

The boarding assault facing his Venator would renew in strength as the Deep Ones unleashed their army of thralls, mindless brainwashed soldiers usually equipped with various melee weapons, or simply clawing at their enemies using brute strength, numbers, and immense dedication. Although there were squads equipped with various blaster rifles and pistols.

 

[Kurenai Yumi]

She gave out a slight gasp as her ship started to move for some unknown reason, jumping off as as it was lifted up by some being with super strength, and one with a crude mouth at that, "Sorry about that [member="HK-36"], I have yet to face these 'deep ones' in combat before". Her eyes wandered over to the man that Hk had refereed to, [member="Sol Damerin"], 'oh boy I know these type.... this will be interesting'.

Securing her saber, blaster pistol and light repeater in their proper places, "I take it you are Sol, HK said that I should get acquainted with you before our operation". The two stood in silence for a minute before she continued "Oh forgive me, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Kurenai Yumi, but you can just call me crimson, its easier on the tongue or so people have said". She performed a small gentleman's bow before allowing Sol the chance to reply.

[member="HK-36"] l

 

[Sol Damerin]

[member="HK-36"] 's response to Sol's statement managed to get something from Sol few people had ever heard. A laugh. It was brief, a deep and low chuckle but it was genuine. There were few thing he appreciated more than gallows humour and HK promising him the finest dumpster tickled his funny bone. Then the droid was gone and Sol hopped up on a crate to start reading through what they had on the old ones.

He was about half-way through and becoming increasingly unenthused when a ship came careening into the hanger. Who the hell tried to dock in hyperspace? He watched placidly from his space out of the way on a crate as the ship almost crushed their glorious leader. The droid having to heft the damn thing of him before a woman slipped out. A woman who was immediately pointed in Sol's direction. Well, at least the old ones weren't sending suicide bombers at them, that was a plus he supposed.

The woman comes up and bows introducing herself. Sol flicks his eye up and down noting the surname and the similar features. "Your kids need more discipline in their lives. Sol." He says combining something he'd said he'd bring up with his own introduction. He doesn't return the bow but he does incline his head in a sign of respect. Hopefully, she was less of a blabbermouth than her daughter and less mentally unhinged than her son.

[member="Kurenai Yumi"]