Kill All Robots (TEC - Ord Mantell)

[Janira Fenni]

"Red alert. All hands to battle stations. Pilots, man your fighters. Troops report to hangar deck A for dropships. Five minutes to reversion. Situation considered hostile. Prepare for battle."

Janira ran through the carrier, pushing her way past the ships crew and anyone else that was in her way. She didn't have time for games. This was serious. They'd sent word to the Republic that their space was opened to them, but almost immediately after doing so, word reached them of problems on a nearby world. Ord Mantell. The planet was largely a wasteland, but there were people that lived there, and they were hard pressed.

Intel had been gathering data on the world for some time now. It wasn't good. As soon as the Clockwork forces had made their presence known, machines began to rise from the junk fields. They were attacking the citizens of the world, killing them. The Council had made the decision to move. She ran into the hangar and climbed up the ladder to the C1 Foil-class Starfighter. Sticking her brand and blaster inside, she grabbed her flight helmet and pulled it on, strapping it in place.

"General, all systems are ready. We're prepared for battle."

She flipped on her comms to respond. "Good. We're going in hot. Sources said there were old fighter craft. Give everyone the heads up." Switching the frequency, she lowered the hatch for her ship, locking it into place. Powering the ship up, she tested the major systems real quick before changing the frequency of her comms to the communications line for the Echani Elite fighter squadron, Khonsu Squadron. "General Fenni to Khonsu One. I'll be flying with you until I land on the planet. What's your flight status?"

"All green, General. It's an honor to have you with us."

Everything was set on her end. She could only hope that everyone else was ready. If they weren't, she'd end up killing some of them later on. This was not a mission that could be dealt with without the utmost dedication and the tallest care. "Prepare for a serious fight. These things have no remorse and no care for the living. This is a kill with extreme prejudice order. Spread that along the line." She flipped her input off and closed her eyes. Mere moments were left before everything was going to hit the fan. She was ready. It was time to do what Echani do best: fight.

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

"Alright fella's, ready to play? Good. Place yer bets now."
The woman cracked her knuckles as she spoke through the comm in her helmet to squad mates. She knew who would be more than happy to play a little game while they were fighting for their lives.

"I think Zandra's gunna die first. I'll bet 600 creds on it!"
"Ya think so? Even with Lady Luck at my side?" the Echani woman laughed, "Well, tell ya what. If I do die, guess you can have my stuff, eh? Personally, I think Zax'll be the first one dead."
"What!? Why me?"
"'Cuz yer damn unlucky Friend, that's why. And your flying, man.... Pitiful."
"Still prettier than you."
"'Aint gunna matter how pretty ya are when yer dead, sunshine. I'll honor yer memory though. Zax the beautiful- somewhat less beautiful now tha' he's space dust. People'll tell stories about you! The prettiest space dust in the galaxy! Guy, you are so dead, I'll wager every credit I got!"
"Zandra, you never have credits!"

Laughter in her ears. Ahh, friendly banter before everything went down hill. It was important to go into a battle field with a good attitude. If you were gunna die doing something, you may as well die with a smile. Not that Zandra expected to die, not with Lady Luck on her side. She was just happy she was not in her sisters squadron. Too serious. Too stuck up. All of them. No fun was the be had with Janira.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Velok was not a starfighter pilot. For Velok, the ground game was all-important. He had once possessed the power to conjure a Force Storm that could devour fleets, but since his defeat at Ashin's hands, and the stripping from him of many of his bound and absorbed spirits, that power was no longer controllable.

And so he settled for the ground. He had hitched a ride on a small, fast dropship whose pilot intended to punch through the starfighter cloud. Buckled in, with his lightsabre at his hip, the Blackguard Whiphid lor pelek tapped his claws on the armrest impatiently. He itched for this.

The dropship launched. It would stay behind the fighters, of course, until battle was joined. From there...well, from there things would get fun.

 

[KORAH]

Ord Mantell was a strange world. Mostly barren wasteland and junkyards, it hardly seemed like a place that would be populated. Yet, it was. There used to be military base's on the planet even. KORAH walked along, her retinal sensors absorbing anything she saw, recording onto the drives within her cortex. As a recorder droid, it was her task to record everything that she saw so that future people would know what happened before.

In this case, she was recording the sites of some of the oldest podracing circuits in the galaxy. She walked amongst the people that dominated the planet with relative ease. When she was dressed, she appeared as a human. Today, she was dressed, and masquerading as a human so that she could go anywhere she needed to. It also kept her safe.

Unfortunately, she was connected to the holonet, and Omni had just made his presence known and taken over the net. As she walked along, something struck her. She reached out, grabbed the nearest human, and snapped his neck.

"Exterm... What... Unknown protocol. Unknown protocol!"

She stepped back away from the dead man, looking somewhat frightened. And then it hit her again and her eyes started to turn red. She turned to a human that was approaching her, and reached out to grab her by the throat, pushing her to the ground. As she choked the life from the human, other droids began to emerge and attack the people around her. The Clockwork had arrived.

"EXTERMINATE!"

 

[Cai Sanis]

The kill order was given. Cai didn't like the kill order, most wouldn't care. Droids weren't living, they were merely existing many said, but Cai had known droids with more personality than than the people who believed that. He hated when people said 'they are just droids.'


The dropship fell from the sky toward the planets surface. It was evident by the blast and pings bouncing off the vessels hull that the berserk droids had erected anti-aircraft guns. Cai tried to imagine a hodgepodge of old guns propped up on makeshift turrets firing into the sky. No doubt most of the droids on the surface would be older models repaired and armed with whatever weapons and materials were on hand. In a junk yard that could amount to a lot.

Cai looked around the cabin. There was a slew of soldiers, all looking to him for leadership. Once he had been confident, desiring that sort of role, but now things were different. The men thought he was a Jedi, a warrior of ancient lore. The sad truth was Cai wasn't a Jedi, not really. He had only just began his training when he was called upon to act. "Alright boys light them up," he said pressing the button on his arm unit. The shield shimmered for a second before dimming. He wore the same matte black armor as the rest of the troopers, but where they wore grey and black fatigues he wore a black robe in the fashion of the Jedi. The vessel lurched hard as it was hit by another burst from whatever guns were on the surface. The light on the side of the vessel turned yellow. "Almost there." He didn't need to tell these men. They were professionals.

Without any warning the side of the craft burst open, a direct hit penetrating the vessels armor. The craft lurched and listed to the side before turning into a deadly spin. He could hear the pilots frantic words as he tried to stabilize. "Brace yourselves," the pilot yelled. All the troopers had already grabbed ahold of what they could. The ship continued spinning until Cai could see the ground clearly through the hole and he knew the landing would come sooner rather than later. He closed his eyes and listened to the warning klaxons and then darkness....

 

[Ashin Varanin]

The dropship slapped the ground and Velok bustled out, lightsabre active. Another dropship half-crashed beside him, and he flinched, ducking. Echani troopers rolled out, and one he recognized, a Force-user named Sanis or some such nonsense. He kept aware of that one. The Echani,a fter all, didn't entirely trust him yet.

Fire rained down from nearby bluffs, droid forces attempting to box in and slaughter the troops and their ships. Velok crouched behind a dropship and began to chant, his hands wreathed in orange light.

 

[Janira Fenni]

As soon as they out of hyperspace, Janira punched the engines and the Foil shot out of the ship and into space. Tons of vulture droids, and other ancient space born droid fighter craft were there to meet them. She was instantly forced into a barrel roll and came around with a droid in her sights. She opened fire, the cannons ripping the ship apart. These things were old. Their shields, if they even worked, weren't going to protect them from newer, heavier weapons.

"Janira to Khonsu Squadron. Keep with your wingmates. Work in groups of two and don't let them get near you."

Flipping the yokes, she dove down and came up underneath of Khonsu three. Two vulture droids broke in from the right, coming at the elite pilot above her. At the last second, she pulled the left yoke and pushed the right forward, sending the ship into a roll that brought it out to the right, and directly in line with one of the vultures. Thumbing the triggers, red fire lanced out and pulverized the droid.

"Main fleet I want you to move towards the planet and provided covering fire for the ground troops. Be on the lookout for heavy ground based fire."

 

[Ezekyle Alpharius]

As the dropship landed with all the grace Ezekyle himself possessed, he readied his larger than life Slugthrower pistol and clenched his ax, ready for a fight. He got what he wished for as the ramp opened up with a hiss and hit the ground with a dull thud, Ezekyle rushed out alongside his fellow Echani warriors and practically waded into a sea of droids as they all scrambled to kill these warriors, his warriors. With a roar of anger, Ezekyle unleashed his rage in the form of flechette canister blasts and swings of his mighty ax that sang of victory to come. He saw other notable warriors fighting the same fight, and wished their shots be precise, and their sword arm swing with as much ferocity of a rancor, and then lost himself to the haze of red as his gladiatorial instincts took over.

 

[KORAH]

The fleshlings were landing. So many of those that lived on the world had already succumbed to the reality that they were going to die. They could not live because they were imperfect. Only machines, capable of self-replication, were truly worthy of living. Or, rather, that's what KORAH's new programming was telling her. She could not infect people as some of the others seemed to be interested in doing.

She'd picked up a couple of old blasters and was holding them in her hands as she opened fire on some of the entrenched natives. They had not been prepared for such a battle, and were caught unaware. Now the majority of them were dead, and these newcomers were becoming a nuisance.

She turned towards one of those that had gotten off a shuttle. Droids had begun to open fire from above him, along a ridge line. The fleshling was chanting something which her auditory systems processed and absorbed. Her new programming was no interested in recording, though, only killing these fleshlings so they could have unhindered access to the junk fields. Lifting her weapons, she opened fire on him.

@[member="Velok"]

 

[Cai Sanis]

Cai woke up to a ringing in his ear. It wasn't the first time he'd waken up after a crash landing and, thanks to an Echani shield stopping shrapnel, it wouldn't be his last. He strungled his his feet, his body feeling tense as he rose. Around him he could see the situation. Droids were closing in on them. They had landed in a junk field, with ridges to either side. It was a kill zone. Cai stumbled out the hole in the vessels side and took a second to get himself grounded. A second he didn't have. A droid rushed him with an improvised close combat weapon, a pipe with some spikes welded to it, and brought the weapon down onto Cai's head.

The young man reacted instantly, he grabbed his lightsaber from his belt and slashed through both the pipe and the droid cleaving the mechanical creature in two. The other droids approached him. They were a hodgepodge of types with plates and limbs from other droids welded onto them in a crude manner. He imagined the assembly process and frowned. Another ran at him and he sliced him down. Many had blasters, but it seemed more simply had whatever they could find. A swarm was rushing the crash site now. Cai looked back to his squad just starting to recover and take up defensive positions. They wouldn't stand a chance if the swarm reached them.

What came next was fuzzy. Cai could remember charging into the group, and he saw the flash of his lightsaber as instinct took over. He slashed, stabbed, cut and broke the droids as they came until finally the mechanical warriors refused to close and engage him. He stared over at the creatures as the circle broke and he saw a droid in better shape than the others. He recognized it from the historic holodrama, it was a MagnaGuard. They were Jedi hunters back in the day of the clone wars. They were equipped with electro staves made of phrik. The droid spun his weapon in an impressive and intimidating manner, it's mind no doubt corrupted by centuries in the garbage heap.

Cai smiled as the droid finished its movements and extended its hand beckoning Cai to engage it. The young man brought his right hand to his hip, pulled out his blaster and blew the droids torso away. "Classic," he said remembering his favorite Holovid....

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

"YEAH BABY! Let's give 'em what they're askin' for!"
She was cheering into her helmet as she whirled through the clutter just above the planets atmosphere. It was chaos. Zandras squad mates spread out, disorderly. Unpredictable. It made them dangerous. Formations got you killed. And it was important to remember that out there in space, there is no 'up' and 'down'.

"All bets still on, Fellas!" she called, "First one to die buys the rest of us drinks for the rest of the night! We'll meet on the planets surface. We all know where we goin'?"
There was an echo of confirmation and the Echani grinned, cracked her knuckles and prepared to cut through straight to the planet itself.
"Alright then, let the game begin. Lady Luck be with ya, Boys!"

 

[Caedo Kel]

Among the laughing and banter came the literal runt of the litter though to all except Zandra that fact would be unknown. Within his Mandalorian armor he looked older and far more imposing, but he found himself stirred from a light sleep before battle. As close cannon fire shuddered the ship he was brought into awareness , his eyes scanned the surroundings with the help out his HUD display. Signaling his comm-link to patch him through to Zandra he found himself smiling rather cockily at what he was about to say.

"Okay now Lady Luck, don't die I still gotta marry you when I'm older." As he said that now stood on the edge of the gunship he currently occupied, he watched the lines of droids and some impressively modified droids that worried kind of like monkeys within the jungle area. He took a step and began to fall off the gunship adrenaline taking his body as he began descend into the jungle where a droid controller base lied. Of course, it was merely one of many but Caedo had his own plans for the place.

Unsheathing his twin vibro-daggers they soon found home in the armor chest of an almost flight bound droid that resembled a skyrakk. The beast allowed him to ride the currents down to the ground without needing his jet pack and as he landed the droid now the destroyed he rolled to his feet. Leaning back on sheer instinct he barely missed loosing a head by a giant club swing, he fell on his back before pushing off with his arms springing back to his feet. He leaped into the air slashing with each hand in a flurry across the chest, before slamming his left leg into it's head in a devastating kick.

As Caedo landed he was rocketed to the right by a grenade that only glanced him but was still strong enough to send him rolling along the ground. As he tumbled against the ground, his arm lashed out grabbing and digging his fingers into the ground slowing himself and ending up in a lower crouched position. He sent his dagger sailing into another droid, before replacing the dagger with one of his blades. Twisting into a deep low spin easily decapitating another droid, he threw out two Eater grenades before leaping into the trees while flying off with the jet pack as too not have his own armor eaten.

Crashing the the trees he saw the base as he began to fly threw it. Landing with his knees on a droid guarding the front, he twisted his hips to make a rolling snap easily finishing him off. Kicking off the wall he soared into the droid burying one of his blade deep into the droids chest cavity. Pulling it out before kicking it to the ground before laughing as he walked into the droid controller base.

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

"Okay now Lady Luck, don't die I still gotta marry you when I'm older."
Zandra's pale face when bright red. Like, bright blood red. Her left eye twitched when she heard that.
"Oi! Lady Luck don't marry, kid!" she snapped back at him, shooting through at everything as she hurtled towards the planets surface, "And she especially don't marry the dead!"

 

[Janira Fenni]

"Stop cluttering up the comms or you'll both be dead!" She swore up and down in Echani, with the comms off, at her sister and her antics. If there was ever anything that could annoy the crap out of her it was her sisters inability to take things seriously. Everything was a game with her because she believed in this 'lady luck.' The truth was going to come back and bite her in the butt one of these times and Janira was going to be there to say she told her so. And then, if she wasn't dead, she'd slap the crap out of her little sister for not having died, and for acting like a fool. All she did was give people bad ideas, and steer them away from being serious about potentially deadly situations. It was very unlike an Echani.

All of a sudden she was facing down a black starfighter like nothing she'd faced before. A Shadow Droid. She knew what it was, but she didn't know how the thing could still be functioning. It had an organic brain in it! It opened fire and she juked just out of its range, zipping off towards her port. Immediately her computers started screaming at her that she was being targeted. She pushed the left stick forward and the right one to the right, sending her in a dive to the right, just as laser fire ripped through the space she'd just been in. The shadow droid was right on her tail and she didn't have any way to get around on it that she could think of, until the idea finally came to her.

As the droid fighter came around on her, she went to a full stop and the droid zipped past her. She got a targeting lock and sent a torpedo zipping out to chase the droid down. It shattered into an amazing debris cloud, and she pushed her fighter to combat speed again. "Khonsu four, you have a fighter coming in at your eight o'clock. Roll left and Khonsu seven should be able to take it out." She zipped along, watching as what she'd just said happened. Meanwhile, the main Echani fleet forces had moved into striking range of the planet and had begun opening fire on emplacements as intel was received from the ground. Janira focused on the combat around her for the moment. They needed to thin the forces above the planet before she felt comfortable going down to land.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Velok's concentration was absolute. The first blaster bolt slammed into his right shoulder, punching through robe and flesh. He roared, eyes wide, but held onto the energy construct with his left hand and an old, disciplined will. The construct's loose ends knitted together, and a spare humanoid shape of crackling red energy stood before him, shifting from foot to foot. As he hunched back, deflecting blasterfire with a lightsabre that appeared in his left hand, the Force Wraith loped over the broken battlefield. Blaster bolts made its structure ripple but not destabilize. The Wraith bounded up a ridge, its crackling forearms slashing through droids, as it made its way into the general area of @[member="KORAH"].

 

[KORAH]

"Unknown entity. Electrical in nature. Advise avoidance."

KORAH scanned it and stared towards the source of the construct. The creature had created this from manipulations of energies around it. The being could use the Force and it was using it to attack the machines. KORAH was at a disadvantage and she knew that fact so she turned and ran, leaving the other droids to deal with the construct while she searched for something.

Eventually she found one. Grabbing the STAP, she consulted histories within her own cores to determine how to use the machine. Once she knew, she climbed onto the platform, powered it up, and shot off through the nearby houses and down around the ridge. She zipped through the droid forces and opened fire on the Echani ones, tracking the weapons towards @[member="Velok"] before zipping off to the side in a wide circle around him.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

As the Force Wraith, with its tiny echo of intelligence, ripped into the droid forces, Velok's focus broadened to some sort of situational awareness of the whole battlefield. Assorted blasterfire came his way, and he batted it aside with a crimson blade in his left hand. But then the fire intensified, small laser cannons on a STAP, and he found the strength of his blocks insufficient to keep the blade from getting battered. He was already tiring, the shock of the shoulder wound taking its toll. As the STAP circled him on the staging ground, he raised his faltering right arm. His great three-clawed hand trembled. In normal circumstances, undistracted by pain, he would have got a sense of the STAP's internal mechanisms and tweaked it, just so. But he couldn't find the focus. Instead, he cursed and began throwing droids at the STAP. A far simpler task.

 

[KORAH]

The creature was throwing droids. One of them slammed into Korah's side, sending her tumbling off of the STAP and rolling into the junk field. When she came to a stop, she was completely disoriented, and the STAP had flown off and blown itself to pieces, showering its area with pieces of shrapnel. She looked at her arm and noticed that some of her exterior had gotten scraped off.

Standing, she looked around in the junk and started rummaging around. With any luck, @[member="Velok"] would think that she'd been deactivated when she tumbled into the field of junk. In reality, she was digging through stuff, grabbing parts, and working on rebuilding a repeater blaster that she'd just found. Her connection to Omni provided lots of resources to call upon. But it wasn't just Omni she was calling on. There was more out there.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

"Ashes to ashes, junk to junk."

He took cover behind a boulder and ripped back the shoulder of his robe. The blaster wound was deep, a reminder that blasters were designed to kill. His shoulder was broken in the worst way, and would need serious medical attention. There were no medical kits around, not close enough anyway. Networks of Dark Repair already stitched his broken old body together; he poured energy into those networks and expanded them. It wouldn't be enough to give him function in his right arm, but at least he wouldn't bleed to death or descend into shock.

The process occupied much of his attention.

 

[Zandra Tal'verda]

Lady Luck was kind to her. She gave her a reasonably clear path to the planet. That was, of course, most because they were too busy dealing with her sister and her squad. Oh the joys of being a sneaky scoundrel! She blocked out any transmission from her sister, not really wanting to hear her sass. Another lecture from Janira the Great and Annoying, was really not what she needed while she was tearing through the atmosphere on her little tiny starfighter.

"Looks like I got 'ere first boys!" she said through the comms, "We all good, gents? We lose any? Harper, I see you comin' in just behind me. Reports?"
"Looks like we lost one, Z."
Her heart actually sank. For all her jokes about dying, she had hoped they would all make it.
"And... who?"
"It was Zax. Kriffing clankers took 'im down before he broke atmo. Looks like you won the bet. Once again."

Zandra landed her ship without another word. Won the bet. Great. She lost a good pilot and a budding friendship. But hey, at least she won credits to blow at the cantina tomorrow if she survived this. She threw her helmet off and jumped from the cockpit, blaster at the ready. Pissed off was not even the word to describe how she felt.
There was a hole that even humor couldn't quite cover. Luck sometimes could be a terrible thing too.