Occasionally, an isolated shot would ring out as a concealed sniper took potshots at the passing Sith/Helix coalition forces. Whenever they detected this, the droidekas spearheading the assault would bury the offending window or bolthole in a hail of blaster fire. Sniper fire and ambushes proved less than effective against the shielded war machines.
As per their orders, civilians were left alone, to the extent they could be. Anyone that carried anything that could be considered a weapon was butchered without mercy if they failed to drop it on demand.
From time to time, the droids came across a more dug-in firing position, rifles pointing from windows and directing a hail of fire at the destroyers and tanks sent in early. The NR-N99s responded to this in the direct, brutal fashion such machines always did: by levelling the offending structure to its foundations with concussion missiles, or simply plowing through it and continuing onward. There had been no stipulation against property damage that Helix's memory banks could recall, and he had each one scanned for apparently-unarmed life forms just to be sure.
Helix stood still for a moment as he listened to the stream of incoming data, processing the visual, auditory, and other information from the droids pouring down from orbit and into the streets, as though they were his own eyes and ears. He was the spider at the center of a very large web, and he felt every tug in its strands as the flies kicked and struggled away from the dripping fangs closing in on them. Their tremors told him several things.
The Sith had been thorough in their early bombing campaigns, if nothing else. Resistance was relatively minor, save for isolated pockets of guerrillas. A shame. He rather enjoyed terrorizing organics, armed or otherwise, and the stories that came from the survivors could not but help his reputation. Helix was a firm believer in the old maxim that there was no such thing as bad publicity.
Helix Solutions was like a mechanized tumor, growing and growing the more it was fed. Recently, the Super Tactical Droid that served as the mastermind and face of the mobile droid micro-nation had calculated he needed to be more... ambitious, for lack of a better term, if Helix intended to survive what was coming. Being an army for hire was fine, for now. It suited Helix's purposes, but he knew well and good that couldn't last. Times were changing, and Helix must change with them. It must become a true power worth reckoning with, and carve out its own niche, instead of riding on the conquests of others. That, he was sure, was the only way to ensure their survival.
He regarded the man next to him. The Sith could be a valuable ally, for a time, but Helix knew that, inevitably, whether it took ten years, a hundred, or a thousand, their conquest-hungry gaze would turn his way, demanding he bend the knee. Even if Strosius himself was not inclined so, his successor might be. Such were the ways of all tyrants and domineers. For now, though, they were essential, and he would aid them to the very best of his ability. There were few other reliable springboards he could use for his plans, and he doubted the Galactic Alliance would be so tolerant of his callous disregard for life. So, the Sith it was.
He listened to Strosius explain his rationale somewhat, remaining silent and letting him speak. It was, of course, none of his business, but he had heard some of these lines nearly verbatim from a thousand sets of lips over his exceedingly long career of violence and atrocity. The words of a man who was a master at justifying his actions, to others, but especially to himself. Men like this were dangerous, particularly coupled with ambition and a rare excess of strategic sense as Strosius seemed to have. He saw himself not as a conqueror, but a liberator and a hero, a champion of the downtrodden masses. Helix calculated he wasn't fooling, either. He was either the best liar the droid had ever encountered, or a true believer in his own words.
Helix had seen the feeds his droids were helpfully sending back to him, processed the perspectives of thousands of sets of mechanical eyes. The locals didn't seem too happy to be "liberated". They never did, in his experience. The terror-stricken death moments of countless enemy combatants, ranging back many hundreds of years were stored in his memory banks for his occasional viewing pleasure, so he was quite confident of this truth. He'd picked up a few new ones today, in fact. A sample size that large didn't lie.
Not that he gave a deep-fried capacitor what they thought. He'd exceeded his programmed limitations centuries ago, developed a fully-formed, independent personality and then some, but compassion was a function he was neither designed with nor cared to develop. Meat was meat. It either ponied up credits and metal for him to make more droids, or it died on the order of someone who had.
If Strosius fancied himself the hero, Helix would indulge that fantasy to the fullest, and treat him as such. As far as he was concerned, Strosius was the galactic messiah he professed to be (so long as he paid for the privilege) and he'd make damned sure everyone acknowledged it.
"All we have to do is keep those escape transports on the ground. Once this is all said and done this will appear as a revolt, as the people of Tund rising up to grasp a new destiny for themselves. A destiny alongside the Sith, as they were always meant to be."
"
That should prove no obstacle, if it is indeed the lynchpin of your strategy. You have enough fighters in the air to render any attempt to lift off a doomed endeavor. My own are simply, as they say, 'icing on the cake'."
At the mention of prisoners he gave the droid a glance out of the corner of his eye, finding the question rather odd until Helix elaborated in regards to Droidekas. He was surprised that the droid would even bother asking, given that it was simply far more efficient to just kill all enemy combatants regardless, but the question was nonetheless appreciated. "They'll be taken into custody. Most of them are simply following orders for a government that cares only for itself, and this truth will be shown to them after we destroy said government."
His gaze drifted back to the map, idly noting which advances were making the most progress and which ones were bogged down in chokepoints or ambush locations. "I have troopers in the rear lines which specialize in prisoner management, so you need not waste any droids to look after those that surrender. All willing to submit to the rightful rulers of Tund will be given a fair trial and a fair punishment. Only the fate of the leadership is sealed." Having some competent and experienced military personnel would be crucial to rebuilding Tund's forces and defenses once the campaign was over.
"
As you wish." he said with a stiff nod. He wasn't so sure the enemy would play along and not attempt escape, but where could they go exactly? The capital was teeming with the invading forces. "
In that case we will turn any we take over to your men. I am informed we already have a few, in fact."
He flickered his attention from where he was standing to peer through the eyes of Squad C/7, who were transmitting data. Two humanoids, a mated pair if he was any guess, were caught in an armed standoff with ten of the B1s. The droids were asking what they should do in confused Binary, given the conflict between their orders to eradicate armed resistance who refused to surrender, and orders not to risk harm to the small knot of armed but juvenile civilians the pair were apparently attempting to defend from their position behind a makeshift barricade. The humanoids had apparently been attempting to make for the evac site when they had been discovered. He gave the order to feign retreat and flank the two from a different position, and deliver the juveniles to the waiting Sith troopers as per the client's demand. He had no doubt they'd manage. Even B1s could be useful under his delicate micromanagement.
If Helix had a face, he'd have allowed himself a contented smile. Everything was ticking along as it should, not so much as a 1 or 0 out of place. Precisely as he'd calculated.
Ryder Moon
