The Butchery Begins[The Seizing of Copero]

[Kurt Meyer]

[member="Tsavong Kraal"]

Shipyards were always so filled with chaos.

The drive yards over Copero were no different. These massive shipyards were Titan Industries primary builder of The Immortals, the One Sith's most vast and powerful starships. The huge Shipyards stretched out far into the ethos of space, more than a dozen docks rimming a central station, each one containing an Immortal in various stages of repair, construction, or near finish.

Hundreds if not thousands of ships floated around the driveyards. Huge ore containers, massive freighters, and tiny dotting transports moving everything from construction droids to people.

It was on one of these freighters, stowed deep within massive cargo bay that Kiran Vess sat. He was lone, the sole living being within the automated Cargo ship. Laid out in front of his was his blaster, a small vibro-dagger, and a series of power-packs. He smiled slightly, inspecting each piece of equipment before slowly tucking it away somewhere on his person. The blaster was the last thing he held, matching it in front of his eyes as he felt the cargo ship shake.

Another smile pulled on his lips.

Automated docking features began to fall into place. The droid pilot of the cargo ship reigning in control of the vessel and pulling it into a docking bay where it would be unloaded. The Zeltron let out a low chuckle, standing from the small box he had been using as a chair.

The blaster made its way to the holster on his thigh, another rough shake of the ship surging through the cargo contained as he steadied himself against the wall. The sound of doors opening could be heard, following by the noise of a dozen or so droids stomping into the cargo ships hold. Kiran smiled again, then waited. The sound of a human, or perhaps Chiss, voice broke through the thing sheet metal of the contained.

“Lets get these unloade-”

He interrupted himself, bootsteps ringing out slightly as Kiran only smiled. He reached down to the computer on his wrist, fingering a small button.

“What the hell? This is supposed to be raw ore. Why is it in containers. Open up a few of these!”

The Zeltron waited until he heard the squeaking sound of cargo contained doors being opened. Kiran pressed in the key on his wrist, immediately hearing the sound of repulsor lifts beginning to whir.

“What the-”

The mans words were cut off as hundreds of bright red lights appeared all throughout the cargo containers. Hundreds if not thousands of drones, painted a deep black with three long red stripes carved on their fronts. Laser fire ripped from their guns, tearing to shreds everything in front of them. Droids, metal, the foreman, within an instant they were naught but scrap and blood.

In the next moment a wave of metal floated forward from the dozens of cargo containers within the ship. Hundreds of drones surging forward, red photoreceptors guiding them forward as they pushed into the Copero shipyards, slaughtering everything in their path.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Kiran grinned to himself as he began to hear the sounds of screams and laser fire.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Drones would fly from the cargo ships. Dozens of OBL-1 Attack Drones, hundreds of OBL-3's. Each one programmed with one distinctive objective. Kill. The droids had been commanded to do that and that alone.

There would be no mercy here, no quarter given.

Kiran had been paid to do one thing, Deliver the Copero Shipyards into the hands of the One Sith. He had been given no direction on how to do it, or what conditions the workers of this facility had to be in when it was done. So he had taken the easy route. He had done what any intelligent man would have done.

He left his men at home and purchased an army of drones to take the Shipyards from the inside out.

Kiran smiled slightly as he wandered forward in his own cargo container, his pistol being drawn from his holster. He aimed at the lock mechanism, two shots and the heavy metal melted away under singing blaster fire. The doors fell open, and Kiran stepped out into the Cargo hanger, grinning as screams echoed and blaster fired rang out.

It was time to show the galaxy what Saeva meant.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Kiran walked, step after step through the halls of the Shipyard. There were three bodies in the cargo hold of the ship, half a dozen destroyed loader droids. None of them were completely whole. Burn marks littered the hallways, scorch mark burned deep into the durasteel walls, floors, and even ceilings. Far away Kiran could still hear the screams, the droning of repulsor lifts.

He walked with his blaster out, finger resting on the trigger guard.

The Zeltrons path took him out of the cargo hold and into the Shipyard, here bodies lay strewn about. A few construction workers, some specialist, a Titan Security officer. Kiran walked over to each one, squatting down and placing his fingers upon their throat, checking for a pulse. None of the one he checked lived.

“H-help.”

A strained voice called out to him as he walked, a Chiss, glowing red eyes slowly fading as life left the man.

Two slow steps and Kiran stood above the man, his mask tilting slightly as his head moved to the side.

“Th-the-they came out of nowhere. Hundreds of them. No-”

His words cut off as a Blaster shot rang out, heavy blue searing into the mans chest and extinguishing his life in one quick second.

Kiran lingered for a moment more. Then moved on.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

It wasn't the last time such a thing happened.

The Shipyards were massive, and although the drones were many, they often left their half alive and struggling for breath. That was why Kiran was here, you couldn't trust machines to do it all. Inevitably they would mess up, miss a spot, and then it was up to an organic to finish the job. He could have asked Laguz, he could have sent Caden or Xo.

Yet this was his game. He had worked for Titan for so long, he had been part of so many schemes, plots, and plans that it seemed right he should be the one doing this. He smirked slightly as he came into the massive central area of the shipyard, slightly decorated with trees and mechanical statuettes of the greatest Ships Titan had ever built.

A single OBL-1 Attack Drone drifted down from the ceiling, dropping to hover in front of Kira.

It quickly scanned him, its still smoking laser cannons aiming directly at his chest. He glanced at it, eyes locking on one of its photoreceptors as it scanned him. The thing chirped loudly, verifying who he was before turning about and floating off into the distance.

Kiran looked after it for a moment, then ejected the power-pack from his pistol. A distant scream erupted, followed by the sound of four laser blasts.

There was still work to be done.

 

[Ra Vizsla]

Gigabox

Roon

Tsavo... er, I mean, Tefraxis was watching on the security feeds from his desktop massive qahsa, sipping a cup of jawa juice. Something about jawa juice, Artemis thought to himself, restly gently inside the head of Tsavong who was still wearing the ooglith masquer to appear as Tefraxis. If he didn't have an identity crisis now, he would soon. Right. Something about jawa juice. Even after seven centuries, the recipe hadn't changed. Didn't matter who made it. Didn't matter where it came from. Jawa Juice was the one constant in the Galaxy that kept Artemis from losing his mind. Again.

He surveyed the destruction on the planet Copero, of the shipyards there. He watched as reports began to filter in from the media surrounding the area. There was more than eight thousand TITAN employees on this planet.

Tsavong swiped up some blaze bugs and blew them onto the qahsa, orchestrating more visuals of what was happening. He watched unfettered by the blazing glory that was becoming the Copero shipyards.

He leaned back in his chair, double-tapping a villip across the desk.

"Execute Order 7701-A," Tsavong deftly spoke, "I want all the Immortals in Sectors 4-11 and 4-12 destroyed. Leave them 4-72 and 4-66. Bring the shipping units to heel and sent out the distress beacon to the Primeval contacts."

There was silence on the end for a second, and then a gravel voice whispered.

"Do-ro'ik vong pratte."

 

[Kurt Meyer]

He heard two ringing explosions and the shipyards suddenly shake. His head shot towards the sound of the first bang, followed by sequential eruptions as the first Immortal went up in flames. Kiran's eyes opened wide as through one of the viewports he saw the massive ship break apart.

It's wings were the first to go, breaking off in huge explosions that sent bit of shrapnel flying, the central yard protected by it's shields.

The huge chunks of the Immortal began to fall, the light gravitational pull of Copero beginning to drag them down onto the planets surface. The Zeltron observed as more chunks of the massive ships began to break off, self destructing and exploding, the half finished Immortal simply broke apart as though a giant were tearing at it.

“Well...” Kiran said to himself. “They wanted the Shipyards. Not the ships.”

He smiled to himself as the Immortal continued to explode, chunk after chunk breaking off. Had the vessel been completed the reactor likely would have overloaded, but as it was this would be the way the ship would go, piece by piece breaking off and falling to the surface of Copero.

Kiran knew there would be more, but there was hardly anything he could do to stop them.

All he could do was finish his job, and slaughter everyone he found.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

All across the shipyards there were firefights now.

Titan was no push over, no facility was left unguarded. The Shipyards in particular were well defended, the only reason the drones had wreaked such havoc so far was because they had assaulted the very core of the shipyards first, clearing out thousands of civilians and safety officers before Titans defenses could even react.

How had they done this?

Because Kiran had been the one to set up those defenses. He knew the way around them, and he knew how to exploit. Now however, with time passing, Titans security forces were awakening. With the destruction of some of the Immortals the A3 Legionnaire droids that most of Titans army consisted of began to spring into action.

OBL-1's were destroyed by the dozen, only succeeding in engagement with the Legionnaires when more superior OBL-3's arrived on the scene, heavy laser cannons chewing through A3 armor.

Kiran simply stayed back, that was all he had to do.

He had the numbers after all.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

It didn't take long for Kiran's prediction to hold true. He had simply brought too many drones for the A3 Legionnaire's to deal with. Numbers were all that mattered in the end. That was why he hadn't brought any extra Saeva personnel. They would have been useless in the long run, no, it was better to do it this way.

Titan's security forces were beaten back.

Hallway by hallway.

Corridor by corridor.

Security room by security room. More and more territory was given to the drones, and following behind them was Kiran. His blaster would ring out again and again. A single shot, then another, then another. He would silence the breaths of those left alive by the drones.

Hours would pass. Perhaps a day, but slowly, inch by bloody inch the Shipyards of Copero fell.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

Eventually, it all became quiet.

The Shipyards seemed to become still. The screams stopped, the explosions came to and end, and the echoing sound of blaster fire ceased. Kiran clutched his blaster, the long spike at the end of its handle dripping with heavy blood. His ears perked slightly, and his head swiveled from side to side as he tried to listen for any noise at all.

The Zeltron heard nothing.

Not even the droning of metallic engines, or the clomping of droid feet. The only thing that seemed to permeate through the halls was the soft whir of the Repulsor lift engines attached to the drones that he had let loose upon this station. He frowned slightly, looking down at the corpse of the woman in front of him.

The scorch mark on her chest and the look upon her face made her a pitiful creature, and he shook his head slightly as he turned away and faced the carnage that he had left within his wake.

Eight thousand people.

Eight thousand souls.

All of them slaughtered. Cut down in a hail of blaster fire. Their lifeline sliced before their time. The Zeltron walked through bloody hallways, slowly moving towards the shipyards communications center, glancing at every Camera that he walked past.

 

[Kurt Meyer]

He wandered through the death.

Every now and again a drone would pass him. Its bright lights would scan him, and its laser cannons would threaten him for a brief moment only to pass onward the next. The Zeltron never flinched, never minded, never did anything of the sort. The drones would have to be deactivated before the Sith came here, or else there would be another slaughter.

He smirked at that, his lips turning slightly as he thought of the Sith opening their shuttle doors only to be cut down by a hail of blaster-fire. Of course, that would mean he wouldn't get paid, but it was an amusing thought.

Slowly he traced his way through the Shipyards, walking towards the central hub.

This had all been too easy. Drones and corpses lay everywhere, scattered A3 legionnaire droids among them in heaps. He had lost hundreds of drones, nearly all of his OBL-1's, but that didn't matter. They had cost him only a tenth of the payment that he was due to receive, their sheer number having seen to all the work that he would normally have needed to do.

A smirk crawled across his lips as he stopped on the corpse of a portly Chiss, the body gurgling slightly as air was pushed from its lungs. Kiran paid it no mind as he reached the door to the communications hub, his hand waving over the secure panel.

The doors fell open, and the Zeltron stepped inside.

He moved towards the communications console, eying the camera within the left hand corner of the room before pressing in a few keys. He waited for the signal to connect, and then a single message would go out. “Copero belongs to the Sith.”

And that was that.

~Fin~