The skies were dark over the Crystal Empire, as if a grey blanket hung between the sparkling city and the stars above. The sun broke through the clouds briefly, letting light peak through to the surface for a scant few moments before closing again. From the city limits, it could have been a flight of birds or just a random break in the weather activity, any number of things. But very quickly, it became all too clear what broke through the cloud layer: Republic gunships.
Three-dozen Republic LAAT/i and an equal number of LAAT/c gunships descended on the grassy, rolling hills outside the city like a flock of hunting birds. They flew low, so low that the slightest change in pitch or yaw would see any one of the craft caught by the ground and sent tumbling into the dirt. Or, into each other. The clone pilots were good; they had to be if they wanted their crews and themselves to survive.
"Landing zone in forty-five seconds!"
"What's the weather like, Brick?"
"Ice-cold and dry. Might wanna huddle up for warmth on this one."
"I think we're bringing all the heat we need with us," Mash said. He fired up the generators on the AT-TE and brought all the systems online. He could already hear the auto-loader bring up the first of their shells into the mass-driver cannon, meaning Banger was getting started early, too. Multiple other AT-TEs and their crews were doing just the same as them in their formation. Together, they formed an armored column that would indeed be bringing plenty of heat upon landing.
"Twenty-seconds!"
The gunships sped towards the city. The crystalline buildings and roads would have shimmered in the sunlight if any could reach the surface. Just as the outskirts came into focus, the gunships came under fire.
"Contact! Contact front!"
Bursts of purple exploded just above the gunship formation. They were low but not low enough to evade the ground fire coming from the city, so the pilots broke formation.
A group of Y-Wings came in from the west. Sleek and precise, they were as low as the gunships but pulled up at the last second, flying up and over the rooftops. Slews of orbs were flung from the bombers' bays, raining down into the streets of the outer city. The exploded in massive balls of blue energy, ion wash, they called it. The bombing was designed to damage droids and machinery without harming organic life or much of the buildings, but it wrecked havoc on electrical systems.
Even from where he was seated, Mash could make out the popping bursts of street lamps and neon signs from the ion bombs. Traffic signals could be rebuilt, though. A pair of AATs burst out from behind a building, their engines overloaded from the ion bombs. One flipped and the other spun until it crashed into a building.Two less for us to worry about, Mash thought.
"In five!"
The gunships came to a sudden stop, their forward thrusters reversing. They descended quickly, with the LAAT/i's touching the ground and their side doors opening. The moment the doors opened, the white-armored clone troopers deployed, charging into battle.
But not Mash. His walker landed ahead of the troopers, with his bird never touching the ground. At the end of the five-count, he felt the sensation of weightlessness just before his walker hit the ground. The six heavy feet of the armored, walking vehicle landed, leg hydraulics jostling only a moment from the shock. Controls tight in his hands, Mash threw the drive lever and the walker started moving forward.
"Weapons hot, boys! Let 'em have it!" Mash ordered. Banger had already loaded the first shell into the main mass driver cannon on top of the walker's front section. Mash had barely uttered the order and Banger had already fired. The recoil from the shot was barely a nudge through the walker, perfectly absorbed by the vehicle's construction. Rothana Heavy Engineering knew their stuff. The AT-TE was on the ground and firing, with the rest of her sisters joining in.
Mash's walker was part of a platoon of forty walkers, the GAR's 42nd Armored Division. Operations like these were nothing new for these men. Unlike their foot soldier brothers, the clones of the walker group were trained to master the machines they used. They were all clones in the Grand Army of the Republic, bred for combat and war, to serve the Republic with unity and lethal precision. They were bringing that lethal precision down on the Separatists now.
Time to join the fun.
The rangefinder in his cockpit highlighted groups of droids ahead of him. Mash had control over the walker's laser cannons, mounted in a group of four around the walker's cockpit. Gripping the controls tightly, he squeezed the triggers and unleashed a quad-barrage of laser fire right at his targets.
The blue bolts cut over the heads of the clone troopers in front of him. They collided with the Super Battle Droids he had aimed at, vaporizing the blue, bulky clankers in an instant. Six were completely blown to pieces while a further four suffered melting burns to their chassis, thrown aside like tin cans. Mash fired another quick blast from all four of his cannons, then another before his cannons went on their cool-down cycle.
About thirty or so droids were destroyed by the AT-TE's blasts. A CIS Ground Armored Tank, or GAT, was caught by the last group of lasers and destroyed. A lighter tank, two of the laser bolts had been enough to pierce its armor while the last two struck its power core, causing it to overload and explode. From just squeezing the triggers a total of three times in the space of just as many seconds, the road between Mash's walker and the CIS was now covered in blackened streaks and burnt droid parts.
Just beyond where the GAT had been, more droids were marching towards the clones to fill the gap. Only another quadrillion to go, Mash thought to himself.
"Gonna be a busy day, eh Mash?"
"Seems like a safe bet. We still getting support from Payday's group?"
"Busy with droid fighters for the time being but they should be back soon."
Mash nodded. Payday was one of the Y-Wing bomber pilots, the leader of Archer Squadron. He and his squad were good at what they did, both strategic bombing and even dogfighting. The air support should return quickly, then. Mash had a feeling they would need it.
"Unit four, seven and eight, move up the road. Gunners, I want your heads on a swivel. Provide cover for our boys."
"Unit four acknowledged," Mash said. He pushed both levers forward and the massive walker began plodding ahead. AT-TEs were heavy, supported by six massive short legs. Bit of a bouncy ride even with the hydraulic compensators but Mash and his crew were used to it. His walker took point while Unit Seven and Eight formed on his flanks. Together, the walkers lumbered and fired, unleashing blast after blast at the droid forces in front of them.
"Keep advancing! Move!" The clone troopers around them continued surging forward. They could use the walkers' legs and bulky armored bodies as cover for a good distance but after that, they had to find cover of their own. But they had to keep pushing forward; momentum in an attack was nearly everything.
The droids of the Confederacy of Independent Systems were not so creative. But what they lacked in intelligence, they made up for with sheer numbers and volume. Legions of tan B1 battle droids marched towards the clones, directly into enemy fire. The droids in the back of the formation fired suppressing volleys when they had an opening while the ones at the front of the formation fired the moment targets were in range. Otherwise, the column of droids just marched.
The clones at the front of the formation took cover and opened fire, letting the droids come to them. By switching positions and taking cover when the droids targeted them individually, the troopers could take down wave after wave of droids. They could use grenades, mines, traps and the environment to their advantage- clones were trained to be adaptable. All the droids did was aim, shoot and march in one order or another- all they were programmed to do.
"Incoming armor!"
"Enemy armor- watch the buildings!"
Dwarf Spider Droids, not limited by the need for flat or stable terrain, climbed over the buildings just across the bridge. They were four-legged walking droids with cannons mounted on their 'faces' that made them look like some sort of squat, overgrown walking mosquitos. The rounds they fired weren't as powerful as some of the other CIS munitions but they could be trouble for the AT-TEs and definitely the ground troops if they concentrated their fire. And they always did.
"Firing!" Banger opened up on the closest one with the mass driver. A huge round shot from the AT-TE's main cannon and smacked a spider on the roof of one of the buildings. It exploded, taking the dwarf spider with it and dislodging one of the spiders clinging to the building's side. The shot did only minor damage to the building; they were there to take out the Seps, not the locals' homes and businesses. Still, this operation was likely to incur a lot of collateral damage, precision or no.
A pair of rockets fired from the troopers took out the other two spider droids. The column kept advancing. Mash knew that the most important thing for him to do at that moment was to keep the AT-TE moving. A tank that didn't move on the battlefield was a dead tank.
"More armor, incoming!"
"AATs!"
Finally, the AATs- Armored Assault Tanks, showed up. It was just the Confederates' style to hold back their heavier armor, let the lighter droids wear the clones down and then send in the big guns.
"Archer's got this one, boys. Hang back a sec."
Not sooner had Payday's voice come through the comms did the Y-Wings appear overhead. A staggered-line formation, they flew parallel with the street, directly above it, low, and dropped their bombs right on top of the CIS tanks. A few of the droids had time to look up before the proton bombs hit and obliterated them. The bombs hit each of the tanks directly, blowing them to pieces. The bombers' had to be as precise as the gunners on the tanks; if they hit the street, it could knock the repulsors on the tanks and send them into the buildings.
The enemy armor column was reduced to smoldering wrecks instantly. The Y-Wing squadron vaporized them all in one pass, then pulled back into the skies.
"Nice one, Archer Squadron. We'll mop up the rest."
Mash liked Brick and Payday. It was Archer Squadron's reconnaissance flight that had discovered a CIS shipyard in this sector and the subsequent plan from Jedi Master Kentan Krace that had destroyed it. Ever since then, they had been busy, trying to root out a Separatist occupation from a star system that wasn't even on the charts yet.
Or maybe it had been. And was erased.
"We're halfway to the objective, boys, stay alert!"
They were advancing quickly. Mash could make out the base of the Crystal Palace from his viewport. A huge structure, it dominated the center of the city and stretched up to the sky. It reminded Mash of Christophsis, as did the tactics they were using. The skies were still dark and gray over the Empire. Hopefully that made the infiltration team's job easier.
"Any sign of the locals, Bang?"
"Not so far, Mash."
A cold feeling was beginning to settle in to Mash's stomach. The kind of gnawing, unsettling feeling that accompanied the thought that "This was too easy. It's all going too easy." It was at this time he spotted flickers of color amidst the backdrop of the grey skies. Tiny glints darted overhead, far out of range. Not starfighters or airspeeders of any kind, no; the figures he spied were much smaller than that.
"Eyes on unknown airbornes. Looks to be the locals."
"Confirmed: crystal pegasi, one o'clock high."
A trio of crystal ponies flew high above the battlefield. It was dangerous for them to be there; wayward shots and the few droid starfighters the Y-Wings were hunting down still made this area unsafe. All the crystal ponies evacuated, or so the Republic had been told, but that didn't mean some wouldn't still be around. Either way, it only added to Mash's discomfort.
Something was wrong. He keyed his comms.
"Bracket, Washer, spread out."
"What's wrong, Mash?"
"Washer to Mash: no room, sergeant."
"Just hang back, then," Mash ordered. He wasn't the leader of the column but he still outranked the two tank commanders behind him. Still, this wasn't about rank. Until the column leader's voice came over the comms.
"Zeta-Four, why are you stopping? Keep your walker moving, Mash."
"Mash, come on! We gotta go!" Banger said.
Mash felt the controls tight in his grip. Under his armored gauntlets, his palms were dripping in cold sweat. "I just..."
*BRAAMM!*
A bright streak appeared in the sky directly ahead. Mash had just enough time to shift his walker sideways, making the AT-TE crabwalk.
"Mortars! Mortars, incoming!"
"Take cover!!"
Explosions consumed the road ahead of him. Outside his viewport, he saw the first half of the column, the other walker directly ahead of him before it was engulfed in fire and smoke. White-armored bodies were flung like ragdolls into the air, tossed about while others scrambled desperately for cover. Two buildings in front of his walker exploded into bits.
He gripped the controls and pulled his walker so hard to the right that he was leaning into it. Cold sweat trickled down his back underneath his armor, underneath his jumpsuit as the seconds between him and the mortar that would take him and his walker out dragged into eternity. Every heartbeat felt like another moment. He couldn't even see anything out of the cabin; smoke and fire had consumed the land around the AT-TE.
Instinct took over and he switched through modes in his visor. Low-light mode, tactical, nothing. Not surprising; the smoke was just too thick.
"Banger, you there? Bang?"
No answer. Outside, B1 Battle Droids began marching on their position, walking through the fragmented rubble and burnt bits of the AT-TE in front of them.
Payday saw the mortars launched but didn't see them land. He didn't need to- his inflight computer told him what happened. Half of Zeta Squadron's transponders were red instead of green, and all the others were yellow.
"Archer-One to Arbitrator, come in. Possible local cooperation with the Confederacy." Static answered his comms. "Arbitrator, come in. This is Archer Leader to Republic command, do you copy?"
A voice did come back on his comms, but not one he was expecting. "Incoming fighters!" Once again, he didn't need the notification to tell him. His screen lit up red, as the clouded sky outside his viewport. Droid tri-fighters engaged his squadron.