//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Hot Wheels // Story: Star Wars: The Clone Wars Elements // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// Mash and Beans(or Beans and Mash) were almost to the outskirts of the city. Beans felt he had left his stomach about four kilometers behind them. "So what kind of ordinance are we getting? An AT-HE?" "No." "Elite AT-TE?" "No." "Then what?" Mash gestured upward. "That." The LAAT/c could carry walkers, speeders and fighter tanks easily enough, but something bigger was needed to carry the Republic Army's largest tanks. At first, Beans thought it was a prefab garrison module, because he was clearly able to make out the profile of an Omicron-class attack shuttle descending from the sky. But then, what it was carrying came into view much clearer, and his stomach caught up to him again. He felt his eyes go wide. "Oh. No. "Oh yeah." The Omicron shuttle hovered just at the edge of the city. And it dropped a massive, ten-wheeled tank onto the ground. This was no walker; this was unlike any other armored vehicle in the Republic's arsenal. "A Juggernaut? Really?" Beans asked. They dismounted the speeder bike. Mash walked right up to it and touched one of the massive vehicle's huge wheels. It was solid, it was powerful, it was armed and most importantly, it was fast. He gave a thumbs-up to Brick as he flew off, probably to get far away from whatever they were about to do. "You know you're actually going to have to wear your seatbelts now, right?" "I always do anyway, Brick." "Yeah, right! You tankers are crazy!" Mash nodded. In actuality, the clone pilots had the most dangerous jobs clones faced, especially ones like Brick. Carrying heavy equipment with almost no weapons, no maneuverability, the LAAT/i's and shuttles carrying gear were flying targets. Flying bricks, as Brick put it. What he and Beans were about to do, however, might have been even more dangerous. Gunships and cargo ships flew in formation while they were about to charge into an occupied city in a single tank. It just happened to be a very big, very fast and very powerful single tank. "You staying with the speeder, Beans?" Beans glanced at the speeder. "Hell no." "That's right, you're not. Mount up." Payday and Archer Squadron had their work cut out for them. Two C-9979 Landing Crafts were on approach to the Crystal Palace and what was left of the droids in the city had regrouped. Half of them were rushing into the palace itself, the other half were forcing the 501st off the streets. There were just too many of them, which was life for the Clone Army in most cases and there were about to be a lot more. Archer Squadron's Y-Wings had been bombing the droids while trying not to damage much of the city, a pretty piss-poor way of running a military operation but that was life, too. Clones were cheap, buildings weren't, especially ones made of crystals. This was reality for the clones and the Jedi, the entire Grand Army of the Republic across the galaxy. The CIS attacked, the Republic defended. What few fleets were on the offensive, including General Skywalker's, hunted down sources of infrastructure the Seps used and destroyed them- droid factories, shipyards, munitions plants, anything. Everything they could do to weaken the enemy war machine, to even the odds. A little over a year into the war and early lessons had come at great cost. Mirgoshir, Muunilinst, Foerost and others, not to mention the Dark Reaper Campaign had all been costly to the Republic's forces and the Jedi. What seemed like early victories turned into months of fighting, battering down Separatist defenses in the Core, Inner and Mid Rim. When they finally had secured most of their own territory, the Republic Fleet stared out at a galaxy where the Separatists could hide anywhere. For some reason, they had chosen Equestria, and so the Republic had come knocking. Payday looked at his ammo, then at his squad's ammo. They were running out of explosives but they were airmen. They would help their boots on the ground whatever the cost. "Archer-Four, Five and Six, on me. Form it up tight." He gunned his Y-Wing, putting more power into the thrusters. "The rest of you, get ready for an attack run. Get low and fast." His designated wingmates formed up with him in a vertical-diamond formation. Their noses were aimed right at the Crystal Palace. Payday switched from bombs to the last of his proton torpedoes and put the reticle right in the center of view. " General, is your group in a safe position?" "Not exactly- we're in a closet! What are you planning?" Payday put his finger on the trigger. "Sir, we're bringing the whole house down." "You're WHAT?!" "Let 'em have it!!" Four streaks shot from the Y-Wings' launchers. Burning through the sky, they collided with one of the giant legs of the Crystal Palace and exploded. Payday and his formation flew around the leg and weaved through the others at high speed, then broke and banked around the palace. The next attack run was right behind them. Four more volleys of proton torpedoes shot from Archers Two, Three, Four and Seven. The bombers repeated the maneuver as fast as they could, all with precision. Finally, the last formation of bombers unleashed their payloads at the leg of the palace, all of their shots hitting within a meter of each other. The base of the Crystal Palace was a cloud of fire, smoke and crystal dust. Although the structure was not designed to withstand a siege, it was still large. As the Y-Wings pulled around to the south side again, Payday and his squadron waited, wondering if their shots were enough to do the job. The Crystal Palace shook. With one violent crack, the leg of the great structure broke and the palace began to lean to one side. The other legs, not designed for such integrity loss, were unable to keep the structure upright. Like one of the great wroshyr trees of Kashyyk, the Crystal Palace began to fall almost in slow-motion. A thing so tall, as if to challenge the sky and pierce the heavens, it was never meant to fall. "Cover! Get to cover- NOW!!" Clones scrambled, shouted and dove into buildings, did everything they could to escape the falling tower. Even if they weren't directly in its path, there was no telling what kind of an impact it would make. The battle between the remaining clones, their walkers and the droids and their tanks was about halfway into the city, halfway from the outskirts and the palace base. The clones were at the southern half, the droids at the north, and while the clones had excellent self-preservation instincts, the droids did not. They were meant to process combat, not environmental dangers, and while they could process other information, they were slow to things they couldn't shoot at, especially the B1 Battle Droids. A few of them did notice the falling tower, however. "Uhhh... is that supposed to happen?" "Is what supposed to happen?" "That big building looks like it's falling. "Ohh... uh oh." "Run! Run for your lives, run!" A few of the droids ran, a few even fired their blasters at the falling structure. The shots that did hit were absorbed without a single change to the tower's descent. There was nothing stopping it. Finally, the Crystal Palace hit the ground. It crushed buildings, it crushed droids and it even crushed a few of the droids' MAF gunships as they were flying by. AATs and Spider Droids exploded on impact as the tower came down. The impact sent a wave of dirt and debris outward and more than a few droids were sent flying with it. Cracks formed along its side, but none so deep as to break the Crystal Palace in half. The Crystal Palace, a religious icon, source of magic, one of the symbols of the Crystal Empire and Equestria, a structure built by the ancient Crystal Ponies and that had stood for thousands of years now lay like a broken piece of glass in the middle of the city it once rose as out of like a beacon. "Holy Sithspawn, Payday!" "Cut the chatter, two. You have something to say, Stacks, say it." "I thought the objective was NOT to damage the city!" "Minimize damage to the city is the objective. And hey, the city's still mostly intact. Just a few city blocks and one tower got demolished. Even if it was the biggest tower outside of Coruscant, I think it's uh, still minimal." "I don't know if they're gonna give you a medal for this or court martial you." "Maybe both," Payday said. Payday and his squad were the most accurate bomber pilots in the Republic Navy. Payday actually got his nickname after a bet against an instructor, betting he could hit one of the needles at the top of Timura City on Kamino. Payday had won that bet and took out power to the facility for the better part of three days. The instructor, a Mandalorian pilot, had waited until power was restored to give him the money. Called it his "Payday." They didn't always know what would happen when he flew or pulled the trigger, but after that day, no one would ever doubt his aim. "We should uh, probably check to see if the general is alright." Payday nodded in his cockpit. "Right, was just about to do that anyway." "Sure you were." He keyed his comms. "Archer Leader to Rescue Team, what's your status?" Static answered him at first, followed by the sounds of at least three different people coughing. "If you were down here right now, Payday, ONE of us would kill you. We'd at least ALL shoot you." He couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Good thing I'm not down there, then." "What?" "Erm, stand by Rescue Team. Your exit is coming right up." He switched channels to Zeta Squadron's frequency. "Zeta-Four, you en route?" "In a manner of speaking!" "Copy that, we'll cover you as you pick up the ground team and-" "No no, clear the airspace! Get clear! All infantry, clear the main road!" "What?" Payday said. "What are you talking about-" And then he saw what they were talking about. "Archer Squadron, form it up! Accelerate to max speed!" In a few moments, the damage to the Crystal Empire might not be minimized in any regard. "Look at those cowards run," said TD-44 as he dismounted his AAT. He was confident, as was part of his Tactical Droid programming, and right now his programming dictated that he survey the battlefield and mock the enemy as they retreat. One might argue that T-Series Tactical Droids were programmed a bit too well, considering they were almost always overconfident to the point of arrogance. TD-44 was no exception. He picked up a Phase 1 clone trooper helmet off the street. "My victory is complete. We have achieved total tactical supremacy over the Crystal Empire." "But sir, the enemy still has air superiority. And we lost twice as many tanks and troops as they did." "Those losses are acceptable. The palace is secure." "But they destroyed the palace." TD-44 turned and noticed that the Crystal Palace was now lying where most of his column used to be. "The palace is secure. Our objective is accomplished. Your insubordination will see you reassigned to latrine duty." "Do we even use latrines? We're droids." He pocked his subordinate in the chassis. "Do not belittle my triumph or you will be melted down for scrap." "Roger, roger..." So what if most of his units weren't responding? A win was a win, and that's all that mattered to Confederate Command. They might promote him, make him a Super Tactical Droid for this. He imagined his droid brain being placed in a new, more powerful ST-Series chassis and the thought delighted his mainframe. He'd finally have something over those other upstart ST-Series Super Tactical Droids and their "superior programming" and "advanced analytical software" and their "ten-percent less likely to overheat or suffer from sociopathic flaws during normal operations" perks. Or at least, he would be one of them and wouldn't have General Maxid constantly pushing him around. Droids sometimes developed personalities of their own, especially the smarter ones. Tactical Droids tended to be jealous of Super Tactical Droids, the model intended to replace them, and as one might expect, Super Tactical Droids didn't think highly of their predecessors. General Maxid treated TD-44 like any other droid under his command- him, when he was standing amid this great victory. He'd like to see General Maxid standing here, surveying the rubble. Maxid would have probably just sent in his commando droids again, try to achieve "less-significant losses." TD-44 was proud. General droid strategy against clones was to corner them with superior numbers and hammer the squishy, plastoid-shelled creatures into oblivion. ST-Series droids were programmed with more strategies, able to implement them faster while the T-Series were considered "rudimentary." These phrases now revved TD-44's processors, the equivalence of anger, the annoyance welling up in him. "I will keep this as a trophy. Let our victory here be recorded in the datalogs to reflect my glory. Future droids will be inspired by what we have done here today," he said, his monotonous, mechanical voice droned. Maybe, TD-44 would give himself a name after this, something to rally his troops with. Something that conveyed the superiority of his tactical mind, the prowess of his crushing strategies, that captured his supreme victory forev- "Sir, there's a new contact approaching fast!" "Where?" *Vrrr-BAMF* The Juggernaut ran over TD-44, crushing him in an instant beneath its massive wheels. The tactical droid, his processors and all his lofty goals were flattened into the street, his circuitry sparking one final time before dying. "Mash, we need to slow down! I think you just hit a speed bump!" "No time! The droids have reinforcements on the way!" The Juggernaut sped down the streets of the Crystal Empire, all the way to what was left of the Crystal Palace. The few droids left standing were crushed beneath its massive wheels; they didn't even have to fire its blasters, rockets or missiles. Mash and Beans liked the Juggernaut so far. It was a lot more spacious inside than the AT-TE, it moved a lot faster, heck why didn't they use these more often? Sure, Banger might miss the mass driver cannon but the Juggernauts have homing missiles so he'd probably adapt. Besides, the vehicles were so big and heavy that they could just smash anything in their way. They just knocked two AATs right off the road and barely noticed them. Seriously, the HAVw(Heavy Assault Vehicle-wheeled) A-6 Juggernaut just destroyed anything in its way. As they raced through the streets, they ran over battle droids, super battle droids, a few droidekas and even a pair of dwarf spider droids and caused their spherical central bodies to pop before they could self-destruct. It was awesome. The only problem that Beans saw was slowing down. "Uh, Mash?" "Not now, Beans, we gotta stay on target." "We're getting close to the palace and the RV point, don't you think we should slow down?" "Stay on target." "Hey, loosen up!" "Stay on target!!" The "target" in question was rapidly approaching. When the wheels of the Juggernaut hit the sloped peak of the Crystal Palace, they did what they did to everything else they just ran past. They rode right over it. The Juggernaut was now racing up the side of the fallen palace.