~~~Republic Cruiser Loyalty, Orbit of US-01, 2 days and 7 hours after the Ambush at US-01~~~
“Victor squad, this is Sergeant Moon,” Moon recorded into his terminal. “I'm contacting you to report that the Loyalty has made it to the system. All of the data that you've accumulated needs to be sent to me as soon as possible. Moon out.”
Concluding his message, Moon turned from his terminal and walked to a different section of the bridge.
“Soldier,” he said, addressing one of the communications specialists as he approached the clone's terminal. “I have an encrypted message that needs to be sent to Victor squad. They have a terminal that has the same encryption signature as the message; find their terminal and send them the message.”
“Yes, sir,” the specialist replied before focusing all of his attention on his assignment.
Content that his message would make its way to Victor squad in a timely manner, he went about to report to the commander-on-deck. He made his way to the hologram projection table near the back of the room, where the commander was predictably standing and monitoring the vessel's activities.
Truth be told, the commander was not a commander at all. Instead, he was an ARC Trooper Captain, and a very intimidating one at that. The base color of his armor was standard white, and he had several light gray diamonds running up the front of his legs, and a large one on his chest. He wore a kama around his waist and a pauldron over his shoulder, the exposed portions of each dark red while the underside of each was yellow. He wore a Phase I helmet with enhanced respirator, like all ARC troopers, and above his visor was a purple line. He was equipped with all of the other ARC amenities, like dual DC-17 pistols, buff gauntlets with a myriad of functions, and a bulky backpack with who-knows-what in it. In addition to this, he had two personalized vibroblades mounted on the sides of his backpack.
“Captain, sir,” Moon said when he got near the ARC Trooper, “we're about to make contact with Victor squad on the surface.”
“Very good, Sergeant,” the ARC Trooper said. “When should I expect to hear that they've responded?”
“Most preferably now, sir, but most likely within the next half hour,” Moon answered.
“Terrific. Don't bother me until then.”
With that, Moon went back to his terminal.
Around twenty minutes later, Moon received a notification on his terminal from the communications specialist he had given orders to earlier saying that the message had been sent. He closed the notification and waited for Victor squad to respond. Like the good soldiers they were, Moon had his response within a few seconds.
“Transmission received, data report inbound,” said the display of Viktor's helmet. At the same time, the data that Victor squad had collected began to make its way to the terminal's hard drive, where it was to be decrypted off of once the entire report had made it to him. Within a matter of seconds, the entire report had made into Moon's hands, and he let a satisfied sigh escape him.
Suddenly, an alarm blared from one of the communications specialist's terminals.
“Sir, we're intercepting a Separatist transmission!” the clone yelled, catching the attention of the bored ARC Trooper.
“Well, let's listen in,” the ARC Trooper directed.
“Yes, sir, playing it now.”
“Unit 5H-A1, Superior, unauthorized encrypted transmission intercepted; entity: Republic Cruiser confirmed in system; relative coordinates of entity: Republic Cruiser confirmed.”
“Good. Let's give the Republic their little toy back.”
The bridge stood eerily quiet for a few seconds.
“Our 'little toy'?” a clone asked.
That sounded like Grievous there at the end. Why would he leave his transmission completely unencrypted? Unless...he wanted us to intercept the message, concluded Moon. Realization struck him only seconds later. We made a mistake somewhere...and now he's taunting us. We're screwed.
The ARC Trooper waited for a few seconds before issuing his commands. “Comms, trace the sources of those transmissions! Everyone else, make to engage; we've been found!”
The bridge erupted into a flurry of activity. Throughout the vessel, sirens blared and clones made to their battle stations. Moon rushed to his terminal, ready to quickly issue the ARC Trooper's commands throughout the ship. Upon seating himself, an important thought came to his mind, and he sat up and hurried to the ARC Trooper. “Captain Ghir, what should we tell Victor squad?”
“Contact them and keep them in contact. Make sure to tell them about the forces we experience up here, so as to warn them about what they'll likely face down there,” Captain Ghir responded.
“Right away, sir,” Moon complied, saluting before making his way back to his terminal.
~~~LZ, Outskirts of Appleloosa, 2 days, 7 hours and 22 minutes after the Ambush at US-01~~~
“Sir, Moon is contacting us,” Shy informed Viktor. The commando made his way back over to the special transmitter and waited for Shy to patch the transmission through. “There'll be a couple second delay since the message will need to be decrypted, but it shouldn't be too noticeable.”
“Thanks, Shy. Moon, Victor 91 here, copy?”
His response came a couple of seconds later. “This is Sergeant Moon here. Nice to see you haven't been killed. Anyways, we've got to ditch the formalities. We've be located. The head clanker said he's sending our 'little toy' back to us.”
“That's unsettling news,” Viktor said, concerned. Spy and Gore had taken a break from their sparring session several minutes ago. They were about to resume, but overheard the transmission, and decided to investigate.
“What's up?” Spy asked without concern.
“To make it short, air support may have been compromised,” Viktor said.
“Basically, Loyalty was caught, and now we've got-” Moon started before being cut off by Shy.
“I'm sorry to interrupt, Sergeant, but there is a bit of a delay with the transmission. It'd be best if you paused for a couple seconds after a question, just so that we can avoid having a question answered twice and wasting time.”
“Duly noted, Corporal,” Moon said after an inherent delay. “Back to the topic, I've had no time to look at your report. Tell me, have you found any Republic property that could possibly be this 'toy' that Grievous is so generously returning to us?”
“I'm sorry to say that we've seen no such thing,” admitted Viktor. “To be truthful, we've had no interactions with and droids thus far. Did you say Grievous?”
“Yes. The men up here have intercepted a Sep transmission,” Moon confirmed. “The first part was from a Superior, which I'm guessing is one of the clanker's ships, and the other part was the head clanker.”
“Shoot,” moaned Spy. “If that guy's down here, then we're hopeless. I might as well say goodbye to my-”
“Quit bantering, Spy, this is serious,” Viktor scolded. “And I hope you weren't going to say the part of human anatomy that I think you were going to say,” he couldn't resist adding.
“Pray tell, what 'part of human anatomy' did you think I was going to say?” Spy replied smugly.
“Um...genitalia,” Viktor said slowly.
“Ugh, you've got a sick mind,” Spy chastised. “Though I guess I'd have to say goodbye to that too.”
“Silence Victor squad,” Moon shouted irritated. The camp was silent for several tense seconds.
“Fier'fek,” Gore muttered to himself. “It's the Valiance.” The rest of Victor squad turned to them. Although their helmets were all in place, he could almost see realization passing across their countenances.
“I'm sorry, Gore, the static from your helmet made what you said completely unintelligible,” Moon said. “Would you mind removing your helmet and repeating what you said?”
Gore complied. “The 'little toy' in the Valiance.”
Moon didn't move for several more seconds. “Fier'fek...”
~~~Republic Cruiser Loyalty, Orbit of US-01, 2 days, 7 hours and 25 minutes after the Ambush at US-01~~~
“Sir, we're picking up more unprotected Separatist transmissions!”
“Patch them through!”
“Unit 5H-A1, Superior, request acknowledgment from entity: Valiance.”
“Unit F9 120, entity: Valiance, acknowledging.”
“Coordinates of entity: Republic Cruiser currently in transmission. Prepare hyperspace jump to coordinates.”
“Roger, roger.”
Once again, silence reigned across the bridge of the ship. All eyes and helmets turned to face the ARC Trooper at the back of the bridge. This silence was short lived as the ARC Trooper decided that they could not afford to waste a second longer. “Get everyone to the escape pods now!” At his command, the evacuation sirens clamored throughout the vessel, and everywhere, clones scrambled to the nearest escape pod.
“What's going on, Sergeant?” the display of Victor squad on his terminal asked.
“We intercepted another Sep message. They're gonna ram the Valiance into us. I gotta get to an escape pod now. Um, stay put, unless an escape pod lands in your vicinity. Moon out!” After concluding his command, Moon slammed a button on his terminal, ending the transmission and nearly breaking the button. He was the last one out of the bridge, and he hoped that someone would reserve a spot for him in a nearby pod. Or in any pod, for that matter.
Dashing out of the elevator that connected the bridge and the main corridors, he made his way to the nearest escape pod area that he knew of. Several blasts sounded in front of him. He and several other clones passed through an emergency bulkhead, and after turning a corner, found, to their dismay, that the blasts had been all of the escape pods in that wing.
Cursing, he turned back to try to get to the next set of pods that he knew the location of. He and most of the clones that had failed to get to the first set of pods sprinted for a couple of minutes before reaching the next set of thankfully untouched pods. The corridor that contained the pods was, for the most part, windowed, allowing the clones to look out into space as they prepped the pods. What they saw was disheartening; as if predicting their use of escape pods, the CIS had dispatched vulture droids and droch-class boarding ships to intercept the pods. Only one or two pods actually made in into the atmosphere of the planet they had only minutes before been safely orbiting.
Suddenly, a ship ended a hyperspace jump outside the window.
It was the Valiance.
The commandeered vessel made straight for the Loyalty, which wasn't a very far path due to the dangerously close proximity it had ended its jump with. The Valiance's wing collided with the front of the Loyalty, the immense momentum of the former causing high magnitude tremors throughout each ship. Several vital systems began failing immediately as contact was made, and no clone or droid in either vessel maintained its footing. For several seconds. Fires started and explosions boomed as each vehicle perished a slow, painful death.
The main power reserves aboard the Loyalty gave out after a minute, and the reserves quickly strained to provide the needed energy to run the lights. Sadly, this meant that the engines were dead, and the planet's gravity was now the only thing propelling the ship. The heavy shaking from the initial impact ceased, and the clones were finally able to stand. Not wanting to be incinerated by the friction of a completely unshielded ship plummeting through the planet's atmosphere, the clones doubled their efforts to get the pods ready for launch.
The process was quick by virtue of the fact that they were escape pods, but with the additional vigor of clones not wanting to die, the many pods that lined the corridor were prepped in seemingly ten seconds flat. Several of the pods near him took flight shortly after. Instead of getting into his pod immediately, however, Moon took one final glance through the thankfully still intact window. The scene was substantially worse than it had been before. Pods that had been cracked open and other debris floated around the compromised vessels, while at the same time, other perfectly lively pods met a similar fate.
An explosion resounded through the halls uncomfortably close to his still idle escape pod. Moon took that as his cue to get his butt moving. He crouched into the pod, closing the airlock behind him and placing on his restraints. The clone that had volunteered to be the pod's pilot made a couple of final system checks, and then they were off. Moon and the other ten clones in the pod with him lurched at the sudden and wrenching acceleration.
They were immediately thrust into a war zone. Many of the pods that had been in the same wing as his had already been destroyed. While the cover that their remnants provided kept them from being discovered too easily by the vulture droids and boarding ships, the small impacts took a heavy toll on their shields. Saying that Moon felt hopeful about reaching the surface would be a lie.
The Sergeant looked back through the tiny porthole that donned the pod's airlock door. Behind them, the two Republic cruisers continued to get dismembered. It was then that Moon noticed that there were raging infernos near the back ends of each vessel, where the engines and generators were located. As well as the fuel. And the reserve ammunition.
Another wave of pods ejected from the side of what was once the Loyalty, but they were all too late. The volatile combustibles combusted in the largest and brightest twin explosions that Moon had ever seen; so bright, in fact, that he had to redirect his vision to the front of the pod and close his eyes.
The explosions consumed several miles of space, leaving anything caught inside its radius thoroughly charred at best. Large chucks of metal projected from all directions as the massive ships disintegrated, destroying anything in their paths, from clone-filled pods to vulture droids.
Needless to say, Moon and his companions were overjoyed at the fact that they had survived the hailstorm of metal, and even more so that many of the enemies in their vicinity had been decimated.
~~~Throne Room, Canterlot, 2 days, 7 hours and 40 minutes after the Ambush at Equus~~~
Grievous stared at the planet's two new temporary suns, a mix of pride and disdain forming in his chest. His droids had successfully destroyed not one, but two Republic cruisers simultaneously, while maintaining significantly fewer casualties than they would of suffered had they tried a standard assault. Ambushes and I go together well, it seems.
“It's gorgeous. Thank you,” he heard Celestia say from beside him. He ignored her, though, as he was silently mulling over his droids' stupidity. They told me that they had received the Republic's coordinated twenty minutes ago. The ships should have exploded no more that five minutes after. Stupid battle droids missed their target! Now there will probably escape pods that make it to the surface...I don't have the forces to deal with them at the moment, let alone troops spread far enough to get them once they land. Incompetent pieces of scrap!
And right on cue, a droid from the Superior contacted him, informing him of what he had already deduced. “Unit 5H-A1, Superior, entity: Republic cruiser has been eliminated; entity: Valiance has been eliminated. Escape pods launched from entity: Republic cruiser. Most destroyed, five confirmed to have breached air forces.”
“Track those pods and estimate a landing zone for each one. Send a droch after each one immediately after you've determined the LZ's. Also, prepare more racks of infantry for arrival to the surface. We'll deploy them once this little slip-up has been dealt with.”
“Roger, roger. We've been monitoring a continuous signal to the South of your position, near area entity: Macintosh Hills. Data is encrypted, but it is the same encryption style as what we detected from entity: Republic cruiser. Republic forces on surface confirmed.”
Grievous's eyes widened. We've already been infiltrated! He turned to Celestia, just now noticing that her neck was located comfortably (at least he presumed it was comfortable for her; it wouldn't make sense to do it otherwise) on his thigh.
“I must leave temporarily,” he announced, startling all of the ponies that had gathered around to watch the still present light show from space.
“For what reason?” Celestia inquired, no longer nuzzling Grievous.
“My droids have made a mistake and allowed Republic forces to make it to the surface. I'm going to deal with them.”
“Let our guard assist,” offered Luna.
“No,” Grievous snapped. He looked to Shining Armor. “They'd be nothing but meat shields.” Without waiting for a retort, Grievous leapt over the balcony. The ponies gasped at the unexpected gesture and leaned over the still cracked railing to watch the General plummet. Rainbow Dash took no time in racing after the falling cyborg in an attempt to stop his suicidal maneuver.
He landed on his feet with a hard thud, kicking up a substantial quantity of dirt, his legs compressing to allow the kinetic energy to harmlessly dissipate. The General righted himself and wiped a bit of dust off of one of his arms. Rainbow Dash came to an abrupt stop next to him, seemly ignoring the law of inertia. She stared an awe and disbelief at the unharmed Kaleesh. “You just...fell, like, two hundred feet...and you're completely fine?” she stuttered.
“Yes, now go back to the throne room. I'll not be having you slow me down,” Grievous retorted, turning to begin his sprint to his shuttle, the Inheritor, that had remained parked on the opposite side of the mountain for the duration of his stay.
“Are you calling me slow?” she asked challengingly.
“No, now get out of my sight!” he yelled, storming off at an impressively fast pace towards his shuttle. Rainbow Dash stealthily followed him, misinterpreting his command for a challenge and wanting to prove the warlord wrong.
Within five minutes, Grievous was already well out of Canterlot, but his progress was slowed by the steep and mountainous terrain that he was currently crossing. Most obstacles in his path were easily avoided thanks to his enhanced agility, but he still took his time to bore his talons into the ground beneath him each step for stability. After all, a two hundred foot fall was nothing compared to a several thousand foot fall off the mountain.
“Unit 5H-A1, Superior, the coordinates for all Republic escape pod landing zones and the source of previous encrypted transmission have be confirmed relative to the location of shuttle Inheritor.Awaiting commands.”
“Send the coordinates to the Inheritor. I'll deal with the pod nearest to the shuttle. Have a boarding craft attend the other LZ's. I'm going to prepare a scouting party down here to deal with the Republic forces near Macintosh Hills.”
“Roger, roger.”
Above him, several streaks of light could be seen dotting the sky. Some of it was shrapnel from the destroyed vessels, but those quickly dissolved into nothingness as the atmosphere relentlessly had its way with them. Others were large enough to make it to the surface, and Grievous surmised that they were some of the escape pods that had survived the ambush. Conveniently, one landed in a forest only a couple of miles from where he was.
Grievous reached the Inheritor a couple of minutes later. The boarding ramp lowered as Grievous approached and he rushed on board. The commando droid that had ordered to watch with the ship during the entire stay sat at the terminal at the front. “Sir, receiving coordinates for enemy pods,” it said in its default voice.
“Good,” Grievous said to the droid. “Transfer the coordinates of the nearest pod to the STAP; I'll deal with them. Prepare a standard scouting party to investigate the signal to the south, near Macintosh Hills. Use the shuttle to get there, and get working on it now.”
“Roger, roger. Coordinates successfully sent to STAP. Scanners are detecting one life form in the shuttle's perimeter.”
Grievous looked out the open hatch. A blur of color zipped behind the nearby rock face as Grievous peered outside. Foolish ponies, he berated mentally. He had bigger problems at the moment, however, so he quickly dismissed Rainbow Dash from his mind and mounted the STAP that had been brought on the shuttle when he had first arrived. Behind him, the commando droid relayed Grievous's orders to the other troops that he had brought.
The STAP zoomed out of the open boarding ramp, Grievous's head barely making it out without hitting the top of the opening, and began its quick descent down the mountainside. Rainbow Dash followed, struggling to keep pace with the rapidly falling General.
Grievous's progress was being slowed considerably. The terrain was dense with trees, unfamiliar, and the STAP was not sized to properly carry something with Grievous's stature. At the moment, he would have made faster time on foot, but all in all, the STAP was the way to go. The ever-persistent Rainbow Dash flew from treetop to treetop, 'stealthily' avoiding being caught by the General, though he already knew she was there. Grievous figured that as long as Rainbow Dash stayed relatively close to him, she'd be safe from harm, so bringing her along really couldn't turn out too bad.
Eventually, the crashed pod was in sight. From what he could hear, the clones that were in it had survived the crash and were still about, probably salvaging whatever they could and determining a course of action. Instead of taking the time to approach the clones stealthily and ambush them when their defenses were down, he decided that he would charge straight into them.
His STAP broke through the tree line formed by the crashed pod. He cut the engines and leapt off, the momentum of the vehicle carried it through the group of clones, forcing them to jump aside to avoid getting rammed. It stopped its forward movement at the other edge of the artificial clearing.
As the ten or so clones scrambled to their feet, Grievous sailed through the air, whipping out his pistol and one of his lightsabers. He landed on the back of one poor clone who hadn't managed to gain his footing; it immediately broke in the places where Grievous's feet had landed. A shocked clone stared horrified for a second too long, resulting in a blast to the chest.
Grievous activated his blade in time to deflect a shot from another clone in front of him who had his weapon raised. He stepped towards the clone and, grabbing the body of the clone that he had stepped on with his talon, used the corpse as shield for the next shot. Before the clone could fire again, Grievous launched the body into him and used the distraction to get within striking range. He slashed down across the clone's chest, and the corpse collapsed into a crumpled heap.
A shot from his left was deflected back to the assailant, killing the clone instantly. Another clone was stupid enough to charge at the General, and was quickly hacked out of the way. One of the clones attempted to commandeer the abandoned STAP, and was shot down as his back was turned from the warlord.
Two of the remaining clones crouched at a piece of the pod that had fallen a significant distance from the main skirmish, firing at the General and halting his progress towards him. Behind Grievous, the final two clones raised their weapons to fire at his unprotected back. Grievous expertly deflected one of the shots from the clones in front of him, causing it to hit and kill one of the ambushing clones. He unexpectedly pelted his lightsaber at the clones behind cover. They ducked, just as Grievous had predicted they'd do, and the lightsaber went straight through their cover, and therefore their bodies.
The General grabbed and activated another one of his lightsabers. He heard a loud clanging noise, and he turned to see the second ambushing clone collapse, head twisted to the side, with Rainbow Dash flying over him, recoiling from a powerful buck. However, the General had already thrown his newly equipped lightsaber at where the clone had been standing, almost slicing Rainbow Dash in the process. She screamed and dropped to the ground, cowering as the killing machine flew right above her head.
“I don't want to die!” she whimpered, shaking.
“Relax, you're fine,” Grievous's growled in the most tensing fashion.
She got to her feet, legs turned to jelly from the nerve racking experience of almost being killed. “That guy was gonna shoot you in the back. I couldn't just let it do that,” she said absentmindedly.
“I had the situation under control. Unlike you, I don't just rush into things without a plan,” Grievous scolded, retrieving the weapon that he had just thrown. “Next time, don't interfere. You may not be so lucky.” He moved on to get his other lightsaber, Rainbow Dash flying next to him.
“So, who are these guys?” she asked, finally returning to her normal self.
“These are Republic clones. They're our enemies, and you shouldn't feel bad if you kill any.”
“Kill? Oh, no, I don't think I'd be able to kill one. If I did that, I'd never get it off my conscious,” she said.
“Didn't you just kill one though?” he said as smugly as possible. They both turned back to check Dash's work. Needless to say, they were both surprised to see the clone still on the ground, but with a pistol aimed at them. The clone fired.
Grievous make a quick estimation in his head as to the trajectory of the shot. There was no way he'd be able to activate one of his lightsabers to block the shot in time, so his did the next best thing; pushing Rainbow Dash out of the way. The shot hit Grievous's now outstretched hand as he returned fire. The clone's head dropped, a smoking charred spot resting on the center of his forehead.
The General did a quick survey of the area, checking to see if any of the other clones were moving. After confirming that they were all dead, he picked the first lightsaber he had thrown off of the ground and returned both it and his pistol to his waist.
“Grievous? Are...are you okay?” Rainbow asked next to him, staring at his blackened hand. Now diverting his attention to the wound, he tested the appendage for damage. It was nothing too serious; connections had been lost to the bottom three fingers of that hand, but he still had three working ones, which would suffice.
“I'm fine,” he said. “Help me destroy the pod,” he commanded.
“I guess I owe you one, so I'll get on that!” she said enthusiastically, giving him an overdone salute. The pegusus sped off, only to return a half second later to ask, “Um...how would I go about doing that, and why do we need to?”
Grievous walked over to the nearest dead clone and took his grenade pouch. “We can't let the Republic reclaim it. This is standard operating procedure, deal with it or go away.” He continued before she could refute his rude statement. “Each of the clones has a pouch like this.” He shook the pouch in his hand for emphasis. “Get them all and throw them into the pod.”
She saluted again and darted off to get all of the pouches. Grievous opened the pouch in his hand and pulled out the one of the several thermal detonators that it held before tossing the remaining grenades into the pod. It only took a few seconds for Rainbow to return with the pouches from the other clones, all of which were emptied into the pod.
“Now, we need to get the corpses in there,” Grievous instructed.
“What!? That's just sick. Why do we need to do that?” she shouted.
“Standard operating procedure,” the General panned. “Now get working.”
The corpses were a bit too heavy for the disgusted and disgruntled Rainbow Dash to move around effectively, so most of the work was done by Grievous. Still, the two of them had the corpses stashed in the pod with their grenades in a timely manner. Once finished with that, Grievous handed the thermal detonator that he had taken earlier to Rainbow Dash.
“We're good now; all we need to do is blow it up. Push the button and toss it into the pod. Then get out of the area immediately, unless you want to be killed. I'd also cover your ears; it might be loud,” Grievous told her. She complied, igniting the detonator and throwing it into the pod.
With that done, Rainbow launched a safe distance into the air while Grievous sprinted for the STAP, getting on and out of the blast radius, leaving only a couple of seconds to spare before the detonator detonated, causing a chain reaction with the other grenades. The resulting explosion could be seen and heard by ponies as far as the castle's throne room.
~~~Escape pod, US-01, 2 days, 7 hours and 50 minutes after the Ambush at US-01~~~
Crash.
The pod hit the dry, cracked earth with a devastating amount of force. The drift through the remnants of the Loyalty and Valiance had devastated the pod's shields, and the pod lacked the energy needed to suppress the intensity of the landing. The front of the pod crumpled several inches and a massive crater formed, and only the things that had been restrained stayed relatively put.
Sadly, the rough landing had its victims; the pilot's legs had been crushed by the pushed in control console, and the force had whipped his head around violently enough to snap his neck, killing him. One other clone had a restraint malfunction, and his body launched out of his seat upon impact, wrecking several of his bones, including his ribs, which shifted inside of his chest, piercing at least one vital organ. Additionally, his body careened into another stationary clone, causing the impacted clone to break his wrist as he tried to protect himself from the dead projectile.
Fortunately, aside from some vertigo and bruises from rifles flying about the cabin, no other injuries existed. This was the first time that Moon managed to get a decent look at the clones that had boarded the pod with him. Twelve other clones had filled all available seats. With two dead and one injured, that made ten clones fit for duty. He also noticed that he was the highest ranking soldier present.
As soon as his assessment was finished, he began issuing commands. “Alright men, get yourselves out of here. Help the injured one out, I'll stay in and get your weapons and to find a med kit. Survey the area and check for Seps. Move!”
The other clones shouted a collective “Sir, yes, sir!” and began to fulfill their orders. Moon removed his restraints and found gravity trying to pull him to the front of the pod; obviously, they had crashed front first and formed a crater instead of sliding across the ground. It was a less than optimal situation.
The other clones deduced the angle of the pod after removing their own harnesses as well, and, after orienting themselves, began the awkward climb out of the pod. The clone that had previously been sitting opposite of Moon was the first to make a move towards the exit. The latch opened and brilliant sunlight poured into the pod, which was previously lit only by the dim red emergency light.
Moon dropped to the front of the pod, being careful to avoid the clones that were climbing up to the open latch. Once finding footing, he paid his quick and silent respects to the two dead clones that lay unceremoniously across the wrecked console. He looked up to see that the clones had been fast with complying with his orders; all had gotten out except for two that had been assisting the injured clone out of the pod.
The injured clone made his painful way through the open hatch, and the other two clones turned their attention to Moon. “Sir, hand us the weapons and we'll toss them out,” the one closest to the hatch said. Moon nodded, and the assembly line quickly got all of their weapons to their respective owners outside of the pod. In the process, Moon found his pistol and placed it in the empty holster on his belt.
“Get out and watch for Seps,” Moon said to the two clones in the cabin once the task was finished. “I'm going to try to find a med kit.” The two clones climbed out, leaving to do his self-assigned task alone. Several compartments lined the sides of the pod above the seats. One of them had to have a med kit in it; that was protocol, after all.
He checked the compartments that were within his arms reach, to no avail. Sighing, he tried to make his way up the aisle between the vertically oriented seats, positioning his legs to support him when he reached for another unchecked compartment. He had finally made it to the back of the pod, and had one more compartment to check. Of course it's in the last one I check, he grumbled mentally. Moon opened the door to the compartment, and to his satisfaction, there lay a fully equipped first aid kit.
Crash.
Something large landed near the pod. The ground shook, which by proxy caused the pod to tremble. Moon's boots lost traction with the seat that he was leaning against, and he fell back down to the front of the pod. His back hurt and the wind was knocked out of him, but he'd be able to stand within a couple of minutes. From outside the pod, he heard a mechanical contraption operate, and several small clanks followed.
“Boarding craft!” a clone yelled. All other noise was drowned out by the heated firefight that followed. Moon tried to stand, his breath having returned, but as he rose to his feet, something in his leg pained him. It wasn't broken, and likely not fractured, so Moon was at a loss as to what was hurting in his leg. However, the pain was manageable, probably thanks to the adrenaline now coursing through his veins, and he began to climb back up the pod to see what was going on.
Moon didn't like what he saw, to say the least. He peeked his head out of the open latch, only to witness the last standing clone from his small troop murdered by a B2 super battle droid, one of the three droids that were left standing from the quick skirmish.
Enraged, Moon pulled his pistol out of his holster and opened fire on the super battle droid, the powerful DC-17's shots easily piercing the droid's tough armor. The destroyed droid fell to the parched arid ground, leaving a tiny cloud of dust in its wake. Before Moon could direct his fire to the B1 next to it, return fire was delivered from a commando droid from elsewhere.
Moon ducked into the pod, waiting for the droid to stop shooting. Within a few seconds, it did, and mechanical footsteps could be heard very close to the pod. With the element of surprise on his side, Moon stood again and blasted the B1's head off with a perfectly placed head shot, it's body dropping to the ground after having failed to climb the steeply angled pod.
Two thunks sounded behind Moon, and he turned to see the commando droid standing above him, the droid having leapt onto the pod in one swift jump. More accurately, Moon saw the droid's fist zooming towards him. The punch landed directly on his visor, and while it didn't hurt him, it left him dazed. His grip on his supports slackened, and he slipped down to the front of the pod. Again.
This time, he caught himself, and though it wrenched his arm a little, he could at least try to retaliate. Another impact hit him; this time, the droid had stomped on his head. There goes any hope of retaliating.
He fell to the front of the pod. The distance was much shorter than his first fall, so he was completely fine upon landing. Above him, the droid peered into the cabin to see if Moon had died. Moon stirred, and the droid entered to finish the job.
Instead of climbing down through the hatch, the droid decided to jump and fall through the opening. It touched down, and a loud crack was heard as the droid's heavy foot landed on Moon's unarmored elbow joint. The clone screamed in pain as his arm became limp. The droid raised its arm to deliver another punch to Moon's head. A shot hit the raised fist, courtesy of the pistol held in Moon's other hand. The distraction gave the Sergeant ample time to line up and fire a perfect shot to the commando droid's weakly protected neck. The despoiled droid fell backwards upon the nearly vertically standing floor of the pod, and it slouched into a wasted heap of metal.
With the menace removed, Moon turned his attention to his ruined arm. It was in bad shape, but it was repairable. If he could get his hands on a first aid kit, he'd be able to apply some bacta and a splint, which would help out tremendously. Maybe some painkillers as well, he thought, as he felt the adrenaline rush die down, pain and unconsciousness slowly pulling at him.
I just need a med kit. He heard a sudden sound come from the back of the pod. He looked up, and saw something fall out of the open compartment above him.
Oh, the irony. That was his last thought before the first aid kit landed on his head and he finally passed out.
~~~LZ, Outskirts of Appleloosa, 2 days, 7 hours and 45 minutes after the Ambush at US-01~~~
The four clones and one droid that was Victor squad stared to the sky, silently observing the twin explosions as they finally finished extinguishing themselves. The fading remnants of the Loyalty represented the clones' fading enthusiasm quite well. With the Loyalty gone, so were their connections with outside Republic forces.
“Well...” Spy began speaking. “We're screwed.”
“Eeyup,” Gore agreed, drawing out his agreement.
“Men, we need to lie low for a couple of days,” said Viktor. “The Seps are probably scouting the planet for Republic forces right now. We need to shut off and hide anything giving off a signal. That means most of this transmitting and jamming equipment. We'll keep the speeders out, but basically everything else needs to go in the gunship.”
“Yes, sir,” said Spy and Gore while saluting. Shy also saluted, but didn't speak. The four of them set about moving their now useless equipment into the gunship. With the help of the portable repulsorlifts, the process was quick, and within a couple of minutes, the camp was cleared of their transmitting and jamming machines.
Five long streaks of fire appeared in the sky as they finished their assignment. Looking up, all four of them deduced that they were escape pods from the Loyalty. Maybe we're not as screwed as we think.
Shy's science module tracked the pods and roughly calculated the distance each one would land from their position. “Viktor, sir, one of the pods will be landing not too far from us,” he said.
Viktor was about to respond, but the distant sound of a pod landing interrupted his statement.
“How far is 'not too far'?” asked Spy.
“Half-hour drive in a straight line, no more than an hour with the inevitable obstacles,” Shy responded. Spy reveled in what seemed like was the first thing Shy had said directly to him.
“Viktor, sir, perhaps we should check the pod out?” suggested Gore.
Viktor put a hand to his chin in contemplation.
“It's probably for the best,” Shy agreed.
Viktor turned to Shy. “I'll trust your judgment, Corporal.” Addressing the entirety of his squad, he said, “Load up the BARCs. Someone grab a med kit, just in case they need help. R8, stay behind and watch the camp. If any Seps show up, don't get caught. You're more valuable than the camp.”
The clones quickly prepped their speeders, making sure to grab a med kit before heading out.
After an uneventful forty five minutes of driving, Victor squad arrived at the sad scene in front of the escape pod. A droch-class boarding craft had landed nearby, and several bodies, droid and clone alike, littered the ground. Viktor looked upon the downed soldiers, sad that they had been too late to rescue the clones. He walked around the pod, checking for signs of survivors that had escaped; the evidence pointed to the contrary. Shy, at the same time, was checking the corpses for any wounded survivors, but sadly found none.
“Spy, why don't you head in the pod and see what you can find?” said Shy as he checked the bodies.
“Sure thing, other boss,” he said, then made his way to the pod's hatch, which stuck in the air due to the angle of the pod's impact. He peered inside, surprised to see three clones at the bottom, as well as a destroyed commando droid. Attaching his weapon to his back, Spy carefully climbed down the pod's near vertical aisle.
Is that...is that Moon? he thought once he reached the bottom. Spy crouched to get a better look in the dimly lit area, and upon seeing the crescent moons on the clone's shoulders, confirmed his suspicion. He checked Moon's pulse.
“Hey boss man,” he said via a private helmet channel, “I found Moon here. He's alive.” He noticed the Sergeant's wrecked elbow. “But, he's a bit mangled. There's a conveniently placed med kit here, so I'm gonna do what I can to patch him up before bringing him out of the pod.”
“Copy that,” Viktor replied. “We'll cover you.”
Spy opened the med kit and pulled out the gauze, syringe, vial of liquid painkiller, and splint. He withdrew a small canister of bacta from his belt, and injected a small amount of it into Moon's arm using the syringe. After the bacta came the painkillers, applied with the same method. With those applied, Spy began adjusting the broken part of Moon's elbow, moving the large chunks back to approximately the correct spot. With that done, Spy removed the armor on Moon's arm, wrapped it in a thin layer of gauze, and them replaced the armor.
“Spy, hurry up,” Gore said using the same channel as before.
“Calm down, Gore, I'm almost finished. Just gotta get the man a splint and a sling,” Spy said, surprising Gore by using a serious tone for the first time since they've been on the mission.
Within a couple more minutes, Moon's arm had the splint applied and Spy had fashioned a sling out of the remaining gauze and a piece of fabric from the kit. Spy looked up to the top of the hatch to see Shy peering down to him.
“I'm ready to get out of here. Care to help me up?”
Shy said nothing, but raised his rifle and launched an ascension cable into the ground next to Spy. Shy tightened the cable, and once it was taut, Spy began to use it to climb out, holding onto it with one hand and grasping Moon with the other. Once Spy was near the hatch, Shy relived him of Moon. They carefully lowered the unconscious clone to the ground, resting his back comfortably against the pod.
“So...did I patch him up well?” Spy asked as Shy checked his work. Shy nodded yes.
“Good,” Viktor said from behind them. “We need to get back to camp as soon as possible. We need to find a way to load him up on one of the speed-”
A groan interrupted Viktor. Victor squad turned their attention to Moon as he stirred, regaining consciousness. “Ugh, where am I?” he said groggily.
“Moon, you're with Victor squad,” Viktor answered.
“Well, what luck,” Moon muttered. The Sergeant looked around him, seeing Victor squad and the corpses of clones and droids around him. “What happened?”
Viktor glanced around. “We weren't there, but the evidence suggests that your pod was ambushed soon after landing. You're the only survivor, and we're gonna bring you to the LZ so you can catch up with some rest and with what we've discovered.”
Moon groaned as he stood. The pain in his leg flared up unexpectedly, and he fell, catching himself with his good arm. On his second attempt, Moon got to his feet, leg hurting, but the pain manageable. “Yeah, that's what happened,” he said, the fog in his mind clearing up. “That commando droid crushed my arm. Fier'fek.”
“How are we going to get all five of us to the LZ? There's only four seats?” Spy asked.
Shy had been contemplating the issue, and presented his solution. “Viktor takes one with Moon as the passenger. Spy, you take the other, Gore rides in the sidecar, and I'll sit myself somewhere in between the two, using the repulsorlift in Gore’s weapon to help balance my weight.”
“Good idea,” Moon agreed.
“Right. Load up, I'll destroy the pod,” Viktor said. Victor squad went to the speeders, helping Moon into the sidecar of the first speeder before struggling to situate themselves in the other. In the meantime, Viktor went to each of the dead clones, taking their grenade pouches and dumping the grenades into the pod's cabin. Once finished, he set a charge, setting the timer for two minutes.
Finished with that, Viktor strode over to the speeders, which had been completely prepped. Spy, Shy, and Gore had managed to place themselves on the speeder, though Shy looked extremely uncomfortable. He mounted the speeder, saying, “We've got two minutes before it blows; let get well out of range.” With that, the engines for speeder revved, and they took off back to the LZ.
[ b]~~~Republic Camp, Outskirts of Appleloosa, 2 days, 8 hours and 15 minutes after the Ambush at Equus~~~
A massive dust storm whipped up around the shuttle as it landed atop one of the two mesas that were the only interesting geological structures in the area. The boarding ramp opened, and droids immediately began to file out. Grapple hooks quickly lined the edge of the mesa, and the scouting party poured into the camp. It looked abandoned; most of the equipment had been stored in the gunship. There were semi-fresh footprints in the dirt, and much newer wheel tracks, likely from an astromech, but no other signs of life were present.
A small explosion resounded through the confined space as a breaching charge blew open the gunship door. Three B1's marched in, looking for anything they could use to identify the clones responsible for the gunship and where they went.
The clones had been minimalists when packing, and thus, within five minutes, everything except for the gunship's databanks had been searched to no avail. One of the B1's in the party reported this to magna guard that headed the group. “What is our course of action?” it asked after concluding its brief report.
“The Republic gunships erase all data regularly, except for navicomputer coordinates. We'll gain nothing from hacking the ship; destroy it.”
“Roger, roger,” the B1 affirmed, then set out to rig the gunship.
Conveniently, there were a couple of small crates of ordinance in the troop bay of the gunship already, so all that the droids needed to do was to prime a detonator nearby. After retreating around the mesa, the magna guard triggered the bomb.
The gunship and its contents ceased to exist.
~~~Unspecified Location, Heading towards LZ, 2 days, 8 hours and 35 minutes after the Ambush at US-01~~~
For the fourth time that day, Victor squad looked upon an explosion that signified another failure. Not too far ahead of them, smoke and fire spewed up from the gap in between the mesas that had served them as their home. They slowed their speeders to a stop as the situation became clearer.
“Well...what do we do now?” Spy asked no one in particular.
“I say that we drive in there and blast those tinnies to spare parts,” Gore seethed.
“That's too reckless,” Moon rebuked.
“Well, we'd have surprise on our side. That's worth something,” Gore defended.
Spy turned to Viktor. “Boss man, your thoughts?” Viktor ignored Spy. He was staring intently in the direction of the LZ. “What's wrong?” he asked, looking to where he thought Viktor was looking after not getting a response.
After several moments of silence, Viktor finally spoke. “That's R8 out there.” He sent everyone a video feed of what he saw so that they knew what he meant. “If R8's alive, then we can meet up with him. He'll tell us what we'll be up against so we can plan accordingly.”
Victor squad resumed heading towards the LZ, stopping once they met up with R8. “Stay put,” Viktor commanded as he dismounted to check up on his droid. “R8, good to see you made it out,” he said to the droid. R8 whirred in response.
“So, uh, we found Sergeant Moon by luck,” he started. “That's not important right now, though. Were Seps behind the explosion?” R8 beeped in confirmation.
“How many, and are they still there?” As a response, R8 gave a long series of beeps and whistles that the rest of Victor squad save for Shy understood. Shy sighed in relief once R8 concluded, causing the others to give him a curious glance.
“You understand astromech?” Spy asked, confused.
Shy nodded yes, then indicated to Viktor who was approaching them.
“R8 tells me that there's only a standard scouting party at the LZ. That's a few B1's, three or four B2's, and either a commando droid or an IG-100 magna guard. R8 tells me we've got a magna guard there,” Viktor informed them once he got there. “They haven't left yet; if we're gonna attack them, it's gotta be soon. Like, in a couple of minutes.”
“If we plan to leave the LZ behind, we should attack,” Moon said. “As long as we give no leads as to where we have headed off to, the Seps'll probably send the bulk of their forces here, which will allow going elsewhere safer.”
“Agreed,” Viktor said. “Here's the plan: we'll leave the speeders behind. Moon, since you're wounded, you'll stay with them. Gore and I will enter the camp on foot and lay suppressing fire. While they're distracted there, Shy will take R8 up and establish a sniper position while Spy sneaks behind. Got it?”
“Yes, sir; good plan,” Gore said.
“Copy that, sir,” confirmed Spy.
Moon and Shy both nodded.
Having left Moon to tend to the speeders a few hundred feet away, Viktor and Gore found themselves crouching behind the rocks that they had not long ago been safely on the other side of. Continuing to commune via private helmet comm, Viktor gave one last instruction. “Gore and I on 'go', Shy and Spy on 'sync'. Ready?”
Gore tensed.
“Go.”
Viktor dashed out from behind cover, spreading his fire across the span of the entire camp. He was met with little success; only one B1 went down. But that was not his objective. With the droids now concentrating their fire on Viktor who had just taken cover behind another boulder, Gore stepped out. His chain gun, having already been revved during Viktor's maneuver, spewed insane amounts of plasma down range. Several droids went down due to Gore.
The droids reacted quickly, taking cover behind the several large chunks of gunship strewn about the landing zone. Gore continued to spray his fire at the protected droids, any of whom stood to shoot him being immediately taken down by Viktor. The droids were pinned, exactly where Viktor wanted them.
“Sync.”
R8's thrusters sparked to life, easily carrying his cargo up the face of the mesa. Once over the flat surface of the mesa, Shy let go of the handholds, rolling to allow his forward momentum to dissipate, and crawled to the edge. Now at a good vantage point, Shy pulled his rifle off his back and began to open fire on the B2s.
Upon receiving the command, Spy burst from the boulder he was hiding behind, making himself the last wall of the box that trapped the droids. He unleashed all the silent fury of his DC-15. The droids, however, had cover around all of their sides, and while they were completely encircled, they still had a rather safe location.
At least, it would have been rather safe if not for the complete exposure to Shy's near dead-on accuracy.
As the droids numbers slowly diminished, the magna guard withdrew its reserve weapon from its back: a Bulldog rocket launcher. Shy attempted to shoot the small weapon out of the droid's hand, but missed. Before he could try again, the magna guard fired. Its first rocket was directed at Gore. He dived behind a boulder while the rocket hit an adjacent one, sending small pieces of debris in all directions. Swiftly turning, the second rocket was aimed at Spy, with similar end results. The third rocket was sent in Shy's direction. He crawled back as the rocked hit just under the edge when he was lying.
The magna guard expended his last three rockets, repeating the cycle. With the edge of the mesa severely weakened, Shy's weight broke the first foot or so off. His upper body jerked down as the ground gave way, and he lost his grip on his rifle. It and several rocks fell to the bottom of the crevice.
With the clones distracted due to the explosives, the magna guard put its plan into action. It dropped its weapon and turned to the mesa. It's hand shot out of its wrist, gripping the edge of the mesa and acting as a grappling hook. A powerful winch in its arm pulled the droid up the face of the mesa, and within a few seconds, it was atop it with Shy, who fumbled to draw his pistols.
Viktor, Gore, and Spy resumed their attack after a couple of seconds of not having rockets fired at them. When they turned to the now almost non-existent group of droids between them, they were surprised to see that the magna guard was missing. Viktor spared a glance up. He could no longer see Shy, instead seeing the very end of an activated electrostaff.
“Shy is in trouble!” Viktor shouted, distressed. “Hurry up, we've got to help him!”
“Get the droids' attention and I'll EMP them,” Spy suggested. Immediately, Viktor and Gore split up and broke cover. The droids divided their fire between the two of them. Gore stopped between each piece of passable cover while Viktor allowed his katarn armor to take minor blows. Whatever would get the job done fastest.
A brilliant blue staticy field surrounded the droids. They twitched erratically, then fell to the ground deactivated.
“I'll make sure they're dead,” Gore said. “Get up there and help Shy.”
Viktor and Spy prepared their weapon's ascension cables. They aimed at the edge of the mesa, ready to fire and scale the steep face.
Then, unexpectedly, they saw Shy. He was pushing the magna guard towards the cliff face. And once it was near the edge, he continued to push, sending the wrecked droid off the cliff. It hit the bottom with a loud thud and a crack. The commando went to inspect the damage as Spy fired his cable to provide Shy a way down.
The droid had an odd array of wounds. Most noticeable was the electrostaff that completely impaled it through the light that had once been lit on its chest. The next thing Viktor saw was the absence of one of the droid's hands. It had been cleanly severed off. And finally, its face had been dented, shoved back into its head about an inch in roughly the shape of a fist. Shy, you've got some explaining to do later.
Spy and Gore had gathered around the ruined droid by now, and Shy had made it to the bottom with them. He found his rifle amongst the rubble and joined his squad. The attention of the others was focused entirely on the magna guard.
Shy lightly tapped Viktor on the shoulder, bringing him back to reality. “Oh, um, yes. Spy and Gore, search the camp for anything salvageable, primarily survival supplies. Shy and I are going to retrieve the speeders.
“Yep, sure thing. And Shy? You're gonna have to tell me what exactly you did to make this droid look like that,” Spy responded. Shy didn't respond, and Victor squad went back to their duties.
“Most of the rations survived, as did two of our med kits and a small crate of ammunition,” Gore said to Viktor upon his return with the speeders.
Viktor looked over the assorted items in front of him. “Well, it'd be nice to maybe have a little bit more, but we need to travel light to maintain our speed.”
“About that, where are we going now?” inquired Spy.
“The maps!” Viktor exclaimed, suddenly panic-stricken. “Did you find the maps?”
“Uh...no,” Gore said glumly.
“Fier'fek. Shy, please tell me that you scanned the map and have the scan with you.”
Shy nodded, and Viktor sighed heavily in relief, shoulders slumping several inches as he tried to lower his suddenly fast heart rate. Finding a suitable dark surface, Shy projected the scan onto it, the dark surface contrasting with the bright projection and causing it to appear sharp and clear.
“So, you found a map, huh,” Moon said, impressed. “Why hasn't it been 3-D rendered?” he asked upon noticing that it was a simple, old school map.
“The original map was a print of a hand drawn copy. I'm not trusting that the map was originally drawn precisely to scale, and 3-D rendering such a map yields much more misleading results than simply following the 2-D rendition,” Shy said.
“Fair enough. So, Captain Viktor, where exactly are we going?” Moon asked.
Viktor cleared his throat before giving his brief briefing. “Right, so we are approximately here,” he said, pointing to a spot between Appleloosa and Macintosh Hills. “The original plan was to follow these tracks here up to this place here, Canterlot. The depiction of Canterlot is that of a castle, so it's safe to assume that Canterlot is the capital of Equestria, the country we're in. It is also depicted here on the side of a mountain, so it's also safe to assume that it's on the side of a mountain for real. At the base of the mountain is a nearby settlement: Ponyville.
“These two places appear to be a kind of hub for all the tracks in the country. Thus, we were going to gather as much intel as we could on our way up to said hub. Once there, we were going to set a sort of base camp, likely in the Ponyville area, due to Canterlot's inaccessibility and probably lack of cover. After a camp was set up, the plan was to follow each branch to their end, again gathering what data we could before returning to camp to compile and send it."
Moon let what Viktor had explained sink in before commenting. “I must say, that is quite the solid plan, except for the fact that contact with the locals is extremely likely.”
“We've already determined that the locals are not a threat. They're underdeveloped technologically, and, based on what we saw in Appleloosa, they're not substantially militarized,” said Viktor.
“Uh-huh. So, what were the plans for once this was finished?”
"Wait for Loyalty to provide pick-up.”
Moon snickered. “Anyways, that was the original plan,” Viktor continued, a little annoyed. “With the Loyalty gone, the camp and most of our gear destroyed, and Seps likely working in conjunction with the locals on some level, we've obviously got to rethink our strategy.”
“Obviously,” Spy chimed in.
“Do we have another strategy?” asked Gore.
Viktor hummed in thought while the others thought to themselves silently. Shy quietly spoke up. “Well, if Canterlot is really the capital of Equestria, it would make sense that Grievous would be there. So, if we can make it to the hub, we'd be able to observe what kind of relations have developed between the Seps and the locals, as well as simply observe what the Seps are doing. They should be our first priority since they pose a threat to the Republic.”
“Agreed,” agreed Viktor.
“However, with the CIS aware of our presence, we should take an out-of-the-way route to the hub, so as to minimize our chances of being found. Look, we can go West and into the San Palomino Desert, then North around Ghastly Gorge, before finally heading North East through Froggy Bottom Bog. We'll end up in the Everfree Forest, which should provide a good spot to observe from.”
The remainder of the group contemplated. “Look, we don't have much time to waste here,” Gore pointed out. “We've got to go soon, and this is probably the best course of action. I'm with Shy.” R8 agreed.
“While it's dangerous to go without any knowledge of what lies in those parts, I must say that I've no better or safer alternatives,” admitted Viktor. “Let's pack up and leave no clues as to where we're going behind. Let's make for the hub.”