The Dragon and the Force

by FenrisianBrony

Meatbag

Spike let out a roar, slamming his fist into the bulkhead and ripping through it like it was nothing. They had been back for close to two hours, and while he had managed to contain his anger on the ships, as soon as he had arrived back on the station it was fit to bursting, and he needed an outlet.

“Spike!” Seugtai roared, ducking beneath Spike’s tail. “Get a hold of yourself, you breach the hull and we’re all dead!”

“He was there!” Spike roared back, turning and glowering at Seugtai. “He was right there, and we ran!”

“Of course, we ran!” Seugtai snapped. “He outnumbered us, he outgunned us. We would have lost in minutes if we’d stayed and you know it! Now stop being an obtuse ass and get a hold of yourself.”

Spike growled, his fists shaking as he fought with his own anger and the common sense Seugtai was speaking, before snorting and turning away.

“I’m going planetside. Rearm the fleet, organise the new recruits, you’re in charge, Seugtai. Don’t let me down.”

With that, Spike stalked from the room, heading for the hanger bay.

“Well that went better than expected,” Herank mused, entering the room as soon as Spike had left.

“I am glad he didn’t see you,” Seugtai turned to face her. “What did we get then? Enough to refit the fleet?”

“Mostly new missiles, a few oscillating shield generators. Ooh, and some of those new turbolasers, quad barrelled heavy shit. Will have to mount them on the larger ships,” Herank nodded. “All of them are state of the art, and that’s just for the fleet. We have enough personal arms to make sure everyone is on an equal footing to the Sith. Even got a few Disruptor rifles.”

“Distribute the Disruptors to the best trained, anyone with military experience on any side. Then find commanders, I want this organised properly, the Mandalorian way. I also need something from you, something to be kept off the radar, especially from Spike.”

He handed Herank a dataslate, the old woman taking it in her bionic hand and regarding it for a moment.

“First parts simple enough, but this second part? You know how rare that stuff is, right?”

“Just get it done, whatever it takes, Lady Kalia,” Seugtai snapped. “I’ll be on the bridge for the next half an hour, then I’m going to bring back Spike. He’ll hurt himself down there.”

“You have that little faith in our ‘fearless leader’?” Herank sneered, trailing off as she found herself looking down the barrel of a Ripper pistol.

“You know, we could still take you back to Coruscant, remember that,” Seugtai said matter-of-factly, before holstering his weapon and walking past Herank, leaving the crime lord to glower at his retreating form.

***

Spike let out a roar of pain and anguish as he lashed out with his glaive, cleaving through the trunks of ancient trees, heedless of the damage he left in his wake. On the station he had contained himself, regardless of what Seugtai had believed. Here however he was free to exercise his rage on anything around him, which is exactly what he was doing.

“I could have killed him!” Spike roared, power lacing his voice, traveling up his arm as he hurled his glaive like a javelin. The weapon sliced through half a dozen trees before lodging itself in a seventh tree.

With his weapon now far beyond his reach, Spike felt a huge impact strike his back, the unexpected blow sending him careening forward onto the floor. Before he could react, he felt another impact strike him almost exactly where the first had and he was sent cartwheeling through the air. Three more shots slammed into him before he finally landed, blood pouring from wounds. Whatever had hit him, it wasn’t a standard weapon, that was for sure.

Pushing himself to his feet, sending a pulse of magic to stem the flow of blood, Spike looked out across the clearing, reaching out to sense anything, before diving to the side, narrowly avoiding another shot. He was right about it not being a standard weapon, the shot that passed him by wasn’t a standard blaster bolt, but Disruptor Round, and from the sound it made as it hurtled past it had originated from a Sonic Disruptor.

Springing to his feet once more, Spike broke into a run towards the origin of the shot. He had seen where the shot had come from and as he drew closer he finally caught sight of the shooter.

Standing close to two meters tall, the shooter was a droid, brown plating covering his humanoid frame, while a pair of orange sensory optics looked directly at him. True to Spike’s predictions the droid was carrying a oversized disruptor cannon, tell tale markings along its barrel marking it as a sonic disruptor.

The droid was a HK model, that much was obvious. A Hunter Killer, one of the best, but he had never seen one as advanced as this. Droids weren’t a match for Spike though, no matter how advanced.

This thought was still fresh in his mind as he felt the ground click beneath his claw. He barely managed to raise a shield around himself before he was engulfed in a roaring plasma fire, the heat doing little to him but the explosion it generated hurling him through the air again, making him easy pickings as two more disruptor bolts slamming into him, ripping away a finger from his right hand.

“What the hell is that thing?” Moonstone asked, appearing as Spike landed, running along beside Spike as he ground out a deep groove in the ground before coming to a halt.

“Droid, no idea more than that,” Spike muttered as a grenade rolled beside him. “You’ve got to be kidding me."

The grenade detonated, but there was no explosion, not one of note anyway. Instead emitting a flash that seared Spike’s retina’s and a noise that set his ears ringing. Deaf and half blind, Spike barely saw the second grenade landing, emitting a cloud of noxious gas that engulfed him entirely. Instinctively Spike closed his mouth and nostrils, a trick he had learnt while breathing fire to reduce searing of the more sensitive skin, but he could already feel the toxins in the gas were not the sort that had to be breathed in, his skin already absorbing the nerve agent.

Every part of him burnt with pain as whatever gas had been used began to eat away at him, Spike barely managing to focus enough to send out a pulse of magic, the gas dispersing from around him. He was free from the toxins, but the two grenades had done their work, Spike’s vision swimming in and out of blackness as he fought to stay conscious.

“Disparaging Statement: I had expected more from you, ex-Master Jedi.”

The voice was unmistakably the droids, Spike turning as fast as he was able to see the outline of his attacker standing before him. From his shape it had dropped the cannon, pistols now clutched in its hands instead. Spike had no idea if they were the same style as the cannon, but he would do his best to not find out and lunged forward.

He was fast, even like this. The droid was faster, sidestepping his charge and bringing the pistol up to nearly point-blank range beneath the base of Spike’s left wing, firing a flurry of bolts into the weak joint. Pain blossomed anew as holes were torn in the appendage, Spike trying one more time to hit the droid, but again it dodged his clumsy blow, more shots hammering into him, the back of his right knee this time, forcing him to the floor.

“Restatement: Yes, much more.”

The droid was standing over Spike now, its pistols pointed at his head. He tried to raise his arms, but waves of pain threatened to make him pass out. The ground near him trembled slightly, Spike looking to his side to see a lack of trees. He’d been a long distance from any cliffs before, hadn’t he? How far had those explosions pitched him?

“Addendum: I was instructed to pass on a message before your termination if the situation allowed for it. Given how easy you Jedi are to incapacitate, I am surprised there was any doubt that the situation would end in this way.”

“What’s…the message?” Spike managed, looking at the droid.

“Answer: Nothing personal, Spike.”

Time seemed to slow as the droid began to tighten his fingers on the triggers of the pistols. At this range the disruptor shots would pierce even his scales and make his brain so much scrambled mush. Even if it didn’t kill him there would be nothing to stop more shots being fired, and more after that. This was it, and Spike could only watch.

Funnily enough, the thought of his imminent demise did not trouble him as much as he did. In fact, he found it funny. He had faced so much in the fifty-eight years of his life, so many enemies who could have killed him, and yet in the end it was an assassin droid. Not some mighty Mandalore or a Sith Lord, but a droid. Life kept throwing surprises at him, right up until the end.

A blur hit the droid, the shots impacting Spike’s shoulder and causing small holes in the dense plating there. Spike fell backwards at the impact, no longer able to keep himself upright, but he could see the droid fighting something now, twin tails of fire emanating from the back of the newcomer.

Tearing his eyes away from the conflict, Spike focused inwards, forcing his magic to work again. His vision went now, replaced his darkness and flashing lights as he willed his body to begin the healing process at an accelerated rate. The pain was immense, not lessening at all even as his blood began to rapidly coagulate. It would take some time to fully heal from all of this, but soon the worst wounds were stemmed, and more importantly, the toxin was flushed from his system.

His vision returned amid a flurry of gunfire, the HK unit firing both its pistols at the newcomer who Spike now saw was Seugtai, his armour fully sealed and a jetpack affixed to his back. The Mandalorian’s own pistol was roaring, shots impacting around the droid as the machine dodged this way and that, Spike forgotten for the time being.

Rising to his feet, Spike broke into a slow lope, picking up speed as he charged the droid. Stealth was not an option here, and just before he impacted he let out a bestial roar.

Launching himself forward, Spike tackled the droid, the pair of them careening off the cliff, Spike wrapping his hands around the droid, holding it tightly before him as they plunged to earth, Seugtai following behind them.

The droid fired again and again with its one remaining pistol, but Spike’s impact had evidentially knocked some targeting computer in its head out of alignment, many of the shots going wide, while the others burnt holes into Spike’s side or bounced off his scales at too shallow an angle.

The pair of them hit the tree cover far below, Spike being forced to let go of the droid as he slammed through thick branches, impacting heavily on the floor, dust thrown up all around him. A second later the HK unit crashed down beside Spike, its plating dented and cracked, one eye completely removed from its head.

“S-System’s Crit…crit…crit…crit…crit,” it began, its voice looping as Spike stood up, swaying heavily, only to be steadied by Seugtai, the Mandalorian landing beside him.

“Thanks,” Spike rasped, his eyes still fixed on the droid.

“Next time you’re thinking of running off alone like that, remember you’re a wanted man,” Seugtai snapped back. “This whole endeavour is yours, Spike. Without you who’s going to hold it together? Me? Herank? I doubt it.”

Spike wanted to be angry at the Mandalorian’s tone, but he was correct, Spike had been reckless, and he had nearly paid the ultimate price for it. Without Seugtai, Spike was not stupid enough to believe he would have survived the attack.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped again, before stooping down and looking at the droid, the loop having ended and its eyes now dead. “You ever seen a droid like this?”

“An HK model?” Seugtai asked. “Sure, HK-46’s are highly sought after machines. This though, it’s far more advanced, not standard for any model I know, but it doesn’t look like an upgraded 46 either. Maybe a new model?”

“Maybe,” Spike sighed, before picking up the battered chassis. “Whatever it is, it’s broken but worth something. We’ll run a check on its memory core, then wipe it and sell it. We could use the credits.”

“We might find out who sent it,” Seugtai pointed as Spike flared his wings, trying to remember where his glaive was stuck.

“I have a pretty good idea already,” Spike called as he took to the sky, Seugtai following close behind, Spike lapsing into silence, focusing on flying and reaching a kolto tank. He could already imagine the warmth of that glorious liquid, the thought spreading a smile across his face.

Comments

[TheArcticWolf]

Revan?

[FenrisianBrony]

8960494
Maybe :P

[the other sans]

tele tale markings along its barrel marking
“You’ve got to be kidding me.
it began, it’s voice looping as Spike stood up

1. Tell.
2. Forgot your closing quotation mark.
3. Its.

Well this is one way to explain how he got to that droid shop.

[FenrisianBrony]

8960511
Thanks

[ShadowDragon007]

That was awesome i love HK. Please don't destroy him

[Rudy45]

Exuberant Statement: Oh, Master, I do love imitating the speech patterns of HK-47. Please make him a permanent fixture of this story!

[Your Local Daemonhunter]

8960569
Don't worry, he's only being sold off for credits.

It'll start that wacky series of adventures he went through after his memory wipe! You know, the one that got literally every single one of his owners horrifically murdered!

That's our HK!

[Angelus Alvus]

Loved these updates!

[Aprion]

8964120
Statement: you are in error. They were not, as you say "horrifically murdered." They simply had a run of terminally bad luck. Meatbags break so easily.

[PrismStrike]

oh hk-47 how much i loved this droid in the games