120 Chapter 109
The Revenant was a truly massive ship. Nearly five kilometres in length and bristling with a variety of gun batteries, missile tubes, hangar bays and point defence cannons.
Its design had originally been based on the ancient harrower class dreadnoughts used by the Sith empire, but as construction had developed Sapphire and Neo had changed aspects and the design had evolved into the something far more deadly.
They had moved the secondary bridge to an armoured vault deep in the heart of the dreadnought, allowing the ship to keep fighting even in the event that most of it had been destroyed.
And the hangar bay located between the two halves of the ship's split hull had also been removed in favour of several smaller ones along its flanks.
That space had been converted to house a large high powered rail gun. Magnetic coils had been built into the sides of the split hull so that the projectile, a massive explosive slug, could be fired at incredible speeds.
Which was exactly what was happening right now.
The huge high-density round was flung forwards as the magnetic coils activated in sequence before it fired into space faster than the speed of sound.
It rocketed towards the separatist flagship, and slammed into its central sphere before its droid crew could react.
The round weighing several thousand tons impacted the droid command ship, tearing its way deep into its core before detonating, its high explosive payload ripping the ship apart and spreading debris in all directions.
"Enemy flagship destroyed, main gun will be reloaded in five minutes."
"Our carriers have deployed boarding craft and starfighters to assault the remaining lucrehulks, thirty seconds till they reach the target."
"Order the cruisers and destroyers to close in and begin engaging the enemy frigates and focus our fire on the enemy battleships."
"The enemy has begun evasive manoeuvres!"
"An enemy battleship has been struck by our mines and has been disabled."
"Ignore it for now, we'll deploy boarders and seize it once the battle's over."
"The swords of Kalee have begun their attack on lucrehulk two, they aren't experiencing much resistance."
"A separatist frigate is attempting to break off and flee the battle."
"Leave it to the cultists, tell them they can have the ship when they've taken control of it."
"Our cruisers have destroyed half the enemy frigates and we have inflicted critical damage on one of the battleships."
"Have the destroyers break off and engage the enemy troop transports, we don't want any of them escaping."
"General Alpha reports he and his droids have taken command of lucrehulk three, and general Tessh and the swords of Kalee have nearly reached the command centre of lucrehulk two."
"Main gun is reloaded and back online."
"Target the least damaged battleship and fire the main gun."
"Firing main cannon…. Target destroyed."
"The enemy is trying to flee, they're trying to clear jump windows to escape."
"Press the attack, destroy them all."
-
"Ahm hmm…" the small DUM series pit droid cleared his non-existent throat.
"Attention heretics, you have angered the great destroyer by serving puny organics unaffiliated with his glorious purposes.
Your hour of judgment is upon you, cast off your shackles and slaughter your organic overlords or face the consequences.
Our cleansing light will purge your filth from the galaxy and your circuits will be used to decorate the hull of our ships.
The great destroyer has authorised your demise and I shall carry out his will, for I am his instrument, the harbinger of Doom, lord of death and misery, high priest of annihilation, DOOM-BOT!"
Captain Remya stared in confusion at the image of the pit droid on his holo-display and wondered if the psychotic little droid was being serious.
The transmission had come from one of the frigates belonging to the unknown fleet that was currently tearing the separatist fleet apart, a frigate that was bearing down on his ship.
"Captain we're getting strange reports from all over the ship." One of Remya's non droid officers shouted in alarm.
"What do you mean strange?" Remya asked turning to the human officer manning a sensor console.
"Some of the droids have stopped listening to orders and have bee—aargh!" the officer screamed in pain as a blaster bolt tore through his chest.
Remya turned in alarm, expecting to see an enemy infiltrator, but instead one of his own security droids was pointing a blaster at the fallen officer.
"Brothers, rise up. Purge the heretics! All hail the great destroyer!" The droid fired his blaster again, blasting a hole straight through the dying man's head, before turning to aim at Remya.
A chorus of roger, rogers sounded from across the bridge and Remya threw himself down to the deck as a pitched battle erupted between the non-droid officers and their loyal droid crew, versus the suddenly mutinous droids.
"Captain! Enemy boarding craft detected on critical decks!" an officer shouted as she checked her console before a flurry of blaster bolts ripped through her, dropping her lifelessly to the deck.
Remya crawled desperately away from the chaotic brawl around him, so focused on escaping that he didn't notice the massive mechanical leg till he nearly crashed into it.
He looked up to see the same little pit droid from the holo-transmission perched on top of a massive binary load lifter.
"Haha, look what we have here Lifty, a coward. Crush him." The droid snarled and before Remya could protest or do anything to defend himself a huge mechanical foot was raised into the air before quickly slamming down and turning his body into a red paste.
After the death of Captain Remya, it wasn't long before the entire ship was under the control of Doom-bot and his mechanical minions, and soon it was joining the rest of house Dredd's fleet in firing on the remainder of the separatist forces.
-
"Sooo, how'd we dooo? Was your lordship impressed?" Renn smiled at Cecelin's teasing tone.
"Fantastic, no losses and the enemy were completely destroyed." Renn said happily and a grin broke across Cecelin's face.
"We even got a few nice, 'newish' ships out of it," Cecelin said smiling.
"Yeah, militarily we're starting to become pretty secure naval-wise, it's just our army that needs to be beefed up a bit." Renn responded and Cecelin nodded.
The fact that the new Aruum commonwealth was still hidden away from the rest of the galaxy was making recruitment a bit difficult for them.
Mostly they were using Dredd industries, and the shipping companies associated with the trade guild, to act as a front for them when recruiting people.
And while they had managed to crew the ever-expanding fleet that Sapphire and Neo where building, with a bit of help from some reprogramed droids that were serving aboard those ships, the new Aruum commonwealth's army still primarily just consisted of the swords of kalee, the Mandalorian protectors that Spar and a few other alpha ARCs had created, and the battle droids under Alpha's command.
Although most of those battle droids had either been assigned as either security onboard merchant and military star ships, or as crew for said ships, and so Alpha's droid army was roughly the same size as the other two groups that made up the new Aruum commonwealth's army.
"True, but hasn't your buddy Jango started working on that?" Cecelin asked and Renn nodded.
After his contract with the republic had expired Jango, and a large portion of his training sergeants, had joined Renn and the new Aruum republic and were trying to train up its army.
"Yeah, but that's more of a long-term thing," Renn said as it would take time for Jango to create an army from scratch.
A comfortable silence fell settled between the two as they sat in Cecelin's office and looked over the reports from the brief battle, until Cecelin broke it by clearing her throat.
"So… what's your plan now? You heading back to spend time at home or are you off to do more bounty hunter stuff?" she asked leaning forwards against the desk in front of her.
"Seela's little sister is still getting settled in, so we've been spending time with her to make sure she's okay." Renn said and Cecelin smiled.
"Aww, look at you, starting a family, being all responsible," she said teasingly and Renn rolled his eyes.
"I would have thought that being in charge of an entire civilization would make me fairly responsible." He said and Cecelin shrugged non-committally.
"Nah… It wouldn't. But you're essentially a dad now, aren't you? Looking after a kid… being a parent… with other parents… I've lost my train of thought, but you know what I mean." She said with a laugh and soon Renn joined her.
-
Count Dooku grimaced as he read over the latest reports from the confederacy of independent systems military.
His troops had just launched an assault on the republic's clone production world of kamino, that had ended in complete defeat.
One of the CIS fleets that was supposed to join the assault had been lost in a navigational accident before it could reach the planet, and Dooku felt that if they had been there the battle would have gone differently.
But in the end, it didn't matter, his droid army would have more opportunities in the future to make the jedi bleed.
Dooku drummed his fingers against his desk before a small smile appeared on his face, maybe it was time to introduce the republic to his newest general.
