~DAY THREE~
By sunrise, the dead had changed.
The wounds remained. Their skin was still pale beneath the armor. No heart beat. No breathing.
But their movements were different.
I noticed it while watching them reorganize outside the walls.
Two hundred fifty undead clones now occupied the clearing.
The second level Raise Undead had gained sometime during the previous day's fighting had increased my control limit again.
250
I had filled every available slot before dawn.
The difference became apparent almost immediately.
Yesterday, a clone holding a rifle seemed to understand that the object belonged in his hands.
But once something reached him, whatever remained of his training disappeared beneath the crude instinct of the spell.
They crowded.
Grabbed.
Struck.
Pulled.
Killed with whatever part of themselves still worked.
This morning, one of them checked his rifle.
Not randomly.
He pulled the weapon close.
Looked down its length.
Adjusted his grip.
Another clone beside him shifted his stance to create a cleaner field of fire.
A third dropped into a kneeling position when the one behind him raised his weapon.
I watched from the command center.
There was no conversation between them.
No hand signals.
No indication that they truly remembered anything.
But the motions were familiar.
Practiced.
Pieces of something that had once been deeply ingrained in their bodies.
Muscle memory.
Or something close enough to it that the distinction no longer mattered.
The first creature of the morning emerged less than twenty minutes later.
That answered the question.
It came low through the trees.
Long.
Flat.
Its body was perhaps eight meters from the front of its skull to the end of a dragging tail.
It had more than twenty legs, each ending in a broad three-fingered hand.
The creature moved by planting those hands against the ground and pulling itself forward in waves.
It was eerily familiar to one of yesterdays monster...
Its skin was dark blue and wet enough to shine beneath the morning light.
Across its back were dozens of swollen yellow growths.
They expanded and contracted independently.
The head carried six eyes.
All different sizes.
All facing slightly different directions.
There was no visible mouth.
The clones saw it.
And stopped.
Yesterday they would have charged.
Instead—
Nearly forty rifles came up.
The first rank knelt.
The second remained standing.
The third shifted to either side.
Then they fired.
Blue blaster bolts crossed the clearing.
The creature barely made it ten meters past the tree line.
Bolts punctured its body.
One of the yellow growths ruptured.
Thick fluid sprayed across the surrounding vegetation.
Another burst.
Then another.
Its front legs collapsed.
The creature continued crawling.
The undead adjusted their aim.
Several shots struck the same section of skull.
Bone opened.
The creature twisted.
It finally revealed its mouth.
The entire underside of its head split horizontally.
Rows of short grinding teeth became visible as it dragged itself toward them.
It never reached the first clone.
The concentrated fire tore through its skull.
Its body went limp.
Several of the hands continued opening and closing against the dirt for nearly a minute afterward.
The undead lowered their rifles.
Zero.
The number remained at two hundred fifty.
For the first time since we had occupied the fortress, something had come out of that forest and died without touching them.
~~~
Suddenly feeling significantly more confident I left the cameras running beside me.
Yesterday's constant attacks had made one thing clear.
Numbers mattered.
I summoned the first B2.
The super battle droid landed heavily on the reinforced floor.
It had belonged to Loathsom's army on Christophsis.
Or at least what remained of it had.
The torso was intact.
Most of the armor plating remained.
One leg was badly damaged.
The left arm was gone below the elbow.
Several blaster marks covered its chest.
I opened its torso.
Unlike B1s, B2s were built for combat before anything else.
Heavy armor.
Integrated weapons.
Far more resilient internal components.
I began stripping damaged wiring.
Outside—
Blaster fire started.
I looked toward the monitor.
Another creature had appeared.
I kept working.
This one stood almost three meters high.
Two enormous rear legs carried a narrow torso covered in coarse white hair.
Its front limbs had withered until they were little more than useless bones folded against the chest.
The neck extended upward nearly another meter.
At the end was a skull with no skin.
The skull itself appeared to have grown outside the flesh.
Muscles and tendons entered through openings beneath it.
Black eyes moved inside deep sockets.
Its jaw hung loosely until it reached the clearing.
Then the lower half of the skull dropped almost to its chest.
Something emerged from the throat.
A tongue.
Longer than the creature was tall.
Covered in small backward-facing hooks.
The clones opened fire.
The creature ran.
It was fast.
Far faster than the thing from earlier.
Blaster bolts struck its torso as it crossed the clearing.
One leg took several hits.
It stumbled.
Recovered.
The tongue snapped outward.
It wrapped around an undead clone's upper body.
The hooks caught armor.
The creature pulled.
The clone left the ground.
Before it reached the open mouth—
Three nearby undead fired.
Not into the creature.
Into the tongue.
The bolts severed it.
The clone hit the ground.
The creature recoiled.
More fire followed.
Its right leg broke beneath it.
The thing collapsed less than fifteen meters from the line.
The undead advanced while firing.
They closed the distance together.
The wounded creature tried rising.
A concentrated volley struck its skull.
The bone cracked.
The next volley opened it.
The creature stopped moving.
One clone had damaged armor from the hooked tongue.
Nothing else.
I returned to the B2.
~~~
By midmorning, the first super battle droid stood under its own power.
Its replacement left arm was mismatched.
I had taken it from another damaged B2.
The droid remained motionless for several seconds.
Then its head lifted.
I ordered it to the wall.
Heavy metallic footsteps left the bay.
Then I summoned another.
The next attack came while I had the second B2's chest open.
Five creatures this time.
Each resembled a massive bloated amphibian.
They approached together. Their bodies dragged close to the ground. Something moved inside each one. Shapes. Small bodies swimming through yellow fluid underneath the skin.
Without hesitation the undead fired.
The first creature ruptured.
Its entire side opened.
Fluid poured across the ground.
Along with everything living inside it.
Hundreds of pale organisms spilled free.
Each was roughly the size of a hand. They began crawling by flexing their bodies against the dirt.
The other four continued.
Clone fire intensified.
The clearing filled with the smaller organisms.
The undead shifted fire downward.
Blue bolts struck the ground.
Some reached the clone line.
One attached itself to a shin plate.
Its mouth began scraping at the armor.
Another climbed over a boot.
A clone simply stepped on it.
The body flattened beneath his heel.
One reached an exposed section of flesh where yesterday's fighting had torn a clone's body glove.
The creature's body visibly expanded as its mouth buried into dead tissue.
The clone looked at it.
Then smashed it against the stock of his own rifle.
The parasite ruptured.
He returned to firing.
The larger creatures continued absorbing bolts until their bodies opened one after another.
The last made it within five meters of the undead before collapsing.
The clones spent another six minutes exterminating what had spilled out of them.
When the final small body stopped moving, the clearing was coated in yellow fluid and twitching pieces of flesh.
A few clones had superficial damage. None were lost.
The difference was profound.
Yesterday, every monster that crossed the tree line eventually reached the undead.
Today, most did not.
The clones weren't accurate in the way living clone troopers had been.
Not yet.
There were wasted shots.
Poor target selection.
Occasional moments where several fired at something already dying.
But they were soldiers again.
The improvement had changed the clearing.
Yesterday it had been a killing ground for both sides.
Today it belonged to the clones.
I repaired B2s between attacks.
The process became repetitive.
Strip damaged components.
Cannibalize what I could.
Rewrite control systems.
Connect them to my PAK and deploy.
By midday, eight stood along the wall.
Their larger frames rose above the B1s.
Heavy armored torsos facing the forest.
Integrated wrist blasters tracking movement beneath the trees.
Everything approaching the fortress now had to cross the fire of one hundred B1 rifles, eight super battle droids, and two hundred fifty undead clone troopers.
Verdara responded by sending something worse.
It arrived shortly after noon.
I sensed it before the cameras saw it.
A pressure formed at the edge of my awareness.
Distant at first.
Then closer.
Something alive was moving through the forest.
The sensation was wrong.
A violent, burning presence that seemed to pulse with every step.
I turned toward the monitors.
The trees shifted. Then it stepped into view.
A humanoid. Roughly nine feet tall. Its body had once belonged to a Vederan.
I could still recognize the basic shape beneath the changes.
Whatever had happened to it had stretched everything beyond human proportion.
Its limbs were too long.
Its shoulders too broad.
Its hands large enough to close around a clone's chest.
The skin had darkened to a deep, cracked red.
Heat shimmered around its body.
Thin lines of orange light glowed beneath the flesh, running from its chest down both arms and into its fingers.
Its face was....Uncanny.
Almost.
The jaw had widened.
The teeth had lengthened.
The eyes burned with a dull orange light.
The creature stopped at the edge of the clearing.
The undead opened fire.
The first volley should have struck its chest.
It moved before the rifles fired. Not quickly. Not gracefully.
It simply stepped aside a fraction of a second before the bolts arrived.
The shots passed through the space where it had been standing.
The creature tilted its head.
Another volley came.
It ducked.
A third.
It twisted its torso violently, allowing the bolts to pass around it.
The movements were crude.
Almost clumsy.
But every one of them avoided the incoming fire.
Precognition! It had to be!
The Force was warning it before each attack!
It didn't understand the warnings well.
The creature only had to move.
The B1s joined the clones.
Then the B2s.
Heavy red bolts crossed the clearing.
The humanoid lurched sideways.
One bolt passed beneath its arm.
Another missed its head by centimeters.
A third struck its shoulder.
The impact tore away a section of flesh.
The creature staggered.
Then looked toward the fortress.
Its mouth opened.
Fire erupted from both hands.
Not a controlled stream.
A violent burst of flame that spread across the clearing.
The front line of undead disappeared behind orange light.
Several clones caught fire.
Some continued firing while flames climbed his armor.
The creature swung its arms from side to side.
Each motion sent another wave of fire outward.
The flames struck the ground and raced across the grass.
They climbed trees.
Wrapped around bodies.
Turned the clearing into a wall of heat.
The undead formation broke apart.
The clones moved away from the burning sections while continuing to fire.
The creature advanced through its own flames.
Blaster bolts came from every direction.
Its head snapped toward each threat before the shots arrived.
Then it charged.
Its physical strength was overwhelming.
It crossed the burning ground in seconds.
One clone fired directly into its chest.
The creature caught the rifle.
The weapon bent in its hand.
It struck the clone once.
The body flew backward and broke against the ground.
Another clone stepped in from the side.
The creature seized him by the torso and threw him into two others.
Three bodies went down.
The surrounding undead fired at point-blank range.
The creature's precognition warned it of the shots.
It moved before they came.
But there were too many.
A bolt struck its abdomen.
Another hit its left arm.
A third tore through its knee.
The leg buckled.
The creature fell forward.
Its hands slammed into the ground.
Fire exploded outward from its palms.
The nearest clones were thrown back.
Several caught fire.
The creature rose again.
Its damaged leg dragged behind it.
The Force continued warning it.
I realized in shocked awe of the display in power that neither of its abilities had finesse. It was pure instinctive trial and error.
It knew where the shots would be.
It did not know how to move cleanly between them.
It dodged one volley and stepped into another.
It avoided the B2s' first barrage, then turned directly into the second.
Heavy bolts struck its chest.
Armor-piercing fire tore through flesh.
The creature staggered backward.
Its hands flared.
A wave of fire rolled toward the wall.
The B2s absorbed the first edge of it.
Their armor blackened.
The creature tried to retreat.
Its precognition warned it of every shot.
But the clearing had become crowded with fire, smoke, and bodies.
It moved left to avoid the clones.
A B2's wrist blaster struck its shoulder.
It lurched right.
A clone's rifle bolt hit its ribs.
It ducked beneath another volley.
The movement brought it directly into the path of a second B2.
The heavy droid fired.
The bolt punched through the creature's abdomen.
The humanoid stopped.
For a moment, it remained standing.
Fire continued burning from both hands.
Then its knees gave out.
It fell forward.
The B2s continued firing.
The creature tried to rise.
Its precognition still moved its head away from incoming shots.
It twisted aside from one bolt.
Another struck its throat.
It rolled away from a third.
Then a fourth tore through its skull.
The fire in its hands went out.
The body collapsed.
The clearing remained silent except for the crackling flames.
I watched the corpse through the cameras.
The face had been Vederan.
Whatever person had once lived inside it was gone.
Only the Force remained.
A weapon it could barely control.
And enough physical strength to tear through the first line of undead before we brought it down.
The fire continued consuming the grass around the body.
"Bring me the body."
They seized the creature's limbs and began dragging it toward the fortress.
The corpse was enormous.
Even dead, it took more than eight clones to move.
Meeting them at the gate I stored it away in my inventory.
~~~
The rest of the afternoon followed the same pattern.
Anything ranging from one to a dozen creatures would break from the tree line.
They would be swarmed with blaster fire before reaching the clones.
Another B2 stood in front of me.
Number sixteen.
Nearly about to start work on the next one when Bolts yelled for my attention.
"Sir! You need to see this!"
I looked toward him.
"What is it?"
He pointed toward the sky.
"Something's happening above us."
I followed his gaze outside and looked toward the nearest window.
The room had grown darker.
Not because of sunset.
Something had blocked part of the sky.
I left the tools where they were.
Walked outside.
Then stopped.
Every B1 on the western wall had turned its head upward.
The undead clones followed seconds later.
Bolts was already staring at the sky.
Roger stood motionless beside him.
For two days, hundreds of ships had remained above Verdara.
Some were barely visible.
Others were only points of light.
They had surrounded the planet from orbit and fired those red beams down continuously.
Day and night.
The bombardment never stopped.
One of the lights above us was moving.
At first I thought it was another orbital strike.
Then the object became brighter.
Larger.
Too large.
A burning shape broke through the cloud layer.
Flames surrounded it.
Pieces separated from the main body. Fragments burning away. The shape was rolling in atmosphere.
For a moment, I saw the outline clearly.
A ship.
A large one.
Its engines were dark.
One side of the vessel glowed red from atmospheric heating. It was falling.
The ship crossed the sky slowly from our perspective, trailing a black wound through the clouds.
Several smaller objects followed it.
I stood and watched the burning ship fall toward the horizon. It disappeared behind the mountains.
Several seconds passed.
Then—
A white flash illuminated the clouds.
The ground trembled. A deep impact rolled across Verdara several seconds later.
I looked back toward the sky.
Hundreds of ships were still there.
But one had just fallen.
For two days, those vessels had sat beyond anything on Verdara's surface.
Untouched.
They controlled orbit.
Nothing down here had mattered to them.
Something had changed.
I remained there long after the impact.
The clones returned their attention to the forest.
The B1s continued scanning the horizon.
The sun disappeared between the mountains...