Even though I logically knew I couldn't be seen, especially with the sky as my backdrop hiding my visual distortion, I couldn't help but feel nervous as I slowly flew over the base and the troopers below. I watched as dozens and dozens of squads walked about on patrol, mechanics worked at maintaining various machines, droids of all kinds moved about doing various jobs, and even walkers patrolled the perimeter, stomping about on their heavy metal feet.
I took special care that I avoided any floating probe droids that were flying about as roving cameras, thankfully I was out of reach of most of them as they kept closer to the ground.
So far, it seemed like I hadn't tripped any security sensors or anything–which was a relief, and I planned to make use of that as the fuel pods came closer and closer into view.
Eventually, I reached my destination, with none the wiser. I quickly went about my task of planting the proton grenades in various hard to reach and see locations around the fuel storage structures. The grenades became visible when they left the safety of my stealth field, thankfully not disrupting it in the process if moved slowly enough, but when you hid them high up, under support beams, and other out of the way locations, they might as well be invisible to most people as they walked about beneath doing their various duties without any idea about what was being done.
After all, rare was the person that looked up.
There were at least a dozen fuel pods, massive spheres holding tons of highly refined fuel of some type or another, and I made sure each one had at least three proton grenades attached to them to make sure they all went up like fireworks. Only, you know, with the force of likely a tactical missile at least, if not more.
With that done, I found a corner and contacted the rest of my team.
"Giftgiver here, reporting that the presents are in position," I stated, smiling a bit at the codename I gave for myself earlier. "I also found something here that should add to the chaos too if I use it right."
"This is Rowv, explosives set," Rowv answered, totally forgoing code words and finding her own codename, Sharp, less funny.
We were on a secure channel so it was no big deal, but there was nothing wrong getting into the spirit of things.
"Roger that, we are in position and are ready to infiltrate the senator's residence," Hunter answered us both. "Get to a safe position and get ready to activate our little surprise on my signal once you do."
"Got it, heading to a safe position now," I stated as I lowered myself to the ground and brought up SFO while switching the comms channel to just Rowv. "Sharp, head towards the airfield and secure our exit out of here once things get hot. I'll come to you after I've done everything I can to give the Imperials a black eye."
"It will be done, captain," Rowv said. "And I wish you luck in bringing them much more than a black eye."
"I will try my best," I nodded to myself as I ended the call and I started sneakily floating my way a safe distance away from fuel pods and closer to airfield, idly taking the time to plant newly bought proton grenades on top of various Imperial vehicles as I did so, knowing that while they would likely be discovered with a casual glance, it would be too late for the Imperials to react to it.
Eventually, I found a safe distance away from the fuel pods and took cover behind a solid looking structure, a supply warehouse of some kind, and settled down.
"Giftgiver reporting in, in a safe position and ready to deliver the goods," I radioed in.
"Rowv here, an exfiltration vehicle has been secured for use and ready for what comes next," Rowv answered, all business–a predatory growl at the edge of her voice.
"I hear you, and we are nearly ready ourselves," Hunter reported. "On my mark…"
We waited in silence for a minute or so, before Hunter suddenly spoke up again.
"Mark!"
"Cover your ears, Sharp," I warned Rowv as I took my own advice and muted the microphones in my helmet, hunkered down, and after a small pause… pressed down on the detonator.
It felt like the whole world shook.
While the sound was muted, thanks to my helmet, nothing could mute the ground shaking like crazy and the feeling of the blastwave hitting the building I was hiding behind, shaking it a great deal as well. Nor could I miss the flash of light nor the wave of heat, even as I looked away and was covered from it. The pressure wave rumbled through my lungs, and my armour was pelted with a brief rain of duracrete pieces.
Oh, and I can't forget the huge pieces of giant flaming metal and other debris that flew through the sky above me… along with more than a few blackened bits of formerly white plasteel armor.
I made an active effort to not pay too close attention to that last part.
It only lasted a few moments at most, but as the shaking stopped and the flash of light died down I finally took the opportunity to take a look at my handwork. And as I peered around the warehouse, I saw hell.
Nearly the entire section of the base near the fuel pods were just gone, reduced to nothing but a blackened crater occasionally broken up by the burned out and wrecked corpses of various tanks and skeletons of smaller structures. Sporadic fires littered the whole area, burning up whatever was left that they could cling to–which was more often than not–the blackened bodies of the troopers that littered the whole area from wherever they were thrown from if they weren't vaporized outright.
They were the lucky ones too… since it was with a great deal of dread that, after I had unmuted my helmet's microphones, I could hear moaning of men torn apart, and the screaming of the maimed coming from this hellcape of my own making.
Once pristine white armor, now scorched totally black, occasionally twitched as broken bodies lay shattered by the force of the titanic blast… What substance had been stored in those fuel cells?
I can't imagine the sight was any better where the armory was located either.
The alarm was going off for the whole base as troopers from other parts of it were rushing to the scene, with a number of them being medics and firefighters rushing to limit the damage and save who they could. Sadly, they would likely find most of their efforts in vain, especially with my next actions.
I couldn't dwell on what I did to what were basically mind controlled child-soldiers, only do the best I could to help the Bad Batch complete their own part of the mission as best I could.
"Well, that certainly did something," Hunter radioed in. "We could hear that all the way from here."
"Ahhhh, I can't believe I missed it!" Wrecker complained.
"Regardless, it worked. There is now a city-wide alert over the Empire's comms channels about the attack and ordering all available units to redirect towards your location, even from those guarding the senator," Tech added. "There won't be a better time than this to extract him before the Imperials take notice."
"You heard him, 99s, let's move!" Hunter ordered before addressing me. "Stay on site and do what you can to add to chaos until we have extracted the senator."
"Will do," I stated as I brought up SFO and started buying a number of my secret weapons.
I had more than just proton grenades at my disposal, after all. However, as effective as they could be, I was not looking forward to using them.
The pistoeka sabotage droid, or more commonly known as the buzz droid, wasn't the biggest or strongest droid that the CIS used against the Republic, but it was one the GAR learned to fear either way due to just how quickly a group of said droids could reduce whole fighters and even tanks to scrap if one didn't take care of them fast enough.
And the less said of what they could do to an organic body, the better.
They were also dirt cheap, at each one being priced at only 50 credits each factory new, and goodness knows I wasn't buying them new. Originally made by their creators, the colicoids, as repair droids, they had reprogrammed them during the war to use their knowledge and tools break instead of fix, and gave them a vicious personality to match their own, like most of their products.
Heck, I knew for a fact that even now there were millions of unused units back on their homeworld now, so who was gonna question a couple more attacking an Empire base on the CIS's former capital world?
Add on each one carrying a proton grenade? Oh yeah, they were going to be well worth the cost.
"Go out there and go nuts," I told each one I bought, gave them an activated grenade, and sent on their way, each one either rolling in their compact form and crawling at high speed into the ruins.
The screams and blaster fire started not long afterwards.
"What the-AGH!"
"Buzz droids incom-AHHHH!"
"Reinforcemnts! We need reinforce-BOOM!"
Yeah, the buzz droids weren't dangerous on their own, but unleashed in a swarm on a disorganized and reeling foe? They made for the great terror weapons, to say nothing about how each one–even if destroyed–would erupt into a fireball once the grenades went off, usually among groups of clones at a time or even diving into any working vehicles coming by as they naturally scrambled towards them in an effort to break them apart.
I think the worst part was that from the clones' perspective the things were coming out of nowhere, especially as I silently floated around and changed positions after each wave of buzz droids sent out.
It was eating through my account bit by bit, but I had enough to spare given how cheap the droids and grenades were. Still though, I made a promise to myself to go on a few jobs after this to make up for the loss, even if the togorian swords sold well.
Anyway, I kept this up at least for a few minutes, making my way backwards as more and more reinforcements came in and the clones became more organized and mounting a proper defense. At this rate I wouldn't have many cheap options to break up their cohesion.
Thankfully, Hunter radioing in saved me from thinking about using more expensive options.
"We got the senator and are making our way out of the city," Hunter informed me. "Whatever else you are doing, the streets are practically deserted."
"Alerts going out about droids attacking the base will certainly do that, I imagine," Tech commented. "Which makes me curious how you pulled that off."
"Let's just say I found a pleasant surprise over here and I'm making use of it," I said ominously. "In fact, I got about one more left to help cover our own exit. Get back to your ship and we'll meet back up on Ord Mantell later. Stay safe."
"You as well, see you later," Hunter said as he ended the call and I looked over on SFO for my parting gift.
Hmm, I didn't want something too expensive, but durable enough to last and make an impression… oh hell, go big or go home, right?
I made my purchase, 25k in credits and getting me close to my 50k account floor, stepped back for space, and manifested my calling card.
Before my very eyes a A-DSD spider droid appeared in all its horribly armed and armored glory, standing at least twice my size and over 4 times wide. I quickly activated it and watched as its legs unfolded and its heavy blaster cannon powered up as its red optical cluster in the center of its chest unveiled itself and looked right at me, which was still a scary experience despite logically knowing this thing was under my control.
It was time to unleash the enemy that traumatized me so much during the Republic Commandos game on my enemies.
"Attack the Empire!" I ordered and pointed towards where the clones were concentrating themself.
The spider droid merely let out a deep beeping sound and slowly lumbered towards them, quickly coming into sight and letting lose its blaster cannon and missiles on everything it could see, once more throwing the clones into confused chaos as the machine started chewing through them with no armored support on hand to assist them.
I didn't stick around to watch, however, instead making my way to where Rowv said she was.
Given the amount of distractions I had set loose at this point I figured speed mattered more than stealth and I dropped the stealth field to allow me to fly faster towards my destination, ordering a few more buzz droids I bought on the move to start chewing into the parked and unguarded starfighters around me, just to slow down any potential pursuers. All the while, I rushed towards Rowv's position.
She wasn't hard to find, I just had to follow the trail of bodies, some of them wearing technician uniforms. Of course, when I did arrive at the ship that Rowv had taken, a Y-Wing, it was to find that she was currently in a shootout with a squad of troopers.
Well, they were shooting, Rowv was practically dancing among them as she swung her swords around, the two she was using currently using separated into sharp pieces held together only by power couplingsbetween each link as she used them like whips. Whips that were sharp enough to slash through clone armor when it wasn't electrifying them and even somehow deflect blaster shots as she always spun at least one close in front of her like a shield.
The way she used them while she blocked or dodged blaster fire was like a deadly dance with snakes at the end of her arms, beautiful to watch as it was effective, as the number of dead clones around her would attest. Sadly, I could afford to stay and watch.
"Sick 'em!" I ordered what buzz droids that I had left, who ran straight at and onto the attacking clones while I opened fire at them with my CR-2 as I landed next to Rowr. "I thought you said this area was secure!"
"It was! Sadly, a squad on its way to the site of the explosions ran directly into me and I had to defend myself," she stated one of his whip-sword things reached out and literally disarmed a clone. "I had to make my stand to preserve our exit."
"Fair enough, but now we got to go!" I told her as I floated up the cockpit and opened it up, quickly starting the starfighter up. "Now!"
"Disapointing, but there will be future battles," Rowr declared as she deactivated her swords, the links of it quickly coming together again, sheathed them, and quickly climbed aboard and into the bubble turret.
Once did, she was quick to turn its ion cannon on the clones, to devastating effect.
Those things may have been made to each against droids and ships, but the highly charged weapons could still cook organics just as well.
"We're out of here!" I said as the cockpit closed and I quickly gunned the controls on the Y-Wing to get us airborne.
As I did so, I noticed that my spider droid was still going strong, if heavily damaged. And there was an AT-TE stomping up close… Oh why not, I had a full payload according to my display, after all.
I dived a little, and on our way out of the base I unleashed two proton bombs on the walker, making it go up in a fireball behind us as we quickly left the base.
"Wooo! I always wanted to do that!" I cheered.
"Well done, Nick! A fine kill!" Rowv agreed with me. "A shame we cannot remain and finish this fight, but we have proven ourselves to be worthy foes this day!"
"No doubt, especially once they figured out we spirited away the senator," I said as I quickly directed the ship through the atmosphere and away from the planet. "Sadly, when we stole this thing we didn't already have an astromech in it, so it's gonna take a minute or so to input the hyperspace coordinates before we can make a jump. Doesn't look like anyone is following us so far, must be too busy figuring out what the heck just happened, but keep your eyes peeled for any fighters that might-"
All of a sudden the starfighter shook violently and alerts started going off on the main console.
"Nick, what is happening?! The right engine is on fire!" Rowv yelled out, and looking out the cockpit window confirmed her words.
"Ahhh, shit!" I exclaimed as I went over the alerts. "Okay, good news is we aren't about to explode. Bad news is that either this thing was in for repairs that never got done or that shootout must have hit something important cause the right engine is failing fast. We won't be able to make the jump to hyperspace without it. I think I can fix it, but we are gonna need to land someplace nearby to do it."
"And where can we land?" Rowv asked curiously. "It is too dangerous to return to Raxus."
"Raxus Secundus, yes…" I stated as I recalled what we had gone over in the briefings with the Bad Batch on the way from Ord Mantell about this area of space, and an option came to mind. "But it's not the only planet we can land on in the system. Just give me a minute."
I activated the comms channel and reached out to Hunter, thankfully making a connection.
"Nick, is everything alright?" Hunter asked in a worried tone.
"We're fine, but I'm gonna have to take our bird down somewhere to fix up before we leave the system," I informed him as I adjusted our heading.
"Tell us where you are and we can pick you up," Hunter offered.
"No, no doubt the Imperials are gonna be scouring the whole system for the senator once they learn about him disappearing, so you guys get out of here and get him safe," I refused. "We should be alright and be able to hide away from prying eyes where we are going."
"Alright, if you say so…" Hunter said in an uncertain tone. "Just get back alive."
"That's the plan! See you guys soon," I said before turning off the comms and addressing Rowv. "Rowv, keep your mask on tight, cause we are about to head towards someplace with much worse air quality than where we just were."
"Where are we landing?" Rowv asked curiously as we could already see our rust colored destination in the distance due to how quickly our sublight engines were moving us inside the solar system.
"We're heading to Raxus Prime, the place where all droids go to die," I stated ominously.
And where a certain future mad Jedi might be hiding.