Laertia and the city defenders were battered. Viciously so. The sighting of the Clone Massassi had caused a severe blow to morale. But Laertia refused to give up. She had been forced into a position she was unfamiliar with, having to bark orders, shout and direct, all while battling her fear of public speaking in general due to her speach impediment. Her adrenaline was spiking badly and thrice she had nearly suffered a breakdown. She was barely keeping it together as she shored up defenses on destroyed battlements with dead bodies. They had minutes before the assault on them resumed. At the same time though...this was more of a challenge then she had had in ages. She was terrified of dying and leaving her bunnies and Moya behind, but at the same time...she was in her element.
She also could not
stand bullies.
Laertia clamped down on her fear. It would do no one any good. Besides, for all she knew, Moya and the bunnies were dead from the invasion, and if that were the case she might as well die here. That is, die trying to murder as many of the motherfethers who had killed them as she could. After all, the Demons killing the pet bunny was what had made it personal for The Doom Guy. Potentially ALL her bunnies were dead. As well as Moya possibly.
Laertia was going to go Ultra-Nightmare on these bastards.
They had gotten some guns on the city wall working in the Brief reprieve before
Mythos
arrived. It might buy some time. Emphasis on might. A lot of munitions had survived, and Laertia had dispatched sappers to choke points on the city streets as well as snipers on select roof tops once she had gotten eyes on the city plans. The timing had to be precise. She had ordered as many grenades brought to her personally as possible. When informed her plan would likely destroy over a quarter of the capital to at least heavily damage the advancing ground forces, Laertia, with a shudder, deployed their remaining explosives from the wall munitions storage as well as whatever they could harness from crashed starships, dead Massassi, and their own to try and destroy most if not all of the advancing ground forces coming in from what was left of the city, retreating from them while advancing on the Clone Massassi, who vastly outnumbered them. Rock and a hard place.
Laertia had no choice. What defenders they had could not hold the wall, nor repel firepower of the magnitude Mythos was bringing. At the very least, they would last longer in a fighting retreat up against the Clone Massassi. And they might just take a few of them with them.
A large satchel of thermal detonators hung from her shoulder. They had found two of the last true BFG's in the armories...a museum piece and crude by today's standards but still viciously effective. A Stouker Concussion Rifle. It was good for nine shots. The second was an even older museum piece--and SFOR Republic Carbine.
The Clone Massassi were advancing on them, and Laertia had a plan for them too, but much cruder. She was running on half remembered qualities of Ursula's leadership. She would have known what to do better than Laertia. She was for the clobberin', mostly.
Laertia was in a defensive bunker along the wall when she looked in surprise as a familiar face walked in. The Android was seemingly good as new, even the armor. Laertia realized it wasn't actually armor, just the biot's flesh simulating armor.
"Could you use a hand?" Westenra offered. "I learned about the plan. I want to help."
"Sevruhl..." Laertia joked darkly.
"Name it."
"Inn a feww mynytez, Duh Armyyz gunna marrch onn duh frunnt gatez. We needz tuh buyz enuff tyme fer ourr syde tuh maykes a fytinz ruhtreatz..." Laertia answered, struggling to get the words out as properly as she could. She hated her speech impediment. She would have traded her physical strength to be rid of it.
"Duh ruhtreatz stanndz a bettuh channce ov werkin iffs twooz ov uss buyyz az muchh tymez az possybul..."
"It would be an honor to die alongside you."
"I don'tz plannz onn dyinz iff I cannz hellpz ittz..." Laertia said quietly. "We arr gunna kyllz a tonz ov dhese basstardz..."
Westenra held up her silvery katana. "Just as well..."
The alert sounded over the announcement system.
"INCOMING! GODS, THEY'RE BLOTTING OUT THE SUN!"
Laertia rushed to a viewport, seeing hundreds of battle droids and special forces commandos with tanks, artillery, as well as multiple Sith, all advancing on the wall. The sappers had moved as quickly and as quietly as they could, carrying the most powerful explosives they could, some moving through sewers, planting them on fuel lines. Laertia knew she was sending them to their deaths...no way they would clear the blast. Multiple civilians would die. They might as well be dead if Mythos took over...
Laertia got out her comlink, praying everyone had reached their blasting points. They had them laying bombs among the fallen undead as well, in anticipation of their retreat.
"Holdz onn tuh sumthinz..."
Westenra slammed the sword into the floor and gripped it.
She thought about Atrisia's future, how her whole existence had been ripping and tearing, until it was done. Today, she was to rip and tear on a scale she had never before attempted. No way it would be done afterward.
She looked at the thousands of people she would be killing. She knew they had families. Children. She knew if she survived this, she would become a target for the Sith Empire. But she had always been someone's target...
She saw a man in armor, flying, the Dark with him, a legion of Yovshin below him. She wanted him to see this, too see how far one Jedi could be pushed to end a Sith, or his reign.
Even if it killed others. But they always forced them into that...
"Exxuhkutez..."
Evacuation from the wall began with as much promptness as they could bring under such harrowing circumstances. Soldiers on the battlements firing rockets at the closest combat shuttles and fighters, hitting them. They were staying too. Dying too.
But it was the blast, the gigantic blast that made Laertia genuinely wonder what the hell she was.
Most of them had gotten to key points. Specific buildings that toppled on their side, cutting off the ability of troops and ground vehicles to move forward. These were among the first blasts and served as the warm up.
The secondary blast took care of what thousands of tons of building material killing people and crushing droids as the buildings around them fell, taking their sappers with them. The makeshift baridium and tibanna cannister charges, munitions from fallen shuttles and corpses, placed under sewers, fuel lines, corpses on the street, all went off, causing a catastrophic reaction that took out multiple city blocks killing thousands of Mythos's soldiers, many of whom died flaying about in burning agony, taking out thousands of combat droids as well. Cluster munitions caused yet more buildings to fall on the advancing troops, shattering their ability to move forward. Much of the ammunition in the tanks went off as well, causing vast tertiary explosions as well.
Half the capital was completely destroyed by this one act. Laertia felt the death in the Force and closed herself away from it as she ran, ran to the side of the wall facing the city, Westenra following her as rockets from the battlements and teleported down into the street wreckage, opening fire with the stouker amidst the massive flames, the still massive number of able bodied survivors charged and fired by the hundreds, rockets still firing from the battlements on the wall, downing as many starfighters as they could to cover the retreat of the wall defenders, while Laertia and Westenra charged into the street, wading through corpses and destroyed vehicles to empty the rifle into clusters of enemies, a purple explosion from each shot instagibbing whole groups of them, making them scatter until she ran out of ammo for it, tossed it aside and drew the carbine, the destructive wave chewing through anyone too dumb to stand in its way before that too was empty. A grenade went off close by, flinging her and making her horribly relive the day of her brain damage for a few seconds as she hit the ground, activating her lightsaber on instinct to block an enraged strike from a half wounded Sith, before Westenra impaled him through the head.
"Lights out, motherfether..." Westenra muttered, helping her up. They were soon in a running retreat as the hundreds of survivors started to converge, allowing with a surprisingly high number of traitorous Yovshin who survived. Westenra and Laertia killed many of them in retreating sword duels, before Laertia yanked her behind cover, holding her.
"Trusst mee."
Westenra did not object to such a delightfully savvy warrior holding her and merely nodded as the fire pelted their cover. Surviving tanks began to advance, and they teleported four hundred meters away, close to the shuttle where they had first called in the air strike. It hurt everywhere, but Laertia refused to show pain or surrender. She reached into the fallen shuttle, retrieving the ammo for the Z-6 the wall defenders advancing towards the Clone Massassi had left for her in their retreat, as well as a remote detonator.
The survivors from their previous stunt had completely destroyed the towers firing the rockets, but Laertia had one or two tricks left. She triggered the mass of det charges she had soldiers leave near the corpses of the Massassi undead as the survivors from the ambush crossed over them. The blast ripped through already damaged ranks, sending them finally into complete disarray, even though they still pursued with the hungry intent of all out slaughter and revenge.
"Go..." Laertia ordered. "Helpz outz againnst duh clonez..."
"My name is Westenra..." The Android uttered. "What is yours?"
"Julia..." Laertia answered.
Westenra said nothing more but took off running.
Laertia, in the meanwhile, unloaded her Z-6 on the hundreds of still remaining survivors of Mythos army, who shot back haphazardly, only to be mowed down half a second later.
Blaster fire pelted her position, forcing her behind cover as she continued firing. She hoped she was making Ursula proud of her...
A Sith Starfighter streaked towards her position, firing its lasers and missiles. Only the fact the systems were not designed to target humans saved her, and Laertia openedup on the missiles, detonating them early and catching the starfighter, which crashed to the ground, smearing many survivors of the Sith Army into paste through the no man's land before grinding to a halt in front of her, its pilot burned alive, but she could sense its power systems barely functional.
Laertia fired and fired, until her Z-6 once again ran dry, screaming a war cry tossing it aside, using telekinesis to lift the fighter up, tapping into its controls with her mind.
Only one cannon fired, but it fired rapidly, cutting into Sith combat shuttles in the air, as well as a few other starfighters, before turning its rapidly overheating weapon on enemy ground forces, She sprayed the survivors of the army from the streets, then dropped the fighter, running as its core overheated.
The blast sent shrapnel everywhere, and she only survived because she accidentally fell into a trench at the last second. The thermals were still intact and Laertia broke into a run to catch up to the other survivors, evading artillery and rocket fire from the Sith and Clone Massassi, bleeding badly, her armor barely healing the damage. They were already engaging the clone Massassi, the defenders, and Laertia saw the makeshift battlements these far more trained fighters had. She got behind a crashed fighter with other Atrisian soldiers. "We're pinned down!" They yelled at her.
Shaking, now truly on her last reserves, Laertia set the timers on the detonators, and with all her might she screamed as she focused, the bag of grenades fading in an out until it appeared in the thickest cluster of Clone Massassi.
Another blast shook the whole area, tearing a fault in the ground open as the earth shook violently for everyone on the ground.
But the rumbling did not stop. It instead grew greater. Laertia watched in shocks as the ground opened up in some places, catching Massassi off guard, still disoriented by the blast or burning from the couple of plasma grenades she had thrown in their. A great mushroom cloud could be seen followed by clouds of dust being thrown up high in the sky. Laertia's face plate had been half torn off, rendering her targeting systems useless, as well as damaging her cybernetic eye, Her cyborg hand barely functioned and her body felt like it could give up at any instant. But Laertia refused to collapse, not while these people she fought and bled alongside counted on her.
"CHAAAAAAAAARRRRGE!" she roared, running for the disoriented ranks of the clones, others among the heavily wounded defenders driven to keep fighting, thinking of their futures the whole way.
Laertia's lightsaber activated into the first clone she saw, and the hundreds of city defenders formed behind her as she pushed through the clones with renewed, animal brutality born of desperation.
Junko Ike
Wyatt Morga
Aaran Tafo
