Character: Adventures of NPC Greycloak "Iron-Borne"
Location: Battle for the Citadel of the Dawn, Chassing Ludolf Vaas and his retreating troopers
Objective: Keep on hunt after the stormtroopers retreating into the mountains
Allies: [member="Siobhan Kerrigan"], [member="Tempest"], [member="Aeron Kreelan"], [member="Nima Tann"], [member="Michael Sardun"],
Enemies: [member="Ludolf Vaas"]
Forces: 1
Greycloak, clad in
Protectorate Power Armor, and
chameleon cloaks, armed with
Magnetic Revolvers, heavy
Magnetic Repeater, generic blue-crystal lightsabers, and
Spear of Rae.
5
Mobile Weapon Platform Spider Droids, Light Models, all armed with
MD-1 mass drivers directly under his command
The droid that fired at shots with its sniper rifle, one of the Greycloaks named "IronBorne", watched in satisfaction as Vaas ducked behind cover,
krhk-kch
It pulled on the lever by the rifle's trigger and cocked it back in place, causing its chamber to whirr,
whmmr,
As it reloaded, putting more pellets into its revolving chamber to prepare it for another burst. The droid's scanners and trackers had enough time watching through the scope to have a better look at Ludolf before the machine fired at him, he glanced to his brother-copy,
"
My scan tells me that is their current Supreme Commander."
The other Greycloak only glanced back briefly as currently it was busy with its lightsaber activated, swiveling blue blade here and there, making quick accurate motions of Soresu to swat aside any blaster bolts that would dare to come close to Siobhan with deadly accuracy, sending them either safely out into the sky or ground, or back at the trooper that fired them,"
"
Your scan is not wrong."
The machine confirmed what it checked as well with its scanners and database, motioning out with its head towards Ludolf,
"
Track him, I got this handled."
The Greycloak nodded to its copy,
"
May the Force be with you."
The other droid rotated his lightsaber, smoothly capturing and reflecting a continuous stream of blaster bolts from a repeater before jolting its hand away to recover it from the impact,
"
And also with you, go with Machine God's glory."
And so the droid took off into the battlefield, running as fast as only a droid could, his grey cloak flapping against the wind, the repeater sniper shattergun held tightly in his left hand, other armaments clinking softly as it moved in its older Protectorate Power armor, mud, snow straying from the blizzard, and blood of friends and enemies alike staining it and muddling together into a gruesome painting of war as it caked and covered the suit's pristine nature and previous insignia of his homeworld and the GA.
it was like the world itself exploded around the droid, there was the usual rain of fiery death that were plasma bolts fired by both sides, his trackers were the only reason why he was not hit by a stray shot just yet, able to see their trajectory and calculate a path to evade them. Occasional slugthrower whizzed by as well, nothing the Greycloak couldn't handle, and then there were the higher caliber weapons being used on the field.
Artillery shots exploded around the already battered field, whether they came from one of his allied groups or another Sabercat walker the machine could not tell anymore, and neither did he care. His only objective, his goal, was to survive the battle and help the GA hold this world so that Kaeshana could remain in the hands of the Eldorai and rebuilt by the Tygaran Alliance. At least that was his perception of it, he left propaganda slinging to propaganda slingers.
One of the stormtroopers retreating turned around on heel, hearing the machine's footsteps and raised his blaster rifle, in quick, practiced movement the Greycloak pulled out his magnetic revolver from his holster, aiming at the trooper from the hip and squeezing the trigger twice.
Khrak-khrak!
There was the noise of his armor shattering as the stormtrooper was struck by the hyper-velocity pellet in his chest, shattering his armor plate and caving it inwards from the impact, and just below his neck, as he flew back from the impact. The revolving chamber of the pistol turned with a soft whirr as it reloaded and it was pushed back into the droid's holster.
It was then that the bombing run came from the FO, their bombers swooping in to deliver their payload, some succeeding as the explosives struck the ground, eliciting out screams from both GA soldiers and the unfortunate Stormtroopers caught within carpet bombing, others were shot down by the X-Wing, Y-Wing, and Whatever Else-Wing the Alliance put into the skies, the air superiority craft soaring overhead with the scream of the jets following it, the AA emplacement had their way with enemy craft as well. But even when shot down, the bombers would plummet into the ground wildly, impacting into the ruins, the mountains, the unfortunate GA ranks, and the retreating Stormtrooper lines, it was not really something one could control, it was all up to random chance and the Force, and with impact came the explosion of the payload they carried aboard before delivering it.
Either way! The point is that there were a lot of explosions all around that touched both sides. One bomb was on a trajectory to struck very close to the sprinting droid, so he dashed to the side, slipping into a nearby duracrete ruin as a rain of mud and shrapnel came over them along with the fiery tongs and loud crashing
BOOM of the detonation.
Within the ruins the droid saw somewhat safe remains of a hallway that ran parallel to the retreating stormtroopers, their movements seen through the blasted-out window frames.
Suddenly there was a movement next to him, he jolted to the side, turning, his hand on the gun as he looked down. There laid a stormtrooper, his legs trapped under a stone pillar, either forgotten or left behind on purpose he lashed out towards the droid, perhaps he still tried to fight, perhaps he begged for help.
The Greycloak had no time for it as he pulled his hand back and launched it forward with a loud
CRAACK of the man's visor, damaging his helmet. It was probably not enough to kill the soldier, but it was enough to knock him back out.
The machine was about to move on on his quest when he stopped and calculated. With a mechanical grumble the Greycloak turned around, his hands reaching to the stone pillar that trapped the unconscious stormtrooper's legs and heaving it off of him, freeing the soldier. If the man was lucky to survive this long, perhaps he would be lucky to be found by his team or a medic. Either way, he would get no more help from the droid as HK took off.
Finally the droid saw Ludolf once more as the man in the chaotic battlefield. The machine quickly put his rifle up, taking aim with the shattergun as Ludolf jolted to the side, hiding behind a boulder, the droid cursed, the angle was all wrong. He looked up, there was a remains of a second floor above him, another window to take a shot out of. Problem was, there was no floor. The Greycloak dashed over to the nearby wall, metal claws extending out from his hands and feet, the rifle was slung over his shoulder. He pounced on the duracrete wall, digging in the talons, the claws, as he climbed higher and higher. He finally got to that window, anchoring himself between the two walls in a corner, claws digging in nice and deep. He slung the rifle off of his back and put it against the window sill, aiming once more.
This time the shot was clearer, and Ludolf was seemingly just standing there behind the rock, reloading his gun. Little did he knew Ludolf was having some sort of vision or a flashback. The droid took the aim, steadied himself and pulled the trigger.
The pellet cut the air as it launched from the barrel, it all looked so beautiful, the trajectory was perfect, the curvature just right, it headed right for Ludolf's throat. But then just before it hit its mark, a stormtrooper ran right into it.
Khrak!
"
Ooooooh!"
The trooper fell to the ground as the high velocity pellet hit him right in the groin, collapsing inwards from the impact and sending the shards of his armor into him,
"
Oh no."
The droid said softly as he pulled his photoreceptor away from the computerized scope to watch the stormtrooper writhe on the ground, hands between legs,
"
That may be a war crime."
It was pretty clear that the machine accidentally blew certain bits off of an enemy combatant while trying to get Ludolf. Who, he just noticed, was on the move again.
"
Oh feth you, Force!"
The Greycloak muttered annoyed as its claws within the feet retracted and it slid down to the floor before dashing out into that hell to get back on the hunt.
The rest of it looked pretty similar, the HK droid trying to stalk Ludolf and assassinate him only to get there just a second too late, narrowly miss, or hit another one of his troopers by accident instead of him, all of it apparently more or less unnoticed in the chaos of modern galactic warfare.
It would have all been pretty comical if it didn't include so much death and destruction.
Finally there came a moment when Ludolf decided to board and commandeer a Firemane tank, out in the distance the Greycloak just dropped to its position behind cover of some stone and rubble, its chameleon cloak wrapped around him and the camouflaging mechanisms engaged to render the droid more or less invisible to the troopers in vicinity.
"
FO Supreme Commander spotted commandeering a Firemane tank, I repeat he is in one of our tanks, requesting anti-armor support on the following coordinates."
He sent out a transmission to their other allied forces.
Thankfully Abregado landed some anti-armor spider droids who took part in taking down Ludolf's Sabercat AT-AT, now that the beast was downed, little did they knew two more were just around the corner, the skittering mobile anti-tank cannons were picking new targets, a stray tank or artillery weapon that got too close, blowing open enemy barricades so their forces could move in, bombarding enemy ranks for crowd control, the usual.
When they received the coordinates for anti-armor strike called against Ludolf and his makeshift crew they skittered in the direction, it seemed that in the chaos of the war, and since they have not done much and kept to the cover ruins provided, they went more or less ignored so far by the enemy forces, so the full complement of five light droids were available to answer the call.
However, it would take them some time to move to the called position, so it was by the time when Ludolf would finally figure out how to steer the vehicle that the first 2-3 shots from the mass drivers equipped on the spider droid mobile weapon platforms would be sent towards him, with somewhat moderate accuracy, perhaps hitting next to him, or the outer armor at an awkward angle, or perhaps they got lucky in their mobile bombardment and they would hit the tank well enough to damage it from the get-go.
Either way, Ludolf had to think on the spot to either counter the droids, get out, or have all five of them begin firing the harsh hyper-velocity anti-armor salvos at him from their mass drivers.
