Wearing: Nothing.
Armed with: Herself,
DC-15A
Came to party in:
House Io A-Wing
Came to Panatha with:
Sarka Class Frigate (3)
Classic TIE Hunter (150) (Piloted by House Io B1 Droids)
Earlier...
Lyssa waited outside the Panathan system, aboard a Sarka-Class Frigate. One of 3 about to launch, one headed for Panatha's surface with most of their extra equipment cleared out to fit more Epicanthix aboard it, while two were to Provide more close support for vessels already fleeing.
Lyssa had
hated being left out of the Tython engagement. She felt a sense of guilt, real guilt, for the first time in her life that she wasn't sure how to deal with.
it wasn't the same when she killed. She
knew she was deliberately taking someone's life, and she was programmed to enjoy killing the enemy on some level , like all Nuetralizers. But it was in not being there to fight alongside her family alongside her Mother, that stung.
Lyssa waited alone in her temp quarters, snuggled next to a photo of her pet rabbit, Consular. She had made sure to give him plenty of treats and hugs and kisses before she left called her Droid Boyfriend (A Magnaguard) and left a sample of herself behind in case the worst should come to pass. Arianna had persuaded Xiphos to bring four more ships and the defense necessary to help the evacuation on the EE side better. Arianna herself would be on the ground soon and Lyssa...
...Lyssa would be ripping and tearing, until it was done.
Lyssa couldn't
not go. It was what she was literally made to do.
The Signal soon came and the Nanite Assassin Droid, who had morphed her appearance to make it seem like she was wearing a silver catsuit, was heading to the hangar, genuinely wondering if she would survive. Her sense of self-mortality had developed the more she ended the lives of others. And while it
never made her hesitate, it made her reflect more after doing the deed.
Lyssa entered the hangar with the photo of her rabbit attached to the stock of her rifle for good luck. Lyssa herself still didn't fully understand the concept of luck other than mathematical probability resolving itself to one's benefit, but noticed Organics seemed to think physical totems encouraged such ungovernable forces to work in their favor. Lyssa was giving it a shot.
Her personal House-issued A-Wing, engineered to chase an enemy even underneath an ocean so there was almost nowhere they could not pursue a foe, waited. She had painted it in Eternal Empire colors as had the fighters and frigates that were going into battle to run interference for the evac efforts, only a single Squadron of each type would be going with her to Panatha itself. But she would do her best to kill as many as possible on the way there.
Lyssa had always noted most people, even fellow citizens, were wary of her. That was because Lyssa's design was so
alien in comparison to most other Droids, derived from an even
more alien design. As intelligent as her mother was even she couldn't truly replicate the works of Nine Lives. The best she had ever managed was a step beneath, resulting in her, composed of mechanical cells.
She had emotions, but they were strongest for her Mother, for almost everyone else, her emotions were at half strength. It wasn't that she
didn't or
couldn't understand Organics, it's just that she had difficulty on more than short term interactions. Her cells had been created for specific purposes, and while Mother had done her best to give her first daughter
some kind of a soul...
...the rest would be her problem to figure out. To fill in the gaps.
Lyssa wordlessly made note of how the Citizens kept far from her and it saddened her, but it was a muted sadness. She hopped into her A-Wing and the transmissions of her brothers settled her disquiet momentarily.
"Brothers..." Lyssa said in her ultra-creepy serene tone. "Glorious battle awaits. Let us reap lamentation from the worshippers of the three Avatars."
"The enemy will taste extreme death until they die from it!" The Mercenary B1's declared. Their love of killing was equaled or surpassed only by their love of getting paid while doing it.
"Damn right." she whispered.
The Frigates jumped and arrived at the very edge of the system.
It was hell. The Maw had come in with a massive fleet at literally
The same time.
Lyssa started swearing.
"Commence operation immediately!" Lyssa ordered over encrypted comms.
All fighters launched into a hellzone and Lyssa gunned it, her A-Wing unleashing a
blistering torrent of rapid laser cannon fire that saturated the area in front of it, catching a Maw Starfighter and heavily damaging it, sending it careening into the planet below. The House Io Mercenary Droids maintained tight formations , breaking off in squadrons of ten each.
The Captain's on the Sarka Frigates sent
Mykel Fellheart
as well as
Trinity Harris
their EE transponder codes that identified them as "friendly" (Though the codes said nothing of their rank or unit, or which admiral they were under the command of--this was common when House Io operated in EE battles anonymously. They had the transponder codes, but never any other visible identification)
They requested permission to reinforce their respective efforts with their own fighters to defend evac ships, even as the Sarka frigates fired on targets of opportunity. The one heading to the surface was heading to House Io's own evacuation site to get as many refugees as possible, and Lyssa was heading to the surface with it along with a squadron of her own, and they were violently blasting their way to Panatha's atmosphere.
"How much pain do you think they experience?" the Droid Autopilot of her A-Wing asked suddenly. "I hope it's a great deal, like they might have a half second to process that their flesh is getting burnt--"
"Oh, right, they put a brain in this thing..." Lyssa remarked.
"Oh c'mon, there's no
way you forgot. Not with your memory database."
"Illogical as it will sound, part of me was hoping
you had forgotten.*" Lyssa answered bluntly but without malice in her voice.
"Oooo, Oooo! There's one! There's one! Kill
that motherfether!" The Droid Autopilot suggested as her sensors brought an enemy maw fighter at range.
Lyssa sighed. "As you wish..."
She chased the fighter down, even as she started to notice that debris was falling to the planet. The Sarka Frigate heading toward the planet used its point defense guns to auto target some of the smaller bits of debris as it approached the atmosphere, taking fire already.
The Maw Pilot zipped through the dog fights of others, her digital mind and enhanced reflexes rapidly keeping pace with his every move, spraying massive amounts of bolts in his direction to try and down him. But he wasn't a chump, barely evading her shots, retaliating by firing a missile that target locked and flew backward, away from her.
Lyssa tried firing at it, hoping the sheer amount of bolts her craft could release in a hot second might be enough, but it dodge the otherwise lethal spray.
"That's a brilliant missile, champ! Might wanna run!" her Autopilot chirped.
"I can't tell if you're giving me advice or being a smartass." Lyssa said in her creepy serene voice, even greatly annoyed as she was by being forced to turn tail and run.
"Can't it be
both?" her Autopilot answered.
"Yes, unfortunately." Lyssa replied dryly.
Lyssa weaved through space wreckage and it stubbornly chased her. She was not as proficient at starfighting as she was upclose and personal and she found herself strained trying to adjust her combat databases appropriately to the situation.
"Oooo! I got an idea!" The Autopilot chirped. "Hit the Slam function!"
Lyssa, praying that everything her mother claimed about these fighters was true, decided to follow its advice and hit the SLAM button and her fighter rocketed forward, momentarily escaping it. Lyssa immediately performed a cork-screw U-turn back toward the Missile.
"Use the interdiction drive on my mark!" The Autopilot exclaimed.
"You'd better be right about this..." Lyssa growled. "I do NOT want it said I died taking advice from a
troll."
"Less Talky Talky, More Shooty Shooty!"
Lyssa rolled her nanite eyes, giving a girlish swish of nanite hair.
"Whatever..." Lyssa said in a total mallrat from the 80's voice.
The Brilliant Missile approached and Lyssa tensed.
"NOWNOWNOW!" The Autopilot shouted.
Lyssa engaged the interdictiondrive just as the missile crossed into the twenty-eight meter radius of her interdiction drive's effectiveness and she fired, the missile not fast enough to evade in time--
The Missile exploded, and knocked her fighter away from the shockwave, the hull sustaining several gashes, emitting sparks. But a House Io A-Wing is not killed so easily. Unless its PVE. Then, it could totally get killed easily.
Lyssa struggled to right the craft, all electronics dead. The shields had
barely taken even the mildest part of the blast wave. Left engine malfunctioning, likely on the verge of shutdown.
Lyssa gripped the rudder stick fiercely as her life flashed before her databases.
There was the fun stuff. Getting her pet rabbit. Teaching that group of Protocol Droids to
bark just so she would smile sweetly at them. The first time she had hit on a Super Tactical Droid. That one incident at Canto Blight where she had shot that one motherfether at a card game when she found him cheating. Good times.
But it was the moments she was singing with her brothers as they annihilated their enemies with Class D Disruptors that brought some of the warmest feelings, other than the early times, when Mother was teaching her whatever she could think of.
Lyssa was old enough to remember when Syd Celsius, master of
Starlin Rand
had still be at Laertia's side. She remembered Syd as being very nice, and patient. Sweet, even. Lyssa had genuinely liked Syd. Upon learning who Syd
really was, Lyssa's flirting with the view of Syd as an estranged parent had ended with the vow to eviscerate her should they cross paths again.
And yet...in Syd's departure, Laertia had filled the Syd-shaped gap with the very same people who were the source of her misery.
This sent
very mixed messages from Lyssa's observation.
The Autopilot kicked in, reactivating the ship and righting it's spin just before it could reach the upper atmosphere.
"How you like me now?" The Autopilot asked eagerly.
"You have your uses..." Lyssa admitted, taking control of the craft.
"Don't let it go to your head. she added bluntly.
She and the other Squadron soon arrived escorting the emptied out frigate as it rushed to their own evac site and Lyssa saw that the forces at the space port were getting savagely hammered by the mawites at the edge of its perimeter, with allied Mandalorians barely holding out, though the sudden onset of the Zombie army The Battalion had sent their way was relieving some of the worst pressure spots slightly, forcing attacking Mawites to choose between trying to sack the evac site or stop the bloodthirsty zombies trying to to go 28 days later on them.
Lyssa angled the craft down and unleashed a devastating spray of fire on the Mawites below, shredding into their massed numbers before pulling up, diving again, and firing into their massed numbers again. The Nuetralizer TIE Bombers she had come with were ordered to have two split off from their number to continue to attack any mawite gatherings heading through streets leading to the space port, dropping energy bombs over targets. But debris rained down everywhere, setting the sky ablaze. She saw buildings get demolished in an instant, and felt a growing sense of actual horror as she realized it was the Mawite Force Users doing this.
"Stay in the area..." Lyssa order, flying, low over a building, reducing speed heavily for a moment than jumping out over a rooftop overlooking the space port with her DC-15A, spotting not two but
four House Corvettes heading to the space port, their unfamiliar design sporting an all black color save for the EE symbol on the bottom of the craft.
Lyssa gunned down Mawites from the roof top, enjoying the strong and pleasant kick of the Clone Trooper's best friend as she sent shot after shot from the roof, the shots puncturing makeshift armor of the low ranking hoardes. She broke into a run, leaping off the building as Thermal Detonators were hurled in her direction, the blasts almost single handedly destroying the building, sending debris everywhere from the contained fusion explosions from the Detonations.
Lyssa landed in an alley, switching to burst as she gunned down a squad that had been headed her way,
immediately shape shifting into one of the slain, and surprising the next squad by gunning them down also, morphing back to her prior appearance.
"Bring it." Lyssa serenely remarked.
She began moving down the street at high speed, sprinting past fire, getting behind cover as she got closer to the space port perimeter, gunning more mawities down.
Blaster fire at last ropes into her chest bug only "mercury" came out of the wounds as she returned fire, sprinting again and breaking down into a mercury puddle, splashing against and flowing into a drainage pipe, her Nanites pulling raw materials from the pipe itself as it moved along in order to effect repairs on damaged cells.
She flowed out of a drainage gutter, reforming behind a Mawite best that they had set up to try and pelt the forces of
Adenn Kyramud
.
She snapped the first Mawite's neck who had been maintaining the generator to the old E-Web they were using, then savagely punched in the face of the next mawite, the one who had actually been manning the E-Web, before grabbing it's controls and spraying into advancing Mawites, now not only fighting off a slowly worsening Zombie attack but getting murdered in droves by her E-Web fire.
A grenade landed in her nest.
The explosion blasted apart Lyssa completely, fat mercury droplets of damaged Nanites raining down on roofs, on burning vehicles, on corpses, but most falling near the crater.
The droplets
twitched in unison, each racing for the drainage ditch, going as deep into the sewer piping as it could. The Mawites would have pursued, and in fact did manage to destroy a few small puddles of Nanites completely, but the Zombies were quickly becoming a major issue, and not just because they were soaking up blaster fire that was better spent on Kyramud's forces.
The remaining Nanites traveled into another pipe system, flowing upward and out into a bathroom sink in a building directly next to the space port, forming into a quivering puddle too damaged to reform for the moment, eating away at the ground beneath it for raw materials to replicate fresh new Nanites to replace damaged ones, which would be broken down and recycled.
Okay... The Nanite being mused.
Perhaps I should play to my strengths...
Meanwhile...
Max had finally reached the under ground generator, limping all the way, having scavenged whatever he felt might help him fix the generator.
The Mercenary B1 had followed the route to the sewers and through them precisely but slowly. He got a ping from a comlink he had scavenged, set to House Frequency after he had modified it's internal circuits.
It was a burst transmission. Debris was raining all over the city.
Max hurried, and eventually he reached the chamber with the damaged Generator.
He looked around at the ancient epicanthan reliefs on the walls, detailing past battles. Max mused that they must have repurposed this chamber. The generator was at the center, glaringly modern to all the ancient around it... multilayer shield model. The Epicanthix had learned from the Mandalorian bombardment.
Max began scrounging the chamber for spare repair kits. The Generator definitely needed fixing. Artillery strikes had blasted through from above, compromising power regulation and the containment system, which appeared to be on the verge of failing.
He slowed down as he spotted a corpse in a familiar white Catsuit.
Brain Demon Witch. Had to be. But it didn't make sense. The Battalion was the only Witch that was supposed to be on Panatha. Unless this was a corpse from the previous invasion---The Brain Demon Cultists had been deployed alongside Organic Citizens and Medical Nuetralizers.
Max got closer to examine it. It was old. Moldy. Nullification Resin, probably. It was extremely poisonous to their dark side altered physiology.
He knelt down. Whatever had killed the damn thing had left it's Lightsaber, a Split-Saber variant. He picked it up and activated it, watching two red blades snake out of the emitters with a hiss, shut if off, and then got to work on the Generator. He spared no parts for himself, so utterly fixated on getting the Generator working.
Eventually, he was confident enough to turn it on, but he was not confident enough to say how long it would run. But he would try his absolute hardest to keep it running as long as he could.
A thick dome of energy appeared over "most" of the space port and some portion of the city in a kilometer wide radius. It caught the impact of some the larger bits of debris, sparing ships that had been only disarmed of their bombs minutes earlier by the frantic efforts of both Mandalorians and the House Io B1's, but because it had been malfunctioning, its strength fluctuated at random, letting some debris occasionally through.
The B1's not keen on shooting non violent fellow Droids, instead forcibly restrained and turned them off, greatly overpowering them. It became immediately apparent to every Organic that they were
not ordinary B1's at how efficiently they moved and worked in the bombs as they got to them, rapidly analyzing their circuitry and identifying anti-tampering mechanisms. The explosives maker had been thorough in some, so thorough the Droids were forced to declare the ships lost causes and immediately order the passengers out and to make a run for the House Io Corvettes, one of which fired it's Energy Torpedoes at the area where fighting between Kyramud's forces was at its fiercest, hopefully buying time for the Mandalorians as the Torpedoes caused a terrible explosion in the Maw lines that were descending on the space port like locusts...
Mig Gred
Tegan Starfall
