[member="Lord Mettallum"], @ML-22 "Tas",
The Sith Outpost,
The Sith Outpost jutted out of the ground like blood stained teeth, protruding out from the snow and rock covered barren mountainous expanse it was seemingly carved into by Eclipse's native civilization with rust and crimson colored architecture. The main structure of it straddled a peak of a nearby especially rocky hill, with windows and parapets decorating the obviously thick well armored walls, further adorned with various gun barrels belonging to the ready defenders within or armored turbolaser turrets and other weapon emplacements prepared just for the occasion. Surrounding the main outpost fort was a collection of smaller towers above hilltops to act as lookouts and extension of covering fire from the structure, other than that the plane of battle was somewhat featureless. There were boulders and scarce rock formations, like the one Mettallum and some of his soldiers were able to hide behind, but the land was unnaturally devoid of plant life, no trees or stumps, not even grass underneath the thin layer of snow they could witness. Part of it was to make the approach towards the fortress that much deadlier, with nothing growing and rock formations sometimes even broken down, cover was rare, leaving any attackers exposed as they charged at the defenses, other part of it was the corruption of the dark side that came from such concentration of Sith Knights and other dark siders, seeping into the ground and chocking out any chance at life in the area of their main settlement on the planet.
The current attack that Mettallum and other landing troops were sustaining was from, well pretty much everything, but the nearby lookout towers and the large armored face of the fortress they were facing was especially pounding them hard and merciless. Mettallum's order for a bomber strike did not went unnoticed, of course, as soon enough the noise of approaching engines buzzed out through the air and a squadron of
Alpha Dragon Droid Fighters swooped in through the grey cloud cover, unleashing a salvo of proton bombs before breaking off and pulling up into the sky as the fortress counter-attacked and flak fire was turned towards them. The proton bombs soared through the sky, hitting the side of one of the nearby lookout towers in bright series of explosions and catastrophic booms, causing the whole structure to immediately creak and shudder, shriek terribly as the whole tower leaned in to one side and broke apart, begun to toppling towards the fortress. Immediately some of the closest guns Mettallum had to face would be silenced and various screams from the soldiers inside erupted out as the tower hit the ground hard and with almighty crashing noise pieces of it were sent flying through the snow, mingling with a cloud of dust, further explosions as munitions ignited from inside, and a cacophony of screams from the dying and wounded.
The tower's fall would not impact the main fort directly, but it would provide the much needed cover Mettallum and his soldiers needed in their approach towards the outpost's gates. For while the troops HK sent to help out Mettallum were unloading large shields and their mobile barricades they could use for cover and to set up a landing zone, they would not beat the large fragments of architecture that now littered the approach towards the fort, not to mention the cloud of dust that rose up as cover.
While the Sith defenders would fire blindly towards the droid position through the dust there was chance to move in and cut the distance, but they would have to move as dust begun to settle down already, and through it the machines would see various groaning and moving figures among the rubble, some more vigorous then others. They were the Sith survivors of the crumbled tower.
Meanwhile as Tas answered Mettallum's call to action, he would be able to hear the whoosh of engines, the explosion and terrible crash of a lookout tower, and see the bombers pull up in the sky, among a rain of turbo laser and flak exploding around them, one of them was actually wounded, an explosion too close for comfort taking out one of the droid starfighter's engines, causing it to be skewered and pulled down, circling uncontrollably with a thick tail of black smoke following it until it moved further and further away from the fortress, crashing somewhere in the snowy desolate plane with another explosion.
Tas would also be able to see that one of the towers crumbled down, but there were still others in the area, not to mention turbolaser and other turret emplacements built into the fort itself, giving him still plenty of targets to choose from and get engaged.
It wouldn't take too long for HK to respond to Mettallum after receiving his transmission,
"
Ah, chit,"
The older droid begun,
"
That is Vong-tech, the Flesh-Shapers, they were allies of the One Sith during their reign over the Core but I hoped they pissed off into Deep Space by now. They do not like me in particular, I may have made them look like fools a few times and accidentally massacred their army within couple minutes after their landing. They do not have kidneys or livers by the way, so be careful with using knockout gas against them, it is lethal to them."
The droid explained, tapping into his experience and history with the Vong.
"
Their armor is pretty much lightsaber-resistant, absorbs large amount of energy, but it is vulnerable to physical and blunt attacks, if you have hammers with you, they work fairly well. Be careful of hydrastaves too, they are snakes that can stiffen their bodies into weapons and cut like lightsaber does."
The Jedi Stronghold,
[member="Nerius"],
Navigating through a smaller but dense asteroid field maze that orbited the Jedi Stronghold, Nerius would finally be able to see their goal. It was something else, yet something familiar, for the Stronghold would in a sense resemble the architecture of Metal Lords, in that like them it was very efficient and cost-effective, cobbled together from previous materials and remnants, renewed and repaired, old components molded together to perform a new function. However, while Metal Lords usually used old durasteel plates they could reshaped, melted down loot, or cobbled together spaceships from junk floating around old sites of naval battles, the Jedi Stronghold was put together from fragments of planets and asteroids instead.
It was a superstructure the size of a small moon, build from sections of Eclipse carved out and hauled into orbit by the Jedi of old, made into a natural satellite that could orbit the planet and always look upon it. While scans Nerius could perform on the Stronghold in his approach would show there were life signatures aboard the Stronghold, they seemed to have been more spread out throughout its inner mazes and labyrinths. There was one concentration near what were the main hangars of the Stronghold, but even if entirely hostile it would not be as much resistance as what Mettallum, Tas, and the soldiers sent by Nerius, just in time to witness the crumbling of one of the towers and take advantage of the newly provided cover in approach to the Outpost, were experiencing.
"
Well done Lord Nerius, we are tracking your position to map safe passage towards the Stronghold. Head for the Main Hangar and establish a landing zone, be prepared for resistance just in case, we are right behind you."
Inside the Main Hangar, should Nerius decide to land there, things would be pretty calm actually. It was a large open space, almost completely dark and littered with various boxes, crates, and corpses of old abandoned and no longer functioning starships from the time of the fall of One Sith, but with no power. Once their ships landed and troops disembarked the silent would continue, heavy, almost unnatural, until finally.
A noise echoed out from somewhere in the distance and a colorful crimson bolt streaked from across the dark hangar towards the new arrivals and attempt to take out one of Nerius's soldiers. Almost immediately after another one would come flying out, and then another, and another, while they would not face heavy turbolaser fire like Mettallum was, what awaited Nerius and his soldiers, if he followed HK's command and did not land somewhere else, were multiple snipers using the almost total darkness of the hangar as cover to take potshots at the Metal Lord landing forces from across the large open room.
[member="Archim Calixis"],
The droid turned away from the viewport out into space, currently giving HK a look at the Jedi Stronghold station as
the Siege Tower and other ships accompanying it would be making their way through the surrounding asteroid belt to begin boarding the space station. Looking over the very lifelike holoprojection of Archim, it was good to see how quickly he came into harmony with the various tools and tricks of the Technomancers, the machine would stay silent at first, returning the bow to Archim in thanks as the droid listened to the report,
"
Very well, Lord Calixis, we could use your presence in the assault upon the Jedi Stronghold, your knowledge of the Living Force and attunement to it could be very beneficial in finding artifacts that would be valuable to the Technomancers. It could wait, of course, but we are still awaiting reports on how heavy the resistance our forces are encountering, I am afraid some artifacts may become damaged in combat."
The machine informed him,
"
We could also use your presence on the ground in nearby settlements to establish positive contact with the locals and keep them pacified, the fact you are bringing relief aid and prefab medical structures already puts you at an advantage, there might be some remaining vanguard Sith forces to keep those settlements oppressed, if they have not been pulled to deal with our assault at their main Outpost on the planet, you would need to silence or pacify them as well. The Sith are corrupted and lost, but they are not unreasonably, redemption is not out of their reach."
HK outlined to Archim, giving the cyborg a choice of where he would feel most useful for their cause.
[member="Theo Vereen"],
Theo for once was actually wrong, to a degree, not in the way that whoever spoke of trouble coming from the mostly asteroid covered sector wasn't truthful, but in the fact that it wasn't Metal Lord forces who were sending those transmissions. The operation conducted in the neutral space between Metal Lords and Galactic Alliance was actually pretty hush-hush, wanting to not really keep news of it spreading outside their borders too quickly, however as the obvious movement of rather large quantity of military ships into that particular sector by the droids would show, there was something indeed happening. The ones who did sent those transmission that Theo intercepted, as they were not meant for FWC, were the One Sith remnants, the gangsters and pirates the FWC patrol was hunting.
More ship movements would be picked up for them, various smaller hidden ships and forces popping up here and there, skittering out of the woodwork and all seemed to head in the same direction, the sector where Metal Lord ships were converging in, the center of all the trouble that suddenly stirred up. When Metal Lords were intercepted by One Sith Remnant ambush in the asteroid maze, a distress signal was sent out, a warning to other similar ambushes and affiliated groups waiting in wake throughout the region, attending to their usual work of intercepting and robbing merchant fleets, and now they were answering the call, heading for the Metal Lord fleets in order to bring some sort of reinforcements to the hidden besieged planet of Eclipse, its location most likely unknown to Theo and other FWC patrol crew, although if they would figure out that this was what all the fuss was about, they might also know why the Metal Lords kept quiet about this battle with the Sith so close to FWC, Commenor, and GA- there was a Jedi Stronghold there, and the machines would not want to share it with anyone else.
