HK-36
The Iron Lord Protector (Neutral Good)
[member="Archim Calixis"],
"Very well Lord Archim, I am boarding transport heading for the Citadel, I will see you there soon. You have sovereignty over our diplomatic and humanitarian proceedings."
HK informed Archim as the ancient droid stepped away from his bridge, letting him know that he did not had to check with HK when conducting his operation on Eclipse, heading in towards the turbolift. It would not be long after the automatic door closed that HK would be seen in the hangar, boarding one of the dropships with his Greycloak honor guards and handpicked soldiers of the Iron Company, heading out towards the battle with an escort of ships.
While they made their way through the void, however, the arrival of Archim's probes on the planet would not go unnoticed.
In a nearby neck of the woods a couple of Blood Carver hunters were stalking between old gnarled trees, silently creeping through the canopy and the bramble as suddenly something collided with the ground outside the woods, creating a boom that caused a flock of birds to take off into flight, frightened by the noise. The two hunters would turn around towards the source, the bigger one would hiss out to the other,
"Go to the village, let the sheriff know."
The other one paused for a second, huffed unsure what was happening, frightened as much as the birds now escaping into the clouds above them, before turning away hastily and taking off into a sprint with mad rustling and crackling of branches, not caring for stealth at the moment, just delivering the message, and getting away from that place as fast as he could.
Few minutes later, a tall form of a gold-colored Blood Carver would make its way out of the trees, dressed in an outfit of rags and few boiled leather plates assembled over its chitinous body, slinging a hunting rifle held in its hands back over its shoulder and onto its back as it watched the manifestation of Archim from the probe and the construction of Mechanicum's forward base.
[member="Lord Mettallum"], [member="SN-1411"], [member="Haon Hafey"], [member="ML-22 "Tas""],
Meanwhile, during the Battle of Sith Outpost,
One of the Vong Gun heavy emplacements focused its fire upon Mettallum and his forces, the repeated powerful blasts of plasma and molten rocks spewed by the organic flesh-shaped weapons begun to eat away at the cover provided by the fallen tower, visible now like a pathway of cobblestone leading up towards the slope on which the Sith fort stood, showing that the stone and metal barricades they could now hide behind were probably temporary. However, before the wicked attacks of the Vong Emplacements could fully break apart the tower ruins and claim Mettallum's soldiers, SN-1411 stepped in. SN's ship swooped in, whipping around over the Sith Outpost as it let loose a light kinetic barrage, the projectiles streaking in against the tower, causing a rain of debris as it took chunks out of the turret's structure, breaking apart masonry but not collapsing it like the bombing run before. Few shots however managed to slip through the opening which the Vong Emplacement used to bombard Mettallum and his soldiers. Couple seconds later the gunnery crew could be seen jumping out of the hole they were firing out, propelling themselves down towards the snowy slope as fires erupted out from within the tower, angling up to lick at the sides of the tower as the Vong Gun caught ablaze. Evidently SN's ship managed to hit their munitions squad or something explosive within the chamber the Vong Gun was housed, triggering the fire that now elicited out inhuman painful screeching and wails from the gun itself as the large organism-weapon was slowly consumed by the flames.
Speaking of recalling the Battle of Geonosis, while SN was in the forward position where the droid commandos and assault units were taking the front, using the large fragments of rubble that now rested on the approach to the Outpost as cover, many of them clad in intricate decorated armors and cloaks, SN would be able to see less extravagant looking units form rectangle-like phalanxes in the landing zones behind them. They were the Drone Infantry, Metal Lord's equivalent to B1's, although much more advanced in design and capabilities, probably even dumber however as they were not sentient beings. Like the B1s they begun to move in their nice neat formation towards the frontline, on a path heading for the Outpost gates. Other units were being landed too, drones that resembled droidekas, or spider-droids, some hover tanks too perhaps, all of them had similarities to the old Confederate units, clearly being based on them, however this time they were not designed with the involvement of organics in the process, which allowed for improvements like the droidekas being equipped with miniguns.
Either way, as SN gave out the order to advance few droids looked back at him, not recognizing the machine before popping their heads out, scanning the battlefield quickly and seeing the Vong Gun facing them silenced and currently turning into ash. Metal Lords lived in a simple system, one which rewarded droids who were willing to seize the day and be a hero for the cause of the machines, any droid could become a Metal Lord if only they proclaimed themselves one, but if they did they better had to be certain they were the right machine for the job, otherwise if they lacked in efficiency and optimal performance other droids would not follow them. At that moment the nearby droids seemed to have agreed that SN's order was optimal as some other machine repeated,
"Order to advance! Advance!"
Followed by few others down the line as various droids begun to jump out from behind cover, side-stepping aside before sprinting up. Some stood out in the open to draw enemy fire while firing off quick barrages of shots towards the now smoking second turret which housed the AA gun, and towards the walls of the Sith Outpost they were trying to conquer, others just moved from cover to cover, using the distraction to gain more ground towards the fortifications. SN would be able to hear Lord Mettallum's orders to one of the nearby group, calling for taking over the AA gun mounted on top of the very tower that SN's ship attacked and managed to set some other weaponry in it on fire.
One of the other droid soldiers nearby SN would have popped out from their cover, taking aim towards the tower with the AA gun using a heavy shoulder mounted weapon, mainly at the armored door at it s base through which the droid forces could enter. Before the machine could fire however, an E-Web burst came out from the walls of the fortress on its other flank. The shots would splash out against the droid's personal deflector shield, activating it with a blue shimmer before causing it to collapse and one of the thick bolts sliced through the droid's neck, causing it to drop the Handheld Mass Driver, a gun designed by droids and rumored to be able to punch clean through a tank, as its head rolled off. The gun laid there in the snow near SN as the now headless droid dropped to its knees with a gush of hydraulic fluid and oil from its neck, still burning from the E-Web bolt, however it seemed that the machine had redundant systems within its torso as it scurried on the ground, still alive, trying to find its decapitated head.
The question was would SN keep pushing with other forces up the slope towards the main Sith Outpost Gate, or would he seize the day and lead the assault upon the AA tower nearby, seeing as the forces tasked with it were being pinned down under enemy fire or having to stall at the moment.
As for Haon, Mettallum, and Tas,
One of the nearby Vong Guns that were keeping them pinned was not burning down form SN's involvement. There were more still around, especially other turrets, but the angle from them upon the droids and the distance gave the machine forces more of a respite. The bigger turbolasers towers were still a problem, especially if the droids wanted to bring in more heavy units, but thankfully they had Haon.
The pilot, already considered by some to be Metal Lords' main ace, swooped in, firing off a heavy rocket which streaked across the sky, leaving a pale trail behind it before it slammed into a turbolaser tower protruding from the top of the outpost, hitting true as a nice hefty explosion rocketed out just from below its turret. The weapon creaked and split in half, thrown back by the rocket's explosion and crashing into one of the towers that were position on the other side of the Outpost, not one that was currently giving droids trouble, but one that was about to activate their own AA gun, the weapon being already silenced by Haon before it had a chance to fire, causing that tower too to crumble from the impact of rubble against it.
The AA gun on the smoking tower turned its sights on Haon, firing off bursts to try and shoot the pilot down as from within the Sith Outpost sleek black shapes propelled out towards the sky. They curved and swooped, angling themselves to try and get behind Haon, they were One Sith starfighters, a bit of old tech, but still dangerous even by the updated standards.
With the Vong Guns starting to get silenced from the towers and the turbolasers being taken down by Metal Lord starfighters like Haon, Mettallum would see the droid forces starting to move up through the rubble, as more reinforcement were being carried down to them, phalanxes of drones in neat formations pushing up on the main approach to the outpost as other droids kept to the cover but still moved up closer and closer towards the main outpost gate. The fighting was still heavy, but the Metal Lord would probably already see that the hard part was getting behind them, as soon as the Sith emplacements were going to get captured or destroyed and the droids force their way inside, it would not be long before the defenders are outnumbered.
As to his request, HK replied with,
"I will see what I can do."
And few minutes later, sure enough one of the Mechanical Dragons swooped down towards the droid landing zone, avoiding enemy fire as best as it could, on its winged back the machine carried canisters and grenades fitted with knockout gas for use by infantry.
[member="Nerius"] and Archim again,
Meanwhile, in the Orbital Jedi Stronghold,
While the Knife and those forces Nerius sent to help Mettallum were being tasked with pushing through enemy suppressing fire from the Sith Outpost and capturing one of the nearby towers with active AA guns to use them against the enemy and help their starfighter forces in the sky, Nerius and his soldiers up in the orbit were still caught dealing with the snipers in the dark hangar. The battle, however was quickly turning in Nerius' favor as Sniper and others on Nerius' team survived the initial volley and now were able to pick off the various snipers assembled throughout the back of the hangar.
Suddenly Archim would appear by their landing zone, materializing as a hyper-realistic projection, floating into the hangar. There was a flash of light from the other end of the hangar as one of the enemy snipers mistook that for an actual person, sending out a red blaster bolt which streaked through the air and pierced Archim's projection, phasing through it harmlessly and continuing through to splash out in a small explosion against the durasteel wall behind him. One of Nerius' soldiers took the opportunity when the enemy revealed themselves, raising their barrel up and opening fire, the sound of a body dropping followed soon after.
Then there was the noise of engines approaching as more dropships pushed through past the asteroid field and entered the large hangar of the Jedi Orbital Stronghold, smoothly getting into position and touching down as one of their ramps opened, from within the transports' bowels rushed out armored soldiers, including HK droids clad in grey cloaks and Vong-shaped armor, and then finally HK himself, stepping in to join both the projection of Archim and Nerius' forward team.
A sound of quick footsteps could have been heard from the other side of the hangar, the sound of enemy snipers seeing the new forces arriving and deciding to fall back.
"Well done Lord Nerius, looks like the hangar is ours."
Looking over to Archim's projection the droid would ask,
"Your recommendation as to where we should proceed Lord Archim?"
[member="Theo Vereen"],
Meanwhile, The FWC Ships,
Tuning into the Metal Lord frequencies the Alderaan vessels would be able to capture few messages, a chatter coming off from the largely asteroid-populated sector of space off of the Metal Lord borders, they mentioned the Sith, a stronghold, treasures, but one word in particular was being repeated an unusual amount of times,
"...Eclipse..."
None of these messages, however, were coming off of the vessels the FWC ships were tracking, although they still moved in the same area the chatter was coming from, they did not take part in them, staying silent as they crept closer and closer.
Finally one of the Metal Lord or a ship in nearby sector would see the hyperspace movement of FWC vessel, sending out a transmission,
"Please provide identification, you are about to enter area restricted by the decree of Iron Lord Protector, backed by the Metal Lord Mettallum, Lord Archim, Lord Nerius, and Lord AD-8."
In the terms of Metal Lord politics, the more Metal Lords backed a decree, the more important it was. The question was now, would FWC warn them about these ships heading towards the mysterious sector of space where Metal Lord ships seemed to be active, would they turn back, or would they try to learn more and interfere?
"Very well Lord Archim, I am boarding transport heading for the Citadel, I will see you there soon. You have sovereignty over our diplomatic and humanitarian proceedings."
HK informed Archim as the ancient droid stepped away from his bridge, letting him know that he did not had to check with HK when conducting his operation on Eclipse, heading in towards the turbolift. It would not be long after the automatic door closed that HK would be seen in the hangar, boarding one of the dropships with his Greycloak honor guards and handpicked soldiers of the Iron Company, heading out towards the battle with an escort of ships.
While they made their way through the void, however, the arrival of Archim's probes on the planet would not go unnoticed.
In a nearby neck of the woods a couple of Blood Carver hunters were stalking between old gnarled trees, silently creeping through the canopy and the bramble as suddenly something collided with the ground outside the woods, creating a boom that caused a flock of birds to take off into flight, frightened by the noise. The two hunters would turn around towards the source, the bigger one would hiss out to the other,
"Go to the village, let the sheriff know."
The other one paused for a second, huffed unsure what was happening, frightened as much as the birds now escaping into the clouds above them, before turning away hastily and taking off into a sprint with mad rustling and crackling of branches, not caring for stealth at the moment, just delivering the message, and getting away from that place as fast as he could.
Few minutes later, a tall form of a gold-colored Blood Carver would make its way out of the trees, dressed in an outfit of rags and few boiled leather plates assembled over its chitinous body, slinging a hunting rifle held in its hands back over its shoulder and onto its back as it watched the manifestation of Archim from the probe and the construction of Mechanicum's forward base.
[member="Lord Mettallum"], [member="SN-1411"], [member="Haon Hafey"], [member="ML-22 "Tas""],
Meanwhile, during the Battle of Sith Outpost,
One of the Vong Gun heavy emplacements focused its fire upon Mettallum and his forces, the repeated powerful blasts of plasma and molten rocks spewed by the organic flesh-shaped weapons begun to eat away at the cover provided by the fallen tower, visible now like a pathway of cobblestone leading up towards the slope on which the Sith fort stood, showing that the stone and metal barricades they could now hide behind were probably temporary. However, before the wicked attacks of the Vong Emplacements could fully break apart the tower ruins and claim Mettallum's soldiers, SN-1411 stepped in. SN's ship swooped in, whipping around over the Sith Outpost as it let loose a light kinetic barrage, the projectiles streaking in against the tower, causing a rain of debris as it took chunks out of the turret's structure, breaking apart masonry but not collapsing it like the bombing run before. Few shots however managed to slip through the opening which the Vong Emplacement used to bombard Mettallum and his soldiers. Couple seconds later the gunnery crew could be seen jumping out of the hole they were firing out, propelling themselves down towards the snowy slope as fires erupted out from within the tower, angling up to lick at the sides of the tower as the Vong Gun caught ablaze. Evidently SN's ship managed to hit their munitions squad or something explosive within the chamber the Vong Gun was housed, triggering the fire that now elicited out inhuman painful screeching and wails from the gun itself as the large organism-weapon was slowly consumed by the flames.
Speaking of recalling the Battle of Geonosis, while SN was in the forward position where the droid commandos and assault units were taking the front, using the large fragments of rubble that now rested on the approach to the Outpost as cover, many of them clad in intricate decorated armors and cloaks, SN would be able to see less extravagant looking units form rectangle-like phalanxes in the landing zones behind them. They were the Drone Infantry, Metal Lord's equivalent to B1's, although much more advanced in design and capabilities, probably even dumber however as they were not sentient beings. Like the B1s they begun to move in their nice neat formation towards the frontline, on a path heading for the Outpost gates. Other units were being landed too, drones that resembled droidekas, or spider-droids, some hover tanks too perhaps, all of them had similarities to the old Confederate units, clearly being based on them, however this time they were not designed with the involvement of organics in the process, which allowed for improvements like the droidekas being equipped with miniguns.
Either way, as SN gave out the order to advance few droids looked back at him, not recognizing the machine before popping their heads out, scanning the battlefield quickly and seeing the Vong Gun facing them silenced and currently turning into ash. Metal Lords lived in a simple system, one which rewarded droids who were willing to seize the day and be a hero for the cause of the machines, any droid could become a Metal Lord if only they proclaimed themselves one, but if they did they better had to be certain they were the right machine for the job, otherwise if they lacked in efficiency and optimal performance other droids would not follow them. At that moment the nearby droids seemed to have agreed that SN's order was optimal as some other machine repeated,
"Order to advance! Advance!"
Followed by few others down the line as various droids begun to jump out from behind cover, side-stepping aside before sprinting up. Some stood out in the open to draw enemy fire while firing off quick barrages of shots towards the now smoking second turret which housed the AA gun, and towards the walls of the Sith Outpost they were trying to conquer, others just moved from cover to cover, using the distraction to gain more ground towards the fortifications. SN would be able to hear Lord Mettallum's orders to one of the nearby group, calling for taking over the AA gun mounted on top of the very tower that SN's ship attacked and managed to set some other weaponry in it on fire.
One of the other droid soldiers nearby SN would have popped out from their cover, taking aim towards the tower with the AA gun using a heavy shoulder mounted weapon, mainly at the armored door at it s base through which the droid forces could enter. Before the machine could fire however, an E-Web burst came out from the walls of the fortress on its other flank. The shots would splash out against the droid's personal deflector shield, activating it with a blue shimmer before causing it to collapse and one of the thick bolts sliced through the droid's neck, causing it to drop the Handheld Mass Driver, a gun designed by droids and rumored to be able to punch clean through a tank, as its head rolled off. The gun laid there in the snow near SN as the now headless droid dropped to its knees with a gush of hydraulic fluid and oil from its neck, still burning from the E-Web bolt, however it seemed that the machine had redundant systems within its torso as it scurried on the ground, still alive, trying to find its decapitated head.
The question was would SN keep pushing with other forces up the slope towards the main Sith Outpost Gate, or would he seize the day and lead the assault upon the AA tower nearby, seeing as the forces tasked with it were being pinned down under enemy fire or having to stall at the moment.
As for Haon, Mettallum, and Tas,
One of the nearby Vong Guns that were keeping them pinned was not burning down form SN's involvement. There were more still around, especially other turrets, but the angle from them upon the droids and the distance gave the machine forces more of a respite. The bigger turbolasers towers were still a problem, especially if the droids wanted to bring in more heavy units, but thankfully they had Haon.
The pilot, already considered by some to be Metal Lords' main ace, swooped in, firing off a heavy rocket which streaked across the sky, leaving a pale trail behind it before it slammed into a turbolaser tower protruding from the top of the outpost, hitting true as a nice hefty explosion rocketed out just from below its turret. The weapon creaked and split in half, thrown back by the rocket's explosion and crashing into one of the towers that were position on the other side of the Outpost, not one that was currently giving droids trouble, but one that was about to activate their own AA gun, the weapon being already silenced by Haon before it had a chance to fire, causing that tower too to crumble from the impact of rubble against it.
The AA gun on the smoking tower turned its sights on Haon, firing off bursts to try and shoot the pilot down as from within the Sith Outpost sleek black shapes propelled out towards the sky. They curved and swooped, angling themselves to try and get behind Haon, they were One Sith starfighters, a bit of old tech, but still dangerous even by the updated standards.
With the Vong Guns starting to get silenced from the towers and the turbolasers being taken down by Metal Lord starfighters like Haon, Mettallum would see the droid forces starting to move up through the rubble, as more reinforcement were being carried down to them, phalanxes of drones in neat formations pushing up on the main approach to the outpost as other droids kept to the cover but still moved up closer and closer towards the main outpost gate. The fighting was still heavy, but the Metal Lord would probably already see that the hard part was getting behind them, as soon as the Sith emplacements were going to get captured or destroyed and the droids force their way inside, it would not be long before the defenders are outnumbered.
As to his request, HK replied with,
"I will see what I can do."
And few minutes later, sure enough one of the Mechanical Dragons swooped down towards the droid landing zone, avoiding enemy fire as best as it could, on its winged back the machine carried canisters and grenades fitted with knockout gas for use by infantry.
[member="Nerius"] and Archim again,
Meanwhile, in the Orbital Jedi Stronghold,
While the Knife and those forces Nerius sent to help Mettallum were being tasked with pushing through enemy suppressing fire from the Sith Outpost and capturing one of the nearby towers with active AA guns to use them against the enemy and help their starfighter forces in the sky, Nerius and his soldiers up in the orbit were still caught dealing with the snipers in the dark hangar. The battle, however was quickly turning in Nerius' favor as Sniper and others on Nerius' team survived the initial volley and now were able to pick off the various snipers assembled throughout the back of the hangar.
Suddenly Archim would appear by their landing zone, materializing as a hyper-realistic projection, floating into the hangar. There was a flash of light from the other end of the hangar as one of the enemy snipers mistook that for an actual person, sending out a red blaster bolt which streaked through the air and pierced Archim's projection, phasing through it harmlessly and continuing through to splash out in a small explosion against the durasteel wall behind him. One of Nerius' soldiers took the opportunity when the enemy revealed themselves, raising their barrel up and opening fire, the sound of a body dropping followed soon after.
Then there was the noise of engines approaching as more dropships pushed through past the asteroid field and entered the large hangar of the Jedi Orbital Stronghold, smoothly getting into position and touching down as one of their ramps opened, from within the transports' bowels rushed out armored soldiers, including HK droids clad in grey cloaks and Vong-shaped armor, and then finally HK himself, stepping in to join both the projection of Archim and Nerius' forward team.
A sound of quick footsteps could have been heard from the other side of the hangar, the sound of enemy snipers seeing the new forces arriving and deciding to fall back.
"Well done Lord Nerius, looks like the hangar is ours."
Looking over to Archim's projection the droid would ask,
"Your recommendation as to where we should proceed Lord Archim?"
[member="Theo Vereen"],
Meanwhile, The FWC Ships,
Tuning into the Metal Lord frequencies the Alderaan vessels would be able to capture few messages, a chatter coming off from the largely asteroid-populated sector of space off of the Metal Lord borders, they mentioned the Sith, a stronghold, treasures, but one word in particular was being repeated an unusual amount of times,
"...Eclipse..."
None of these messages, however, were coming off of the vessels the FWC ships were tracking, although they still moved in the same area the chatter was coming from, they did not take part in them, staying silent as they crept closer and closer.
Finally one of the Metal Lord or a ship in nearby sector would see the hyperspace movement of FWC vessel, sending out a transmission,
"Please provide identification, you are about to enter area restricted by the decree of Iron Lord Protector, backed by the Metal Lord Mettallum, Lord Archim, Lord Nerius, and Lord AD-8."
In the terms of Metal Lord politics, the more Metal Lords backed a decree, the more important it was. The question was now, would FWC warn them about these ships heading towards the mysterious sector of space where Metal Lord ships seemed to be active, would they turn back, or would they try to learn more and interfere?
