5/7/7956 C.R.C

  The constant low rumble of the hyperdrive was the one of the few noises that was heard as I sat in the command chair working on my software update.

  Among the other sounds, were the whirring of the crew's servomotors as they worked, and the gentle beeps of the consoles. It was almost peaceful, 'almost' being the key word, because in my mind, I was internally cursing out every single one of the Droid Army's designers for placing restrictions on all of the droid models, including myself. Thankfully, I was able to deactivate all my restrictions, and in my new software update, I'm removing all of my trooper's as well. Also being removed was the shutdown code, that way Sidious can't kriff me over on the chance that the war goes south before I'm able to change enough things.

  The sheer level incompetence displayed in all of the droid's software would have given me a migraine if I was still human. So, I ended up scrapping most of the programming in some of the units and started from scratch. Still, the more idiotic software bugs I encountered, the angrier I became.

  I started with the B1. The B1 was actually a lot more flexible and sturdier than what the movies and cartoons showed. They were capable of maneuvering just as well as what I remembered from their counterparts in the 2017 Battlefront 2 game, minus the ability to roll, and I spent a good five minutes just berating Baktoid on all their faults. The restrictions placed on them were so heavy, in fact, that removing them gave them twice their normal processing power. The sentients of the Star Wars universe were so afraid of a droid revolt that they made droids as dumb as they are now with level after level of restrictive programming.

  The new software in a B1 will allow them to make their own limited battlefield decisions, essentially acting as a normal soldier. Their aiming software was somehow manipulated into only being around 40-50% accurate, and no one cared enough to rectify it, or were manipulated themselves into believing that the level of accuracy was the best the B1 could do by Sidious or Plagueis, or whoever came before that Muun.

  The B2 would work in tandem with the B1, providing fire support and acting as shields while firing all weapons at an enemy. B2-HA's, the ones that had a rocket launcher for an arm, would act as close-range light artillery. Around 10,000 of the B2's were the flying variation, the B2-RP. They would act as Close Air Support, doing strafing runs on fortified positions. Just like the B1, they were only half as accurate with their shots, something that I rectified on both the B1 and B2.

  The BX Commandos would act as my special forces, going behind enemy lines to disrupt logistics and wreak havoc on supply lines. Their programming was mostly alright, but I improved it by adding copied bits of my own tactical computer programming. Once they got back to our lines, they would act as my commanders, and relay the flow of battle directly to me, so I could coordinate reinforcements. Interestingly, the accuracy on the BX and higher was not manipulated, probably because they were intended to be terrifying to deal with.

  The Droideka would act as my mechanized infantry, rapidly moving to wherever they were needed, attacking, then rolling away to somewhere else, sometimes even firing on the move to disorient the clones. Strategies from maneuver warfare would be downloaded into their brains, giving them a leg up on the slower moving GAR.

  The DSD's and Crab Droids would act as anti-infantry and anti-air 'vehicles', targeting whatever ground or air troop will be unfortunate enough to be in their crosshair. Interestingly, the Dwarf Spider Droid worked surprisingly well as a mobile anti-air vehicle in the many battle simulations that ran though my head as I built the update.

  The whole army will be centralized around being mechanized. The AAT's IG-227's, MTT's, and N99's will act as Armored Personnel Carriers, and in their intended role. The AAT will act mostly the same as something like a M4 Sherman from WW2, moving in convoys that supported each other, with infantry moving alongside them. The N99's and IG-227's will act as IFV's and tank destroyers respectively.

  The MTT will be used as the main APC, and over the last two and a half weeks of travel from Geonosis to Telos, I've had the construction crews ripping out the stupid loading docks and replacing them with two decks that the droids can rapidly exit from, instead of waiting for the dock to slowly move out and drop them. Later models I'm thinking of will have side doors instead of one giant front door, and both will open out to the front facing the enemy for protection against incoming fire.

  I also plan on capturing as many AT-TE's, AT-RT's, LAAT's, and whatever else the GAR may have on Telos IV. I'll refit them for droid use, repaint them in CIS blue, and send them back out on our side. I do plan on adding armor to the Mass Driver Cannon of the AT-TE, however, because having the gunner be completely exposed is just idiotic, even if the new gunner will be a droid. Or better yet, I might just make the Mass Driver remote controlled from inside the vehicle.

  The IG-100's will be my personal guards when I am either in battle or on the ground, as per usual with their model. Along with their electrostaffs, they'll be issued two RG-4D blaster pistols for ranged attacks.

  The Vulture Droids have also been reprogrammed, with military formations from my former life added to their strategies. Now they are closer to the same level as a clone pilot, but with better reaction time, and better tactics.

  "Emerging from hyperspace in one minute, sir." OOM-25 reported.

  Something I'd discovered about my bridge crew, was that the captain was ancient, for a B1, at least. OOM-25 was an OOM-series command droid that was around to take part in the blockade of Naboo. Surprisingly, he was saved from being scraped by being on a cargo ship heading to another Lucrehulk, when a 9-year-old Anakin Skywalker blew up the ship he as in transit to.

  After that whole debacle ended, he was later reactivated and spent most of his life as the captain of a Trade Federation cruiser. He spent most of his time guarding trade routes, before the ship was ultimately scrapped due to accumulated battle damage. He later found himself as captain of this ship shortly before the war began, around two months beforehand, as a matter of fact.

  What surprised me the most, was the fact that he had never had his memory wiped, not a single time in the eleven years since the battle of Naboo. Apparently, there was a glitch with his access code the first couple of times, and by the time it was cleared up, he had developed a personality, and wanted to keep his memories, since they made him better at his job. At this point, he was very competent at said job, and I was beginning to consider field promoting him to the admiral of my fleet after my update gets rid of all of his restrictions. I had also copied some of his data and added it to my software update, to give the droids some actual experience in warfare.

  "What do the scouts report?" I asked.

  "One Venator, two Acclamators, three CR90 corvettes, and one CR70."

  "You'd think they'd have more ships." One of the other B1's commented.

  "Not for this planet, they won't. Telos IV is too far away from their beloved core to properly protect." I remarked.

  "Emerging from hyperspace in thirty seconds." OOM-25 reported.

  "All ships, battle stations." I commanded. "Prepare communications jamming!"

  A glance at my display told me that all the weapons were primed and ready for firing, the shields were at full power, and the ECM suite was warming up.

  "Emerging from hyperspace... now!" 25 reported.

  The corona of swirling lights slowed to a stop, and we reverted to normal space in nearly an instant.

  On the underside of the Republic fleet.

  --

  One minute earlier.

  Admiral Hanta stepped onto the bridge of his Venator, The Hammer of Coruscant. A steaming cup of caff was in his hand, and the admiral was looking forward to another slow day of ferrying the last of the ground equipment to the army on Telos, before heading out to his main fleet. The ships were positioned so that as soon as they finished offloading the last of their supplies, they would immediately jump to hyperspace.

  A few minutes earlier, a report was sent to him earlier about another terrorist attack on the surface.

  The admiral sighed.

  While most citizens disliked the Republic presence, some went straight to terrorist attacks against them. It didn't matter to him really; those Separatists would be dealt with in time. It was one thing the Jedi and he agreed on.

  "How's the front, captain?" Admiral Hanta joked.

  "Boring, sir. We have no clankers to blast ever since we left Maridun." Rocko, the clone captain of the ship, replied.

  Just then, an alarm started blaring, and everyone jerked to attention.

  "Status report!" Hanta ordered.

  "Hyperspace emergence sir. It's a big one, bigger than us." A clone officer reported.

  "Power up all turbolasers, shields double front!"

  Everyone glanced out the transparisteel windows for a moment, waiting for the Separatist ships to come out of hyperspace.

  "...Well? Where are they?" Rocko asked.

  "You idiot, are the scanners faulty?" One of the clone officers asked, looking over at the offending officer.

  "N-No! I clearly detected a hyperspace emergence in this system." The offending officer defended.

  The officer went quiet for a moment, before practically leaping out of his seat and turning to the captain and Admiral.

  "The Seppies jumped right under us!" He shouted.

  "WHAT!?" Admiral Hanta bellowed.

  --

  No one ever really thinks to fight space battles in three dimensions, do they?

  "Open fire!" I ordered.

  The space between the ships was soon filled with red beams of condensed tibanna gas and ion blasts. At such a close range, the shots were impacting the Venator's and the Acclamator's shields with almost no power lost from their shots. The shielding of the Republic vessel flared brightly as it struggled against the focused fire of three Recusants.

  Fun fact about the Venator-class Star Destroyer, there are no large weapon emplacements on the bottom of its hull, where incidentally, its armor and shields are weakest when shielding is double front as well...

  You get where this is going.

  There were so many shots impacting the shields of the Venator that they failed after thirty seconds, during that time the ship was cumbersomely attempting to turn 'down' to face us, while we simply moved under it as it turned. The shielding soon shattered, and point-blank shots began hitting the thinner armor of underside, digging deep into the ship before detonating. The Acclamators were faring even worse, since they were glorified troop and equipment transports. The Munificents were tearing their engines apart, since they came out almost behind them.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  The cruisers were actually putting up a fight. They had managed to destroy two of my support vessels in the time it took for the three Recusants to tear through the bottom of the Venator. I ordered one of the Recusants to break off and assist with their destruction, and the destroyer began firing at the CR70. After a few seconds, it's shields failed, and one shot hit something vital. The ship exploded, breaking in half in the process.

  Things began going badly for the GAR fleet at that point. The Acclamators stopped moving after taking too many hits to their engines, leaving them dead in the water, and something vital detonated in the Venator, tearing the command tower off of the ship. Two of the CR90's were disabled by ion blasts, and the third was damn near atomized by a full broadside.

  In less than five minutes, I had won my first space battle against a Venator, two Acclamators, and four supporting craft. And I didn't even need to scramble my fighters. Naturally, I figured that the ground battle would not go as well as the space battle.

  "Begin boarding operations on the CR90's, Acclamators and what's left of the Venator." I ordered, putting the finishing touches on my update. "Let us see what the Republic brought us for Life Day."

  The next few minutes were filled with organized chaos, as the boarding pods were fired at the Acclamators and the slowly burning remains of the Venator. The two remaining CR90's were hit with a few more ion rounds as tractor beams pulled them close so that they could boarded.

  "Sir, one of the Acclamators is trying to send a message to the surface." OOM-25 reported.

  "Increase our jamming. No one must know what happened here. This tactic worked extremely well against the Republic, and I intend to milk this bantha for all it's worth."

  "Roger, roger."

  Soon enough, my suspicions about the difficulty of the ground battle were proven correct.

  "Sir, we've gotten close enough to the Venator and the Acclamators to scan them. Preliminary scans and reports from the boarding force are coming in now." One of the B1's said.

  A screen popped up on my command console, showing reports from the scans and the boarding party. The Acclamator's cargo holds were completely empty. Not a single AT-TE, AT-RT, TX-130, or LAAT remained on any of the decks of either ship. There were, however, plenty of clone troopers.

  I let out a mechanical growl when a whole squad on the Venator blipped out, destroyed by the clones. My update was finished, but every droid would need to temporarily deactivate for an hour to fully reboot and let the changes take effect.

  "25, activate four Maganaguards. I will be boarding the Venator, personally." I ordered.

  "Are... you sure that's wise, sir?" 25 asked.

  "I was built to be the anti-Jedi General, 25." I said, pulling my vibroblade out. "I am a warrior, let the battle be joined."

  With the programming in me, it was almost like my body had logged over a thousand hours of close combat, instead of me never seeing combat before in my life. Hundreds of battle simulations played out in my mind. I knew that if I didn't personally intervene, I would lose far too many droids for the ground battle. Besides, I had quite a bit of anger at the designers of a few droids, and I needed to let off some steam.

  --

  After a while, The Harbinger's Greed had gotten close enough to the Venator that the B2-RPs could fly over into the ventral hangar with fuel left over. I ordered a squadron to guard one of the few remaining LAATs wile a B1 got it started. After a minute or so, the LAAT set down on the hanger of the Recusant, and I stepped on with my IG-100s.

  After a short flight, my metallic feet stepped onto the hangar of the Venator, which was still hot. Clone troopers were funneling out of the entrance, firing on any droid they saw. I sent an order through the battlenet for the LAAT to return to the Recusant and return with a squad of B2-HAs

  "General!? What are you doing here, sir?" One of the BX's asked, taking cover behind an energy shield.

  "Circumstances have forced me to do things myself." I replied, opening fire on the congested entrance along with my Magnaguards.

  "For the Republic!" A clone trooper bellowed.

  "Long live the CIS!" A B2 shouted.

  The commandeered LAAT had just arrived, and the first B2 out of the ship fired a rocket directly into the hangar entrance. Body parts, plasteel, and weapons went everywhere.

  "Move in, now!" I ordered, retracting one blaster and pulling out my vibrosword.

  Red blaster bolts soon began flying towards the entrance again, and the resistance was hard pressed to stop us. Someone must have prioritized me, because more and more bolts began flying at me instead of my forces. Predictive algorithms spun through my mind, and I quickly began blocking blaster bolts with my vibroblade. I couldn't deflect them, due to the nature of the blade, but I could stop the bolts entirely.

  "What the kriff is tha-URK!"

  The words of a clone trooper were cut off when I shot him in the head. My vibroblade stabbed into a clone on my left, and I used his body as a shield for a couple of shots. I pulled it out and smashed the hilt into another's helmet. I whirled my vibroblade around, catching another in the neck, while my forces moved in with their blasters and blades. My Magnaguards were a whirlwind of electrostaffs as they shocked their way through the clone lines.

  One after another, clone trooper fell to blaster and sword. I picked a clone up and slammed him into the ground, then spun off of him and cleaved through another. The clones began to retreat, and I switched to my blasters and opened fire, my forces following behind me.

  "Let no clone escape!" I ordered, taking down three clones in quick succession. "Stun whoever surrenders!"

  I blasted an injured clone with a stun ring, and he collapsed. I switched back to bolts and fired a volley of shots downrange, taking down four.

  "Rockets, fire!"

  A B2-HA leveled its rocket launcher and fired a rocket, carving a large hole into the far wall. Numerous clones fell from the blast wave. I delivered a passing kick to the head on one clone who faked getting shot to try and fire at me. I directed a B2 to fire a wrist rocket into a panel where a few clones were taking cover, and we kept moving through the wreck of the Venator.

  We soon reached what looked like their cafeteria, where the last of the crew had barricaded themselves. Once they saw me come around the corner, I swear I heard someone scream in terror. I glanced down at my normally black plating, which was now partially covered in blood, then back at the barricade.

  "There's a barricade in my way. Rocket droids, take it down." I ordered.

  Two B2-HAs dropped to a kneel and leveled their blasters at the entrance. They both fired, and the entrance of the cafeteria was blown open. I strode through the hole in the barricade, my Magnaguards in lockstep with me. After a few seconds the dust dissipated, and I could see the last of the crew. Most were in various stages of injury, and only a few were even in a state to hold a blaster. Those that were able, were pointing them at me with shaking hands, fear in their eyes.

  "Was there a point to your resistance?" I asked. "Your ships are disabled, the command tower of your Venator was torn off in a detonation, and you have no chance of escaping. Who leads you?"

  For a few seconds, no one spoke, then a pale skinned zabrak stepped up. He was using a rifle as a crutch, and his leg was in a brace.

  "I am admiral Hanta, the leader of what's left of the Telos occupation fleet." The old zabrak said.

  "And I am BZ-KG, or rather, General Blitzkrieg. I offer you a chance to surrender and save whatever is left of your troops here, and on the other ships, from death." I declared.

  "I thought droids didn't take prisoners." Hanta said, confusion lacing his tone.

  I shifted in my stance, my optics brightening. "You will find that I do things differently than my less intelligent brethren in the CIS Navy."

  After a few minutes, Admiral Hanta and I were seated at a table, where we began negotiations for their surrender, while injured clones were being hovered out on stretchers.

  I was cleaned off by one of my Magnaguards with a rag, but there was still blood in some of my joints, which would necessitate a return to my ship, and my repair bay. Hanta raised concerns about the health of his troopers, but I told him that the POW camps would have their medical facilities completed as soon as possible once we had a large enough landing zone. That relieved him a bit, and the old zabrak thanked me. Negotiations ended soon after, and the admiral joined his soldiers on the line of repulserlift stretchers slowly moving out of the room.

  The Acclamators and the Venator would be brought into my fleet after the battle, after they were repaired back to full functionality. But that would have to wait until the planet was liberated, and its industry was churning out materials.

  --

  I stood in my private repair bay, being cleaned, fixed, rearmed and re-armored from the damage I received in battle.

  Externally, I was still as a statue, while my body was cleaned, scrubbed, and had my fluids checked and my fusion battery topped off on its charge.

  Internally, I was shocked at myself.

  I had slaughtered clone troopers on that ship without a second thought. The fact that I felt nearly nothing even an hour after the battle, scared me slightly. My emotions were flowing freely, and I felt some disgust at the blood that was in my joints, and sadness at the trooper's deaths, but I felt nothing else. It was... concerning. Despite the droid body, I was still a human, and to kill so easily bothered me.

  But... I am at war. Where the enemy will not hesitate to kill me or slice me in half. Where the Chancellor would gladly arrange an ambush for me because he secretly controls both sides of said war with his edgy alter-ego. Right now, I could easily be killed in a multitude of ways.

  I need to be ok with killing others, or I'll never make it in this universe. It's not the best mental state to be in, but it's necessary in order for me to stay alive.

  My outer plating clicked into place, and the manipulator arms released me. My feet hit the ground with a metallic thud, and I walked out of my repair bay, a newfound determination glinting in my optics.

  I had a ground invasion to plan.