The Rebel Faction

Tatooine


The twin suns were setting, casting long shadows over the desolate surface of the scorched planet. As the darkness crept over the sand dunes, the lights on Mos Eisley switched on. The inhabitants of the small desert town ignored the change from sunlight to glowlamps, and continued about as normal. In the small, yet infamous cantina, the very same spot where Han Solo and Luke Skywalker met all those years ago, business as usual commenced.

The place never closed, and any one looking for safe haven could find it in this little hole day or night.

Bantay Skidder took another sip of his drink as he scanned the faces of the cantina patrons. As usual, A Bith band was playing a classic, yet quickly annoying tune, in addition to the usual suspects. At least thirty different races were represented in the dark room, human, Wookie, Ithorian, and Sullustan to name a few. But none of them fit the description of the person Skidder was here to meet.

Well… what description there actually was.

Specifically, Skidder was here to meet “a tall droid”.

Skidder had not spoken directly with the droid when setting up this meeting. In fact, he hadn’t known exactly what he had been talking to. It was a text-only transmission. He had been told to be in this cantina, in Mos Eisley, at this exact table at a precise time. The person had been very specific about being precise .

A loud beeping noise rippled through the cantina. Skidder glanced up to see a scowling human spacer and his R2 unit enter the cantina. As the droid entered, the cantina’s droid alarm had gone off, alerting the bartender. The bartender had bellowed at the spacer, who ordered the droid to wait outside.

Whistling indignantly, the droid wheeled out.

Skidder went back to his drink, quietly and carefully observing the other patrons.

To anyone who happened to glance his way, he was simply another human spacer, passing through Tattooine on his way to God knows where.

But in fact, he was a member of the Praetorian Guard.

The elite Coalition force had been created at the behest of Joren Logan, leader of the Onyxian Commonwealth, which was a subsidiary government of the Galactic Coalition. The Praetorian Guard had been created for the sole purpose of being the heart of GC’s defense of its worlds. Or, in some cases, the spearhead of GC assaults on its enemy. They were a unit bred for war. Trained by the best soldiers the old Outer-Rim Sovereignty had to offer, the Praetorian Guard was now one hundred thousand strong and growing, with their own flotilla of war vessels. Every crewmember, down to the lowliest engineer, was a fully and expertly trained Praetorian warrior.

The Coalition had learned of a new menace lurking in the Unknown Regions. Whatever it was, it was terrifying entire worlds that bordered the Unknown Regions. Even the Chiss, who were now slaves to the Galactic Empire were avoiding the area the menace was known to inhabit.

Through Coalition intelligence, Joren Logan had found a being who might know the location of the new menace. The Unknown Regions were vast, with hundreds of thousands of planets uncharted, and hyperspace lanes still hidden by the myriad of stars clustering the area.

Logan gave little information on who this “informant” was. He had ordered Skidder, one of the best of the new Praetorian recruits, to meet the informant on Tattooine.

The droid alarm went off again, but this time Skidder did not look up. As he took another sip of his drink, he heard the bartender yell at the intruding droid.

And suddenly, a blaster went off.

The bartender flew backwards.

Skidder was already on his feet before the unfortunate barkeep had hit the floor, his blaster in hand and his arm swinging around, tracking the origin of the blast-

And froze as he saw the “tall droid” holding the smoking blaster.


“IG-88!” Someone yelled.


The other patrons all dove for cover, blasters were drawn, and tension hung think in the air.

The galaxy’s most infamous mechanized bounty hunter stared back into the cantina with cold steel eyes. His trash-can shaped head turned and regarded each patron in turn, as if matching their faces to some internal computer.

His gaze stopped on Skidder.

Skidder understood and raised his blaster and fired straight at the droid, who dodged the bolt with superhuman speed. Skidder continued firing as the other patrons followed suit. Soon, IG-88, or a droid that looked identical to IG-88, began retreating toward the door.

The other patrons, excited about forcing the droid back, kept up their assault, even as the droid turned to flee out the door. Thirty blaster-toting people raced after him, Skidder included.

The metallic being was just disappearing behind some nearby buildings as Skidder managed to squeeze outside. About half of the angry bar-crowd decided not to risk it, and returned to their tables or positions at the bar. The Bith band had barely even stopped playing.

About ten or so angry patrons followed the droid behind the building. Skidder decided to move down the row of houses, which were adjacent to the buildings the IG-88 had retreated behind. He raced down the row, and after about six houses, made his way to the back.

Just in time to be grabbed by the throat by steel hand that felt like vise.

“You are the Guardsman Logan sent?” The droid asked its machine voice right by his ear.

“Yes.”

“Transmit code now.” Replied IG-88.

“Banthas stink and gundarks reek.” Skidder recited as spots formed in his vision.

The hold on his throat loosened, allowing the Guardsman to breathe.

“Come.” The droid said, “The bar crowd will be coming back.”

Skidder followed as IG-88 turned and moved swiftly down the row of houses.

Deep Space - Near Mobus System





"Evacuating now..."


The small ExGal Spacer - class transport stood still in the void of space as the small shuttle deattached it's umbillical and blasted away, leaving the ship empty and alone.

The running lights were on, as were the sublight engines, although they were on standby.

The only other Coalition vessel in the area were in hiding, completely powered down aside from essential systems and sensor array. The small shuttle moved toward it, soon resting inside the docking bay.

The Corellia Delight was a three hundred meter long Nebulon-B - class escort ship. Originally designed by the Empire to combat the small, agile Rebel starfighters, they had become a common sight in many planetary defense forces and Coalition picket fleets. They were primarily used as hospital ships or hypercapable troop transports.

This particular one, named after the planet that she had been originally tasked with protecting, the Delight had been stripped down and sold to a junk dealer in the Outer-Rim. Onyxian Commonwealth diplomats stumbled onto the vessel when searching the Galaxy for warships for sale. They had immediately bought it up.

From there it received a complete refit from the technicians at the Onyxian Shipyards. but the Delight was different. Instead of being outfitted with small laser cannons (for combating starfighters) she had been outfitted with sophisticated sensor equipment, and was crewed by the finest sensor technicians in the Commonwealth.

Captain AGro'ho was a Whiphid haling from Tatooine and after being freed from slavery, he joined the Coalition after it had been formally created with the merging of the three core factions. he had been trained in stealth warfare with a specialty in sensor equipment. After graduating command school, he had been shipped to Onyx, where he now took command of the Corellia Delight.

He crossed his arms across his chest as he regarded the ExGal Spacer from the forward veiwports. The Delight was keeping pace with a slow-moving comet, which effectively shielded it from prying eyes. Or prying photoreceptors....


They had been lying in wait for two hours now, prepping the Spacer for it's upcoming role. Z-95 Headhunters had been dispatched an hour before to drop sensor buoys along the only known hyperspace route in and out of the Mobus system.

They had not actually seen any vessels pass by. So far the entire region was like a ghost town.

"Like the Dune Sea..." Gro'ho remarked to himself, deep in thought.

"Sir?" A nearby sensor technician asked, upon hearing the Captain's mumblings.

"Oh nothing. Any report from our sensor-" He started to say.

He was interuppted by the same technician, "Sir, we have lost contact with one of our sensor buoys!" He just about shouted, ending the long silence that had engulfed the bridge for the past two hours.

Disguised as random junk, dropped from the Spacer, the buoy's destruction could only mean one thing.



Someone was coming.


"Hyperspace reversions!" Another technician reported from his duty station, "Oh no... dozens of them!"

"This can't be right..." Another tech said fearfully.

"Shut up all of you!" Gro'ho snarled, "Calm yourselves and do your jobs."


He looked back and forth from his tactical readout and the viewports. At least twenty warships had reverted from hyperspace in the immediate area. Gro'ho was shocked at what he saw.

They were flawless.


The ships were perfect, without any discernable error in their construction. Most of the ships were Corellian Gunships, small manuverable attack craft capable of devestating destruction. But at least three were larger, and Gro'ho thought he saw the menacing hulk of a Star Destroyer reverting...

One of the techs whistled, "Boy would I want to get my hands on one of those... never have to do maintenance!"

Gro'ho was forced to agree. The ships looked extremely well-kept and maintained, compared to the Delight which was about twenty years old and cobbled together with about a million different parts from dozens of different manufacturers.

"They are decending upon the Spacer, Captain." One of the techs reported, her face glowing from the sensor console.

"Commence recording. I want this entire thing caught on tape. Also open a transmission to Onyxian orbital control and transmit live." Gro'ho said.

"They are attacking the Spacer! All of their ships at once..."

Twenty different warvessels and and thousands of turbolaser and ion cannon blasts struck the small transport at once, which had been disguised as a harmless passenger liner.


"Trigger the engines and begin transmitting the droid-signals." Gro'ho ordered.

The engines exploded abruptly, and little mouse-like droids suddenly came alive on the doomed ship, creating the false appearance of a passenger-filled ship that had blown it's engines en route through hyperspace.

The warships decended on it like hungry rancors.

"It's hit!"



The Spacer exploded.



And from the debris...


...came thousands of scorpions.


Shaped like an ancient insect from the human homeworld, the Scorpion-class attack droids had been the pride of the Outer-Rim Sovereignty engineering department. Designed with Emancipator Shield Disruptors, the two-meter long droids were designed to attach itself to a ship, strip it of a piece of it's shields, and cut through the hull. Once inside the ship, the Scorpions would search for the command center, using it's laser cutters to eliminate anyone in it's path as it destroyed the command center of the ship, leaving it ripe for the taking.



Thousands of these droids, engineered and created in secret at the newly created shipyards at Valacar, they immediately set upon the attacking fleet of gunships and command ships.

"Wow... look at them go...!" Gro'ho said breathlessly.


"You getting this?" A comm officer said into the voice pickup, presumably to someone stationed on Onyx.


"Sir..." The Star Destroyer is heading this way..." A tech murmured.

Sure enough the lumbering ship was slowly making it's way toward the comet.

"I think they may have picked up some of our engine emissions..." Another tech spoke up.

"Lets get out of here." Gro'ho said nervously as the thing got closer and closer, "We have enough recorded. Set course for Onyx, all speed."

The Nebulon-B broke from the comet, it's sublight engines blazing as it shifted to hyperspace position.

"Ready! Hyperspace in three...two..."


Expecting to go safely to hyperspace, Captain Gro'ho had never thought the Star Destroyer could fire on them. Surely they were far out of range.


He was wrong.


The Star Destroyer fired precision shots.


And all Gro'ho saw was the endless blackness.

“Watch yourself Renegade Leader; you have droids all over your tail!”

“I can’t shake them!”

“Dive, damnit, dive..!”

“I can’t get-“


Dak Strobel watched as the lead X-Wing of Renegade Squadron disappeared in the midst of a huge explosion. Strobel has watched as at least twenty droid starfighters riddled the X-wing with laser fire, until the strain on its shields became too great.


As Renegade Two, it fell now to Strobel to lead the remnants of the squadron, even though the situation seemed hopeless. Originally, the squadron has been one of twelve similar squadrons assigned to the Onyxian Defense Fleet.

The ODF had two complete starfighter wings, each wing made up of 144 fighters divided into twelve squadrons. Renegade was attached to the Dreadnaught Starlight, which now had been destroyed by continuous torpedo fire from the space station.

Logan’s forces had combined with Breaker’s forces into one fleet, and were trying to punch through the droid fighter screen to get to the remaining gunships assigned to the Starlight.

Strobel heard a crackling voice cut through the chatter of battle, “Renegade Leader, this is Sentinel, form up your squadron at coordinates zero-six-zero, form a screen and clear the way.”

“Acknowledged, Sentinel. Renegades, form up on me, lets do it!” Strobel bellowed.

Renegade Squadron had been reduced to half its strength, with just six X-wings in fighting condition.

Logan had placed his ten gunships to the side to cover the two command ship’s flanks as the Imperial and Victory star destroyers formed a double arrow-head formation.

Then the entire force moved out, with thousands of energy beams crisscrossing space.

Strobel rolled his X-wing to starboard, his laserfire creating a field of death. One fighter down, then two, then three.

The fleet was making progress, pushing the droid screen back. The Sentinel opened up with all of its laser cannons, decimating the enemy.

“Good shot Renegade leader!” Renegade three’s voice said into his ear.

“Thanks, Mitz.”

“Watch yourself, four, you are attracting attention!”

“I can’t see them!”

“Pull up!”

“No!”


***


“Sir our fighters are being obliterated. We are losing entire squadrons.” Foster said.

“Have we broken through?” Logan asked.

“Just about, the Starlight’s gunships are breaking through from the other side.”

“Recall our fighters, have all vessels form up on us into Dagger Formation. All ships are to focus their weapons on this missile ports.” Logan said calmly as he surveyed the battle.

“Sir, we believe we have located what appears to be a command tower.” A voice from the crew pit called up.

“What do you mean?” Foster asked.

“Well, the entire station is some sort of droid control device. The tower is attached to the core of an old Trade Federation droid control ship. If we can eliminate the tower, the droid fighters will shut down.”

Logan smiled, “Concentrate all fire-“

“Sir.” The voice said, whom Logan identified as a sensor operator, “We cannot get it from this distance, it requires precise shots.”

“Recommendations.” Logan said.

Foster looked down at his tactical board, then up again, “The Scorps.”

Logan nodded, “Do it.”


***


“You want us to do what?” Strobel asked incredulously.

“Renegade Leader, you are to work with Stomper Squadron and escort a special assault group to these coordinates.”

Strobel glanced down at his tactical readout as numbers scrolled across the screen.

It was at the north pole of the spherical station, where some sort of tower was attached to a smaller sphere. Strobel glanced around at the battle, the remaining starfighter squadrons had been recalled, leaving the decimated Renegades with Stomper Squadron, a group of twelve highly deadly K-Wing Bomber/Fighters.

Where was this ‘special assault group’?

“Heads up, Renegade Leader.” Stomper Leader said as fifty small objects shot past the two squadrons.

They were obviously droids, shaped like nothing Strobel had ever seen before, with an oval main body, with a small triangular head, with six appendages jutting out from the flanks.

“What the hell are those things?” Renegade Three almost shouted.

Strobel had never seen them before, “Those are Scorpion Attack Droids.” Stomper Leader reported even as the two squadrons formed up in an escort formation.

“They are gonna take out that tower?” Stobel asked.

“Guess so. Let’s give ‘em cover!” Stomper One shouted back.


The eighteen starfighters merged as one, with all of their firepower clearing the way for the wickedly fast Scorpions.

Strobel peeled off from the main group and chased down three retreating droid stargfighters, firing relentlessly. He took out one, but he saw that three more were on his tail.

“I’m hit!” He called as one laser struck its target, damaging his third engine.

The pursuing droids were suddenly wiped out in a hail of concussion missiles.

“Thanks, Stomper One.” He called out as he rejoined the escort group.

The Scorpions had finally reached their destination as the escorting fighters peeled off and harried any droids stupid enough to get too close.

Strobel watched in awe as the Scorpions attached themselves the Droid Control Sphere and cut through the hull with high-powered laser cutters, slicing into the hull like it was butter.

Once they had cut into it, they used their pincers to rip the hull plates away, creating gaps. The droids then dove into the gaps, disappearing into the dark sphere.


“Alright, our job is done!” Stomper One said, “Lets get the hell out of here!”

“I agree.” Strobel replied.


He swung his X-wing around, toward the nearby Coalition fleet, which was still being harried by the droid starfighters, and punched the throttle.

Right as something exploded next to his cockpit canopy.

A hissing sound entered the cockpit, and Strobel knew exactly what it was.

Oxygen leak.

“I have a leak!” He shouted into the comlink, but he realized that it was dead. His power was failing, and his boards were going dark. He could see the now-distant specks that were the rest of his squadron. Apparently, in their hurry to get back to the safety of the fleet, they did not see what had happened to him.

As his oxygen became depleted and spots were beginning to obscure his vision, he wondered if it was a torpedo that had hit him. Or perhaps it was a missile. Or maybe a laser beam.

Or maybe…


***


Logan crossed his arms as the smaller droid control sphere exploded in a flash of light.

The entire space station followed, with a brilliant explosion.

Cheers erupted on the bridge.

Logan sighed and watched the explosions continue, wondering how many lives had been loss for so little gain.


"Now what?" He asked to nobody.