The repair bay whirled around me, adding improvements to my design, created by me after analyzing my fight with the Jedi.

  After Knight Savon was killed, Republic reinforcements arrived, and I was forced to fight with only one arm until the GAR was depleted of troops to throw at us. What followed was a vicious routing of the clones, with thousands being taken prisoner and even more dying in battle. One of the largest battles happened later, when we attacked the main Republic base. It also happened to be the bloodiest, because I had fifteen of my Hailfire Droids launch all of their missiles into the base, disabling or destroying most of the Republic armor, and killing around three fourths of the remaining clones.

  A series of clicks accompanied a new, thicker chestplate being attached to me, colored black with blue accents like the rest of my frame and new paintjob. And my servomotors whirred with newfound strength and speed taken from upgraded HK-derived motors.

  A recon squad finding the remnants of a railroad really surprised me, because I thought that most of the galaxy had moved far beyond even internal combustion engines, let alone steam power. But the continued discovery of more and more abandoned steamworks, coal mines, and old tracks crisscrossing over most of the continents of Telos showed just how long steam engines continued to be used on the planet. Obviously, I commissioned the native Telosians to revamp the old railroads for military use, which they wholeheartedly agreed with.

  My feet clanked heavier than normal against the floor as the maintenance equipment dropped me. I walked out of the repair bay and to my bed, where a smooth cloak lay, colored a navy blue with a black interior. I threw the cloak on and placed the lightsaber I took from the Jedi into a specially designed compartment on my right thigh. My communicator beeped, and I activated it after seeing it was my newly promoted admiral.

  "Are you ready, sir?" 25 asked. "Your transport is waiting."

  "I'll be out in a moment." I replied, turning and walking out of my quarters.

  I was heading to the official start of the HK facility's initial run. The last two weeks had been a whirlwind of activity, with a lot of events condensed into it. The first railway from Thani to the HK foundry was completed within the first week, after an entire day of checking over three of the most intact engines to ensure that they wouldn't break down.

  The other four were being completely overhauled in the old steamworks with parts taken from fifteen museum pieces from across the planet. Thankfully, the native Telosians knew how to maintain and even build them, due to most documents about the engines still being intact and easily accessible.

  These engines were extremely powerful and efficient, something that I attributed to the technological advancements of the Star Wars universe. Gravity generators located in the engine increased its weight based on how many cars it was pulling behind it, and efficiency upgrades meant that each engine could run over eight hundred miles on a single tank of water and tender of coal. Of the seven trains in the shed, four were mixed traffic haulers, two were 's meant for heavy freight hauling, and the last one was a massive 4-8-8-4, and looked remarkably similar to , which legitimately confused me for a solid five minutes when I first set optics on it.

  My reopening of the railway and the relocation of most of the industrial assets away from the planet's struggling equatorial nature reserve, also gained the admiration of the Telos Restoration Society, along with most of the other locals as well. Turns out, the Telosians strongly disliked their corporate overlords, who had torn up quite a bit of the planet's ecosystem in the pursuit of profit. So, taking the power away from them, and moving all their factories far away from the population was practically celebrated.

  The structure in the arctic that we discovered in the orbital scans was actually an ancient Jedi academy, which somehow didn't surprise me as much as I thought, considering how widespread the Jedi once were. There was, however, a small problem with the door, which wouldn't open since it was a Force door. The solution was simply to blast the door apart. The inside of the building yielded an entire library's worth of holocrons, some of which were even of the Sith variety. Those were destroyed with utmost prejudice, simply by firing them into the sun from the Harbinger's Greed in a lead-lined box.

  I'm drawn out of my musings by the LAAT touching down. I stepped out of the craft and began walking to the facility, and I was joined by someone as I walked.

  "Ah, General Blitzkrieg, I'm glad to see you are well." Zilean greeted.

  Zilean Jessera was an interesting being. A female Dathomirian, who's family had been a part of Telosian politics for seven thousand years. She was among the first sentients to jump at the opportunity to remove the corporate overlords influence on Telos. She was a staunch supporter of the Telos Restoration Society, and a person that now had the official support of the Confederacy to elect her as Senator of the planet. The last one was found dead under 'mysterious circumstances'.

  She also treated me as an equal, which was nice, considering how most beings seemed to have treated droids as little more than appliances.

  "You as well, Zilean." I replied, modulating my voice to its least menacing tone.

  With that, we both walked into the foundry, to see how the newest warriors of mine fared.

  --

  By the time my Providence-class dreadnought, two extra Munificents, and my Lucrehulk arrived in-system four weeks later, the beginnings of an orbital defense network had started construction.

  Given enough time and effort, Telos would become a bastion for the Confederacy, despite its lack of population in comparison to a planet like Tatooine. Already, the train lines were becoming more numerous, and the first of the new engines were rolling off the assembly line in Thani. The Telosians jumped on the Confederacy bandwagon with a vigor I had never seen before in my life. The planets north and south poles were rapidly industrializing, the nature reserves were beginning to heal from the constant work of droid and organic, and the first of my personally upgraded battle droids were coming off the lines.

  Instead of making all new droids, I decided to throw my forces into upgrade centers, which was cheaper, and more efficient. The upgraded droids had HK-derived processor upgrades, minus the verbal and behavioral tics that the HK-series is known for. It actually surprised me just how much empty space the average B1 had in its head and body, even more so for the B2. All of my droids, from the B1 to the IG-227, were upgraded with better processors, servomotors, blasters, and optics.

  Combine all of that with copies of 25's combat experience, and my troops routine war games to give them even more experience, and you've got a very effective fighting force. A small but growing bastion of them would stay on this planet for the foreseeable future as my trump card, just in case I end up in a bad situation with the Republic, Confederacy, Sith, or whatever else has it out for me, in the future.

  Speaking of droids, the first batch of the HK line was a resounding success. Interestingly, they weren't a rusty red color, but black with blue accents like my new plating, with white optics. The same behavioral and verbal tics prevalent in the previous HK lines were still there, not that it bothered me much. The tests of their battle prowess were promising, and mass production on them would begin as soon as the facilities were created. I also had a few selected for a specific project I had in mind.

  Along with upgrading my troops, I have also upgraded myself. My armor has been thickened to better protect me against blaster bolts, faster and stronger servomotors modified from the HK line have replaced my stock hydraulics, greatly increasing my agility. Simulations showed that I could better keep up with a Jedi now, along with fighting better in general. My blasters were upgraded as well, still remaining as concealed dual wrist blasters, but were replaced with pairs of heavy blaster pistols, best known as the signature weapon of Han Solo, the DL-44. The new blasters upped my firepower by quite a large margin.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  However, blasters are easily deflected by Jedi, which is why I brought over some designs from my home universe to prototype. Slugthrowers are hard for Jedi to block, since the slugs simply melt after passing through the blade, showering the force user with molten shrapnel. Most are very crude in construction, almost like all the makeshift weapons that kept popping up in Africa and the Middle East. The kind of guns that are from my home world, however, are of a much better construction, one of which being a certain German machinegun from the mid-40's.

  The MG-42 had suffered from a significant flaw in its design: its rate of fire was too high for the metal of the gun to handle. The gunner had roughly thirty seconds of continuous fire before the barrel overheated, and he had to wait for it to cool off, or even replace the barrel itself due to warping. Even less time if the gunner fired all at once rather than in bursts, like what was recommended.

  In some later cases, when the German army was using poorer quality materials for their guns, the barrel would overheat before you had even finished a single ammo box. I had solved that problem with a liberal application of Star Wars era technology, even though it took up most of my time. In fact, only three of each exist right now, and all of them are being studied for limited production.

  With a new durasteel barrel and receiver, plus an additional box magazine, plus a backpack variant attached to a few upgraded droids were designed, and prototyping was underway. I also brought over some designs a few shotguns, revolvers, and rifles, starting with the M1 Garand, .45 Colt Peacemaker, and the Winchester 1897 lever action.

  Simulations of the guns from my home world against the average slugthrower were very telling of the superior craftmanship of Earths weapons. The average slugthrower was not very good, only really able to be used for hunting and self-defense. It couldn't penetrate any real form of armor like its competitor, the E-5, which almost as cheap as the droid who wields it. A Garand, however, shot straight through the plastoid chestplate of a clone trooper dummy.

  (However, I'd later learn that I was using defective armor in the live fire tests and release a string of profanity so long and vile that it would leave even the droids around me speechless, leading to me cutting all of the military style slugthrowers into only limited production.)

  That surprised me, since I thought that Star Wars armor was made of tougher stuff. But then I started looking at how the bullets of a slugthrower were made. The tech of Star Wars may have been advanced, and slugthrowers like the Cycler Rifle were essentially miniature railguns, but the tech of the bullets was somehow outdated by my standards.

  It was a fairly familiar looking bullet, but with one major difference. The bullet itself was just a metal ball, like what you'd see in a musket. After a bit of research, I learned that making aerodynamic bullets was deemed a 'waste of time' after blasters became commonplace. And eventually the tech required to make actual bullets was lost. All of That didn't mean I had abandoned the average Cycler Rifle. That design, being a miniature railgun, could easily be upgraded as well, something that I had already started working on.

  Since I would be fighting Jedi more often than the average droid, I created two entirely custom quad barrel derringers that fired twelve-gauge rounds and placed them in slide-out compartments on both of my inner wrists. That effectively gave me double the firepower for a brief amount of time, since I carried sixteen extra rounds in my arms. It was only a temporary loadout, at most, since I had plans to recreate a Spas-12 and shove it in my left arm.

  "Greetings, General."

  I was drawn out of my thoughts by the arrival of the standard Tactical Droid, colored blue with gray accents, designated TD-60. When he first arrived, he hadn't had any of the updates that I had created, so he was a bit flatter, personality-wise, then the rest of my troops. He was in charge of my recently refitted fleet until it arrived to link up with my own here on Telos IV.

  He was also supposed to be in charge of the planetary defense fleet that would be here in a few days to keep it safe from the Republic. Knowing that, I had quickly given him, along with the rest of my fleet, my personal update. Now TD-60 will safeguard Telos from any threat, and work with the natives to ship the new things I have created for them, effectively jumpstarting the Telosian economy.

  "How long will it take for my repair bay to be added?" I asked as we walked out of the command base, my cloak flowing behind me.

  "I estimate it will take two more hours to transport your repair bay from the Harbinger's Greed to the Finest Hour." TD-60 responded.

  "What are my next orders?"

  "Count Dooku left your orders in a message for you on the Finest Hour."

  "Good. I trust you will keep Telos safe in my absence?"

  "Fear not, General Blitzkrieg. Telos shall remain as you leave it."

  Given what my vocalizer sounds like, I was expecting to say that at one point, not a subordinate.

  --

  The Finest Hour is a Providence-class Dreadnought, and my official flagship.

  When you think of the Separatists, this is probably the first ship you would think of, with the Lucrehulk probably being a close second. The forces on-board where mostly what you'd expect, although I did have some oddities, those being ten Infiltrator Demolition Droids, those transforming droids that bombed Coruscant, and a hundred AQ-series Aqua Droids.

  An interesting set of canon events happened while I was defeating the Republic on Telos IV, namely the battle of Ryloth happened in the month and a half I've been here. That meant, according to what I remember from fan speculation and the official timeline, that the next arc was going to involve the Holocron Heist of the Jedi Temple. Which also means that Cad Bane is going to be around for a little while.

  After that, the next big arc will probably be either the Zillo Beast arc or the second battle of Geonosis. Where the largest foundry world for the Confederacy will be attacked, and the prototype Heavy Armored Assault Tanks, also known as 'super tanks', will have their production facilities destroyed.

  God, I need to set aside some time to work out the confusing order of the Clone wars.

  "Welcome aboard the Finest Hour, sir." 25 greeted as I walked onto the bridge.

  "Are you happy with the fleet now, admiral 25?" I asked.

  "I am, indeed, General Blitzkrieg."

  "Where are the orders from Dooku? TD-60 reported that he had another mission for us."

  "He left his message on the communicator in your quarters, sir. But before you go, what ships should we leave until the planetary defense fleet gets here?"

  "...Leave the Harbinger's Greed, the Close Encounter, and eight of our twenty-eight support craft."

  "Yes, sir."

  With that, I walked off the bridge and to my quarters, H1-01 walking in lockstep with me. As I walked, I passed by a few patrolling B1's, who stopped and saluted me as I passed, placing a fist over their chest.

  That salute was something that my HK units started, and it had quickly spread to every droid in my army. I had asked H1-01, my personal bodyguard, about it at one point, and he explained that it meant that my forces would gladly lay down their artificial lives to protect me from any threat.

  My door bisected and opened with a quiet hiss and closed behind me once I had entered. My new room was fairly spacious, but still just as spartan as my old one. There were a few new additions, however, those being a large holotank in the corner, and a desk, complete with a chair, which I sat down in. The desk had a communicator in it, which was beeping. I clicked the answer button, and the visage of Christopher Lee popped up in a recorded message.

  "General BZ-KG, your new orders are to assist the bounty hunter, Cad Bane, with finding Jedi Master Bolla Ropal. You will meet up with him in the Devaron system. Complete this mission, and do not fail me." The Count of Serreno commanded.

  "...Fuck."

  "Statement: I have no idea what that means, General, but I agree. Meatbags can be such a bother." H1-01 remarked.