It was before the fight began that Lona realized that she was, once again, commanding a space battle while Blitzkrieg was fighting down on the surface.

  The first time that it happened was at Geonosis, then a second time at Pantora (although everyone agreed that one wasn't really an actual battle), and finally now, on Saleucami, she was getting ready to do it for a third time. To be honest, Lona was actually relieved she wouldn't be on the surface, fighting for her life. Ever since she joined up with Blitzkrieg on the Finest Hour, Lona realized that she had preferred being on the ship instead of on the frontlines.

  Lona kind of expected that to be honest.

  Back at the Jedi Temple she was never really good at learning how to fight with her lightsaber, although she had recently improved thanks to Blitz sparring with her twice a week to shake the rust off of her skills. Doing that was both training for the two of them, and so she could defend herself from a Republic/CIS/Sith hit squad in the future, if she's discovered to be working with him, according to what Blitzkrieg explained to her at one point.

  "It's not paranoia if they actually are out to get you." He had quoted at some point, probably from something in his previous life.

  She wasn't really good at most of the other combat related stuff that she tried to learn back at the temple though, except for her near excellent mechanic's score. To Lona, machines, droids, ships, everything mechanical really, they all just made more sense than people, except for Blitzkrieg, that is. She was the top of her class in everything mechanical related, from starship navigation, to lightsaber maintenance, to engineering, to designing, all of which distracted nicely from her lacking skills in… literally everything fighting related.

  It seemed that not even the Force could make her a good fighter, she had realized at one point.

  "Admiral, Commander, the other ships are on approach. We're ready to engage the GAR fleet." The navigation B1 reported, pulling Lona from her thoughts.

  Omen made to order the attack to commence, but he paused for a moment, then turned to Lona, a question on his vocoder.

  "Are you and the General sure the ships will be able to handle this?" He asked.

  One of the blue-skinned togruta's montral twitched anxiously. "We did the calculations on the whole journey from Telos. We'll be fine the first couple of times." Lona replied. "But you should probably sound the order to activate the mag-clamps if we do more than three fly-by's or so, just in case the inertial dampeners start to glitch out."

  Lona's expression slowly became concerned as she continued. "Big military hyperdrives like the ones we have, or any hyperdrive really, are really not meant to be used like this. And if that doesn't unease me enough, I'm more worried about the relativistic shields rupturing and dousing us in hypermatter than a turbolaser shot hitting something critical. I know that you know we still don't fully understand hyperdrive technology."

  "Well… look on the bright side, Lona. If we pull this off, we'll be redefining the CIS attack pattern for years to come. If it doesn't… well being doused in hypermatter can't really be that bad, can it?"

  The look that Lona gave Omen made a chill go down his mechanical spine, which was an entirely new sensation for the droid. So, the white and silver admiral quickly sat down in the command chair, strapped himself in with nary an extra thought, then gave the command.

  "Begin our attack."

  —

  The fingers of Anakin's prosthetic arm twitched again.

  The Jedi knight grimaced at the mild jolt that went up to his shoulder as the mechanical arm glitched and recalibrated.

  The new prosthetic attached to him was a much newer model than the one that he lost on Pantora. The new one had a few upgrades over the one he got from the Jedi Temple as well, which he thought was great. Stronger grip strength, a Deactivator hold-out pistol built into the lower palm, and touch pads that could detect vibrations within a hundred meter radius, just to name a few. It even had some light durasteel paneling covering all the mechanical bits in his arm, making it less skeletal and more durable, so that a slugthrower wouldn't blast it apart again.

  The panels covering the internals were nice, since he didn't need to wear an arm-length glove on it all the time to keep particles of dust and other junk like that away. He still wore the glove though. He didn't like looking down and seeing the gleam of metal where there should have been flesh. The biggest mistake he had ever made in a lightsaber duel, even if it was against someone who was much more experienced than him.

  It was a brand new model as well, ordered by his friend, Chancellor Palpatine, and built and paid for by the Republic Military itself, so a few bugs and twitches were expected as he acclimated to the brand new limb, especially since he had only fully acclimated to his first prosthetic arm about two months ago, which to him felt like a couple years, considering the war. But the new model was certainly worth the disappointed looks that some of the council gave him.

  Why they gave him those looks he didn't know, but he liked the new limb more than his old Jedi-made one, anyway

  "How's the search going, Obi-Wan?" He asked the hologram of his friend down on the surface.

  "We've encountered some rather stiff resistance. It's almost like there's another whole army down here." Kenobi replied, looking off at something not in range of the holocom for a moment.

  "Do you need Ahsoka and I down there too?"

  Obi-Wan crossed his arms and looked at his former padawan with a raised eyebrow and a slightly disappointed expression. "Anakin. You know you're not allowed to fight on the ground for another two weeks. That's what the Chancellor and the High Council agreed on after what you did on Pantora."

  Anakin grimaced, shifting to his left and crossing his own arms. "Obi-Wan, you know I was only responding to Padme's distress beacon. It's what any good Jedi would have done."

  "Nevertheless, you still did something that the council decided to punish you for by keeping you with me for the time being. I still believe that you should have stayed my padawan for a few more years, but thanks to the war you were made a Knight against my wishes. We cannot change that now, but you can still learn from me, I suppose."

  Anakin internally bristled at Obi-Wan's remark about him staying a padawan. He had become one of the best generals in the entire GAR, and until recently, he was leading the charge with his men on planet after planet, system after system. The only Jedi generals that were anywhere near as good as him were General Plo Koon, Yoda, and Obi-Wan himself. But before he could respond, Obi-Wan looked off to his right.

  "What? …You found him? …Excellent. Start moving out immediately." The hologram of Obi-Wan turned back to Anakin. "I'm sorry to cut this short, Anakin, but a recon team believes they've just found Grievous."

  "Be safe, Obi-Wan."

  The holocall ended, and Anakin sighed.

  He didn't like being stuck on the ship while the battle raged down on the surface. He should be down there with his men, finding Grievous. But the Council's decision was… acceptable, as much as he hated it. With hindsight he now knew it was a pretty bad idea to go to Pantora alone, even though his wife was in danger. But the one thing that he still couldn't believe from his misadventure on Pantora, was that a droid of all things had bested him in combat.

  …If it even was a droid.

  Anakin still couldn't get over the fact that he sensed something inside that mechanical general, and a part of him wanted to know what it was so badly. He swore that he sensed a presence in the force from within it, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was. From the very brief interaction they had, it seemed like the droid was as alive as a sentient, and that strange presence in the force that he could feel from within that metallic body was so… alien to anything he had felt before, even to some of the stranger Jedi he had seen in the Temple in his youth.

  The presence was mechanical, that was for sure, but it felt alive, like the machine had an actual spark of life in it. And every other droid that was around Anakin did not have the same presence. He had even tried reaching out through the force to Artoo and some of the other astromechs on the Resolute to see if any of them had a presence in the force. But as far as he could tell, there was no presence in any of them.

  Nothing, even if Artoo was about the most lively droid he'd ever seen, unlike C-3PO, who he knew would never be on the same level as his astromech.

  -

  As C-3PO made dinner for Mistress Padme, he suddenly felt a small wave of relief flow through his processor.

  He paused and tilted his head for a moment, slightly confused at the strange emotion that went through him, and then a feeling went through his processor that he had dodged a blaster bolt even though he hadn't been anywhere near a blaster in hours, and active combat in weeks, which confused him even more.

  The gold-plated droid stood there for almost half a minute, but then shook his head slightly and turned back to the Bantha steak sizzling away in the pan, unknowing of the very real danger he had just unknowingly dodged.

  -

  Until Anakin had his hands on that droid general, he'd never know. And he was going to get that droid and find out why it had a force presence, when all the other droids he's fought didn't.

  "General Skywalker, we have incoming signatures." The clone at the scanners reported, pulling him from his thoughts. "It looks like what remains of Grievous' fleet is approaching."

  "Get ready, they may be here to try and run us off." Anakin ordered. "Or at least try to mount a rescue attempt."

  The Jedi Knight turned to the transparisteel windows, and in the distance, he could see the small dots making up what was left of Grievous' fleet. The dots were growing quite quickly, and soon he could make out the forms of the upscaled Recusant and two Munificents, along with a few smaller craft. The approaching ships got closer and closer, and Anakin clenched his flesh hand into a fist as he prepared to give the order to open fire.

  But before he could get a single syllable past his lips, the ship suddenly shuddered as it was hit by turbolaser shots that weren't from the approaching CIS fleet.

  "Where the kriff is that coming from?!" Anakin exclaimed.

  "Sir, there's Seppie ships behind us!" The clone at the scanners quickly reported.

  "Well turn the fleet around!"

  Slowly, the Venators and other ships began to change direction. The shielding flared brightly as it absorbed the constant barrage of turbolaser blasts, and Anakin's teeth ground together as he clenched his jaw in anger. But when they had finally turned around to where the transparisteel windows were facing the oncoming cannon blasts, Anakin, and most of the bridge crew that could see out of them, paused for a moment.

  "Are those… Republic ships?" Admiral Yularen asked.

  "With Separatist colors." Anakin almost growled.

  "Open fire!" Yularen ordered.

  Turbolaser shots flew through the air, but Anakin's jaw dropped when, instead of firing back at all of them, every single CIS ship focused their fire at one of the other Venators, basically ignoring all the other ships. The sheer amount of flak made the Ventator's shielding flare brightly enough that Anakin had to squint his eyes. After a few seconds of the shields holding back the firing line of turbolasers, they flickered and fell, and a majority of the turbolaser shots impacted around the bottom of the ship's tower, breaking it off from the rest of the ship while the rest pierced into the armor all over the ship.

  Before Anakin could order anything else, half of the CIS ships rotated slightly and suddenly jumped to hyperspace, grazing by them and making the whole fleet's shields flare up in the wake of the hypermatter energy dissipation. The fleet's heat sinks extended, venting the excess from the shields into space.

  "What the kriff?" Anakin exclaimed, completely bewildered. "They had us dead to rights, then some of them just jumped away like that?"

  "This is very odd." Yularen said, narrowing his eyes.

  Before they could converse any further, the ship shuddered again.

  "Turn some of us about, the other ships are still there." Anakin ordered. "And send out a distress signal to the nearest fleet, we're gonna need some help."

  The Resolute once again turned its massive frame around until the forms of both fleets were showing up in the opposite windows. Anakin gritted his teeth when the rest of the CIS fleet came back out of hyperspace, their own heat sinks extended with visible waves of heat flowing away from the ship where what was left of Grievous' fleet was. They quickly added their shots into the battle as well.

  This was not going how he expected, and he needed reinforcements soon, otherwise the fleet could be in even more trouble.

  "General, we've just received confirmation that the 327th are on their way. They should be here in five minutes, sir." One of the clone officers reported. "They were just passing Boonta when they received our message."

  "Good." Anakin replied. "Keep us moving away from them long enough for the 327th to get here."

  All of the Munificents went into hyperspace again, and reappeared on the other side of the fleet, forcing the GAR ships to fly 'upwards' to escape from them.

  As the GAR fleet started maneuvering away from the approaching Separatist fleet, Anakin silently hoped that reinforcements would arrive soon.

  —

  Northern Forest, Saleucami

  10,000 ft above sea level

  "Jets are primed."

  "Flight calibrations complete."

  "Control surfaces checked."

  "Weapon systems online."

  "Neural link connected."

  "Locks released. Go get 'em, sir!"

  "Starlight launching… Now!"

  I pushed off from the durasteel at my back, and fell from the belly of my Stealthipede for a few moments, embracing the feeling of weightlessness as the wind whipped past my own frame and the frame of the Starlight.

  After a few moments of freefall, the Starlight's jets activated, and my course corrected as the directional repulsors fired off, sending me flying off as my ship broke away from me. I started to maneuver myself into position as I flew through the air, dodging a few stray blaster shots that were shot into the air.

  I loved the feeling of flight.

  Flying in space was one thing, but flying in an atmosphere was another thing entirely.The air flowing across my body, the whine of the engines as they propelled me through the sky, it was exhilarating.

  Once I had oriented myself, I checked my altimeter which showed I was at five thousand feet. After a moment of flying over the forest below, the Starlight's antenna activated, which boosted my internal radio range. In an instant, a wall of sound blasted through my internal radio as the battle raged just a few miles away.

  "AT-TE, two o'clock!"

  "Saber tanks coming over the ridge!"

  "Hailfire-238, opening fire on Republic AT-TE."

  "I swear it's like we've got half the clone army coming at us!"

  After another few seconds, I received a comm request from the ground forces, and the icon and designation of one of my Commando droids popped up on my Hud.

  "General Blitzkrieg, the scanners are detecting a squad of LAAT gunships on approach to my position. My forces and I could use some assistance." BX-99 reported.

  "Roger, 99. I'm on my way." I replied, redirecting towards my commander's position.

  "Joyful statement: At last, combat that I can participate in!" H1 cheered, who I had ordered to head down to the surface with 99 beforehand.

  BX-99 was one of the droids that I had learned had a Personality Matrix. While most of the chipped droids were being kept aboard the fleet until further notice, 99 was my ground commander, and he did his job well. It also helped that he was one of the more experienced droids in my army, along with BX-87, both seeing direct combat in the battle on Telos.

  So, I made the decision that all of the droids that had a Personality Matrix, or were in the process of them being formed in their heads, were to stay in the fleet until I was positive that they were completely ready for combat. It might have taken some of my army's strength, considering it was every one in ten droids, but it was more than made up for with the quality of the remaining troop's programming.

  All of the droids had been slowly self-improving ever since I updated them all, and that was thanks to the Droid Control Network.

  The DCN has long since been repurposed from a literal control network into a sort of learning program that all droids are connected to, and all of them can submit combat and training data onto it for others to download and use for themselves, effectively raising the entire army's battlefield experience. And the best part is, if the DCN goes down, whatever knowledge any of the droids have learned from the program remains in their processors.

  I quickly shook myself out of my thoughts and adjusted my trajectory, accelerating into the sky, high above the quickly developing battleground below.

  My vision zoomed in, and I spotted 99 and H1 firing from behind an AAT, which had lost a side mounted blaster and was taking fire from multiple sources. I also saw a Hailfire droid launch a quartet of missiles into the cockpit of a Saber tank, making the hovering AFV dig a trench into the ground before it stopped. The droid then fired another missile trio into a group of clones, sending clone parts flying.

  Suddenly, a missile exploded near me, sending shrapnel pinging across my frame. I whirled around, spotting approaching LAATs, with a few V-19s escorting it. My optics brightened in irritation, and I pulled my lightsaber out, not igniting it at the moment, but grazing one digit over the trigger.

  "99, H1, the reinforcements have arrived, and they've spotted me. Moving to engage." I said into my radio.

  "Roger, roger, sir." 99 replied.

  Without a second to hesitate, I blasted towards the approaching gunships.

  The V-19's immediately broke off and barreled towards me, while the LAATs dove down. I quickly let loose a salvo of micro-missiles towards the escaping gunships, hitting two and damaging them, but disabling the third's engines, causing it to drop like a stone. I aimed my gun arm at one of the Torrents, and released a spray of repeater fire that splashed across the cockpit, hiding my approach until I slammed onto the canopy.

  With the signature snap-hiss of the weapon, my lightsaber ignited, and I plunged it into the canopy, destroying the flight controls, then swept the weapon upwards, carving through the clone pilot. I then boosted off of the fighter, slashing through the armor beside the cockpit, hitting a fuel tank and igniting the tibanna within in the process. I quickly launched a salvo of micro-missiles into another nearby torrent, tearing off a wing and shredding its canopy.

  The fighter jerked back, then spiraled into another Torrent. The explosion took out a fourth, leaving only one fighter left. The final fighter was taken down before I was able to direct my attention at it, and when I looked back, a squadron of Tri-Fighters had descended and was wreaking havoc on the GAR lines and the other squadron of Torrents that had just shown up.

  "General, Obi-Wan Kenobi is on the battlefield!" 99 exclaimed into the radio.

  I whirled around, scanning the cratered ground until I finally spotted him. The Negotiator was leading his troops slowly across the battlefield, putting his lightsaber training to good use as he deflected bolt after bolt, while the AT-TE behind him fired away with its ball-mounted guns. And then I swung my gaze over to the CIS side of the battlefield, and saw the small form of Grievous, near where H1 and 99 were, using two lightsabers as he cut through the clones that had dropped from the two LAATs.

  "I see Grievous is close to your position." I said.

  "He is, sir." 99 replied.

  "Let him know that Kenobi is coming in hot. He might need the heads-up."

  "Roger, roger."

  99 turned, pulled out his E-5 and his vibroblade, then started making his way towards the cyborg general, H1 following close behind. When I looked up, a duo of Torrents were screaming towards me, and I merely sighed, shook my head slightly, then rocketed towards them to fight once again.

  "General." Omen radioed as I smashed my repeater barrel through the cockpit of a Torrent and vaporized the pilot and controls. "There's a trio of AT-TEs setting up on the ridge six-hundred meters to the north."

  I pulled my repeater out of the cockpit, then sent a salvo of missiles towards the last Torrent, shredding its wings and blowing out both engines, sending it spiralling down from the air. Once I was done with that, I quickly spun around and spotted the tanks, which were lumbering into a firing position on a ridge overlooking the battlefield.

  "Copy that, Omen. Are there any units behind those GAR walkers?" I asked, while doing a small, one-handed punching action with my repeater.

  A series of clicks made four heat sinks slide out from the sides of the receiver, waves of heat visibly rising from them as they glowed red hot.

  The Starlight's main weapon, the Imperator Repeater, was actually its second configuration. Mk-1 had overheating problems, which were solved by the four heat sinks added to the receiver to take up the excess heat from firing, along with a slightly shorter barrel. The Mk-3 is supposed to be able to dump all the heat into the chamber and launch an explosive shot, but we're still working on that. And maybe an extendable vibrosword bayonet as well.

  "We are, sir. Junglefowl units 01, 02, and 03 reporting." Junglefowl 01 replied.

  The heat sinks closed with an audible series of three clicks, and the small display in my hud went from red to green with a circle representing how long I could fire before I needed to dump the excess heat again. "Good. You three attack from behind, I'll distract them."

  I angled myself down, then dove towards the AT-TEs.

  The Republic walkers took notice of me once I was about a thousand feet away, and their MDCs rotated up and fired at me. The shots were easy enough to dodge, given my side and maneuverability, but a few did get a little too close for comfort. I ducked, dodged, rolled, and spun through the air, out-flying the aim of the clones by a good margin. However, even more bolts were added to the mix, and when I was able to see where they were coming from, I noticed that it was the top ball turrets of all three of them aimed up at me.

  After a few moments, the ball turret blasters were starting to become a problem. The faster fire rate was difficult to dodge, and I even had to start deflecting the ones that got too close with my lightsaber, which started to slow me down as I had to concentrate on not being hit by a bolt. But still I dove into the approaching flak, until I was so close I could see the pilot through the cockpit glass.

  At the last moment, I swooped down to the middle AT-TE and grabbed onto the long barrel of a MDC, forcing it to rotate more to the left until it was aimed right at the left AT-TE's MDC. Then a split second later, I landed on top of the barrel, close to the controls. It happened so fast that the clone trooper accidentally fired, blowing the left AT-TE's Mass Driver Cannon to pieces, along with the clone at the controls.

  My lightsaber pierced through the front of the MDC, through the controls and into the chest of the clone gunner. I pulled away from the walker and shot back up into the sky, then fired a salvo of micro-missiles into the left AT-TEs middle, breaking through the lighter armored middle of the articulated walker, and causing a catastrophic fire to break out.

  Before the clones could retaliate, red laser bolts came out of the treeline behind us, and the Junglefowl units quickly moved out of the forest, concentrating all of their fire onto the right AT-TE. The MDC was shredded by the combined fire, and a trio of missiles flew straight into the rear of the middle AT-TE when it tried to turn around.

  "Nice work, Junglefowl units." I congratulated, as I stabbed the pilot of the middle walker through the transparisteel window.

  "Thank you, sir. Shall we join the main battle?" 01 replied as he gunned down a few clones that had broken out of one of the walkers and was firing at us.

  "Negative, stay hidden and pick off anyone who tries to flank us. And stay far away from the Jedi. Armored or not, a lightsaber will still slice right through your legs."

  "Roger, roger, sir."

  As I flew back up into the air, the Junglefowl units thudded off back into the tree line, once again melting into the shadows of the forest despite their massive size as they readied themselves to ambush unsuspecting foes.

  'Those guys have no right being so sneaky with how big they are.' I thought with a mental grin.

  "Got anything else for me, 99?" I asked, flying back up into the sky.

  "I am unaware of anything that requires your attention on the ground. The- General Grievous, behind you!"

  I spun my head around and zoomed in, barely managing to catch the beginning strokes of Grievous's and Kenobi's fight. My optics zoomed out a bit, and I spotted 99 and H1 a couple dozen meters away, fighting a boss fight of their own with the AT-TE that had followed Kenobi. My troops were not doing as well as they usually were, almost like something was hindering them. I'm blaming the force for their combat performance suffering.

  Although, I had to admit, Grievous fought well, especially for a force-null sentient cyborg.

  "Sir, H1 and I could use some assistance!" 99 exclaimed.

  I looked back over at them to see a whole squadron of clones coming out of the AT-TE and engaging the two, along with the other droids near them. The hatches on my wings opened as I tried to fire a salvo of micro-missiles towards the AT-TE, but when I checked my ammo level, I realized that I only had five of them left, not enough to take down anything but a speeder bike or an AT-RT.

  "Damnit. Gonna have to pull something a bit unconventional." I muttered.

  The GAR troops were pouring on the firepower at my troops, and I could tell that many more of my own were falling than the clones. A Hailfire exploded in a fireball, consuming a dozen B1s. The AAT that H1 and 99 were taking cover behind got hit with an anti-tank rocket, blowing off the remaining side-mounted blaster

  I took a moment to center myself, then angled downwards and dove.

  I opened fire with my Imperator as I dropped, cutting down whatever was in my path. Blaster bolts whizzed by as the clones on the ground fired at me. My own troops, seeing my approach, rallied and started fighting harder. I slammed into the ground, skidding along the dirt. I spun around, impaling a clone on the barrel of my Imperator, then fired a burst into another.

  "CHARGE!" I roared.

  A quick series of mechanical noises sounded off, and the Starlight disconnected from me as I kept moving forward, a glance behind me showed that the other troops were charging forward from their positions with me.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  My own blaster opened fire, taking down another clone, while my other hand pulled out my vibrosword and slashed straight through the chest and shoulder of another. A blaster bolt went straight into his head afterwards. I spun around again, cleaving right through another's midsection and bisecting him. A blaster bolt hit me square in the chest, knocking me backwards into a roll. Once I got to my feet, I saw the AT-TE had all of its front facing blaster cannons pointed at me.

  In a flash, I pulled out my lightsaber and started spinning it just as all four blaster cannons opened fire on me. There were so many shots being fired at me that I was slowly being pushed back, digging small furrows into the ground. A blaster cannon sounded off from somewhere behind me, and one of the blaster cannons was blown apart. The walker was knocked back, taking its remaining cannons off of me.

  I surged forward, trying to be unpredictable in my movement to throw off the walker's aim. The advantages of being fully machine showed themselves, as predictive algorithms allowed me to deflect bolt after bolt, my lightsaber hand spinning so fast it was almost a blur of blue. With one final adjustment, I leapt to the side, out of the blaster cannon's range. The AT-TE slowly began to turn around to face me again, and the gunner looked over the side, trying to spot me, a blaster held tightly in his grip.

  But then my lightsaber cleaved through one of the walker's front legs.

  A quick side note about lightsabers. They have no actual weight behind the blade, since the glorified laser sword's actual blade is made out of pure energy. So, using one like a physical sword would throw anyone with experience in that area off completely. Only the darksaber has actual weight to it. And since it's pure energy, it can cut through pretty much anything except Cortosis, Phrik, and Beskar to varying levels of trouble. Phrik is resistant enough that I could grab a lightsaber blade briefly, like I did with one of Ahsoka's, and Cortosis shorts out the blade on contact, while Beskar resists lightsaber strikes indefinitely.

  The walker shuddered as one of its six durasteel legs was cut off, leaving a glowing orange stump that flailed uselessly. Another slice, and the other front leg was cleaved in two.

  "Hailfire-238, Republic AT-TE missing its front legs. Grid 8-7-3-9, open fire!" I ordered through my radio as I backpedaled away from the clones that were clambering out of the back, blasters in hand.

  "Hailfire-238, opening fire." The missile carrier droid replied.

  The Starlight blasted to life, flying over and starting to attach itself to me as I fended off the approaching clones. My lightsaber once again became a blur as I spun it like a shield to deflect the bolts coming my way. The flightpack's engines roared to life, and I boosted into the air, Imperator ready to fire. The missiles launched by the Hailfire impacted the AT-TE's front, blowing apart the cockpit and sending what was left of the front legs flying away into the clones.

  I opened fire, aided by my quickly approaching reinforcements. The clones soon fell beneath blaster and blade, and I landed near the B2 leading the squadron.

  "You did well." I said.

  "Thank you, sir." The B2 replied.

  "Take your forces back to our lines and bolster our defenses. I do believe that we may have taken more losses here than before I took command of the Star Wreckers."

  "I think we actually have, sir. Back to the defensive line, bots!"

  The B2 captain, and his squadron of B1s B2s, and two Droideka constantly scanning the area around them moved off towards our lines, and I flew back into the sky.

  When I reached a high enough altitude and could see more of the battlefield, I realized that the battle was much more loss-heavy than I expected. Mostly due to General Kenobi being an absolute terror with his force powers. I mean, it made sense. He's a Jedi, a conduit of a mystical power that can't really be defined by scientific terms other than Midichlorians, which is a whole other can of worms. But either way, he's a terror on the battlefield, even with his defensive style.

  Speaking of Kenobi, he and Grievous are still dueling, the cyborg general using all four arms, but he was apparently missing a hand, at least from what I could tell from the lack of a fourth lightsaber.

  "For fuck's sake." I muttered. "And the big lug's too proud or too dumb to realize that he's going to lose without help."

  'Depending on what incarnation of Grievous he is, at least.' I added in my own thoughts.

  I shot forwards, engines whirring loudly as I accelerated towards the two fighting Generals.

  —

  General Obi-Wan Kenobi thought the mission was going pretty well, despite the strange behaviours of some of the droids.

  Earlier in the battle, he noticed that some of the droids were… smarter than he expected. A lot of them did simply walk forwards and shoot, being sliced by a lightsaber or shot by a blaster and going offline, but a larger part of them seemed to be more intelligent than their counterparts. The smarter ones also seemed to be giving him a very large berth and very frequently firing from behind cover, almost like they knew what would happen if they got too close. And Kenobi couldn't get to them easily, because of the dumber ones always walking towards him, firing away like they were nothing but a distraction.

  But then he finally found Grievous. And Force was the cyborg angry at him for their fight back on the ship.

  Obi-Wan was deep into Soresu, defending amazingly against the four spinning blades of the cyborg general. He had already cut one hand off, which made waves of anger start to roll off of Grievous. The sheer amount of anger battered against his mind as much as the cyborg battered against him physically, it was almost like drowning but without water.

  But Obi-Wan fought on, enhancing his physical capabilities with the Force. His singular blade clashed again and again against Grievous' stolen lightsabers. Obi-Wan took a quick step back, then leaped over the cyborg general. Grievous roared in anger when another of his four hands fell off at the wrist, leaving him with only two.

  Kenobi!" Grievous growled through his vocalizer, backpedalling away from the Jedi.

  "Something wrong, General? Things not going according to plan?" Obi-Wan quipped, paraphrasing what Grievous had said to him back on the ship.

  "You dare turn my own words against me, Kenobi!" The cyborg snarled, spinning his lightsabers in agitation.

  "I do dare, Grievous. Your plan has failed, and you lead an army with no spirit, no loyalty, nothing but programming. Your fleet is lost. Surrender, and maybe you can plead for mercy from the Senate."

  "I will never surrender to you Jedi! NEVER!" Grievous bellowed.

  Just as the two generals were about to clash again, a spray of repeater fire impacted in a line between them, stopping both in their tracks. A heavy thud made both of them turn to the right, where a new droid had just landed. Obi-Wan recognised the droid, and the strange mechanical wings. It was General Blitzkrieg, and the strange jetpack that Anakin saw during the space battle around Devaron.

  The droid glanced at Grievous, and the antennas on the sides of the cyborg's head twitched. Obi-Wan tilted his head minutely. It was almost like they were speaking to each other.

  "General Blitzkrieg, how nice of you to join us." Obi-Wan remarked, subtly adjusting his stance so that he could defend from both of the droid generals.

  "I am afraid that I cannot say the same, Jedi." Blitzkrieg responded, a series of mechanical clicks emanating from him as the wings detached from him and flew back a couple dozen feet. "Your fight ends here, General Kenobi. There are only three options for you: surrender, retreat… or die."

  In a flash, the droid raised its arm and fired off a shot at Kenobi, who deflected it right back into the chest of the droid, expecting him to be pierced by the bolt and go offline. But the droid was only knocked back a single step, leaving a blackened mark on one side of his chest plating. The droid wiped off some of the bolt's residue, then looked back up at Obi-Wan.

  "...I will admit, I did expect that." Was all the droid said, before both it and Grievous ran at him.

  —

  Obi-Wan certainly is the master of Soresu, as I quickly learned.

  The man definitely knows how to fight, even if it's with the main defensive lightsaber style.

  Obi-Wan threw me over his shoulder onto the ground, then used my own arm blaster to fire a point-blank shot into Grievous' chest plating. I quickly started rotating my arm as fast as I could, striping his grip off of me. Then I rolled away, dodging a downward strike from the Jedi. When I got to my feet, Grievous had already engaged Kenobi again, spinning his lightsabers wildly.

  A large explosion rocked the area, staggering all of us, and I took the opportunity to start firing at him with both blasters. However, while my aim was true, Obi-Wan deflected or dodged every single bolt sent his way. I had to admit, Obi-Wan was good. He deflected every single bolt that was in danger of hitting his body, and the other ones that merely passed by his body were ignored.

  The man didn't even flinch when they passed so close I could see the light of the bolt on his armored robes.

  If I had a mouth, It'd be frowning. I disengaged my blasters, then looked around for my lightsaber, before spotting it on the ground a dozen feet away. I ran over and grabbed the laser sword off the ground and re-ignited it, but instead of jumping right back into the fight, I hung back as Grievous engaged the Jedi again. My thoughts turned inward for a moment, as I tried to remember how Dooku took him off-balance on Oba Diah.

  The idea would normally work, but only if Anakin were here. So, I discarded the idea, and instead started firing stun rounds at Kenobi. The Jedi was forced to start moving around even more to dodge and slice the rings of energy that I was constantly firing at him.

  "Give up, Kenobi. You cannot beat both of us!" I called out as Kenobi did a backflip away from us.

  In response, Obi-Wan simply released a massive force push, sending Grievous flying into a small ridge. We clashed for a few moments, neither getting an advantage over the other. I turned up the brightness of my optics right in his face, and Kenobi staggered back, but sent out a push with the force, aimed right at me. The wave of force energy slammed into me, sending me flying back and skidding to a stop. I let out a mechanical growl, then fired off a few more stun blasts at him.

  "I believe I can take care of you one at a time then." He said with a smirk after shaking the spots out of his vision.

  I rapidly looked around until I spotted my flightpack hovering a few feet off the ground behind me. With a twitch of my digits, I sent out a short radio signal, and the Starlight quickly flew towards me. The flightpack bumped into my back and reconnected to me. I narrowed my optics at the Jedi as I rose into the air, my Imperator repeater pointed right at his chest.

  "How can you deal with me, when you cannot even reach me?" I asked, before opening fire.

  Obi-Wan ran, using the force to speed himself up along with sending small pieces of scrap hurling towards me. The force, as usual, was on his side, because he somehow outran my spray of repeater bolts, and deflected all the others. With a growl, the panels on the Starlight opened and I fired off the last five micro-missiles I had at Kenobi. His smirk faltered for a moment, and he quickly dodged three, before slicing through the last two.

  But slicing through them was a bad idea, because the molten slag passed right through the blade and hit Kenobi right on his lightsaber arm. Kenobi let out a sound of pain and slapped his arm to get the slag off of it.

  "You certainly are an unconventional droid." Obi-Wan remarked.

  "89.38% of my design is custom built to battle Jedi, so that my forces are better able to survive long enough to battle against their intended targets." I responded as I hovered out of his reach. "Clones, and whatever planetary defenses that Republic planets are able to mount."

  Obi-Wan tilted his head minutely. "So, you are the Separatist's answer to the Jedi, then?"

  "I am. I have been built for the sole purpose of combating whatever Jedi gets in my way." As I spoke, a squad of Droideka sneakily rolled up behind Kenobi and unfolded. "And you, General Kenobi, have lost this battle."

  Obi-Wan whipped around, and finally took notice of the fact that he was surrounded by Droideka units. The Jedi looked back up at me and narrowed his eyes, and if I had a mouth it would be grinning. But then 99 came across my radio.

  "Sir, General Grievous has been taken by clones with grapple weapons. The enemy was too numerous, and we were unable to rescue him. He should be somewhere close to your position." The Commando droid reported.

  I looked around until I spotted a small clearing about a hundred feet away, where I saw the cyborg general being restrained by nearly a dozen clone troopers with grapple guns. He was doing a fairly bad job of not being wrestled to the ground, considering the cables were getting caught on his actuators. Not to mention that one of his legs seemed to have a grapple through it, rendering it non-functional.

  "So this was merely a distraction then, Kenobi?" I asked. "You battle me, while your soldiers capture General Grievous while he is wounded? Such an underhanded tactic. I certainly didn't expect it from a Jedi, especially one from the High Council that sits up in their ivory tower preaching about trying to become emotionless machines."

  "We are trying to end this war. We need not have it end in violence." Obi-Wan tried to placate. "The Jedi order is dedicated to peace."

  "You are a fool then, Kenobi. There is nothing you can do to try and stop us from seceding from the corrupt, spineless Republic you dare to guard." I raised my arms up and gestured around us. "The only way all of this could conceivably end was in bloodshed. I am part of the largest army the galaxy has ever seen, and lead legions of droids hell-bent on your destruction. The only question left is… will the blood be ours… or yours?"

  "Your army has no free will, no loyalty, no spirit. Nothing but programming. Where will you be once this war is over?!"

  "I know exactly where I will be, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can you say the same? I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over."

  The Droideka units and I opened fire, and Kenobi dodged, blocked, deflected, and flipped away from us, and fortunately, away from the clones wrestling Grievous to the ground. Leaving the Droidekas to constantly distract and harass Kenobi, I changed my course and blasted towards the downed cyborg, and the clones that kept him restrained.

  The clones must have gotten a heads up that I was approaching, because some of them grabbed their blasters and started firing in my direction. My lightsaber ignited, and I spun it around, deflecting the ones that got too close.

  "He's coming for Grievous!" One of the clones shouted when I got closer.

  The number of bolts heading my way increased dramatically, and I was forced to start spinning my lightsaber like a shield to deflect the amount of flak. My Imperator opened fire, spraying repeater rounds across the small clearing that they had Grievous in, taking down a dozen or so clones before I even landed. The Starlight disconnected from me, and I fell the last few feet while it went back to hovering.

  I rolled across the ground, then sprung to my feet and impaled a clone on my lightsaber. My blaster fired twice, taking down two clones that were close together. My lightsaber swung through the grapple lines, severing them and releasing the cyborg general, who instantly renewed his efforts to free himself. My blasters fired relentlessly as I cut down the nearest troopers.

  I cleaved through the neck of one clone, then twirled around and sliced through the back of another's spine. Then some absolutely mad clone jumped onto my back. I swung around trying to dislodge the clone, but the man held tightly onto my back. In a last-ditch effort, he tried bringing down a vibroknife right in my face. But then a lightsaber was thrown and speared right through the side of his chest.

  The clone shuddered for a moment, then fell off of me, flopping to the ground where the laser sword turned off and clattered onto the dirt.

  I cycled in a deep breath, happy to be still alive, then turned to where the lightsaber was thrown from, to see Grievous with both arms free, but his legs still entangled in the cables. I walked over to the cyborg, then gently started to cut through the cables with my lightsaber, until the general was finally free from the mass of cables holding him down.

  "General Grievous, are you functional?" I asked, deactivating and sheathing my lightsaber, then holding out a hand to assist him up.

  The cyborg Kaleesh growled and reluctantly accepted my assistance as he struggled to his feet. "I will… survive." He ground out. "Where is my ship?"

  I tilted my head back and observed the barely-dawn sky while accessing my battlenet connection. "Your Recusant is still space-worthy, but the rest of your fleet has been whittled down to only two Munificents and a couple of supporting craft. I assume you have reinforcements coming soon?"

  Grievous eyed me for a moment, his slitted yellow eyes boring into my own silver-white optics.

  "...I do." He finally responded after nearly a minute of us staring at each other. "You are much less incompetent than the usual droids under my command." He commented.

  "I am a new model. The first, and I fear, the only one of my kind." I replied, taking a few steps back and saluting the Kaleesh. "Ultra Tactical Droid. Model BZ-KG-T1. Chosen name: Blitzkrieg. General of the 104th Star Wreckers."

  "That name sounds… familiar…"

  "I was the general who liberated Telos IV and turned it into a Confederate fortress."

  "That was you?"

  "Indeed. I like to consider myself a level above the rest of the Confederacy's fully robotic forces. I was custom built by Duke Poggle and Foreman Tambor themselves."

  "I don't really care. Call for my ship to come and get me, so I can report to Count Dooku."

  I was really bemoaning my lack of teeth to clench, so instead, I settled for dimming my optics slightly. "Of course, sir."

  —

  In the end, the GAR was forced to retreat, with a pretty hefty casualty rate.

  We suffered many deaths as well, but the Republic couldn't replace their losses as fast as we could. Plus, my forces got tons of wrecked walkers, tanks, and equipment to salvage and use for testing, experimentation, and other things.

  "I'm telling you, Lona, this virus would be hilarious in a sense. Once a Republic AT-TE is infected, it spreads to whatever AT-TEs it can get close enough to. Then they all rise up and wreak havoc once they get back onto a GAR ship." I explained.

  "I don't know, Blitz. It seems a bit risky, to be honest. What if some clone techie finds the virus early?" Lona replied.

  "Nah, it'll act like the spyware that's spreading across the Inner Rim and the Core right now, spreading itself out and hiding among the other code the walker has."

  Lona simply tilted her head and chewed on her lip in thought as we sat at my desk in my quarters looking over future designs. I could tell she was still a little frazzled from earlier.

  That was because Grievous came onto my ship for a relatively short period of time.

  It was certainly nerve-wracking for me, Lona, Omen, most of the crew on the ship, considering Grievous' reputation of destroying whatever droids annoyed him. It also seemed that out of combat and away from Jedi, the cyborg general is much more observant than he is credited. Thankfully, he didn't stay long.

  Just long enough to contact Count Dooku (his ship's comms were offline from an ion blast taken during the fight), briefly order me to stay in orbit of Saleucami and shore up defenses until the main defense fleet arrived, then return to wherever I came from and await my next orders from Dooku. Then he took his Stealthipede, left me in charge of what was left of his fleet, deeming them 'useless to him', and then flew off to god knows where to lick his wounds and nurse his bruised pride.

  Apparently being saved by a 'droid with an ego' hurt his pride so much he left me with his 'useless' troops.

  Mind-tampered asshole… maybe if I hold him down and forcibly remove the memory blockers from his head his personality will improve.

  At least I gained a larger Recusant, two more Munificents, and two more escort craft in the process. Plus tons of troops to revitalize the ranks, and a chance to start another fortress world for the CIS as well. I'll probably have to submit an inquiry to Dooku to make this one though, since this one is much closer to Republic lines.

  Anyway, my plan after the defense fleet gets here is to return to Telos and do some major refitting to my Lucerhulks, turning them into massive spacecraft carriers.

  "I'll think about it. Have you heard anything from Telos lately?" Lona asked.

  "Everything's progressing on schedule. We should have the first batch of Defoliators in about a week and a half." I replied. "All of the other projects were too far out to say anything of note."

  "Hmm. …So, what are these new refit designs for the Lucrehulks you were talking about earlier?"

  "Basically, the idea is that the Lucrehulks will be modified to hold all of the fighters, bombers, and other ships needed for space battles, and we keep them farthest from the front line as possible, so that they can constantly disgorge fighters and other ships unimpeded by Republic bombers and other fighters. All the extra mounts are for point defense weaponry, making the ship a deathtrap for any opportunistic clone pilot. A major refit like this will probably take about a month or two to finish for just our four Lucrehulks, even with round the clock droid labor in the Telos Ring. But it will be worth every credit and every minute they're out of combat once they're finished."

  "That's a really cool idea, Blitz."

  "It is, isn't it. I also have this idea for a ship called 'The Sleeper Ship'."

  "What's that?"

  "It's an unassuming cargo ship that you'd normally see in one of our supply convoys. At least, until you attacked it. Then panels all across it would open up, exposing hidden weapons that would blast any attacking pirate, GAR raider group, or other miscreants to pieces. The sleeper part of the name refers to all the hidden weapons lying in wait, almost like they're asleep."

  "Wow. That's certainly an interesting idea."

  "I know right?"

  —

  "You are a fool then, Kenobi. There is nothing you can do to try and stop us from seceding from the corrupt, spineless Republic you dare to guard." The droid raised its arms up and gestured around them. "The only way all of this could conceivably end was in bloodshed. I am part of the largest army the galaxy has ever seen, and lead legions of droids hell-bent on your destruction. The only question left is… will the blood be ours… or yours?"

  "Your army has no free will, no loyalty, no spirit. Nothing but programming. Where will you be once this war is over?!"

  "I know exactly where I will be, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can you say the same? I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over."

  The council chambers were silent as the recorded conversation played out in the center of the room. The tiny expressions of the Jedi ranged from stony silence from Windu, to wary fear from Shaak Ti, to the slight anger of Anakin, who was there with Kenobi.

  "Kenobi." Windu said, breaking the silence that lasted nearly a minute. "You said this droid matched you in a lightsaber duel?"

  "It did. It is a very unconventional droid. The flightpack that it had kept it out of range for half the fight, and for the other half it was firing either bolts or stun rounds at me." Kenobi explained.

  "'I am the vanguard of your destruction'?" Anakin asked, crossing his arms. "Yeah, that totally doesn't sound ominous."

  "I have never seen such emotion from a droid before." Shaak Ti remarked. "It's almost like it thinks it's alive."

  "I… uh." Anakin trailed off.

  "Skywalker, you have something to say?" Windu asked.

  "...When I fought General Blitzkrieg on Pantora, I could have sworn I felt something in the force coming from the droid." The young knight admitted. "It was something that I've never even felt in other droids. Not even Artoo, and he's the most life-like droid I've ever seen."

  "Did those monstrous Separatists actually figure out a way to tear the soul out of a sentient and place it within a droid?" Ki Adi Mundi asked in disbelief.

  "The more likely explanation I believe is that they took a clone and placed their brain into a droid body, then brainwashed them." Kenobi commented. "That would explain the force presence you felt, Anakin."

  "If there was a sentient's brain inside the head of that droid, then why didn't it die when I shot it in the face during my fight on Pantora?" Anakin queried.

  Skywalker received no answer to his question, as the whole council went into thought at his remark.

  "Told you before, I did, Skywalker. Living droids, impossible, they are." Yoda said, his first sentence since the video played. "The mind of a clone, imprisoned in a droid's body, it must be."

  "But Master Yoda-"

  "Skywalker." Windu reprimanded. "The Grand Master has spoken. Living droids are impossible. This must be a clone brain in a droid body. How else would you explain the unconventional warfare methods used?"

  Anakin let out a near-silent sigh. "Yes, Master."

  As the council started to converse about other things, Anakin's thoughts turned inward as he left the chamber and entered the elevator.

  'They don't understand.' He thought. 'There is something different about that droid, and I intend to find out what it is.'

  Before he could do anything about it, however, Obi-Wan got his attention as he walked into the elevator as well.

  "Anakin." Kenobi said.

  "Yes, Master?" The young knight asked.

  "We need you to go into the underworld. There are reports of a weapons dealer that is stealing Republic equipment and selling it to the Separatists."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yes." Obi-Wan's expression softened slightly. "Do try to take your mind off of the droid general. The council has already decided that it is a clone brain in a droid body."

  Anakin sighed. "Alright, Master. I'll stop worrying about Blitzkrieg."

  The elevator opened again, and Obi-Wan walked out, leaving Anakin with his swirling thoughts. He knew he could get in trouble for it, but he needed to know. He's needed to know ever since he first encountered the droid at Devaron.

  Just what really is General Blitzkrieg?

  …Maybe Padme could help.

  —

  Star Wrecker fleet as of Chapter 11.

  1 Providence-class dreadnought - Flagship, the Finest Hour -

  8 Recusant-class light destroyers

  1 Recusant-class heavy destroyer

  13 munificent-class star frigates

  4 Lucrehulk-class battleships

  1 Venator-class Star Destroyer

  2 Acclamator-class Assault ships

  21 supporting craft of various type