"Have the last of our ground troops arrived?" Logan asked as he handed the datapad back to his Army commander, General Loch.

"Yes Admiral. The Second Brigade landed last night." Loch replied.

The two men (followed by Logan's ever-vigilant Noghri bodyguard, Mahk) were walking through the corridors onboard Logan's operational command ship, a Silencer-class Cruiser called the Faithful. They were currently heading towards the hangar bay, where a shuttle was awaiting to take the admiral and the general to the surface.

"And the Engineer Corps?" Logan asked.

"Leaving now, actually. The supplies to build the base are being ferried down as we speak."


Logan nodded, "Excellent."

They entered the hangar bay and boarded a shuttle, which was loaded with Praetorian Guard troops catching the last shuttle out to their dirtside assignments.

The headed down to the planet. Logan knew that Valc VII had been a bustling Imperial world during Palpatine's reign, but after the Emperor's death and the fall of the First Empire, the world was all but abandoned. It's inhabitants gone, moved to the more profitable world of Bastion, or a world like Muunilist.

So Logan had no problem making a claim to the world, which was now ripe for the taking.


An indicator light suddenly came alive and started to blink with urgency. The pilot, a young human male, glanced down at it. His eyes ran down the scrolling text that appeared on a console to his left, "Admiral..." He said, using Logan's new rank, "I'm getting some unusual readings coming from Valc..."

Logan moved out of his seat and sat in the copilot's chair, "What is it?"

The pilot pointed to the sensor board, "This planet's population abandoned the world some time ago. They took with them most of their heavy equipment that was of some value. But I am getting unusually high power signals coming from the abandoned northern city...."

Logan frowned, "I've seen these kind of readings before..."

Indeed he had. Memories of a long-ago battle suddenly came flooding back to his mind. For an old war horse such as Logan, he had seen many battles, and had fought against many, many types of enemies, using all types of weapons...

Including surface-to-space missiles.

He lurched forward and flipped the comm switch, opening a channel to the Faithfull, "This is Logan! Raise shields! I repeat raise shields!"

But it was far too late. By the time Logan had even opened the channel, a huge missile larger than the shuttle he was currently in, swept by and slammed into the unsuspecting, and unshielded cruiser.

The explosion was quick, and bright. Bright enough that Logan had to shield his eyes.

"Admiral!" the pilot shouted, pointing again to the sensors, "Another one! heading right for us!"

"Get us down there!" Logan bellowed.

The pilot's only response was jamming the control yoke forward, sending the shuttle into a hard-nosed dive, barely avoiding the incoming missile. Three more blips were incoming. it was quite an onslaught.

To his credit, the pilot performed brilliantly - Logan reminded himself to give the man a commendation - so brilliantly that they entered the atmosphere without being hit. From there, they simple dove the rest of the way, screaming towards the ground.

"Where are our forces?" Logan asked the pilot, who simply pointed to a cluster of blips on the sensor.

"Head that way."


Logan looked down, and saw two more missiles coming fast. The pilot swerved, avoiding one, but the second grazed the left wing, sending the vessel into a tailspin.

Logan watched in horror as the ground suddenly rushed up to meet them.


And all he could think about was keeping his lunch down.



*



"Admiral Logan!"

"Ehnnn...."

Logan opened his eyes tentatively....

.... and instinctively shut them again as the harsh sunlight invaded his senses.

"Are you alright sir?" That voice came again.

Logan opened his eyes slowly, and looked up into the face of a Praetorian Guardsman, who was bending over him, a first aid kit in his hand.

"What happened...?" Logan asked.

"Your shuttle was struck by a surface to space missile sir. You crashed landed." The Praetorian said automatically.

"The others in the shuttle...."

There was a silence. Then, "They didn't make it sir."

"General Loch...?"

"Dead, sir."

A horrifying thought suddenly struck Logan, "Mahk!"

He tried to sit up, but the Praetorian held him down, "The Noghri was taken to our medical site. He was injured, but is in good condition."

"Who shot at us?"

There was another silence.

"Droids, sir."

"Where is he?"

The Praetorian lead Logan through the hastily-set up base that the 2nd Brigade had built through the night (and was still building).

The medical ward was small, but extremely efficient. every available space was occupied, but logan could not help but notice that it was meticulously kept up and organized.

Mahk lay on a recovery bed near the door, and Logan walked up to him and stood by his bedside.

A 2-1B droid rolled up behind him, "He is stable sir. He suffered several injuries in the crash, but none were lifethreatening."

"Was he awake when you brought him in?" Logan asked.

"Yes sir." The droid said.

The Praetorian behind Logan spoke up, "We were barely able to restrain him. He insisted upon making sure you were unhurt... even though he was bleeding profusely. He wouldn't allow us to sedate him until he checked you..."

Logan couldn't help but smile. Just like Mahk.

"He'll be okay?"

The droid nodded in it's typical grave tone, "Yes, Admiral."

Logan nodded and turned back to the Praetorian, "Now. You said it was...droids... that shot us down and destroyed the Faithfull?

The Praetorian nodded, "Yes sir. Please come with me to our command post, and I'll explain everything there."



*



"I had sent a detachment of the Second Brigade under the command of a Praetorian to this abandoned city, Tropalsk, to secure it and recon the area. As they did so, they came under heavy fire from a heavily armed band of...droids."

Logan shook his head, increadulous, "What kind of droids?"

The Praetorian shrugged, "All kinds: protocol, maintenance, translators, administrative, mechanic droids. It was like some sort of droid revolution."

Logan sighed, "I think I know what this is all about..."

The Praetorian frowned, but did not press. Logan answered anyway.

"Commander, did you ever hear of 'Operation: Scythe' ?"

The Praetorian considered the information for a moment, "Something to do with a hostile force in the Unkown Regions?"

Logan nodded, "Several weeks ago, we received disturbing information that some sort of...'empire' of droids had formed in the Unknown Regions and were threatening the Commonwealth. Operation Scythe was the operation that destroyed that Empire and took control of their capital world, Desitus."

The Praetorian said nothing.

"The droids, we were told, were leftovers from the Clone Wars. The Trade Federation had funded a new type of droid army to be created somewhere. but when the force was about to go active, for some reason, the droids revolted and fled to the Unknown Regions. I thought we destroyed all of them."

The Praetorian remained stoic, "Apprently not."

Logan sighed, "Indeed. If that is what this is..."

"We're in trouble."

"Agreed." Logan said.

For a moment, the command post was silent other than the activites of the staff. Logan sat down in the chair next to the map table and rubbed his eyes, "Do we have a means of getting in touch with the rest of the Coalition?"

"No sir. The Faithfull was scheduled to be on it's own here for a few weeks to set up our holdings here. it wasn't supposed to report to Onyx until then since the Force is under your direct supervision."

Logan nodded and rubbed his eyes again, "Is there a long-range transmitter on this planet?"

The Praetorian nodded, "Actually yes. At last checks, it was working properly, but was powered down. The control room for it is located, unfortunately, in Tropalsk... which apparently is held by the renegade droids."

"Can we take the city?"

"Possibly. But not without heavy casualties."

Logan considered for a moment, "Do we have any air support?"

"A few aging Tie Bombers with limited payload, and a few supply shuttles..."

Logan nodded, "Alright then. Let's do it."

Tropalsk - Northern Continent

"This is a fucking ghost town." Captain Mattias grumbled as he held his AR-32 blaster rifle at the ready, eyes alert for any movement.

He was squad leader of Bravo company, of the Onyxian Commonwealth 2nd Brigade, and he, along with three other squads had been given the difficult "point" position in the advance into the city.

Originally hailing from the Commonwealth capital of Onyx, Mattias had seen action during the Coaltion/Sovereignty/Imperial war. He had fought at Bespin, and had lead his men in capturing key points of Cloud City, before it was destroyed by Imperial forces.

Newly promoted, he had been assigned to the 2nd and sent on an "easy money" mission here, to secure the empty world of Valc VII.... and now ended up leading the charge into an enemy held-city.

Interesting.

The city was not very large, but had been the first settlement by old Republic Colonists, who had settled from Muunilist just before Palpatine's creation of the Empire, and the installation of his tyranny. The citizens of Valc had been faithful Imperial subjects, living under an Imperial-placed governor. But after Palpatine's untimely death at Endor, the colony had been abandoned due to Imperial budget cuts (the Empire funded supply convoys to the world, as it is not self-sustaining).

For the most part, Valc VII was a rather frigid world, with almost constant snowfall in the northern regions, where Tropalsk was located.

Snow was falling steadily as Bravo company lead the way.

The city was divided by three distinct "layers". First, there were the outer settlements, that ran along the perimeter of the city. This is where the poorest of the civilians lived, and the homes the lived in were nothing more then hand-built, pre-fabricated, one-room shacks.

Alpha company, led by Sergeant Hvalich was already investigating one of the shacks (called 'huts' by the soldiers).

Bravo came up on two of the houses, as their first objective was to secure an invasion corridor for the main troops, "Alright, assholes! let's go check this one out. Max, you and Bent go check that one." He pointed to the left hut.

He and three other soldiers, the heavy-gunner Private Marg, the sniper Pfc Green, and the one of the FC (fire control) guys, Private "Mac" McMillian, all moved to the second hut.

Marg approached the hut, yelled "Clear!", and kicked the flimsy metal door in. As soon as the door had been opened, Mac and Green entered, one after another, followed by Mattias.

Inside they found nothing, and quickly cleared the room.

Over at the next hut, Bent (another fire-control, responsible for laying down covering fire for manuvers), kicked the door while Max, a heavy gunner, entered quickly, and was greeted by a small protocal droid.

They had standing orders to shoot any and all droids on sight, but for some reason unknown to the others, Max hesitated for a fraction of a second, giving the droid enough time to lurch forward and jab his arm forward before Bent destroyed it with a blaster bolt through the eye.

"Shit, Max, what the fuck was that?" Bent asked, exasperated at the close call.

Max turned toward Bent, with blood rapidly filling his uniform front and protective vest, where a jagged peice of metal was sticking straight out.

Bent's eyes widened and he froze for a second, watching Max fall to the ground, before screaming, "Medic! oh shit oh fuck oh shit! Medic!!! Max! Medic!"

The squad's medic, Norstrom (Pfc), the only soldier who had held back from the hut-clearing actions, rushed in, and busily pulled his first aid packet out and quickly began to administer first aid to the fallen soldier. As he did this, Mattias and the other squadmates entered the room, with Marg watching the door and the immidiate area.

"He's gone..." Bent heard Norstrom say softly...

Journal Entry - 0500 Hours - Previous Day


I grew up on Onyx, in the capital, New Stonia. My childhood was typical: playing with the other kids, going to school...

We lived in the more rough part of the city, the kind of place that no one else talks about, and the politicians ignore. Growing up, my idol was Joren Logan, a man who had come from the same humble background and upbringing as me. At the time, the New Alliance ran the government of Onyx, and Logan himself had discovered the world.

In school, we often had to write essays about who we most admired and wanted to be like. Every time, I wrote mine about Regent Logan.

I learned that he was the son of a farmer, and had lived just outside of Stonia, the capital of Almania. Logan spent the days of his childhood learning the trade of his forefathers: farming the land, and operating a livestock stable. Logan didn't get much schooling, as it was deemed unneccesary by his parents, but when he got older, he joined the Almanian military to get away from his home, and start a new life.

My story is much the same, including my joining the Coalition military the second I turned eighteen. My father had died when I was young, and my stepfather was abusive. My mother was drunk half the time, and even sold her body at times to make enough money to continue her achoholism.

I hated both of my parents...

They weren't parents at all really. When I was ten, I found a beat up droid, and me and a few other mechanicly-minded kids fixed him up. We named him JL-1, short for "Joren Logan One". We just called him "JL".

JL was one of my only real friends. He helped me get through my rough life. He was the only one who I ever felt cared about me. Some might think me strange for caring so much about a mere machine, but I really think JL understood me.

I could never think protocol droids could be anything but caring. They would never ever even think about being violent, or hurting others...


- Pfc. Max Gorring, Bravo Company, 2nd Brigade.




"You okay, Bent?" Mattias asked as he sat down next to the quiet FC Private.

Bent was silent for a moment, then nodded tersely, "Yeah... I mean yes sir."

"This is the field, Bent, forget about that formal shit..."

Bent nodded but remained silent.

It nwas nighttime on Valc VII, and Bravo had just finished a full days worth of clearing abandoned houses on their way towards the center of the city, where the droid commander was believed to be holed up. The first and outermost portions of the city had been secured, but not after an extremely hard fight. Many 2nd Brigade soldiers had been killed, including Bravo's own Max Gorring. They had just sent his body back to the command post, where he would be placed in stasis in preparation to be shipped back for a formal military funeral on Onyx.

"He didn't fire, Captain..." Bent muttered, "Why didn't he fire?"

Mattias thought for a moment, "Max told me once that he had a soft spot in him for droids. I don't know why... but I remember that."

Bent sighed, "That soft spot got him killed. Maybe if I had fired sooner..."

"Bent. It isn't up to you. You don't get to choose who lives, and who dies. If it happens, it happens. There is no stopping it. You just got to keep fighting and keep pushing. Do it for Max."

Bent nodded, "...yeah..."

Mattias reached out and squeezed the young man's shoulder before standing up, "Get some rest guys. Tommorow is going to be bad."

The Battle of Onyx - Years before


Regent Joren Logan stood high upon one of the grassy hills of the western continent of Onyx, holding a pair of macrobinoculars in his hand as he surveyed the distant landscape.

Spread out before him, perhaps one or two miles away, was a majestic sight, a huge army was marching toward the edge of an even more distant forest, a forest which spread for hundreds of kilometers to the west.

The forest was the home of one of the most fearsome species in the entire galaxy...


For months now, New Alliance scouts had been surveying portions of the Unkown Regions for a secret redoubt base to use, in case the ongoing conflicts with the Rogue Empire took a sour turn for the worse. Chadd Fearsons was becoming more and more aggressive with each passing day, and Logan was almost certain it would lead to all out war.

And that thought terrified him as much as it increased his resolve.

They had only recently found Onyx a few weeks before. The world was what you would describe as utopian. It had perfect, blue, calm seas, rolling plains, beautiful forests, and dense mountain ranges. The planet was perfect, and already the New Alliance was secretly shipping colonists here, people who wanted desperately to begin a new life. The destruction the Je'har had left on Almania was still fresh in every Almanian's mind, including Joren's own. They all wanted to distance themselves from that dark and bloody past, and Onyx was perfect for them.

But there was only one problem.

The survey crew who first touched down on the surface of the planet believed it to be uninhabited.

They were wrong, and that oversight cost them their lives.

Onyxians could match most Wookies for height, and had razor sharp clwas on each hand that could easily shread the durasteel of a Star Destroyer. They had triple-jointed limbs, as well as powerful muscles that allowed them to jump and reach great heights. Their blazing yellow eyes frightened any enemy into frozen fear, just before those monsterous claws ripped into them.

The survey crew had met their end under those claws.

The Onyxians were staunchly aggressive. It appeared that their society was clan-based, and those clans had been warring against each other for centuries. Until now... a common foe had united them.

Unfortunately, that common foe was the New Alliance.

After more brazen attacks by the Onyxians, Logan himself had arrived with the TNA First Army to stop them.

Monsterous AT-ATs and even old Juggernaughts and AT-TE's now lumbered over the grass plains and toward the forest. Logan could almost see the legions of yellow eyes that awaited them just inside the forest. He even expected the Onyxian armies to charge them over the grassplains.

But these creatures...these Onyxians... they were smart.

They waited for the heavy walkers to come to them...




Tropalsk - Present Time



Bravo unit moved through the newly burnt out remains of yet another town, carefully training their weapons in front of them.

By now, the Commonwealth army had moved past the outer ring of the city, and were taking a direct path to it's heart, and hopefully the mysterious commander of the droid army.

Mattias marched in front, with Bent on his left, and behind, and Mac on the right and behind. They were now deep in the second ring of the city, where the middle class once lived. One thing about old Imperial society, Mattias observed, for all their propaganda saying everyone is equal, they never had evolved beyond the three-class system, for the inner ring of the city held the most beautiful buildings and the wealthiest citizens. It was actually quite sad.

Mattias glanced back at Bent, who kept his rifle up and pointed ahead, like he had been trained to do. Outwardly, he looked like a well-trained, determined soldier ready to do his part. But Mattias new that on the inside, Bent was hurting. He and Max had been close friends, and it was tough to loose a friend like Bent had.

Mattias wondered weather this Galaxy he was in, and the Commonwealth he was fighting for, would every truly have peace.

Suddenly, the chit-chit-chit of projectile weapons, weapons that the ragtag droid army seemed to prefer, sounded ahead of them, and Bravo unit instinctively took cover positions. They were on a street that ran through the middle of one of the smaller "towns" (they called them towns, in actuality they were more like city blocks), only this town had been heavily bombarded by Commonwealth artillery, so there were plenty of places to find cover.


Mattias carefully peeked out from behind a burnt-out repulsor vehicle where he had found cover, and loked down the street. protocol droids brandishing projectile weapons and jagged peices of metal to use as knives gave no thought to cover whatsoever and were calmly advancing down the street, firing steadily. Behind them, however, made Mattias blink, he had thought he saw a small, brown droid... rolling?

Whatever it was, it soon dissapeared, and Mattias turned his attention to the projectile-wielding droids. He signalled covering fire to to Bent and Mac to lay down covering fire.

"Green" He yelled, and across the street, Private Green, their crack sniper, looked up.

"Get into position!"


***


Private Green did not move.

He did not blink.

He did not dare breathe.

Do not move, blink, or breathe. That was lesson one at the Praetorian Sniper School on the barren asteroid base Sanctuary. That lesson had bent taught to a group of one hundred young humans, Tynnans, Azguardians, Frozians, Mon Calamari, and a host of other Coalition Army recruits.

Six months later, that number would be only ten.

Ten.

Ten of the best snipers the Coalition, New Alliance, New Republic and old Republic had ever produced. Private First Class Green was honored to be among them. He had endured freezing cold of the barren snow-swept world of Ilum, the dark jungles of Generis, and the beautiful and tranquil grasslands of Onyx.

His body had been put through all sorts of rigors, testing his mettle time and time again. But he had endured. He had triumphed.

And now, one of the best snipers in the Galaxy... was on some backwater planet shooting protocol droids with projectile weapons?


Green felt a little more than simply resentful. He knew that he had been assigned to Bravo company to gain battlefield experiance. But instead of delivering headshots to Imperial commanders, he was reduced to this.

So now, Green couldn't mask his disdain for this assignment, and instead of killing each droid with a calm headshot, he instead began firing at non-lethal parts, a hand, a leg, a foot, he even grinned when he put a shot through the round, circular restraining bolt-type device attached to the back oof the droid's neck.

He almost wanted to laugh as he continued to take each droid apart, piece by piece.


**

"What the hell is he doing!?" Mac shouted at Mattias as the sniperfire from a burned-out building a hundred meters away continued it's slow, inane pace. For some reason, Green was not killing the droids, he was taking them apart, piece by piece. Mattias grumbled inwardly, Green had always been a little arrogant, after graduating from some top-notch and top-secret sniper school. He seemed to think he was better than Mattias and Bravo squad. Just before the Valc assignment, Mattias he spoken to a superior about having Green moved to another unit.

So much for that.

"Open fire!" Mattias shouted, and the entire unit moved out of cover and unleashed a hail of blasterfire on the thinning-ranks of the droid unit. The droids seemed to be on some sort of slave-circuit controlled from afar, and didn't have the programming of base military tactics. Their only strategy was to mass in huge numbers and fire overwhelmingly at anything that wasn't metal.

Green was still doing his non-lethal shots, but Bravo was now using their entire strength to wipe out the marauding enemy forces. Soon, nothing remained other than a pile of scrap metal. Mattias turned to Mac, his chosen second in command, "Get Green down here now."

Mac nodded and turned towards the building where Green was holed up and started over there. Mattias turned to his squad, "Is anybody hurt?"

No answer.

He frowned, looking over his men one by one, each of them did not speak, and were looking at something behind him...

Steeling himself, Mattias turned around. Mac was frozen where he had been walking. A dozen feet away, was a fully equipped and fully deployed droideka.

Mattias had seen them only in old historical holos. They had been a staple of the Trade Federation for years, and it was said that even Jedi feared the rolling weapons platform. Mattias had never seen one in real life, and it had been years since he had seen those history holos.

The shield that Mattias knew it had was not up for some reason. Perhaps it didn't work, or the droid was malfunctioning. Either way, it stared down Bravo without moving.

Mattias slowly reached behind his back, and unclipped a thermal detonator from his belt and armed it. Mac was not moving.

In what seemed like slow motion, he yelled for Mac to get down, and then pressed the detonator's timer and threw it. The sudden movement made the droideka to turn toward him, and suddenly, it's shield went up.

But not before the detonator landing underneath it, between it's legs and within the shield.

Just as the droid unleashed the first few shots from it's repeating cannon, the detonator exploded, in a brilliant flash of fireworks. Mac picked himself off the ground and turned to Mattias, giving him a relieved look, "That was close."

Mattias realized he was holding his breath and let it out slowly, "Yeah."

And then, without warning, three more droidekas rolled up to replace the one that had been destroyed. Mattias muttered a curse and grabbed another detonator.

Thats when something strange happened...

One minute, the droidekas were getting into position, the next they were no more than scrap metal, and something... monsterous was standing in their place. The beast was huge, had razor claws, and horrible....

horrible...

yellow eyes...