Surface.

18-D7.


Standing on the lava rock, dormant and solid for thousands upon thousands of years on the watery world, the Dracconis had time to truly contemplate his situation.

He held three corps of Grevious' Seraphim Guard on station and he knew that towards the east was the fortress Capital Island.

To make the approach over the ocean was foolhardy. For every transport destroyed whole pockets of soldiers would be erased from his roster. But how else could the approaches be made?

Especially with that shield in place over head?

First things first.


The Devestator missiles cleared a sister island nearby and while not close enough to assault directly from, he could, at best, watch the Capital Island spurn him with it's continued existence from a distance.

And so the transports and fighter escorts moved, leaving the Capital Island's airspace alone for now.

18-D7 stepped onto an overhanging strut and held on as the transport lifted up from the shallow ocean rock bottom and moved over the deepening waters before coming to the island they had knocked out of commission with the Devestators. He never bothered to turn on his personal shield though the Seraphim were much more attentive to such details.

The sands had turned white in the coordinated explosions. First their trajectory allowed for a systematic spread of the electromagnetic pulse that knocked out every computer system within a certain radius.

With no protection, the shockwaves leveled whatever stood upon the island be it living or structure.

18-D7 stepped down onto the sand and felt the glass crunch beneath his metal boots. He looked down and saw a small skull of an unfortunate inhabitant of the island and the vision caused him to hesitate.

Vision.

The word struck his mind as his brain patterns began to travel down a certain neuro pathway of meaning.

He stooped down and picked up the tiny skull in his hand marvelling that at the beginning of the day, this skull represented a living, breathing person.

And in the blinking light of a flash, such intelligence, such feeling, such independent thinking was reduced to....


...to this.


The remains of a creature dying alone. His gaze rose and he spotted more remains.


No alone. Irrelevant.


A certain temperature burned the flesh off these creatures and this is all that remains of their sum...


He began to wonder about the relative ease it took to take life. These creatures who lived and worshipped and went about their business only to have their 'gods' forsake them when it counted.

But before the simple generation of superior pride could find it's way into his mind, he glanced at his monitors and noted the grisly realization that his God was no better.

For his monitors told him that radiation poisoning was beginning to settle into what he used for skin. He would be dead within the month and if he could not bring down the shield and reduce the enemy then he would die the Final Death.

Alone and irrelevant.

The concept of self preservation alone would compel him to be suitably motivated to continue his conquest leaving no brutal method unturned if it would bring him that much closer to continued living.


But what did that say about the superiority of his religion over the religion of others?


If the plight of his enemies showed the ineffectiveness of their gods, what did his own plight show?


He kept such thoughts buried for Grevious had tasked him with the downfall of this species and crush them underfoot he would. Especially now that his own salvation depended upon it.

Secure salvation first and debate the finer points of your theology later.

He dropped the skull never seeing it shatter as it struck the sand.

Over the barren island marched the Seraphim, there eyes off to the distant Capital Island.


"We smash their capital island and we scatter them. It is the heart of their industry, the heart of their civil programs and the heart of their administration. Shatter it all and their soldiers will be hardpressed to keep order and organization with the rest of the planet.

Shatter it and they will go under the surface cutting themselves further off from the rest of their great Coalition."


A cyborg H4 turned his head toward 18-D7, "We are to lay siege to the Calamari capital? Over water?"


18-D7 stood on the shore gazing over at the island knowing the sea creatures were hunkering down, preparing for the coming onslaught. "There is a heretic religious story of a soldier defeating his enemies."

"Lies" the cyborg intoned automatically. "Hallowed are the Children of the Taj."

Ignoring the machine, 18-D7 continued, "The heretic leader found that there was not enough time in the day to keep up the slaughter of his enemies and so looked up at the sky and cried 'Sun stand still'. As a result, the god of the heretic held the sun in place and the killing went on into what would have been the night."

"If it took them that long to decimate their enemies, these heretics lacked an efficient strategy of conquest." another soldier remarked behind the cyborg, also eying the island in the distance. A dragon squadron of fighters circled overhead.


Machines are so literal. This is why faith takes on a different meaning with the Taj. Machine intelligences deal with facts and number theorems. Not the 'assured expectation of things hoped for but not beheld'!

Still, some held higher reasoning functions. "Do you think they will ask their sun to stand still?" the cyborg asked.


18-D7's metallic laced skin stretched into a smile. "What sun?"

The cyborg stopped and glanced at the sky.

In a voice filled with awe (as much awe as a machine box can muster), he droned over and over... "Hallowed are the Children of the Taj!"




Space.


Grevious.


The bombardment of the shield continued and the swarms and swarms of nanomachines were moving their dark masses against the position of the Calamari shield.

The matrix of the Omega was purposefully being rewritten as the presence of the shield was interfering with it's original programming. For how can you overwhelm shields if you cannot measure the shield's strength and there was no discernable generator?

It was almost as if the shield were in existence because of candied wishes.


For is that not what the faith of heretics was?


Zonama Sekot had begun to retreat slowly out of the system for Tion Space to lick its wounds. In the middle of the six hundred world expanse it would find relative seclusion.

But it had served it's purpose and the purpose of the Taj. The fanaticism implanted into the world mind was absolute. Sometimes more absolute than some of the Taj's other followers. His mind clouded over the thought of the flesh within the Daemun's ranks and on the appearance of Dracconis.

The darker swarms of Omega could be seen as a spot upon the sun from the surface.

Grevious would part the seas before the Dracconis and his Seraphim would plunge forward as an unstoppable wave against the ramparts of the Coalition defenders.

The spot began to grow and soon would eclipse the sun. As the metallic machines solidified around the world, a solid shield would displace the fleet's bombardment and the planet would be plunged into total darkness.

And in the darkness the oceans would freeze enough for the Seraphim to be let loose.


And then the killings would begin.

The white surface would run red with Calamari blood.

It would take a total of ten hours for the completion of Omega's new purpose. Ten hours until the relative lull of peace is shattered forever.


Let their faith survive the tattered remains of their fallen flesh!

Isip saw the shadows fall before he heard the first reports.

"Sir, sir!" The speaker was a panicked Mon Calamari sensors operator, turning from his station in the command center. "The enemy's nanomachines are pressed up against the shield! They've blotted out the sun!"

Isip glanced up from his tactical display as the emergency lights kicked up all over the room. "Then we shall fight in the shade, lieutenant. Report on the civilian population."

"Final evacuations reported complete. The enemy doesn't seem to have water transport, so they should be safe for now, and sunlight doesn't reach the Quarren cities anyways so the effects should be minimal for now."

"Good," said Isip, eyeing his map. "What about this blot over here? Computer, magnify."

The holographic tactical display zoomed in on a nearby island, where Dragon forces milled around in the arcane ways of a machine-controlled force. Fighters and transports circled overhead, and enemy ground troops formed into ranks of black-armored figures, as though they intended to march straight to the capital.

"Their formation seems to favour a march..." he murmured, examining the map. "And yet they lack water transports. What could they be planning, unless..." Isip frowned. "Did it just get colder in here?"

Amidst the humming of dozens of control consoles, operators, military aides, and officers, there came a quieting down as the chill moved through the room. It wasn't freezing, but it was getting there, and some already began pulling on extra layers.

Isip swore, slamming his fist down on the holographic display so that it flickered. "They're going to march across the ocean? Can they do that? You there, lieutenant," Isip grabbed a nearby aide clutching a folder of orders. "Get someone to monitor the ocean. I want to know how fast the temperature's dropping, when the water's going to freeze, how long we have until it starts to snow, everything."

Turning back to the battle display, the Knight quickly imagined what new scenarios were in his way. "We'll have to start repositioning the men to cover more of the shoreline, get some of the artillery closer to shore... and pull out our fighters."



"And... lift!"

The soldiers heaved and groaned as they lifted the cannon into place, where it locked on the tripod.

"Great," said Ashrad, looking over the gun emplacement. "That gives us a great view. Now start moving those permacrete blocks out in front for cover, and tell the artillery crews to move up."

"Ashrad!" Zek shouted, waving at his fellow knight from across the beach. "Over here!"

Ashrad moved past the Coalition troopers filing down the main street and towards his friend, who sheltered near a settled tank. "What is it?"

"Orders just came through to prep the fighters in case of aerial attack. Says they're shacked up in the starport's military compound across town. What do you think they've got?"

"Well," said Ashrad, "I doubt they'll have any Kris fighters for us, probably just the SSFs, maybe a few bombers if we're lucky. Who's going to pilot them, though?"

Zek grinned, and gave him a nudge. "Looks like most of the pilots were up-top before the attack, so they're short a few. You want in?"

Ashrad pulled a face and grabbed his stomache. "Are you kidding? Those things make me sick - you go up there and face a hail of Deathgliders, I'll stay here and oversee the defences."

"All right then," said Zek, who grabbed on to the back of a passing military transport. Still hanging from the back of it as it sped away, he called back "See you from the sky, I'll be the one shooting down my weight in Daemuns!"

Ashrad smiled, and turned back to the beach. Streetlights and spotlights illuminated the area, along with the constant glow of lights inside every abandoned building that lined the capital. Where the roads ended, permacrete roadblocks defined the defences, and dozens of Mon Calamari and Quarren troops sheltered behind them, manning E-webbers, artillery, anything.

The beach bristled with guns, and though the cream of the military crop had been up-top when the fleet had been forced to retreat, the Mon Calamari home guard nevertheless had answered their call. A Coalition banner whipped in the cold winds from an isolated flagpole on the beach.

Now they waited.

The Ten Hour Vigil


Ten hours of waiting for the darkness to completely take hold of Mon Calamari.

Ten hours of waiting for a species not used to the harshness of cold thrust upon them to succumb to doubt.

Ten hours of enemy machinery, dislodged from their original emplacements and moved to temporary positions to cover areas they did not realize a threat could come, to be actively working amid the dropping temperatures.


As the sky turned darker, the outline of the Capital City illuminated in light began to be visible to the naked eye. At least at first for the humidity in the air grew heavier and eventually precipitated into solid flakes as snow began to fall thus obscuring the sight.


H4 tapped the frozen water and grunted as the liquid slapped the solid surface underneath. Or, at least, made a noise that an organic would take as a grunt.

18-D7 noted that his Seraphim were fine tuning their weapons knowing that the advance would eventually begin.

The fighters overhead broke formation and began to drift towards the enemy but still out of range for both sides. They were screening an approach for, in the lull, the Coalition army may attempt to bring their fighters out into the cold leaving a gaping opening in their defenses.

They still did not fully understand the Dragon strategy as he felt, at the beginning of the Ten Hours, an aura of optimism. The robust way they changed their defenses charged them with an almost swashbuckling persona.

But swashbucklers typically were warm and on open seas, not held up on cold walls for hours at a time.

The devestator missiles that had fallen onto Mon Calamari had extended an electromagnetic pulse in every direction and, while the main defenses of the fortress before them still bristled at the ready, the power conduits that ran under the ocean from the island they were on to others were upset. The underwater holding locations would also be affected though not as much. Still, to crack the technology and then expose it to extreme temperatures was to make such technology vulnerable.

And the shadow that fell upon the surface of Mon Calamari moved farther and farther out until it completely overcame the Capital causing the stars to disappear from sight.


Omega had gone into the final stages of solidifying itself and as soon as its activity completed, the planet would be plunged instantly into a subzero temperatures as the warmth of their sun would be no more.

The oceans would freeze and his army would begin the march into the jaws of the defenders.

However, it would not matter for their air support would clear a path. The defenders did not magically come up with new weapons but moved their weapons to cover an area that they felt did not need covering at first. To move weapons from one area to another was to strip that area of defenses while reinforcing another.

The movements were marked and identified by the machines zooming in on their target through all sorts of visual spectrum imaging.

Until the snow began to fall and visibilty sank to nothing...


A blizzard began to form as Omega sealed the fate of Mon Calamari's thirst for sunlight.


"The attack should be fast, brutal and punch through their outer defenses. While I expect their outer defenses to penetrated, their interior lines will not be so easy." 18-D7 transmitted through the battle-net that had come online.


They say machines do not feel anticipation but 18-D7 would call down differently for he thought he could detect an increase in the shuffling of the waiting Seraphim.


H4 stamped onto the block of ocean before them and harmonics of the block sang out registering within the old cyborg's receiving apparatus.

"Optimum" he intoned as if giving a local weather report.


"Strike.." he forwarded towards the fighters and they banked towards the flanks and the areas where the big guns used to sit and swooped down within the snow filled skies to bring fiery destruction upon the freezing defenders.

The anti-aircraft guns opened up as the first missile struck home as their equipment began to lag. 18-D7 saw that one fighter explode against a hail of fire shooting upward and plunge onto the fortress.

The fall was behind the outer wall and so for one brief instant the fire-light illuminated the wall and he noted with satisfaction that there were some defenders holding their positions as the tiresome cold sleep of death overtook some, ill equipped for the sudden temperature drop.

Then the vision hazed over as the temperature continued to fall. Snow was becoming thicker and 18-D7 ordered the Seraphim forward into the bleak night.

Machines of all sizes and sorts rumbled forward in preset formations that would shift sequence and location to keep the artillery off balance. They would pick up greater speed as they moved onto the beachhead of the Capital island, now landlocked within ice.

It was time to pay the butcher's bill.


The Coalition artillery fire lit up the skies but still looked hazy in the snow and sleet-fall.

It was not until the energy released began to crest and arc down that the intense heat of the power behind the artillery was noticed. The strike fell to the right of D7 and he registered that the fall fell in front of a "peace-maker" weapons droids, knocking it to the ground. The repair droids moved quickly over but the energy found the exposed fuel line of the machine igniting the former soldier of the Dragon Imperium and blowing it to little metal bits.

In the brightness formed in the falling sleet and snow, he saw that ice was forming on the outer shells of the machines as they marched closer and closer to the walls.

The forward artillery fire slowed sporadically as the fighters attacking from the sides wreaked havoc on the outer line in front of him.

The two flanking sections wheeled their formation and broke away from the main body in an elliptical encirclement.

The snow and sleet worked to their approach advantage by not only blinding visual and sensor attempts to track them but hindered targeting systems.

The drawback was that the Dragon approach on the ground was devoid of fire so as to not give away their position in the darkness and so to inflict the greatest "punch" and amount of damage, they would have to unleash their firepower point blank.


There is never gain without loss...


....especially in war.



Another fighter burst into flames and exploded before striking the ground.

The ice before the beaches had become a slushy mess. Heavy bombardment flash-thawed sections of ice, only for it to freeze over again, only to shatter once more as a webber raked over the same point. The Dragon army was a distant, shambling horde - dark sihlouettes in the snow.

More pressing were the sleek Dragon fighters overhead. As Ashrad watched, red lances cut through the skies above, trying to tag one of the graceful ships before it tore around another intersection, only to reappear behind the beach defences and strafe the ground below.

Ashrad cursed, and grabbed a comm unit from where it was discarded on the ground. "Zek!" he shouted. "Where are those fighters? We're getting trashed down here!"

"On our way, just hold 'em off for a few seconds."

Easy for you to say. Ashrad ditched the comm and dashed over to an artillery gun. The crew kept ducking as every fighter flew by, watching nervously for one to suddenly change direction and pelt them with alien death.

"Come on!" shouted Ashrad, slapping the gun. "Why isn't this thing firing already? Focus on your job - load, position, fire, repeat."

"But sir-" began their artillery officer.

"But nothing! Forget the fighters! Load, position, fire, repeat!" With a surge of frentic energy, the soldiers manhandled another shell into the cannon and pointed it out towards the darkness beyond the beaches. With a loud thump, the gun spat the shell as a fiery orb, briefly illuminating the hordes of Dragon minions before bursting into a fireball amongst them. Soon, other guns began to fire, and constant fire was once again achieved.

Satisfied, Ashrad pointed to the gun and repreated "Reload, position, fire, repeat. I'll be back!" With that, he dashed across the field to check on a shattered barricade.



The Quarren mystic had gone from an unknown to the most important man on the planet. Guards, attendants, and curious politicians alternatively looked out fearfully at the distant battlefield and bothered him with questions as he laboured to keep the shrine powering the shield in optimal condition.

However, one of the little powers the mystic had mastered was the ability to block out the outside world, and their questions went unanswered. It wasn't until the stream of golden light coming out of the shrine flickered unnervingly that he even noticed there were people around him.

Snapped out of the trance, he found himself suddenly surrounded by worried faces all prodding him for an answer about the anomaly. The mystic ignored them, however, and turned his good eye to the shrine. It seemed as though the light - the power itself - was dimming, and it caused him to worry. The shrine itself was in perfect alignment. That meant that the only thing there could be a problem with was its' source.

When your source is something as insubstantial as courage, this is not a good thing to know.



Tiny red deathgliders circled the holographic city, as small as Isip's smallest finger, yet each representing an engine of death. One of them caught fire and crashed into the side of an abandoned skyscraper - though the holographic structure collapsing before him was only little, the shockwave of the actual building could be felt in the halls of the Coalition's command.

"...Pull back all beach forces on beaches Alpha, Omega, and point two. Have them take up position in the city defensive zones nearest to them - it looks like the main enemy assault is coming up beach Delta." Isip rubbed his chin thoughtfully, before adding "Comm me in to the commander at beach Delta."

One of the lieutenants at the scattered command consoles flicked a few switches, and the command room was suddenly connected to the battlefield a mile away. The background was full of thuds and thundering as the commander chimed in to Isip.

"Commander," said Isip, who crossed his arms as though the man were in the room with him. "This advance across the ice is the best chokepoint we'll get. Do not, under any circumstances, retreat unless I give you the order. The longer you hold them on the beaches the less of them we'll have to fight hand-to-hand in the streets."

"Sir," gasped the breathless commander. "These deathgliders are playing hell with our firing patterns. I don't think we can disrupt their advance-" The sound of an explosion, accompanied by close-at-hand screams, drowned out his next few words. "-unless we get air support, and soon!"

Isip glanced at his holo-display, where a wedge of green lights had begun moving towards the vortex of ghostly red Deathgliders. "Don't worry about that, commander, reinforcements are on their way - tell your Ack-Acks to watch their fire!"



"The guns, they've stopped..." The speaker was a Quarren soldier, who glanced up from the sights of his Webber long enough to notice the bursts of Anti-Air fire were gone.

His Mon Calamari partner pulled up his winter goggles to get a better look. "Think they've been blown up?"

"Nah, couldn't be..." It was then that the distinctive shriek of Deathgliders was cut with a new sound, the hum of Second Wave Technologies thruster design. The Quarren grinned. "Sounds like the cavalry."

As he spoke, a wedge of Kris starfighters rocketed overhead illuminating the absolute darkness. Muzzle flashes and exploding Deathgliders accompanied their advance, as the skies above went from a bombing run ballet to a dogfight free-for-all.



The mystic pulled at his tentacles in frustration, fiddling with the charms he had arranged around the central jewel, before the light suddenly pulsed with renewed vigor. So sudden was this pulse that some onlookers yelped in surprise or shielded their eyes. Perplexed, the mystic looked out.

In the distance, with his one good eye, he focused on the distant battle. Though out of normal sight, his enhanced senses could just barely detect battle in the skies above, and an understanding of the earlier phenomenon dawned on him. The implications of it were realized soon after, and he pushed his way hurridely through the crowd and back down the stairs towards Isip's command post.



Isip watched the battle playing out with practiced calm. Never had he directed so large a confrontation, but there was no room in his mind for doubt or worry. The others looked up to knights to be their saviours in hours of need to overcome impossible odds. Though surely not everyone had believed it before, in this, their - quite literally - darkest hour, there was little else to believe in. He dared not fail their expectations.

The dogfighting in the skies above was a close-run thing. He would have killed for just a few more Kris fighters, but as it stood their limited force would have to be enough to keep the Deathgliders off the beach's defenders. Every so often a fighter from one side or the other would flare up, sometimes vanishing in a ball of light, other times tearing down a city street. The price of the defender, unfortunately.

It was a few moments before he realized that the Quarren mystic from earlier wanted his attention. Isip looked up from the battle display and frowned at him. "What's the matter?"

"I'm afraid there is another factor with the shield," said the mystic, approaching the table. "It appears that when your men feel fear in battle, the shield weakens. However, when they are winning and feel brave, it becomes stronger."

Isip gave the mystic a curious look. "What do you mean, stronger and weaker?"

"When their courage weakens, general, it drains the pool of courage from which the shrine draws the power of the shield. We can lose minutes, hours, even days if your men are gripped with panic. On the other hand, a blaze of courage can save us time and give the shrine a greater pool to draw from."

The damn shield had always been a shade beyond Isip's comprehension. "So this device of yours is immune to the heaviest enemy guns, but can be brought down by mass hysteria?"

The mystic shrugs. "Such are the ways of the Force. It is a battle of belief we wage, general, not one of cannons and guns."

"Spare me your theatrics," Isip grumbled. "I know how to win a battle."

"Anyone can win a battle," said the mystic, as he climbed the stairs back to his shrine. "To win hearts and minds, however, is to win a war." With that, he vanished back onto the rooftop. Isip's eyes lingered on where he'd stood a moment before, then turned back to his battle display.

"Lieutenant," Isip muttered, as he examined the display. "Gather the commanders on the comm systems. I think we need to make some adjustments to the plan."

Space


Omega had solidified and the Mon Calamari sun was no more. The orb outside the planet seemed to glow in the warm radiance as Grevious looked out at a now unrecognizable world.

A dull metallic ball not dissimiliar to the Death Star hung before him as his fleet remained stationary.

With nothing to challenge their supremacy of Mon Calamari, he set his assets about scanning, searching and destroying anything and everything intact that encircled the once Coalition capital world.

It was a half-hearted response from him as the clearing of Coalition "trash" held little appeal. It was merely good tactical sense that if it was in your power to deprive your enemy of even the slightest of options, do so.


His main attention was what to do regarding reinforcements. True, the Coalition Defense Fleet had fled but then, they'd been beaten.


But not defeated.


It was a distinction that held much meaning during war.


Even if the same fleet did not return, the Coalition would not allow them to keep Mon Calamari. Whether it was truly the administrative capital or not meant little. It was their capital in the public eye and, as such, their isolation of it mean't a powerful blow to the Coalition war effort.


But even more importantly, it meant an enemy position in their flank..


Grevious drummed his metallic fingers against each other as he prowled the command deck lost in thought.


If he were the enemy, he would have written off Mon Calamari and focussed efforts on reinforcing a defensive perimeter knowing that attacks would soon be launching from a captured Mon Calamari.

But he was not the enemy. The enemy were flesh who were scared of dying. And scared of leaving people to die.

No, this enemy will be foolish enough to return.


But was it foolish?

Grevious took an inventory of available assets and knew he did not have much to continue an aggressive campaign while securing his rear.

Why Raktus had denied him the fleets he had requested filled the General with confusion. And rightly so for he had won!

Hadn't he?


The solid globe of the Omega was firm.


It would be hell down on the planet now... A cold hell.


What was the estimate?


Three? Four? Six days at most and everything would be dead anyway.


Initial estimates put 80% of the planet's indigenious plant and animal life as dead already with the abrupt disappearance of the sun.


What was the grand strategy of the Taj?


He needed to commune.


"Begin the laying of mines at potential exit vectors. I want my position impregnable!"


If God determined he held firm here while the defenders died a death not worthy of scum, by that god, he would hold firm!


What burned within him was.... why?

*** DATASPHERE - INTELLIGENCE WEBLINK - COMMUNE ***

THE VOICES ROSE AND FELL WITH EACH LINK BEING ESTABLISHED. IT WAS A NETHERWORLD OF CIRCUITRY, COMPUTERS AND POSITRONIC MINDS AD INFINITUM.


ALL SEPARATE INTELLIGENCES BENT TO THE WILL OF THE OVERMIND. THE ALL. THE TAJ.


REPORTS OF THE WAR WERE BEING FILTERED AND EVERYWHERE HE LOOKED, THE PART OF THE DRAGON THAT HELD TO FLESH WERE PROMOTING A TRIUMPHANT MARCH THROUGH THE SLIVER OF SPACE THAT HAD AT ONE TIME TEEMED WITH COALITION SHIPPING. BUT GREVIOUS IGNORED THE TRAPPINGS OF FLESH. THEY SOUGHT TO BUILD THEIR FRAGILE MORALE.

THE NUMBERS, THOUGH.

THE NUMBERS DID NOT LIE.


AND THE NUMBERS SHOWED THE REALITY OF A DRAGON NOT FULLY INVESTED. AN IMPERIUM, AFTER THE INITIAL STRIKE RETREATED BEHIND THE ATTACKS OF INTERMEDIARIES. THEIR THE PHAGE HAD SOWED MUCH DISSENTION AND DEATH BUT EVEN THEN, THE PHAGE WAS NOT DESIGNED TO BE THE END-ALL-BE-ALL OF THE IMPERIUM'S WAR STRATEGY. THE HOLY ORDER OF THE DRAGON IMPERIUM NEEDED TO CAPITALIZE ON THE PHAGE STRIKES WITH OVERWHELMING FORCE.

THEY HAD THE CAPABILITY.

NOT ONE DAEMUN HAD ENTERED THE FIGHT.


THE GRAND DRAGON OF ALL HAD DEEMED FIT TO SIT BACK AND ALLOW HIS FLESH TO FIGHT THE WAR.


EXCEPT FOR HIS GENERAL OF THE DRAGON ARMIES.


GREVIOUS AND HIS SERAPHIM WARRIORS DOWN BELOW HAD MADE THE ONLY REAL SHATTERING VICTORY FOR THE DRAGON AND A PRECARIOUS ONE AT THAT.


THEN THE TREACHERY AT CHANDAAR APPEARED AND GREVIOUS FUMED. HE SHOULD HAVE IRRADICATED THE PEOPLE WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE AND NOW...

********** UPLINK ESTABLISHED - AI ENCRYPTION PROTOCOLS RUNNING **********

¤

~~~~~~~~~~ * ** COMMUNION ESTABLISHED ** * ~~~~~~~~~~

"Tell me, Grevious. What bothers you?"



"Our strategy, my Taj."


"You are against it?" came the amused query.


"I...I have failed to divine it." the General admitted.


"You fear us losing?"


"I fear us losing." the General admitted, hating himself.


The voice, the light, the presence was reassuring.


And it came back with a perplexing question. A response that Grevious had not calculated on.


"losing what?"

[ THE REAL WORLD ]

Mon Calamari



18-D7 telescoped his visor to note that the defenders on the walls were becoming frantic. Ice was everywhere. The guns, the duracrete, the coral..everything.

And as their pounders carved niches of block and ice each time they struck, there were fewer and fewer defenders facing them.


As his gauge measured the drop in temperature he knew the fighters would need to be grounded and soon.


He signaled the order to the appropriate Seraphim responsible.


Visibility was zero. If not for the fires burning themselves out the shadows cast by the machine army moving forward would not be seen at all.

The effect of laser fire coming and going from the island's vantage point was dizzying as it gave only flashes of visibility. And there were no scanners to relay on anymore for the outer circuitry was failing to the point of unrealiability. The Dragons prided themselves on their ability to create a machine and if their hardware was failing, it stood the reason the Coalition's hardware had already failed.

But still the defenders fired against the Seraphim.


The machines were picking up speed for the ground was hardening faster than the large divots of plasma could melt.


Before they had reached the wall the enemy threw something at them that was surprising.

The Deathgliders were being recalled and as they turned to make their way opposite the ice encircled island, many began to explode.

The lights in the sky surprised D-18 as smaller craft had been launched from the Defender's base.

How many had died of exposure getting their fighters ready?

How many had braved the harsh cold of the Omega to ensure their fighter launched?

The effect was unnerving for it was a decision a machine would not make.

The numbers did not add up.




The Kris starfighters sallied forth over the walls as fast as they could travel, firing as fast as they could.

With their backs to the island, the Deathgliders had next to no time to respond by maneuvering and so simply pushed themselves harder to escape.

It was a tactical decision not to stay and fight and though the cost of the act displayed itself across D-18's tactical screen as acceptible, the thought of losing assets in this way unsettled him.


The Deathgliders, in fleeing, put a great amount of distance between the island and themselves but they could not outpace the vengeful Kris.

Each Deathglider was hunted with a persistence that made up for the precision lost in the elements. Each Deathglider had been destroyed.


However, in doing so, so had the Kris. For the temperatures had already dropped too low.


Chemical fuel tanks ruptured and lines of liquid fuel froze over, the scream of wind against the Kris wings marking their quick descent as they crashed into the blackness of ice miles behind.


Very few exploded on impact as the fuel was too frozen to ignite.


The ice had changed for they marched upon frozen sand, passing civilian structures that were not built to withstand the extreme in temperature.


The guns... they've stopped.. H4 signaled to D-18 and a quick data burst told him that their pounders had frozen over.


They had served their purpose and had become irrelevant.



For the machines had reached the wall...


Fewer and fewer energy weapons were being fired by both sides as powercells began to freeze over.


Bladed weapons came out and the Seraphim Army started to climb while most poured through the openings of block and ice blown apart.


The Reckoning had begun...

18-D7's bladed weapon sliced apart a defender who had tried to club him with a malfunctioning blaster rifle.


It was evident, even as he gazed at the inner walls that gaining control was going to be easier than earlier anticipated.

Holding the outer walls was one thing in military doctrine.

Holding the outer walls on Mon Calamari was something else altogether for to truly strike into the soul of the Capital Island City, they would have to penetrate into the Coral Reef that served as the beating heart of the island.

An interior that could hold out for much longer by simply being removed from the outer elements of the rapidly dropping temperatures brought on by the metallic orb overhead. Their heat generators and energy reserves would last them longer inside than they would outside.


The butcher's bill would be heaviest penetrating this mound of heretics.

A machine soldier went down as someone had shot a solid slug from a projectile weapon in his direction. The positronic cavity had been penetrated exposing the delicate circuitry to the frigid air immobilizing the Seraphim instantly.


Sweep the walls of defenders and charge for the inner walls...


Penetrate that and the interior of the city lay before them!

"Sir, we can't hold the beach! Our position's overrun, our weapons are malfunctioning from the cold, and the enemy keeps coming! We have to order a-"

"Damnit man," shouted Isip into his comm-unit. "You'll hold the ground you're given until death takes you! We're on our way!" As if to emphasize the point he'd made, the comm broke down into static. Isip muttered a curse.

He turned, and pulled down his helmet with a click. Isip climbed the steps to the top of the armored vehicle, and turned to the unit's captain.

"Is this everything we've got mechanized?"

"Yes sir," the captain replied. "There isn't much land on Mon Calamari, so we don't have that many tanks or armored vehicles. They should endure the cold, though, if the enemy can."

Isip nodded, and got into the tank turret, his upper half poking out at the front of the brigade waiting at the edge of the city's heavily-fortified heart.

"Men," he said, over the comm system. "The enemy's out there, and he's coming this way. He comes to plunge into our heart, but by the Force, it is we who shall drive them back into the ocean!" The troops on the ground pulled the last of the barricade away from the main street that lead through the city's massive coral configurations. "With me!"

The streets of Mon Calamari were deserted on all sides, except for the blocks stretching from a stretch of beach to the city's coral-surrounded center where Coalition forces trickled back under the push of Black Dragon attack. Coalition soldiers leapt out of the way as charging headlights appeared in the darkness - as they watched, the heavy armour rolled by, determined to cut through the enemy advance, and with a silvery-white figure standing on the lead tank, bellowing orders.



Ashrad saw the fighters go down, and knew in a moment that it was wrong.

"Zek!" he shouted into his comm unit. "Zek! Can you hear me?" Nothing but static greeted his ears.

Between where the Kris fighters had crashed and his position on a hill overlooking the beach, shadowy ranks of Black Dragon soldiers were marching up the beach cheek-to-jowl. Any source of light, be it a knot of soldiers, a lamppost, or an operating gun, they simply engulfed. On his side of the advance, Coalition soldiers were abandoning freezing weapons and breaking for the cover of the city. The walls and barricades that separated the city streets from the beach were now swarming with machines, all whirring blades and unearthly sounds.

The cold was starting to cut through even his insulated armour, and his pistol had long-since frozen over. All he had now was his sword, a finely crafted vibrosword that he trusted even in this frigid weather. Even so, it was one sword against a mountain of enemies far more trained and powerful than he.

In the distance, he could still see the smoke rising in the darkness from where the fighters had crashed.

There was no choice. He charged.

His scream didn't carry too well through his frosted voicebox on the helmet, but the sight of the one white figure in the darkness charging the opposite way than his fellows quickly caught their attention. Without thinking, Ashrad hacked into the first Seraphim, plunging the sword up to its' hilt. He yanked the blade free and barrled into the warriors milling on the broken wall, feeling an agonizing crunch as he hit the far harder machine warriors.

Nevertheless, he pushed past them as they turned awkwardly to attack, dropping off the other side of the wall and landing on another Seraphim. Ashrad stabbed downwards into the thing's head, which cracked like a coconut and froze over instantly. As the thing fell, he jumped free and ran forwards as fast as he could.

The Coalition soldiers were amazed, looking at the wall, wondering what was going on. All they could hear was the faint sound of slashing and chopping just audible over the clatter of advancing death-machines.

All of a sudden, the wall became an expanding ball of flame, sending armoured Seraphims in all directions. Isip and his tanks appeared thundering down the streets, firing onto the wall that was now pressed thick with the enemy. Explosions tore the tops of the positions apart, knocking the enemy back as they sought to take ground.

Isip himself pulled up to the now-demolished command tent, and looked down to the Delta-beach commander, a wheezing old Mon Calamarian wrapped up tightly in armour to keep warm. "Commander, pull back all your men in an orderly fashion, and recover whatever you can. Prepare to take up new positions within the coral reef, and no matter what you do, don't come back for us. Understand?"

The commander nodded, riffling through broken equipment before pulling a comm unit from the table. "All ground units on Delta beach, begin the retreat! Salvage your equipment and regroup at the Juno and Gold intersection for a retreat to the central city!"

The commander bowed quickly to Isip before dashing off. Isip turned back to the wall, where the enemy was beginning to advance over piles of their own dead. Of course, his counterattack made no strategic sense - they could never hold this ground, and he risked just as much, if not more, of his forces than he would save with this action.

That was not important anymore, however. The shield needed to stay up, and to stay up, it needed courage. It needed heroics - bravery, reckless or otherwise. If that's what it needed, then that's what Isip would deliver, the most reckless charge in history.

One Seraphim managed to leap from the now-flattened wall, bounce off an abandoned building and come down straight towards Isip. With one fluid motion, Isip drew his sword and impaled the thing on the blade. As it slid down to see him face to face, the Seraphim's eyes went dim, the thing slid off.

So they want heroics?, reflected Isip. I'll give them more heroics than can handle.



Ashrad leapt nimbly over the crater caused by the tank shell mere moments before, cutting down another metal monstrosity on the other side and charging towards the downed Kris. He knew it was Zek's, the markings were distinct of his callsign.

The ship was swarming with... something. The only light in the place were faint shipboard lights still operating on the fighter, and all these could illuminate were dark shades crowding around the ship.

Nevertheless, Ashrad charged the first one. It swung a blade towards him, but Ashrad met the swing and the enemy blade shattered into frozen fragments. He rammed his sword into the thing's torso, and felt a strange mix of metal scraping and tearing muscle as his blade passed through both. Truly, the Dragons made for a strange and alien opponant.

The second shrieked and roared in an electronic screed and tried to level some sort of blaster on Ashrad, but the pistol simply sparked and fizzled with its' power cell totally frozen. Remember Ruuvan's fencing lessons... Ashrad swung round and neatly cut the head from the thing's shoulders.

The third leapt from the top of the Kris's protruding broken wing, landing on Ashrad's back like a tonne of bricks and knocking the wind out of him. Claws, blades, and even what seemed like snapping teeth reached for his face, but Ashrad managed to hold his sword sideways between the two, pushing with all his might. It was no use, however, as the vice-like grip tightened on the blade, pushing it closer to Ashrad's own neck.

There was a bang and a flash of red. The creature - whatever it was - shrieked and let go as it's back became a charred mess. Ashrad pushed the body off of him and looked up.

"Never was a great shot..." murmured Zek, as he dropped the pistol. "Was aiming for his head."

"Zek!" Ashrad ran to his friend's side, seeing he was bleeding badly, pinned to his cockpit by a crushed fuselage.

"Don't bother..." murmured Zek. "My suit's totally torn open and the heating's failed... I won't last long out here."

"Don't talk like that," said Ashrad desperately, as he riffled through the controls on the fighter, trying to find a way to restore the heating. "You just keep tight and we'll have you out of there in no time."

"Ashrad... look at me," said Zek, who's head lolled around to face his friend. "Even if you got me out of here, you can't carry me back out of this army all the way to the city. And you can't leave me here..."

"I'm not leaving you here!" said Ashrad. Even he began to hear, however, the gentle clanking of approaching Dragon soldiers.

Zek smiled, "I know you wouldn't. But you have to, or they'll kill you too. Someone still has to win this battle... You were always more into it than me anyways. Don't want to freeze or get chopped up, though..." Zek started to lift his pistol again.

"Zek? What are you doing? No! Put that down-" Bang!

Ashrad looked at his friend, as the steam slowly rose from his head. He tried to choke back tears, but his optics fogged regardless. The faint lights on the Kris fighter began to go out, shrouding him in complete darkness.

The clinking and clanking of metal came closer, like a slithering sound as amalgamations of flesh and metal, or religious fanatics, or machine soldiers, all inched towards where he knelt. Finally, the sound seemed right behind him.

This time the scream was clear, and so loud as to shake the icicles from his helmet as Ashrad tore around as fast as he could, slicing the machine soldier in two. Still roaring at the top of his lungs, the white figure plunged into absolute blindness, hacked and slashed his way through unseen hordes back towards the distant beacon of light.

Mon Calamari


18-D7's lithe bioelectric current flared in anticipation as the Seraphim overrode the forward positions of the enemy's rather thin line. Those biologics who died of exposure littered the line and 18-D7 did not spare them a second glance. With nonexistent heat signatures, there would be no glorius resurrection for these fighters, noble or not but heretics all.


A light flickered up high that was due to neither army's weapons fire. The underside of the Omega Sphere had began to extend towards certain areas underneath to try and penetrate the invisible barrier that seemed to be hindering it's diabolical purpose. Little did he know that overhead, in the fleet, Grevious had measured the diameter of the Omega sphere and it was
growing smaller. Not by much and not quickly but it was shrinking.


18-D7's only concern was pushing forward against elements that seemed to surpass even his expectations. The Omega would begin disrupting his own army before long if they didn't break the enemy here.

It was a situation not quite expected for there was no real way to calculate performance in such an environment and projections only counted for so much. Just because something was supposed to do something in a hypothetical situation did not mean it would do so.


And Omega was effective beyond all projections.


The planet was dying.


The hardness of cold would be penetrating the ground and sinking further and further into the crust and, if given a week, the molten thermal warmth of the interior core of Mon Calamri would be as cold and as hard a rock as a lifeless asteriod.


Vibroblades extended from his upper wrist as he approached what appeared to be a defended position. Something alive had seen him but seemed to barely move in reaction. In it's voice, however, his audioreceptors could distinguish the panic erupting from the tired creature in the form of a wailing, blubbering sound.

His internal body mechanics had gone into a preservation mode that seemed to affect the translating centers of the Dracconis' intricate mind. So the panicked alien seemed to fade in and out of comprehension:

"Sir, we blubber blub blubber blub! Buble position's Blub, our blubbers are malfblubbing from blub cold, and the blubbers keeps blubbing! We have to blubber a-"


18-D7's blade had inserted itself into the screaming alien's forehead, the enemy's shocked expression frozen on its face permanently.

The comm unit let out a shrill squeek as 18-D7's translation algorithms struggled to keep up.


"Damnit squeek," shouted the alien from the ice-covered comm-unit. "Squeek Squeek the ground squeek given until squeek takes you! Squeek on our way!"

*Static*


"Squeek!"


The latter must have been a curse but fell on 18-D7's deaf audioreceptors as his photoreceptors telescoped the horizon ignoring the Seraphim moving past him to the left and right flanks.

Several elements of the enemy were running but there were others more fortified who were trapped like islands of defiance among a sea of Dragons.


If left alone, those islands would be isolated, cut off and destroyed.


If left alone.


Collective Dragon experience seemed to indicate that the Coalition never left anything well enough alone.


And as the screams of several islands of defiance experienced the cleansing power of the truth faith, headlights appeared in the distance moving through the retreating numbers.



What were they trying to do?


The flaring in the distance above him, lost in the perpetual darkness that was the sky, intensified briefly as the armoured machines of the defenders turned towards his position.


He had advanced beyond the wall with the Vanguard and, as his vision zeroed in on the oncoming enemies, he saw their weapons take aim. Before he could shout a warning, their combined firepower was hurled into the air at speeds too fast to track.


A bright light appeared behind him as the wall exploded into a million shards of material and ice. His audioreceptors heard the brisk snapping of the watery crystals and their silent deaths offered up to the flame that almost instantaneously burnt itself out.


A crater lay silent in a spot that was once teeming with advancing guards. The defenders were abandoning their position, the Seraphim advance blunted and nearly ground to a halt at the center. The flanks, though. The flanks continued moving which preempted the defenders to retreat or be cut off again.


18-D7 felt a tremor in his matrix as the numbers rolled across his mind relaying the situation to him. A dictum of war that stated: No advancement is made without loss.


Those of the Vanguard that moved ahead of him had begun to reach the armour's position and relentlessly attacked the machines, cutting their way open or working to create openings to insert charges that would make the interior of these temporary bastions fatal to the crews of flesh inside.


One ambitious Seraphim made an incredible leave against the cutting wind, the ice shooting against it's body making a chiming sound as he pushed off a building towards the leader of the enemy standing outside, a sword in hand.


The Seraphim landed right in front of the enemy creature and as 18-D7's mind was working to translate data into fact of memory of the enemy's head rolling on the ground, his eyes were brought back to the scene. Violently.


For a sliver of metal protruded from the Seraphim's soft body mesh, his hand around the flesh leader's throat. But he could not squeeze for the flesh had severed several main connections within the body of the Seraphim.


And slowly... the Seraphim's glowing eyes dimmed and it's body slid off the sword.


And for a moment, 18-D7 stared at the mad creature of flesh, it's white hair blowing in the wind, ice crystals forming around the eyes, mouth and hair.


The creature of flesh, it's ugly visage a mask of ice and it's eyes equally hard, lowered it's sword forward and shouted something incomprehensible covered over by the howl of the wind.


The armoured machines started up and began to lumber forward.


~ They are going to attack his position!


Not all the enemy's armoured machines moved forward as the flanking Dragons had crippled several.


The leader of flesh was going to go down the throat of the Dragon advance.


And as this reduced force of hastily thrown together Coalition strength began to move towards D-18 the sky lit up as Omega and this incomprehensible shield escalated their own unseen struggle with each other.


~ It burns brightest when they sacrifice the most.


And as the photorecptors stared at the charge, he began to detect the faintest of links.


Tendrils really..



What was going on?


Increase speed.. he ordered his soldiers through the Battle-Web and even the last of the Dragon soldiers began to outrun a screaming soldier of flesh in the rear of the lines stride for stride.


The larger machines who were not Seraphim had been lagging behind but as they touched onto the crystal ice beach, their undersides began to move in several spiraling directions.


Drills!


Ice shavings began to fly in every direction and the machines began to sink into the ground.


18-D7 tried to project the speed the drilling platforms were moving at comparing and overlaying the speed with which the oncoming armour was charging and knew it would be close.


In fact, the numbers refused to total until more data was gathered.


But 18-D7 had already hurled his body away from the oncoming charge and made an incredible leap falling into the mass of flanking soldiers that were pushing onward on parallel paths beyond the main street and through buildings to reach that location that would take them below.





Space



Grevious recoiled from the Intelligence Web as if struck.


No!


But the tracking systems and the hard numbers within the Intelligence Web confirmed without a doubt the cold facts of the data.


Contamination was taking place and had done so rapidly.


A flame within his mind burned brightly as he remembered an order he had given but the Taj had countermanded.


He remembered it like it was yesterday.


"That does not concern me, Captain," he had hissed. "It is apparant the king is not interested in submitting to our faith, therefore we will take the planet for ourselves and convert his people to our cause. Begin the attack. Leave no one alive who dare to resist us."



"Reposition the Fleet," he ordered, his voice hard as stone.


Incomprehension swirled around him but as his calculating mind took over the
inconsistencies of the raw data of experience, his eyes began to focus on the things surrounding him.


And as he stepped out of the datasphere he began to notice mystery after mystery.



And the incomprehension...



...began to unravel.

The harsh cold was starting to make Ashrad feel as though he was walking through water - each movement was accompanied with the crack of freshly-set ice on the outer layer of his armour. Nevertheless, he pushed forwards across the frozen ocean. Indeed, if it weren't for the cold and the dark, he would have surely been engulfed by Dragon soldiers, but it was almost as if a dimness or lethargy had taken them.

The army had begun to freeze. Those outside the city, exposed to the rawest of the elements, struggled forwards in temperatures even their metal frames were never meant to endure for long. Closer in towards the walls and buildings that provided some scant shelter, the deadly machines and fanatical cyborg-like beings continued to push forwards, but a circle of death was fast approaching the island from all around. If the siege was not broken soon, the entire planet and everything on it would be frozen where it stood.

Struggling onto the ruined wall and barricades, Ashrad looked inwards at the city. Here at least, there was a chance to survive - if the hellish invaders didn't rip him limb from limb. Isip's tank column was the last forward position in the entire city, blowing holes in the road all around as the Dragon forces pressed forwards, hoping to overwhelm them with numbers. It seemed like it might work.

Weary and freezing, the young White Knight pushed himself forwards towards the battle. A shell hit the road in front of him, turning it into a cloud of fire and smoke. Hardly blinking, he rushed through it - oddly grateful for the brief burst of warmth. The way temporarily clear, Ashrad reached Isip's tank line.

"Sir," he said, leaning weakly on the tank's treads. "What are your orders?"

Isip turned down from his position, genuinely surprised to see the young Knight alive. "I suppose you're the last one out? So be it, fall back to the city center - and tell the artillery crews when you arrive to start setting up their remaining guns in the city center to fire on this position. There should be some left from the beaches they didn't assault."

"Yes, sir. And yourself?"

Isip didn't respond right away, turning briefly to watch another volley of tank shells turn the shadowy beach into a lightshow of fireballs. "Don't worry about me, Ashrad. Get back there and protect the city, no matter what. And whatever you do, don't let them destroy the shrine, you understand?"

"You can count on me, sir!"

The older knight nodded. "I know I can. Now get back there - that's an order!"

Ashrad picked himself up again and ran down the city's abandoned main street, towards the last beacon of light in the city - the city's core, a last bastion of coral formations and high-rises bristling with turrets, barricades, and searchlights.

Isip watched Ashrad for a while, until he was lost in the all-consuming darkness that had engulfed this part of the city. He then turned back to face the oncoming tide of Dragon warmachines, massing for another attack. Black armour, cruel claws, hooked blades, strange and alien blasters all bristled from soldiers who seemed more machine than man.

His comm-box sparked to life, the sound of the tank captain's voice just audible over the static and cannon-fire. "We can't hold this position for long, sir! Our tanks are going to freeze up and they're gaining ground on us!"

"Oh, what the hell," muttered Isip, as he shook the icicles from his helmet. "If we're going to die, we might as well make it worth remembering." He grabbed the comm-box from inside the tank and pulled it up to his helmet's mouthpiece. "All armoured units, this is White Knight Isip. Prepare to advance, follow my lead!"

With that, his tank's engine groaned into life once more, the treads spinning in the ice and snow. They soon found traction, however, pulling the knight forwards with a jerk as he picked up speed towards the enemy that flowed endlessly out of the darkness and over the ruined beach defences.

In his wake, dozens of similar tanks roared, their cannons blasting away at everything in their path. Alien fire scythed through the air, strange beams and bolts of all different hues, screaming in a dozen different decibels and rending metal from the advance in a hundred different ways, and yet still the armoured behemoths came, crunching machine soldiers beneath their tracks.

"Forwards!" shouted Isip, encouraging the tank charge from atop his own point vehicle, waving his sword around his head with madness in his eyes. "Forwards! For Glory! For the Coalition! For Mon Calamari!"

Mon Calamari


Total Darkness...


18-D7's photoreceptors had scaled everything in the dull hues of night vision but even night vision required some sort of light. The artificial powersources each Seraphim carried were already working overtime in keeping their systems going in the bitter cold.


H-4 and others nearby had entered into buildings as most of the advancing armies were clearing off the streets hoping to continue and advance under the protective shelter of the surrounding buildings.

Such fighting block by block would take it's toll on the infidel structures but that was not the concern of the Seraphim. Their only concern lay in accomplishing their goal.

They were in some sort of manufacturing building where broken windows, shattered due to the extreme cold, had allowed a hard frost to cover over everything.

H-4 and those with him moved deeper into the building finding immediate responses from their frozen attributes the more protected and farther away from the open they were positioned.

A small tunnel led deeper and soon H4 found himself moving into an abandoned corridor that looked surprisingly like a spaceship's corridor. It, in fact, was a spaceship's corridor and H4 remembered back to the Intelligence Web where Mon Calamari grew the hulls of their ships out of young corral under water. It was a procedure that seemed to lack a mathmatical definition but one that seemed to work for the enemy.

The ship they found themselves on was locked too far in the ice and would have, in any event, been unable to take flight as the hull had no circuitry, power systems and was essentially a large shell submerged.

If it was not encased solidly into a block of ice already.

But the underwater tube that connected the hull with manufacturing building had strengthed up also being encased in ice.

H-4 moved to the opposite hull and began to detect a faint noise coming from the other side.

Talking!





18-D7, from a building roof top saw the charge of the Armoured Tanks as they sped down to retake the abandoned former defense lines. It was then that he noticed that there was hardly any firing of weapons taking place as the temperature had simply passed a critical stage.

The links that attach power to the light eminating from a blaster failed to contact causing several Seraphim to explode upon firing their weapons.

He was running out of options as more and more Seraphim disappeared into buildings leaving the enemy forces to struggle against the breakdown of equipment and weapons. It was just too cold now..


His mind tried to connect to the Intelligence Web but found that it was impossible.

Perhaps the Cold... Perhaps the Omega... Perhaps both.



And as his thoughts turned to the drills a marked explosion broke through where the drills had entered the ground.

The mechanism holding the power core in place for that droid had frozen over and snapped. The massive core, unable to be contained, built up a chain reaction that exploded outward rippling across the snow and ice and 18-D7 saw cracks starting to form spidering outward...




*


H-4 tapped the wall and his sensors began to register not necessarily warmth but less cold.


18-D7 was a stone as he saw the spidering tendrils of cracked ground, snow and ice break apart causing friend and enemy to fall into the cold, dark, deep crevices below.


~We've found a way in... came a static burst that 18-D7 registered as H-4.


~We will require it.


Too many of the Seraphim had fallen already.


And as he made his way down the roof into a particular building, he found his system processes quicken their pace, the receptors not so frozen over as before.

As he entered the appropriate corridor he saw that a hole had already been made and Seraphim after Seraphim were moving into the cries ahead.

Apparently their intrusion did not go unnoticed.


~Taj, give me the strength...


~Thy will be done...



And when his turn came, he stepped through the hole and entered into a world that was not meant for his kind...

Where the hell's the enemy? Isip's main guns had stopped firing - both due to lack of targets and a thick coating of ice. He himself could barely move in the oppressive cold.

His comm unit, somehow still surviving, sparked once more to life. "Sir! The enemy is advancing through the city blocks! They've found a breach into the heart and are pouring through! We don't know if we can hold!"

Isip began doing some very rapid math and came to a dark conclusion. There were very few options open to his men now, but one still lurked. "Understood," he croaked through cracked lips. "Patch me through to Ashrad."



Ashrad reached the top of the coral superstructure that shielded the city center, where now Coalition guns bristled scanning the ground below for targets. Except for the distant, faint lights of Isip's armoured column there was nothing in the infinite darkness of the planet.

"Anything to report?" said Ashrad, as he pulled up next to the artillery commander, a weatherbeaten Quarren.

The Quarren shook his head. "No sir. I've had my troops set up all our remaining artillery here on the top of the coral structure. The heat should sustain them for another hour perhaps before we have to fall back to the inner city, but I don't see any targets."

Ashrad felt a twinge of regret looking out at the dark ghost city that was once a sculpted monument to the glory of Mon Calamari - silvery towers cracked and bent, domes collapsed, narrow walkways and tunnels shattered. "Keep on your toes. They have to be out there somewhere."

As if on cue, Ashrad's comm began buzzing. He grabbed it. "Sir?"

"Ashrad," rasped Isip on the other end of the line. "Are you at the artillery position?"

"Yes sir," he replied. "It's no good though - we can't see the enemy. They have nowhere to direct their fire."

"Can you lock on to this signal?"

Ashrad paused. "...Yes sir, it's pretty faint but I think we can still pinpoint it."

"Good. Upload it to the artillery commander's fire control systems and follow it. Fire on my command. Isip out."

There was a brief stunned silence before Ashrad passed the icicle-fringed comm unit to the Quarren commander. "You heard Isip! Lock on to that signal immediately!"



Creaking, groaning gears shifted as the armoured column ploughed through wreckage and down alleys. Both sides were down to melee combat at this point, and it took every ounce of strength Isip had to slice the few Seraphim strong enough to challenge him to pieces before they took his head.

They passed another intersection and the tank's headlights illuminated a warehouse - one swarming with Seraphim. The enemy army had found an unguarded line, a breach through which they were swarming. Isip ground his teeth in lieu of a curse, unsure if he still had the strength. He just hissed the word "Forward!" into his comm, and the tank pushed forwards into the grinding mess of the enemy.

The outer horde was still frozen and unresponsive, grinding under their armoured tracks, but as they got closer to the leaking heat of the tunnel entrance, the one in the hollowed out starship, the Seraphim they encountered were responsive enough to turn and leap upon them, stopping his advance in its' tracks.

The slight uptick in heat touched Isip too, and he found the strength to leap from the tank's top - just in time as a blast of microwave energy tore the top part of it clean off like a hot knife through butter. Sword in hand, Isip struggled to defend himself, back against the ruined tank.

All around, his men abandoned their vehicles and crashed into Seraphim, screaming hoarsely into the night and bringing sword and bayonet to bear against claw and hook. It was clear they were doomed, though. They were badly outnumbered as the enemy's forces were still quite enough to take the city.

Isip knew this. He was no fool obsessed with heroics or romantic ideals about sacrifice. What he did know was that Ashrad was broadcasting his comm reports through the defence network, and that the defenders who did need to believe in heroes would see him in his dark, desperate hour.

"Now!" Spat Isip into his comm, holding the device aloft as a beacon and fending off a particularly ferocious foe with the other. It seemed different than the others, but to Isip's perspective every monstrous creation of the Black Dragon Empire was unique and terrible in its' own way.



The artillerymen were gripped, watching on their tactical displays the last desperate reports of a comm unit signal, Isip backed up against a sheet of metal cutting down the nigh-limitless forces of black-armoured terror, a teardrop of light in the infinite darkness.

"You heard his orders!" shouted Ashrad, who felt a dread as their meaning became clear to him. "Fire at will!"



Isip tried to parry the blow one-handed, but his sword-hand was knocked away and he had to fall to the ground to avoid the blade that narrowly missed his head. He scrabbled in the snow to grab the comm unit and save it from the stomping feet of his new foe, some twisted abomination of metal.

His voice was gone, but his sword was not. Giving a throaty roar he grabbed it with both hands and slammed down on the thing's arm, tearing straight through to the torso. At the same time, a cruelly sharpened blade swung out from the machine's other side and jammed deep into Isip's own chest. He felt an explosion of pain that immediately turned into a strange dullness as the wound froze from exposure to the cold air.

His vision began to fail as he and the machine sunk into the snow, which was turning black and red with oil and blood. Through it all he could see the bolts of light burning through the air above, however, cutting through the night like shooting stars. As they grew large in his perception, the White Knight smiled, letting go of his sword at last. They wanted heroics. They fucking got it.

Then Isip thought no more as he and everything in a hundred meter radius was incinerated in a huge ball of fire.



Ashrad was quiet only a moment. A day of loss had been made worse, but at this point the pain was easy to control.

"That's the last aboveground enemy target!" he said, turning to the artillery unit's commander. "Spike your guns and retreat to the inner city. We still have to defend the city heart, I imagine a large portion of their force managed to get in before the barrage hit. Move!"

In the flurry, Ashrad leapt down the walkways and naturally grown coral paths that lead back down to the final defensive positions of the Coalition. Centered in this position was the government building where the shrine still emitted strands of light up to the sky (one of the last light sources on the island).

A new cold was developing in the heart of the young White Knight, one that had nothing to do with the ice growing along the city streets. He was the last Knight in the city, and the enemy now battered at their literal last gates. Even as he ran, he could see army units lead by their sergeants rushing to join the last line forming around a factory already spilling over with Black Dragon forces.

He stopped on the way, as he passed the small park in the very center of the city - one that bordered on the government house. He looked up, and there saw the Coalition flag fluttering in the breeze. Isip had told him something about heroics once, about how they were foolhardy and how a good Knight focussed on what got results and not on what they wanted to work.

However, Isip had also believed in teaching by actions and not words, and had left a poingent final lesson. Ashrad grabbed the flagpole and cut it free with his sword, before running towards the factory.

It was a bloodbath. No defensive positions were left, and very few weapons still worked - sentient and machine simply tore into one another on the flat, open ground. Without thinking, or talking, or giving any inspirational speech, or formulating any sort of plan, Ashrad hoisted the flag in one hand, his sword in the other, and charged forwards screaming.

After all, at this point it would take a miracle.



"Hyperspace reversion in three, two..."

Empty space came alive.

Ruuvan's Mon Calamari fleet, many still scarred and battered from their previous encounter, tore into the system. On their right, Panacka's fresh warfleet appeared, and on their left, the Chandaarian defectors.

"All ships, launch fighters then raise shields," said Panacka in a practiced drill tone. "Prime all weapons and begin targetting their planet-covering nanomachines with our ion cannons. Use the targetting data provided by the Chandaarians and cycle your target areas quickly as holes appear - we don't want to hit our own people."

"The rest of you, prepare to engage the Black Dragon fleet. We have no time for fancy maneauvers today - Dominators up the center and engage their main forces immediately. And give me a firing solution on that... moon of theirs."

Panacka eyed the battlefield before him and the considerable forces on both sides. The battle of Mon Calamari - no, of the war - was about to be decided in five minutes of intense fire. History would remember him as a genius or a fool based on the skill of his gunners in that time.

History be damned. They would win this fight.