Ask Shattered

[Crix Aran]

Crix had to admit that riding in a transport was much less fun when you were in the back of said transport. But he was better off in the back of the transport than flying the damned thing so, you know, that worked for him he guessed. Master Yvain was sat in the back with him, the two Jedi kind of crammed into the too-small space with the pilots that they were bringing with them to actually fly the ARC-170 fighters out once they were jury-rigged with the electronics protection enough for them to make the escape to hyperspace.

As they approached the shuttle started shaking and Crix let out a slow breath.

"So Master Yvain - you know about CIS droids right?" he asked as they rode on down to the hanger of the broken star destroyer, "What can we expect?"

He knew what the Imperial Media said about the old B1 battledroids being clumsy and stupid but that, surely, couldn't have been the case, right? How the hell did they ever pose enough of a threat to actually cause issues if they were half as dumb as the damned vids made them out to be? No, more likely was that the Imps wanted to screw their old enemies one more time.

Because history was written by the victors.

Another rattle as the shuttle came into land and a call came over the intercom.

"Jedi, we got some B1s shooting at the ship out here - wanna clear the landing zone?"

Nodding to the Master, Crix took a deep breath inside the environment suit he had equipped (there was no life support active on the ship) before taking his lightsaber and stepping out through the side exit to the ship. His lightsaber ignited, blocking a shot that came right for his head as he stared at the Six B1 Battledroids that were in the immediate area of the ship. Deranged was one word for it - they were screaming constantly as they fired.

Spoiler: Safety

Our equipment is safe from the pulses for 2 pulses (so 4 posts).

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

Yvain was not unused to small confined spaces, unfortunately because of his height he had often had to sneak around in small little spaces for both the Jedi and the Old Republic. He looked up at the young Jedi as he asked about the CIS droids, thinking about the droids brought back memories of his time during the Clone Wars. There were good and bad memories, many had died, but many had been saved during his time leading his forces, unfortunately it had ended sour like all things during that time when his clones had turned on him.

"Though they are individually lacklustre they always appear in mass. You will always be greatly outnumbered so you need to watch your corners and angles or you will be quickly overwhelmed. For the B1's aim for the neck, it is a weak point and can easily be removed with brute force let alone a blaster bolt." Before he was able to go into any detail about the other variety of droids that they could face calls came down from the front.

Crix had to move first as he was blocking the Jedi Master's exit, Yvain had a mask on to facilitate the lack of life support onboard the old cruiser. The Padawan blocked a shot from the assembling battledroids giving Yvain an opportunity to leap out the other door. The Jedi ignited his green lightsaber as he flew through the air, the droids now splitting there fire from right and left, four aimed at the Master and two at the Padawan. With a spin Yvain deflected two bolts back towards the B1's weak neck joint disabling the pair.

For a moment he thought he heard Captain Kyron, his old Clone companion as the droids began advancing.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

All of that made sense.

If there was one thing he could say about the B1 droids now that he was actually seeing them for the first time, it was that they were very... thin-looking. Some of the joints looked like they would take a single kick before they broke beyond use. With a blaster bolt? Hells, a single blaster bolt to pretty much anywhere on the droid looked like it would destroy the damned thing.

Blocking blaster fire was nothing new for the Padawan (and didn't that make him feel kind of badass?) but he was grateful to Yvain for jumping off to the side, splitting the fire. Reaching out with his free hand, Crix grabbed a piece of debris that looked suspiciously like part of an Arc-170's wing using the Force.

"Captain, get your pilots moving toward the ships! Go!"

The pilots behind him streamed out of the transport to make their move on the parked fighters but Crix was fine with that. Droids moved to train their weapons on them but he moved the piece of wing with the Force, using it to shield the pilots from the blaster bolts before throwing the shield at the droids. The improvised shield smashed into the two droids aiming at Crix, smashing them to pieces.

As he was crushing them he felt the a Pulse from the star running through the area. Almost immediately the two remaining droids in the area shut down before beginning their start up processes again. Crix dashed forward, slicing through both droids as they were caught in their boot sequence.

"Master, we have only one more pulse before we'll need to help the pilots with a counter measure. Should we form a barrier of scrap between the pilots and the masses of droids?"

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

Although he had seen some of what Crix could do on Bogano, he had yet to see the Padawan act both under pressure but also in the defence of others. He reacted in a quick and calm manner most befitting a good young Jedi, perhaps his days as a Padawan were shortening at a rapid pace. Already from what he had seen he would think that the Zabrak was capable enough to venture out into the galaxy on his own.

As Crix kept the pilots safe, Yvain went on the attack. The hanger was littered with half destroyed ships, missing walls and ceilings, walkways and cargo pods. The ample cover gave Yvain an easy pathway towards the remaining small unit of droids assaulting the group. The little green Jedi hoped, skipped and jumped his way across the green blade of his lightsaber becoming a blur as he did so defecting bolts off in different directions striking the slowly mounting group of B1 battle droids.

Landing near the initial group of six he finished them off, but where there was one set of droids more always followed. He heard the Padawan call out from behind him, it was a sound strategy, but they also needed to block off access from any larger droids. The last thing they needed was B2's or The Force forbid Droideka's.

"Move what you can to block the bow entrance, I will work on the stern one." With that Yvain began his advancement on the rear of the hanger.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix nodded in agreement with Yvain's shouted command before reaching out with the Force again, this time to grip what appeared to be half of an LAAT gunship. It wasn't what he ideally would have wanted to use (the slats in the side of the damned doors to the thing were distressingly open) but it was the closet thing he had on hand. As he was doing that, he began to pick up the pace as some of the droids began to show signs that they were rebooting.

"The reboot phase has started, Master!" he called out even as he grunted with effort and slid the LAAT side into place, "But the pilots are preparing their rides now."

Just as he had said, the pilots were already at their ships at this point, with several astromech droids assisting them. They needed to get the ships treated with the counter-measures to the pulses, otherwise the whole damned operation was going to be for nothing as soon as they flew outside and got zapped by the pulse.

Floating aimlessly in the void to die was on no one's agenda for today.

Of the droids closet to them, Crix noticed when ten of the B1 battledroids finished their booting sequence and immediately began screaming again. As a friend to many droids, Crix hated seeing them in pain but he knew there was nothing to be done - after so many forced resets and shutdowns, their memories and higher processing secters were fried beyond belief. If they were alive then what they were doing here today was a mercy killing.

He batted aside a few of their bolts with his lightsaber, blasting one apart with a rebound but mostly focusing on making sure that their fire didn't make it through to the pilots or the astromechs.

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

Unlike the Padawan, Yvain had no feelings towards the droids as they cried out in make believe pain. He knew they had no pain receptors, it was only programming, only electric circuits firing the wrong way. And in the end he had lost too many friends to these damn droids to really care about any internal suffering they might feel. Even as they scrambled along the ground he cut them down with vicious efficiency making his way towards the stern accessway.

Reaching the giant door he could see the magseals had completely gone, there was no way to even move the door let alone steal it. Looking down the long shaft in the flickering lights of the corridor he could see the tell-tale signs of B2's thrashing around on the floor. It seemed that there company would soon be upgraded. Looking around he found what was the back end of an AT-TE walker, pulling The Force within himself, Yvain disengaged his lightsaber as he reached out and grabbed the walker pulling ti slowly across the hanger, the dangling feet scratched along the floor.

The AT-TE was covering about half of the doorway when he had to break his concentration, blaster bolts from the recovering B2's forcing him to drop the walker and ignite his saber. It seemed that time was not on there side at the moment, he just hoped the pilots were good.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix batted aside another blaster bolt from one of the B1s, smashing the blaster bolt into one of the advancing B2s. Of course said B2 managed to shrug the shot off in a way that a B1 was incapable of, which was more than slightly irritating truth be told. Tutting to himself, he dashed forward, batting bolts aside without aiming them back in order to keep up his speed, reaching the first of the B2 battledroids in his area and cutting it in half vertically with a single swing of his lightsaber.

Though the B2 droids were much hardier than their counterparts, they still didn't actually have the ability to survive a slash from a lightsaber. Very few things in the Galaxy did so he didn't really think they ought to feel too bad about the whole thing in his opinion.

If they were capable of feeling anything, of course.

Looking over his shoulder at the pilots, Crix was honestly rather annoyed to see that they were... not doing so hot. He tutted as he watched one of them fumble with a coupling. Part of him wanted to march over there and show them how to do it but, well, he was the only reason they were alive still.

Still, three of the sixteen pilots managed to get away in their newly liberated ARC fighters as they launched.

"Three out of sixteen is terrible maths, isn't it Master?"

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

Yvain backflipped away from an incoming barrage, spinning in mid air he deflected a pair of bolts back towards the oncoming forces. Removing the last of the B1's though more were slowly approaching behind the frontline of B2's. Landing next to the Padawan he smiled at his little quip. "Don't ask me, I took maths class back before the Skywalker name was a thing." Yvain replied between blocking oncoming blaster bolts.

"I am afraid that these will not be the last of what we experience if the pilots do not speed up. Perhaps you would like to give them a hand?" He asked as he sent a wave of Force energy towards the oncoming droid tide knocking at least a dozen over. Though they were not disabled it would give the Padawan enough time to either charge forward or head back towards the pilot.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Huh.

There was a joke, on the tip of his tongue, about how he didn't think Maths had been invented back when Yvain was young. But there was a modicum of common sense in his head, where it had been put there by his mother, that held he back from saying something so brave, yet so stupid at the same time. Instead he just kind of shrugged and tried his best to have a little giggle about it in the privacy of his own mind.

Only slightly rude.

Helping out the pilots was looking like it might need to be something he did, actually, since there was another pulse due any second. It would help with the battle-droids and it would mean the pilots needed more help.

As he moved over to one of the closer ships, he immediately had to duck as the pulse came washing over the ships, pilots and astromechs - and one of the astromechs literally exploded. Ducking under the domed head that almost took his own head off his shoulders, Crix cursed as he immediately got to work trying to put out some electrical fires.

"Kark! Don't you fly boys know how to insulate something?!"

He didn't listen to their muttering as he instead immediately started putting out literal fires as the battledroids were, once again, forced to reboot.

"Master, do you think you can try and power up the acclimator's shields? It might give us some kind of protection against the pulses."

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

Yvain nodded as the Padawan moved back towards the Pilots. The Jedi Master was moving like a blur, his lightsaber dancing the song of destruction as he deflected bolt upon bolt back towards the oncoming tide. Yvain would have preferred to jump into the maelstrom of mechanical parts, but his primary objective here was to defend the pilots, not destroy the droids.

As the pulse washed over them it gave both him a moment of peace, a second to take his breath. As the robots rived back and forth in the apparent pain of there processors getting messed around with, Yvain used debris and The Force to help clear some of the machines away. He was slowly building a chokepoint, piles of destroyed space craft, transports and droids towards both the stern and bow, funnelling in the droids to a zone where there mass of numbers would not be so overwhelming to the Jedi or the Pilots behind.

"I'm a Jedi not a Wizard." He shouted back at the Padawan. "I would dare to think what these pulses have done to the compressed Hypermatter used to power the main reactor. It might as quickly vaporise us as defend us from these pulses. Why don't the fly boys just work harder?"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Jedi might not be miracle workers but through the eyes of those without the Force they often seemed like it. Crix wasn’t going to suggest that they were capable of miraculous feats but he equally wasn’t going to answer the Master’s observation aloud – the pilots were already getting a bit jittery about being shot at by mad battledroids so he didn’t really want to compound the dread they were currently feeling. Instead he just kind of half shrugged in answer as he started working on the ship in front of him.

Taking a deep breath, Crix thrust his hands upon the side of the ship.

Technopathy was something he had taken an interest in for some time now and he enjoyed interfacing directly with technology. He eyed up the ship from the inside, using the Force, and identified the issue.

“Alright guys, check the fuses for the engine couplings!”

With a greater idea what they were supposed to be fixing specifically, the pilots were able to replace the fuses quickly and were soon beginning their pre-flight checks. Pulling away from the ship he had been checking over, Crix groaned as a new mass of B2 droids began to march against them, his lightsaber in hand again.

“Master Yvain – the pilots are ready to take off. We should secure our own ride and get outta here.”

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

It seemed that Yvain's pep talk worked as the Padawan seemed to quickly confirm the pilots were ready to take off. Maybe he should take up more talks in the temple, he thought as he bounced around the hanger bay a whirling ball of green menace. There own ride, the initial shuttle which had brought them in was hovering a few feet off the deck towards the stern of the hanger bay. A pair of troopers both mounted on fixed repeating rifles were keeping watch over the nearby area dealing with a few straggling B1's.

"Alright lets go then Crixy." Yvain shouted over when he heard it, the sound of a metallic wheel bouncing off of Durasteel. A shiver almost ran down his spine as his mind travelled back nearly two centuries to the Clone Wars and the dreaded Droidika's that killed many of his friends. As the first one rounded the corner and expanded into its tripedal its heavy blasters turning onto the two Jedi, Yvain shouted at the Padawan as he moved to block its attack. "Droidika, Crix. Run!"

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

The pilots were away and they weren't dead in the water and that was about as good as he could have expected. Spotting the small Master heading their way, Crix grinned a little bit. He was going to make some jokes about the mission making Yvain feel young again but the droidikas...? Well they had a way of ending jokes pretty quickly and Crix was not a fan of that at all.

"Not alone, Master Yvain." he answered bluntly, his own lightsaber snapping back into life in his right hand, "We got this - fall back in stages yeah?"

He remembered one of the ancient techniques for dealing with droidikas was, oddly enough, to retreat until heavy weapons could be brought against them. The best way that Jedi teams had managed to do that was to fall back in stages, leaving one Jedi to block the fire then retreat as another took up the duty of being a screen for the blaster fire.

"If we get them closer to the ship we can use the ship-based weaponry against them."

And, also, escape.

Either was a good option when it came to droidikas. Throwing some debris with the Force, Crix peppered the metal of the droidika with metal from other, fallen, battledroids that passed through its shield undisturbed.

@Braden Drake

 

[Yvain]

The Padawan was young but he had a solid head upon his shoulders, his tactic of falling back was a sound one. One that Yvain had used a hundred times so many years ago. The Jedi Master moved backwards to the top of a pile of debris the pair were using to block off access to the now departed pilots. As the heavy blaster's turned to fire upon the little green Jedi he gave the signal for the Padawan to un back towards the shuttle. "Get them ready to fire."

As the Padawan passed him moving out of sight of the Droidkas Yvain continued to hold them off for ten seconds or so before moving back off the the pile, out of sight for a moment. The Jedi Master slid down the metal wing which made up the back of the pile and landed on the ground near the shuttle as he heard the rolling metallic noise of there advisories move around the debris. "I hope you are a good shot." He called as he ran towards the shuttle Droidka's slowly unfolding behind him, if the Padawan wasn't quick they were all dead.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Nodding in agreement, Crix called out to the pilot of their shuttle and got the team within prepared to fire with the ship's weapons. Even a droidika had limits and anti-starfighter laser cannons were certainly past said limits. Crix himself didn't man the gun controls because he had an idea of his own.

As the droidikas came into view, Crix reached out with both hand and the Force as well.

Rather than try and effect the droids themselves, he reached out and tossed a veritable storm of small debris at the droids. It worked to both confuse their targetting and pepper their shields with multiple objects impacting in roughly the same kind of time - giving the men behind the weapons time to set up a shot without being fired upon in return.

The ship's weapons barked out an angry retort to the audacity of the Droidika's to even continue existing until, with their discharge, they no longer did. Crix stepped into the ship with Yvain as it closed itself up and made to launch - leaving behind a trio of utterly destroyed droidikas.

Settling back into a seat, Crix let out a deep sigh as the ship began it's lightspeed calculations.

"I can see why you guys used to call them clankers..."

/End Thread

@Braden Drake