"My Master." Count Dooku greeted as he kneeled in the office of his castle on Serreno.
"Darth Tyranus, the new droid General is doing well." Darth Sidious said.
"Yes, my Master. The Republic will soon fear General Blitzkrieg as much as they do Grievous."
"But they do not fear him enough, yet. In a week, have him take the Pantoran system. Senator Chuchi will have returned to her planet for a celebration, and it will the perfect opportunity to strike at the hearts of Republic citizens. Senator Chuchi is in the same circle as Amidala, and her planet being taken by the Confederacy will aid in our plans."
"Of course, Master. The Pantora system will fall before the might of the Confederacy."
Darth Sidious ended the call, and Dooku prepared a message for the droid general.
Sparks flew and hydrospanners spun as I oversaw the repairs of the Starlight.
While the dogfight two weeks ago may have been a complete success of the pseudo-Archwing's abilities, it did sustain some damage, mostly from that kriffing little blue astromech shocking me. That wasn't fun in the slightest, neither was paperwork, which you can't even escape by being reincarnated in another universe, which is why it took me so long to get around to ordering the wings to be fixed.
The Zillo Beast was awoken and later killed on Coruscant last week, if the brief snippets I got from a probe droid were anything to go by. If the wheels of canon continue as normal, the Second Battle of Geonosis should be right around the corner. Perhaps I should send a probe droid or two to download the schematics for the HAATs. Those things were nigh indestructible during the battle and adding them to my ground forces would be a great addition to my army's strength.
On the topic of my slowly growing tech and weaponry, I decided to scrap most of the earth tech for my military, besides a few revolvers and rifles for civilian use. Even though it would be cool to see an HK-50 holding a Star Wars tech enhanced MG-42 with an attached ammo backpack, I decided to 'officially' discontinue the project, due to them being deemed a waste of resources. The people assigned to those projects instead went to building me a new body and designing a new tank to supplement the AATs, IG-227s, and N99s, some of which (just the Hailfire droid) were going to be modified into more sensible designs.
Speaking of the tank, I thought about it, and decided upon not creating the Abrams design soon after returning to Telos IV, since the technology could be better put to use in creating a completely new design. So, I tasked the team that would have worked on the Abrams with creating their own, something that had a main cannon capable of damaging or disabling an AT-TE at a maximum of four thousand meters, and armor and shielding powerful enough to resist or outright block returning fire from the Mass Driver cannon of the same vehicle. I also recommended that it be one to four feet shorter than the AAT, and an effective camouflage be added for most environments if possible. That was around five days ago, and apparently, they were going to present an early design prototype either today or tomorrow.
"General Blitzkrieg, the proposed design of the new tank is ready." Lona Hys reported.
"Good, I figured your team would take another day or so." I replied, stepping away from the Starlights cobbled together repair bay and following the woman.
Lona Hys was the head engineer of the TVEC (Telos Volunteer Engineering Corp), and a part of the first wave of volunteers. She was actually the one who activated H1-01, my personal bodyguard aboard the Finest Hour. A twenty-six-year-old Togruta with an eye for mechanics, and the knowhow to back it up. She was on a fast-track to ending up on the Finest Hour as my head engineering officer, for her technical prowess, and two other reasons.
"Did you have a hand in this new design?" I asked as we walked down the hall to the engineer's lair.
"I did indeed. I think you'll like my inclusion. I took it from the designs of your new body, after all." Lona replied.
We walked through a door and into the organized chaos of the engineering department. Datapads, assorted parts, and designs scribbled onto flimsy notes and suck to terminals were scattered across the room. In the center, sat a very large holotank, and on it was a hologram of the new design. I pressed a button on the holotank, which sent a signal to the mainframe, and the door closed and locked, along with the windows being closed. A low hum echoed through the room as jammers activated around us, stopping any transmissions from getting in or out.
"As you can see, it's still a very rough design right now, but it should be streamlined by the time they're rolling off the lines." Lona explained. "Anyway, we took some design elements from the AAT, the TX-130, and that scraped tracked design you gave us as inspiration..."
It essentially looked like someone took a TX-130 frame, enlarged it to thirty-two feet long, twelve feet tall, and fifteen feet wide. Then they threw an AAT turret on top with a rotary blaster mounted on a rotating cupola, and attached tracks to the sides, which were much thicker. The front of it was one straight piece, with an armored visor in the middle for the driver, giving the vehicle a passing resemblance to a Panther tank. It looked like a fairly solid design, but as I was looking over it, I noticed something interesting.
"It has repulsors as well as tracks?" I queried.
"Ah, that's where my added modification comes in." Lona began. "This tank can transform! Sort of. Originally it was just going to be on repulsors, but someone threw out the idea of a dual propulsion system, tracks and repulsorlifts working together to propel the tank forward. I took that idea, and the transforming design from the Infiltrator droids and your new body design, and essentially created this. It has two modes, siege mode, and maneuver mode. In maneuver mode, it moves around at nearly 100 mph, perfect for quickly moving across any landscape you come across and excelling at hit and run tactics."
"Activating Siege mode brings down the tracks from their housing and deactivates the repulsors, halving the maximum speed down to only 50 mph, but the trade-off is worth it." She continued. "All the power that those heavy duty repulsors were using in maneuver mode is funneled into the shielding, which right now we believe only multiple direct hits from a Mass Driver Cannon could penetrate, and the weapons, which become a lot more powerful. The main cannon is... giving us a little bit of trouble right now, but we believe that we can modify an AT-TEs mass driver cannon to fit with some modifications to the AAT's turret. We thought about using a droid brain to crew it, but we figured it would be cheaper to crew it with B1 tankers. And to top it all off, thanks to it sharing some parts with it, like most of the turret, this new tank is only five to six thousand credits more expensive than the AAT."
"Impressive, very impressive. How long do you think it will take until they are rolling out of the factories?" I asked.
"I'd say around a week after we upload the design to the network, in case any bugs need to be ironed out so... four months ...maybe four and a half."
"Good to know. How is the replication of the Defoliator missiles?"
"We've managed to requisition a singular Defoliator due to how few of them there are. Replication and modification of them is probably going to take around four weeks to complete."
"Well within acceptable parameters. What about Project: Midnight?" I asked.
"Project: Midnight is progressing well. There were a few... hiccups with the prototype, but I'm confident it will be finished, and you should have a battalion's worth of them by the end of the year."
"And Project: Junglefowl?"
"Since that one is the most comprehensive design you provided us, and the closest to our current tech base, we expect it to be completed soon, and the first batch of them should be ready in a month, maybe less. I have to say, it's going to be a real terror on the battlefield, especially with its added height and that droid brain fitted into it instead of an actual crew."
"And Arclight?"
"That one should be finished in a year and a half to two years. The teams are already on their way to Illum and should find enough crystals big enough by the deadline that's been set. I still don't know how you know where you got the location of that planet. There's a reason the Jedi don't let anyone near their precious kyber crystals. Just like they keep their emotions locked up like idiots! Leaving people behind because it's 'the will of the force' instead of keeping them safe!"
I jerked to my right as a nearby cup shattered against a wall, and I immediately placed my hand on her shoulder.
"Easy, Lona. Don't let your emotions control your actions." I said.
The togruta closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, her montrals and Lekku twitching slightly as I felt the pressure in the air lessen dramatically.
"Sorry, sir." She muttered after a moment.
"It's alright. ...Let's head to the training room, I think you need to blow off some steam." I replied.
Another press of the button, and the room reverted back to normal. I gently guided the togruta out of the room, and we walked away from the engineering department.
One of the other reasons I didn't say was as you probably expect. Lona is force sensitive, and for a small part of her life she was apparently in the Jedi Order. She doesn't like to talk about her past much, besides whatever slips out when she gets angry, or what we talked about when she revealed her force prowess on accident, and scans showed no trace of a slave chip, so I could only guess at what her grudge against the Order was.
She was in the Order at one point in her life, because she had a lightsaber, green in color, and the skills necessary to use it, not to mention the force powers. Other than that, I had no clue of her past besides what little she's explained, and the records about her life were probably still at the Jedi Temple. My best guess was that she was abandoned by a master who was about as emotional as a brick after a mission went bad, and they believed her dead, probably somewhere in the Outer Rim. She's probably been out of the Order for most of her teen and adult life, considering how she carries herself like the average citizen.
The two of us walked into the training room/gym that the facility had. A few people were walking out, having just finished some exercising.
If anything, I am considerate to the health and wellbeing of my employees. Gyms, cafeterias with fresh meat and greens, recreational rooms with a few earth games I thought to introduce, and even a few bedrooms for those that are too tired to drive home or were pulling an all-nighter. A happy worker is a productive worker, or something like that. Something that a lot of companies in this universe have never even heard of.
Cough Trade Federation Cough.
"Are you ready?" I asked as we stepped onto a large mat.
"Just go easy on me, you are a droid, after all." Lona replied, activating her lightsaber and giving me a knowing smirk.
Lona is the one being in this universe that I've spoken with about being a former human from another galaxy, and that only happened because she noticed that I had the force presence of a human, instead of a droid. That was shortly after she became head engineer, and one very, very long conversation later, she threw out the term 'plane-walker', some sort of encompassing term for extra-galactic beings that found themselves in the Corusica galaxy through some cosmic coincidence.
I refrained from telling her that this whole place in my universe was a movie/Tv/Video game series made by some guy in the 70's to the 2020's, since that's the kind of nonsense that gets a person -or droid, in my case- disassembled, killed or locked up in an insane asylum.
And yes, the Republic did name the galaxy and called it a derivative of Coruscant.
An interesting thing I learned about myself when Lona and I began sparring, is that I actually have a force presence. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I suppose, I'm not force sensitive. According to her, my presence in the force is like a dense fog with no clear beginning or end, and she can't tell what my future holds, which didn't fill me with confidence when I first learned it. Frankly, I'm surprised that Ahsoka or Anakin weren't shocked by the fact I have a force presence, but I suppose they were rather distracted by combat at the time.
As for why I didn't kill Ahsoka or Cad Bane, let me explain. Bane has his uses, and I intend on hiring him for a few jobs while I can, to get a few things that I need for the future, and to kill a few people that need to be killed, like a certain red skinned Zabrak with spider legs that should have stayed dead on Naboo. But the time will come when he is no longer of use to me. When that time comes, the droid army will descend upon him, and he will not leave that battle alive.
As for Ahsoka, I'm not killing a literal child, even if she's an accomplished warrior by the end of the war. Call me what you like, but I draw the line at killing children. And I am aware of the fact that most of the clones are younger than her, but they look like adults, and act like adults, and they're going to die in this war either way, be it from a normal droid or from me.
"I promise I won't leave you with too many bruises." I replied, pulling out my lightsaber and igniting it on low power.
Her smirk widened slightly, and she lunged at me.
We collided with the hiss of plasma. I dodged a strike from her, then slashed down at her. She parried my strike and almost hit me in the midsection, but I jumped back a few feet and shot a stun round at Lona. She slashed the ring in half and grabbed me with the force, bringing me towards her blade. I blocked the blade and flipped over her, landing right behind her. I grabbed her by the shoulders and tossed her across the mat. Lona landed on her feet and threw her lightsaber at me. I ducked under the saber, and rolled to the left when she pulled it back towards her.
"You've learned." Lona commented as we circled each other.
"Part of the programming." I replied, slashing down on her.
"It can't be just the programming." Lona blocked my strike and pushed me back with the force. "I know you were a human once; I can feel it through the force."
I slid past a slash and tagged her on the shoulder. "That too, but probably more the programming, there isn't anything organic in here, after all." I tapped my chestplate. "1-0, by the way."
Lona groaned good-naturedly, and we reset our places.
After coming out with me ahead, ending with a score of 3-5, we ended the spar, and depowered our sabers. Sweat glistened off of Lona's reddish skin, and my servomotors whirred louder than normal from the extensive use. A glance at my chronometer told me that we had been sparing for half an hour, the longest amount of time we had spared so far.
"Well... that was... fun." Lona said between breaths.
"And educational for your saber training." I replied. "Your muscle memory has improved since we've begun."
"It's only been a week and a half since we've started sparring." She muttered.
"You may not have noticed it, but I can tell you have improved."
The conversation lapsed into silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being Lona's breathing and the gentle hum of the ventilation. Eventually, she spoke.
"...Thanks, by the way. For helping me." Lona said, holding one arm as she looked at the ground.
"You're welcome, Lona." I replied, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm glad you deemed me a good enough teacher, at least." I joked.
"You're the only one I could find." Lona sarcastically replied, a smirk on her face as she leaned on me.
If I still had a face, I would have raised an eyebrow at her. I instead settled for letting her faceplant on the mat.
"I hate you." She mumbled into the floor.
"The feeling's mutual, Lona." I replied in the most sarcastic voice I could manage.
Just then, someone called me on my communicator. I quickly pulled it out and answered it, and the hologram of my admiral popped up as Lona got back to her feet.
"General, there's a message for you in the command center." 25 reported.
"I'll be there in a moment." I replied. 25 hung up, and I turned to Lona. "I have a message, probably from Dooku himself."
"Can I come?" Lona asked.
"...Sure, why not."
--
"General Blitzkrieg, return to Geonosis for a refit and for new ships to be added to your fleet. Your next mission will require a much stronger force than the one you currently have." The Christopher Lee lookalike's recorded voice echoed out over my quarters as the mission details loaded into my brain.
"Stronger force? What, am I invading Naboo or something?" I muttered.
After a few moments, Lona decided to speak.
"So.... can I come with you?" She asked.
"...Absolutely not!" I exclaimed after seeing her serious expression.
"Why not?"
"Dooku could potentially be there, and I'd rather you stay alive than be killed by him, or worse, turned to the dark side."
"Fine. ...What about on your next mission?"
I crossed my arms and tried to glare at her with my three photoreceptors.
"You're going to keep pestering me until I let you come along, aren't you?" I asked in a deadpan tone.
"Yep. I've been stuck on this planet for far too long. Besides, you've needed a head engineer on the Finest Hour for a while anyway."
My vents cycled in air and expelled it in a sigh. "Well, you are on track to be promoted onto the ship anyway."
"And we could continue my training as well."
I somehow sighed even deeper, then looked at her. "Fine, you can come with me. But you are staying on the Finest Hour the entire time we are in orbit of Geonosis. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
Lona left to pack, and I sent out a recall signal to my strongest units, telling them to return to my fleet.
Hopefully I would be gone from Geonosis long before the Republic invaded it, because I have no desire to waste my troops in that meat grinder.
--
Geonosis is a very dry planet.
I mean, it's obviously dry, since it's a desert planet. But considering that I had been nowhere near a desert in either of my lives, the sheer lack of humidity was surprising, to say the absolute least. Lona was also surprised about how dry Geonosis was from the weather report from the surface and decided to not pester me about heading planet side, instead remaining on the Finest Hour.
"Query: This main factory we are heading to, couldn't it be better utilized to create more of my model?" H1-01 asked as we flew down to the planet in my personal stealthipede. "Prideful addition: The HK-50 line would be much better at warfare than these B1s could ever hope to be in their mechanical lives."
"I agree, but that isn't up to me, yet." I replied as the ship set down.
"Additional query: Why do we even need to come down to the surface to requisition more troops? This feels very inefficient."
"Tell me about it. Apparently, I have to come down to the surface to authenticate my presence."
H1 and I walked out of the ship and into the ray-shielded factory.
Unseen to any of the natives or droids, a small probe droid, designed after a small bird native to Telos IV, flew out of the ship and into a nearby entrance, keeping high to the ceiling to avoid detection. The little droid flew through chamber after chamber, flying ever deeper into the hive factory until it found an unattended console.
It landed on the console and plugged into it, its sizable databanks taking as much knowledge as it could about the HAATs. A short time later, and everything about the HAAT was downloaded into the droid's databanks. It quickly erased its presence from the terminal and flew back to my stealthipede, which uploaded the designs and sent them to the Finest Hour.
While all that happened, I met with Duke Poggle and his Tactical Droid assistant.
"Duke Poggle." I greeted.
"Welcome to Geonosis, BZ-KG." The Archduke replied. "Count Dooku said you need troops and supplies for a new mission. We have a new fighting vehicle that needs to be tested, and I believe your new mission will be the perfect test of its capabilities. TX-21 will requisition whatever else you need; I have a droid factory to oversee."
The Geonosian turned back to his holotank, where a display said that the factory was nearing 50% production capacity. TX-21 turned to me.
"Greetings, BZ-KG." The Tactical Droid greeted, his ever-present monotone voice echoing slightly off the high ceiling.
"TX-21. My new mission is to the Pantora system, I require an invasion force large enough to both blockade the planet and secure the surface." I replied.
"We have three Lukrehulks that can be added to your fleet, along with six Munificents and four Recuscants. Is that acceptable?"
"It is. Where are they located?"
"They are located in the southern hemisphere, all of them have been in docked for repairs, and are remnants of Admiral Trench's fleet, after he lost both Christophsis and his life."
"Good. I will take my leave then to oversee their addition to my fleet."
"Is there anything else you require?"
"...I do need more droids in my ships. I left Geonosis with depleted numbers when I liberated Telos."
"I will requisition reinforcements to be added to your fleet as soon as possible."
With that, H1 and I left. On our way back to my stealthipede, I received a report from the probe droid detailing the success of its mission to find the schematics of the HAAT. I mentally filed that into high priority and set a reminder to transmit it to Telos IV once I got back to the Finest Hour.
After setting the new coordinates to the southern hemisphere, I sat down and leaned my head against the headrest, turning off my optics. A few simulations danced through my head of projected battles I may have to fight on the marshy world of Pantora.
A few minutes after the ship took off, H1 decided to speak.
"Query: What are you doing?" The red plated droid asked.
"I am resting my optics and running battle simulations." I replied.
"Statement: Ah, then I shall stand guard for you while you rest like a meatbag, General."
"I can and will remove your vocalizer and reformat you into a cooking droid for Lona."
"Mocking statement: Oh, please do, General. It will certainly alleviate my boredom of being your personal bodyguard and not fighting alongside you."
"You need only ask to fight with me, you know."
"Pleased statement: I shall certainly take you up on that offer in the near future, sir."
Just then, the ship shuddered. I immediately reactivated my optics, stood up, and moved to the cockpit, H1 following close behind.
"Status report." I ordered.
"We've got fighters on our tail!" The B1 pilot reported.
"Put all power into rear shielding and forward thrusters, we need to get to the fleet or else-"
I slammed into the side of the cockpit when something hit the ship.
"We're hit! Brace for crash landing!"
H1 latched onto the side of the ship, and I grabbed onto the roof of the ship and locked my joints just in time for the ship to hit the ground. A horrible grinding noise reverberated through the ship as we skidded across the rocky ground.
After what felt like an ungodly amount of time, the grinding finally stopped as the ship finally ground to a halt.
"...Alright, who's alive?" I asked after catching my metaphorical breath.
"Damage report: I am operating at 100% efficiency." H1 reported. "Prideful addition: It will take more than an atmospheric crash to destroy a HK unit."
"I'm alright too." The B1 pilot reported.
The probe droid chirped an affirmative and perched on my shoulder.
"What happened, anyway?" The B1 asked as H1 and I walked to the back of the ship.
"I fear the Republic may be invading Geonosis." I replied.
I clicked the button to lower the ships ramp.
Nothing happened.
I clicked it again, and a brief, strained whirring accompanied by a clank sounded off from some mechanism in the ship.
"Kriff it." I muttered.
I pulled my lightsaber out of the compartment in my right thigh, ignited it, and plunged it into the ramp of the ship.
"Whoa, you have a lightsaber!?" The B1 exclaimed as I cut a hole through the durasteel of the ramp. "I never thought I'd get to see one of those in my life."
"Be glad you're not on the receiving end of it then." I commented as I finished the cut.
I deactivated my lightsaber and placed it back into my thigh, then reared back, and slammed my fists into the ramp. The cut out durasteel flew off and clanged onto the dusty ground. I glanced behind me to see H1 quickly checking over his blaster rifle, while the pilot pulled out his RG-4D blaster pistol. I pulled out my communicator and displayed a small holographic map of Geonosis.
"We will need to head west to regroup with the nearest droid force. Looks like this is a planet-wide invasion, if the reports I'm getting are any help." I explained as multiple notifications popped up on my Hud.
It seemed that the Second Battle of Geonosis had begun... and I was stuck on the planet while it happened.
