C3P7

When they say a battle between two sides is joined, it often means that hard violent contact between several members of each side had just occurred and was going to be repeated.

As such, the bulk of the Separatist fleet had closed in on the blockade, scattering the various corvettes and light cruisers to meet the Acclamator and Venator Star Destroyers in a head on charge.

This was something that Yularen did not appreciate. With so many warships of heavy tonnage in range of his (and their) guns, it would easily spell doom for the entire Republic blockade.

"Bring deflector shields to double front," he ordered, watching a Consular-Class Corvette fly apart from multiple guns targeting it. "Regroup our pickets! Have them form into squadrons and support the defense networks!"

The Kamino Defense Network was a hastily constructed set of defense stations made up of two layers. Four Type I Golan Defense platforms were set to geosynchronous orbit directly over Tipoca City and a plethora of defense satellites were the first layer.

The second were more defensive satellites and over three dozen warships from the Corellian Defense Force. Most prominent of all were four Corellian Destroyers; sent by the behest of Garm Iblis, Senator of Corellia.

But even with that amount of firepower, can they deal with well over a hundred assault craft?

It remained to be seen. So far they were stemming the tide, destroying transport after transport. Skywalker's Shadow Squadron had struck the unprotected rears of the assault transports and were cutting into their numbers quite sharply.

Even so, there were still transports trickling through, albeit damaged. Hopefully the defense forces on Kamino can deal with those.

For now, however, Yularen felt he was need most in his current position, leading the fleet against the Separatist armada. Their ion cannon superweapon was destroyed, but it did not lessen the amount of guns each enemy warship boasted, and they were still outnumbered two to one.

"Sir, enemy destroyers are launching boarding pods!" A clone informed him. The Admiral's eyes flickered towards one of the light destroyers and the various Providence-Class carrier-destroyers. Yes, they were firing pods…but they weren't being sent towards them.

A sinking feeling began to intensify inside his belly as he realized that they were boarding pods. But they weren't meant for boarding ships.

"Contact Tipoca Command!" He ordered, startling the clone officers around him. "Warn them! There are insertion pods heading towards the city from orbit!"

-

In the lower atmosphere of Kamino, CCT-778781 'Flyby' twisted his LAAT/i gunship and whooped as he got a lock on an incoming Hardcell Transport. The wide flat nose fired several laser blasts at him, but a quick pivot sent the gunship out of range of the laser turrets.

Pulling the trigger, he felt a slight jolt of the concussion missiles leaving their launchers as he strafed the side of the entire length of the transport. Powerful sustained laser beams cut into worn armor and struck critical areas, the missiles left white smoke trails as they impacted just above the fuel cells.

The Hardcell burst apart in an immense explosion that sent it tumbling down in a free fall, out of control and destined to fall short of it's target.

Flyby was just about to say something to his co-pilot about scratching another notch on their transport when something hit the gunship.

Alarms screamed as he tried to keep the ship in the air, his co-pilot was shouting about debris and droids, Flyby could just barely send the gunship along a rough glide.

Slowly everything stopped screaming and though everything was in the yellow, everything was at least stable.

"I'm turning this thing around, we need repairs asap," he said, pulling at the joystick. Hearing no reply, Flyby turned his head slightly, "Hardhead?"

Hardhead's helmet stared silently back at him, before it fell with a wet crunch onto it's console. In its place was a bloody buzz droid, it's plasma cutter still steaming.

"What the-!"

It dove at him.

In the confined space of the gunship, Flyby couldn't do anything but let go of the joystick and scream.

-

Tipoca City

Command Center

"Incoming Debris," intoned the computer. Padme watched as the red dots fell and scattered short of Tipoca City.

"This new Droid General has brought a much larger force than expected," noted Shaak'ti. "He seems to be trying to force his transports past the defenses, sacrificing many to allow some to get though."

"And it seems to be working," replied Obiwan with a frown. "Our fleet is busy fighting the heavy cruisers and destroyers, transports are overwhelming our secondary and tertiary defenses. But they're losing an incredible amount of resources for relatively little gain."

A clone shouted from his console, "Priority transmission from Admiral Yularen! It's urgent!"

"Put it on the holoviewer," ordered Obiwan.

Yularen appeared at once, his uniform was crumpled and his expression of tight grimness. "Generals, Senator, you must redeploy your forces. Separatist ships have just launched hundreds of boarding pods towards Tipoca City. You've only a few minutes before-"

His transmission flickered harshly as explosions filtered through the static. They could hear Yularen shouting as alarms blared. A moment later, the hologram solidified and the admiral was now sporting a cut along his face.

"Enemy transports rammed us!" He explained hurriedly. "Droids are already starting to cut into the hull. I must return to the battle."

"Go," said Shaak'ti grimly as she exchanged glances with Obiwan, "We will handle the situation here."

"Incoming! We've got pods," warned a clone, "and a lot of them!"

The display zoomed out, tracking hundreds of pods, all moving towards the city.

"Cody, take your battalion to the southwestern pylon!" Ordered Obiwan, rushing out of the command center. "I will meet you there!"

Shaak'ti began to follow. She inclined her head apologetically towards the Senator. "I must leave as well. My men are waiting for me."

"Go," Padme urged. She gave the Jedi a grim smile. "I can handle myself."

The togruta Jedi nodded and left the command center, leaving only clone officers to keep the Senator of Naboo for company. Padme steeled herself for yet another battle. "What is the status of the pods?" She demanded.

"Ah, they're less than a minute out," said a clone in surprise. He glanced at her in concern. "Shouldn't you head to the bunker, ma'am?"

"I should," began Padme, but she was cut off when the entire building trembled.

"Multiple impacts along the outter ring of platforms," said a clone, grimacing. "A lot of droids are pouring out of them!"

"Seal the blast doors," Padme ordered, her mild-mannered face falling away to taking full reins of the command center. "Have Blue Company shift their troops reinforce green company along with the southwestern platforms."

"R-right away, ma'am," nodded one shocked trooper.

"Where is the highest concentration of pods?" She demanded, striding to the main display. The clone officer, suddenly nervous, stammered as he pointed out three large groups centered around the northern-most platforms. "The training grounds, ma'am."

Padme cursed. She had seen what the training grounds consisted of and that gave the droids a lot of potential cover to use. "Dammit."

"If I may, ma'am," said the clone officer, smirking. "We should activate the training grounds and set all the tests to maximum power."

"What?"

"Automated defense turrets and lots of repurposed battle droids?" Explained the clone with a grin, "it'll be a massacre and it'll buy us time."

"Brilliant! Can you activate them from here?" Asked the senator, grinning.

"Only one way to find out."

-

General Grievous clawed his way out of the wreckage and shook his cape of dust. It seemed his pod had landed inside some sort of stadium. A set of barricades leading to a tall blocky tower sat some fifty meters away. He dismissed it and grabbed BX Commando Droid.

It didn't struggle and looked at him in askance.

"Status report," he demanded tersely.

"Commando units are engaging clone forces in the secondary platforms between the outer ring and city center proper," said the droid immediately. "Assault craft are currently eighty-seven percent operational."

"Very well, we must hold out until reinforcements arrive!" Grievous dismissed the droid and took a bolt in the face.

The kaleesh cyborg stumbled backward, clutching at his face. "What!"

The tower he had dismissed earlier had come to life. Ball turrets lining it's top were firing yellow stunner bolts at him and his forces. The attack had come so suddenly and quickly that more than half his company of commando droids were pinned down. And it was not the only one. There were sounds of fighting all around them, including other areas above and around him,

Fortunately, however, they were merely stun bolts. Such pitiful firepower could do nothing but stall them momentarily.

Some of that pitiful firepower struck the cyborg in the face again, very nearly blinding him.

"Gaaah!"

Growling in pain, Grievous gave the order and watched with mild satisfaction as the tower collapsed under overwhelming firepower. But there were more structures like these to cut through and judging from the battledroids shooting, an army to scrap.

"We move on!" He shouted, lightsabers flashing in his clawed hands as he blocked stun bolts. "Clear a path through these pitiful obstacles and push forward! Hurry, before the clones regroup!"

"By your command," chorused the droids.