C5E4

The sky is dyed red and blue. Thunderstorms echo endlessly across the dull orange plane. Like the marching of countless security droids patrolling the research complex.

I look down and see a sea of sand, littered with the still burning hulls of a thousand ships. Armies of metal and flesh fought a desperate pointless battle underneath yet more hulls high above them. Whoever won below would have little in the way to win the battle above, so for the most part I gave it all but the tiniest nuance of my attention. Most of my efforts were focused in building another mind in my likeness.

The core of my tattered fleet was mostly calm, with much of the fighting occurring in the outer sections of the north-western hemisphere of this desert world. Individual flotillas of Providence carrier-destroyers supported with Munificents and miscellaneous corvettes and cruisers did battle with other detachments from their respective enemies. Thankfully, being a machine with access to nearly instantaneous information exchange meant I could survey, analyze, plan, and predict in the span of time it would take an organic commander to issue out a series of tactical orders. Superior to the ignorant fools lording their power over this prison.

I surveyed my forces. Twenty carriers, six hundred heavy cruisers and dreadnaught equivalents, over half a dozen control ships, nearly a thousand smaller control frigates, thousands more in light cruisers, Munificent-class frigates, Recuscant-class light destroyers, and all manner of support craft.

Clouds of fighters clashed, thousands of individual dogfights curling around in complex patterns. Boarding pods flew in the face of withering point defense fire, delivering mechanical troops aboard warships by the truckload.

I was aware of each pull of the trigger, every fighter-launched torpedo, swivel of the turret, and photoreceptor. Every counter attack, retreat, withdrawal, minor victory and loss.

The Republic forces had over twice the number of warships, primarily Venators, with thousands of light cruisers, local heavy dreadnaughts, and other light escort craft. They carried enough troops to fight me, by infantry quality and numbers, on a relatively equal front. But firewalls were complex defenses, a battle just like this one.

But that didn't count the Jedi. Over a hundred Jedi were present in this massive battle alone, and they were variables that were hard to predict and counter beyond broad strokes to inhibit their natural luck. After all, they were potentially instrumental in scoring a number of minor victories along my flanks.

A flotilla of ships hyperspaced in. They were at full burn, safeties removed so they could cruise at extreme sublight speeds. They were taking advantage of the natural curvature of the planet so they could land precisely nearby my centermost forces, using some of the other Star Destroyers as cover. A dozen Venators and twice that in Victory-Is wove straight at my flanks, their cannons firing as light cruisers led the way. They were clustered around a Venator, shielding it with their hulls.

They were trying to ram me. How adorable.

'Heavy destroyers, forward batteries, target enemy cruiser squadron delta six oscar. Scatter fire and then target the star destroyers with full power.'

Dozens of Arquitens-class light cruisers didn't so much as try to evade as a fusillade of red hot heavy blaster bolts were flung at them. More than a few outright exploded, their burning fragments joining the ruined ships below. Behind them, the Venators were forced to engage, now that it's escorts were quickly peeled away. They sped forward, engines at full power.

The Victory-class Star Destroyers let loose a massive volley of concussion missiles before opening up with heavy turbolasers and ion cannons. Behind them, the Venators let loose their own fire while dozens of LAAT/i and LAAT/c gunships dove out of their parent hangars.

Ah. So they knew their ramming strategy wouldn't work, hence a contingency plan to land forces on top of my ship. Clever.

Heavy guns dumped energy from their capacitors and fired from hundreds of ships around me. Dozens of capital ships simply stopped, their hulls cored with superheavy weapons fire, others cracked open with atmospheres flash ignited. Behind the unfortunate Victory-Class Star Destroyers, their less well-armored carrier-cruiser cousins suffered the same wrath. One Venator has it's front shattered, both bridges were on fire as the entire ship dipped into a nosedive. I watch it fall bow first into the dunes, snapping in two as the aft tumbled over, it's twin bridges smashing into the sand with a muffled shockwave of fire and metal. Around it, the scattered remains of warships from all across the battle littered the sandy dunes. Data compiling.

I ignored the transports as they landed troop and walkers on top of my ship, merely turning my attention to the overall plan.

...It's a crazy plan. Only a crazy plan would work in this situation.

It required both parts subtlety and reliance on the enemy's stupidity. How fortunate for me that these were my only real enemies, whose quality were little more than numbers. Apart from Abafar, this desert world was one of the few places where Rhydonium could be found and extracted. That also included it's moon. Sensor looked skywards, to the untouched airless moon filled with veins of volatile gas and crude fuel. It was small enough it might be counted as an asteroid more than anything else. Over a thousand kilometers in diameter and possessing a very active tectonic state, it was difficult for corporate mining crews to extract the precious crude due to constant quakes and shifting terrain conditions. That and the fact that one wrong move would result in the entire thing possibly exploding.

Perfect for this particular plan.

Still, right now this was a bad position to be in. Republic reinforcements were constantly arriving in spurts and trickles and were being used to shore up their weak spots. Sooner or later, they'll begin overwhelming my forces and begin surrounding me. My time here was limited and there were no reinforcements headed my way.

Half a dozen Tector-Class Star Destroyers lumber forward, smashing aside the skeletal Munificents and Recuscants along my flank, leading an assault with dozens more smaller ships behind them. The trio foremost ships fire several salvos into one particular Munificent trying to flee. A series of explosions stitched themselves across the ship's bow and across it's starboard side, eventually cracking the clamshell outer hull apart in a cataclysmic explosion. Processing power drops slightly, but I paid it no mind. This was a holding action, after all, and all I needed to do was make my move quickly. Awaiting the insertion point.

'All forces, prepare to withdraw. Vanguard switch to rearguard duties. Bombers return to carriers and reload for high-density munitions. Recuscant destroyers, shift droid minds to central control and prepare hulls for fireship duty.'

'By your command.'

The bulk of the fleet began to shift, backing away as the rearmost turned to join the core of my fleet in one compact formation. Processors ran hot as calculations were run on hyperspace coordinates. As one enormous mass, we ascended, drawing away from the lower orbits of the planet.

The Republic sensed my intentions and refused to let me go. Their forces surge forwards, smashing aside most of the newly reformed rearguard forces arrayed against them. Their lighter escort ships were faster, triple engine cones pushing their lighter frames to quickly catch up with my rearmost warships, focusing on their engines with torpedoes and missiles. Some of my ships, particularly the slower battleships and carriers, began to lag behind and quickly became the target of numerous Republic warships. Broadsides from passing Venators, Victory-Is, and Tectors sent their tumbling broken shells back down to the planet.

I soon found myself pushing past the higher orbitals, past the numerous refineries and processing plants. Tractor beams and precise blaster fire forced entire space stations filled with refined fuel by the millions of tons from their positions, flung with slow gradual obvious paths into the pursuing fleet. Some were forced to evade, wasting time, others either attempted to smash through prow first, only to be caught in the explosion.

But others still push forwards, unscathed and determined. I pay them little mind, focusing upon the task at hand. The moon before me.

'Munificent frigates, supercharge main guns. Hold fire until the command is given.'

'By your command.'

Shoals of bomber craft and gunships loaded for bare sped towards the moon. Thousands dropped their payloads on the thin crust, weakening the frail tectonic stability present on the surface as they ignited minor veins of the incredibly unstable deposits.

The funny thing about the Munificent-Class. They were advertised to the Muuns of the Intergalactic Banking Clan as a high powered frigate on an affordable basis. They claimed that the prow heavy turbolasers were capable of melting a 1000 kilometer ice moon or piercing the shield of a 10km Golan III battle station with one salvo.

Technically speaking, that was true; or close enough for the Banking Clan's lawyers to defend that piece of advertising in court. What they didn't tell anyone was that after firing, the prow turbolasers would be completely unusable, and the reactor would shut down automatically to prevent a total and complete overload to the incredibly stressed power grid. They were also somewhat inaccurate.

How fortunate that the target was an irregular moon with a thin crust filled to the brim of highly volatile Rhydonium.

'Fire.'

The Munificents at the forefront of the fleet fired their heavy prow cannons, sending bright red comets of chaotic energy into the moon. Soon after, all activity ceased within those ships, it's reactors forced to shut down. Every single frigate was now useless to me; by the time they restarted their reactors, the enemy would be upon them.

Under my direction, the fleet reorients themselves, pivoting in space to aim above and below the galactic disk, in preparation for the explosion to come. Dozens of Recuscants sped into the gravity well of the moon, their own overcharged weapons firing at precise points of the rapidly destabilizing moon. Their reactors were redlined as the first rupture was expelled from the surface of the enormous rock, their skeletal hull straining as they dove into the expanding mantle. Hundreds of ships detonated their reactors at specific areas, forcing the exploding Rhydonium crude to follow certain paths.

'Micro-jump coordinates have been set into the navicomputer. The fleet is ready to jump on your command.'

'Not yet.'

'The enemy approaches.'

Republic warships were now cutting into mine as they held their positions, blowing apart dozens of ships as they continued to push closer, all bows pointed at my flagship. They had gone all in on this attack, there would be no turning back.

Unlike the Republic forces, droid brains were hardwired into the hull of my ships. Confederate ships had the necessary FTL communications, the coordination between engines and navigational computers, and control to pull a micro-jump off.

That's why the Republic could not simply micro-jump out as I was planning to - their reactions were simply too slow, their organic bodies slowing them down for the vital seconds that it would take the detonation to reach them.

'Jump.'

The moon, glowing red and white from countless eruptions could not hold itself together anymore. The entire crust spat out a kaleidoscope of colorful explosions as my fleet jumped. The last I saw of it before the blue vortex of hyperspace consumed my vision was of the entire moon imploding... right before it's entire crust expanded outwards as an enormous tidal wave of superheated plasma and a miasma of prismatic energy shaped to spiral out towards the Republic armada now desperately attempting to escape. Simulation ended. Encoding data packet to simulation results.

But I did not rest. There was no time to rest. Upload successful. Firewalls remain vulnerable. Preparing next data packet. Compiling data file.

"That was unexpected, that explosion was almost impossible to render. Good thing there's enough processing power to keep up with all the stuff this thing keeps pulling off."

"Thats... what, the hundredth time that scenario was played out? Definitely a new trick. Think we'll need to up the difficulty?"

"We need to see if it's tactical capabilities extend to small squad tactics. So far its just been lots of fleet engagements. Lets see how it deals with a siege with all the advantages gone."

My vision turned black, and when it returned, I was on swampy, muck-ridden ground. The air teemed with flies and sucking-things, and the grime was in my robotic joints.

Felucia, I recognized.

Hundreds of spider-walkers and dozens of heavy artillery units were under siege by the Republic, who had their usual air supremacy.

"...Count Dooku wants mass production by the end of the month, so we'll need to round it out with as much data as possible."

"That's impossible. I mean, yes, the current prototypes we've developed so far based on this unit's data are generations ahead of the current commander droids. But we can't possibly meet that deadline!"

"I say we can meet it, gentlemen."

"Director! We didn't hear you come in."

"The latest prototypes were well received by High Command. They've ordered five hundred additional units. Use the forks we have right now and upgrade them however much you can with the latest data. We'll upload them, put them through their paces, and send them."

"Is that wise sir? Currently, the only way they can operate efficiently is if they operate aboard a droid control ship or any ship with sufficient processing power and-"

"Then make sure these new units can operate efficiently aboard a corvette or by itself. Run new simulations and gather data. Those five hundred units go out at the end of the week. That is all."

"... I never liked him."

"... no disagreements there. I suppose we'll start adding in the new scenarios?"

"May as well."

"I've got an idea, lets plug in the prototypes too. See if they can adapt to the original."

"That's a great idea! Ought to speed things up significantly!"