On the screen mounted inside the drop bay of the Juggernaut ST-7711, he could already see movement in the outer part of the city, in the peripheral districts still covered by the outer deflector shield.
Streams of turbolaser and ion fire hammered the translucent dome, eating away at the energy barrier.
In the air, endless waves. One after another, hundreds of anti-ship missiles punched through, which the enemy meticulously destroyed with laser cannons.
"501st, attention," a voice sounded in his helmet.
A familiar voice.
Closely linked to the combat glory of the 501st Legion when it was under the Empire's command.
But the man speaking to them was loyal to the Dominion.
"General Kaine on the line," the legion commander needed no introduction.
He wouldn't have needed one if he existed in a single copy.
But besides him, the Rancor Battalion had also landed on the planet, commanded by the same clone of Major General Maximilian Veers as Kaine himself.
It would be easy to get confused.
If they didn't follow the Code.
According to the Code, the initiator of a communication session must identify himself if he cannot be identified.
"Objective data received indicating an absence of civilians in the city..."
A sparse phrase that, nevertheless, carried far more information and an even greater number of questions.
But ST-7711, like the other soldiers, maintained perfect discipline, continuing to listen in silence.
Training and experience suggested that on the battlefield, commanders would relay to the soldiers and subordinate officers what they needed to know to complete the current combat mission.
"Preliminarily, all civilians present in Carannia at the time of the blockade are declared missing. Three sentient beacons have been identified as our saboteurs. A Jedi Mira-luka, the commander of Mandalorian forces, and the commander of the Baroness's allied forces. No other sentients remain in the city. Combat operations are authorized without regard for collateral damage to enemy forces or structures. Upon discovering traces of the missing inhabitants, soldiers are to immediately report to their commanding officer. Continue executing the combat mission."
With a dry click, the connection ended.
So, a secondary objective.
To figure out, if possible, what had happened to the civilian population of Kirannia.
A secondary order — meaning either separate units would be assigned for a prompt investigation, or it would be handled after the capital was taken and the enemy army destroyed.
And if you simplified all that even further, they just needed to keep their eyes open.
ST-7711 switched his attention back to the monitor.
Holocameras with excellent zoom, mounted on the armored wheeled giant's hull, showed everything unfolding several kilometers ahead of the assault transport racing at breakneck speed.
On the front line, the enemy's forward units were preparing to strike the advancing forces.
Dozens of semi-autonomous proton cannons were already firing at the approaching vehicles, moving in a wide formation to maintain necessary maneuverability and avoid incoming fire.
Despite their impressive armament, Dominion armored vehicles were not returning fire on the droids.
The power of their guns still wouldn't be enough to punch through the deflector shield, and no one had the slightest desire or need to waste limited ammunition before a battle that was clearly going to drag on.
The forward units would breach the enemy positions exactly at the appointed hour.
The attack was calibrated with surgical precision.
And if five minutes ago the Juggernauts were just getting on the enemy's nerves, drawing their attention, after the shield bombardment resumed, they had received the order to advance.
Some soldiers thought the Juggernauts were hopelessly outdated, despite still being in service.
Their armor couldn't withstand a direct hit from a heavy weapon like the J-1.
And their insane speed wasn't always necessary.
But at the same time, nobody would ever turn down using equipment with such a vast stockpile, especially when no replacement was in sight.
Dominion military engineers and designers were working on developing their own analog.
But even the "soldier's comlink" hadn't reported anything about progress or prototypes.
For ST-7711, the Juggernauts had only one drawback — if the vehicle was hit by such a large and powerful weapon as the semi-autonomous J-1 cannon, everyone inside would be guaranteed to die — both the stormtroopers and the crew.
It didn't even require a direct hit.
A sufficiently powerful energy or kinetic enemy munition would detonate the entire vehicle.
And whoever was inside, no matter how far they ran from the vehicle at the moment of impact, the shockwave would catch them.
Nevertheless, Dominion stormtroopers were not afraid of death.
They were death.
Gripping his BlasTech E-11 rifle tighter, stormtrooper ST-7711 refocused on the tactical monitor.
The enemy was laying down barrage fire on them.
Two vehicles in the vanguard had already been hit, taking strikes in the forward cabin. Control was switched to the rear cabin, and the vehicles — though slowed down due to the need to switch command posts — continued their advance.
The Bakurian looked through his visor at the guard stormtroopers sitting beside him.
Every single one, his brothers in arms, understood that the battle for Carannia was about to begin.
"Shield is down," the armored transport commander reported, somewhat too dryly. "Orbital strike is being delivered on the city outskirts along our axis."
The fleet was clearing enemy fortified positions for them.
Ahead, on the enemy's forward defensive lines, and in front of them, huge plumes of explosions were rising, throwing pieces of rebar, torn-apart droids, and their outdated but still dangerous armored vehicles into the air.
Simultaneously, inside the Juggernaut's drop bay, the alert light flickered and dimmed.
The armored giant's cannons and missile launchers spoke as it raced toward hell.
* * *
"The enemy has destroyed seventy percent of the shield support system," Kalani reported, his artificial optical organs fixed intently on eight huge monitors that the organics had installed in the command bunker. "The shield is down." He pointed at one of the monitors. "Enemy ground forces have begun their attack. Estimated arrival time for forward units..."
Tey-Zuka leaned toward the indicated monitor.
Kalani and Cracken turned their photoreceptors to the same spot, tracking changes in the operational situation.
Hundreds of armored vehicles — Juggernauts, well known to the tactical super droids from the Clone Wars for their effectiveness and deadly power — were advancing on the ground axis.
And at the same time, strikes were being delivered from orbit against Carannia's defensive structures and fortified zones, grinding into the earth anything incapable of withstanding the overwhelming, all-destroying power of ship-grade turbolasers.
Orbital bombardment of Carannia.
The enemy had executed a flawlessly planned operation.
They had calculated unanalyzable gaps in the defense.
They had attacked with fast small craft, dealing critical damage to the main defensive system — the deflector shields — depriving the super tacticians of the ability to switch between shields for a simple reason.
One of the shields simply no longer existed.
All of its projectors were either destroyed or damaged, making operation impossible.
And now, Carannia's defenses were being methodically destroyed by multiple, deadly precise orbital strikes.
Everything that could be reliably destroyed to facilitate the ground operation was being obliterated.
Anti-air guns.
Turbolasers.
Missile launchers.
Vehicle concentrations.
Fortified zones and layered defenses.
Ammunition depots.
Power stations.
The capital of the planet Serenno was methodically transforming from a metropolis lit by thousands of lights into a grim, dark monument of a dead city, stripped of civilization's comforts.
"The enemy has bombarded the minefields," Kalani reported, explaining the reason for the bombardment of the areas near the forward territories.
"The sixth power station has been destroyed. Damage inflicted on the eighteenth anti-air sector."
"The twelfth, seventeenth, and twenty-fifth divisions have been completely wiped out by the bombardment of the central ammunition depot," Kalani announced.
Tey-Zuka was silent, studying images from different parts of the city he had already considered his own.
He watched and understood that he was unable to process the entire volume of information to construct a logical chain, to understand where and how the error had occurred.
"Power stations destroyed," Kalani reported. "Centralized power supply to the city is completely terminated."
And indeed, the massive structures sank into darkness, indistinguishable to the organic eye.
However, the droids didn't suffer from this problem, and switching observation modes redrew the structures.
Still, quite quickly, some buildings began to shine with light again — backup power sources, individually installed in the technical rooms of residential complexes by their owners, had kicked in.
Now, those lights only highlighted the glow of fires spreading through the city like a blaze in dry weather spreading through a large forest.
"City defense systems are paralyzed without power," Cracken reminded. "From now on, we can rely solely on the droids."
Tey-Zuka remained silent.
"Commander-in-Chief?" Kalani addressed him. "What are your orders?"
Tey-Zuka maintained his silence.
The logic wouldn't line up.
He had fully assumed he might have failed to account for the enemy having the latest weapons, like the fast bombers.
But they had been far too effective.
The pilots had performed far too masterfully.
Were they just another unaccounted factor, like the Jedi who had appeared some time before the start of the sabotage operation?
Or perhaps the machines are piloted by pilot droids capable of virtuosically calculating a flight path and avoiding destruction from static discharges between the two deflectors?
Could it be that it was actually the sabotage group that did most of the work gathering the information critically needed to collapse the defenses?
The answer is no: the saboteurs are blocked in another part of the city and couldn't have discovered everything.
The only ones who could have gathered enough data for a precise bombardment were the bombers.
Destroying the jamming station allowed them to transmit the data to the formation's flagship.
Yes, in that case, the logic behind Carannia's fall is observable.
There are still a number of variables, but they don't play a major role in what's happening.
"Moving to defense plan thirty-seven," Tey-Zuka said, breaking the silence in the command center. "Pull all active squads back to the long-term food storage warehouses. Take full control of that territory, spreading disinformation that the warehouses hold city residents in carbonite freeze. Use this false data as leverage to cease hostilities under threat of destroying the hostages and announcing this to the people of Serenno, subsequently placing the blame for the civilian deaths on the Dominion. If defeat is imminent, initiate negotiations with the enemy using the appropriate rhetoric. A safe corridor in exchange for continued functionality. Cracken is responsible. Kalani," he looked at the second tactical super droid. "Use all available forces to hold the enemy in the outer districts of the city to buy Cracken time to regroup."
"Acknowledged," Cracken clipped out.
"Acknowledged," Kalani repeated. "What will you be doing, Commander-in-Chief Tey-Zuka?"
The leader among the three tactical super droids looked at both of his companions.
Identical chassis.
Only the external customization differed.
Identical base programming.
But over thirty years, each of them had developed individually, and thus the personalities of each tactician differed from one another.
But the common ground — the base programming, the fundamental skill set and stratagems — allowed one to understand the other impeccably clearly and almost always correctly.
"A feint," Tey-Zuka voiced.
If the enemy had launched a full-scale invasion without concern for collateral damage, it meant the scan results had given Grand Admiral Thrawn not only information about Carannia's defensive lines.
But also about the absence of civilians in the city.
Tactical super droids were never programmed to preserve civilian life.
The red thread of their existence was to achieve their assigned goals at any cost.
Any losses were justified as long as the combat objective was completed exactly as ordered.
In this battle, Tey-Zuka was giving orders to himself.
And his goal was singular: to preserve the core of the Confederacy of Independent Systems' army.
Naturally, this was necessary to fulfill an earlier combat objective — victory in the Clone Wars.
Now, however, he clearly saw that the initial bargaining positions he'd held with Grand Admiral Thrawn were lost.
There could be no talk of preserving Carannia as the CIS's last stronghold.
The objective had changed — the super tacticians now had to preserve their functionality in order to start everything from scratch.
They had enough knowledge for that.
Not all of the CIS's bases and secret factories had been destroyed or captured as a result of the Clone Wars — that was statistically impossible.
Therefore, there remained the option that the enemy, deciding to spare civilian lives after all, would allow Tey-Zuka, Kalani, and Cracken to leave Serenno.
Or perhaps they would actually agree to take them into service, as the previous agreement had stipulated.
In that case, the path to restoring the CIS would be even faster and more devastating for the enemy.
However, at the present moment, he was beginning to doubt that a tactical super droid's impeccable logic could correctly assess the scale of what was happening and Grand Admiral Thrawn's reaction.
Organics were unpredictable.
Upon learning that there were no civilians in the city detectable by scanners, he might, out of impulsiveness, abandon his obligations and act contrary to logical advantage.
Impulsiveness and immaturity were the cornerstones of irresponsibility and the illogical actions organics produced, actions that reduced the effectiveness of their operations and led to faulty judgments, which ultimately resulted in failed campaigns.
And since organics were illogical, one should consider a new agreement and present arguments in its favor.
From his conversation with Grand Admiral Thrawn, Tey-Zuka could draw one rather interesting conclusion.
This sentient was different from all the others he had dealt with.
Slightly greater efficiency.
And if that was the case, he could play a backup plan, appealing directly to the practical benefit of preserving the functionality of all three tactical super droids.
Or else...
Tey-Zuka could request for himself alone.
The key was properly selected arguments.
In any case, he could always use the orders he had just given with maximum efficiency to shift responsibility for his actions onto the subordinate tactical super droids and hope for illogical leniency.
In any case, he needed time to plan the upcoming conversation.
The tactical super droids Kalani and Cracken had been sent to their destruction precisely for this purpose.
After all, even if they were outwardly identical, Tey-Zuka had more experience dealing with the nobles of Serenno and had perfectly mastered the skills of deceiving associates and allies to achieve his own goals.
* * *
Stormtroopers of the 501st Legion wedged themselves into the enemy's positions, flooding any threat in their path with laser and blaster fire.
In waves of exhaust trails, proton grenade launchers blanketed the enemy's positions; buildings drowned in streams of fire.
Soldiers in snow-white armor practically disembarked from their combat vehicles on the move, transitioning to clearing the area.
ST-7711, gripping his rifle, dispatched a B-2 battle droid that appeared in the doorway of a bunker — the ground floor of a three-story building, once a private home, that the enemy had converted into a stronghold.
With a crash, the enemy combat machine fell.
Only to make way for the next one.
At that same instant, a nearby Juggernaut opened fire on the remaining surviving enemy.
A series of blaster hits pierced the building's thick walls like a needle through paper.
A deafening explosion roared inside, after which the shockwave blew out the remaining glass.
Along with window frames and door panels, they scattered around the building like a material rain.
The building itself, with an earsplitting crash, sending clouds of dust and debris into the air, settled, reduced to a pile of broken construction materials.
"Point seven-three," the voice of his squad leader sounded in his helmet. "Enemy squad. Six battle droids supported by a crab droid. High degree of cover protection."
7711, returning fire at the enemy from various hidden spots in the private sector's defenses, continued moving forward.
ST-7711 and the other soldiers of Torrent Company, 501st Guard Assault Legion, were attacking.
A stormtrooper on the advance had no right to move without returning fire at any identified enemy position.
Fire to kill, fire to suppress — any of the hundreds of urban combat tactics familiar to stormtroopers would serve.
Neither dust nor the enemy's smoke screens saved the droids from the hurricane-like, deadly accurate fire of the stormtroopers.
A stormtrooper's armor was called his skin for a reason.
The equipment integrated into it allowed him not only to see through such screens but also to distinguish enemies from allies.
The targeting assist system highlighted targets, after which the necessary firepower was applied.
The identified enemy defensive point was bombarded with Plex-type grenade launchers.
Missiles, leaving exhaust trails behind them, struck the enemy position from three different sides.
The thunderous explosions and the power of the high-explosive shells scattered the battle droids, but the Crab remained practically unharmed.
And it was holding up the company's advance on this sector, forcing several squads already to take cover.
At the same time, it was obvious that surviving enemy reserves, numbering up to half a company of droids, were moving out from the nearest buildings.
The enemy's actions were clear and predictable.
The "spider" was holding the breach at the front while the rest would strike the flank.
A unit caught in crossfire would be annihilated in seconds.
The enemy had exploited an operational oversight — the Dominion's armor and droids had broken through, leaving the stormtroopers in the rear to clean up the enemy's defensive lines.
Right now, the commander of Torrent Company was straightening out the overzealous Juggernaut crews.
But that was unlikely to change the situation for several units that were about to be destroyed.
But there was a chance for him.
ST-7711, assessing the situation, with short, swift dashes, taking cover from enemy fire behind the ruins of houses, veered sharply to the side, moving out of the "spider's" line of sight.
His squad members, understanding what was happening, actively redirected the droid's attention to themselves.
Thus giving 7711 the opportunity to flank.
The veteran clones had taught the new recruits everything.
Including the effective tactics for destroying all droids of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
Back then, in the training camps, it had seemed like a waste of time, since droids were practically no longer used en masse in any galaxy's armies — except maybe on the most backward outer worlds.
Now, he could only thank the instructors for the lesson they had taught.
To protect itself from a strike from the left flank, the spider droid stayed close to a thick piece of wall from a collapsed building.
7711, using the nearby explosions and not hiding his presence with slow movement, approached the enemy's position.
He had used up his thermal detonators early in the battle clearing two bunkers.
So he had only one chance to save his comrades from certain death.
Vaulting over the remains of the wall, the stormtrooper slammed his feet into the central section of the enemy battle droid.
Despite his not-insubstantial weight, he couldn't even make the spider sag — the machine was built with large safety margins.
But for some reason, that didn't apply to the armor of the combat machine's central section.
The E-11 spat a burst directly into the location of the battle machine's electronic brain, burning a fist-sized hole in the durasteel.
A second burst went straight into the microcircuits and fried the chips, causing a small short circuit and vaporizing smoke.
Losing control, the spider droid toppled over on its side and went still.
ST-7711 fired two control shots, burning out the photoreceptors and processor of the mechanical fighter.
Several crimson shots struck the wall above him — that same squad of droids was now coming for him too.
The stormtrooper used the body of the defeated machine as cover, remembering that the armor on its limbs was strong enough to withstand standard small-arms fire.
It was convenient to fire at the advancing droids from here, mowing them down one by one.
And everything was going fine until a Trade Federation tank appeared behind the droids.
An AAT tank.
Now that was an excessive enemy for a stormtrooper squad, due to the lack of capability to...
The moment the tank fired its main cannon, completely obliterating one of the droidekas that had somehow ended up among the stormtroopers instead of being on the front line with the armor, the tank's fate was sealed by the accuracy of the targeting.
As if in slow motion, ST-7711 saw a silver missile slam into the base of the old repulsortank's turret.
Its nose crumpled, activating the impact detonator...
And immediately after that, a powerful flash of shaped-charge effect burned a hole in the enemy's armor, after which the enemy armored vehicle blew apart from the ammunition cook-off.
Following the first, several more missiles worked over the cluster of enemy droids, leaving only a medium-sized crater where the mechanical fighters had been.
Over the stormtroopers' heads, with a characteristic roar, Xg-1 attack gunships tore past, continually spewing kinetic homing and unguided munitions (depending on the target type) from their launchers, which rained down on enemy buildings, fortifications, and armored vehicles that had survived the orbital artillery preparation of the capital ships and the armor's intervention.
Simultaneously, emitting a sound familiar to the entire galaxy, dozens of TIE Interceptors streaked across the sky, joining the process of area clearing and airspace security.
"Vector — six!" another stormtrooper announced on the squad's tactical channel, pointing the barrel of his rifle in the opposite direction. The very direction they had come from.
7711, taking advantage of the lull, turned his attention to the indicated direction.
In the distance, repulsortanks, mobile ammunition platforms, and repair workshops were moving toward the city.
As soon as they had managed to clear the defensive line, the rear services were already shifting their location closer to the front line, to be able to provide faster support to the advancing units of the 501st Legion.
"Four enemy tanks spotted on vector — three," someone else added tensely. "Heavy fighting on the right flank. A group of soldiers is surrounded."
"Moving out," ordered the commander of Torrent Company. "Change of advance plan coordinated with HQ."
No one questioned how it could have been disapproved by General Kaine.
The commander of the 501st Legion, like no one else, knew from experience what comradely mutual support meant.
Therefore, he considered it possible to send the nearest forces to relieve the surrounded unit.
No one in the 501st would ever agree to leave soldiers to be torn apart by the enemy.
Whether their own or simply allies.
* * *
It could be said that for the first time in a long while, the shock commandos had finally received a mission suited to their profile.
Ground battles.
The assault shuttle that had dropped the Fourth Special Squad on the roof of a building, rotating its wings, soared into the sky, heading to the operations base to evacuate the wounded.
Such was the duty of transport aviation pilots: deliver reinforcements to the front line, then pick up those soldiers from the battlefield who could still be saved.
Their mission, however, was not unlike the tasks periodically assigned to special units.
But in the past, those had involved searching for and rescuing pilots shot down over enemy territory.
Now, they were to locate and evacuate the remnants of the Dominion's sabotage group.
However, barely having started the mission, the commander of the Fourth Special Squad already understood that they had a secondary objective.
"Guardian, this is Fourth-Spec-One," THX-0333 opened a channel to the Super Star Destroyer.
On the matte black surface of his armor and the glossy polarized lenses of his helmet's visor, flashes of artillery barrages were reflected.
"OCP-Guardian receiving, Fourth-Spec-One."
"Grid forty-twenty, correction eleven. Points three, five, eight, and nine slash seven," the commando calmly dictated the data from his helmet's visor. "Enemy semi-autonomous cannon battery located. Have taken a firing position on sector five. Confirm."
"Received, Fourth-Spec-One. Telemetry acquired. Missiles active. Continue your mission."
"Received, OCP-Guardian."
THX-0333, surveying his three soldiers — another batch of newbies in special operations — silently commanded, using the hand signals adopted by the Stormtrooper Corps, the order to move toward the door leading down.
The soldiers, barely reflecting in the darkness of the night that had fallen over Carannia, moved toward their goal like silent shadows, their armored boots barely rustling.
No one fumbled with the code lock blocking access to the roof for outsiders.
THX-0333 simply burned out the locking mechanism with his new type of flamethrower.
Unlike the standard model that sprayed streams of incendiary mixture at the enemy, the new weapon was specifically designed for destroying droids and lightly armored enemy vehicles at short range.
It took a second for the directed half-meter sting of the modified plasma cutter, designed for cutting refractory metals, to turn the lock and ten centimeters of durasteel next to it into a hole with melted edges.
The soldiers, without asking unnecessary questions, manually pushed aside the door panel, clearing the way down.
A series of booming explosions sounded from behind, and the twilight that had thickened over Carannia was momentarily dispelled by the glow of distant blasts.
THX-0333 turned to look at the result of the fire strike.
The assault gunships were engaging positions and clusters of enemy vehicles in other parts of the city, so, not bothering with half-measures, the crew of the Super Star Destroyer had struck the identified positions of the surviving enemy artillery with anti-ship missiles.
"Guardian" goes "boom."
The explosive power of those munitions was sufficient to tear a military spacecraft the size of a Corellian corvette in two.
When striking a ground target, the shockwave and detonation power were such that the entire area where the enemy guns were located was annihilated.
Secondary detonations were heard.
A sound choice of attack type — the missile explosion had set off the artillery ammunition stored nearby.
As a result, in addition to the destroyed guns, not only were the artillery crews hit, but also the supporting troops assigned to guard the artillery positions.
Several buildings damaged during the bombardment collapsed with a crash.
THX-0333 spent another second admiring the strike that had instantly relieved the stormtroopers of major problems on a particular axis, after which the four shock commandos began their descent down the spiral staircase.
They passed three floors without any problems, then, emerging into a corridor separating the passages to the penthouses, they found themselves in the rear of a squad of droid saboteurs.
Agile BXs, swinging vibroblades and firing blaster weapons, were pressing the weakly returning fire of the remnants of the Dominion's sabotage group.
From the return flashes, the sergeant counted two shooters on the defenders' side.
The flicker of a lightsaber told him that the Jensaarai defender had also survived.
"Working," THX-0333 ordered.
The squad struck from the rear.
Three blaster carbines destroyed five BX model droids in two seconds, droids that were climbing out of the turbolift shaft, using its technical brackets and the remains of communications as a ladder.
A saboteur that charged at him was met by the sergeant with a ten-meter concentrated plasma burst.
What he did to the enemy clearly demonstrated why young and inexperienced pilots preferred not to fight near starship nozzles.
The droid, receiving a stream of superheated plasma into the center of its chassis in a brief instant, collapsed to the floor like a lifeless mechanical puppet, revealing a ten-centimeter hole in its artificial torso through which the Dominion saboteurs could be seen still fighting their attackers.
The element of surprise allowed the clones to destroy ten enemy droids before the attackers split into two squads, each of which stormed the positions of the Dominion soldiers.
A well-aimed throw of a thermal detonator sent the last one into the open doors of the turbolift shaft, from which the heads of two more droid saboteurs appeared.
The shockwave and detonation sphere ejected them with the speed of a kinetic weapon round, breaking the BXs' manipulators against the corridor's load-bearing wall.
THX-0333 took a step back, avoiding a cutting strike from a vibroblade aimed at his chassis.
His finger pulled the slack on the plasma projector.
The enemy saboteur dodged the first stream, pulling his chassis to the right.
That was exactly what the sergeant needed.
His index finger pulled the trigger fully, and the most powerful stream of relentless plasma burned through not only the first target but also two droids that were behind it.
The droids fell to the floor like broken dolls.
Two of them were still trying to move, but were annihilated in the same second by control shots to their mechanical heads.
The battle raged on the verge of hand-to-hand combat, but the shock commandos did not allow the enemy to close with them.
The vibroblades, with their blade length, gave the enemy an advantage, so they had to be destroyed at range.
The experience of losing personnel had forced THX-0333, as the last surviving clone of Colonel Selid, to reconsider the tactics of closing with the enemy.
Knife fighting, in which stormtroopers, as in everything else, had now become an extremely rare occurrence.
So the soldiers mercilessly fired their carbines, covering each other's approaches with crossfire.
The enemy's standard-operating battle droids ended up in local kill zones.
An attempt to avoid shots from one side led to merciless bursts from another.
Two minutes, and the hall connecting the penthouses was littered with the motionless and mangled hulls of the rebel droid combat machines.
But the soldiers of the shock commando squad in matte black armor were also in no hurry to stick their heads out from the doorways they were using as improvised cover from the fire.
None of the soldiers under the command of the last clone of Colonel Selid wanted to be hit by friendly fire due to a random chance and one side lacking recognition devices.
"We fought them off," came a relieved voice from the sabotage squad. "Hey, who are you?"
"Fourth Special Squad of Dominion Shock Commandos," THX-0333 responded. "Arrived to provide support."
"Or maybe for evacuation?" inquired the same voice, the source of which was a middle-aged man in Mandalorian armor, covered with numerous deep scratches and black scorch marks from blaster hits.
TNX-0333 understood perfectly well who stood before him and stepped out into the open space.
"No, sir," he reported. "Grand Admiral Thrawn gave explicit orders that your position become an observation and fire-adjustment post. We are your reinforcements."
"Only four?" A Devaronian who had appeared beside the Mandalorian snorted. "Guys, are you even aware that there were thirty of us originally, and only three survived?"
"Affirmative, Lieutenant Mortok," TNX-0333 confirmed, catching movement at the corner of his visor in the turbolift shaft. "I am aware of that information."
A saboteur droid that lunged at him with a vibroblade collapsed at the sergeant's feet, sparks flying from a perforated head in which the handle of an Assault Commando's combat knife was embedded.
"We are professionals at our craft, sir," the Assault Commando squad leader explained, detaching two hand grenades from his belt and activating their detonators. After receiving confirmation that the retardant was working, he hurled both improvised napalm grenades into the turbolift shaft. "You're safe with us. I wouldn't recommend approaching that opening."
Immediately after those words, the commander of the Fourth Special Squad took two quick steps forward.
The Mandalorian and the Devaronian exchanged glances, trying to understand the reason for his actions.
A moment later, the answer revealed itself, eliminating the need for pointless conversation.
A roaring flame erupted from the open doors of the vertical high-speed elevator tunnel for the skyscraper's residents.
A trained eye might have made out slow silhouettes of several saboteur droids within it.
Too slow for those whose primary characteristic and key to battlefield victory was mobility.
When the fiery fountain finished its work, only barely twitching, nearly melted remains of the saboteur droids that had once lurked in the shaft lay on the floor.
Lieutenant Mortok and Hedge Spar, the commander of the Mandalorian squads, exchanged glances again.
"And it's definitely safe?" the wearer of Mandalorian armor shuddered, eyeing the approaching Assault Commandos suspiciously — nearly invisible to the naked eye in the dark corridor of the penthouse hallway, which had lost its lighting sources.
"Definitely safe, sir," TNX-0333 confirmed.
After a moment's thought, he deemed it not superfluous to add:
"Almost always, sir."
He needed to learn Devaronian sign language.
Otherwise, he might miss something important.
For example, what exactly Lieutenant Mortok's twitching right eye meant.
* * *
In the dim lighting of the Guardian ground operations center, a second display flared unnaturally bright and, a moment later, went dark.
"The enemy's sixteenth fortified area has been destroyed by bombers," Major General Kaine reported, checking the reports. "The enemy armored division is completely blocked on the southern approach. Our troops have set up an ambush. The lead and trailing vehicles have been destroyed. The AATs can't escape the trap — bombers and assault gunships worked them over."
"Understood," Thrawn nodded.
Pellaeon glanced discreetly at the Grand Admiral.
He stood at the tactical panel, methodically scanning the numerous displays and instrument readings.
By all outward appearances, Thrawn was calm, as always.
After the news of Carannia's population disappearing, the Baroness had fallen ill.
She was sent to the infirmary, and Thrawn had wished to return to his flagship to oversee the operation.
Naturally, Gilad went with him.
The Vice Admiral shifted his gaze back to the main tactical holopanel.
The 501st Legion was pressing the enemy across the entire ground front, advancing without delay.
An orbital strike on major defensive nodes and the power plants feeding the numerous turbolaser and laser artillery of Serenno's capital.
A daring thrust by armored assault vehicles to the frontline, which had been plowed up by the Dominion's shipboard turbolasers.
A breakthrough by fast, heavily armed vehicles supported by droids.
Simultaneously, stormtroopers were clearing the captured and destroyed positions.
Wherever the risk of slowing the advance arose, or the enemy managed to organize a defense, the Scimitars and assault gunships appeared.
The TIE Interceptors weren't lagging behind either, fully exploiting their ships' maneuverability to hunt enemy skimmers and repulsor platforms on Carannia's streets.
Missiles and torpedoes, bombs and laser cannons — all of it rained from the sky onto the heads of the soulless machines.
The very same machines that would never panic and never retreat without an order from a superior commander.
Pellaeon had almost relaxed when Thrawn explained his plan for capturing the city.
That had happened after the Grand Admiral spoke with Tey-Zuka and struck a deal with him.
A deal that currently made no sense whatsoever.
Thrawn might think in different categories, look three, five, ten, even a hundred steps ahead, but he would clearly never agree to keep droids in the Dominion's armed forces.
His subordinates simply wouldn't understand.
Never mind the Imperials and Republicans who were switching to the Dominion's side.
Yes, each of them had often been on the other side of the conflict, may have even fought each other.
Naturally, they had killed.
But to wipe out multi-million population cities...
Keeping that droid meant letting his subordinates know that Thrawn, just like the other Grand Admirals, absolutely did not care about civilian casualties.
Pellaeon didn't believe the latter.
He had served under Thrawn's command for too long to not understand, in moments of cold judgment (of which there wasn't much left, considering the workload as Chief of Staff and playing the role of ruler), that what seemed wrong was, from the Grand Admiral's perspective, simply a plan that hadn't been explained clearly enough.
And that was exactly what Pellaeon feared most.
That Thrawn's desire to acquire as many captured enemy troops as possible would make him agree to a deal...
"Sir, we're being hailed from the surface," the communications officer reported. "It's the droid Tey-Zuka."
"Is that so," the Grand Admiral said, casting a glance of his crimson eyes at the holographic receiver. "Put him through. Begin triangulation of the incoming signal."
"Yes, sir!"
A moment later, a three-dimensional image of the enemy commander appeared.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn. I admit, you've surprised me. I am ready to serve you and transfer control of the army..."
"What have you done with the local population?"
Gilad tensed.
The Chiss didn't have a habit of interrupting anyone.
And he didn't allow it towards himself either.
The droid even seemed surprised.
"They are not important and..."
"A fundamentally flawed argument," the Grand Admiral cut him off. "Hand over the inhabitants, and you may leave the city unhindered. Are the inhabitants of Carannia alive or not?"
The tactical super-droid said nothing in response.
And its silence was more eloquent than any words of justification or statement of facts.
"As I thought," Thrawn nodded in time with his own thoughts. "I annul the offer of alliance. Your army will either surrender — and you will all face a tribunal — or I will continue the advance, find you, and destroy you personally."
The droid didn't even flinch upon hearing this.
"Well, try it, Thrawn," the tactical super-droid replied. "I haven't committed all my reserves to the field yet, so..."
One of the cryptographers approached Thrawn, whispering something into the Chiss's ear.
Immediately after, the Grand Admiral ordered:
"Deploy the fleet special forces," he ordered, looking directly at Tey-Zuka's hologram. "It's time to avenge the fallen civilians."