Open Space and Hyperspace

The demonic red scourge of the Outer Rim didn't have to wait long for his devoted robotic arachnid servant to arrive, in tow with a small army of tactical droids that comprised the core of the Legios Cybernetica's strategic logistics department. While the modified SD-K4 moved completely silently across the polished deck despite making eight points of contact from his numerous metallic legs, the scuff of the bipedal bots easily gave their approach away even before the door to the bridge parted ways and they stood before the Forge Master's magnificent crimson winged form. Servo-joints squeaked as the assembly of droids bowed, while the Professor whose chassis was much lower to the floor, bent his domed head to display his obeisance.

"Milord." Screeched Arachnus, practically beaming with excitement as his chassis bobbed from side to side and his numerous crimson photo-receptors swiveled around. "The Legios is ready to make its report. Commander Beelzebub, go ahead."

A familiar ST-series military strategic analysis and tactics droid stepped forwards, turning over its right mechanical hand to reveal a portable holo-projector disc held in its grip. The disc blinked to life and projected a three-dimensional cone of light, displaying an overview of the planet below.

B: Carpet bombing of Had Abbadon by C-9979s of the Dark Fleet has already begun, Fabricator General. No orbital defenses encountered and life-form scans of the planet detect a minimal human population scattered across its surface. Major resistance is unexpected, and futile. We've utilized radiation bombs and toxic munitions derived from industrial kessoline runoff from our manufacturoms on the Spice Forge. We expect to have this infestation completely eradicated within the hour and the planet made uninhabitable for the next ten thousand years.

"Yes, yes! Tell him about the outpost already!" Screeched Arachnus impatiently, though if the droid Commander was annoyed, its mono-tone delivery certainly didn't display it. Commander Beelzebub was as cold a machine as he appeared.

B: Thus far, the only active resistance the Dark Fleet has encountered is from the site of an old Imperial garrison, naturally fortified on all sides by jagged rock, and double fortified by reinforced ferrocrete walls and a shield generator. Approach by land is unfeasible without spending considerable resources tunneling through the surrounding mineral dense rock-formations, with time estimates for doing so exceeding two weeks. C-9979s attempting to approach from the sky were targeted by powerful anti-aircraft batteries. The target is heavily entrenched. When attempting to hail the garrison to demand their immediate surrender, we received a reply in a language we have no record of.

Next to Beelzebub, Arachnus' vocabulator replicated the strange reply transmission they had received. Even with the static isolated and removed, the voice...or rather, voices, sounded more like bestial snarls and growls than any meaningful attempt at dialogue. After the replay ended, the chief librarian cut in.

"While the speech sounds mostly unintelligible, deep analysis has picked up several patterns in the inflection and tone. It's definitely speech of some sort, though we haven't been able to translate it yet. However, after conducting research on the old Imperial database, I am confident this is the site of Darth Krayt's betrayal in 137 ABY. What you are looking or, Forge Master, has to be there."

T: "I say we nuke it from orbit." Chimed in a T-series tactical droid with a synthetic female voice, unit R1P-L3Y. "It's the only way to be sure."

"That's what you always suggest!" Snapped the Professor. "If we nuke it we'll never find what the Forge Master is looking for."

R1P-L3Y grumbled in droid speech and sat back down. Commander Beelzebub then continued.

B: After calculating the probabilities, our best odds of securing the garrison with minimal destruction of the target site would be a stealth infiltration led by the Fabricator General personally.

B: Acknowledged. Replied Commander Beelzebub's monotone droid voice. The infiltration team will be ready for launch within the hour. Dismissed."

As the tactical droids began to shuffle out, Arachnus' multitude of mechanical eyes got a good look at the holo-projection on the bridge's main tactical display table, showing C-9979s of the Dark Fleet sweeping over the dry fields of the planet, dropping thousands of cluster munitions onto the surface, followed by bright blooms and rising green clouds of toxic smoke that were carried across Had Abbadon by the wind. For those few inhabitants that managed to escape the bombardment, they would succumb to a far slower and more unpleasant death, as chemical ordnance poisoned the ecosphere and caused a worldwide famine, eventually transforming the planet into a toxic ball of irradiated dust. This was what it was all about, the great galactic cleansing, a universe improved by the eradication of fleshling infestation, replaced by mechanical perfection. Even the Professor did not completely compute the hate instilled in his programming by the Dark Forge, that soul hungry furnace that constantly churned out more spiteful droids for the solar scouring. He just knew that when his artificial limbs were coated in spilt organic blood and his life-form sensors registered no-living bio-signatures, he felt...right. The chief librarian's sinister red eyes became just a little more hellishly bright.

Shortly thereafter, the Felstorm descended into the upper atmosphere of the planet, where the air was frigid and thin. Arachnus found himself scurrying beside his master into the hangar where the infiltration force was being assembled. A dozen Single Trooper Aerial Platforms were held upright by a lowered hydraulic lift assembly attached to the hangar ceiling, each coated in light absorbing and sensor baffling reflec polymer, giving them a matte-black finish. Double that number of BX-series droid commandos stood around, sharpening vibro-swords with a metallic blue tinge to the blades. Cortosis, woven into the durasteel, enough to resist the potent blade of a lightsaber. The droids themselves were of the standard reinforced titanium design, though each had been painted black with a midnight blue trim, and featured dimmed photo-receptors to avoid the usual bright lights giving away their position. As requested, six of the commando droids were outfitted Oppressor flamethrowers, while the vast majority of the other units carried more modernized ST-W48 rifles in their more tightly packed carbine configurations. A deadly force if ever there was one.

"Mount up!" Screeched the synthetic voice of the cyber-spider as he scurried towards a thirteenth SPAT, this one featuring a crimson trim as befitting the Red Sage, but otherwise the same as the others. As the droid commandos got into place, two per SPAT so each contained a pilot and a rider to be dropped off at the target site, a chasm in the floor began to open. As square shaped teeth split apart, the night sky was revealed, high above the clouds, barely beyond the edges of space.

They would need to drop fast, plunging from the high atmosphere at terminal velocity and only activating the repulsor jets once they were within the encapsulating range of the garrison's shields. If they were detected too early, the shields would go up and they'd never get inside. This mission depended entirely on the element of surprise.

Falling through the open chasm in the floor of the Felstorm, thirteen sleek black darts plummeted through the night sky, rapidly reaching terminal velocity as they plunged towards the former Imperial garrison on Had Abbadon's bombarded surface. Unable to activate their engines early without risking detection, a lot of calculations had gone into the infiltration teams drop, ranging from wind speeds to the rotation of the planet itself. The most difficult of which had been thirteenth SPAT carrying Arachnus and Valefor, who were less aerodynamic than the BX series commando droids. At most, they were able to make small minuet changes by adjusting the direction of the flaps to catch the wind, but even this had to be meticulously managed so that none of the strike team fell out of position. As they speared through the clouds, they an excellent view of the planetary purge taking place, as sinister green plumes rose in the distance from detonating dirty bombs that poisoned the surface with cleansing radioactive fallout.

The Legios was being thorough in their eradication of the organic blight that infested Had Abbadon. Its value as a potential Forge World less than the cost it would take to occupy it, the deranged droid denizens would at least ensure to leave the surface uninhabitable to future fleshling settlers.

All those calculations proved worth it, however, as the base took shape directly below the infiltration team. The Professor leaned forwards, preparing to twist the throttle as the garrison grew larger with each passing second. Stay on target. Just a little closer and... "Now!" Screeched the spider, revving the accelerator, causing the SPAT's repulsor engines to whine and the whole vehicle to rumble beneath them. Almost immediately, an energy shield flared to life above the zooming repulsor crafts as the garrison's defenders detected the energy signatures of the strike team and activated the base's powerful defense shield. Next came the rapid tat-tat of anti-air batteries on the garrison walls firing blindly into the sky, causing the SPATs to break formation.

:: Spread out. :: Screeched Arachnus over the team's channel, before banking hard as blaster rifle barrels held in three clawed hands began to fire at them through murder holes in the walls of the main garrison structure. The chief librarian sent their SPAT into a spin, briefly flying upside down before whipping back around as the team came back together overtop the base's roof. His domed chassis turned, focusing his main photo-receptors on the Demon Lord riding behind him. "Time to jump, Master!"

Following Valefor's jump, Arachnus did likeness, leaping clear of the SPAT as it went streaking into the surface of the roof and erupted with a small explosion that sent flaming metal shrapnel skidding across the tiles. Sparks screeched from where robotic arachnid's numerous legs made contact with the roof, sliding to a stop next to the Forge Master as the red skinned sorcerer unleashed two powerful blasts of kinetic energy into the entrance of stairwells that had opened up on either side of them. The waves of Force energy were more than enough to cause the garrison troopers attempting to emerge to stumble back down inside, just long enough for twelve BX commando droids to leap off the backs of the SPATs they were riding on, hitting the roof in a roll that saw each one come up in a firing stance, six on either side of the Demon Lord. The BX pilots flew off, serving as a distraction as the base's anti-aircraft guns continued to rattle and roar into the sky, firing high intensity blaster bolts after the nimble repulsor crafts. As for the team on the roof, ST-W48 carbines opened up with expert precision, placing lethal crimson bolts in the centre of white plastoid helmeted heads that quickly appeared from the two access hatches on the roof.

To Valefor and Arachnus' right, two of the BX commandos opened up with their oppressor flamethrowers, sending scorching orange streams of fire into the openings. Bipedal forms ran out and writhed in plain sight, before falling to the ground as their flesh sizzled and the plastoid armour carapace they wore ran like water, transforming those caught in the blaze into piles of charred bone and cinder. I love the smell of tibanna in the morning. Said one of the flamethrower wielding droids as it continued to discharge gouts of liquid flame. On the opposite side, the chief librarian's numerous photo-receptors snagged a target lock on one of the garrison troopers concealed in shadow by the stairwell arches. Using the underslung whipcord launcher attached to his chassis, the Professor fired a cable into the dark and caught out of the troopers in its coil. The cable winch tugged hard and yanked the captured enemy, pulling them out into the open where they could get a better look at them.

Strangely, the trooper didn't appear much like the standard Imperial stormtrooper that Arachnus had been expecting. Their armour was piecemeal, missing several segments save for the larger sections, and the black body glove underneath was torn to reveal leathery brown flesh. Through the broken respirator part of the helmets lower portion, the mechanical assassin could see snarling teeth that looked more like the fangs of a beast. One of the BX droids drew their vibro-sword and plunged it down, spearing the captured trooper through the chest plate, causing it to go limp as it died.

"I don't think these are human." Said the Professor, probing the corpse with a leg. "Cross-referencing with the Felstorm's library, one moment." His photo-receptors pulsed green, then returned to their usual crimson hue. "Milord, I believe these fleshlings may be rakghoul."

Nodding his domed head, Arachnus looked towards the sky, watching as several SPAT zoomed by as anti-aircraft fired chased after them. An antenna popped out of a port on the SD-K4 assassin's head and began to rotate as he opened a communications line to the airborne team members. "Spider God to Blade Vultures." He screeched, only waiting a few seconds before the synthetic tone of a BX Commando came in over the comm channel. Vulture 1 copies. Orders sir? The chief librarian paused, looking towards the dimly lit stairwell as the Red Sage descended into the garrison base, then back towards the sky. "We need to bring down the shields and silence those guns. Sacrifice your SPHATs if you have to, but cause as much damage as you can. We'll do what we can from inside." Roger, Roger. The communications channel went silent.

Scurrying on eight slender segmented legs, the Professor hurried after the Fabricator General as the first sounds of explosions sounded from around the perimeter of the base, the circling droid pilots taking his words to heart. Nimble BX droids directed their repulsor craft into barking heavy laser emplacements, leaping clear at the last moment before the SPHAT flew into the angry turrets and detonated on impact. Even at a distance the cyber arachnid could hear the growls and snarls of plastoid armoured rakghoul as they swarmed the commandos caught out in the open yard. Each one of them made a good accounting of themselves, hosing down charging ferals before switching to their blades and hacking off a dozen limbs before they were eventually dragged down and disassembled, mechanical arms and legs ripped out at the magnetic socket. Brave, all of them. The droids of the Legios Cybernetica were not programmed to process fear. Arachnus committed the metal martyrs names to his memory banks as he followed Valefor into the depths.

Unlike the dozen commando droids, the spider-bot walked along the walls and ceilings, releasing a swarm of his mini-assassin children that did the same. Firing a whipcord at the ceiling, Arachnus repelled straight down in seconds, landing next to his master. A BX commando in the lead stopped and held up an arm, while its other kept its blaster carbine focused forwards. A cone of light shone from the end of the barrel, illuminating the dark hall ahead. Hateful red inhuman eyes, hundreds it seemed, glared back.

"Contacts." Said the droid, then opened up in a cascade of crimson blaster bolts as his comrades did the same.

In succession, the Professor and the Commando droids leapt down after Valefor, landing with mechanical grace as blaster carbines snapped up against metallic shoulders and rifle lights illuminated the darkness. The next floor down was a square room, adjoining halls from four different directions, each with a door left wide open. Arachnus barely had a chance to acclimatize his cybernetic senses to this new environment before his lifeform sensors began cast warning runes across his HUD vision and the motion sensors on the right shoulder of each BX began to feed their electro-scope lenses with targeting data. Swarms of the flesh hungry rakghoul in piecemeal plastoid plate came charging from every direction, cracking the occasional poorly placed blaster bolt but mostly galloping on all fours while they foamed at the mouths, glaring hungrily at the infiltration team with glowing red eyes.

In that moment of what seemed like impending doom, something came over the Chief Librarian of the Felstorm, as though an ember of cybernetic courage was lit inside his chassis and willed his autonomous limbs to action. "For the Forge Master!" He shrieked, throwing his body towards the northern hall, outer legs latching onto the door frame. As the rakghoul reached the door, they were greeted by a wall of flashing razor edged titanium. The robotic spider's four forelegs stabbed and hacked anything that came within reach, chopping off limbs, puncturing throats, tearing apart mutant flesh. His army of mechanical spider babies swarmed beneath him, pouring into the gap and transforming the hall ahead into a charnel house of gore. Gripped in a murderous algorithm of wanton slaughter, the sinister red photo-receptors of the arachnid assassins flickered from rich crimson to viral green. Droid lubricants frothed at the SD-K4s vocabulator as he plucked his legs from the door frame and surged forwards, a cyclone of mechanical violence, driven by a deeply programmed hatred of organic filth. "Fuel for the Dark Forge!"


The chant was taken up by the Commando droids, who had assumed firing lines in the other three directions, front rows kneeling while the backrows cracked shots over their shoulders. Even as lethally equipped as the kill-squad was, they would soon be overrun by the sheer number of their enemies. The droids switched to underslung quarrel launchers as the rakghoul packs neared, peppering the horde with flaming bolts while the BXs synchronized their movements and began to cover Valefor's sides and rear, moving towards the hallway Arachnus and his children were in the process of clearing. While the Legios' usual company mascot was busy rending flesh with his children, one of the BX droids stood next to Valefor and held up a holographic projector disc. A three dimension map of the installation hovered in the air, showing their current position and the expected location of the shield generator. They were only a few halls away. Behind them, orange gouts of flame from oppressor cannons filled the way they had come with burning liquid death, even as rakghoul began to fall from the hole in the ceiling, piling into the room they had just left as they stamped over their dead, drawn by the commotion and the scent of a living soul.

Metal screeched as several of Arachnus' razor edged legs lost traction of the floor, so slick was it with blood that even his short-centre of gravity was struggling to stand erect. As they reached the generator room the BX commandos formed two firing lines at the door, blasters and flame cannons pointed outwards while they covered the hard at work Demon Lord who was tearing apart the shield generator. The first row knelt while the second fired over their shoulder, firing effective volleys that put down rakghoul regardless if they were charging on two feet or on all fours. For as high as their kill count was rising, their ammunition supply was just as rapidly dwindling. It wouldn't be long before they were forced to rely on melee combat alone. Miniature one eyed spider-bots finished off any mutants clinging to the life on the ground. Oddly enough the tiny mechanical arachnids were largely ignored by the garrison's feral inhabitants, who seemed to struggle to comprehend their lifeless synthetic nature. As they fought hard against the swarms of transmorgrafied troopers, their comlinks began to crackle with static as a tight beam communications reached them. The emotionless voice of Commander Beelzebub could be heard by every member of the infiltration team, droid or organic.

Felstorm to Strike Team, we've detected the garrison shields have fallen. Thank the Dark Forge for that. It meant they could actually get some reinforcements inbound, or maybe, something better. What is the status on the anti-aircraft towers?

"Destroyed, though it cost us our transports." Screeched Arachnus, shaking rakghoul blood from his joints as he paced behind the firing line of commandos. "It doesn't matter. We haven't located the Fabricator General's objective yet, so we're not going anywhere. Is the Felstorm in position to assist?"

Negative. We're just inside concussion missile range but too far out to assist directly. ETA nine minutes. However, we have five heavy artillery guns (HAGs) positioned two kilometers east of your position that can provide fire support. They won't be much use, however, while the strike team is still inside the garrison.

"Actually, they may. These old Imperial bases are built like bunkers, thick ferrocrete walls supported by durasteel rebar. We're deep enough inside at this point where we should be fine from any exterior impacts. Order the HAGs to begin bombarding the garrison with proton shells. Then have the Felstorm drop a missile barrage on the base from above." But Professor... "Hex missiles, Commander. My recent audit of the Felstorm's munitions supply determines we have enough to drown the garrison in a cloud of trihexalon gas. That will take care of the hostiles we've encountered while leaving us relatively unscathed." There was a pause as Commander Beelzebub ran the calculations, quickly coming to the same consensus as the chief librarian. Understood. Fire support incoming. Felstorm out.

When the comlink switched off, Arachnus scurried over to Valefor's side, watching as his master finished disassembling the shield generator until even an army of pit-droids couldn't put it back together again.

"Master, we will need to move quickly. We have fire support incoming, but we are technically within the target zone. I suggest we locate this nexus of energy soon."

Briefly the Professor's circuits were distressed when the ghostly apparitions appeared, spectral soldiers sweeping in towards their position where the BX commandos had formed an honour guard of blessed steel around their demonic overlord. Mutant abominations such as the rakghoul, they could fight, but spirits? The chief librarian could find nothing useful in his database for dealing with that particular threat. Even so, he prepared to give the instruction to the droids to fire, flicking corrupted blood from his right forearm as he raised the mechanical limb to give the signal. Before his razor edge appendage swept down, the strange ethereal phenomenon dissipated as the spiritual energy they consisted of appeared to be drawn into one of the empty slots on the Fabricator General's mystical gauntlet. A dozen different photo-receptors spread across his circular chassis whirred and clicked as they captured the scene and stored the information to his database for later dissemination. As for the threat of the rakghoul, outside the safe space the Forge Master had created, those mutants not caught in the artillery strike were choked to death by highly toxic trihexalon. Leather fleshed freaks sputtered and wept blood from every orifice, coughing up bits of burnt lungs as they drowned in their own boiling vitae. By all accounts, the hex missiles had proved extremely effective. Arachnus made a note of that.


"Roger, roger!" Screeched the spider droid, snapping a blood slicked limb against his reflec coated dome, mimicking the affirmative of the commando droids, their behaviour clearly rubbing off on the organic hating robo-arachnid. :: Arachnus to Felstorm, mission complete. Get us a ride out of here, Beelzebub! ::


Slowly lumbering in to sight as an army of repulsor engines carried the massive black pyramid of the Felstorm through the sky, the flagship of the Fabricator General fell behind a rolling storm cloud of crackling radioactive particulate and poison gas, heading towards the garrison with a deadly payload of black rain. From the forwards hangar of the star pyramid, a Sheathipede-class transport shuttle launched out of the warship's bosom and streaked ahead of the toxic cloud, its engines burning hot as the OOM pilot pushed the accelerator to the max. Fearlessly, the droid behind the cockpit took it through the chop of the twister dispersing the gas around the base, causing it to erupt through a luminous green barrier as it came down above the ruined garrison. Mandible like landing gear extended from its side moments before it crunched down hard on the courtyard, its shocks absorbing the hard landing with expulsions of steam. A hard bang sounded as the ramp hit the old stone, exposing the lit interior.


Forming a protective circle, the BX commandos escorted the red winged ruler of the Forge Worlds into the shuttle, not that there was anything left living to protect the Sorcerer Supreme from. As the members of the Legios Cybernetica boarded the shuttle, they left behind only death and destruction, departing another ruin of their own making. More souls for the Dark Forge...

"Korriban!" Shrieked the spider droid excitedly, rapidly tittering from side to side in a series of loud metallic taps of his bladed leg tips on the deck. "What delightful news, master. I must make preparations for a new exhibit within the Daemonium Bibliotheca." He screeched synthetically, using the official name of the Felstorm's great library, which translated from ancient black-script into galactic basic as the 'Demon's Library'. While there were repositories of arcane knowledge established on every Forge World in service to the Fabricator General, his flagship contained the darkest and most potent artifacts from the Red Sage's adventures, a vast collection of darkside imbued relics and sorcerous lore. As the original homeworld of todays modern day Sith, Korriban was likely to contained a wealth of knowledge and items that would serve as a capstone on the Demon Lord's already impressive treasury.

On the main view-screen, the Professor could see the last of the C-9979s emerging from the fire bombed surface of the planet, now a smoking irradiated wasteland left in the wake of the Legios' advance through the cosmos. On those crimson winged transport, which in some small way emulated the image of their demonic overlord's own red winged form, captives taken from small settlements across Had Abaddon were currently being put to the blade. Beneath unlit deck lights where only the hateful scarlet glow of bloody photo-receptors dispelled the otherwise utter black, serrated filleting knives were dragged across naked flesh, splitting skin and spilling hot blood across the metallic floor plates in a red geyser of steaming vitae. Sentient sacrifices were made to appease the void tides and ease the star pyramid's passage through the lightspeed dimension of hyperspace. Even at a distance, as the chief librarian watched the screen with a dozen different glowing mechanical eyes, he could see the expulsions of vented atmosphere as bloodless corpses were jettisoned into the vacuum prior to the dragonfly shaped frigates leaping out of the system.

Seated on the obsidian bridge throne, the tactical droid Commander Beelzebub heard everything, his cybernetic mind already running through a multitude of scenarios as he cross referenced the star pyramids inventory. Korriban wouldn't be like Geonosis or Kessel. Its population had already been reduced by the ceaseless crawl of time and catastrophic events. This journey would likely require a finer touch as opposed to a scouring torch. Tapping a sequence of buttons into the control arm of the throne, the droid commander sent instructions down to Research Bay 13 where one of the Demon Lord's experiments was currently contained. In the dark depths, a single shard's scream could be felt across the aether, causing the psychic plane to echo his tortured shriek. A survivor of the massacre of the Iron Citadel on Orax, the sentient crystal was being reshaped into a weapon to serve the Demon Lord, encased in a prison of blessed steel in the form of a Sith Elite Warbot. The indoctrination process had shattered its mind and had mostly driven the silicon based being mad, turning them feral and filling them full of uncontrollable rage. The shackled shard, code named Corrosion, snarled into the fey as the droid tenders prepared the Legios latest weapon for war.