Jedi Insurgency 235

The reinforced barricade protecting the junction was filled with men. ARC troopers fanned out, covering each and every angle of attack. Blue-white energy shimmered to life around each of them as their personal shields activated, forming tight, translucent shells that clung close to their armor like a second skin.

“Contact imminent.” One of them barked over the comms, his voice steady, and professional. “Thermal readings spiking ahead. I count fifty.”

A low chuckle crackled through the channel. “Good. Been a while since we tested these toys.”

Equipped with state of the art armor, and experimental weapons, they had trained for this moment ever since Jango Fett personally taught the first class all those years ago. 

The first Jedi came into view at the far end of the corridor, the telltale hum of lightsabers filling the air was overwhelming. Orange, blue, green, yellow, purple, colors of all sorts flickered in the dim light, reflecting off the large columns of the Imperial Palace. 

“Open fire.”

The corridor erupted in a cacophony of light and sound. 

Sonic rifles discharged with a bone-shaking thrum, sending invisible waves rippling forward, distorting the very air itself. Blaster bolts followed in disciplined volleys, red streaks cutting through the haze. Two turrets shot out heavy AOE rounds with enough force to leave a small pit every time they struck the ground. Several crack shots echoed in the hall as the snipers hanging from the ceiling unloaded their slugthrowers. Grenades arced overhead, clattering against the floor before detonating in tight, concussive blasts that filled the passage with a never ending deluge of shrapnel. 

Flametroopers stepped forward, unleashing roaring cones of fire that washed over the advancing Jedi, turning the corridor into an inferno.

For a moment, just a moment, it appeared that this tactic of overwhelming firepower would do the trick..

Several Jedi staggered, seemingly unable to cope with the ARC troopers tiered method of attack. One was thrown off his feet by a sonic burst, another forced back under the weight of combined fire. The clones pressed forward, their confidence rising.

“Keep the pressure up! They can’t deflect all of it!” One brother shouted even as his comrade next to him had his shield popped due to a reflected blaster bolt. 

The brother who had been struck ducked behind cover, and gave a thumbs up, waiting for it to recharge. “Advance! They're at the end of their ropes, brothers!”

They moved as one, a wall of well trained death marched forward, each and every one of their shots was well aimed, and perfectly timed. Perhaps only a supernatural being trained in the Force, or a top of the line droid could act as fast, and be as accurate as these killers. Personally trained by the most skilled Mandalorian in generations, and augmented to be more aggressive, skilled, and decisive than any Human ever before, they were the Emperor’s ARC troopers! 

This was how you killed Jedi. Overwhelm them, deny them space, never let them breathe. Hit them with everything you've got! Melt the led from slugthrowers into their faces, smoke them out with gas grenades, send shrapnel from every angle. Leave no quarter! 

And yet, despite this seemingly clean advance, not a single Jedi had dropped dead yet. 

“Something’s wrong.” A trooper muttered, he tried phasing through different light spectrums on his helmet, and discovered through all the smoke and flames, that no one was dying! 

Shaking his head, the trooper drew his vibroknife, and punctured his own armor, stabbing himself in the thigh. Upon drawing blood, the clarity of pain brought him back to reality. 

The truth was, not a single one of his brothers had fired a single shot! They were all standing still! 

“Kill them all!” A brother standing next to him roared…and yet, he remained unmoving! 

“Wake up, brothers! Awaken from this slumber! Remember your training!” Commander Blitz roared from the command center, he then reluctantly typed in a command sequence, and each and every one of the troopers had the chip in their brain activate. 

Such a maneuver was a last resort, as it basically made the man forget most of his learned experiences, and returned him to ‘factory default’ so to speak. But the brain chip did its duty, and each and every man trapped in the [Mind Trick] woke from their stupor. 

…however, it was too late! 

“Fire!” The man who had stabbed himself desperately urged. 

The Jedi now had almost completely bypassed the lengthy corridor, and were seconds from being on top of them. 

This time, they truly did strike the Jedi, but something was different this time. Blaster bolts splashed upon their robes with little effect, sonic waves dissipated, as though swallowed by an invisible barrier.

The flames parted around them, curling away as if repelled by an unseen force. Not even the slugs were safe, and bounced off of the religious fanatics harmlessly, like a bullet hitting a solid steel wall. 

“They’ve got shields!” Someone shouted, disbelief cracking his voice. “They’ve got shields!”

“Impossible-!” The next sentence died on the tip of the trooper's tongue as the Jedi surged forward.

What had been a controlled engagement collapsed into chaos in a heartbeat.

They moved too fast. Much too fast! An augmented ARC trooper in power armor could track a Jedi Knight, when a full squad was assembled, they had a chance at killing this singular Knight…but serving as the Jedi vanguard were Masters! 

One moment they were at the far end of the corridor, the next, they were up close and personal. 

Lightsabers carved arcs of lethal brilliance through the confined space, and the clones’ confidence shattered.

“Brace, I want you to bra-uaghh!” 

The first impact came like a thunderclap.

A towering figure burst through the smoke at the forefront of the charge. He was a mountain of muscle. A Jedi unlike any other, he had gone into exile due to his killer instinct, now he had returned during the Order's most desperate counter attack. Bare-chested, his skin gleamed with sweat and ash, whilst his immaculately combed braided beard flowed along with him as if he were some wizard from a holodrama. Kirak Infil’a moved like a force of nature unleashed, his presence overwhelming, his power undeniable.

Various metal barricades, and fused together crates acted as a final barrier, intent on slowing his advance. The twin cannons fired at the ground in front of Kirak for all they're worth, attempting to slow him down, and blow out his legs. 

Kirak didn't care one bit for these nuisances. 

He crashed through it all, swatting everything aside with both his saber & the palm of his hand. Finally he met the barriers, and instead of cutting through, he rammed his well defined body into it, enhancing his own strength through the Force. 

The impact was earth shattering, sending vibrations all throughout the Imperial Palace. Much to the disbelief of the ARC troopers, Kirak smashed through the defenses as if he were a grown man stomping his way through a child's fort made out of tin foil. 

A clone raised his rifle, but he was too slow. Infil’a’s blade came down in a brutal, two-handed strike, smashing through through shield. Seeing that the personal shield was good for two to three hits, he solely relied upon his saber to deflect blaster bolts. Meanwhile, his gnarled offhand reached forth, and crushed the clone's skull with a single, super speed punch. Bone and gore splattered everywhere as the corpse fell to the floor. As was the case with this trooper, and all denizens of Star Wars, he could only have one shield type active at a time. Either one that protected against energy attacks, or one that defended against blunt force…no one had told the clones that a Jedi could use more than his lightsaber as a weapon! 

Another man lunged forward with a vibroblade, acting just as his brother had died, using his sacrifice to jump the Jedi whilst he was occupied. 

Kirak met him head-on.

The Jedi Master caught the macromolecular blade with the palm of his hand mid-strike. Grunting to press his weapon forward, the trained killer gasped in pain as his arm was twisted like a pretzel, and then screamed as Kirak wielded his body like a pool noodle, slamming him into two other men until they formed a pile of mangled corpses.

“Fall back! Fall-” One man screamed, when suddenly he fell to the ground, screaming about some nightmare. 

Master Malicos-dressed in his white clone armor-appeared behind Kirak, clenching his fist. A sinister grin was hidden beneath his shaggy beard as dozens of men had their minds fried. 

“This is not the Jedi way!” Obi-Wan stepped before Malicos, and declared, parrying a bolt into a shield that absorbed it. 

“Save your sanctimonious lecturing for another day, Kenobi! This is war!” Malicos madly laughed, pushing Obi-Wan away whilst he found new targets to punish. 

Obi-Wan pursed his lips, ultimately sighing as he ran forward to help pull away the pressure from the weaker Knights, pressing his knowledge of Form III into a sublime performance. Not a single blaster bolt past him by, and with a wave of the hand, he used [Tutaminis], sending the flames back from whence they came. 

Upon hearing the screams, and smelling the charbroil, and Malicos openly laughed, and glanced mockingly at Obi-Wan, as if to say see, we're not so different, you and I! 

“Do not worry about Malicos's actions, Obi-Wan. We must not become lost in the slaughter. The Darkside Nexus is our true objective.” Shaak Ti said from the side. 

“Wise counsel indeed, Shaak Ti, but where have those two boys gone? Without them, the ritual cannot be started.” Obi-Wan said in concern. 

Meanwhile, the rout continued to take affect. 

Where once there was refined order, now there was retreat. Although the ARC troopers were the finest mass produced soldiers in the galaxy, they were nothing compared to an aroused group of Jedi bent on revenge. 

Close quarters combat had become the norm, exactly where the clones had not wanted them.

Sonic weapons became useless in the crush. Flamers risked friendly fire. Blasters fired at point-blank range only to be redirected or absorbed by that impossible, shimmering barrier.

A trooper fired three rapid shots into a Jedi’s chest. Each bolt struck the invisible field, only to slide away, into nothingness. The Jedi didn’t once break stride. When the clones tried to split up so that they could fire from a wide spreading arc, the Jedi all worked together, as if acting on some unseen signal, and pulled over 300 troopers towards them all at once. 

Dropping to the floor with multiple thuds, they struggled to rise, only to have their minds become overheated, like a dehydrated  Jawa in the Dune Sea of Tatooine. 

Explosives detonated in the corridor, but the Jedi moved through the fire and the flames like specters, their barrier shielding them from the worst of it, their movements guided by the Force itself. 

“Incoming! Fall back to the orange line, we must link up with the reinforce-” 

Too late!

Kirak slammed into another squad, his strikes wide, powerful, and unstoppable. He fought like a storm given form. There was no wasted motion, no hesitation. Each swing of his blade, each elbow strike, flying knee, or roundhouse kick carried with it the crushing weight of a Rancor. Each step drove him deeper into the formation. Blood and gore surrounded him, bones snapped, and it was as if he were a God of War. 

But Kirak did not gloat. He did not bellow, beat his chest, or show any Human emotions whatsoever. No, perhaps what made him so intimidating, so unstoppable was his lack of care. His face was still as a pond, his body solid as if it were a statue carved from an ancient era. The disregard in his eyes was like that of a man's disregard for an ant.

His vanguard actions broke through line after line. Clone troopers from the Coruscant Guard -their gear marked with a red stripe-began to surge forward to make up the numbers. A million man Legion had plunged into the depths of the Imperial Palace…it wasn't enough. 

A clone’s shield flared brightly as it caught a glancing strike, once, twice, then failed on the third, a random Knight's saber punched through it with brutal finality.

“Shields can’t hold!” Someone shouted, panic rising. “They’re too strong!” 

The line broke. 

ARC troopers-veterans of a hundred battles, men who had hunted and killed Jedi before-began to give ground as easily as a brigade of shinies would when they first met Grievous on the battlefield all those years ago. 

But there was nowhere to go. As they tried to retreat, the regulars pressed forward, clogging the halls. 

More Jedi poured into the corridor behind Kirak, their presence overwhelming. 

A trooper triggered his last grenade and charged at them, only to be flung back into his compatriots, exploding alongside three other clones. 

“Unstoppable, he is unsto-” The last ARC trooper deployed at the forward base desperately muttered, only to be silenced forever as Kirak snapped his neck. 

Stomping on the helmet, the shirtless venerable cracked his neck, and slowly walked towards the Coruscanti Guardsmen. Nervously taking a step back, the troopers hesitated to fire. The chips in their head-activated since Order 66-six months ago commanded they shoot, but fear stayed their hands. 

Whilst they were hesitating, several dozen lightsabers ignited from behind, cutting them down. 

“Finally. A challenge.” Kirak spoke in a deep voice. 

“Oh, not good.” Obi-Wan frowned from the side. 

“It cannot be!” Shaak Ti gasped in surprise. 

“What horrendous technology.” Malicos licked his lips in wonder. When he tried to bring them to their knees with a [Mind Trick], it was utterly useless. 

Emerging from the fallen clone corpses were 24 four-armed cyborgs. Each one was an exact replica of Grievous. Armor black as obsidian coated their forms, Sith runes etching them from head to toe. Flanking them, a dozen different Sith warbeasts-each one unique in appearance-howled like slobbering fiends. And waiting even further back was the core group of about 13 ‘Master’ tier Inquisitors/Emperor’s Hands lying in wait to launch a surprise assault. 

Lightsabers ignited, the Grievous clones laughed as one. 

“Another lightsaber to add to my collection.” 

~~~~~~~~

AN: I hope you like Project G. I've been foreshadowing this shit since Vindi made his debut.