=== Obi-Wan ===
The southern wall of Eriadu's primary garrison trembled with the thud of distant artillery. Obi-Wan Kenobi stood atop the fortification's parapet, his cloak billowing in the dust-laden wind, the light of late afternoon slanting across the haze. Below him, streets had been stripped bare of civilians; only the hard clatter of armored boots and the deep growl of Republic walkers echoed in the silence.
He kept his eyes on the sprawling industrial plain to the south, where smoke plus and fire bursts marked the front line. The Separatists were pressing hard now, harder than any other engagent on the planet so far, exactly as Maximus had predicted. The tactical withdrawal had begun twenty minutes ago, clone squads peeling back into the narrow streets of the southern district, drawing the droid forces deeper, pulling them toward the choke points.
Commander Cody's voice crackled over the comm.
"General, phase one withdrawal complete. Southern barricades evacuated. Droids are advancing faster than expected."
"Good," Obi-Wan replied calmly, though his hands tightened on the edge of the wall. "The faster they co, the faster this ends."
Beside him, Governor Wilhuff Tarkin observed the plain with binoculars, his face set in a hard line. "The outsider seed certain they'd take the bait. Let's see if that certainty was misplaced."
Obi-Wan kept his tone level. "If I've learned anything in the last two days, Governor, it's that Captain Maximus does not deal in uncertainties."
They both watched as the Separatist line surged forward, dozens of AAT tanks rumbling over scorched earth, flanked by swarms of B1 battle droids and heavy B2s in their slow, deliberate march. Behind them, multi-legged crab droids and spider droids picked their way across the uneven terrain, their cannons swiveling for new targets. The droid army moved like a tal tide, each wave pouring into the streets of the southern district, chasing the retreating clones.
Tarkin lowered the binoculars. "If this fails, they'll be on these walls in less than twenty minutes."
Obi-Wan smiled faintly. "Then we must be certain it does not fail."
A deep rumble drew his attention eastward, a column of black smoke rising from the industrial quarter. Maximus's sector. The Ultramarine's plan was audacious: while the Republic forces lured the main Separatist army forward, he and his Azure Talons would cut straight into the eastern flank, bypassing the heaviest concentrations, to strike the command and coordination relays that controlled the droid army. If it worked, their advance would turn into chaos.
But Obi-Wan knew the danger. Without their attention divided, the Separatists could overwhelm him and Cody's forces in minutes. Everything depended on timing.
The chrono on his wrist ticked over. Any second now.
A sudden flash, a deep, localized detonation, lit the eastern skyline. A communications spire toppled in the distance, its upper half crashing into an adjacent factory with a grinding roar. Through the dust, small shapes, shuttles or dropcraft, darted away like birds scattering from a hunter's strike.
Then it happened.
The droid formations in the plain faltered. Entire platoons slowed, their movents jerky and uncoordinated. A B1 commander at the front suddenly rotated in place, confused, its arm waving aimlessly before a clone sniper's bolt took its head clean off. The AAT tanks swiveled their turrets at nothing in particular, so even reversing in confusion.
Obi-Wan didn't hesitate. "All units, forward, now! Advance and press them!"
From the streets behind him, Republic forces surged forward, platoons of clones, AT-TE walkers lumbering with their massive cannons raised, and LAAT gunships screaming overhead. The air filled with the thunder of heavy blasters and the sizzling hum of blue and red bolts crisscrossing the smoky sky.
Obi-Wan leapt from the parapet into the fray, landing beside Cody at the head of a clone spearhead. His lightsaber ignited with its signature snap-hiss, a sapphire blade cutting arcs through the smoke. He deflected incoming fire with graceful sweeps, stepping into the chaos with the calm precision of a master.
The enemy was in disarray. Without proper commands, the droids reverted to their basic programming, simple attack protocols, no coordination. They charged individually, easy prey for the disciplined clone formations.
Cody pointed down a narrow street where an AAT was forcing its way between two buildings. "General! Flank left!"
Obi-Wan nodded and dashed forward, vaulting over cover, his blade carving through a pair of B2s that lood in his path. He closed the distance to the tank, slicing deep into its side armor as it fired wildly at an AT-RT walker behind him. Sparks and smoke burst from the breach, and with a final force shove, the Jedi sent the machine toppling onto its side.
Explosions roared on all sides. Overhead, a gunship unleashed a rain of rockets into a spider droid cluster, the shockwave rattling windows across the block. Tarkin's voice cut through the comm, clipped, but unmistakably impressed.
"I take it this ans the Ultramarine's part is complete?"
Obi-Wan parried a blaster bolt and allowed himself a smile. "It would seem so, Governor. Now let's see how quickly we can drive them off the planet."
From the east, distant booms continued, Maximus's team still at work, systematically tearing apart the Separatist infrastructure. But here, on the southern front, the tide had turned. The droid army was collapsing, and Obi-Wan ant to push that collapse as far as it would go.
He advanced, lightsaber whirling, voice steady over the comms.
"Forward, n! The enemy is broken! let's finish this."
And the Republic forces surged, a wave of living warriors sweeping aside the chanical horde.
=== Maximus ===
The air was a choking cocktail of ozone, burning fuel, and the tallic tang of dust ground into the air by war machines. Maximus crouched atop a jagged ridge of ferrocrete rubble, the remains of a collapsed storage silo, and studied the target zone through his helt's autosenses.
The enemy's eastern command network sprawled before him, a cluster of massive spires, relay dishes, and fortified bunkers interconnected by heavy conduits. Each structure pulsed with electronic chatter, their combined signals guiding thousands of droid units across the southern battlefront.
In the distance, the main Separatist army was pouring into Obi-Wan's sector, exactly as planned. The trap's jaws were almost closed. All that remained was for him and the Azure Talons to smash the Separatist brain before the enemy realized what was happening.
"Brother-Sergeant Varric," Maximus said, his voice amplified within the Talons' private vox-net. "Status of the infiltration teams?"
A gravelly reply ca instantly.
"Positions secured, my lord. Squad Dravik has the southern choke point locked. Squad Lorn is ready with lta charges on your signal."
Maximus's eyes flicked to the tactical display in his visor, five green icons surrounding the relay hub, each marking a Space Marine led kill team hidden among the shattered buildings.
"Begin." Maximus said simply.
He rose to his full height, the ceramite plates of his power armor shifting with a low growl of servos. In his right gauntlet, his Thunderhamr humd faintly, its power field itching for release.
With a sharp hand gesture, he signaled the attack.
The first blow ca from above, a streak of fire as a Stormtalon gunship roared in low over the rooftops, unleashing a withering hail of assault cannon rounds into the nearest comms spire. Superheated tracers tore through durasteel plating like paper, severing power lines in a cascade of sparks. The spire's top section shuddered, then collapsed, sending an avalanche of twisted tal crashing into the streets below.
Even as the echoes rolled across the district, Squad Lorn's lta charges went off. A bunker wall bulged outward in a blossom of white-hot energy, the duracrete vaporizing as five hulking figures and their squads stord through the breach. Bolters thundered, each shot punching through multiple droids in sprays of molten alloy.
Maximus moved.
He vaulted from the rubble and hit the ground with the weight of a falling statue, the street cracking under his boots. His hamr swung up in a fluid arc and ca down on the nearest B2 super battle droid. The impact was cataclysmic, the droid's torso crumpled into itself as a ripple of kinetic force blasted three more off their feet.
Blaster fire erupted from the rooftops. The Talons were everywhere now, descending in controlled fury, their armor catching the firelight in flashes of cobalt and gold.
"Press hard," Maximus ordered, his voice like a war drum over the vox. "We sever the brain in one blow!"
The first relay dish lood ahead, its fra taller than a city block. Waves of B1 droids spilled from side streets to intercept, their voices shrieking attack orders.
Maximus didn't slow. He plowed through them like a breaking tide, each swing of his hamr scattering bodies and limbs in all directions. A blaster bolt struck his pauldron, flaring harmlessly against the layered ceramite. Another skittered off his helm's crest. His advance was relentless, each step a hamr fall of its own.
Brother-Sergeant Varric's heavy bolter barked from a rooftop to his left, stitching a path of explosive death through the droid ranks. "Eastern periter thinning, my Lord!"
Maximus raised his gaze to the relay's base. Its armor plating was thick, but the seams were vulnerable. He activated his vox again.
"Squad Dravik, prepare breach charges. Squad Krenn, suppress all reinforcents from the north."
Acknowledgnts ca instantly.
Under covering fire from the Talons, Maximus reached the base of the relay. He jamd a lta charge into a structural joint and slamd his fist on the prir. A piercing whine built in pitch, then detonated in a flash of blinding heat. The joint ruptured, and the entire relay shuddered like a wounded beast.
The top section began to tilt, groaning in protest. It toppled in slow motion, tearing free from its moorings, then smashed into a secondary comms tower with a deafening crash. Sparks and fire belched from the wreckage.
But the Separatists weren't idle. From the east, a massive form strode into view, an Octuptarra tri-droid, its three spindly legs carrying a bulbous head bristling with heavy blasters. Its guns opened up instantly, sweeping the street in a hail of searing plasma.
One bolt slamd into the rubble beside Maximus, showering him with shards of stone. Another clipped Brother Krenn's armor, spinning him halfway around before he steadied himself.
Maximus turned to face it, voice calm despite the chaos. "With ."
He sprinted forward, closing the gap in long, loping strides. A plasma burst slamd into his breastplate, the heat bleeding through in a wave, but he ignored it. As the tri-droid's guns rotated to track him, Maximus leapt with the help of his jump pack, and brought his Thunderhamr down on one of its legs.
The leg shattered under the blow, the entire war machine pitching sideways. It tried to stabilize, but a second hamr strike obliterated another joint. The tri-droid collapsed in a tangled heap, its last shots firing harmlessly into the sky.
Maximus planted his boot on the wreckage and voxed the Talons. "The path is open!" He roared as he thrust his hamr towards the sky.
The final hub was a squat, heavily reinforced bunker at the district's center, its roof bristling with dishes and antennas. Droid squads poured from every entrance, firing wildly as they tried to hold back the Azure Talons' encirclent.
But it was hopeless.
Maximus advanced with his brothers and his legion in a brutal wedge formation, their bolters roaring in perfect cadence. The ground was slick with oil and debris by the ti they reached the bunker doors.
He dashed forward with a burst of his jump pack, blowing the entrance inward with his shoulder, the shockwave hurling defenders into the walls. Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the sharp stench of burning circuits. Console lights flickered desperately.
Maximus strode to the central command core, a pillar of machinery pulsing with blue light, and without another word, swung his hamr straight through it.
The blow cracked the housing in half, spilling exposed conduits and control nodes. Energy flared wildly, systems overloading, sparks raining like molten rain. Outside, the effects were imdiate, every droid in sight froze mid-step, their photoreceptors flickering, before slumping lifeless to the ground.
Maximus turned from the shattered core.
"Now to finish them!"
Through his helt's feed, he could already see the southern front collapsing, Obi-Wan's forces surging forward into the chaos. The trap had sprung, perfectly tid, perfectly executed.
He allowed himself a single mont to take in the scene, the smoke, the ruin, everything, before he lifted his hamr onto his shoulder and moved to rejoin the wider battle.
Stepping atop a massive Baneblade-pattern siege tank, a behemoth of the chanicum, Maximus gripped the banner of his chapter, pointing towards where Obi-Wan and his troops were.
"Onward!" He bood.
The tanks treads crushed craters into the duracrete as its main cannon turned and fired, tearing entire columns of Separatist armor into molten slag. Around him, the azure and gold banners of the Imperium fluttered in the hellish winds as they surged forward.
He held onto the flag of the Ultramarines, its massive U snapping defiantly in the gale, and in his other hand rested his heavy bolt pistol, spitting mass-reactive shells into the swarming ranks of battle droids below. Each shot burst through durasteel plating, igniting explosions inside the droids' torsos, turning neat ranks into jagged ruin.
"Forward!" his voice bood over the din, amplified by the vox-grilles in his helm. "No retreat! No quarter! No rcy!"
The Mandalorians surged ahead at his call, jetpacks roaring, their rifles cutting precise swathes through the Separatist lines. Republic clone tanks advanced on either flank, their turrets tracking, their cannons hamring enemy fortifications. The Ultramarines, disciplined as ever, moved in lockstep with the armored spearhead.
A flash of movent caught his eye, a column of AAT tanks wheeling into position on a ridge. Their turrets swung as one, and the lead gunner found his mark.
The tank's cannon discharged with a thunderous crack.
Maximus had a half-second to register the incoming shell before it struck him square in the chest.
The impact hurled him from the Baneblade's hull like a ragdoll, his armored bulk slamming through the façade of a low building. Duracrete exploded outward in a rain of rubble and dust as he punched through two interior walls before finally crashing to the floor in a heap of shattered stone and twisted tal.
For a mont, all was ringing silence.
The Ultramarines and Azure Talons roared as one, his brothers quickly making their way towards where he was thrown while the Legion covered them.
Maximus' breastplate was blackened around a crater the size of a man's head. Warning runes blazed crimson across his helt display, and the rebreather hissed as it fought to stabilize his oxygen intake. But his hearts still beat. His gene-forged muscles still obeyed.
He growled, a deep, primal sound, and shoved the rubble from his back with a surge of inhuman strength. Masonry crashed aside, and the building's dust-choked air parted as he rose to his full, towering height.
He stepped back into the daylight to be greeted by his brothers and the battle that was still raging.
With a roar, Maximus ignited his jump pack. Blue-white fire burst from the exhaust vents, and he launched himself into the sky above the flag of his chapter, still snapping in the wind. Below, ranks of B1s and B2s aid up, loosing volleys of blasterfire, but he was already descending.
His Thunderhamr ca down with the wrath of the Emperor himself.
The ground split beneath the impact, shockwaves rippling outward in concentric circles. Droids nearest to the point of impact were pulverized instantly, their chassis collapsing under the kinetic force. Those further out were flung into the air like scrap tossed from a forge.
He didn't pause. He waded into the droid formation, the Thunderhamr a blur of destruction. Each swing crushed multiple enemies at once, mass-reactive bolts from his pistol detonating in mid-swing to scatter shrapnel into the next wave. His blows reduced B2 super battle droids to twisted wreckage, limbs and torsos spinning away in showers of sparks.
A hail of blasterfire hamred his armor, leaving scorched marks across its blue and gold plates, but he pressed forward, using his sheer anger to shatter the enemy.
Mandalorians swept in overhead, jetpacks screaming, their blasters and wrist-rockets adding to the carnage. Clone troopers advanced around him, emboldened by the sight of the towering Astartes cutting a swathe through the enemy ranks.
A Separatist Hailfire droid rolled into view, its missile pods swiveling toward him.
Maximus didn't slow.
The first salvo streaked toward him, warheads shrieking, he swung the Thunderhamr in a wide arc, smashing two missiles out of the air, the explosions rolling over his armor in waves of heat. The rest struck the ground around him, showering him in debris.
Through the smoke, he charged.
One leap carried him onto the Hailfire's chassis, his armored boots denting the reinforced fra. With a roar, he drove the Thunderhamr straight down, the head of the weapon punching through the droid's core like paper. Energy flared, systems overloaded, and the entire war machine erupted in a ball of fire.
He stepped through the flas, letting the fire lick at his armor as he gripped his hamr in both hands. He raised it over his head, as he looked down at a command droid that had fallen at his feet.
"None can stand against our hatred!"
BOOM!
===
If you enjoyed this chapter, maybe consider leaving with a couple of your power stones? I promise I'll take good care of them:)
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