Chapter 28

Spark and Crow landed gracefully on a rooftop after slowing their descent to a safe speed using their thruster packs. They then moved to the edge of the rooftop to watch Clank smash into the street below like an artillery shell, only using his thrusters the bare minimum.

The platoon of battle droids marching down the street could barely process what had just happened when streams of automatic blaster fire ripped through them, turning the entire platoon into scrap metal in the blink of an eye.

More battle droids started filling the street bellow, and soon the street was filled with flying blaster bolts and the maniacal laughter of a slightly unhinged droid.

"You go find a nice tall building that you can start sniping from, I'll help our mad friend down there" Spark told Crow before hurling a thermal detonator at a group of battle droids trying to sneak up on Clank and then opening fire with his heavy repeating blaster.

Crow nodded and ran off, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, looking for an ideal sniping position. Spark moved about the rooftops as well raining blaster fire down on the battle droids from above.

Clank meanwhile just charged straight into the densest areas of battle droids, firing his blasters, and launching grenades from inbuilt grenade launchers on his arms. All the while Letting out his loud synthetic laugh and shouting about the joys of battle.

-

Crow was now lying on top of a large domed building, his longblaster pointed towards an unsuspecting column of advancing battle droids. Several armoured assault tanks were moving behind the marching droids, the tanks commanders hatches were open and droid commanders were poking their heads out the hatches.

His blaster rifle fired and one of the droid commanders exploded into chunks of scrap metal. The column of droids stopped and looked around in alarm before a second blaster blot reduced another droid commander to a useless hunk of junk.

The battle droids started trying to find where the shots were coming from, but Theed's wide, straight streets meant Crow could stay a long way away from the column and still fire effectively. There was also no shortage of tall buildings so Crow could fire a couple of shots then reposition quickly to a new spot without the battle droids locating him.

The trade federation's droid army was controlled by its droid control ships, because having over a hundred thousand droids linked to a central computer was a lot cheaper than having over a hundred thousand droids with independent thought and decision making, and the trade federation was all about maximum profit.

The computer on the droid control ship wasn't powerful enough to control the whole army efficiently however, so the federation used droid commanders to give and relay orders on the ground to the standard battle droids. The droid commanders had a higher level of intelligence than the rest of the battle droids and so the battle droids looked to them to make the decisions.

Crow was currently tearing through the Droid commanders in the column of droids. Every shot sent another falling to the ground and soon chaos was descending on the battle droids. With their officers going offline the battle droids were confused and leaderless.

Any droid that showed any initiative was soon blasted by Crow and the rest either tried to find cover in alleyways or behind the tanks. Some tried to fire back but because they didn't know where Crow was, they ended up firing wildly in random directions without hitting anything.

Reinforcements soon came to support the battle droids, but they soon ended up in the same situation as the first droids. The accuracy and the intensity of the blaster fire coming from Crow had convinced the droid commanders that a whole team of snipers were destroying their droids, rather than just Crow, so they were sending more and more droids to try and deal with the problem. Leaving over areas of the city undefended.

-

Clank and Spark were doing something similar to Crow, but while he was doing it through skill and finesse, they were doing it through maximum violence.

They where in a small square near to the Theed royal palace and most of the narrow side streets leading to it were clogged with the burning remains of trade federation tanks and transport vehicles. The only remaining way into the square was through a single narrow side street that Spark, and Clank had turned into a choke point.

Clank was down in the square but somewhere off to the right of the entrance, allowing him to fire on the droids entering but remain safe from return fire until they were fully in the square. Spark was similarly set up but on a rooftop to the left of the entrance, so that he could fire from above the enemy droids.

With Clank and spark on either side of the entrance they were able to fire on the battle droids from both sides and catch them in a brutal crossfire. All the while Clank laughed his maniacal laugh and chanted about random things related to the glory of battle.

Spark had started tuning Clank out after he had started going on about how he was going to 'cleanse the inferior droids whose pathetic combat abilities proved them to be heretics to the great lord of destruction'.

Spark wasn't completely sure if Clank viewed himself as 'the lord of destruction' or if he had joined some sort of cyber-cult when the rest of them weren't paying attention. Either way the less he knew the better, if Clank had become a religious fanatic Spark didn't want to potentially start an argument by misunderstanding some part of his weird religion.

Normally Spark would enjoy starting arguments and watching the chaos they caused. But when he was alone with a potentially unstable killing machine, facing off against what seemed like an entire droid army, his self-preservation won out and he preferred to ignore possible future problems and to focus on trying to keep himself in one piece.

Despite his worries over Clanks sanity, Spark was enjoying himself. The battle droids weren't smart enough to think of a better alternative to overwhelming them with sheer numbers. And with Clank and Spark being in easily defendable positions with a large amount of firepower, they felt content to let them try. If the battle droids did manage to overrun them, they would just use the explosives they had hidden in the square and use their thruster packs to escape to a new spot and start again.

-

Out in the plains outside the capital the Gungan army was also causing a distraction, of slightly less success. The chaos in the city caused by Crow, Clank, and Spark had limited the amount of droids the trade federation could throw at the Gungans. But the droid control ships held over a hundred thousand battle droids each, so there were still tens of thousands left to fight the Gungans.

Due to the tactical brilliance of the gungans general Jar Jar Binks, the gungan army found itself in the centre of a huge flat open plain with only their portable shield generator to protect them. The droids were overlooking them on a series of hills and their tanks began firing on the gungans shield.

The shield held so the droid in charge ordered his troops forward, and soon tanks and transports were speeding towards the gungans. The gungans were used to fighting underwater and mainly used spears and so were unprepared for fighting tanks and droids with blasters.

They were in the middle of open ground, so they were unable to take cover from their enemies ranged weapons causing them to start taking casualties. The superior speed of the trade federation army's vehicles and the droids controlling the high ground also meant the gungans were unable to retreat.

The gungans were forced to stay where they were and fight, but things weren't going well for them. They had successfully caused a distraction but were taking heavy losses doing it.