Star Wars: Total Galactic Eclipse

Act I; Part VIII: Walker Flyer

As Besh team reaches the doorway to the furthest complex in the hanger, Zatnibi tells them to wait, "I'll need a few more minutes to meditate back to full strength. It's not easy to heal a wound like that, even with the force."

Kel scouts ahead. He sees an old Imperial AT-ST walker, but it appears to have been modified in some way. For one, it has rockets on its legs, and a much wider array of weapons. It's legs are about 30% shorter than a normal walker, and its cabin slightly larger with thicker armor and more machinery. Upon scanning it, he determines it to be made of beskar and piloted by one person.

He calls Rhetta, the Colonel, and Balus, "Hey what's this thing?"

Balus answers, "It was built by the Empire for Riker Alden to use during the Teth Mission. Rhetta knows a lot more about that mission since she was there, but I can tell you that the walker itself was made of beskar. There was an agreement at the time that it would be given to Mandalore after the mission was over, but later on it was lost during the great purge. Eventually, it must have been recovered by Big Boss as a relic of his mission against Rhid Belessk.

"It's equipped with rocket boosters strong enough to allow brief periods of slow, controlled flight. It can't go very high or very fast, but it gives the thing a lot of movement options not available to normal walkers. It also has a lot more weapons, including a tow cable launcher and rockets. It was intended to give Big Boss a fighting chance against any small force based machines Rhid might have, like the Great Leviathan. Though, if the Great Leviathan itself were there, the walker would have been little help, but that didn't stop Viper from using it to successfully bring down the powerful Dark Obliterator, the dark side equal of the Great Leviathan.

"Force based machines are sort of like living vehicles. They have feelings and emotions, despite being made of metal and filled with computers and power generators just like conventional aircraft. They are ineffective if cut off from the force, but the fact that they still function and feel pain when that happens proves that the force suppression tech doesn't eliminate the force, just severs the bonds between everything and causes the force within things to back down into a corner... so to speak."

Kel goes back inside, "Hey, can you repeat all that for the rest of the team."

Balus does. Jorus asks, "This Blood Brothers mission on Teth... can you tell us more about what happened that day? Everything we've seen keeps pointing back to that."

Rhetta sighs, "I don't see why not. A week earlier, Riker extracted Galen Erso from Rhid Belessk's compound on Antar IV. Rhid Belessk, at that point, had employed Rael, Ttaz Menon, those Clone Commanders, Veractyl, and Zherph. Riker'd had enough of the Empire at that point, not that he communicated his distaste to any of his crew, and when he was dispatched to Teth to clean up the rest of the mess, he started his plan to take over Rhid's entire army by convincing all the leaders to follow him instead.

"The Clone commandos came first. He convinced each of them in turn, and then with their help, he convinced his Stormtrooper support battalion commanders. He did this by letting each commander talk to the Clone that most embodied his own personal philosophy: Attin, the Mirialen that led a company of all aliens, was easiest to convince and so met with Electrum, who pointed out the hypocrisy of the empire and told him that trying to prove himself was a dead end. Jetson, being a true believer, was more difficult.

"He met with Iceman, who had so staunchly defended the order to eliminate Ttaz Menon given to him by the Supreme Chancellor. Having gone through the realization that the Empire is built on deceit and tyranny himself, he knew just what buttons to press to show Jetson the true evil of the Empire. It was with Iceman that Erika's father, Weiss, became the first victim of the force suppression grenades Escher had issued Riker.