Chapter 7
Cole once again found himself standing on the bridge of the Beacon. In the following days after the perfect raid on Ord Janon, Separatist chatter had indicated a large deposit of credits was on the planet Anchoron. The army had decided to send several teams of clone commandoes to infiltrate the planet, steal as many credits from the Separatist's coffers as possible, and get out safely. Cole and his ship were to oversee the operation.
Cole watched as the matte-black armored commandoes left on the equally-dark gunships. This night operation was fraught with possible problems: scans and intel had shown much higher security than before, with many places replacing droids with mercenaries. There was a well-armed droid gunship patrolling the area, so the infiltration would need to be very quick as well as silent.
Within a half hour, Cole had received confirmation: the teams had landed safely and the gunships had retreated out of sensor range. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Cole turned away from hologram terminal and went to the main viewport.
"General," a communications officer whispered urgently after running up to him. "We have a problem."
Cole turned sharply to the clone. "What is it?" he asked.
"Our teams have extracted all the funds and were en route to the extraction point when a mercenary patrol ran into them. The firefight has stopped for now, but we have one wounded and the droid gunship is making it impossible to pull them out. Furthermore the mercenaries called for back-up: they have armor en route to the commando's position."
"I'll be right there," Cole said, rushing past the terminals and jumping into the elevator. When it reached the hangar bay, he rushed out.
"Open the bay doors!" he shouted. As the massive doors opened, Cole charged himself with each bounding step. With a super-charged leap, he flew out of the ship and into the lower atmosphere of Anchoron.
As Cole fell towards the ground, he saw the droid gunship hovering far below, searching for the clones. "Time to take it out," he thought, aiming towards it. Doing a flip in mid-air, he executed a thunder drop right onto the gunship. His momentum made his smash right through the ship, ripping through the metal as if it were tissue paper. Seconds later, the spiraling ship exploded.
Soaring down to the ground, Cole landed just as the flaming remains of the gunship fell to the ground. He looked up and saw the commandos emerge from the trees, their dark armor seeming to absorb any available light.
"Everyone here?" he asked, noticing one commando was being supported by two others.
"Yes sir," the lead commando said. "The gunships will be here within a minute, but those tanks will be here before then."
Cole placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I'll take care of the tanks: you just get your men to the LZ."
As the commandos rushed past, Cole went into the tree line and saw the advancing column of tanks. They were neatly lined up; a fatal decision.
"This'll be easy," Cole thought. Raising his arms, he dropped them, calling forth a lightning storm. The bolts of lightning travelled along the path of the tanks, striking each one with several bolts. One by one, each exploded in a fiery blaze. Within seconds, all the tanks were smoking husks.
Cole turned around and saw the gunships had taken off with the commandos. Leaping into the air, Cole flew up after them. Within a few minutes, Cole had landed back in the hangar bay alongside the gunships.
Entering the bridge a few minutes later, Cole was greeted by his intelligence officer. "What did we get?" Cole asked, walking along the bridge towards the viewport.
"Four hundred million credits, sir," the officer replied. "Along with the location of several galactic banks channeling their funds."
"Excellent," Cole replied. "I will report our progress to the Council."
A few hours later...
"Excellent work, Cole," the Jedi sitting next to Master Yoda commented. Cole believed her name was Luminara Unduli.
"A new assignment, we have for you," Yoda said. "Our guidance systems, a special ore they are made of. Running low, we are in parts of the galaxy. The Separatist planet Oorn Tchis, your next target is."
"What is preventing you from taking it with another army?" Cole asked.
"There are problems on the planet: the miners working the mines have a strictly anti-Jedi philosophy," Luminara said, her brows furrowed in concentration. "That is where you come in: you are not a Jedi, so they should have no problem with you. However, the rather large droid garrison must be destroyed."
"When will we arrive?" Cole asked.
"Within two days," was Luminara's reply, the hologram winking out.
Two days later...
Cole stood upon the surface of the planet Oorn Tchis, his ship having landed only hours before. The command base had been set up and the troops were standing at attention, waiting for him to give the order to march.
"Okay, listen up," he said, his voice amplified over the troops. "This will not be an easy assignment." He pressed a button on the massive hologram projector, showing a huge cross-section of the enemy base.
"This entire garrison is made up of droids, mostly the B1 models. There are three towers," he pointed on the map to three red dots, "here, here and here. Each one has multiple missile launchers, so it would be suicide for any of our tanks or gunships to provide support. The moment we take out those towers, then and only then we can evacuate the wounded."
He pointed to four more points on the layout. "This base has four entrances, with the main entrance across from the large forested area. There is a large clearing between the gates and cover, so we must use whatever cover we can."
He pointed to the artillery behind him. "Our artillery will provide covering fire and will attempt to soften up some of the defenses. The dozen STAPs in the base will be a problem, but I am confident our snipers will take care of those. The biggest threats are the three AATs and the one heavy artillery piece. Those will need to be taken out long before the towers, or else they will tear us to shreds."
Cole drew an outline around each gate. "There are numerous turrets, both automated and manned. Our snipers will need to take any of these out before we can begin any kind of advance. I do not want to see my troopers gunned down in droves before reaching the wall."
Cole shut off the projector and turned back to gaze out over his troops. "All right: move out!" he shouted.
Within half an hour, Cole found himself in the forest near the main entrance to the Separatist base. He gave the order to halt when the main gates opened. The three AATs and several dozen B1 battle droids spread out, all facing the woods where Cole's men had taken cover.
The commander droid raised an arm to stop his troops advance. "Surrender, Republic scum," his droid voice rang out. Cole let a blast from his palm fry the droid. Blaster shots were returned by both sides: the battle had begun.
Almost immediately, droids start taking shots at clones behind the trees and various features obscuring them. A few fell every once in a while, mostly wounded but a few fatally at that. Cole, meanwhile, holed up behind a boulder with Shadow and three rocket troopers.
"We need to take out those AATs!" shouted Cole as the tanks in question opened fire. An enormous blaster bolt collided with a tree, sending a clone and wooden splinters flying.
"General, I have an idea. You and I will provide covering fire for the rocket troopers here. They each have only one shot, so they will shoot the tanks separately. When the first finishes, he will pick up a blaster rifle and continue covering fire. Then the second trooper does the same, and so on."
"I like the way you think," Cole said. "Troops, covering fire!" he shouted, blasting away at any available droid he could see. A cannon blast shot a cloud of dirt over him, yet he and his troops continued shooting. The first trooper leaped up from cover, took aim, and fired. His rocket oared straight into the left tank, obliterating a large chunk of it.
The trooper dropped down, picked up a rifle, and joined the covering fire. The second rocket trooper did the same, his rocket destroying the AAT on the right. Then it was the third trooper's turn.
He jumped up like the others and took aim, firing quickly. Cole saw it a moment before it happened: a blaster bolt was travelling on the same vector as the rocket. Cole ducked as he saw the blaster impact the barely-travelled rocket, causing it to go off. The detonation took the trooper by surprise, with the expanding shockwave flinging him backwards into several bushes.
"We're out of rockets, sir!" Shadow shouted as two clones dragged the injured rocket trooper to safety.
Cole glanced back over the boulder to see the AAT still firing at the tree line, sending bits of dirt and splinters everywhere. A clone flew backwards from the blast, landing hard on a nearby log.
"To hell with this," Cole thought. Leaping up and over the rock, he rushed the AAT, dodging blaster and cannon fire all the way. Leaping into the air to avoid another blast, Cole landed on the tank's chassis, the main turret directly above his head.
Reaching up, he sent a series of cluster grenades down the barrel. Flipping backwards, he used his kinetic pulse to lift the tank, and with a mighty blast, sent it flying towards the main gate. He stood there and watched as the tank impacted the gate: seconds later, his grenades went off, ripping the tank and a massive section of the garrison wall apart, completely obliterating the gate as well.
Cole noticed the wall turrets had ceased firing: must have taken out a power source. "Advance!" he shouted, rushing towards the opening. His troops quickly followed him, blasting whatever droids presented themselves as targets.
Cole and Shadow, along with several other troopers, took cover behind the two out of commission AATs.
"Sir, those towers are still standing and the other platoons are taking casualties: what do we do?" a comms trooper enquired. Cole looked thoughtfully at the tank, and then glanced at the trooper.
"Tell them to stay put: the towers will soon be out of commission." Reaching to a panel, Cole felt the still-working tank's power core giving off energy. Reaching out with one hand, he sent off a Tesla Missile towards the first tower.
Unluckily for the droids, stacks of missiles make excellent targets. Cole sent the missile directly into the pile of explosives: seconds later, a massive explosion signaled the tower had been destroyed. Cole heard a large secondary explosion: it seemed the large amount of debris had landed on the artillery piece. Cole fired two more Tesla Missiles, and in turn both remaining towers went down.
"Call in the armor and gunships," Cole said, turning back to his comms officer. "Tell them we need support and we have wounded to evacuate."
Cole peeked around to see his troopers continuing to advance, but at a frustratingly slow pace. Just then, a streak flew through the air and landed inside the base: the artillery was opening fire.
"Excellent," Cole thought as he made his way to the wall, with several clones and Shadow following him.
"All right, here's the plan," Cole said. "I will raise a polarity wall and rush in, drawing their fire. You will follow in behind me and shoot any droid you see."
"Sir," Shadow said. "What is a polarity wall?"
"Think of it as a shield made of electricity that nothing can pass through," Cole said. He gave a countdown on his fingers: "Three, two, one, GO!"
He rushed in and threw up is wall, absorbing bolt after bolt of energy. His troops rushed in behind him and fired like mad, taking out a dozen droids in a few seconds. More and more of his troops rushed in as several gunships flew overhead and zapped lines of droids. Cole heard a shout of pain as a trooper was hit, but pressed the attack.
Cole saw his troops breach all sides of the base: clones just pouring in through gaping holes in the wall. The droids were overrun within minutes, and all were destroyed.
Cole watched the cleanup as his troops carted away thousands of droid pieces to piles of junk. He turned and walked towards the makeshift hospital caring for the few soldiers not yet transported to the medical center aboard the Beacon.
"Shadow?" he said in disbelief, looking down on the badly injured captain. The clone medic looked over.
"He's been hit several times, sir and he likely won't make it." Cole shook his head.
"We'll see about that: stand back, soldier." As the medic backed away, Cole fed his energy into the palms of his hands. Placing them on Shadow's head and chest, he let it flow out from him and into Shadow. As the injuries healed, Cole felt emptiness in Shadow: a deep hole needing to be filled. He poured some of his energy into it as well, feeling it grow until it was filled.
Cole stood back: after a few seconds, Shadow sat up and looked around. "Thank you, sir," he said, seemingly at a loss for words. "It was nothing," Cole replied.
An hour later...
Cole looked out from the bride of his ship as they left the planet's surface. Over three hundred of his troops had died and nearly one thousand more had been wounded. One tank had taken some damage from a surprise rocket from a still-functioning B2 droid, and one gunship had crashed after the pilot was sniped by a droid.
Another legion had taken place as garrison duty for the planet. It seemed the Confederacy were too preoccupied in other parts of the galaxy to worry about Oorn Tchis, so for the time being, the garrison had little to worry about.
Cole went back to his quarters and laid himself down. "This war is growing," he thought, knowing the reports from other sectors weren't the whole picture. "I may possibly be the most powerful being in the galaxy, but even I can't fix this on my own. I need help, but who do I turn to? There are no other Conduits..."
His thoughts trailed off as he rolled over and fell asleep. Little did he know, things were about to change: for him, the war, and the entire galaxy.
A/N: I need only a few more OCs submitted to complete the next chapters, so submit if you have an idea. After about three more I'll be finished with them and the story will continue with no foreseeable interruptions.
