Disney… Star Wars… no profit… yada ya. Thanks again to TheRighterzPen for beta'ing.
Chapter Ten – Discovery and Exit, Stage Left
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Jud's quest for answers was rudely interrupted by Meer, who'd been keeping an eye on the entrance to their gully. Meer's voice blared out of the helmet at Jud's waist.
"We've got company! I count four patrols of B1's headed our way!"
All the clones sprang to their feet, reaching for weapons and donning their helmets. Cera clung to Wesak. Ril let out a yelp. Jud spun round to see her extracting her hand from Pani's, wiggling her fingers gingerly. Jud muffled a curse. Four patrols, almost fifty droids. He should've come up with an exit strategy before the briefing, now they were womp-rats caught in a trap. So much for making the right decision, he thought bitterly.
"How did they find us?" Cera's voice climbed an octave in her panic.
"Doesn't matter now, love." Wesak tried to soothe his wife.
All helmets turned towards Jud, waiting for orders. His brain seemed to be moving in slow motion. Was this what it felt like to be in command? Like wading through sludge?
Ril bolted up, an arm outstretched. "I see something moving in the trees!" she shouted.
Digger swung around and snapped off two shots in the direction that she was pointing. A remote fell with a clunk amidst a clatter of splintered branches, a solid ball of metal and circuitry hissing where Digger's shots had melted them. Digger picked it up and looked it over. "Spy droid." He sounded disgusted, but held onto the wreckage. "Good spotting, ma'am. Looks like they know we're here!"
"We can't hold out for long, sir," said Stretch, looking at Jud. "We don't have the ammo for an extended engagement."
Wesak stood up, eyes hard. "I can shoot. Give me a gun!"
Cera let out a squeak of protest just as Jud shook his head. "Sorry, kid, but we're in no shape to take them head on. In any case, we've no spare weapons."
Wesak scowled. Anger flashed in his eyes. "I'm not about to sit here like a tame nerf waiting to be killed!"
"How long 'til they get here, Meer?" Jud asked.
"I'd say we've got about ten minutes—tops."
Stang. Jud took a deep breath, trying to untangle his jumbled thoughts. They needed a plan. For as Wesak had charmingly pointed out—they were out of options.
Meer called back over the comms. "Looks like they're spoiling for a fight, sir. I count two patrols of SBD's bringing up the rear."
Another twenty odd droids—just great. In Meer's POV, Jud could see a column of droids starting to clear the tree line below them.
Jud tried to think quickly. He had six decees between the ten of them and a whole mess of clankers coming up the gully. Any attempt to flee over the hills would expose them to enemy fire. The situation was complicated by the fact that the tinnies knew they were here. If they tried to run, the droids would just follow and unlike the civvies, they didn't need to rest. Wiki had been the sergeant. Jud wondered, what would he do now? If there was another way out, Jud couldn't see it.
He started rapping out orders. "Fitch—take the civvies over the hills. Everyone else—link up with Meer. We'll try and stall them for as long as we can, buy the civvies some time. Let's move it, boys!" The other clones nodded and headed off towards the observation point. Jud popped out his wrist communicator from his gauntlet and turned to give it to Ril. If anything happened to Fitch, she and the others would have a way of contacting the Endeavour. He held it out to her. "This is a com-link," he said. "It'll flash green when Endeavour returns."
She waved it aside. "You're just going to do that stupid last stand thing again, aren't you?" she demanded, face ashen.
"No other way, ma'am." Jud said, a lot more calmly than he felt. Why couldn't she just take the karking com-link already? Couldn't she see how many of his brothers had already died to keep her and the others alive?
"No, it's not!"
He thought for a moment that he'd misheard. "What?"
"There's a path that goes leads from that pool,"—she pointed to the dark shape at the back of the cave—"and goes through the tunnels and comes out on the other side of the hills."
Jud glared at her. When he spoke, his tone was arctic. "Why didn't you say so before?"
"Ril! Don't!" It was Wesak who was giving Ril a look. She matched him stare for stare before turning back to Jud.
"It's complicated." She wouldn't meet his eyes.
In the corner of his eye, Jud saw Wesak tugging Cera and Pani towards the inky pool. She's only bringing this up now? Jud glared at Ril as the chonk-chonk of droid feet grew ever closer. Amplified by the cave, it sounded as though a whole battalion was coming to kill them instead of a company. Nice of her to let me know before one of my men gets killed, Jud thought darkly. "Are you certain that the path is still there?" he asked, voice curt.
"Yes." Her response was firm, meeting his eyes as though she was trying to stare him down. Jud held his ground and Ril was the first to look away.
Blaster fire started up outside—Meer and the others had engaged the droids. Jud made a hasty decision. It was the only one he had left and he hoped he wouldn't get them all killed. "Right, we'll do it your way. Get your people into the tunnels."
Ril fled into the cave, calling to the other civilians.
Jud swung around as the sound of fresh blaster fire echoed in the cave. He saw the rectangular shape of Fitch's pack lying abandoned on the dirt floor, a few thermal detonators had spilled out. The glimmering of an idea came to him.
He opened a comm channel to the others. "New plan, men, we're getting out of here. It seems there's a way out of this Hutt-hole. Stolli—get back here. Everyone else, hold 'em as long as you can before you fall back. Don't get cocky—I need as much help as I can get with these kriffing civvies." There was a smattering of dark chuckles and muttered affirmatives over the channel.
Jud cast a glance into the cave to see Ril sliding into the pitch-black pool. She went under the surface of the water and didn't come up. Movement caught his eye and he whipped around to see Stolli sprinting towards him.
"Sir?" Stolli asked.
"Long story short: tunnel through the pool,"—Jud pointed with one hand as he scooped up the thermal dets with the other and began piling them into Stolli's arms—"we rig the mouth of the cave with every piece of ordinance we've got, once everyone is clear, we'll remote detonate."
"Sounds like a plan, sir." A slow smile spread across Stolli's face as he tucked a few detonators into his belt pouches.
"Glad you approve." Jud glared. "Now shift it!"
The distinct bdapp bdapp of clone blaster fire was now almost drowned out by the high-pitched whine of droid blasters. He could hear the others calling to each other over the com-link, coordinating their fire and covering each other. There was a brief cry of pain, making Jud grit his teeth. He and Stolli darted around the cave entrance, making sure that each grenade was on a load-bearing point. They didn't have to collapse the whole cliff face: gravity would do that for them. Once the explosives were in place, Jud left Stolli to assemble the detonator while he grabbed Fitch's pack.
"Sir, we're taking heavy fire." It was Stretch, his voice loud over the background of blaster fire. "Digger got creased."
"It's a scratch!" Digger retorted. "I'm fine."
"Fall back," Jud ordered. "Explosives are in place."
"Copy that, sir."
Jud turned to Stolli, who held up the fruits of his labour. "Prime the detonator, Stolli."
"Yes, sir!"
It was time for them to get out of here. First Stretch, then Meer and Digger all pelted past him into the cave. Jud was about to check the wiring for the last time when Stolli grabbed his arm.
"After you, sir! They're not too far behind!"
Jud took a deep breath and jumped into the pool. He expected to hit bottom at any point but instead, the small pool widened into a hidden reservoir a meter or so below the surface. The water was pitch-black so Jud switched over to night vision. He could feel the intense cold seeping through the joints in his armour.
Digger's armour shone pale green in the murky darkness in front of him. Jud took a shallow breath, grateful for the complete seal his armour provided. It could hold up in the total vacuum of space for up to ten minutes so a dip in an underground river was no big deal, provided he didn't get stuck. Still, there was something wrong about breathing casually underwater. Every instinct screamed at him to hold his breath even when it wasn't necessary.
They followed the tunnel down, then up around a hairpin loop, the pack on his back scraped and stuck for a heart-rending moment, before Jud wrenched it free. The narrow tunnel veered to the left then finally they were going up. Jud surfaced with a gasp, hearing Digger splashing and puffing beside him.
Jud looked around as he trod water. He caught a glimpse of Pani and the other civilians on a rocky outcropping. There was some light, but it looked very dim. The civvies wouldn't be able to see anything. There was a blinding flash of light as someone turned their headlamps on, no doubt thinking along the same lines as him.
"KILL THAT LIGHT!"
And it was suddenly dark again. A distorted copy of Ril's shout echoed from the walls around them Jud wondered at the culprit's automatic response to Ril's order. It wasn't that she was in charge… or was she? Something about her tone commanded obedience—just like the Sergeant. Why was light bad though? Perhaps Ril knew something he didn't? Jud filed that tidbit away for future use as splashes behind him heralded the arrival of someone else, Stolli he hoped.
"Stolli?"
"Yes sir!"
"Blow the charges. No need to make the clankers' job any easier."
A muffled boom reverberated through the walls. Jud felt the water ripple around him and heard small plinks as pebbles and dust rained down from the ceiling. Jud hoped that his demolitions instructor from Kamino never heard about this, she would ream him a new one, detonating explosives with friendlies in an enclosed space. Just as well she wasn't here.
The chamber felt huge, the sides disappearing the darkness where there was no light for his night-vis to amplify.
"Good job. Now let's get out of here," Jud said. "This water feels like it belongs on Hoth."
Meer reached out and helped Jud drag himself onto the rough rock. Through his night vision, Jud could see Stretch was strapping a bacta patch on Digger's arm. He made his way over to the medic.
"Sorry, sir," Digger apologised. "One of the clankers managed to clip me, melted a nice line clean through my armour."
"Got cocky, didn't you, Digger?" Jud teased, relieved that it wasn't more serious.
"It won't happen again, Sarge."
Over Jud's objections, his brothers had started calling him 'sir' and 'Sarge', making him squirm every time he heard it. He wasn't even a sergeant for kriff's sake! Sir was for officers and brothers who were solid; who knew what to do, and didn't panic and sweat like crazy when they had to make a decision. Jud was no 'sir'. He took a deep breath and tried to put his own doubts out of mind.
He prayed that this escape route lived up to the hype. After all, not only did the idea of wandering lost in a labyrinth of cave tunnels didn't appeal; it could be downright disastrous! He had to hand it to the people that discovered this place. He would never have guessed that the small pool in the cave at the rendezvous point was the entrance to a cave system. Hopefully, when the droids managed to clear away the debris and enter the cave, the idea wouldn't occur to them either. Someone bumped into him from behind and apologised, teeth chattering. It sounded like Ril. He turned around, it was Ril shivering and staring past him into the gloom.
"Whatever you do," she said, "don't turn on any lights! You'll kill the moss."
Over the comm, Jud heard Meer muttering. "Oh of course not, can't hurt the moss now, can we?"
"Put a sock in it, Meer," Jud reluctantly rebuked his brother, even though he felt much the same way. Unfortunately having been put in charge, sarcasm was no longer an option for him, even if he privately thought that Ril might've deserved it for holding out on them earlier. Jud sucked it up—sergeants weren't supposed to be affected by personal feelings.
"Moss, ma'am?" Jud questioned.
"There's a trail of bioluminescent moss that leads through the tunnel. Light kills it, so no torches or lamps. If we wait for a bit, hopefully the carbon dioxide in our breath will perk it up enough to start glowing again."
She sounded confident, but in his night-vis Jud saw the spasm of shivering that wracked her. If he'd thought the water was cold through armour… He took the pack off his back and rummaged around. He drew out the thin blanket from the previous night and flipped it out, twirling it around Ril's shoulders. She gasped and started when she felt the movement near her.
"Just me, ma'am," he said. "We've only the one blanket though, so you'll have to share with the others."
"Okay," she chattered.
It was still black as anything, but if this moss stuff glowed and CO2 was the 'ON' switch… Jud popped his helmet off, the seals hissing quietly as he did so. "Sun bonnets off, gentlemen, better give this moss a hand. Permission to breathe heavily…" Jud blushed at his own absurd command as snorts of suppressed laughter started to fill the air. "In your own time, of course," he amended. "Go on."
"Heavy breathing commencing, sir… stand by," Meer quipped.
Jud tried not to laugh at the ridiculous parade of noises that issued from the men. Well, I guess that's what I get for giving such a stupid order. He couldn't stop the relief that washed over him: they were all still alive! The pitch black was slowly lit up by a faint glow. That must be the moss. He grinned at the absurdity of the situation as he leaned over a nearby patch of moss and breathed on it some more.
He bet that Ril was loving this. He'd discovered she loved plants when he'd noticed she was leaving a trail of plucked flowers and leaves behind her—not the smartest thing to do when being tracked by hostile forces. Ril, it turned out, was an amateur botanist and her bag was crammed full of plant specimens. The two hour march to the cave had been punctuated by her briefings on the properties of the various plants around them, beaming when they recognised a plant and pointed it out to her. Come to think of it, she hadn't smiled for a while now…
After a few moments, the moss did its thing and a faint blue glow lit up the small space. Jud finally got a good look at their surrounds. Pale stalactites and stalagmites honeycombed the room, which sloped upwards from the pool, and rocks they were currently standing on. The civilians and his brothers glowed an eerie blue. The overall effect was one of stunning otherworldly beauty. Hops would love this, he always got a kick out of weird alien stuff, Jud thought to himself.
Jud swung the ruck back over his shoulders. "That's enough breathing, boys; the moss is…"—he tried to choose his next word carefully—"…satisfied."
Ahead of him, the brilliant trail of moss snaked upwards, winding through the maze of rock formations, and vanished into a dark opening. Jud looked back. The men looked set, decees at the ready once more, helmets on their belts. Wesak was hugging Cera to him—those two seemed joined at the hip, whilst Pani and Ril were sharing the blanket and looking very much like a Troig—two heads protruding from the grey folds of fabric.
"Everyone good to go?" He asked. There was a smattering of nods. "Right, follow me."
I hope you enjoyed this week's update.
Next time: How did Ril know about the path from the pool? The answers are in the next chapter… :)