Chronicles of Talon Chapter 11 Desperate times
Kamino, Tipoca City
Trident class Assault ships had been dropped around the Kaminoan capital city and had started releasing Aqua droids to clear the way for through the first defenses. With their Star Destroyers in orbit destroyed or currently being boarded, the remaining clone fighter pilots was fighting above Tipoca to defend it and shoot down as many droid transports as possible.
Tipoca City wasn't the only city under attack, but seven other Kaminoan cities were under Separatist assault simultaneously. The clones defending Kamino was fighting for more than the Republic. They fought for the closest thing they had to a homeworld and all of their brothers.
Arc trooper Fives and Echo ran into the hangar bay to find the majority of his brothers already killed. At least forty men were still inside the hangar and at least twice that was dead on the cold metal floor.
Fives aimed his blaster rifle at the head of an Aqua droid and squeezed the trigger three times. The bolts hit their mark and brought the droid to the floor with a thud. He jumped behind cover of some metal crates.
Echo dove down beside him.
"Clankers really want this hangar," Fives commented over the sound of blaster fire.
Echo got up and fired two bursts of two bolts before ducking down again. Both bursts eliminated an Aqua droid each with head shots.
"We can give 'em a foothold," he said quickly.
Fives peeked over the crates. The Aqua droids outnumbered them four-to-one and they kept advancing towards them.
He fired a succession of five bursts and hit four targets. Three of them went down while the fourth remaining standing. It turned towards him and fired, forcing Fives to duck. Three bolts from another trooper hit the armored chest and brought the droid down.
Two of their brothers fell dead on their right side.
Echo took down a droid and turned his head to his brother.
"We can't hold this indefinitely without reinforcements!" He shouted over the blaster fire.
"We have to try!" Fives called back.
Besides, he knew there probably weren't any reinforcements. Everyone that could fight was already doing so.
The Captain in command was hit twice in the chest and collapsed.
"Captain's down!" A trooper shouted. "Medic!"
Fives and Echo got up to help provide covering fire along with several other clones.
Two troopers grabbed the Captain by his arms and pulled him back as their brothers covered them.
The Trident Assault ships made way for a C-9979 Landing Craft to land in the hangar. The clones had lost enough ground so there was plenty of room to land droid reinforcements. As the beast of a ship slowly sat down it started opening its ramp. Facing the already outnumbered clones were a Battalion of droids. The first fifteen lines of battle droids wore red stripes.
Echo noticed their stripes but didn't think much of it as he blasted down a pair of Aqua droids. This whole thing was a déjà vu of the first Battle of Kamino. Apart from the Vorrish troops they had been told were coming. Supposedly, whoever was in command send down droids to clear the way. After all the droids were expendable. Vorrish men and women weren't.
Though, Echo noticed that the battle droids used cover better than normal battle droids he had fought in the past. While some took one line took a knee and fired, leaving it simple for the line behind them to cover them. Many of them were shot down by the clones, but many clones went down in the droid barrage.
"Rocket launcher, take it out!" Echo shouted.
But too late, the droid rocketeer fired and the explosion killed ten clones who was thrown in different direction.
"We need to fallback!" Echo shouted to Fives.
Fives ducked after taking out a battle droid.
"We can't lose the hangar!" He shouted back over the shouting and blasting going on around them.
"Look around, Fives, we already have!" Echo claimed.
His brother's eyes searched the hangar. Most of their brothers were dead or wounded and they arrival of the battle droids ensured they were outnumbered about ten-to-one or something like that. As if the Aqua droids hadn't been bad enough. He realized Echo was right.
"Fallback, get the wounded out of here!" He shouted at the troopers.
He sprayed four bolts of laser and took down three battle droids. He ducked when a pair of bolts passed by his helmet, missing him by centimeters.
The clone detachment started evacuating the hangar, giving it to the invading droids. For now.
"I'll cover the retreat, Fives, set up some kind of defensive line!" Echo decided.
Fives nodded.
He fired three bolts before withdrawing. Ran ran outside into the corridor and organized a line of troopers ten meters from the doorway. He pointed to two troopers with a medium repeater and then to a few crates by the side.
"Grab those crates and set the repeater up in the middle of the corridor," he ordered. His brothers quickly carried the task out. He walked to the junction behind the repeater. "I want a squad there and there, each side of the junction. If the droid push through the repeater we fall back here and blast them from both sides." He turned to his brothers. "Just watch your fire."
"Repeater in position, sir!" A trooper announced.
"Perfect, now let's get ready to splatter some droids," Fives said eagerly.
An explosion throw two troopers through the doorway. Given the shape of their arms and legs, they were quite dead. A few seconds later Echo came through. He lobbed a droid popper in behind him as he reached Fives defensive line.
"Nice work with so little time," he commented.
Fives nodded and took aim on the door.
"Ready!" he told the clones that was standing beside him and the repeater.
The first battle droid leaped through the doorway and fired two bolts. One hit a trooper in the head and he dropped dead. In revenge the droid was filled with laser holes.
But the lone battle droid was followed by a swarm of them. The repeater started spraying bolts at them and mowed down two-three a second. With the doorway as small as it was, it didn't give the droids the numbers to swarm through, but more like a couple at a time. By the time a fifth droid had stepped into the corridor, the first three were scrapped.
The droid bodies continued lining up on the floor in a big pile as the clones added more and more to their numbers.
Fives weren't sure how long they could keep this up. When the repeater had to reload, the droids would probably probably come through in droves and overwhelm them.
Kamino, Tipoca City, Command center
In the command center Jedi Master Shaak Ti had organized the defense after the fleet had been demolished. Now she was watching as her officers tried to organize smaller defenses to hold every hangar, corridor and chamber in the enemy's path.
The Togruta female had her arms crossed under her chest. The Separatists certainly brought more troops this time. Unlike this time, they had brought a force large enough to occupy the capital and possibly the entire planet. If Kamino fell, it would be the beginning of the end for the Republic.
"Send the 22nd Platoon to Chamber three five nine," a clone said.
"Hangar two and six are both lost," another said over the chaotic atmosphere.
"General Ti," a clone officer alerted. She turned her head to him. "We're getting reports of a Zabrak female with a red lightsaber in sector 59B2."
Shaak Ti frowned deeply over these news. A Sith? Dooku's new apprentice perhaps? She knew Count Dooku had found himself a new apprentice after getting rid of Asajj Ventress.
"I will deal with her," Shaak Ti decided calmly. She walked towards the doors of the command center. "Order the clones to not go out of their way to fight her."
"Yes general."
Shaak Ti walked through corridor to corridor, seeking for the Sith. She hadn't gotten far when she started hearing blaster fire from nearby.
"General Ti," she heard a clone officer's voice in her comm.
"Report officer," she said.
"General, a group of Vorrish soldiers are pushing towards the command center near you."
"I will deal with them," Shaak Ti responded.
She started running towards the blaster fire nearby her location.
"Don't give ground!" A clone Commander barked.
When Shaak Ti rounded the last corner she activated her blue lightsaber. She spotted ten clones holding out in the middle of over a dozen Vorrish warriors. Dozens of bodies of clones and Vorrish alike littered the floor around them. The corridor was a blood bath.
The Vorrish, with the black skin and black hair rushed at the clones. The Vorrish was dressed in black leather "armor". If it could be called armor. It was truly a terrifying sight to see them running towards you. Just like Shaak Ti had heard about them, they preferred melee weapons. Ti seemed a correct fact gathered by Republic intelligence. With curved blades they cut at the clones.
The commander, a man she remembered as Blade, with a macro binocular attached to his helmet, a blaster proof red skirt, red and black shoulder armor and a short red cloak. His armor was colored in several red stripes. With his blaster rifle on his back, he was currently wielding two Katana swords.
The Commander blocked the Vorrish blade and kicked her away before turning to the next warrior coming at him. To his left, a trooper was pierced straight through with a dark Vorrish blade.
A Vorrish warrior turned quickly to lay his eyes on Shaak Ti. He glared daggers of death at her, through the strains of rough black hair hanging over his face. He leaped at her with his dark metal saber.
The Jedi Master was quick and slashed with her blue saber. The sword broke in half and left the male surprised for a second. But only a second because than she ran her lightsaber through his gut. He gasped as she pushed him away and slashed twice at a male warrior attacking with a sword. He collapsed onto the floor with his right arm cut off and a slash wound over his chest and stomach.
She used the force to push most of the warriors back through the corridor. Most of them remained standing but stumbled back. It gave the clones an opening and they took it and sprayed them full of laser bolts.
A female warrior hissed angrily and throw her blade aside. She switched it out with her double barreled plasma rifle and fired six bolts in quick succession. Two clones went down in the short barrage. Commander Blade put a bolt through her forehead and she dropped.
Shaak Ti glanced at the newly fallen bodies. They were smoking and it looked more like a projectile wound than a laser wound. She had seen the blue bolts but it apparently wasn't the same kind of laser based weaponry that the Republic used.
It was true then, she thought. The Vorrish did indeed use plasma based weapons combined with projectiles.
She deflected two plasma rounds with her saber and use the force to pull the male warriors plasma rifle away from his grip. Blade put him down a second later.
"Thanks General," Blade thanked her. "Wasn't sure we could take these guys for a while."
"You are welcome Commander," Shaak Ti responded. "If you excuse me now."
"Yes, sir," Blade said.
Blade was the Commander of the 221st Legion. It was a new Legion that hadn't been off Kamino yet. They hadn't been assigned a Jedi general yet. As soon as the Legion were ready to deploy, they would get a general and get thrown into the war.
She let the force guide her as she walked around a corner, searching for the Zabrak Sith.
The red skin Zabrak female was cutting up clones as she made her way towards the DNA chamber. Finding the clone DNA would go a long way to achieve a victory. She smirked gleefully as she gutted an Arc trooper. Her red eyes widened and she quickly twirled around when she realized someone was approaching her.
To her happy surprise it was Shaak Ti. The thought of killing a jedi master excited her immensely. She wiped a strain of black hair out of her face and grinned.
She adjusted her reversed grip on her red saber and assumed an attacking stance.
"Well, well. If it isn't the Jedi Master, coming to seek her death," Seyani said with a vicious grin.
Shaak Ti calmly cocked her head and activated the lightsaber around in her hand.
"If I will fall in battle," she started. "I assure you, it won't be by your hand."
Seyani laughed.
"Right. I suppose, we'll see about that," Seyani countered.
She then screamed and leaped through the air at Shaak Ti. She attempted a kick and slash with her reverse gripped saber. Before she could perform her kick, Shaak Ti jumped up and kicked her in the gut first and blocked her lightsaber. The Master then let her blade collide with its red counterpart which caused sparks to fly.
Seyani growled and viciously tried to cut, slashed and pierce the Togruta. Shaak Ti blocked her every blow and force pushed her backwards a few feet. She blocked the counter force push and kept herself standing firmly.
The Sith leaped into the air again and slashed but was blocked by the blue saber. Her sabre cut the wall as she violently attacked Shaak Ti.
"You cannot win," Shaak Ti told her. "Surrender before I must hurt you."
"Keep dreaming!" Seyani snapped defiantly and blocked Shaak Ti's attack.
She ducked and flipped backwards six meters as Shaak Ti almost slashed her across the waist. With the jedi master in pursuit she raised her red blade just before the blue counterpart cut her left arm off. But the attack had been a trick to expose her and let Shaak Ti time to deliver a powerful kick to the chest.
It sent Seyani backwards, hitting the floor hard. She groaned for a moment before flipping back to her feet.
