One exam done. Three more to go. *Preparing lots and lots of tea in order to get through studying. And turning off notification to ensure utmost concentration! Just FYI, this arc would be 8 or 9 parts long. :)
First Raid (Clone Force 99 pt3)
A longer leash means more freedom, which can be synonymous with more trouble
The Bad Batch flew to the location of the mountain resort as soon as the meeting was over. It didn't take long for them to arrive at the old building and sneak up to its entrance.
"Clone Force 99, heading towards the front entrance," Hunter spoke into his comm.
"Hear you loud and clear. Be careful," Steele answered from the other end.
"Good to know you care about us, sir," Hunter said before commencing the operation.
Tech got a full scan of the building. He summarized his findings to the batch. "There are 29 floors but only the top 4 are accessible. The others are in ruins. Each floor has the same layout: courtyard, bedroom suites, restrooms, and dining areas. Except for the top, that's the penthouse suite."
Hunter looked at the exterior of the building then turned to Wrecker and Crosshair. "We dunno who we'll encounter so be prepared to switch from stun to kill in an instant. Try to make it one bolt per enemy. And be fast in clearing each floor, we can't have any potential Separatists escaping."
The two clones nodded. Satisfied, Hunter stood up. "Alright, let's go in."
The squad headed inside and towards the stairwell. Everything was rather quiet. Each storey they passed, they could see the ruins of the floor behind the dusty window of the exit door.
Eventually, the squad reached the first accessible level. There, they could see a Rhodian standing with an entourage of droids. The clones crept towards the group and Hunter signalled for Crosshair to take aim.
The Rhodian was speaking into a comm. "...he killed himself, or at least I hope he did. Anyways, the coordinates on his durasheet should be long-gone before—UGH!"
Crosshair sniped the Rhodian in the leg, causing him to fall over. The droids jerkily turned around and aimed their blasters.
"Intruders!"
Wrecker and Crosshair immediately fired before the droids had the chance to attack. Tech kept an active inspection of the entire floor to ensure they don't get ambushed.
Hunter dashed to the fallen Rhodian and dragged him behind cover. He then pressed a blaster to his head. "Are you Separatist?"
"No, I'm just a relayer!" The Rhodian shakily answered.
"Where's the datachip?"
The Rhodian was quiet. Then without warning, he pulled out a small blaster from his back pocket. But Hunter caught sight of that, and immediately pulled his trigger, killing the Rhodian.
He got to his feet as Wrecker took care of the final droid. Tech evaluated the destroyed clankers. "These droids have been reprogrammed. They fight for the specific Separatists we're looking for now, not the CIS as a whole."
"Now that's one thing we can report back to the commanders," Hunter chimed before heading towards the stairwell. "C'mon, we got 3 more floors to clear."
On the next floor, the clones were immediately met with hostilities. Reprogrammed droids opened fire almost immediately on them and didn't stop until they were shot down.
A female Roonan underling took cover in the dining hall while shouting into her comm. "We've been compromised, clones are here! You need to wipe out everything and notify base! NOW!"
Some inaudible words were heard from comm before Crosshair shot it out of the Roonan's hand. She jumped in response.
Crosshair kept her at blasterpoint. He noticed she was glancing at a handheld blaster right across from her. He knew what she was about to do.
"Don't do it—"
The Roonan reached for the blaster.
Bang.
Crosshair shot her down before she could aim at him with it.
A series of loud footsteps echoed from the ceiling above them. Hunter didn't like the sound of that. Whoever the Twi'lek warned knows they're here now. And they'll try to prevent them from getting anything crucial.
"We need to hurry," he ordered.
The Bad Batch rushed to the next floor. Once again, they were greeted with an ambush of droids. The droids came out from nearly every corner and doors, all trying to overwhelm them.
But the clones expected that much. It didn't take long for them to clear the floor again. However, upon taking down the last droid, Hunter had a feeling they weren't finished yet.
He doubled his already heightened senses. There's definitely someone lurking here. Just when Wrecker was about to take another step forward, Hunter pulled him back.
"Wait! Crosshair, come over."
Crosshair walked up and Hunter pointed at a closed-door on the other side of the hall from them. "2 inches under the knob, can you hit there?"
"I got it." Crosshair wasted no time in aiming his rifle exactly where Hunter said, and firing.
"Argh!"
A cry of pain came from behind the door, followed by a shower of bullets. The clones quickly ducked for cover. As soon as they did that, the door burst open and out came a Frenk mercenary, holding one of his arms in pain.
Just then, another door opened and this time, a male Sarkhai emerged. He took one glance at the clones before making a break towards the stairwell.
"After him!" Hunter pointed at the Sarkhai.
But before they could ensue a chase, the Frenk came between them. He kept the clones busy with blaster bolts and acrobatics while the Sarkhai escaped.
Hunter didn't want to waste time dealing with this mercenary. That Sarkhai was probably the one the Twi'lek called to 'wipe out everything'. There's only one way to end this fast.
Turning to Wrecker, Hunter said in a loud and clear voice. "Go wild on him."
"Really!?"
"Mmhm. Just make it quick. And don't destroy the floor."
The Frenk barely had time to blink before Wrecker picked up a giant piece of debris and hurled it at him. A rain of bullets followed through from Wrecker's rotary blaster.
Despite the Frenk's extreme agility, he couldn't dodge well while having constant obstructions hurled at his face! And it didn't help that Wrecker had the stamina of a hundred assault tanks.
After taking one hit from a thrown debris, the Frenk fell over dropped his weapon. He met his end at Wrecker's hands.
"Took you long enough," Crosshair critiqued.
"Shut up," Wrecker said back.
Hunter reprimanded both of them. "Let's just get to the top floor!"
He led the way up the stairs towards the penthouse suite. There, they found the Sarkhai from downstairs by himself. He was frantically typing away on a large computer.
"Hands up!" Hunter ordered as he and the entire batch pointed their blasters at him.
The Sarkhai did as told with his back turned on them. Hunter began walking towards him. "You in league with the Separatist thieves?"
"I can't say," the Sarkhai replied.
"The hell you can't." Hunter walked even closer. "Where's the datachip?"
"Not here." The Sarkhai paused. "Though it shouldn't matter to dead clones anyways."
In the blink of an eye, the Sarkhai reached for a detonator but Crosshair prevented him from activating it by putting a bolt through his head.
Hunter ran to the computer and checked for anything useful. "Kriff, he deleted a lot of stuff. Tech, see if you can salvage anything."
Tech took over the computer. "Give me a few seconds." A few seconds later, Tech managed to find something. "Ah-ha, here we are!"
Everyone crowded around Tech who pulled up an image of a large facility building. "There are metadata tags attached to this image. The commanders should be able to examine it further back at base."
"Nice, I'll inform them of this right now." Hunter pulled up his comm.
~ O O O ~
Steele answered Hunter's incoming call in the communications centre. "Sergeant, are you finished?"
"Yes, sir," Hunter answered.
"Did you find the datachip? Or anything related to it?"
"The datachip's not here. And unfortunately, the enemy deleted the vast majority of their info, but we still got something. We'll bring it back to you for analysis," Hunter said.
"Alright, that's fine. Just download what you got and return soon."
"'Return soon?' Commander, we took care of all the hostiles here and you're telling us to just snatch and run?"
"I'm telling you to think about the rest of us. Up to this point, our targets have never been attacked, so I don't know how they'll respond or if they'll respond at all. We're vulnerable here. So please just come back with what you got."
Hunter sighed. "Look, if we leave immediately, we might miss out on something crucial. And you don't want that, right?"
"No, but—"
"—Then don't worry about a thing, we'll return soon enough."
Steele didn't like the sound of that. "No, no, sergeant, listen to me. Sergeant?"
But Hunter had ended the call. Standing across from Steele, Wolffe looked at the bemused expression on his face.
"They hung up on you?"
"They hung up on me." Steele stared at the device in stunned silence. "They can't do that."
"No they can't," Wolffe agreed.
Steele remained silent.
Wolffe spoke again. "What should we do about it?"
"I dunno. Ask Cody."
~ O O O ~
Back at the penthouse suite of the resort, Tech was downloading the image from the computer. In the background, Hunter was sweeping around the floor with Wrecker and Crosshair.
They were adamant about finding something more.
"Keep looking!" Hunter encouraged. "The computer can't be the only place that holds info."
Wrecker and Crosshair looked at each other. They continued scanning around for potential clues.
"The Sarge really wants to find this datachip, eh?" Wrecker said while searching.
"Of course he does," Crosshair replied obviously. "Remember? He wants to know exactly what kind of information is contained inside. And honestly, so do I."
"But didn't the commanders say to not investigate on our own?" Wrecker asked.
"Well, the commanders aren't here. Keep looking."
Hunter finished scouring one corner of the penthouse, and was now looking at a couple of doors that lined the hall. One door in particular, caught his eye.
"Tech!"
"Yes, Sarge?"
"This door's got a scratched-out label that I barely make out. Can you try and read it?"
Tech carefully put down his downloading computer and walked over. He inspected the label. "I'll see what I can with the characters that are still visible…"
A couple of deductive seconds later, Tech came up with a possible answer. "By trial and elimination, and some common Aurebesh patterns, I think it reads 'Confidential.'"
Hunter smiled. He struck gold. "Not anymore. Wrecker, come over! I need you to pry this door open!"
"Ok!" Wrecker made his way over.
Tech walked back to his computer, overseeing the downloading of the image. It was extremely close to being done.
"Stand back, Sarge!" Wrecker warned.
Hunter backed up a bit as Wrecker rubbed his hands together, gripped the door's handle, and pulled. Despite the building's fragile state, this door seemed was quite durable.
At the computer, the download was finally complete. Tech announced, "The image is downloaded! Let's go!"
As soon as he said that, Wrecker tore the door open. An alarm suddenly went off.
"What the…?" Wrecker exclaimed.
The entire squad immediately prepared for battle. But surprisingly, nothing came at them. Which was strange.
"What did we trigger?" Tech demanded.
"Worry about that later!" Hunter ran into the room Wrecker opened up. "C'mon, let's get what we can and then get outta here!"
The rest of the batch rushed in after him.
~ O O O ~
Plo was walking around outside the base with two of his troopers. They were finishing a run-through of their border security.
"Everything seems stable so far, general," one of the clones said.
"Indeed," Plo responded.
"Um, general. If you don't mind me asking…" the other clone trailed off.
"Ask away," Plo encouraged.
"Are you really ok with the lack of info you've been receiving for this hunt-and-retrieval? Because if you're not, you should really speak up! You're a member of the Council, you shouldn't have to work around this!"
"Does this have anything to do with the presence of Clone Force 99?"
The clone who asked the question paused. "I don't like what they're saying about you hiding stuff, sir! But they do make some good points."
"I see." Plo turned around to put a hand on the clone's shoulder. "And I appreciate you bringing that up with me. But please, let me and Aliyah handle this nonsensical hiding of information. You keep doing the good work you're already doing."
"Alright, sir."
They continued walking.
Suddenly, the ground shook with mild tremors. Plo stopped in his tracks and looked to the distance. The two clones did the same.
"Sir, what are you looking at—"
"—Get down!"
Plo pushes the two clones to the ground before whipping out his lightsaber and deflecting a couple of incoming blaster bolts. In the distance was a horde of reprogrammed droids, marching—rather quickly—towards the base.
"Go warn the others!" Plo ordered the two clones as they got back to their feet. "Hurry!"
They did as told and rushed inside the base. Plo continued deflecting more blaster bolts. He turned on his comm and contacted Aliyah. "Aliyah! We're under attack! Do you…"
"...hear me? We're under attack!" Was what Aliyah heard from her commlink.
She rushed to the lookout tower next to her and climbed to the top. The guards on duty were peering through their binoculars, frozen by what they saw.
"What the hell!?" One guard exclaimed.
"Let me borrow that." Aliyah demanded the binoculars and the guard complied. She peered through the lens. "'What the hell' is right."
The sea of twitchy incoming droids was a sight to behold.
Aliyah immediately rushed back down and started assigning as many officers to defensive tasks as she can. "Kal, get to the north side and prepare them for what's coming! Sinker, take as many men as you can and go help Plo! He's defending the south gate by himself right now!"
"Yes, general!" Sinker said before leaving.
"The rest of you, start organizing our forces for the defense of this base! And be fast about it!"
The clone officers nodded before running off in different directions. Aliyah left to help out elsewhere. This was an attack they did not see coming.
At the comm centre, Steele and Wolffe emerged as soon as they heard the emergency alarms. Outside, the base was in absolute chaos. They couldn't believe this.
Back inside, another call came in from Hunter. "Commanders, we managed to find some really good stuff and are about to return!...Hello? Hello? Is everything alright over there?"
"What'd you do?" Steele demanded as he ran over to the comm device. "What. Did you do?"
Next time on The Clone's Hero, the 2 battalions and the Bad Batch work together to defend the base from this lethal ambush, but relations between them worsen…
Review responses~
Starpottergeek: The info is important because it's something he doesn't want to become public knowledge. :)
KarajeJinsta: Things are definitely heating up, but it'll cool down soon enough. And Dogma is honestly one of my favourites to write, plus he'll be appearing a lot more in the next arc. And yeah, the "swear" thing is something I came up with after chugging 2 and a half cans of beer lol. I guess alcohol can be somewhat of a solution to minor writer's block! XD
Akira-Hayama: Have you seen the 2020 trailer on YouTube? It's HILARIOUS and the comment section is GOLD! And you're right, it won't be the last conflict they'll have. But things will eventually 'work out' and they'll understand each other a bit better. I'd say next chapter will contain some insight into Aliyah's feelings. :)
Lau-SR: I'm glad my test results returned negative too! Whew. It's really fun writing the different sides of each group of clones. Hard work but fun. I'm glad you're still reading my story thus far. :)
MisterStarWarsFans: The datachip's info will be revealed more towards the end of the arc, but a lot of readers already seem to get the gist of it. Including you. Thanks for the congrats. I'm happy I'm COVID free. :)
Katie L: Eeeehhh! Welcome back! And don't feel bad about missing the first 2 chapters. You're here now, that's all that matters. Thanks for the get-well wishes and all, I've been feeling better lately—really. Your welcome for giving some spotlight on Plo, Wolffe, and their battalion. As for the ship, just you wait. ;)
Calvin Amber: Hey there, haven't heard from you in awhile. Glad to see you're still around! Thank you so much for your supportive words (wow how is everyone here such amazing human beings?) and don't worry too much about me now, I'm getting better. Order 66 hints will become more prominent near the end of this arc. As for not breaking your heart...well, don't worry about that for now. :)
Guest: Here's the update. :)
A/N. Thank you all for your reviews! I've been feeling sooo much better lately! Well, as better as I could be while this is exam week. XD
Please remember to favourite and follow if you haven't yet. And leave a review if you can. I always reply right here at the end of each chapter.
See you all next time! :)
- MiraLake