OH BOI it's been a loooooong time.
So I know I haven't uploaded for two months but I have a good excuse. Well actually I don't but anyways.
The long awaited ninth chapter! I'm especially excited to deliver this one. As such, I don't have much to say initially, so read on!
Chapter 9: Stealth Strike
Kwintessa
I look once more at the holotable. Sure that I didn't miss anything, I decide to leave and let the scouts take care of my doubts. I'm not sure if this sort of strike is the smartest idea, but I think it'll save us men and resources that would be better put elsewhere. I'd like to have as few casualties as possible. I know this is a war, but that doesn't mean I need to sacrifice lives left and right to achieve an easy ending. This sort of attack may be difficult, but it'll probably be less costly. And that's a sort of difficulty I'm willing to take.
I leave the bridge and decide to go to my room, and I have just the memory for this occasion. Hopefully, it'll prepare me for my mission. I speed quickly down the many corridors of the ship, turning and twisting like a snake until I reach my destination. I immediately sit on the floor, crossing my legs and closing my eyes. After a quick fade to black and then a flash of light,
The girl lands after a somersault up against a metal wall in a storage sector. Brushing the hair out of her eyes, she waits for her master to join her. She isn't kept waiting long, and soon he joins her, dashing out from behind a crate. Just as he gathers himself, a bright search light shines over the spot he was just taking refuge in, and the two of them breathe a sigh of relief.
"That was close," he whispers to her.
"Quiet," she whispers with intensity. The young man shoots her a look but obeys, earning himself a smile from his apprentice. He opens his mouth to say something, but she gives him another fake harsh glance and he rolls his eyes. Satisfying himself with a head motion and a point of the finger, he begins to walk in a hunched position towards the hallway farther down their stretch of wall. His apprentice follows, and soon they've disappeared through the darkened corridor and into another room. It's labeled 'Comms'.
They stand up straighter and the master immediately gets to work, walking over to a computer panel and typing away at the keys. His apprentice takes out her two lightsabers and holds them aloft, turned off, standing guard.
"This should only take a second…" mutters her master, "Aaand – done!" He hits a final key and the panel turns off.
"Good; let's get out of here," she whispers. "I don't like these stealth missions."
"But you're oh so good at them," he says back. As they prepare to exit the room, they hear clanking from down the hall. He pulls her back to the wall, tucking in her robes and trying to disappear in the shadows.
"Comms down; checking now," says a droid's voice, not realizing that he can no longer be heard by his overseers. He robotically steps into the room, not sensing the two Jedi doing their best to hide in plain sight. The droid looks at the control panel, tries touching a few buttons, but with a hiss and low hum, fails to fix the damaged interface.
"Going to find a tactical droid; roger roger," says the droid. As it prepares to turn around, the young Jedi apprentice gets anxious and fingers her saber. Right before her master can tell her no, she switches it on, it's orange blade emitting with a hum, and slices the droid in half.
"NO Kwintessa!" cries her master. "Now the others…"
An alarm starts to sound. "Lightsaber noise sensed in Comms!" says another droid somewhere down the hall.
"Sorry," says the apprentice.
Her master sighs, shakes his bowed head, and takes his long saber hilt off his belt. "You really need to learn some patience." He flicks on the saber, activating it's double-sided blue blades, and dashes out the side of the hallway, his wordless apprentice in tow. The two of them slash through droid after droid, dashing down the corridors and trying to make their escape. They manage to get to the compound's entrance without too much trouble, and they board their Jedi shuttle before more troops can follow. The ship rockets out of the planet's atmosphere and jumps to hyperspace. Inside the cockpit, the master spins in his chair and confronts his apprentice.
"Kwintessa, I know you prefer a fight to stealth work, but for the Republic's sake, you have to learn to hold yourself!" he scolds.
"I know Master, but…" she starts.
"No 'buts'. I let you off the hook way too often. I either disregard your mistakes or let you stay on the ship so you won't make them and I can't keep doing that. I have to let you learn sometime, and this is a situation that will for sure come up again," he continues.
"You don't know that for sure," she responds.
"Yes, I actually do," he says, staring deeply into her eyes. This prompts a look of confusion and then curiosity from his apprentice, but she doesn't press it further.
"Kwintessa: Self-control," he says finally in a softer voice. "Self-control will be your worst enemy."
"Self-control will be your worst enemy."
I exit my trance with a feeling of confidence and an urge to not let my master down this time. "I won't lose because of self-control," I promise aloud. "Not this time."
Preparing myself, I exit my chamber and decide to head back up to the bridge. Perhaps the scouting party has found something. On my way there, I see a lot more commotion than usual, save for when a battle is going to start. I see stray clones running here and there down all the hallways, and no supply room seems empty. I am greeted on the bridge by my admiral, commander, and Captain Match.
"Is the scouting party back?" I ask the three of them.
"Yes General," replies Match. "The cargo station looks relatively unprotected. There were no defenses visible, but Iso guesses that there will be some vulture droids there."
"Iso?" I ask.
"He's in tech; a member of Byte's crew."
Huh. It's been nearly a year and I still don't know all of the names of the clones in my command. Although to be fair, there are thousands of them so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
"So it'll be an easy hit?" I ask Aris.
"Possibly," he responds, concern in his eyes. He puts a lot of caution into everything he does, which I respect. "I think if we strike soon then it could go well, but if we don't time it right then it'll fail."
"Why?" asks Fayrin.
Aris shrugs. "Cargo craft could arrive at any moment to pick up supplies, which would add risk of counterstrike. Plus, if there are any Separatist ships in the area, they could send a distress signal and rally reinforcements. That would for sure lead to disaster."
"Then we'll strike immediately," says Match. Aris hesitates, nods, then orders him to ready the starfighters.
"While that's happening, what do we do?" asks Aris, turning to me.
"We'll take out the cyber center on the planet's surface," I remind him. "Gather your squad; we leave immediately as well." He nods and salutes, then after donning his helmet he dashes out of the bridge to prep his men.
"I'll keep this channel open and report anything else that happens back to you," says Fayrin.
"Thanks, but I don't think that's a good idea," I tell her. "If you comm me while we're trying to hide, it could jeopardize the operation."
"Ah, right," she realizes. "Best to keep it quiet then. Well, I'll have a report waiting for you when you get back."
"Thanks." I turn and leave, making my way to the hangar bay. Aris is waiting for me there with Raven Squad, assembled in a gunship, ready to take off. I hop on board and the pilot takes off, rocketing down to the planet's surface as the starfighters depart to take out the cargo station.
"So what's our play?" asks Edge.
"Get in, download any battle plans we can, set some charges, and get out before it explodes," I tell him. Grounder likes the sound of that, and he stands a little straighter. Heilian, however, is not so amused. He doesn't say anything to my face, but he starts muttering under his breath about explosions and losing limbs and unnecessary tension. I smile, but stay quiet.
"Entering the atmosphere," says the pilot.
"Alright; engage stealth mode," instructs Aris. The blast doors lock on the sides of the ship, and I hear a low hum emit from the outside. I'm kind of disappointed because now I can't see the planet from up high, but I guess I'll have to be satisfied with a ground view.
"Nervous?" asks Aris, eyeing me closely.
"Nope," I lie. "You?"
"Very," he admits, his face solid as stone. Now I feel bad about not being honest. I don't like admitting weakness to people usually, but in my fear for the mission I forgot I can trust Aris. I guess I really am nervous; not only am I patient enough for a mission of this caliber, I don't want to lose any clones. And I know this seems less dangerous than a full on battle, but there's something about the intimacy of a stealth mission that concerns me. But I'm determined not to fail my late master; I will finish this mission and do it well.
Aris continues to look at me with a concerned gaze. It's almost as though he's staring right into my soul. He can obviously tell that I'm lying. However, instead of pressing the matter, he just takes a deep breath and dons his helmet, motioning for the other clones to do the same. I sigh, grab my sabers, and wait for the ship to land.
I'm not left waiting long. I feel us come to a rocky stop (which, I realize, is the first time I've actually landed in a gunship and not jumped off before it touched the ground), and then the blast doors open. Upon first glance, Uquine is a bland planet. The water looks murky, the trees are sparse, and the grass looks like it can't decide whether or not it wants to die. Everything is a brownish green color, like the life in the plants are on the cusp of death. Like they are dead, but not completely allowed to quit. Or alive but not allowed to fully live. I can't decide.
A little farther in the distance, partially obscured by a steep hill, is what looks like the top of a satellite dish, which I assume to be the Separatist cyber center. I follow Aris out of the gunship with our men close behind us, and the pilot tells us he'll wait. We start our trek up the hill, being vigilant about any clankers that could be hiding in the landscape. Although they'd do a terrible job; there's almost nothing to hide behind. The hill next to the cyber center was a blessing from the force. Perhaps the Separatists picked this particular spot because of the obscurity it gives. I doubt the native people would be okay with a war location being planted out in the open. Which reminds me, I can't see any signs of civilization. Another sign that this was a good location for a base. It's almost sad that we'll have to light it up.
We ascend the hill and stop right before the ridge. Trigger gets down into a prone position and unstraps his rifle, looking down the scope and scouting out the base. We all follow suit and I ask him for a look. He hands me a spare scope and I peer through it. The cyber center is essentially a big box with a satellite on top, the main entrance surrounded by super battle droids. It's positioned in a little dip in between another hill and surrounded by the most trees I've seen on the planet so far. The back part of the base looks completely hidden by shadows, which I immediately decide will be the best entry point.
"We'll descend on that side and enter from the back," I whisper, handing the scope back to Trigger.
"How will we get in without a door?" asks Catch stupidly. I smile and flash my lightsaber hilts at him, to which he "ah's" and gets up. We all follow, leaning over to cover ourselves with the hill. We sneak to the back of the cyber center, check one last time for stray droids, and then descend quickly down the hill. On our way down, Byte trips, but before he can hit the ground I catch him with the Force and right him. The other men do their best to stay silent, but their bodies arch with laughter, and though I do my best to not laugh, I can't stop a smile from reaching my lips. Byte dips his head and mutters something that I think is "shut up", but I can't quite tell. We finish descending the hill and reach the back of the center, where I turn on my lightsabers and begin carving a hole in the metal plating. Since I have two sabers, it goes faster than it would for another Jedi. Aris kicks in the circular cutout and I levitate it with the Force, preventing it from making noise by setting it down gently.
It seems we've broken into a storage room stacked to the brim with crates, weapons, and spare droid parts. I go in first, with the rest of the squad in tow and Aris bringing up the back, his two pistols aloft in caution. Catch, Grounder, Edge, and Byte set charges on every container we pass.
"Don't use them all up," I say quietly.
"I have enough charges here to blow up the Malevolence," says Grounder proudly, patting his haversack. The mania in his voice should scare me, but I find it funny and so I smile.
"Hell, you've filled that full," says Catch as he grabs a few more. "If those accidently go off there's going to be nothing left of you to bury."
"There's gonna be nothing left of any of us to bury," mutters Aris, opening the door to the main hall. He checks each side carefully before nodding to me, and as we exit the room I hear Grounder set a few more charges just for the fun of it.
We cautiously move down the left side of the hallway, coming to a stop at the elevator. Aris instructs Trigger to take Edge, Byte and Heilian around the first floor to set more charges while he, Grounder, Catch, and I ascend to the main computer room. Grounder hands off his explosive haversack to Edge with a little bit of a sigh, then we break off into our teams. As we ascend to the second floor, I feel an unexplainable feeling of dread tied to one of our men, but I can't pinpoint it.
"We shouldn't have split up," I mutter. Aris catches my words.
"What? Why?" he asks.
"I don't know," I respond, confused. I feel as though something terrible is going to happen, but I can't quite tell what it is. It's like a tugging at the back of my mind, warning me. As the elevator stops, I shake my head to clear my thoughts, not wanting to burden Aris with this information. The doors open on the main computer room, where six droids stand around a large holotable, headed up by a tactical droid. Immediately I slash my way towards the tactical droid as the clones take care of the others, and before they can send a distress signal the room is clear.
"Alright lets…" I start, then realize that we don't have Byte. "Crap."
"What now?" asks Aris.
"We need Byte."
"Oh, sorry. Guess that's my fault," he says. He taps his wrist comm. "Byte, you read?"
"Yeah. What's up?" comes the crackling voice over it.
"We need you up here to download the security plans," instructs Aris."
"Copy; on my way," he says. As he disconnects, I find myself worrying for his safety. Is he the clone that I'm getting a terrible feeling about? What if he doesn't make it up here?
My worries are alleviated when he arrives safely. "We finished setting the charges; they've been activated. We have six minutes," he informs us as he plugs in a drive to the central computer.
"Should be plenty," I tell him. On the holotable, I see all sorts of plans flash by as they're being downloaded. None of them seem particularly interesting, though I do note plans for a few interesting looking space stations. One of them looks like a giant ball. That doesn't seem practical to me at all, but then again, these are Separatists. Who knows what they have in mind.
The information finishes downloading in one minute, by which time the other party has joined us. That leaves five for us to escape. We descend the elevator and head for the storage bay, and it seems like we'll be able to get out without a hitch. But as soon as we're about to exit through our entry point, I hear a robotic voice from a few shipping crates over.
"Checking the storage inventory now, roger roger."
We all instinctively duck and hide behind a tall storage crate. Since the other clones are obscured by the crate and I'm the one next to the corner, I decide to peek out and get a visual. Two droids, blasters in hand, march around another crate and at first are oblivious. Then, I see the open hole that I cut. It's very obviously done by lightsabers, and as such I know it would be easily identified. A thought crosses my mind; if I can cut down the droids and stop them from seeing it, we'll be able to make it out okay. I grab my lightsaber hilts, preparing to jump out, when the memory returns.
"Self-control will be your worst enemy."
At the last moment, I catch myself from attacking. Taking a deep breath, I reattach the sabers to my belt and press against the crate, waiting to see how things play out. The droids get closer, and thought I want badly to destroy them, I force myself not to. As they walk by the hole, I hold my breath, and…"
"All crates present, roger roger."
The droids are too focused on taking inventory to notice the hole in the back. Additionally, I see one of them is fingering a distress beacon. Good. That could've been potentially catastrophic.
"General, orders?" whispers Aris. I hold a hand aloft, instructing them to wait. The droids continue to march towards us, but luckily the lights are very dim here and we're hidden by the shadows. The droids step right past our storage container, take note of it without seeing us, and then continue walking I exhale in relief.
Once they're out of range, Byte checks his wrist cuff. "Three minutes."
"Let's go," I command. But as soon as we step out of the shadows and towards the hole, two super battle droids appear at the entrance to the room, noticing us immediately.
"Republic forces have invaded; storage bay," they hum, engaging their wrist blasters and firing on us almost immediately.
I whip out my lightsabers and block their incoming fire. "Get out of here now!" I yell to my men. I'm able to deflect some of their blasts back at them, knocking them dead, but almost immediately more droids appear to reinforce them, including the two inventory droids, one of which activates their distress beacon. I look back, noticing my men hesitating. "Go! I got this!" I yell to them.
"I'm staying with you," says Aris, taking out his pistols and firing past my spinning sabers. "The rest of you get back to the ship!"
Edge, Byte, and Trigger listen, crawling through the hole and running off. Heilian hesitates, then follows. Grounder and Catch start to take off, but then we hear a loud clang from outside. Still deflecting the incoming fire, I turn my head around and look. A Separatist tank has rolled up, and while the other men seem to have made it up the hill okay, there's no chance we're getting out that way in one piece.
"New plan!" I yell. "We're pushing our way to the main entrance!" I leap forward, switching from a defensive strategy to offensive. I slash and hack through the piling droid forces, using some of the remains to push the other droids back by throwing them with the Force. My men follow, shooting the stragglers that I miss. We make it through the halls with some difficulty, but arrive at the front door in time.
"We're bringing the gunship over; you have one minute!" crackles Byte over Aris' comm. The blast doors to the base open, and outside there are more droids and another tank. Trusting Aris and the other men to be fine, I run forward and carve a path towards the tank, cutting off its main gun before it can fire a shell.
I look back from my position, only just realizing that I've ran a few dozen yards from the base. Aris and Catch have almost caught up, only being trailed by a few droids, but Grounder's stuck in a ring of super battle droids. He dodges the incoming fire pretty well, but he's stuck by the base.
I run towards him as Aris and Catch pass me. "Thirty seconds!" I vaguely hear from Aris' comm as I dash back towards the base.
"Kwintessa get back here!" my commander yells.
"I have to help Grounder!" I shout back. I hear the gunship coming in to reinforce us, shooting down some of the super battle droids surrounding my stray clone.
"I'm fine General! Get away from the base!" Grounder yells to me. But as he says this, he forgets to dodge one of the two remaining super battle droids, who shoots him successfully in the right leg. He collapses with a grunt, firing back at it but once again forgetting to dodge the other droid, taking another shot to the shoulder. The gunship fires it down, but as I reach a few yards distance of him I feel another spike of dread. All of a sudden, the Force seems to shut down my legs, causing me to skid to a halt. I hear Aris cry my name as the base explodes, the fire consuming Grounder and sending me flying backwards. I land on my back, knocking the wind out of me and causing me to struggle for breath. When I do get up, a cloud of ash and soot pelts me as smoke billows up from the wreckage. A horrified Aris and Catch reach my side as the gunship lands behind us. We all take in a collective breath.
The rush of the mission clears from my mind and I realize what just happened. I lost a clone. Other men in my legion have been lost before, but not like this. As the smoke clears, I see the crater that was once the cyber center. Almost nothing remains but a few lengths of metal. Aris and Catch remove their helmets, tears streaking down both of their faces. I can't stop a tear from escaping my eye as well, which carves a line down the soot that peppers my devastated face. I lost a clone.
Not a clone. Not a soldier. Not even just a man. I lost a friend. Grounder was certainly a friend. He was one of the few clones I was close to. Since he was in Aris' squad, he was with us often. I remember the funny quips he would crack in the mess hall, the smiles he brought to my face during missions, his maniacal love for fighting, explosives, and fire. He was always trying to outdo us in a fun and competitive way, challenging the other troops to see who could shoot more droids, who could lift the heaviest crates, or who could disassemble and reassemble their blasters faster. He was a constant joy to have around. And now he's gone.
Aris inches towards the lightly smoking crater. Catch just collapses, his head in his hands. I'm too stunned to move. I hear the rest of the squad exit the gunship, walking over to us. The other men are just as devastated. Edge and Trigger comfort Catch, while Byte stands sniffling near them. Heilian comes up to my side, undeniably sorrowful but containing his sadness. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
"Grounder was a good mate. Aris is going to have a hard time with this," he whispers sadly.
It makes sense that Heilian would be more able to cope with loss than the others, seeing as though he's a medic. That means not only tending to physical wounds of the soldiers, but also mental. And I forgot that Aris and Grounder have known each other practically their whole lives. They were in a squad together, which means they trained together. They've built memories together. They lived and laughed and had fun together. I look to my commander now, who is crouched in the black remains of the base, pulling what looks to be a length of armor out of it. I walk over to him slowly, not sure what to say or how to respond. I'm not good at people. I never have been. Especially not emotional people. Not in the sense of people who are prone to emotions, but I mean people who are going through an emotional spike. Which is ironic since I have those so often. My master was never the emotional type as a stereotypical Jedi, but even then he was calmer than most. Very collected. I never had to deal with anybody's anger or sadness other than my own. As I reach my commander, I find myself unsure of what to do. Then I remember what he did for me, after the council meeting. A simple gesture of friendship and comfort. So I get down on my knees next to him and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry," I whisper.
His face is unreadable, besides the tear running down his cheek. "Men die every day," he says, trying his best to appear indifferent. However, by the way he's fingering the piece of armor, I can tell it's hitting him hard. I decide to reach out with the Force and see exactly what he's feeling. As soon as I do, I'm almost knocked over by the wave of grief that hits me. Followed by intense anger, uncertainty, and regret.
"He wasn't a man, he was your friend," I tell him. "And it's completely my fault. I ordered the explosion of the base, and I couldn't get to him in time. You had nothing to do with it."
He looks at me with questioning, but then realizes how I knew. "Reading my mind, eh?"
"Just your emotions," I say. "I understand if you're angry with me…"
"It's not you, Kwintessa. It's the war," he says. "Grounder proves what I've always thought. We're just pieces of the Republic's game. His death will be forgotten like every other clone we lose."
"That's not true; I won't let them," I say, but I know he's right. The Republic won't care, nor will the Jedi. His name will be chiseled into a mass memorial somewhere on Coruscant, a medal will be awarded the Raven Squad for his bravery, and then that'll be it. No more. Just a clone who did his job. Dying for the greater good.
"It's not fair," growls Aris, following my thoughts. "We're made just to die. With no respect."
"I respect all of you," I tell him. "And I respect Grounder. His death won't be in vain. We'll make it count."
Aris looks at me solemnly, sighs, and then hangs his head. "I know we will. And I know you respect us Kwintessa. That's all we could ask for." He and I both stand up, and he slips Grounder's armor piece into his utility belt. We trudge back over to the rest of the troops, who have boarded the gunship. Catch still sobs shamelessly, and Heilian crouches beside him, trying to speak words of comfort. Edge, Trigger, and Byte all have their helmets on, but I can hear their sniffs and irregular breathing. When Aris and I step on, the ship takes off immediately, rocketing back to the Korvanest. The ride seems like it lasts forever, but nevertheless we arrive and, to my surprise, the hangar bay seems to be full of cheers and happy soldiers. Fayrin waits for us with some of the other troops, all of whom are smiling wide, but as soon as we start to land her face drops as she realizes that something happened. Once we've set down, she rushes over to us.
"What happened?" she asks, worried.
"We lost Grounder," I murmur. Aris, seemingly drained of emotion, walks quietly towards his quarters. The cheering and celebration slowly stops as everyone becomes aware of the loss that happened, especially when Catch and Heilian leave for the medical bay. The other three men of the Raven Squad silently leave for their own quarters, and soon the rest of the legion disperse into whispering circles, trying to place what happened.
"Well, I know that nothing can make up for that loss, but if it does anything to help, your cargo mission was successful," Fayrin says solemnly. "I'll go back to the bridge and alert the council. You should rest."
I nod, and we part. I make it halfway to my quarters before stopping in my tracks, realizing that I know exactly how Aris feels. I lost my master less than a year ago. Who, before the war began, was my only friend or person relatively close to me. I decide to go talk to Aris, hoping that I can comfort him more during what will surely be a hard time.
O. O
So a relatively boring introduction. Part of the reason why it took so long to write this chapter was because I was hung up on the flashback. Yes, the ship they're on in the flashback is the Skeld from Among Us. Or based off of it, at least.
Uquine has little to no information in canon, besides the fact that the native people don't like intruders (which I faithfully included). I hope the mission was well enough for all you.
And speaking of, the tragic death of Grounder. I decided that I had to kill one of the main clones eventually, and unfortunately he was the victim of the deadly dice roll. I'll go more into the aftermath next chapter.
That's all for now. And in case I don't post again later, Merry Christmas!
- DASCKRON