Message from Master Shon Kon Ray to Master Plo Koon. We have been grossly misinformed. The Rebel forces are not napping, but wide awake and butchering us. The Ion cannons are fully operational, shielded, and blowing our landing craft out of the sky. Most of our troops have been lost before reaching the objective. In short, the attack is botched. Perhaps we should withdraw, If we still can. I'm open to other suggestions...Kon Ray out-
-Jedi Master Kon Ray, moments before his death.
"General Ti!" Yelled a clone trooper, taking down a B1 with his blaster rifle."We've lost contact with General Kon Ray's ship! Your instructions?!" He yelled over the blasterfire and explosions on the battlefield they were fighting on.
Shaak Ti quickly Force pushed a B1 into another."Keep fighting. We will count our losses later." It had been three months since she had fought in a battle. The last battle she had fought in was Kamino, fighting besides Alpha-17 and Master Obi-Wan and his former Padawan, Anakin. But her fighting skills were certainly not rusty.
She sliced a B1 in half and used the Force to crush a DSD1 dwarf spider Droid."Forward!" She said to her clones.
Shogar Tok turned from Count Dooku's hologram to point his axe in the direction where there was battle."There, Count Dooku! That is where I should be!" He exclaimed. The Count of Serenno, as always, remained calm."Out there, leading my troops where they can see me!"
Dooku smiled. He had to admit, Shogar Tok was a brave man. A brute, maybe, but certainly not a coward."Patience, Shogar Tok. You are indispensable. You alone have rallied your people against the yoke of the Republic. You cannot be replaced. I have armies tied up in the Mirgoshir system and on Muunilinst. As soon as they become available, I will send them to you to help secure Brentaal IV. For now, stand your ground. And stay alive. I will give you the coordinates for you to retreat to a planet in the Unknown Regions. Perhaps you'll be safe there."
"Plo Koon, this is Shaak Ti." The Jedi Master said as she cut down a Rebel soldier."We are compromised. Recall all of the landing craft that you can."
"Already done, Master Ti." Plo Koon responded."But we've lost more than a quarter of our forces. If Shogar Tok's insurrection is allowed to succeed, we may lose access to the perlemian trade route. Access from here to the Tion Cluster will be impeded."
Shaak Ti nodded."His shields prevent our bombarding his fortress from above, and the Ion pulse cannons in his towers prevent us from landing enough troops to successfully assault it. We must find another way!"
"What is your situation, Master Ti?" Plo Koon asked from the Venator-class Star Destroyer that was above the planet.
"I am cut off from the bulk of my troops. Agen Kolar and his troops survived the landing, but I don't know their current location!" She quickly deflected a Rebel's laser fire."The enemy closes in!"
"The Holomap shows a fortress, like structure. A Prison, actually. Just north of your location. If you can reach it."
"I might be able to rally my troops from there. Excellent thought, Master Koon. I am most grateful."
Finally, after a few more minutes of fighting, Shaak Ti looked at the Prison, seeing fire and hearing noises coming from it."Do we have troops already within?" She asked a Plo Koon.
"Not to my knowledge."
"Yet there is fighting within. So I wonder, who is the fight between?"
"How many more of them are there, do you think?" Asked Lyshaa, a female Zeltron, as she shot a Rebel soldier, right in his chest. Next to her, the grey Wookiee named Ryyk roared as he cut the head off of one Rebel with a sword.
"GRAHHHHRRR!"
"How many more you want?!" Asked a male human Sagoro Autem, once a member of the Republic Senate, as he shot as many guards as he could. He was holding two blaster pistols in each hand, still shooting. He dodged a strike from the Wookiee's sword."Keep that walking rug away from me! He almost took off my head!" He said angrily.
Lyshaa smiled."Ryyk's just trying to defend me, aren't you, sweetie?"
Shaak Ti activated her lightsaber upon the scene."Attack." She ordered calmly. The Rebel guards turned their attention to her and her clones."Secure the compound. Do not harm the defenders." She commanded.
One of the clones nodded, aiming his blaster at one of the guards."Roger."
After a few more minutes, the guards were dead. Ti looked to see the Wookie two of the clones, the sword denting one helmet."Down!" She said, Force pushing him into a wall.
"Well, well. A Jedi here to rescue us?" Said one of the prisoners. Shaak Ti looked at the.
"It depends. Who are you? Guards?" She asked.
"We're what's left of the prison population. My name's Saguro Autem, the Wookiee goes by Ryyk, and this-"
"Lyshaa." The Jedi Master said, looking at the Zeltron plainly.
"Shaak Ti." Lyshaa smiled.
"You two know each other? It is a shrinking universe." Autem said in surprise, looking at them.
"She's the one who put me in prison."
"You killed one of my former Padawans."
The two stared at each other until Shaak Ti heard a noise. She looked to see the Wookiee waking up from her pushing him."The Wookiee's waking up, General. It might go berserk again. Shall I restrain it?" Asked one clone, the one who's helmet was dented.
Shaak Ti shook her head."No. We'll need him."
Mygeeto, Outer Rim, the vaults of the Dressian Kiolsh Merchant Bank.
We're running out of time.
We're running out of time, all of us.
"Sarge..." Scorch looks at the security locks on the strongroom hatch with the appraising eye of an expert at breaking the unbreakable. That's how I trained him: He's the best."Sarge, we got what we came for. Why are we robbing a bank?"
"You're not robbing it. I'm robbing it. You're just opening a door." This is about justice. And reliving Separatists of their wealth stops them from spending it on ornaments, after all."And I'm a civilian now."
It doesn't feel like it. Delta is still my squad. I won't go as far as Kal Skirata and call them my boys, but...boys they are.
Scorch is about twelve years old. He's also twenty-four, measured in how far along that path to death he actually is, which is the only definition I care about. He's running out of time faster than me. The Kaminoans designed the Republic's clone commando's to age fast, and when I think of them as the tiny kids I first knew, it's heartbreaking-yes, even for me. My father didn't quite kill the last bit of feeling in me.
Scorch places circuit disrupters against the locks spaced around the door frame, one by one, to fry the systems and create a bogus signal that convinces the alarm there's nothing out of order. He freezes for a moment, head cocked, reading the display on his helmet's head-up display.
"What's in there, Sarge?"
I'm not robbing for gain. I'm not a greedy man. I just want justice. See? My Mandalorian armor's black-black, the traditional color of justice. Beskar'gam colors almost always have meaning. Every Mando who sees me understands my mission in life right away.
"Part of my inheritance," I say."Father and I didn't agree on my career plans."
Justice for me; Justice for the clone troops, used up and thrown away like flimsy napkins.
"The drinks are on you, then," Says Boss, Delta's sergeant."If we'd known you were loaded, we'd have hit you up earlier."
"Was loaded. Cut off without a tin cred."
I've never told them about my Family or my title. I think the only person I told was Kal, and then I got the full blast of his class-war rhetoric.
Sev, Delta's sniper-silent, which might mean disapproval, or it might not-trains his DC-17 rifle on the deserted corridors leading from the labyrinth of vaults and storerooms that hold the wealth and secrets of the Galaxy's richest and most powerful, including my family.
Fierfek, It's quiet down here. The corridors aren't made of ice, but they're smooth and white, and I can't shake the impression that they're carved straight out of this frozen planet itself. It makes the place feel ten degrees colder.
"In three," Says Scorch."But I'd still prefer a nice big bang. Three, two...one." I know he's grinning, helmet or not."Boom. Clatter. Tinkle."
The locks yield silently and open in a sequence: Clack, clack, clack. No alarms, no theft countermeasures to take our heads off, no guards rushing in with blasters. The vault doors roll back to reveal row upon row of polished durasteel deposit boxes lit by a sickly green light. Inside, two security Droids stand immobile, circuits disrupted along with every lock in here, weapon arms slack at their sides.
"Well?" Fixer asks on the comlink. He's up on the surface a kilometer away, minding the snowspeeder we'll use to exfiltrate from Mygeeto. He'll get the Icon views from all our helmet systems, but he's impatient."What's in here?"
"The future," I tell him. His future, too, I hope.
When I touch the deposit box doors, they swing open and their contents glitter, or rustle, or...smell odd. It's quite a collection. Boss wanders in and fishes out a small gilt-framed portrait that hasn't seen the light of day for...well, who knows? The three commandos stare at it for a moment.
"What a waste of creds." Scorch, who's never expressed a desire for anything beyond a decent meal and more sleep, checks the Droids, prodding them with the probe anchored to his belt."You've got until the next patrol to clear out what you need, Sarge. Better hurry."
As I said, we're running out of time, some of us faster than others. Time's the one thing you can't buy, bribe, or steal when you need more.
"Go on, get out of here." I walk down the corridor lined with unimaginably excessive wealth: Rare precious metals, untraceable credit chips, priceless jewels, antiques, industrial secrets, blackmail material. Ordinary credits aren't the only things that make the Galaxy rotate. The Vau family box is in here."I said dismiss, Delta."
Boss stands his ground."You can't carry it all on your own."
"I can carry enough." I can haul a fifty-kilo pack all right, maybe not as easily as young men like them, but I'm motivated, and that shaves years off my age."Dismissed. Thin out. Now. This is my problem, not yours."
"There's a lot of stuff in here. It's going to take longer than I thought.
Time. You just can't buy it. So you have to grab it any way you can.
I'll start by grabbing this.
Shaak Ti, the clone without its helmet, Lyshaa, Ryyk, Autem, and Quinlan Vos, who she had found in the detention area, walked into the gunship. She had offered the prisoners a chance of freedom if they would help her capture Shogar Tok.
Once the gunship's doors opened, however, Shaak Ti saw four clone commandos. If she remembered correctly, this was Delta Squad. Her eyes opened in surprise and she sensed surprise from the others. She also sensed hate from Quinlan.
"Ma'am," Said their leader, Boss."We've been ordered by the Supreme Chancellor himself to help you capture or eliminate Shogar Tok."
She saw Quinlan raise an eyebrow."That's it?"
The clone shook his head."Negative. We are also to find Ko Sai. It is said that she is going in the same direction as her."
"In any case," Shaak Ti said."We will be also helped by someone."
The clone looked at her."By who?"
Spongebob opened his door to his pineapple, smiling."Good morning, world!" He said happily. Suddenly, the camera started to turn away from him."World?"