THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE GALACTIC CIVIL WAR

by Nadeen Nolek

Trial, triumph, and the cost each. Such challenges will sometimes bring out the best in a person, sometimes the worst. However, there are such moment when a single triumph catapults one from obscurity to legend. Navigate through the adventures of many such people, as they rise to prominence or gain a storied life with a memorable ending.

7. A COST LONG REMEMBERED-PART 1

CHAPTER VII

A COST LONG REMEMBERED

(PART 1: NUMBERS BEYOND COMPREHENSION)

THIRD PERSON-VILLERIA

While Rebel Commander Villeria Fraes stood guard on the storm planet of Kamino, she felt slight concern that should the Imperials attack the planet, her forces would do nothing against their opponents numbers. Less than a week later, heard the airstrike alarm sound. The moment she heard the alarm blare, she knew her forces were about to be greatly tested.

Her fears were right as she sent her fighters into orbit to engage the Imperial fighters before they could bombard her positions, cripple her defenses, and capture the clone facilities.

As Villeria observed the battle in orbit, she began to pray that the Imperials wouldn't dare land their forces after the clone fighters took out enough of the TIEs coming her way. Sadly, her prayers were ignored.

Eventually, Imperial dropships began to spill through the skies and ordered her forces to fire at the enemy dropships to prevent their enemy from landing. As soon as Villeria's men were in position, Villeria gave her jet troopers orders to get into the air and destroy the Imperial transports before they could land their troops. Villeria herself grabbed her sniper rifle and began to take potshots at Imperial forces in the gunships. In spite of the efforts of and her men to prevent the Imperials from landing their forces, the enemy still had the defenders outnumbered 200 to 1. The moment Villeria saw her adversary land, she knew her 2,000 men would merely delay their deaths. As the Imperials began to form their ranks, Villeria knew that she would have to have some of her troops fire missiles at the gunships, send more jet troopers to keep as many as possible from landing, and have her ground troops give the Imperials everything they've got in order to survive the carnage that was soon to come.

While the rebels gunned down the Imperials in droves, lines, and piles from the various sniping positions they were able to find, Villeria had a strong feeling that they would soon run out of ammunition and be forced to face the enemy in melee combat. Nevertheless, 's troops fired without relent into the Imperial lines. Knowing that just throwing as ammoless rifles would be foolish, ordered her men to store their rifles after they'd been completely drained and draw their pistols so as to continue firing upon the enemy.

Unbeknownst to Villeria, her men actually knew, just as she did, that their ranged weapons would soon be empty, which was the reason they simply decided to continuously send troops at the cloning facilities. The Imperials advanced, pretending their minds were plagued with overconfidence.

Every minute, the Imperials just sent in 200 troops for every 100 that went down. Despite the obvious fact that her troops were downing Imperial troops as fast as the Imperial fleet could dispatch them, Villeria was well aware that her troops would eventually run out of ammunition and be forced to engage the Imperials in hand-to-hand combat which would result in, possibly, a total slaughter, seeing has how the Imperials had her troops 1,537-1 and rising.

As the fighting continued, the clones and their commander were certain only of their deaths, for the odds were impossibly against them. Regardless of the odds, the clones kept to their word and continued to fight with one thought in their minds: a costly victory or a blaze of glory.

As the clones' rifles began to run dry one by one, they were forced to switch to their pistols to continue shooting. Even Villeria was down to her last cartridge. An hour and a half later, of the 2,000 clones on Kamino, every single troopers' rifles were completely empty and had only one out of her twenty 100-shot cartridges left which she was currently using, though the cartridge had only 28 shots total remaining.

A quarter of an hour later, every defender, Villeria included was using their pistols, though those were soon running lower and lower on ammo as well. Soon, every clone activated their saber blades to engage the Imperials at close quarters. Unfortunately for , she had no melee weapon. Due to this little predicament, Villeria was left with no choice but to use her rifle as a bludgeon to brain Imperial troops that engaged her.

Regardless, five hours later, Villeria knew that she had to pull her forces back into the facilities lest they be slaughtered out in the open. As Villeria's troops fell one after the other, she tried her best to cue the retreat.

Sadly, several of Villeria's men fell as they attempted to fall back to the Cloning facilities. knew, then and there, that she would need reinforcements or everyone defending the planet would die, either quickly in battle by an enemy trooper as a soldier or slowly by torture in a detention cell as a prisoner of war.