The team moves out with incredible ease, given that most of them haven't really worked together before. From what Jocasta understands the Devil Dogs- led by Captain Sharp- are usually under the command of Captain Ozzel, so they don't actually work too closely with the rest of the GAR. The small team of 104th members- her Boost, as well as the two Scouts, Sly and Quirk, and the demolitions expert, Timer- seem a little uneasy around them, but don't let it get in the way of anything as they load the swoop bikes with explosives and head out.
Adaroo and the Scouts take the lead, the Khormai having been tasked with leading them to a back route so that they can reach the base undetected, and Plo and Jocasta follow behind them. The Devil Dogs and their incredible pack of explosives come next, and behind that- at a safe distance in case of accidents- is Clicker, since his skill with his lightsabers means that he's in the best position to buy them time should they need to outrun an enemy. Jocasta's heard rumours that Cin is hoping to poach her Archivist for the Temple Guard, or possibly train him up as Battlemaster, which speaks well to his skills even though she much prefers him on the Geological Cataloguing team.
Boost and Timer are accompanying him, despite the fact that it is very clear in the Force that Boost would rather be with herself and Plo, and are helping to keep communication running between the team.
From what Adaroo had said as the explosives were loaded up, the back way they were leading them along would be rather slower than a more direct path, but would have rather better cover and also end closer to the likely base than the direct path did. That one opened up a good klick or so from the location they assumed the device would be, while the back path would let them sneak up much closer.
It did, however, have its own downsides.
"This village…" Plo says quietly as they all slow to a stop. "The storms must have been too much for it."
They are noticeably worse up here, Jocasta agrees, with much faster winds that tear at her hair and whip her robes around sharply. This village was obviously unprepared, the weather control device making the storm blow in without any of the normal warning signs, and the devastation that it spread…
She can't sense any signs of life around her in the Force, and from the way Plo shudders the same holds for him.
"We must bury them." Adaroo insists, sounding regretful but firm. "They should be shown respect."
"I agree." Clicker rumbles, dismounting his swoop bike and drawing a saberstaff in the same motion. "I will stand guard for you."
Jedi do not bury their dead, preferring to cremate them instead to avoid any potential Darksider techniques being used to bring them back, but both Jocasta and Plo work quickly to help the troopers and Adaroo move the bodies. There's a lot of them, some of them little more than children-
Jocasta breathes. Pain is the point, with Sith. The Separatists are run by the Sith. It is no surprise that they, too, have adopted the strategy of pain and disgust in battle. This is terrible, but they shall move forward, and avenge these people's spirits by destroying the device that caused this and saving the lives that they can.
She will endure. The people of Khorm will endure. The Separatists will be defeated and life will resume, changed but unyielding. Such is the way of the Jedi; endurance, in spite of pain.
Why is it, Sinker grumbles to himself, ducking behind cover and attempting to aim his blaster through the snow, that the moment General Buir leaves, everything goes to haran?
In this case, 'everything' was the fact that not an hour cycle after General Plo had left with the rest of his team, Ventress had arrived with her own team, mostly filled with droids that were much more competent than he wanted to be dealing with, and also Ventress.
Luckily Ventress was quickly engaged by General Fisto, and also General Kiili the Archivist was somewhere on the base, doing only the Force knew what, but that still meant that Sinker and his vod'e were having to deal with an awful lot of battle droids in poor visibility.
The green and red flashes of General Fisto's lightsaber against Ventress' is a brilliant distraction, but one Sinker manages to ignore fairly successfully. He's used to General Plo's, after all, so as much as part of him wants to turn and look at the fight, maybe send some blaster shots at Ventress, he knows full well that it'd just be a waste of time and probably get him killed.
Instead the Sergeant blocks that out, counsels the nearby shinies to do the same, and goes back to trying to shoot the damn clankers through the snow storm. Not helped by the fact that the storm is still causing trouble with the comms, though luckily they're still fine short range. Which makes him very curious what kind of things the droids were using to be able to coordinate so well…
A dark shadow against the storm nearly makes Sinker take aim on instinct, before registering that it's much too low to the ground to be a droid. A moment later, the shadow blurs, abruptly appearing at his side and resolving itself into General Kiili, the Jawa's cloak slightly damaged from blasterfire but not too bad off, with an incredibly small lightsaber held in one hand.
Well, small compared to the rest of the Jedi's that he's seen. Sinker supposes it's plenty proportionate for such a small Jedi. It still looks strange, though.
"Agisti, Sinker!" He beams, like they're just meeting in the Archives and not on a battlefield. "Doing alright?"
"Fairly well, sir." He says back, leaning over his cover again and taking a few shots at a droid. "Think they'll go away if we get rid of their leader?"
"Might do!" Kiili nods, looking towards the red-green-red swirl of saber combat. "Might be worth it to have a go… also would be nice to try snagging a few of these, see how they tick. Haven't gotten the chance to yet, been wanting to since the start of all this stuff started."
"We'll try and grab you some, sir."
"Thanks, buddy! I'll see if I can get the rest off you." The General vanishes again, dark form blending in against the snow oddly well- it's almost like he's blurring- and Sinker goes back to shooting at droids.
"Strange guy." Etch comments lowly, in the tones of someone who's forgotten they're on comms.
"Less talking, more shooting." Sinker scolds, because even if he'd been thinking that himself someone needs to pull rank around here, and puts that into action over the guilty silence.
Which is broken a little over five seconds later by a sharp screech.
Putting one more bolt into a nearby droid for good measure, Sinker checks around, then turns towards the lightsaber duel that has now gained an awful lot of violent swearing and gleeful cackling. General Kiili seems to have joined the fight, and from the flashes of blue that he can see, is currently attempting to take out Ventress at the knees.
Ventress does not seem to like that situation.
Sinker quickly gets distracted by more droids coming after them, but the sounds of saber combat and entertained Jawas menacing very angry Sith Apprentices continue to float over the battlefield for quite a while, until they abruptly end about five minutes later. At the same time, the droids start disengaging, and Generals Fisto and Kiili start going after them themselves. General Kiili seems to also be sport hunting them or something, given that from the reports Sinker is getting he's mostly going for take downs that would technically count as non-lethal, and also seems to be collecting parts.
Sinker understands the urge, honestly, but he'd also prefer if the droids were destroyed and thus no longer a problem.
Then again, they might be able to get some useful information out of some of them, so there's that.
Maybe they'd even be able to find Wolffe with it.
...Sinker really hopes his ori'vod is alright.
Wolffe is not particularly happy with this arrangement.
Mostly because he's being held captive, which was never going to be particularly nice in the first place- the clones all have anti-interrogation training for a reason, after all, even if the Kaminiise probably didn't expect them to need it because who would bother interrogating a flesh droid- but the fact that they were being held by that crazy bantha Ventress made it about ten times as bad.
The Sith was well known for not caring about the clones she went through, and that made the fact that she'd even bothered to capture them concerning.
And even then that was before the torture.
She'd already come in once, apparently deciding that she wanted to go after them herself instead of leaving it to an interrogation droid- though maybe she just didn't have one- and the end result of that had left Comet and Spitter with a fair few bruises from being thrown around and Gritt down a leg.
The chakaar had left after that, apparently deciding that since he hadn't broken down begging for mercy and told her everything about the Republic plans, she had better things to do than wait.
Wolffe had immediately made his way over to the group of shinies there, alternating between checking them over- Incident had helped, she had some medical training- and apologising to them for not protecting them.
"'Salright, Commander." Gritt had managed, clamping down on Wolffe's hand as the rest of them scrabbled to try and do something for the injury. "Better that she doesn't learn anything."
It hadn't managed to stop Wolffe from feeling like a failure then, and that hasn't changed in the intervening time.
None of them have any idea how long it's been since they left the base- they'd all been attacked by droids and stunned, then hauled to wherever they were, and then left alone for a time before Ventress had appeared for interrogation. The time since the interrogation is even more hazy, since most of it had passed in a blur of trying to do something for Gritt's injury; fortunately lightsabers cauterised the wounds they left, so they weren't trying to stop him from bleeding out with no medical supplies, but it was already dire enough and would continue to get so for every hour cycle that passed.
Wolffe feels useless.
It's giving him flashbacks to the time in the escape pod, after the destruction of the Triumphant; he's aware enough of himself to acknowledge that, with how trapped he feels and with the fact that he can't do anything to help them. Trying to escape will just get them all killed, since they have no weapons, armour, or information. Giving in to Ventress isn't an option; it wasn't before the Triumphant and it isn't now, not when he knows first hand how little the nightmare cares about their lives.
All he can do is keep trying to comfort them, and assure them that someone is coming.
It doesn't matter that he can't reach General Buir for some reason right now; it doesn't matter that he's not totally sure of it himself. General Buir had promised someone would come after the Triumphant was destroyed, and they did. Madame Jocasta, as she'd agreed to be called when off duty if they weren't comfortable with anything else, had treated them like people, accepted that General Plo adored them, and given them gifts for no reason other than the fact that she believed they deserved things made with care and love. The Jedi were kind, and they wouldn't leave them here. General Buir would know they were missing by now for certain, and he would come for them the second he could.
General Plo had said someone would come. General Plo had been right then. These odds are about as bad, Wolffe acknowledges, but he keeps faith, for the shinies if nothing else.
Maybe their Jedi's Force will come through for them this time, too.
The sound of a distant explosion is the first sign the base gets as to how the team that went out is doing. The noise is incredibly muffled, thanks to the blizzard, but it's still loud enough that the majority of the troopers- including the entire team working under General Kiili's instruction to collect the droid remains in one place- look up and around, hands going to their blasters.
Sinker is one of them, but he looks down when General Kiili just taps against his leg armour.
"Nothing to worry about." He assures them, still examining a B1 droid head. "Hm, might actually be able to get something out of this, assuming the processor isn't clogged full of crap…"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Well, a lot of droids have garbage data in their processors as a side effect of general running-"
"No, about it being nothing to worry about." Sinker elaborates, warily taking his hand from his blaster and signalling the others to do the same anyway. "How do you know that?"
"The Force." General Kiili makes a strange waving gesture with one hand, the other still holding the droid head. "When you know what you're listening for the Force can give… warnings, basically." He shrugs. "So no warning about that explosion means it's not something to worry about. Might be something going wrong somewhere, but it's nothing that's gonna cause us danger right now, so it's fine."
"The Force can do that?"
"What, never heard a Jedi have bad feelings?" He asks, looking up for a moment toward the vod that had spoken.
"General Plo has them sometimes."
"That's what it is." The Jawa nods. "The Force is very extra-sense at times, but it can also be a hell of an instinct. Pretty damn useful, so long as you listen to it instead of just assuming that nothing's wrong." He tosses the droid head to Three-Six. "Hold onto that." He instructs, before turning back to Sinker. "Anyway, yeah, if yer Jedi is saying they've got a bad feeling, listen to it. Maybe ask some questions and see if you can narrow it down, who knows. Might save yer lives. Done it plenty in the Archives."
General Kiili goes back to examining the droid parts while they all contemplate that, and the process continues for a few more minutes until the General looks up again.
"Jesara, Council Master Fisto." He greets, dropping an arm into a pile. There are three of them, and Sinker has exactly zero idea as to what the criteria is for each of them, but also no interest in trying to get the Jedi to explain their methodology. "How goes it?"
"Since the storm is calming down," Sinker blinks and looks around, realising for the first time that yes, the snow is getting lighter, "I'm going to call Tauht to bring the rest of his troopers to this base, as well as call the Seeker and ask them if they'd be willing to do a flyover of the mines."
"Thy'll've told Imik the plan, so they're probably already working on getting up in the air. Still, good idea. If we're gonna be pulling off a slave freeing heist, gonna want all the info we can. Sinker, come with me. You lot, keep an eye on that, yeah?"
The collection of slightly overwhelmed tech specialists that General Kiili had gathered up at the end of the battle all nod, and Sinker just lets the General's energy pull him along until they reach the signal booster he'd come up with.
"Comm, if you don't mind."
"Why, sir?"
"Gonna see if I can rig this thing up to go hunting fer yer Commander's comms using yours." He explains, leaning into the device and poking it a bit. "Do that before we let Master Fisto borrow it, 'less yer stuff is working now the storm's gone?"
"It's certainly more stable." The Nautolan agrees, tendrils twining. "Either way, I believe my messages can easily wait until you've done what you need. Finding Commander Wolffe and his squad is a rather large priority."
Sinker takes off the vambrace with his comm without further prompting, handing it to the General when he holds his hand out for it.
"Hmmm." The General looks up at General Fisto. "Got a map?"
"You've got something?"
"Seems like they're holed up in another processing plant." General Kiili says, prodding something. "Probably. It's on the other side of the mountain, either way. Didn't realise the Seppies had two of 'em here… then again makes sense, no reason to put all yer nuna eggs on one cart."
"Send a message to Plo." General Fisto instructs, to Sinker's rising hope. "They're already up the mountain and closer, they can start investigating the base. Once the storm's died down entirely we can send some of our troopers over there to assist them in taking it."
Since there'll probably be Khormai slaves there too, being forced to process the ore the ones in the mines are digging out. General Kiili nods, taking out his own comm and handing Sinker's armour back to him, and makes a gesture towards General Fisto.
"Probably should start putting together the teams, then."
Dai Bendu
Agisti- hello/goodbye (between people of equal rank)
Jesara- hello/goodbye (a respectful greeting or farewell (Padawan to knight, master to council member)
Mando'a
Buir- parent
Haran- hell (literally destruction, cosmic annihilation)
Vod- sibling (vod'e- siblings, and ori'vod(e) is older sibling(s))
Chakaar- corpse robber, thief, petty criminal (a general term of abuse)