Chapter Seven

"You tricked me!" she screeched, and reached for her lightsaber. It's violet light filled the chamber. Somehow, she felt that before she had died, she wouldn't have been led into such a trap. Which was, of course, absurd, because she was exactly the same. Even so, she mentally kicked herself for not even at least thinking of using her electronic contacts.

"I have no idea what's going on here!" he said, and reached for a blaster at his thigh. "Fine, she said, and leaped at the nearest battle droid. She halved it, and deflected a blaster bolt into another droid. She spun, and cut off the head of a third. "Three down…um…six to go," she thought. She saw Nield shoot down two battle droids. Maybe he wasn't lying. She used the Force to push down one, and stabbed another through the chest. Nield brought down another, but the last one shot a laser straight at Nield. It hit him square in the shoulder. Siri threw her lightsaber into the last one, and ran over to Nield.

"Are you all right?" she asked, all the while unfolding a bacta patch that was in her belt medpac. She stuck it to his shoulder, and he winced. "Yeah, I'm fine, I've gotten worse," Nield said through clenched teeth. "Why didn't you tell me you were a Jedi?" he asked. "On a Separatist world? Do you think I'm stupid?" she asked.

"No…"

"Good," she said flatly. "Now, where were you taking me?"

"To see some people who are starting a small rebellion."

"There's something with you guys and rebellions, isn't there?" Siri asked, and laughed. He nodded sullenly. "Maybe we should look for them," she said, and Nield nodded, and stuck the bacta patch under his clothing and on his wound. She called her still-ignited lightsaber to her, and searched for any sign of a body. She found one. "Nield, over here!" she called, and he ran over to her. He sighed. "Hetten. He was the youngest of the group. I think we should look for survivors, not the dead," Nield said quietly, and she nodded. She stretched out with the Force, and searched through the cavern. She found three life forces, other than hers and Nield's. "Nield, three!" she said, and pointed out where each one was. Nield identified them as Roenni, Deila, and Rica. They administered first aid, and let each of them sleep.

One of the commandos, "Ron", or CT-87/456 (his number), trudged through the streets, his muscular body sometimes hitting pedestrians. He nodded at them and muttered a "sorry". Ron had three years of experience, even serving in the attack on Kamino, his homeworld. He had gone undercover before, but he still preferred to be in his armor, lugging around a big gun, and a bunch of grenades. There was a reason that Ron was the explosives expert of the Special Operations team. Ron loved explosions, ever since he was hatched. His personality, a thing that not a whole lot of clonetroopers had, was like his liking of explosions as well. Ron liked to surprise people, and he was dramatic, at least, for a clonetrooper. Ron was happiest either joking around, or blowing something up. He shook his head. He didn't feel safe with the little p-shooter he had. "Oh well, get over it," he thought, and plodded on.

Clonetrooper personality was a rare thing. Clonetroopers were mostly all alike. They could experience humor, delight, and normal human emotions, but not with the same things. Clonetroopers were simple creatures, in a sense. They were bred purely for war, and personality was very limited.

However, in processing so many vast amounts of DNA, there were bound to be flukes. Adaptations. Mutations.

A bacterium adapts to its surroundings. It evolves to fit the standards needed by its environment. These adaptations make a single bacterium unlike all the other bacteria of the species. Eventually other bacteria adapt the same way, and more, and more. New bacteria are born with this new adaptation. Life is a constant state of adaptation.

The same way, the DNA of the clonetroopers changes.

Most of the DNA of the clonetroopers is exactly alike to another. But sometimes, the DNA adapts slightly, and differences occur in personality, dependency, learning ability. These accidental personality changes are different from Advanced Recon Commando's personalities, in that ARCs are more controlled, and there are fewer ARCs. These "accidents" are given special attention by Kaminoans. They are given special training, a little more genetic manipulation, and named commandos. These commandos number 1 commando to 1000 regular troopers, meaning there were about 1,200 commandos. The commandos were given special operations missions, and were given commands of platoons and armies where Jedi were not in command. These "flukes", though not as good as ARC troopers, had proved themselves hundreds of times over.

He soon came to an abandoned meetinghouse, which looked like it had been bombed, shot at and knifed numerous times. It looked shady, so of course, Ron walked in, stealthily, so as not to make a noise. He tiptoed down the hallway, sticking with the shadows. He drew his blaster out, and turned it on the highest setting he could have it go, without letting it hum.

"No guards…" he thought, and then realized, that there might not be a reason to. It could just be an old building. Nothing corrupt about it.

Then he heard voices. Droid voices.

It was the high-pitched, throaty, annoying voice of a Super battle droid. These battle droids were larger than the original, had blue armor plating, and guns built into the hands. Fortunately, they were still as dumb as rocks. He strode toward them with confidence.

"I'm here for the meeting tonight," he said, almost laughing. The battle droid nodded it's body, seeing as how Super battle droids had heads built into the body. "Walk right on in, down the hall, fourth door on the left."

"Thank you," Ron said, almost cackling with delight. "One-hundred percent…" he thought, which of course meant "perfect." How easy was that? Then he heard the metallic voice again. "What a minute…" he heard, and Ron swore. He spun around, pulled his gun out, and blew two holes each in the two battle droids ease.

Maybe it wasn't such a p-shooter after all.

Ron continued on, using stealth, his footfalls silent, his breathing a whisper. His eyes darted around, registering anything. He listened intently to the darkness, searching for any sign of other Separatists.

There was nothing.

"What is this?" he thought. His eyes narrowed as he continued forward, his blaster ready. Finally, his efforts paid off.

He heard voices down the hallway.

He stealthily paced down the hallway, towards the source of the noise. He came to an open doorway. He peered around the corner, and saw, standing in the middle of the room, General Grievous.

Grievous was a sight to see. A huge cyborg, he was part life, part droid, all mean.

Grievous was also a master lightsaber duelist. He carried four lightsabers around in a cloak, all prizes he had one in combat with Jedi. Rumor had it that Count Dooku himself had trained him.

Ron decided it was against his better judgment to attack him now, especially with his tiny p-shooter.

"As you all know, we now have a Republic threat in the system. In fact, the Republic has already attacked us, destroying the progress we have made in our shipyards," he said, coughing just about every four words. "They have already landed on Melida/Daan, with about one hundred troops dropped from an airship. They destroyed five battalions of trooper droids."

"Oh no, what are we to do?" Ron heard a Neimoidian general say. He'd always thought that Neimoidians sounded weird.

"I've moved a spider droid battalion accompanied with artillery weapons around the Zehava Canyon. They will soon engage the clones."

"But sir, will that be enough?"

"I've also dispatched bombers to clear up anything left."

Ron swore. Rather loudly. Not loud enough for the Neimoidian to detect, but just enough for the cyborg to hear it. Ron mentally kicked himself. A complete loss of training there.

He heard the servomotors of the huge half-alien, half-droid clicking as he walked toward Ron. Ron already knew he was dead. There was no way that he could outrun a cyborg that large.

An idea came to him. An explosive one.

Grievous was moving rather slowly, perhaps in fear of a trap. That gave Ron just enough time to overload the power cell on his small blaster. He heard it cell whine, and the overheat alert started beeping.. The handle turned red with heat, and he had to grab the barrel. Grievous heard the whine and the beeping as well, because he started backing off. When the handle had turned white, and started disintegrating, Ron threw the blaster into the room.

The Tibanna gas power cell exploded on contact with a table, exploding outward and upwards, melting the middle of the table, and the shockwave of the explosion knocking down General Grievous, and burning the Neimoidian general.

Ron, however, saw none of this, as he was already sprinting away from the building, warning General Tachi of the danger the troops were in.

Acting Captain CT 1159/765 was readying his troops, drilling them as they had been drilled so many times before. With General Tachi gone, as well as the Spec Ops team, he had been put in charge of the camp. The base was in good order, with twenty prefab shelters, comfortably housing five clonetroopers, and a large 'fresher. It had a large command center, with a built in war center, with holo displays and scanners galore.

Light walls surrounded the base, about three feet high, for the troopers to shoot over, without a high chance of the troops getting shot. There were also twelve turrets on treads.

A very good base.

Captain 1159/765, code-named "Alpha" or "Captain Alpha" for now, looked through his macrobinoculars from the command center at the surround. Macrobinoculars were similar to electrobinoculars in appearance, but macrobinoculars did not allow one to see in as many spectrums as electrobinoculars could. Macrobinoculars only allowed normal viewing, and night-vision viewing.

Now, he needed neither to see the large battalion of spider droids approaching his camp. About as tall as a clonetrooper, and as wide as one if the clone lay down, spider droids were essentially pods, with four legs, and two red eyes and a cannon sprouting from the pod. They were armored, but most clone weapons could penetrate the armor.

From the looks of it, there were also a few artillery.

"Platoons A, B, C, and D, form up to the west wall! AT-AP's and their pilots will join them!" he shouted down at the training troops. "Platoon E will work the turrets, repair equipment, and work as medics. Understood!"

He heard five platoon-leaders echo in response.

He'd been part of platoon E, leaving them a member short. His second-in-command had been from B, leaving them a member short. So, they had seventy-nine at the wall, and nineteen operating turrets, and working as engineers and medics. Not a bad set-up.

The artilleries were already in place, and their large cannons were pointing towards sky. A shot would come any second now, any second…

A large boom echoed across the field, and a large, neon-red object flew through the sky. The shell was huge, easily the size of two clonetroopers.

It hit the base with a devastating explosion, blowing apart three prefab shelters and sending eight clonetroopers flying in the air. They hit the ground with eight sickening thuds.

Three more shells were already on their way.

Alpha shook his head. "Fire the turrets!" The laser cannons starting blasting away at the artilleries, and one blew apart. But the three others were still firing. The spider droids started advancing, and the clonetroopers were already firing. The occasional clone would cry out, but the artillery was doing most of the damage. The seven clones in platoon E that weren't firing the turrets were running back and forth to each wounded soldier.

The spider droids were dropping in droves. The DC-15 rifles did their jobs well. It looked like they'd survive the day.

Alpha heard a low whine coming from behind him.

He looked behind him, and saw twenty Confederate bombers and their fighter escorts already on top of the base. "Bombers, east!" he yelled, and those clonetroopers with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers swivel on their toes, and start firing on the bombers. The fighters swooped down, and started to shoot the rocketers.

Some of the rockets hit the bombers, but they appeared to have been modified, because normal bombers would have exploded on contact. These were hardly dented. Alpha almost swore, but it went against his training.

By now, the spider droids had arrived. They were blowing right through the light walls, and wreaking havoc with the base. The turrets and guns of the clones were firing nonstop. He even saw a few clonetroopers using their rifles as clubs. Closer examination showed him that the barrels of the guns had been melted shut from too much continuous fire. Alpha and his assistant started firing their small repeater blasters.

The bombers started dropping their payloads, and fire and explosions racked the base, and shattered computer screens in the command center. The holo-display of the area showed reds swarming all over the base. Clonetroopers were dying in groups. The artillery shells were blowing through prefab shelters, shredding and tearing metal, melting plasteel, and ripping through clone flesh.

Captain Alpha walked over to the comm unit to call for reinforcements, but, of course, communications were jammed. Alpha should have seen it coming. It was just too easy to not have been spotted by some scout party…

The repeated bombings crossed over the command center. The command center melted and burst into flames as five bombs dropped on it simultaneously. Alpha dropped from the command center, his assistant following suit.

Alpha shot the leg off of a spider droid, and climbed up on top of it, and placed a grenade on the top of it. Obviously, it went up in flames.

A bomb dropped right behind him, and he flew into the air. The heat seared his back, and he fell right into the rubble of a prefab shelter.

Right onto a broken pipe.

The pipe had been part of the 'fresher system, and had broken in half when it had been bombed. Alpha was impaled right through the abdomen, through the armor. His eyes bulged, and he threw up blood, and it collected in his helmet, flooding his vision. The pain made him spasm, and his abdomen contracted, hurting him further. His hands were shaking almost uncontrollably when he removed his helmet, and blood spilled to the ground. He breathed raggedly. He forced himself onto his back, and saw the bombers make another pass. He barely heard the three artilleries make three more shots.

His brothers were dying everywhere. Blood soaked the green and brown earth. The gray sky looked so peaceful, such contrast…

He hardly noticed the enormous glob of artillery energy as it engulfed his body.