Author's Notes: First of all, I apologize for not getting this chapter out sooner. This last week proved to be more than a bit crazy. Secondly, this chapter's a bit longer than the previous ones, but I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to comment on it, as well as on any previous chapters.

Visual Appeal:

"Right, there's a vine directly ahead of us, approximately 3.3 meters out," 3-8 explained to the other two. "You can't see through the hologram, so you'd better make sure your aim isn't off, because you won't have any time to correct." He paused for emphasis. "It's a long way down."

"Why is it that the structures we have to infiltrate always have massive holes, shafts, or drops that we have to get around?" Scorch asked wryly.

"I think it's one of the downfalls of today's architectural design philosophy," Fixer said seriously.

6-2 sighed. "No more puns out of you," he muttered. "Puns are secured."

"I'll go first," 3-8 interrupted. "Give me a few seconds to get out of the way before you follow. Once we're all through, we can each switch to a separate vine, to make sure we're not putting too much weight on just one of them."

The other two commandos stepped out of the way, giving 3-8 some room. There wasn't much space to build up any sort of momentum. He could only hope that he could get the right footing at the right spot to launch himself across the gulf of open space. He hadn't been exaggerating when he told his comrades to be careful; there would be no margin for error. Before he could think about it any more, he lunged forward, ducking his head as he leapt through the hologram and the opening it concealed, and out into the shaft.

For a long moment, he felt like he was simply hovering in midair, and the darkness of the seemingly bottomless shaft loomed large beneath him. But then he saw the vine rushing toward him, and he grabbed onto it with both hands as his flight started to take a downward arc. He slid down a meter or so, and he was glad he was wearing gloves as he brought his heavily armored body to a stop. He only had a few seconds before one of his companions made the jump, so he quickly pulled himself higher on the vine, until he was well above the opening in the service tunnel.

Even as he glanced downward, Scorch materialized on this side of the hologram. He had managed to get more power behind his jump, and almost passed the vine before grabbing onto it. 3-8 held on tightly as the vine jerked and bounced with the sudden, added weight. A few moments later, Fixer brought up the rear.

"Pick a vine," 3-8 said quietly. His helmet comm was set so that only the receivers in the other two soldiers' helmets could pick it up, but he knew that even the slightest sound would echo in this shaft. That included a crackle of static from a receiver.

Scorch and Fixer each reached out and pulled themselves over to another vine.

"All set, Boss," Fixer reported.

"All right, let's move. Those drop ships will be coming in before long."

They started climbing hand over hand up the vines. A normal human would have found it to be grueling work, but the clones had been put through countless hours of strength and conditioning training. Their bulky armor and weapons made the ascent less than graceful, but they proceeded with speed and quiet efficiency.

A few minutes later, the top of the shaft materialized out of the darkness. A platform reached out from a dark tunnel opening toward the vines. All they would have to do was climb from vine to vine until they reached it.

"I'm picking up some massive energy signatures," 3-8 said, examining his HUD as he climbed. "The control center for those anti-aircraft platforms isn't far from the top of this shaft."

"Whoa, hold on, Boss," Scorch interjected quickly.

"What is it?"

"Thought I just saw something on motion sensors," he reported. He was silent for a moment. "I don't see it now. Might have just been a ghost."

"Keep your eyes on those sensors," 3-8 ordered. "We can't stop now. We're too vulnerable hanging out here like this."

The commandos continued up the vines, moving as quickly as they could without making any noise. They were less than three meters below the platform when all hell broke loose.

A battle droid poked its head over the edge above them, possibly investigating something it had picked up on its own motion sensors. Like the commandos, it could see in the dark, and it had no trouble spotting Delta Squad immediately. "Uh-oh," it warbled, bringing its blaster up.

"Frag him!" 3-8 ordered as he abandoned all pretense of stealth and doubled his speed up the vine.

Scorch was already in the process of lobbing an EMP grenade up onto the platform, and Fixer's arced up right behind the first. The droid only had time to get one shot off, and it went wide into the far side of the shaft behind the clones. Lightning crackled and flashed, sending the droid and some of its companions tumbling into the darkness below.

3-8 pulled himself up onto the platform, carbine ready. The din of electronic shouts and the clatter of metallic feet told him that their arrival was no longer unnoticed. He squeezed the trigger and sent a hail of blue energy down the narrow corridor that led off the platform deeper into the heart of the tree, and was rewarded with a dismayed squawk and a dull thud as a droid went down. Behind him, 6-2 and 4-0 slipped up onto the platform, carbines already unslung and ready for action.

"Those transmitters are directly ahead of us!" 3-8 shouted. "I'm on point! Cover my flanks!"

"Right behind you, Boss!" Fixer confirmed.

3-8 rolled another EMP grenade down the tunnel, then charged in after it. The device exploded only a few meters in front of him. Energy crackled and played across his armor's shielding, and his HUD went blurry for a second, but when it cleared, he was stepping over the twitching remains of half a dozen battle droids and a super battle droid. An alarm chirped in his ear as a crimson bolt hit him in the left shoulder plate; his shielding absorbed the blast, but it was enough to get his attention. He turned to his left and coolly drew a bead on the droid that had gotten off the lucky shot.

"Oh, no," the droid lamented, just before a well-placed shot blew its head away.

With 3-8 in the lead, Delta Squad pushed out of the narrow tunnel and into a huge chamber that opened up to the sky overhead. In the center of the vast room, huge generators rose from the wooden floor, one level below them. Massive cables connected them to expansive antenna and dish arrays in the branches over head. Catwalks and platforms ringed the area; most of them were swarming with droids. And all of them were turning to face the threat.

"This is it!" 3-8 confirmed. "Scorch, you know what to do! Fixer, let's make some noise and give him some cover!"

"Yeehaw!" Fixer exclaimed. "It's about time!"

3-8 went right, while Fixer went left, both of them blazing away at any targets that were foolish enough to expose themselves. A firestorm of crimson lasers slashed back at them, but the shots were hasty and confused. Only a handful of them came close to either of them. Meanwhile Scorch vaulted over the railing of the catwalk the tunnel had opened up on, and landed on the main floor below. He calmly burned away a super battle droid as it tried to flank him, then darted toward one of the generators. Despite their near panic, the droids knew better than to shoot at the generators, and instead sent some of their numbers in to chase him down.

As 3-8 took quick stock of the situation, he realized that their position couldn't have been much better. Despite the sentry in the shaft, the Separatist forces had had no warning that Delta Squad was so close to the generators. He could see a pair of destroyer droids, but they had been placed to guard the main entrance into the open-roofed chamber, and they were still maneuvering to find better firing positions. 6-2 would be done placing his charges and on his way back to his squad mates by then.

The only units that posed any real threat were the super battle droids. It took almost a full power clip to put one of them down, thanks to their armor, and 3-8 hissed in frustration as he had to reload yet again. Fortunately, the mechanical brutes didn't dare use their arm-mounted rocket launchers for fear of hitting the generators.

Delta Squad had no such problems. Fixer's shout of triumph echoed through their comms as one of his thermal detonators fragged a destroyer droid and the half dozen battle droids that were trying to fire from the cover of the entrance.

Movement to 3-8's right caught his eye, and he glanced up to see another destroyer droid roll out of a side passage onto the catwalk. It promptly started laying down fire in his direction. He fired a burst in return, but the droid already had its shields up.

"Scorch, what's your status?" he demanded as he shifted left to stay out of the destroyer's line of fire.

"I could use some cover here, Boss," came the reply.

3-8's new position bought him a moment's respite from the destroyer droid's barrage, so he risked a glance down toward the generators. At least twenty battle droids were clustered between them on the nearest side, taking potshots at something he couldn't see. It had to be Scorch.

"Fixer!" he yelled, pointing down at the targets. "Let's give him a hand!"

Fixer nodded, and both of them switched their carbine to full auto, raking the clustered droids with a firestorm of cerulean light. One by one, the droids sprayed sparks and fell; some of them exploded, and one simply melted from the legs up as its internal power sources failed and overloaded.

"About time," Scorch muttered. "I think my armor's going to need a new paint job when we get back to Coruscant."

3-8 was in the middle of reloading when the newly arrived destroyer droid found another good firing position and opened up on him again. He dropped to his stomach on the deck of the catwalk, cursing as the power clip skittered out of his hand. "Just make it fast!"

"I'm already done," Scorch responded. "Give me a second to blast a path out of here!"

3-8 gritted his teeth and reached for the power pack. A pair of crimson bolts slashed past him, so close they left scorch marks on his forearm's armor plate. His fingers closed around the ammo, and he slammed it home into his carbine. He rolled to his right, barely avoiding another shot from the destroyer, then pumped the entire clip into the machine. Its shields shimmered and died, and the last handful of shots blew it to pieces.

Something grabbed him from behind and hauled him to his feet. He started to struggle, reaching for the combat knife sheathed on his ammo belt.

"Hey, easy there, Boss," Scorch said. He shrugged as 3-8 looked at him in surprise. "You said make it fast."

"Good work," 3-8 replied nonchalantly. "Fixer?"

"Ready to go, Boss!"

"Then let's get out of here!"

They turned just long enough to lob another trio of grenades into the chamber, then retreated back toward the shaft they'd just come from.

"How long did you give us, Scorch?" 3-8 asked.

"Two minutes. Any longer than that, and they might find a way to disarm it before it goes off."

"Right then. We'll take the shaft all the way down. We've got to be well away from this fortress when that thing goes." They reached the platform above the shaft, and 3-8 took a quick look over the edge. "It's still clear. We'll have to slide down, and fast. Hope you've got a good grip." He slung his carbine over his shoulder, then leaped off the platform onto one of the vines.

To either side of him, Scorch and Fixer did the same. Then they were sliding down the vines, using their boots as brakes when needed, and holding onto the vines with their hands just hard enough to keep from falling off. They quickly accelerated, leaving the platform behind. A few of the battle droids fired after them, but the shots didn't come close. One of them tried to follow the clone troopers down, but it lost its hold on the vine after only a second, and fell past them to smash into the ground hundreds of meters below.

Almost a full minute of near free fall later, the ground came rushing up at them with alarming speed. 3-8 clenched his boots tighter around the vine, gradually slowing his downward momentum. He still hit hard, and had to tuck his shoulder into a roll to avoid breaking any bones. Scorch and Fixer rolled out next to him, and then they were struggling to their feet and running for the entrance 3-8 had suspected would be there. It was on the ground level, at least four hundred meters below where they'd been, and was nearly hidden from the outside by tall, fern-like plants.

"Head west," 3-8 said as they burst through the plants and ran as hard as they could away from the towering fortress. "We need to rendezvous with Battalion Six!"

"Thirty seconds, Boss!" Scorch reported.

3-8 glanced over his shoulder as they ran. They were already putting a good deal of distance between themselves and the fortress, but when a structure that big was taken down by a Class A thermal detonator, distance didn't necessarily mean a whole lot.

"Droids, coming from the right!" Fixer warned, and opened up with his carbine.

A hover sled, manned by half a dozen droids, was racing toward them. Mounted on the back – and swinging toward them – was a heavy repeater blaster.

"Down!" 3-8 shouted.

The clones dove for cover just as a burst of red light shot over their heads. Fixer returned fire again, and one of the droids toppled from the sled.

"They've got us pinned down!" Scorch said.

"Then I guess now is a bad time to be in the open," 3-8 replied. "Stay down! It's about to get hot out here!"

Behind them, the fortress exploded.

The uppermost chamber vanished in a flash of brilliant white light, sending shards of wood and metal flying in all directions. Secondary explosions followed hard on the heels of the first as the generators and other equipment started to disintegrate. Then another explosion, even larger than the first, erupted about halfway down the mighty trunk.

3-8 looked up just long enough to see the rain of deadly debris falling toward them, and then he pulled himself into a shallow depression in the ground, covering his head with his arms. The hail of wood and metal and burning machinery continued for almost a minute, and when it stopped, he was almost afraid of what he might see.

He poked his head up carefully. 4-0 was less than a meter away, moving rather sluggishly and rubbing his helmet where a piece of wood had left a sizable dent, but otherwise seemed all right. 6-2 was already standing and looking back at the fortress, making a sound that sounded suspiciously like chuckling. The droids hadn't fared too well. They were scattered lifelessly all about their hover sled, which had been skewered by a massive spear of wood.

He pushed himself to his feet, helping Fixer up as well. Then he joined Scorch, surveying the remains of the fortress. There wasn't much of it left. The huge trunk had been sheared off a hundred meters up, and the jagged rim was burning fiercely while black smoke streamed skyward from dozens of entrances and windows, rising in a massive plume high into the sky.

Scorch sighed.

"What is it, Scorch?" 3-8 asked.

"It's beautiful," he replied. "Absolutely beautiful."