Chapter 8: Fen Kar'fon (CT-0099 'Buzz')

Murkhana

Most of the Clones had spent over ten years training for war. Before they could even walk they were already bombarded with visual stimulus to prepare them for a war—this war in particular. Fen had only trained on Kamino for a little over one year.

Prior to his consciousness transfer into the body of CT-0099, Fen had a twelve year career with the Spynet, one year in the Bothawui Navy, and four years of training to become an officer at the Bothan Martial Academy. While Fen's combat training was objectively better than the suicidal charges the Clones had been taught, he lacked their indoctrination. Their fearlessness. Their ability to maintain composure even in the face of certain death.

This current squad of ARC troopers was, after all, Fen's second. His first squad, Scorch, Dawn, and Isaac, were killed in action on a Neimoidian colony world. Now replaced by two newer Clones, Saul and Cash, and one from the same batch Fen's Clone body came from, Mesh.

Under his helmet Fen was sweating profusely, jolted back and forth as he grasped the hand grip as tightly as he could. Both of the Tarkins, Miralo and Wilhuff, as well as the non-Clone human members of Team Cresh, looked similarly concerned as flak exploded around their LAAT. Saul, Cash, and Mesh shifted slightly with the explosions rocking the ship, but seemed otherwise unphased.

Once the LAAT reached the city centre, it returned fire, laser beams cutting into the narrow alleyways and wide streets below.

"Four clicks from Argente Tower, Governor," the pilot said over the intercom.

"Excellent," Tarkin yelled back, slightly hunched over as the LAAT took another near hit.

Good, Fen thought, at both the fact they were nearing Argente Toewer, and the silenced flak cannons. He took a deep breath to avoid hyperventilating. While Fen had been looking forward to eliminating the Shadowfeeds for nearly nine months, the battle was far more perilous than Fen had expected. Tarkin was leading them into the middle of the city before the Separatist air defenses had been fully neutralised.

A slight tremor jolted the LAAT. Fen looked around in confusion as a shearing sound of metal echoed dully to his right. The wing outside the door was sparking and spilling fuel onto the beam canon.

"RAIL GUN!" the LAAT's copilot yelled into the intercom. "Hold tight, we are making evasive—"

—Outside the side hatch, the ball turret towards the bow of the transport seemed to crack from nothing. One second it was intact with a Clone gunner inside. The next second one of the blast-proof transparisteel panels on the ball turret shattered as a rail slug hit it at a fraction of the speed of light. The interior of the ball turret was spattered with blood. Two seconds later, a sonic boom cut through the sky.

"Gunner down!" Fen yelled, as much to explain to himself what had just happened as to inform the cockpit.

The radio chatter in Fen's helmet immediately shifted in tone and topic as the squadron of LAATs circled around the city centre, shining spotlights down into the smoke.

"Blast it, Blaze! Blaze, are you there?"

"I lost visual on the rail gun!" the co-pilot yelled. All transports, the Separatists have a rail gun. We're looking for a Trandoshan, yellow coloured, kill on sight!"

"Guardian 4 here, I think I have visual. Got a Trandoshan in sector three, egressing from a… A cantina?"

"Guardian 4, patch visual to Guardian leader!" Tarkin yelled angrily, pressing his headset into his ears.

"That's… That's not him," the pilot reported.

Fen took a step forward, shifting from one handgrip to another as he approached the door. He looked beyond the blood-spattered turret ball, down to the ground. On his internal helmet HUD, his electrobinoculars zoomed in on burning vehicles.

Saul stepped up next to him. "Switching to infrared scanning."

"Don't bother," Fen grunted as he looked down a wide street lined with palm trees. "We're dealing with a Trandoshan and there's burning vehicles everywhere. Just use visual scanning."

"Copy that," Saul said with a strain, clearly exerting unnecessary effort, either from squinting or widening his eyes.

"Guardian 3 here. I have visual, sector 3, he's—"

—Further down the street, the starboard engine on one of the other LAATs was ripped to shreds, durasteel unravelled like a roll of paper. Like the damage to the ball turret, the slug was moving too fast to be seen. Five seconds later, a familiar sonic boom, as loud as a starship taking off, cut through the air. The LAAT rolled slightly to port, then fell out of the sky.

"Mayday mayday! We've taken damage. Guardian 3 going down in sector 3, grid 7-9."

Their LAAT turned starboard and began flying up the street to the site of the falling LAAT, which crashed through a palm tree and bounced on the grassy median between the lanes of traffic. It was the safest-looking and most survivable crash-landing Fen had ever witnessed.

"Guardian 3 here," the Clone voice coughed on the channel. "Made an emergency landing sector 3 grid 7-9. I am uninjured. We all seem fine. No visual on the Trandoshan. He was last on the footsteps of the marble structure."

"All transports. This is Guardian Leader, initiate rescue action—"

—"Belay that order!" Tarkin hissed angrily into the comm. "Diamond Squadron, reroute to sector 3, recover any survivors, and annihilate that Trandoshan. We are moving on!"

"Belay that," the pilot repeated. "We are back oscar mike. Diamond Squadron, proceed to grid 7-9 for rescue and retrieval. Keep our boys alive."

"Copy that Guardian Leader," another Clone voice said amidst radio static. "ETA 2 mins."

Fen sighed. Despite the increased risk of shrapnel from a rail slug, he wanted nothing more than to take his helmet off and drop it on the floor.

o.o.o.o.o

The LAAT lowered down onto the rooftop of Argente Tower, squeezing between a few abandoned speeders. Most prominently, a yellow civilian model Naboo Flash Speeder.

On the whole, the exterior of Argente Tower was mostly intact, with a few shattered windows towards the middle floors. In the hope of recovering data, the Republic bombardment of the city centre had intentionally avoided hitting it.

While two LAATs landed on the roof, the rest of Guardian Squadron descended to the sides of the tower, dropping their squads of Clones out on the street level.

"There is still a chance we can recover some data and prisoners," Tarkin spoke. Fen could hear his voice both from his helmet comm and also from Tarkin himself, standing right behind him. "We need to secure this structure as quickly as possible from both the ground up and top down. I want this entire building cleared within the hour."

Fen did not agree with the urgency. "Governor, we both suspect Pax escaped the city already," he said, turning around to Tarkin. "I recommend starting a sweep of the surrounding jungle, checking all of the civilians."

"I agree with Captain Buzz, sir," Mesh said, stepping up behind Tarkin.

Saul stepped up to Tarkin's left. "You are letting Pax get away."

Cash stepped up to Tarkin's right, saying nothing.

"We both know," Tarkin hissed, staring around angrily at the independently-minded ARC trooper who had surrounded him, then turning to Fen. "Buzz, are you a telepath?"

Fen stepped up to Tarkin's front, edging so close he could knock the Admiral with a chest-bump. In his grey and orange ARC trooper armour, Fen's Clone form, Buzz, was at least six centimeters taller than the Eriaduan. Either way this mission goes, Tarkin was dispensable and every bit as much of a target for the Spynet as Pax.

The non-Clones of Cresh Team started reaching for their blasters. Miralo's eyes were wide in terror.

I can't kill him in front of my squad, Fen thought with regret, looking down at the scrawny middle-aged human. Mesh, Saul, and Cash would back me in bullying Tarkin into looking for Pax our way, but they would never tolerate fratricide… At least not yet. And Ro'val's plan... Well, we'll see. "No, Governor. I can't say I am."

"In that case, I advise you all to start getting on mission and away from my back before I consider this insubordination!" Tarkin screamed, red in the face as he spun around to face Mesh.

Mesh took two steps back, holding his armoured hands up placatingly.

Somewhere far below, the faint sound of E-5 blaster fire started. Fen's eyes darted to the rooftop entry.

The comm chatter activity suddenly increased. Dozens of voices were now screaming status updates, interspersed with the sound of blasterfire.

"Contact! We have contact sector 5!"

"Three down! Need support—"

"—Clankers! The clankers are springing back to life!"

"Have five tangoes on the second floor!"

"BLAST! DROIDEKA!"

"Droids?!" Tarkin asked, a sudden urgency flooding his tone. "STATUS REPORT!"

Fen drew his blaster as the door panel on the rooftop turbolift flickered green. The doors hissed open, revealing two Droideka with shields active.

"Take cover!" Fen yelled, before jumped down from the LAAT and fell to a prone position on the ground, joining his squad in returning fire on the droideka.

"No, no!" Tarkin screamed. "You'll damage the—"

A stream of turret fire blasted from the LAAT's remaining side ball gunner, slicing through the Droideka's shields like flimsiplast. The blast continued through the Droidekas, bursting into the empty turbolift, which filled with flames and smoke, then dropped into the shaft.

Between the open blast doors to the turbolift, was an empty shaft with a glowing red hole in the back.

This makes things a bit more complicated.