Chapter 24
Location: Galactic Marines Field Headquarters, Planet Phindar
It had been some time since Ki Adi Mundi had had to fight biological opponents. The fighting on Jabiim was something of a bad memory for the Jedi, twenty-seven of their order had died there, many at the hands of the people that he found himself engaged with right now, the Nimbus Commandoes. Their red laser fire zipped by his head whenever one got a bit close, and he reflected the shots back with expertise. A dozen of his men had gotten hit in the first moments of the fight, but he had ordered the retreat to the rocky jungle highlands. He and a platoon of troopers were holding the line while the wounded were being evacuated on board a dozen BARC speeder bikes.
"Pull back!" Mundi ordered, pulling the roof, made of an LAAT's wing, off the command center and in front of them to cover them, "Go!"
"Right sir!" the squad leader said as he pulled back, right as a rocket blew a hole right through the wing, throwing a pair of clones back along with Mundi, sending a piece of shrapnel through his shoulder.
"Pop smoke!" the Clone Commander yelled and multiple clones dropped smoke canisters that started billowing thick white smoke clouds that a pair of Clones dragged Mundi stumbling through.
A crafty officer dropped some thermal detonators underneath the wing and moved back laying down cover fire as the timers started beeping on the detonators. The green-clothed commandos pushed up on the Clone position, and they saw a few bodies on the ground but not much else except the smoke.
"Captain, the Clones have pulled back," the commando said quickly, waving over to the man.
"The Jedi?" the officer in charge demanded.
"No sign sir," another commando called out.
"Well, they have nowhere to run except those hills," Captain Nightshade said as he pulled off his helmet, running a hand through his black hair, sighing at the lack of a Jedi body.
At this point a few vehicles came up, two modified PAC's escorted by a single WLO-5 Speeder Tank. Tion troops in their unique decorated armor and blaster spears and shields piled out of the back, followed by a single man wearing a blue cape and had a pair of swords at his hips. He clearly had blood on his armor, Clone blood, symbolizing kills already. He stalked right up to Captain Nightshade and growled at him.
"Why are you here?" he snarled.
"Orders, destroy the enemy command and control," he replied.
"And you let the Jedi escape."
At that moment the thermal detonators exploded, sending a pair of commandos sprawling backwards. Nightshade flinched down, dropping to a knee and held his rifle up and at the ready. Ronan simply grunted at the explosion and stepped past Nightshade.
"Begin the advance, the Clones are in headlong retreat towards those highlands. We'll squeeze them until they break," Ronan said as a column of Tion infantry marched past alongside blocks of battle droids painted in camouflage patterns.
Their shifting armor and stomping march was in perfect contrast to the droids, ironically moving the same way. The Tion infantry was clearly visible with their shields held tight to their sides and their blaster spears held straight up. This was a new army, a much different one than the Republic had ever faced.
Location: Republican Guard Massing Point, near Vivyis-12
The fleet Lieutenant Jun Sato saw before him was truly one for the ages, a battle-hardened powerhouse of star destroyers, cruisers, and corvettes headed by the massive heavy carriers and battlecruisers of KDY. There wasn't much that they could do but look on and pick away at the much larger enemy cruisers as they swerved into and out of the combat zone, but Sato had kept the little ship alive.
The Bittersweet had suffered some damage, as all the corvettes had. Falling debris and cannon fire had scored the hull in multiple places, a handful of dents, and one of their coolant valves had ruptured in the engine bay and the repairs had very nearly killed his engineer who was recovering on oxygen in the medical bay. They'd turned out much better than most of their fellow corvettes. Sato had watched one of their fellow Hammerheads in Task Force 9 get blown to pieces by a crashing Providence-Class Destroyer with all hands lost. TF9 had suffered eight ships lost, including one of their Venators and one of their light cruisers.
Sato knew it wasn't much, but his little ship had been part of the victory over Vivyis-12, and he hadn't botched it. The crew was still alive, the ship was still operational, they were still in this fight. It gave him a new confidence, the kind that didn't come easily to a fresh graduate with no command experience. Vivyis-12 was his test, and he'd passed. Yet, he had a feeling that this wasn't the end. More was yet to come. He could feel it. Ship replacements were arriving by the hour from shipyards from around the Core for crew survivors to take up. That meant a captains' assembly in an hour. His ship was already lined up with the Star Destroyer Undefeatable, their flagship. They would receive a top-off of supplies and tibanna gas while docked.
"Sir, we're docking," his deck chief said, opening the door to his quarters after being allowed in.
"Good, let Lieutenant Kolzaar know I'll be in the captains' meeting and that he has the ship."
"Aye sir."
Sato typed save on his computer and downloaded his completed report for handing it to his commanding officer. The data disk he took and placed it in his pocket, and smoothed his new uniform for the briefing he knew was soon to occur. He walked to the hatch as he heard the thump and hiss of a successful docking. His pilots were getting pretty good at taking care of this ship. He walked to the front of the door where two of his crew were standing with A280's in hand as per protocol. He keyed the comm to the men on the other side so they knew he was coming aboard.
"Bittersweet commanding officer," he called out, "Permission to come aboard."
"Permission granted."
He opened the door, and on the other side was a squad of Marines, in their lighter white and red armor, cleaned pristinely with their planetary arm symbols clearly visible. The men of this ship were of the planet Ixtlar, a city world near Coruscant. The Marines snapped to attention, holding their A280's firmly in front of them as he entered and saluted the commander who stood there with another lieutenant next to him. Both saluted back.
"Lieutenant Sato welcome aboard. The ensign here will show you to the briefing room, I'll see to your ship's re-provisioning."
"Aye sir, thank you sir."
"Follow me sir," the ensign said calmly.
"Very well," Sato responded and followed the young officer, "So, how did your ship make out?"
"Moderate hull damage. Number one mount starboard side blew half its barrels," the boy said, "Lost a good twenty gunners. Our squadrons took a beating though, a quarter of them were lost, but we saved some of the pilots."
"Better off than most I guess," Sato responded, "We got out mostly unscathed. One man got burned by a burst coolant valve, but the ship's still combat effective."
"Better than most again eh sir?"
"Very much so."
"Well we've got an intermission to repair and replace our losses," Sato replied.
"Not from what I hear sir. Word is that us and a couple task forces are being pulled out somewhere near Mandalore. Word is that a new Separatist fleet's on the offensive out there."
"I heard it on the news, Phindar's all but fallen. Master Mundi and his Galactic Marines are holding on by their fingernails," Sato replied as they went up a lift.
"Hopefully a few Guard task forces can make a difference out there."
"We will."
"This is your stop sir, the other captains will be here shortly," the ensign told Sato, and saluted before he could be dismissed.
"Very well ensign, thank you," Sato saluted back.
He presented his credentials to the Marine at the door and walked in, seeing the assorted officers who commanded their other ships. All the ship CO's had survived except for a single corvette which had been lost with all hands. The assembled officers looked to Sato, the older ones dismissed him, the younger ones nodded politely. He then took a seat, taking a cup of caf that had been offered by a steward attending the needs of the officers waiting.
Sato sighed and settled into the cup, and didn't say a word until a call to attention went out and all stood at the word. In walked Rear Admiral Daci, commanding officer of Task Force 9. He was a young man, well young for a flag officer. He was hard-nosed and heavyset. Not much could move him from his course of action once he was set on doing what it was he wanted. Well, nothing except a direct order. He was accompanied by Commodore Viotec, a smaller man, a Pantoran with a shaved head to hide the fact he was losing his hair rapidly. He'd lost his flagship, their Split-Bow Assault Frigate, the Contribution, but had miraculously survived with quite a bit of bandages on his face proving it along with his arm in a bacta-filled cast held in a sling. He had a pair of additional Pantoran officers from their two QuasarFire Carrier-Cruisers.
"Gentlemen, be seated," the admiral said as he stalked into the room to the front of the briefing room where the long table was situated, "There's much to do, little time to do it."
The assembled officers, including two women who commanded corvettes, sat down quickly, holding their waters and caf close. Aids passed out datapads with the symbols for SECRET blazed on the front and their names below that big intimidating word.
"We are set to partake in a counter-offensive. Operation 'Swift Comet', a push to broaden the front against the Separatists and take the strategic worlds of Botajef and Phindar along a handful of minor colony worlds to relieve the Clone forces under General Ki Adi Mundi and take their place in the line so Clone forces can pull back to reorganize for an offensive in the southern Outer Rim. We will be accompanied by two other Task Forces, the 7th and the 8th, and we'll be based around the Heavy Carrier Relentless. We will make our jumps to the rendezvous point over Corsin, there we'll rendezvous with some new additions to our fleet, command has reorganized our task force makeup again now that newer more powerful ships have rolled out of the docks at Kuat and Corellia. You'll see the new organizational chart in your documents."
Sato took a look, and was amazed by what he saw. Their task forces had been modest in size before, but now they were fleets in their own right. Each had its usual one Imperator-Class and three Venator-Class Star Destroyers and four Acclamator-Class Assault Ships. But now they had beefed up the striking arm with the additions of two brand-new and now battle-proven two Victory-Class Star Destroyers, fresh off of victory against the Bulwark Fleet. These new star destroyers were the same size as a Venator, but were more gun-heavy and armored, with more in common to an Imperator than a Venator. Their cruiser screen had not only been increased, but another new class of ship added to it, a CR125 Corellian Destroyer. This ship, Sato saw, was to serve the role of a fast attack cruiser, a ship too fast for larger more powerful ships to bring it down, but too heavily armed for faster ships to take it, and they now had three of them. Their Split-Bow Assault Frigates, their heavy cruisers, were doubled from one to two. Their QuasarFire-Class Escort Carriers had been increased from two to three. The light cruisers, the Arquitens-Class, was now upped to six ships per task force. For the CR90's, Consulars, and Hammerheads they had eight, ten, and twelve of each. In total TF9, and soon the rest of the task forces of the Guard, now had fifty-four ships.
"We're the first to take delivery of and test this new concept. The rest of the Fleet will phase in their new ships in shifts as the crews and ships are brought online. But rest assured we've got more than enough than the Seppies can handle with a hundred and sixty-three ships. I want your ships to be prepped to make the jump once all have completed their refueling and replenishing. Dismissed."
"Escort ships skippers hold back please," Commodore Viotec spoke up.
Sato remained in place, having been more than ready to leave. Once the capital ship captains had left he and the other corvette captains and cruiser captains were all that remained with the Commodore.
"Alright, we all saw the new Task Force order of battle, that means that we're dividing up the cruisers and corvettes into two separate escort wings. You can do the math there, we'll have one CR125 and another carrier in a sort of limbo, able to shift to either of the two and provide additional firepower. However, we still have to divide up our ships..."
The man started to divide the captains up into the two separate wings, and Sato was sent to Escort Wing 17, which would mean he was predominantly going to be on the left of the formations that they would find themselves in.
"And another thing, we'll be usually sent as escort to isolated convoys and patrols. With our increased force complement we have to assume more responsibility over a larger area. That includes some menial duties like blockades and escort. Be prepared for that, we'll spend a bit of time doing all those things."
"Aye sir," the officers replied.
"Also, we've got some promotions. All lieutenants aboard the corvettes will be promoted one grade. Those of you senior lieutenants, congratulations on your new promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Your sub-lieutenants will receive the rank of full lieutenants. Cruiser captains, your promotion lists are in your own documents as well as all of your own enlisted ranks' promotions. Questions or comments?"
Sato couldn't help but beam in pride. His time in grade was only half of what was needed to rate a promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Unfortunately though he was now capped out as far his rank. Protocol stated that the highest rank the commanding officer of a Hammerhead Corvette or a Consular Cruiser could achieve was in fact Lieutenant Commander. But, he still had only partaken in two battles and no minor skirmishes where he could truly prove himself. Sato wasn't exactly ambitious, he didn't feel like he was bound for admiralty or glory like the Anaxes Knights seemed to believe. But to be honest with himself he didn't mind gaining a bit of notoriety, not many didn't.
Location: Super-Battleship Patriot's Resolve, Orbit over the Planet Columex
Fleet Admiral Der was getting impatient. Fuel was low, and the Republican Guard had yet to make a push. She hadn't believed Grievous' claim that he had crippled the majority of the Guard's capital ships and that their ground forces had been heavily reduced. Not many of the biological officers and none of the analysis droids believed half the stuff that Grievous claimed when he lost. When Grievous lost a battle it tended to be disastrous due to his all-or-nothing strategy and tactics. She had no such ability or willingness to risk her fleet. So she had to balance her fleet's need to attack with its need for fuel.
She'd seen the massive fuel depots get annihilated by Republican Guard fighters and had to watch them slink away into hyperspace. It got her blood boiling knowing that Drexel had again gotten the better of her without actually engaging her directly. That stung, but she had her own strike fighters, the Scarab II's. And she had enough fuel to use them.
"Do we have any clue where they might be massing?" Der asked her assembled intelligence officers.
"We've had reports of passing Guard ships at Zeltros, heading towards Vivyis-12. But we lost them," the Sullustan there told her.
"Send probes and recon ships. Find 'em, once you do track them long enough for us to position ourselves to launch strike waves."
"Roger roger," the droids in charge of the probes stations said on command and turned and began to coordinate the launch.
Der sighed, knowing how much time this would take, "And Phindar? Where are we?"
"We've barricaded the Clones into a corner of the island they're concentrated on. But it's almost impossible to dig them out. The ground is near vertical and is covered in jungle. The droids can't move up the slopes and our troops are slowed down by enemy mortars and snipers. Plus…the Jedi has been an issue."
"Of course he is," Der replied and rolled her eyes, "I thought Ronan would deal with him?"
"He was supposed to, but was interfered with."
"Of course he was. Bunch of Jabiim diehards and Tion nutjobs. Pull the Nimbus Commandoes out and send in regular units. Can't afford to have Mundi bleed our best troops this early in the campaign. Reassign the spec ops troops to raiding Bandomeer, pave the way for Task Group 6."
"I'll send them immediately," one of her officers replied, "Priority targets?"
"Civil infrastructure, sow discord before sending in the troops so we can rebuild it and gain popular favor," Der instructed, crossing her arms over her chest, "Leave no traces."
"Roger that."
"We've obviously gotten Drexel's attention set on us here with his main body. Let's at least keep the pressure up elsewhere."
Location: Assault Ship Ticen's Dawn, In Hyperspace
"You sure you'll not be needing me cap'n?" First Sergeant Kelrein asked as he coughed through the pain.
"No Kelrein you just get recovered now," Captain Challis said softly to his badly wounded First Sergeant who laid on a medical cot, his left arm gone and a terrible burn on his left side from his face to his waist.
"Aye, will do cap'n," the older man nodded, "I," he tried adjusting but Challis held him down forcefully, "Right…anyway. Broower is a good man, he'll serve ya fine as First Sergeant."
"I know, you recommended him as you were being medivaced," Challis nodded, knowing that the man in question was one hell of an NCO, both feared and admired by every single platoon, despite him only being 1st Platoon's Platoon Sergeant.
"Seems an awful shame, missing all the celebrating after a win like that. Millions of droids wasn't it sir?"
"Millions, yeah. The doc says you might be able to retire after this latest injury. That's worth celebrating right?"
"Aye, it is, lots of sleeping in now," Kelrein chuckled, "No more wee stupid second lieutenants whose hands need holding doing a land navigation course."
"You only did that twice," Challis poked.
"For this company aye, for others when I was a platoon sergeant…oh cap'n the stories I have for ya."
"Tell 'em when I visit you again alright First Sergeant?"
"Aye, will do sir," Kelrein said as he closed his eyes, but sighed again, "Cap'n? Did I ever tell ya that you're doing a wonderful job keeping these lads in the fight?"
"Thanks," Challis said as he got up.
The officer looked down the long rows of beds with wounded men of varying states of severity. Medical droids and doctors shuffled about, keeping them all stabile and looked-after. His company had been lucky, of their 177 officers and enlisted men they'd lost twelve dead, sixteen wounded on Vivyis-12. But this was added to their thirty-one dead and forty-three wounded suffered on Commenor, their homeworld. But of their fifty-nine wounded only ten weren't going to return by the time they were needed. Still, losing forty-three troopers was a harsh reality check. But Captain Challis still had one hundred twenty-five men and women left to take care of. He'd lost some leaders, but his company had stepped up to the challenge and he was fortunate enough to have all his officers still alive. But he had lost three members of his Company HQ: his radioman, one of the company staff medics, and the First Sergeant, the soul of the company. Replacing Kelrein would take work, but the old man had had a plan for that just in case, and had been bringing a Sergeant First Class Broower, 1st Platoon's Platoon Sergeant, to take over one day.
Today was that day, and Challis was walking there to give Broower the news. He knew his platoon and platoon commander wouldn't be happy, but such was the army, the company needed him now. He walked through the halls, helmet under his arm, both it and his armor freshly cleaned up. There were dents and scratches in it, but he was more than proud to wear them. He walked into his company's barracks and saw a handful of his wounded already returning with clean bandages on them where visible. Broower was visible immediately, speaking with another pair of NCO's organizing some new replacements.
"Sergeant Broower," Challis called out.
"Sir," Broower said quickly and walked over, "Go ahead get them racked up and ready for training."
"As you know the First Sergeant's going to be evacuated for recovery. You're taking over the job as Company First Sergeant," Challis explained.
"Understood sir. We've got a lot of replacements that'll need to be worked on. May need some motivation."
"Very well. Get to work, we're taking part in an operation soon. We'll need to reorganize quickly. See to any leadership billets that need feeling," Challis ordered.
"Roger that sir, we'll be ready."
"Good. Get the men training, keep their minds occupied."
Location: Island Highlands, Planet Phindar
The jungle was intimidating. Clothed in fog, nothing but green mountains and the ever-present knowledge of an enemy hiding amongst it, ready to pick them off. Each Confederate soldier had had to march up a muddy track to this position beneath the start of the highlands. The air was suffocating with high humidity and the heat was intense. Their heavy ACH-14 helmets were dirties up by the close-in jungle and not very many could see the Confederacy Hexagon on the front of the helmets' metal ring. Their pants, boots, and coats were soaking wet thanks to the humid air, mud, and occasional rain showers.
This was the 2nd Division of the Patriot Forces, a mashup outfit interspersed with a handful of aliens including Duros, Fondorians, and Quarren. They were all sitting under the cover a ditch at the edge of the forest where a long hilly open ground of grasses was between them and the Clones. They couldn't see the Clones, but they knew that they were there. Occasionally a mortar round would land amongst them, causing a casualty or two. Fortunately they were protected enough by their soft tactical vests had some plates in the fabric on the back and on the front and shin pads and knee pads. It wasn't like they were walking buckets, but they weren't unprotected.
"How long are we gonna sit here and let the Clones pick away at us?" a grumpy sergeant Duros by the name of Hemga said as he sat there amongst his squad.
"No idea sarge," the squad's medic, a young human female named Eimma said as she dropped down next to him and tugged off her hardened pack, "Salt pills! Get 'em while they're…pills."
She dug out the bottle with the pills in it and started handing them out to her squad as another pair of troopers, a pair of Fondorians, ran up holding all of their camel backs, water pack.
"Sorry about the wait," the youngest of them panted, "But a sniper's got the creek in his crosshairs."
"You put the cleaner pills in these?" Eimma asked.
"Of course, the Sergeant Major…reminded us."
"Oh great, am I gonna yelled at?" Sergeant Hemga groaned.
"He was just asking if we did, we didn't, y'know because of the sniper, so he watched us do it."
"Did the sniper get anyone?"
"A medic from 1st Platoon took a shot, don't think he made it," the boy sighed, taking out a death stick and lit it, taking a drag as he leaned back against the grassy knoll next to the others.
"Damn, kriffing Clones," Hemga said as the platoon sergeant ran over to them.
"Hemga, get your kids ready, you're on point," the older NCO ordered, "We're taking that cliffside there on the right, aerial recon says there's mortars on it, if we don't take it they'll keep popping rounds off right down our throat.
"Droids?" Hemga asked.
"They're in the middle, the tanks aren't able to push up here, but division's laying out an artillery bombardment in five minutes to soften them up. Be ready to push up when the artillery lifts."
"Got it. Pack it up, lock and load."
The squad of ten started putting their packs on and buckled them up. They lifted their A280's and switched off their safeties. Two of them actually had a new weapon, T-21 Light Repeating Blaster, a long-range and rapid firing blaster that was very effective at doing the job of laying down fire. They all laid down amongst the long grass beneath the rise and waited beneath the shade of the trees as they saw and heard the clanking of their droid allies moving into position to their left.
"So we're going after that?" one of their Quarren troops asked, pointing up at the sheer ungle cliff that went up thirty feet and dominated the clearing which was the entrance to the highlands.
"Not gonna be easy," Hemga said in reply, "Eimma, stay back, do not get separated from me."
"Okay…" the seventeen-year old girl nodded as she held her A280 so tightly that her knuckles were white.
"Make sure you've got your hair under your helmet," Hemga also pointed out, "As red as you are that might give you away."
"Right," the young medic rolled her eyes, pulling it up under her cap under her helmet and then pulled on her tactical glasses.
Hemga shook his head, he had a really young squad here. Eimma wasn't the only one who was under eighteen. The two Fondorians in his squad were brothers, one was seventeen the other was sixteen. Then there was also his only non-humanoid, a Quarren who didn't say much except to gripe about being thirsty or how he didn't care about having a helmet. He had six humans, two of whom were female including Eimma. So he had to keep an eye on everyone like a hawk.
"Uo, Ai," Hemga called to his two young Fondorians, "You good?"
"Ready to kick some buckethead ass," Ai, the younger of the two, said proudly.
At this point the artillery started to come down. Red bolts from their unique proton cannon artillery vehicles landed hard, sending explosions tearing through the opposite treeline including the cliffs. The screeching sounds were bone-chilling as the rounds arced in over their heads. The dust of the explosions went right up and clothed the area in smoke. Cheers came up from the unit around them as they waited for the bombardment to let up. There wasn't much that they could do but look through their sights to see not a shred of movement or a shred of evidence of effect.
"They're really laying it on those Clones," Uo called out happily.
"They sure are…" Hemga said with a smirk. But then the artillery stopped, "Okay move up, stay spread out."
"There's no one left up there sarge," Ai said as he was the first one up and over, followed by his brother.
"Don't be so sure," Hemga said as the others stood up, rifles held close to their shoulders, scanning the cliffs.
They moved forward, and Hemga could sense his medic being right there next to him. The two Fondorians were confidently out in front. The squad formed a wedge moving towards the cliff, jogging up the open ground. Enough of them were alert enough to see something on the high ground, a glint of white. Then mortar explosions tore into the droids to their left, and the squad dropped to the ground as blue blaster bolts started raining down from the cliff and the larger more distant cliffs covered in rainforest.
"Down! Down!" Hemga ordered as they all dropped to their bellies amongst the grass that seemed to swallow them.
"The droids are getting obliterated!" Eimma said from behind him.
Hemga took a chance and saw that the company of droids with them was almost entirely wiped out by mortar fire and blaster fire.
"Is everyone okay?!" Hemga called out, and heard okay's from a bunch of his men. But then saw one of his men in grass in front of him. But he wasn't moving.
He crawled up, and shook the man, it was Guye, one of their human males. The man's body had smoke rising from under him, and Hemga rolled him over and saw a blaster hole in his chest.
"Guye's dead, stay low!"
"What?!" Eimma cried out as she crawled over, "Oh man…"
She reached out and felt for a pulse, but there was none.
"Spread out, don't bunch up," Hemga said as a blaster bolt ripped through the glass over their heads.
"Push up! Push up!" the radio went off in his ear.
"Move!" Hemga yelled and ran forward, leading the way.
His squad followed him, but he saw another squad was head of him and had a good half of their number get dropped by blaster fire and a mortar strike sent one of their men cart-wheeling as it landed practically under his left foot. Then a string repeating blaster fire downed the remaining members of 1st squad. He saw out of the corner of his eye that another of his squad got shot squarely in the chest and then Ai got hit in the left leg. Eimma ran to him and helped him, and finally after a stream of fire went by them and they managed to duck behind a bluff at a sparsely wooded escarpment at the foot of the cliff.
Hemga looked back and saw that the rest of the company hadn't made it, they'd pulled back, leaving his squad alone. He did a headcount, seven had made it, Ai was hit in the leg, evidenced clearly by Eimma's bandage getting soaked by purple blood. Ooran, their Quarren, had taken a hit to his arm, and was trying to bandage it himself, and had a hand from Corporal Quasle, his second in command.
"Sarge, we're in bad shape, two dead, two wounded," Quasle said as he dropped down next to him.
"And we're effectively trapped right up next these damned Clone positions," Hemga growled, and tapped at his commlink, "And comms are down. Spread out, nothing sneaks up on us."
They also saw that darkness was starting to fall, and a pair of other soldiers from the other squad scrambled up, wounded in their right arm and in the lower abdomen. Both weren't in a good way.
"Two more are down back there," one of them struggled to get out as Eimma tried tending to him.
"We can't stay here!" Eimma cried out.
"You wanna go back through that? No, stay here get them stabilized. I'll get them."
Hemga started crawling back to where the groaning of a Koorivar who was coughing up blue blood. He dragged him back, and deposited him next to the squad.
"Kriffing…Clones," Hemga growled, "Okay…let's get into the fight."
The other troopers stood up, and started firing, but Dax took a hit through the helmet and dropped almost instantly. The others dropped back down, knowing that this wasn't a good situation. They were pinned and probably outnumbered.
"Gonna be a long night sarge."
A mortar strike landed right behind them, forcing them to duck.
"Yeah, really long night."
Been a while, but I'm back. I'm trying to get into the mood again now that I have…graduated with my Bachelor's Degree. The story's back on, and I have also gotten a couple chapters of A Brutal Reality done. So I'm back in the swing.
Next Chapter Preview: Operation 'Swift Comet' is on.