Reposted on 12/12/2006

Chapter VI

Ghost checked Kavak's pulse.

"Nothing," he said. "Not even a whisper."

The squad's comm links sputtered to life with a buzz of static. "Zero! Boss, you there?" Klank said over the comm.

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"TK's down, we got SBDs surrounding the tower."

"We're on our way," Zero said. He turned to the squad, "Let's go, wedge formation, we don't stop until we reach the tower."

When they arrived at the base of the tower, they spotted several dismantled metallic blue bodies on the ground and one shining white one. Zero flipped it over to see the blue and red markings of Klank's armor.

"Ni vod. My brother," Zero knelt at Klank's side.

"Tion'cuy?" someone asked from around the corner.

"TK! K'olar! Get over here!" Mouth shouted. TK-421 limped out from a corner, a slight trickle of blood trailing from his right calf muscle.

"Zero," TK-421 said. "Battle droids, coming…we got to get out of here."

"Calm yourself," Zero said. "Tion'solet? How many?"

"Two squads."

As the words exited his mouth, they rounded the corner. Imdieatly they began to fire. Ghost and Boom, the closest, dived, rolled and turned to open fire as bolts of laser fire filled their prievous locations. As the rest turned and fired Zero evalutated the situation: Objective: Incompleteable, Hostiles: Partially neutralized, more reinforcements then can be handled, Mission: Failed. Zero ran these facts through his head and decided it was time to extract the team. "Retreat!" he shouted. The threw a few parting shots, and turned to leave.

They rounded a corner and Ghost keyed for the door to the landing pad. It hissed open. He waited until all the other clones had passed him, fired five rounds at the still progressing battle droids and fled. Six had the IIB hot and running in seconds and flew it towards Ghost. He set it down and exited it to provide covering fire. Zero came racing toward the ramp as Six ducted to prime his last grenade. He came up from behind the ramp and a blaster bolt siziled into his chest partially vaporizing, and contorting the armor. Zero winced and blinked away a few tears, stooped to haul his comrade's limp body up the ramp.

Zero, his helmet stowed underneath his arm, undid the clasp on Six's helmet and looked at his lifeless face.

"Get us out of here, fast," he said, all the personality drained from his voice. He turned and went towards the rear cargo hold. He shut the door and the rest of the clones heard him slump against it, and if they listened closely, they could hear small, controlled sobs.

"What do we do now?" Mouth asked the question that was on everyone's mind. "the Republic's corrupt, run by a Sith, all the Jedi in the galaxy are about to be killed and no one will believe us if we slapped them in the face with it!"

"What can we do?" Peewee added.

Zero emerged from the hold, eyes red and wet, his face set with a grim determined scowl. "We try nonetheless."

THE END

Look for "Fallout: Part 3 of the Clone Insurrection"

Coming in January