Chapter 13

"That's bad, isn't it?" Penny asked after a few moments of silence.

It seemed the rare moments of silence in the war were the most terrifying. Anakin ignored it, "Come on," he shouted hastily. "We can't let him report us! Jam his signal!"

One of the clones pressed a button on his comlink, then followed the rest of them. "Master, wait!" Ahsoka cried, but they had already followed him over the ridge. "He might have...company."

Penny ran up next to her, "At least I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea."

Ahsoka smiled, then ran after him, "He never listens."

Penny began to run after them, but Bolt grabbed her by her heel. She looked back at him, he had a firm grip on her shoe with a half concerned, half worried expression on his face. No Penny, just stay here. They can handle it, you have to stay safe. She bent down and pushed him off her. "Bolt it's fine," she reassured. "They may need my help."

How can you help? I was given the job of protecting you! I'm the one who has to look after you. Not these people! But Penny couldn't understand. She ran off in the direction of the droids. No Penny! NO! He ran as fast as he could as he watched Penny vanish over the rise. He practically leaped over to where he saw her crouched behind part of what use to be a speeder engine. Then he saw why. He narrowly avoided the hot, scattered bolts of blaster fire which came flying towards him. He quickly bounded over to where Penny had taken shelter, she quickly wrapped her arms around him. She was afraid. Bolt carefully looked out from where they were hidden, taking note of the laser bolts whizzing past him. He saw the clones crouched in different hiding positions. One of them was lying on the ground, a black blast mark in his chest. The Jedi were up front, both swiftly deflecting the fire, he could see at least nine of them, or nine remaining. The fortunate ones who hadn't been shot or sliced. Another bolt narrowly missed him as he ducked behind his cover again, close by Penny. The clones fired wildly, doing their part to cut the droids down, Penny covered her ears at the loud shots and closed her eyes, waiting for it to be over. Anakin was chopping his way through the droids with ease, slightly concerned by Ahsoka's saber techniques, but more concerned and angry that they had already lost someone of Torrent company. It was a kriffing shiny. His first battle and he's killed. It wasn't the first time. He remembered all the troops on Geonosis, it was their first time deployed and almost a quarter of them were killed or seriously injured. "Rex," he said after performing a vertical cut on the last super battle droid. "Who did we lose this time?"

"Vin sir," Rex replied, removing his helmet as he walked over to Penny.

Vin? He wasn't a shiny. He wasn't on Teth either. Not in the battle anyway. It didn't make too much of a difference, one of his men was dead. He looked over to where Penny was. She was slowly standing from her hiding place, Bolt loyally at her side. Poor kid. At least she survived. She looked up at him, "You...uh, realize that when these guys don't report in, those other guys will be suspicious," she said.

"You're right Penny," he responded. "We don't have much time before that happens. Get Vin out of here. We have to get back and tell master Plo about our attack, we'll need all the troops we can get. Let's just hope they don't send out any more scouting parties."

The clones nodded and pulled the body of white armor away from the scene. Penny sighed, she felt it was her fault they were in this. It was her fault that trooper was dead. Bolt could tell what she was thinking. He brushed alongside her leg. She looked down and laid her arm around him, "How are we going to get out of this Bolt?" she said, holding him close.

He licked her cheek reassuringly. She giggled, "Yeah, you're my good..."

"GENERAL!" one of the clones shouted. "I think we may need more troopers sir!"

Oh great, one problem after another. Anakin and Ahsoka shot a look at each other. "And why is that trooper?" Anakin asked, cautiously approaching where the trooper was sitting.

Then he saw why.

Row after row of battle droids marching directly towards them. Battle droids, super battle droids, destroyers, tanks, even the security droids they had seen on Christophsis. Twenty at least of each kind. "Master?" Ahsoka said. "Do they know we're here?"

He looked down and saw the commander with binoculars pointing frantically in their direction. "They do now," he sighed, then looked further out to see a droid base. They were already there. They were there all along. "They probably found out about this place just as out Intel agents did."

"Now what?" Ahsoka asked gloomily.

"We await our horrible demise?" one of the rookies asked, receiving an agitated glare from Rex. "What?"

Penny looked out, despair entering her heart. She would die on this planet, she had failed her father. She would never rescue him. She and Bolt would both...Wait! She had faced off against more than this. And she remembered what she did when it was like this. She cursed her own stupidity for giving up so easily and looked down at Bolt who was staring back at her with a serious look. "Bolt," she said boldly. "Speak."

Bolt smiled. Finally. He walked ahead of the group and placed his front right paw forward, and his back right back for balance. "What's he doing?" Rex asked, then chuckled sadly. "Does he really think he can...?"

Bolt growled deeply, then through his head forward releasing a giant ground shaking bark, sending the numerous layers of dust and debris flying through the air. Anakin, Ahsoka, and the clones stumbled back and covered their ears at the sudden burst. The blast ripped through the metal landscape approaching the droids at a rapid rate. Ahsoka looked up to see the blast throw the droids off the ground like leaves in the wind, sending them and the tanks hurling threw the air back into the base they came from, a small explosion for each impact. Within seconds, the base was consumed by a raging inferno. Bolt smiled mischievously and walked back to Penny's side, Penny looked back to the shaken clones and Jedi, who returned awestruck and confused looks. She smiled nervously and said, "I guess I have some explaining to do, huh?"

"General sir!" a droid voice called out from one the control trenches.

"What was that?" Grievous growled angrily. "There are no ground quakes on this rock!"

"No sir, I don't what it was. But I've lost all contact with our base."

Grievous nearly punched the droid as he spun around back to his post next to a battle droid commander. "I told you we should have checked for survivors with that ship!" the general snarled.

"What?" the droid responded innocently. "It wasn't my fault you didn't..."

Grievous then proceeded to punch the droid, who went sailing across the control station. "General," Dooku's voice came from behind. "As I recall, that freighter belonged to Skywalker. You must not allow him to destroy it, or send word to the Republic."

Grievous thought for a moment. "Skywalker will never be able to take me, or this weapon. His numbers are thin, and we still have hundreds on this planet."

"Really?" Dooku said, raising an eyebrow. "Because one of your droids just informed me that your base has been almost nearly destroyed."

Grievous stuttered for a moment, "Uh, well...he will still be unable to destroy this weapon in time..."

"General," the count interrupted. "Do not underestimate him."

"Of course sir."

"And general," he continued. "Do not overestimate yourself."