Chapter 15

The weapon looked even more terrifying up close. Or so Bolt thought.

"Okay, everyone clear on the plan?" Anakin said through his comlink. He received mixed number of confirmations. "Alright, Master Plo, are your men in position?"

"Copy that Skywalker," his voice came from the other end. "Ready to attack on your signal."

"Good," he replied and looked back on Penny, Bolt, Ahsoka, and the rest of his men. "Ready for this?."

Penny smiled and spoke first, "No."

He smiled back, "Me neither. Let's go then."

He climbed over the large speeder they were crouched behind and carefully ran up to the droid infested area, the clones closely following. They came to rest behind a large wall, just short of the area. Ahsoka looked through a small hole in it, seeing two battle droids right in front of it. "Let's hope master Plo's distraction works, or this'll be one short fight."

"It'll work snips," he assured. "Master Plo, we're in position, you can start your attack."

Then, after a second of silence, there was a large explosion from the other side of the compound. Followed be multiple blaster shots, ringing through the air, along with Grievous's angry shouts. The two droids standing guard jumped and quickly ran over to the site. Anakin smiled. Perfect. "Let's go!" he ordered, and jumped from behind the wall towards the control station.

The clones brandished their blasters and quickly followed. Penny was about to jump out when she felt something latch onto her shoe and pull her back. She looked down to see Bolt with a firm grip on her heel. Don't do it Penny. She sighed and bent down to release her foot. "It's okay Bolt," she said, removing her heel from Bolt's mouth. "I'll be fine. This is no different from attacking Calico."

She jumped from the wall and stayed close behind Jek, running towards the power station. That's what I'm worried about. Bolt thought as he ran after her.

Plo swiftly sliced through a super battle droid as what seemed like hundreds continued coming towards them. One down. One hundred more to go. He thought as he calmed himself and protected his men from the speeding bolts of laser fire. Then he sensed something unusual in the force. Something...unpleasant. Grievous. Though was confident with his position, for each clone that was shot or injured, ten or twenty droids fell. He felt he could overrun this facility alone, but that wasn't the plan. His men wouldn't stand a chance against Grievous. "Commander Wolffe!" Plo shouted back to his second in command over the buzzing blaster fire. "We need to pull them back further! Draw them back into those valleys!"

"Will do general!" Wolffe responded, too loyal to say what he really felt.

The troopers progressively began to fall back into the steel valleys which covered the natural hills of the planet. Plo grinned beneath his mask as he watched them draw the droids away. "Stop you fools! They're leading you away!" an angry voice shouted from behind.

Plo turned around to see Grievous standing a few meters away from him, not having noticed the Jedi. "Grievous," Plo said boldly.

The cyborg turned to him and his reptilian eyes widened. "Ah," he said, becoming excited. "Master...Plo Koon, isn't it?"

"My reputation precedes me then," Plo responded, acting like it was a casual meeting. "As does yours, a murderous coward."

"Murderer?" he said innocently. "I'm no murderer, master Plo. I'm just doing my part to make the galaxy a better place. Starting with the elimination of you Jedi filth!"

"Killing Jedi is murdering."

"Not to me," he said, removing his cape and splitting both his arms, each one holding a lightsaber and igniting it. "I've never killed a Kel-Dor before, General Plo. But, as you know, I am always willing to try new things."

"You've taken your last victim general," Plo said, activating his own lightsaber. "At last, the butcher of Hypori will meet Justice."

"We'll see," Grievous said, as lunged towards him.

The duel began.

So far, they had managed to stay hidden. They were all the way up to main generator control. About twenty-five or thirty of them. "Okay boys," Anakin said pulling out his lightsaber. "...And girls. Ready for a little challenge?"

They all nodded at once, "Ready for anything general," Rex reminded him.

He smiled in response. Then he activated his lightsaber and sliced through the first droid in front of him. As a reaction, all the others fired wildly at them, and missed. The clones sprung for their places as well and fired off their own blasters, taking down one droid after the next. "Okay kid," Jek called without looking away from the battle. "Wait until we can clear a path, then follow commander Tano to the power generator."

Penny nodded then ducked back down behind her cover, narrowly evading the blaster fire speeding towards her. She looked over to her left to see Ahsoka who was sitting next to her. The two smiled at each other, "Welcome to the war," Ahsoka joked.

"It's a wonder that guy is still in one piece," Penny responded, wiping the sweat from her face.

"It's a wonder for all of us," she said, then looked over at the blue and white astromech next to her. "Artooie, get ready to hack that system. Okay?"

The droid chirped happily as usual. Then Ahsoka looked back over and grabbed Penny's arm. "That's it, come on!"

She jumped over the wall, almost dragging Penny with her. The two quickly ran across the battlefield with the rest of Torrent company behind them, laying down cover fire. Penny watched through the blaster fire as the control station got closer and closer, praying that she and Bolt make it without being shot, or worse. Almost there. She almost dove to reach the safety of the generator control panels. They all quickly came to a stop behind the panels. Ahsoka looked over to see if everyone had made it, then to Penny, who looked back at her, "I haven't ran for my life for a while," she panted.

"Happens to me almost all the time," she replied, out of breath as well. "Let's go to work boys."

The clones nodded and removed multiple charges from their backpacks, "Think you can break through the security code kid? This won't work if we don't. Artoo can give you some assistance."

Penny nodded, and crawled over to the station where he was referring. She carefully sat in the uncomfortable, droid designed chair, which had a perfect view of the battle in front of her. and looked over the screen and accessed the security control. Her eyes widened. This is almost exactly like Calico's system. It would be easy. All too easy. Except for the different language. The characters on the screen were unlike anything she had seen before. She knew some French, but this was completely different. "Finding everything alright kid?" Rex asked, walking up to her, still firing his pistols off at the droids.

"Uh..." she stuttered, trying to speak up over the constant shots. "Fine. Except...I don't really think I know this language."

Stang it. Of course. She wasn't from a system that was part of the Republic. She had no idea what Aurebesh was. "Well...uh...Jek! Give this kid a hand!" he shouted.

Jek quickly ran over to her and understood what the problem was. "Artoo, show this kid where she needs to go," he ordered and returned to his post.

There was something about Jek that Penny liked, it wasn't his appearance, otherwise she would love the entire Grand Army. No, it was his personality, caring, calm, yet obedient and swift. And maybe his eyes are... A near miss shot broke her out of her line of thought. She returned to her work to see Artoo had pulled up the reactor's main line of defense. She looked through and eliminated the virus nanobots that only droids could bypass. They were similar to the ones Calico used. Then she saw there was a file blinking. "That one?" she inquired.

He appeared to nod. She opened it and saw a smaller box come up, with a blinking line. She assumed it was where the pass code was entered. She looked down at the keyboard, numbers were the same for the most part. Then she heard a loud blast and looked over to the source, she gasped at what she saw. Jek had been hit in the arm. "Think you can do this?" she asked Artoo, who beeped in response. "Well...do your best."

Penny ran over to where Jek lay, "Are you okay Jek?" she asked, kneeling beside him. "I'm fine kid, but I think there may be some additional charges over by that bunker"

She looked over to where he was pointing, "Are you sure?" she asked, warily, not wanting to leave the safety of her current position.

"Pretty sure, agh!" pain shot through his arm again. Penny looked at him lay there, concern filling her eyes. "I'll be fine kid, just go. Now!"

She nodded and followed Ahsoka through the battle to the other bunker, Bolt taking down his share of droids. She looked back one more time at him. You'll be fine. Then made her way to the charges.