Weela felt weak.
Sure Boc had been right about their concealment, after the night in that cave it had been far easier to maintain it. Yet...she hadn't really gotten used to the feel of lacking in the force, sure it was there, a mere whisper...but she couldn't really use it when it was like that. Without it she felt clumsy and sluggish...and according to the mutters from Fourth...she was.
It didn't feel right being so weak.
At least her master seemed to take it evenly, crouched down next to her behind the protection offered by a fallen tree he seemed awfully content, though he was quieter then normal. And even he hadn't been able to avoid sweating like a wookie on tatooine in the sweltering heat and ground so uneven it would have fitted an obstacle course.
Weela managed a weak smile. The clone commando's had actually seemed a little frustrated with them, the pair unable to match their pace with their effort in suppressing their powers and the surprisingly tough work in simply getting from point A to point B. It reminded her of all the civilians she had fought to save during the war, only this time she was apparently the civilian, too weak to defend herself.
How many times had they been protected by the commandos from sudden droid assaults? Four? Five? By what little radio chatter she had overheard from the troopers she was sure there was more times...apparently they had destroyed dozens of droids while out of view. Normally she would have sensed the fighting...now she was more or less blind though, stuck to the crude sensory organs in her skull.
Ugh, even now, right outside the separatist base, she couldn't really do anything. She could only watch the few droid sentries around the small entrance while the commandos prepared to enter...wherever they were by now she couldn't tell. She felt so damn useless...she had almost broken the concealment just to make sure she could still be powerful.
The base was far up on a orange mountain whose cliff sides seemed surprisingly sheer, as if someone had cut it down along the sides to make any would-be climbers think twice. At the top the two rectangular monsters of the separatist hangars stood in dark contrast to the bright stone it lay upon. Those were of little interest though, the bombers and fighters leaving the hangar too far up to notice the ants hiding below them.
No, the interesting part was at the base of the mountain. The door stuck in a depression of the cliff was surprisingly small, a ring of a solid steel railing surrounding it like a small dugout...except on the right side where a few steel steps went down to the ground. The forest had been cleared two dozen feet around the entrance, six droids, two of them super battle droids, patrolled the edge while two B1's stood by the door, hands resting on the railing.
Could droids look bored?
"Where did the commandos go?" Weela asked, putting words to her current source of irritation. Maintaining the concealment was bad enough, doing it while sweaty to the bones and weary like nothing before another...force she wanted a shower! "I'm tired of sitting here! There's only eight of them..."
"I assume they want to do it quietly..." Boc whispered back, gaze not drifting from the clearing ahead of them. "And remember that they're commandos...they can't simply leap in and begin cutting droids apart."
Then Weela saw movement. Raising an eyebrow she spotted one of the commando's...Cutter she believed since she'd gotten used to reading their body language to identify them...deftly climb along the cliff. Only ten feet up the man had somehow managed to find enough footing to silently slide along the cliff, hugging it in an almost obscene fashion.
Despite the obviously straining manoeuvre the commando made no sound as he slowly slid to get above the clearing. No droid thought to look up, no surprise there, they were always set in their programming...if nothing out of the ordinary happened they were very predictable.
Next to her Boc Fac suddenly chuckled, glancing over Weela found him looking at her, a smile on his face. "You're leaning forward...worried?"
"Of course I'm worried." She muttered, annoyed that she was so easy to read even without her master using the force. She was worried that they would all die, that the commando's would fail, that the mission would fail...how couldn't one worry!?
Finally Cutter was above the door, swinging over he came to hang by one hand, his back against the cliff. A slight clatter followed as a rock fell from beneath his foot, hitting one of the droids by the door in the head. Oh no...
The nasal droid voice cut through the silence of the clearing. "Ow! What the-" The pair looked up in time to see Cutter drop a grenade between them.
A second later the blue explosion of an EMP grenade going off swallowed them both, making the pair tense in an odd Rigor Mortis as every join within them pushed out...before they with a pair of loud thuds fell to the floor, one of them exploding when the head bounced against the steel railing.
The other droids around the little clearing turned and raised their weapons...just in time to see the surprisingly nimble clone drop from his perch and disappear behind the steel railing. The droids begun to advance....then the clearing exploded in activity as the other clones appeared.
Fourth rolled out from the ground, a small blade in his right fist digging into the inside of the knee of one of the super battle droids and sending it tumbling back over him. Sitting up the squad leader pushed a mechanical leg aside and levelled his left-handed pistol at one of the B1's, blowing its head off with one shot...then rolled over the prone super battle droid and slammed his knife into its face.
Wrench came swinging in from a vine, sweeping boot knocking the head off a B1. Landing in a spin the commando dropped unto one knee and poured a stream of blue laser bolts towards another B1, first tearing off both its arms before finally blowing a hole through its chest.
With a crash the other super battle droid fell forward, Lip landing atop it, his heavy looking blaster jammed into the small of its back as he emptied an entire clip into it....finally severing it in two and starting a fire somewhere within it, grey smoke rising from it.
The last B1 fired a single shot, knocking the commando off the burning droid...then Cutter appeared from his cover, a powerful bolt from his sniper weapon tearing through the chest of the droid and sending machine parts hurling over the ground....the machine tumbled to the ground.
All of it hadn't taken more then a few moments.
Then Boc's hand was on her shoulder, stopping Weela from rushing up as sudden worry gripped her.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"Ow...clear!" Lip stumbled to his feet, to her surprise drawing a sigh of relief from Weela.
"Clear..." Fourth rolled to his feet and looked over to the two hiding jedi. "You may approach sir."
Releasing his grip on her Weela's master took point, heading straight for the door even as Weela followed, gaze drawn to Lip. The commando stood in the usual commando pose, though he was shrugging a little, as if trying to remove a stiffness out of his shoulders. Wrench was the one who put words to her worry though: "Are you okay Lip?"
"Oh fine, shield still intact, the hit just jarred me a little..." Lip snorted, obviously not bothered by the scorch mark over the left side of his chest...a hit that should have killed any unshielded person.
Why didn't they put shields on all the clones? Probably expensive...Weela didn't like the way such thoughts took her. "Are you sure? Looked like a pretty mean hit to me."
A chuckle escaped Lip and Wrench, she could swear the pair was grinning at her from behind their helmets. The damaged clone nodded, amusement in his voice. "Oh yes, a few hits happens every mission...I'm just glad we haven't had to do any reviving yet, a small wonder on its own."
"Oh...that happens...a lot?" Weela felt a little shy at the question. Reviving...like in almost dead....often?
"It comes with the territory." Lip shrugged, apparently not overly bothered by the whole thing. "Not something we th-"
"Lip!" The roar made the commando and jedi both snap in sudden fear, heads snapping round to look over at Fourth. The squad leader was pulling one of the downed droids towards the jungle by the neck as he gestured towards the door with his free hand. "Get slicing on that door or it'll be your hide! Now!"
"Yes sir!" Lip shouted, not bothering to salute he instead hurled himself towards the door, jumping over the droid Cutter was dragging away in his hurry to oblige. "Slicing door now sir...I need thirty seconds."
"Good enough." Tossing the last droid into the undergrowth of the jungle Fourth turned to Boc Fac, the jedi absently looking up at the distant hangar above them. "Prepare yourself jedi, stay close and stay out of our way...or this will be a very short mission..."
The jedi smiled, not looking away from the mountaintop. "No need to worry commando, no need at all..."
