At Rtj-lyr's behest, the clones assumed defensive positions. It was possible that they were about to encounter something unfriendly. The droids could be back, or perhaps a Mityar had returned to find its burrow entrance blocked and was digging its way inside. You couldn't be too careful.
The Captain read between the lines and heard what Rtj-lyr didn't say. They had come here hunting Grievous. Rtj-lyr wasn't interested in leaving until they found the evil General. That's why they had been wandering. Rtj-lyr hadn't been looking for a way out, he'd been looking for signs that Separatist troops were hiding somewhere in these caverns to avoid the weather outside.
His determination was admirable, but his judgment poor.
A voice carried through the rocks, muffled but recognizable.
"Glyr!. Glyr, are you in there?," the voice belonged to General Kenobi.
"I am here," Rtj-lyr called back, then turned on the clones in inexplicable fury "which of you called them?. Who broke radio silence?,"
The clones didn't answer, looking at one another and getting the impression that they were all baffled by the accusation. It wasn't long before all eyes turned on Pariah. The clones had learned from their master that, if anyone was to blame, it was most likely him.
"You!," Rtj-lyr growled, pointing at the spot-lighted clone.
Pariah shied away, trying to inch his way behind Jac, the only clone who had not implicated him by default. Well, not the only clone. The Captain looked on from a distance, his shoulders sagging wearily.
"I didn't do anything," Pariah defended himself, but his voice shook.
Neither denial of guilt nor reasonable defense were enough to protect him, and he knew it.
"It wasn't him," The Captain spoke at last, managing not to flinch when Rtj-lyr turned on him in fury "I'm the one who called for aid,"
"I trusted you!. You know we didn't need help," Rtj-lyr spat "it was you who marked the rocks to look like droids had done it. You led me here,"
"Yes sir," The Captain replied "you may not believe it, but I did it for you,"
"For me!?. No, you did it for them!. Your worthless so-called brothers!," at this Rtj-lyr threw his arm out in the general direction of the clones.
In his anger, Rtj-lyr had called upon the Force. In his frustration, he flung the clones back against the cave walls. There they fell. Shaking their heads and using the wall for support, they tried to regain their breath. Something inside Pariah suddenly snapped.
This wasn't punishing a clone who had done wrong, or even been accused of doing wrong. It had been a direct attack of clones who were nothing but innocent bystanders. They had done nothing wrong, nor even been so much as accused of wrong doing.
It happened in the space of a second. As Rtj-lyr was turning back towards the Captain, to say or do who knew what, several things happened. Pariah raised his blaster, intent on shooting the Jedi in the back. At the same time, the entrance blockage suddenly fell away, drawing the Jedi's attention. As Rtj-lyr side-stepped towards the opening, the Captain caught sight of Pariah, and raised his own weapon.
Those outside saw him, and assumed he was aiming for Rtj-lyr. Even as the Captain fired, so too did Commander Cody and three other clones. But the Captain's shot still got through. The first hit Pariah squarely between the eyes and the young clone dropped like a sack of bricks. The second went wide, nearly hitting the other clones as they ducked the fire. The Captain fell too, shot full of enough holes to kill ten clones. It was over almost before it started. Even as he knew it would do no good, Jac cried a warning to the Captain. He reached the Captain's side almost before the clone had fallen.
"You didn't have to kill him!," one of the standing clones wailed "It was Pariah that you should have shot!. Why didn't you shoot him instead!?,"
"Put the blasters away, boys," Cody told his men coolly "we're done shooting here,"
He didn't say anything about the fallen Captain, and avoided looking at the dead clone entirely. If he was upset, he didn't show it. If anyone had asked how he felt about his mistake, he would have said that he could not have acted otherwise, given the information he had at the time. He could not have seen Pariah from his position, and could not have been certain the clone Captain was truly loyal. He'd seen clones turn traitor before.
"These clones are terrified," Obi-Wan Kenobi quietly said to Cody "and I don't think you're the cause,"
"Perhaps there's something in these tunnels we don't know about," Cody replied evenly.
"Maybe. Check for wounded, then get these men out of here,"
"Yes sir,"
Obi-Wan then turned his attention to Rtj-lyr, who stood looking down at the fallen clone Captain, his face expressionless. Jac still knelt beside the Captain, even though he knew the other clone was dead. In his mind, Jac wondered if there might not have been something he could have done to prevent this from happening. Pariah shouldn't have died. Nor should the Captain. There was no good reason for this. In fact, there seemed to be no reason at all.
"Are you alright?," Obi-Wan asked of Rtj-lyr.
"We couldn't find General Grievous," was the cold reply "we wandered for days, but we never found him. I'm beginning to think he wasn't here at all,"
"You've been trapped here that long?. Why didn't you call for aid?,"
"There was no reason to. We were doing just fine without help," Rtj-lyr spat this remark, and then roughly brushed past Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan stood for a moment, thoroughly confused and unsettled. Something wasn't right here.
"He shouldn't have done it," Jac murmured.
"Done what?," Obi-Wan asked, not sure if The Clone was referring to the Captain or the Jedi.
"General Rtj-lyr didn't want us using the radio. He shouldn't have done it. He must have done it while we were separated. Why did he do it?. What for?. So he could get killed by his own kind?," Jac shook his head miserably "there had to have been another way,"
"Hold on. You're saying Glyr told you not to use the radio?. There wasn't anything hindering your transmissions?," Obi-Wan demanded.
Hearing the displeasure in the Jedi's voice, The Clone flinched visibly, seeming to withdraw further into himself. It was a little before he managed to answer the question.
"No sir. Our radios work fine. Even when we were in deep, they worked fine,"
"Then why did you break radio contact?. And why didn't you call for aid?," Obi-Wan persisted.
"We had our orders, sir. The lot of us. And we followed them. Even Pariah,"
"Pariah?,"
This question was answered with a vague gesture in the direction of the other dead clone.
"Pariah?," Obi-Wan repeated the name.
"It's what he was," The Clone replied quietly "wasn't his fault. But it's what he was,"
The Clone's words concerned Obi-Wan, but not nearly enough. Obi-Wan spoke with Jedi Masters Mace Windu and Yoda, but his depiction of the events was not nearly graphic enough to make them inclined to take drastic measures. Instead, it was generally agreed upon that Rtj-lyr had seen too much combat of late. After some deliberation, it was Yoda who suggested relegating Rtj-lyr to the ships in orbit around Aakaria. These ships had the often dull, but nonetheless critical, job of preventing Separatist ships from landing and providing additional forces to the ground effort.
Rtj-lyr liked this not at all, yet he did little more than complain to his troops, blaming his new position on the death of the Captain. He said that he couldn't be expected to go into battle without some clone in charge of keeping the rest out of his way. This wasn't true, and the lot of them knew it, but not one clone spoke up in protest or attempted to correct Rtj-lyr.
Being on the ship gave Rtj-lyr things to do other than dampen his clone's spirits. For instance, he could stand on the bridge and voice depressing, and disturbing, thoughts to whoever would listen.
The clones were not left idle, however. They were sort of extra troops, who didn't have a permanent position. They would normally be left to their own devices for the most part, so they would be fresh for any battle which took place in the vastness of space. There were fighter ships in the hanger for that exact purpose, fighters which the clones who were assigned to fly in them had to maintain.
In addition to that, Rtj-lyr "volunteered" them to work maintenance with the regular crew.
"From front lines to cleanup in the docking bay," the complaint was voiced by one clone to another, and only when no one but other clones was around.
"Just be glad you've lived to see this day," was the stoic reply "just think, you could have been Pariah,"
"It's his fault we're reduced to droid work," the complainer returned "if it weren't for him, the Captain would still be alive, and we'd still be down there where the real action is,"
"If the Captain hadn't used the radio, Pariah wouldn't have been pushed into turning traitor," was the argument made by the second clone.
"If he hadn't used the radio, we'd still be down in those tunnels, starving to death," this comment was made by Jac, and it effectively ended this line of conversation.
Somehow, no matter what you do to avoid it, trouble always finds its way, slipping under doors and through cracks, arriving when you least expect it, waiting in your living room for you to get home and find it, or seeking you out elsewhere when it becomes impatient. At least, that is how trouble often seems. As though it is a living, breathing entity which one simply cannot avoid, nor deter once it has set its sights.
Even as Obi-Wan had eased his own mind in pulling Rtj-lyr from the ground, with the intention of giving the young Jedi distance from his obsession, General Grievous had been dispatched to sabotage the cruisers hovering over Aakaria. It is doubtful the General was ever even on the planet to begin with.
General Grievous, though unarguably unsound of mind, was no fool. The ships were far from defenseless, even on the inside, loaded down as they were with clones meant to pilot fighters in space. Those pilots doubtless were equipped with weapons and training which was equal to that of the clones on the ground. Aside from which, the clones on cruisers were typically well-fed and well-rested, making them more formidable than half-starved, exhausted ground troops who were suffering heat stroke or, alternatively, shivering with cold.
He knew also that General Kenobi had a squadron hanging around, just looking for a fight. Grievous didn't like the odds of survival. Surely, the ships could be sabotaged, but escape afterwords seemed questionable. Better to delegate this messy business to someone who wouldn't be missed.
He knew, of course, that droids alone couldn't get the job done. They were too stupid, and too noisy. Rather than send them in alone, he chose to employ Reg Olith. Olith was young, brash, foolhardy and almost entirely expendable. Grievous had picked him up near the outer rim. Olith had been just looking for trouble, but it had seemed disinterested in the youngster from Alderaan. How such a blood thirsty lad had managed to come from Alderaan, Grievous neither knew nor cared.
Initially, he'd held some hope that Olith would prove valuable with a little discipline. Experience, however, had proven Olith was immune to such tactics, remaining as brazen as ever. By his own character, Olith had doomed himself to a short life. Even without Grievous leveraging him along, Olith would, sooner or later, have tangled with someone more powerful than he.
Olith's arrogance blinded him to the fact that Grievous was sending him in with the expectation that Olith would not survive the endeavor. Olith was one of those specimens who believed himself capable of accomplishing anything, no matter how impossible it seemed.
In this case, that suited the General fine. All he had to do was sit back and watch Olith destroy himself, and hopefully the Republic ships standing guard over Aakaria in the process. At the very least, he could weaken the cruisers to the point that a ship-to-ship confrontation would end in sure victory for Grievous.
But there was one thing he didn't count on. For on the largest cruiser, the one chosen for the sabotage mission, there was a young Jedi whose own pride and belief in his own immortality was every bit equal to that of Olith. A clash between the two was inevitable, and sure to end badly for both of them.