Chapter 12
Cordatis dragged himself painfully from the rubble of the east wall. Blood dripped from his ringing ears and stained the shoulder of his jacket, there was also blood on his face from where a piece of rubble had struck him in the forehead. One of Cordatis' clone commanders squatted in front of him and removed its helmet. The clone was shouting something at him but Cordatis could not hear it over the piercing sound in his eardrum. He tried to stand, but as he did his vision blurred and he fell to his knees. His hearing returned during the second attempt and Cordatis could now catch the sound of the droids advancing into the city as well as the yelling of his clones and the howls of the Morgukai.
"Master Cordatis!" the commander shouted again. "Can you hear me sir?"
"Yes, I hear you commander." Cordatis answered dourly.
"The enemy have used jumper droids to flank us on our retreat. We are cut off from the inner wall. I have stationed our remaining troops in the surrounding buildings, we are trying to maintain a perimeter."
"It won't last." Cordatis told the commander. He reached for his light sabre on his utility belt but it was gone.
"Oh, I believe this is yours sir." The commander handed Cordatis his light sabre. "You dropped it when the wall fell."
"Thank you commander." Cordatis said, "Where is Kesh?"
"The Morgukai are holding the droids back where the wall fell." The commander explained.
"I want you to call them back." Cordatis ordered, "Our men are sitting ducks out here. I want you to gather all the troops that you can spare so that we can fight our way to the inner wall before more enemy forces close in."
"Yes sir," the clone ran off, back into the battle.
While Cordatis was running towards the inner citadel, a droid gunship flew overhead. The sound of its loud engines rumbled through the city. As it flew the gunship was shot down by one of the heavy weaponry troops stationed in the mountainside to the south. The rocket exploded on impact and the ship crashed into an enemy tank, which in turn exploded in a violent fiery eruption and destroyed all the surrounding droids.
"That trooper deserves a medal." Cordatis murmured under his breath.
Soon all of the clones and Morgukai were gathered before the enemy blockade, Cordatis spotted Kesh, preparing to lead the attack. "Kesh!" He shouted.
"Cordatis," Kesh called back, "Glad to see that you are not dead."
"As am I." Cordatis replied, "Are your warriors ready to attack?"
"We were born ready. Come, let us fight or else die in the name of freedom!" The warriors behind him erupted in an uproar of bellows and shouts, and even the clones joined in.
Cordatis led the charge with Kesh beside him and their army of clones and Morgukai followed. Cordatis drew his light sabre and deflected enemy fire as he ran. When he neared the first super battle droid Cordatis performed a light sabre throw, and the blade spiralled until it pierced through the droids hard metal chest. Without stopping his run, Cordatis collected his light sabre and cut through another droid, and another. Beside him Kesh used his warrior axe to cut one droid into three equal pieces, the beast then smashed another droid with his armoured shoulder and simply crushed another one with his bare hands.
The other Morgukai followed their leaders example, cutting and hacking away at the enemy. The clones were much more organised, and they moved in groups, covering each other as they rushed through the enemy lines.
The DF.9's stationed on the inner wall helped by thinning down the droids that attacked Cordatis' men from behind, and a squadron of troops waited outside the gate to cover their arrival. The gate swung open with a heavy metal creaking sound and allowed the clones and Morgukai to rush into the safety to the citadel.
Once inside Cordatis made his way to the top of the wall and spoke to another one of the commanders, "How long do you think we will hold out?" he asked.
"I don't know sir," the commander replied, "But its going to be difficult fighting the droids back come nightfall in a few hours."
"I agree." Cordatis said, "Unless we can find some sort of an edge on the droids, I fear we may have to give up the citadel."
The clones and the Morgukai battled with more heart as the sun lowered over the horizon, because they knew that the droids would have an immediate advantage in the dark. However the soldiers' courage was to no avail, and the droids continued to push them past the limit until the enemy tanks lined up to take out the inner wall.
Cordatis knew that the battle was lost, and he was ready to call for a full retreat. Then the commander beside him pointed out, "Look sir, gunships."
The commander was right, over the rubble of the outer wall approached dozens of republic gunships, each loaded with at least twenty clone troopers. The gunships soared overhead and with powerful laser cannons took out almost all of the enemy tanks in one blow. When the smoke from the tanks had cleared the ships landed their troops and the clones began to charge at the droid army, all noise was drowned out by their shouts and footsteps. By nightfall the droids littered the city, and the clones went about disposing of the scrap metal that remained.
When the droids were definitely gone Cordatis went to speak to Mace Windu, who supervised the final attack. Instead he found Master Shionne; she was an old friend of Cordatis and a skilled Jedi.
"Shionne," Cordatis said, "What a surprise, I was expecting to find Mace Windu."
"Mace Windu had more important issues to deal with, so they sent me instead to come save your ass." She silently laughed at the thought.
"Boy have I missed your sparkling personality Shionne," Cordatis replied shrewdly, "But what could have been more important that this." He gestured to the half destroyed city around them.
"All I know is that something is going down between the Jedi Council and the senate, something big." Shionne walked with Cordatis to one of the gunships, "I think chancellor Palpetine may have overstepped his limits with the counsel this time, and who knows what they'll do if he pisses them off any more."
"Palpetine is just a stupid old man who doesn't know his place in the republic, what ever he's done can't be as bad as this war." Cordatis helped Shionne step into the gunship.
"It can be if he assumes control of the republic army." Shionne stated.
"The Jedi would never allow it." Cordatis rebutted.
As Cordatis found a place to sit on the gunship he felt something, a disturbance in the force, suddenly he knew that something was wrong. He assumed that Shionne felt it too, so he focused his senses and studied the aftermath of battle around him. As the ship took off he saw the leading commander of the rescue battalion pull out a holo-com, from it sprouted a weary cloaked figure. "Execute order sixty-six." The figure said in an old croaky voice.
Before he could ask questions the ship took off, and Cordatis felt very unsafe.
"Do you feel it too?" Shionne asked.
Cordatis nodded his head slowly and placed his hand lightly on his light sabre, and then from out of nowhere a heavy laser bold struck the gunship. The ship spiralled violently towards the ground and smoke pumped out from the blast point, then the ship smashed into the hard rocky terrain.