Part V
"Cleaning crew"
"We were all tired… The spiders really gave us a run for our credits; I still have nightmares about those cocoons… The fear they must have had when their fate befell them… We continued on to the sacred tree, not much further than the village… What we found was much different than what the group had surmised…"
The Republic squad was on the move, along a branch spanning miles, connecting the village to the sacred tree, Amahayl wanted to get this over with quickly, only the tally-marked clone was majorly injured.
"Are you sure you want to accompany us, trooper?" the Jedi padawan asked over her shoulder as she led the group.
"Yes, sir!" the tally-marked soldier replied, finishing off the new tally mark. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he added, trying to move his injured shoulder with little success.
Brasic looked over and saw how many tallies the trooper had, faltering his pace momentarily, shocked by the number of marks already. "Wait, you have ten marks, how do you have that many already?!" Brasic exclaimed in surprise.
The tally-marked clone's posture lowered when this was brought up. "Heh heh, yep, I guess I'm just accident-prone," the trooper replied.
"How many times have you been deployed?!" Brasic questioned, his disbelief rising.
"Uh, this is my second deployment," the trooper hesitantly answered.
"Damn, I'm calling you trouble from now on," Brasic concluded as he returned his attention to their surroundings.
"Eh, the boot fits," Trouble muttered, accepting the new name without ceremony.
Amahayl first flew up to signal her squad to stop, making every one of the troops freeze. "Listen," The padawan whispered just loud enough to be heard.
Jam held his breath and soon enough heard a familiar sound, the hum of an AAT, a tank used by the Separatists, accompanying the tank was the sound of several metallic feet marching through the underbrush of the jungle.
The troops stepped close to the edge and peered over, sure enough, just under them, was a tank and platoon of droids, marching towards their destination.
"We need to move, now!" Amahayl ordered with a wave of her hand, breaking into a run once the soldiers had started.
The group neared their destination, the troopers let out quiet sighs of relief as they didn't have to face any more spiders on the way here.
But all the same, they hurried down the giant branch to secure the base of the sacred tree.
A native waved at them, they seemed older, probably the shaman, Jam figured given there was a hut that he had come from, that looked more ceremonial than anything from the village they had come from.
"Greetings, Jedi, I have been expecting you, young one!" the shaman said calmly yet brightly.
"Sir, there is a Separatist platoon coming this way, what they intend to do, I cannot say, but I wouldn't guess it's diplomatic," Amahayl blurted out, looking behind her group in hopes they weren't here already.
Noticing her look, Trouble piped up, clearing his throat first. "They should be five to ten minutes out, we had a clear path, they were trailblazing," the trooper explained as he tried to roll his shoulder with no success, the pain hampering his left arm's movement.
Amahayl looked back to the shaman after giving Trouble a single nod. "What do we need to do?" the padawan asked, point-blank.
The shaman raised its arms, ceremoniously. "You must travel to the heart of the tree, and exterminate the sickness that you know as battle droids," the native replied, lowering its arms as he finished his sentence.
Amahayl nodded quickly and looked back to her remaining troops. "Let's move," the padawan said, motioning them forward.
The clones moved in but the shaman's hands raised again, halting the squad's approach. "Only the Jedi are permitted entry," the shaman said, barring entrance to the sacred tree.
The soldiers looked at each other in disbelief, quickly looking to the Jedi in question for her orders.
"Set up a perimeter, those droids might be back before I can finish!" Amahayl said before turning back to the objective.
The padawan disappeared into the sacred tree's darkness, Jam motioned the rest of the troops into position, they divided into four teams of four, two dug in in front of the entrance, and the other two took up positions in the brush on both sides of the clearing.
"I've got a bad feeling about this!" one of the troops in the entrance defense position said.
"Can it, they will be here soon, be ready!" Brasic said, readying his weapon for the impending fight.
Minutes passed, and the troopers' hopes for Amahayl to finish before the fight arrived, dwindled as the sound of dozens of metal feet crunching through the brush became clearer and clearer.
The hum of the AAT could be heard growing closer, but the first wave of B1 droids came into view, while they easily outnumbered the clones, the troopers' superior positioning, the droids were reduced to scrap in just under a minute.
But it took less time for the next wave to show up, with AAT behind them.
Blaster bolts on both sides flew across the area, the shaman had ducked back into his hut, most likely hoping he wouldn't be gunned down.
Jam focused his fire right down the center of the crowd of droids, hitting something metal with nearly every shot.
The flanking clones were noticed after the Separatists took heavy casualties at their hands, the AAT turned its cannon towards the left side to take aim.
The troopers barely had time to duck before they were incinerated by the tank's heavy weaponry.
Jam yelled after his now-fallen comrades before glaring at the AAT. "Cover me! Cover-fire!" the trooper bellowed before vaulting the root his team had taken refuge behind.
The blue blaster bolts intensified as Jam raced across the grassy expanse, dodging the dead droid carcasses and blaster bolts of his enemies, the AAT began turning its turret to face the forward defense lines.
"What the hell is he doing?!" Brasic screamed as he fired the DC-15A in his hands.
"Just keep shooting!" Trouble yelled over the sounds of heavy warfare, his injured arm hanging limply, he had his rifle propped up on the root and was using the cover like a bipod, Trouble flinched, narrowly dodging a headshot.
Jam ran up onto the tank's top, getting grazed by shots taken at him, the top opened up and a droid popped its head up to meet the trooper's foot, punting it back into the armored vehicle.
Jam pulled out a thermal detonator and activated it before dropping it in the AAT and slamming the lid before making a run for it.
Jumping for his life, the trooper was in midair when the bomb went off, sending him a few extra feet away, Jam tumbled into the brush.
The battle raged for a few minutes before Jam reawoke, the numbers of droids were dwindling but so too were the clones.
Picking up his rifle, Jam started shooting the droids in the back, cutting himself a path back to the defensive position from which he had originated.
Jumping over the root, Jam fell on his rear and laid up against the root cover to catch his breath, Brasic jumped at his arrival.
"W-what is the situation, Brasic?" Jam asked, tilting his head in an effort to regain his bearings.
"We've cut through three waves of B1s, the AAT is down, and the shaman's but caught fire from some burning debris thrown from the tank's wreckage!" Brasic listed off.
"Is the shaman alive?" Jam inquired further, his head perking up.
"MIA, at the moment, can't tell for sure!" Brasic replied, ducking into cover.
No sooner had Brasic ducked, Jam got up and ran for the tree's entrance, it had been more than a few minutes, and he had to find Amahayl.
Racing through the dark wood-carved halls, Jam saw several signs of a fight transpiring recently.
Rushing along the path, Jam came to a pool of water, looking down into it, Jam pulled off his helmet to see a bit better, and still saw no bottom.
Looking around, Jam did notice the pool was shaped like the anatomical heart of a human.
Looking back, Jam flung his backpack off and flipped the cover up, and pulled out a rebreather, biting down on it, the trooper pulled the pack back on and redonned his helmet before taking a shaky breath and stepping forward, falling into the darkness.
He couldn't see anything, the pitch-black surroundings only added to his anxiety, no way of knowing where he was, or if he was near the bottom, how wide the chasm he was falling through, was closing in on him, or was it expanding?
The answer of the bottom came as his feet hit the wooden floor, looking around only a sliver of light could be seen up a few feet.
Reaching up for the light, Jam pulled himself out of the water and into another cavern, on the other side of the hallway, the soldier could make out Amahayl's shape.
Bringing the stock of his rifle to his shoulder, Jam trained his rifle forward and moved quickly down the corridor.
He slowed down when he saw two B2s and a black-painted droid with what looked like a sword on its back, standing over the Jedi who could be injured or at least unconscious.
Pulling a droid popper from his belt, Jam tossed it in, the B2s went down, but the mystery droid dodged out of the way and pulled its sword out.
Pulling his DC-15A up, Jam fired at the weapon and made the opponent drop it; the combatants were approximately fifteen feet away at this point.
Jam took another shot, but the droid again dodged away and rushed him, grabbing the rifle and wrestling for it, against the clone.
Shots were fired but they all missed their mark, as the two fought for dominion over the weapon, Jam decided to stop pulling and instead rammed into the droid, pinning it to the wall.
Against the wall, the droid moved its head out of the weapon's way as it was flipped in their grapple.
Jam wasn't prepared for the head butt that came his way, knocking him off balance, more than hurting him.
The droid took advantage and pried the weapon free, but never had a chance to aim as Jam threw a heavy left-hand jab that connected, and with that, Jam grabbed the rifle by the barrel and spun around before throwing the droid over his shoulder, taking the stock away, the clone trooper put a boot on the droid and blasted its head off.
"It was the first BX droid I had ever seen, though it wouldn't be the last commando droid I would ever see, I helped Amahayl back up to the surface through a service stairway… I wish I would have found that way instead, I elected to the Jedi that I was afraid of deep water, later, for at this time, we had done what we had set out to do, a job well done, and another win for the Republic.
