Detonations of crimson artillery glassed patches of sand as Windu, 53, and Stak weaved back to the crash site. They didn't take long to arrive beside Sergeant Zulu, knelt by West and Razor. The troopers nodded to Windu as he and the others shuffled in.
"Sir!" Zulu shouted, "Jedi Generals Malyuk and Sloan are standing by at the command center! Their elements landed and are getting into gear! Problem is they've detected a large force comin' to meet us at the ridge!"
"Do they have a plan?"
"In progress, sir!" Razor shouted above the buffeting gusts. Concussive forces whipped up mean tailspins of dust and sand, the batteries firing up and discharging sun-hot death and plasma artillery down on the objectives. 53 noticed the area becoming hotter by the second - no mean feat for Geonosis, "Our armor's still organizing at the ridge to repel the assault! Whole attack plan's been botched, sir! They said they need to talk to you!"
Dark eyes searched Zulu for several seconds, veered away, then nodded. "Okay," The Jedi said while standing. "Lightning, fall out behind me!"
He turned, springing meters at a time through the sandstorm toward their command center. Zulu stood and knife-handed after the man.
"Get after it, troopers! Ward, escort Bith and Catch to the med bay!"
53 moved before the others, the most reluctant being West, who slung his Z-6 over his shoulder and grumbled angrily while trailing. The Alpha kept pace, but still sagged behind the Jedi's enhanced speed. They weaved through wreckage and craters following Windu.
It didn't take long to arrive at the command center.
Five-three recognized Malyuk standing beside a battered Sloan, his dark hair encased in a blood-crusted bandage leaking from the left side of his head, a dust-encrusted crimson trail streaking from his ear to his collar. Other bruises and scrapes spotted the eccentric youth, yet he held a confident grin. Commander Kali stood beside him, looking just as rough with his helmet in his hands, a bandage wrapping his midsection with considerably less blood. However, his armor spotted several shrapnel and burn marks.
Malyuk's visage perpetually brooded with a dark gaze, arms folded. The Jedi's cloth flapped in the sandy gusts, but unlike Sloan's, remained intact. Vryakan and Hasskar weren't present, but Commander Bulkhead stood aside with Malyuk, wearing his helmet and speaking to two holographic images of the other Jedi.
Ponds entered the command platform with Lieutenant Lowe and two other troopers Alpha-53 immediately identified as Sergeant Kor and Corporal Dusk. Fletcher must've bit the bolt. Shame. Sprawling quick-deploy tents and comms structures were mid-assembly from clone combat engineers. LAAT gunships circled the post in scattered arrays with armored vehicles trotting or hovering by to merge with their formations. Two HAVw Juggernauts rested idly some four hundred meters away as troopers mounted AT-RT walkers and AT-AP sniper tanks.
To his right, a casualty collection point rapidly treated several wounded while escorting the dead to a containment tent. 53 identified Ward helping along Bith and Catch.
"Zulu, Alpha, with me."
Without waiting, 53 approached Windu's shoulder, feeling Zulu off his right while looking at the command table. He walked into the middle of a conversation while Alpha hung back, observing silently.
"-then they'll scale the cliff wall and attempt attacking head-on," It was Malyuk, droning in the same icy-cold mechanical wheeze as before, "However, my forces are meeting those saboteurs at this moment."
Commander Bulkhead terminated the hologram and approached the table. "General, Jedi Knight Vryakan and Padawan Hasskar are reporting the Seppies are mounting a separate counter-offensive from the comms station. It's gonna take everything we have-"
An explosion cut Bulkhead off. 53 snapped his head to the source. A wildly spinning LAAT spilling clone troopers screamed over the command post and erupted across a rock face dozens of meters away. Bulkhead paused, glanced around, then continued.
"It'll take what we've got here and now to stop them. Droids upped their produce since that last scan, sir, and it's not good. They'll hit when those spiders coming up the slope will."
"Very well..." Malyuk hissed, glancing at Sloan and Windu in dragged-out moments, then sighing; "Good, you're here. I apologize, but I will redirect my support fire onto the enemy armor to prevent them from punching through to our command post. You will have to find your own fire support..."
53 barely stifled a scoff. Sloan grimaced. Windu crossed his arms and stroked his chin.
"Right, then. Can I borrow-"
"No," Malyuk cut Windu off with a decisive tone, "I cannot spare the troopers or armor. I am sorry. Sloan's men will require assistance buffetting the attack on their lines, and his condition-"
"Oy, I can still fight, Master Jedi," Sloan interrupted, knocking the top of his head, "Ain' nothin' but a wee knock onna head. Swears."
Malyuk narrowed at Sloan and sighed.
"My Padawan will assist your unit, Knight Sloan, but do not push yourself."
"Aye, promise."
"In your case, there is seldom time to brooch additional loans. Much of our equipment was damaged in landfall, and with these unprecedented upsets, we cannot support as planned. May the force be with you, Master Mace."
"Alright then." Windu nodded, took a tentative step back, and looked at Ponds; "You heard him, Commander. Start mobilizing the units for assault on Objective Sidewinder."
53 glared at Malyuk through his helmet. The Jedi stood stalwart, returning in part with visual indifference.
An explosion ripped through a nearby AT-ST, billowing smoke and fire. Droid fighters swooped overhead and fired bolts in strafes, kicking up sand and blowing two clones into mush. Most clones and even Sloan flinched, but Malyuk didn't, focusing on the passing fighter.
53 tore his gaze away and followed Windu.
"Lowe," Windu began, "What's the situation?"
"Fletcher's wounded. Lost his leg on landing from a strafing run. We lost Amyd and Skates, too. Striker and Break squads are fully manned and ready. We've staged by one of the five-oh-fourths armor bays, and the Company's getting ready nearby."
"Lead the way."
"Yes, sir!"
Lowe took point, veering right with Sergeant Kor, Corporal Dusk, and Sergeant Zulu. As Windu moved to follow, 53 tapped his arm and nodded to the left. Both broke off, and 53 removed his helmet, glancing back at the command post.
"Sir, what's his deal?"
"What do you mean?"
53 held a severe gaze at Windu.
"General Malyuk, sir. He's refusing to give us the backing he said in the brief. And he cut you off. What's his deal?"
Windu inhaled sharply, "Master Malyuk can seem cold, but I assure you, his decisiveness and rationality have won many battles. Don't take it personally, Five-Three. Some older heads are like that. Now, let's move; we've got positions to storm."
Windu turned before 53 mustered an expression. Glancing back at the post, General Malyuk's cold glare met his, and shivers trailed Alpha's spine.
Freak.
53 snorted, sneered, slid his bucket on, and trailed Windu.
Flash Platoon's assembly area bordered two Saber class tanks currently in the process of munitions loading and system spinups by mechanics and pilots. Their modified armor, smeared with dirt and grit, already bore scratches and dings from previous conflicts, with the vehicles wearing older grooves and scars.
Windu and 53 stood before Lowe, Ponds, three more platoon Lieutenants, several squad leaders, and Captain Idris, C.O. of the 9th Advanced Recon Company. His ARF armor bore the kama and pauldrons of most officers and, like the others, wore Mimban-style paratroop rigs with an assault pack. His ARF helmet had matte black paint on the extended brow and crossed hatch marks around the protruding centerpiece.
Captain Idris and Commander Ponds removed their helmets, Idris's sole denoting feature being a left bionic eye with small horizontal scaring.
"Situation?" Windu questioned.
"Sir," Idris said unnaturally curtly, his accent morphed to fit, "Droids and bugs're pushing from Sidewinder up to us. It's minimal cover. I suggest we use tarps, move up on foot, and surprise the guests. There's coordinated movements on the front and opposite sides, too."
"I see." Windu glanced to 53, who shrugged, then at Ponds, "Commander. Rally up the rest of Delta Battalion, prepare speeders and scout walkers to support us once the fighting starts. Round up a few troop transports, too. Once we get close, it'll be shock and awe."
"Yes, sir!"
Windu turned to Idris.
"Captain, this is Alpha Fifty-Three. Take him with you and Lowe while on point. I'll be right behind you."
Idris nodded, then glanced at 53.
"You've a name, Commando?"
53 paused, remembering the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi on his last mission. They formed, and he spoke with slow punctuation.
"Macabre. Mac, if that's too hard."
Idris nodded, "Mac, you're on my six. Lowe, assemble Flash and move now."
Idris slipped on his helmet and 180-turned from the conversation. Squad leaders and platoon leaders broke off. Windu stuck with Lowe, and Macabre followed Idris.
Somehow, Mac felt that icy stare boring onto his back as he followed Captain Idris into the dusty, smoky haze.
Towers of black smoke, streaks of yellow explosions, and spires of orange rock crept at the horizon. War had spread across Geonosis to an extreme degree, with multiple fronts converging into bloody conflict.
Mac laid left of a stubby, broken boulder, the smoldering wreckage of a Droid fighter several meters to its right where Captain Idris knelt, macros scanning the somewhat cleared landscape. This position had yet to be shelled, drifted through, or fought in despite the surrounding conflict. Flash Platoon wore sensor-scattering, infrared, and thermal-lined ponchos camouflaged with the local desert miasma. Like most of their armor, speckled doses of black, grey, orange, and yellow shielded their positions.
Dozens of clones lay in wait, hidden in shallow depressions, beside wreckage, between rocks or other protrusions. One kilometer away, the droid counterattack force from Point Sidewinder cautiously advanced. The steady buzz of STAPP patrol speeders and the hum of AAT tanks rumbled from afar.
Through his scope, zoomed to the maximum, Mac indicated a target with an I.R. laser strobe.
"Mark."
Moments later, dozens of lasers flashed across the targets. Some of the droids - especially the commanders - took notice. They flayed arms and ordered wildly, their supporting entourage of B1's glancing around with blasters waving. Geonosian warriors argued with the Commanders on the spot.
Idiots.
A white-hot muzzle flash from one of the tanks launched a crimson bolt high over the platoon. It detonated across a far-off rock hundreds of meters away. The Mechanoids, Mac could tell, instantly devolved into arguing. B2's stood stoic, and Droidekas hesitantly deployed from their ball forms.
"All targets marked," Came Lieutenant Lowe. "Copy," Replied Idris, his tone severe.
"Flash units, this is Recon Actual, open fire."
Mac squeezed the trigger to his Westar-5, a bright blue bolt lancing the torso of an OOM-class mid-bicker with one of the bugs. Plasma melted plating and scorched circuits, the automaton flailing momentarily and dropping into an AAT's cupola hatch.
Bolts tore dozens of droids off STAPPS, tanks, legs, and Commander hatches. Missiles screamed from hypersonic booms, knifing through tank armor and turret rings. Vertical eruptions and hemispherical explosions blanketed the first and second groups of clankers and bugs, blasting debris and flattening unlucky seppies nearby.
"Cover fire, Flash one and two, three and four, shift right and advance."
Idris' command came with half the embedded figures - Strider and Jet squads - rising to low, tactical crouches and hurrying right, blasters and missile launchers cradled. Mac, Idris, Lightning, and Break mashed triggers, sending blue swarms knifing through the aggregated dust clouds as crimson bolts returned.
Clone bolts tore through droids and bugs as they waded through refuse, aiming at whatever shot at them from such a far distance. AT-RT walkers roared to life, crouched behind the elements as sister platoon Heat came to play. Maneuvering between the flanking and stationary soldiers, they opened with rapid-fire chin blasters and mortars. Some Geonosians were cut in half by their fusillade, barely mustering green sonic blasts in response. Many fled to the side, only to be gunned down by flanking troopers.
"Flash one and two, tail the walkers, double time."
Mac and several shrouded figures emerged from their hiding places and bolted forward, BARC speeders sliding by from Heat's secondary elements to swoop in. Without overexerting himself, Mac thumped across the rock, soldiers shifting around him as they closed the distance.
Explosions and dust clouds wafted from the battle ahead. Off to his right, Strider and Jet led by two hundred meters. They gained ground fast, the return fire dwindling as AT-RT, dismounted assault infantry, and BARC units swept through the disgorged counterattack.
An explosion punched out the rear of an AT-RT, half of its operator ejecting skyward as the walker nosedived, fishtailing sand and smoke. A steady haze crept across the battleground and obscured his vision. Mac groaned and tongue-toggled his IFF. Blue marks of Allied 187th bloomed in the dust, some cutting in, others cutting out as interference and casualties worked the unit.
Mac entered the dust cloud moments later as it began to settle. Red, green, and blue crisscrossed, the former steadily increasing intensity as additional units joined the fray. He swerved around a Heat medic as they tended to wounded, then several droid carcasses, torn Geonosian corpses and destroyed hostile vehicles. The rest of Flash kept up, hot on his tail or flanking.
Additional bolts snapped through the refuse, and other troopers of their detachment broke into a rapid-fire frenzy. Mac vaulted over a downed STAPP as figures condensed in the storm.
Rapid fire blaster cannons off the walkers and speeders stitched infantry, dismounts spread around them at the knee, covered behind outcroppings and wreckage, or laying on raw rock. Lines of battle droids, super battle droids, Droidekas, and Dwarf Spider Droids marched forward while laying down sheets of crimson bloom.
One clone, struck square in the chest, bisected from the sun-hot beam, his flash-cooked halves ejecting across the ground and nearly tripping Mac. Jumping to the ground, as many laid, knelt, or took cover, Mac braced with his elbows and saw a Dwarf Spider, stroking his munition launcher. The detonator charge hurdled across open space and exploded across its right eye, swallowing the head in flames and smoke.
So much for a small unit.
Shucking a fresh charge into the chamber, Mac swept left and punched a second detonator into a group of B2's advancing through the sheen. Even as they exploded, other droids marched in their place, superseding other replaceable assets feeding the grinder. He worked the final detonator in and speared the charge into a STAPP, speeding through the flak.
Its fuselage split on detonation, the halves cartwheeling and narrowly missing the ARC while he fanned blue bolts across a broad advancing line. Bugs flew over the droid's advance, walking sonic blasts with crimson payloads across the clones. A trooper from Jet crumpled to a sonic blast, another's torso torn in two from a B2's rocket.
Mac swept his bolts through dozens of droids, heat sinking into his gloves and flaring outward in warbling waves. Tan and grey dropped into the dirt one after another, though many clones just sprayed the B2s, their armor ricocheting the bolts skyward. Mac's Westar overheated and rapidly vented gasses across his hand and surrounding sand. Burns bit his fist, and the trooper let it fall to the sand, drawing his customized DC-17 from the right holster, growling in pain.
Sighting the linked reticle on a flying Geonosian, he triggered a trio of blue, stitching the bug and tearing off an arm. It plummeted beside his next target, a B1 marching over corpses and firing at the hip. Mac lanced it through the pelvis and fanned his fire across the B1 squad around it.
"Lob and advance!" Heat's C.O. broke in.
Blaster fire dipped as Mac holstered the pistol, fished a detonator, armed, and hurled it over the distance. Dozens of other red, strobing grenades made landings and detonated across the droids. AT-RT walkers kneaded through the troopers with chin guns blazing while speeders screamed by, cobalt bolts lancing remaining droids and bugs to pieces. 53 rose to his knee, shoved three charges into his detonator launcher, shucked the pump, and rose to move forward.
One of the AT-RT pilots took a bolt to the head and blew fragments of his armor and skull windward. His walker slowed and stopped, the pilot falling meters before Mac. Jet and Strider squads advanced on their right flank with blasters blazing and missiles shrieking.
Dull thunks echoed from the walkers as detonator tubes installed beside the cannons began rapid-fire sweeping explosives. Thermal blooms eclipsed dozens of scattered droids in seconds.
Looping the Westar across his back, Mac sprung up and scaled the AT-RT's legs. He straddled the mount, snatching the joysticks and keying its automatic grenade launcher; he pushed forward with the assault. Mac swept the cannon and launcher across a defiant group of B2s, tore them apart, and walked a trio of grenades into a large sect of B1s. A couple of stragglers turned to return fire, and as he strafed right, angled the chin gun and sent sheets of blue, scything through dozens of bots.
A gargling cry from the sky stole his attention - a Geonosian dive-bombing straight for his vehicle. One sonic blast narrowly missed his head, another smacking the walker's right leg. Mac quickly angled the cannon up, stroking the trigger twice as the bug's third round clipped his left shoulder. It disappeared in a flash-cooked haze of spatter, peppering the clone as his body nearly fell off the seat. A dull, warm pain pulsed through his left shoulder, but Alpha-53 banished the sensation, saddled up, and gunned the sticks.
Other AT-RTs and dismounted clones tore through the broken droid formations, blasting automatons and bugs in their backsides.
Charging ahead, Mac triggered the jump mechanism, leaping over a pile of droid bodies and stomping on an unusually resilient B1. Jerking the joysticks up, he walked the blaster cannons through a Spider droid until it detonated in white-hot hemispheres, slumping to the sand.
Several other walkers and speeders swept through the area, tearing retreating droids apart with blaster cannons and working detonators across heavier automatons until none remained. Mac veered his two-leg over an AAT's hollowed remains, a sparking Super Tactical Droid's carcass twisted in the wreckage. It lay surrounded by decimated Dwarf Spider and B2 units. Another AT-RT moved close to Mac, the pilot waving.
"Hey! You the ARC Trooper?!" His voice bore grit yet displayed an odd, childlike curiosity and astonishment.
"Yeah," Mac nodded.
"I'm Lieutenant Kross, Heat's my platoon! Thanks for picking up the slack, trooper!"
Lieutenant Kross's armor didn't have much in the way of markation, save for a minor, red groove along the right side of his ARF helmet. He left quickly and unceremoniously.
"No problem," Mac muttered.
Looking back to Flash Platoon, he noticed several casualties on a report flooding his HUD. Heat lost more than Flash, notably, and geared his walker to a robed figure alongside Captain Idris. Mac halted the walker feet before Mace Windu.
"Sir, the Super Tactical was wasted, and there are no more elements for the next klick 'til Objective Sidewinder."
Idris didn't say anything.
Windu nodded, "Thank you, Five-Three. Or.. Did you say your name was Macabre?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well, Macabre. Proceed with Heat Platoon while we organize a Medevac for our wounded. Once we reach Sidewinder, we'll get Delta command units to set up the Forward Post, and we'll go from there."
"Yes, sir."
Mac swiveled the sticks back towards Heat Platoon's walkers and joined them in crossing distance to Objective Sidewinder.
Striding alongside Lieutenant Kross and his platoon, not-so-distant thunderclaps of artillery and swooning cacophonic explosions reverberated along the canyon edge. Crimson and cobalt crisscrossed with white and purple missiles, impacting distant wedges of tanks and walkers meeting in furious warfare. The nearby conflict set a foreboding conclusion to their crossover as their journey over was anything but uneventful. It surprised Mac that the mounted units took more casualties than dismounted.
Such is the catch of war - things happen.
Mac guided his walker slightly left as they neared a depression, the first set of posts approaching view just over a slope.
"Visible contact on Sidewinder," Mac stated
"Copy that," Kross responded, "Heat three, Heat four, advance! One and two, bring up the rear!"
BARC speeders whined to full and zipped by with their repulsors carrying ARFs at hundreds of kilometers per hour. Mac gunned the sticks, each leg romping on with heavy thumps. Flash Platoon lingered behind the AT-RTs but was unable to keep up.
Spider holes pockmarked the exterior with thick barrels and twin-crimson orbs peeking over. Gun nests with B1 and B2 operators opened up, spraying crimson bolts and purple missiles at the incoming clones. Dwarf Spider Droids opened from concealed positions, and Geonosian Sonic Cannons warbled to life, belching conical death rays.
One walker blew at the legs, its rider smashing face-first into the ground as another detonated in a flash of smoke and flame.
Mac jammed dual triggers, walking blue bolts across a Dwarf Spider. It disappeared in an explosion as other scout walkers and speeders opened fire. Some AT-RT riders bolted modified APX launchers to the sides, spitting anti-armor missiles into sonic turrets and emplaced dwarfs. 53 walked dual cobalt blasts across a position 700 meters away, the charged particles tearing through the emplacement.
Yawing a stick, he swept the fire through a Dwarf crawling from a pit. Its dome erupted in fire. Crab droids sprung from dozens of covered holes and opened fire with blasters. Mac swept through two emplacements with the chin gun and lobbed mortars on two more. Some Crabs scored hits, one lancing a rider and his walker through the center, slumping uneventfully to the ground.
A Geonosian Sonic Blast tore into the upper carapace of an AT-RT fuselage, tearing through the rider and ejecting half his body into the sky, the walker spinning to the dirt. Detonations pockmarked the sandy earth as Mac swerved his scout vehicle left and right.
Crimson rods knifed danger close. One flash-boiled two riders of a BARC, their bodies twisting off the speeder in dark splotches. It skipped off the ground, careened into the air, then swooped head-first into a small rock and detonated with a white-purple explosion.
Blue bolts and yellow detonators worked emplacements. The eerie croak-gargle-cry of Geonosian Flyers filled the noise within the exchange, wings beating and small figures taking to the sky and firing handheld blasters and sonic guns.
Two riders went down. Mac set his launchers to airburst and launched ten detonators into the sky, blowing bug bits across the battlefield. Other walkers got the hint, some slowing to sling high lasers and frags. As they closed five hundred meters away, the steady hum of incoming Armored Personnel Carriers approached from behind.
Glancing, he noted a group of RTT-04 APCs had arrived, swooping in on repulsors with high speed. Top-mounted guns opened fire, blazing cerulean bolts through creatures as a small unit of BARC bikes followed.
"Raid Platoon on-site! We're carrying Flash and Danger!"
Mac didn't answer, turning forward as one passed by.
Windu rode atop that carrier, his purple saber deflecting bolts while the gunner flung sheets of plasma at the swarm.
In moments, they arrived danger close.
Several holes, some with doors, others without, and a couple with ramps, perforated irregular rock faces up a smooth rock face twenty meters high, then mellowed into a vast plateau expanse. Mac knew they needed to enter the center vein and twisted his sticks toward the opening.
Droids and bugs poured from all openings, others kneeling or laying down and firing at the incoming clones. A gunner slumped dead in his seat, a BARC bike nosedived, and a droid rocket speared one of the escorting BARCs and reduced it to skittering scrap.
Mac mashed the trigger to his cannons, hammering bolts in broad sweeps as droids congregated to counter assault. He walked it left to right, a large surplus scything into bits as other walkers did the same. Lancer and BARC speeders slid to a stop ahead, their riders bearing blasters and firing rapidly, while APCs slid to create a semi-circle. AT-RTs veered around them and sent sheets of blue. One APX-mounted walker sent a missile with a dampened, hypersonic crack through an AAT spilling from one opening, blasting its remains through the channel, and flash-cooking a group of Geonosian flyers nearby.
An RTT down the line met a purple missile through the driver compartment, erupting in black and red, tumbling bodies spilling out the rear drop hatch. Bolts skipped off the hulls as gunners worked their weapons furiously across the lines of battle droids.
The troopers who spilled out the backs charged full-ahead. Mac levered forward, lobbing grenades. A bolt skipped off the walker's nose, narrowly missing his helmet. The ARC swerved left, easing off the cannons and firing three grenades at a cluster of B2s.
Disembarked clones joined the speeder pilots and surged ahead, tossing droid poppers and detonators.
"All walkers, full ahead!"
Mac swung the guns forward. Only a hundred meters separated them from the entrance. Several pockets of battle droid and Geonosian infantry lay ahead, some still firing, others gathering. Mac identified a Sonic cannon, an operator taking the mount, and triggered a duet of detonators on site. It erupted in green and white, billowing smoke and shrapnel across its point. The gunner lay with his insides spilling out, dead.
Other AT-RTs took the hints and arrayed sheets of bolts and dozens of grenades, marching behind the infantry and their push, some cycling empty on their detonators and spooling their blasters to over-cycle. Portholes opened in the rock walls, the muzzles of defense cannons eclipsing red hot as they opened fire.
"Wall guns!" Mac shouted into the net, angling his cannons up.
One knifed through a familiar Platoon's set of soldiers, killing two clones as others ripped walkers off their feet. He triggered three detonators, blowing two off the cliff face as dismounts and walkers followed suit. One trooper fired an APX into a turret, blasting it from existence.
Windu stood fast among his men, deflecting crimson bolts in a flurry of purple while hitting his marks. The maelstrom of bolts and dust hardly hindered him, and he advanced headlong into the bulwark. Ponds marched on his right with DC-17 pistols blazing and West on his left, sweeping sheets of plasma with a Z-6 rotary cannon.
Mac triggered a leap and landed meters behind them. The troops didn't shake or motion, but Windu glanced back, offering the Alpha a nod as the clone triggered his chin gun into a duo of Crab droids emerging from the central catacomb.
A final wave of bugs surged forward in a suicide charge - a flurry of locusts bleating and firing recklessly a storm of red and green. Bolts and blasts corralled Windu into side-stepping many of them. One charger speared 53 off his mount, shrieking and squawking as the two hit land. Something snapped as his back smacked into rock, air forcibly leaving his lungs while the thing ripped Mac's knife off his chest.
Mac snatched the thing's wrist without thinking and smashed his brow into its mouth. It snapped back, chittered, grabbed his throat, and squeezed tight. Mac smashed a fist into its bulbous left eye, ragdolling the creature off his body as it clutched its eye, spewing insectoid garble. Mac got his feet and drew the machete from his back through its carapace. Blood and viscera painted the sand, and the thing stopped mewling, slumping dead.
"Sir!" A trooper stopped nearby, hunched over with a medical logo on his shoulder. It was Ward. "Glad you made it! Got worried when you crashed!"
"Appreciate it, Ward," 53 collected his knife from the muck, sheathed it, and then moved towards his walker. He tried to inhale, but a sharp pain dropped him to his knees. What? Stabbing pain radiated from his left lung. Something creaked as Mac tried straightening up, his breath ragged while tasting wet iron.
"Sir!" Ward knelt by, pulling a scanner, "You have a fractured rib puncturing your lung!" He holstered the scanner, ducked beneath blaster fire, and quickly unslung his medbag.
Mac waved the Medic off.
"Later!" He growled, banishing what torment he could, and stumbled to the leg of his AT-RT, "Not now."
He coughed a ragged flurry while mounting. Burying the pain only worked for so long, but Mac could manage a little longer, ignoring the calls of Ward and pushing the sticks forward. Clones had come near point-blank to the walls, some dealing with the final throes of Geonosian suicide rushers in hand-to-hand engagements.
Windu charged down a wild-firing Geonosian, deflecting red bolts from a blaster until he got danger close, flicking the saber through its hands and swiftly lopping the creature's head off. West beat one with his bare hands into the ground, alien blood and orange dust caking his armor. Ponds blasted four in retreat with his DC-17s. Other units walked bolts through the final Crabs and Dwarf Spiders, all of the sonic emplacements embroiled in smoke, with some clones executing wriggling, dying Geonosians clinging to gaping wounds.
Mac eased the walker forward, thumbed his chin gun through two flying bugs, then shifted to a Dwarf Spider rising to meet some distant clones. It disappeared with a stream of blue lances. He veered the cannons into a final contingent of B2s and lobbed a grenade in the center, flattening the chrome domes much to a group of dismounts' relief. As he caught up, droids and bugs alike fled deep into the catacombs, some clones marching to the entrance and spraying inside. Mac stopped his walker behind Windu, who stood over a dispatched droid commander, black pockmarks covering its hull. Mac thumbed the power down, and it squatted obediently. He slowly ambled off the mount and slipped down to the dirt. Nearly stumbling as his breathing fought back, Mac maintained composure and shuffled beside Windu.
"Sir!" West called out, slipping beside the ARC with a smoking Z-6, "You see that bug I cracked? It tried to wrangle me up but didn't stand a chance!"
Mac glanced at the clone but lingered at the cloak of viscera covering his armor and nodded slightly.
"I saw. Get a knife. It's easier."
Mac forced his words, hiccuping a deep breath, then turned to Windu. The Jedi already faced 53, a deactivated saber held within his folded arms.
"Good work on the Walker, Mac." He glanced at the trooper's chest, "Let Ward fix you up. We'll need you when we push into the caves." Windu turned to Ponds, returning slowly, "Commander, organize an operating base, post fresh troops by these entrances, and let's prepare for phase two."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
Ponds turned off. Windu followed.
West shuffled away, and Mac turned to find Ward, stopping as the Medic approached him from behind.
"Sir," He growled, hoisting an auto-hypertension decompression cylinder and accompanying bacta patch, "You know medics outrank everyone, right? Let's get you patched up. I got crits waiting on me."
"Right."
53 let the adrenaline bleed away as Ward depressed the cylinder into his lower second rib, a sharp pain shooting through his chest. Mac's left shoulder emanated a dull throb from his action earlier but ignored it for now; it was irrelevant.
Ward's a good medic. He thought absentmindedly, This platoon's skilled. I'd expect nothing less from a Jedi like Windu.
Author's Note
As you can tell, my release schedule is sluggish and unpredictable. I also divvied up the first chapter into two halves for easier reading.
That's among other things, though, as I am brainstorming other continuations, and of course, this one's next chapter - into the catacombs with that beaut! It'll come, but who knows when?
Certainly not me.
Let me know if you enjoyed this segment! I really enjoyed a return to the action on this bit, and flexed a couple ideas on the backburner, along with lesser-seen vehicles [even if some of them aren't periodically correct, I presume many would get premiered in a gigantic re-invasion such as Geonosis II]
Anyhow, laters
-MontyTheMemeMan