This is a repost of this chapter to correct an error. I had originally identified Pitch as a loaner from the 212th, when he actually with the 501st. CS
Chapter 2 Pathfinders
"When I got up the nerve to look around the hedge, I saw a panzer hidden in the wood up ahead. That was what had got us. Corporal Wiggins was lying in the road, and all I could think was where the hell is the captain? Turns out he was right behind me the whole time."
Memoir of Ken Clarke, 250th Company, Royal Army Service Corps, recalling his service in the Battle of Arnhem
It was decided. They were going to do this the old-fashioned way.
They were going to jump.
By parachute.
Well, not all of them. A sort of pathfinder unit was to go out in advance, mark the landing zone for the rest of the battalion, and scout ahead for activity prior to the arrival of the battalion's main body. They would be the ones jumping from the cold heights of oblivion.
No jetpacks. The ignition of the rockets to slow their descent might be detected and blow the entire operation. And given the altitude from which they'd be jumping, they would need a longer burn than usual to avoid ending up as nothing but a colorful splatter on the ground.
The gunship would not descend below 15,000 meters. This was a high-altitude, low opening jump – HALO – as it was commonly referred to; and it was not something regularly practiced, even in specialty units, of which the 501st was the pinnacle. But it was something Rex loved with a passion. Still, he knew it was not an easy thing, so he had been very particular in choosing the handful of team members who would accompany him.
Jesse, a born second-in-command if ever there was one – steady, resourceful, and well-liked by the men. Kix, one of the battalion's medics – just in case. Hardcase, because he was fearless and loved jumping almost as much as Rex. Pitch, a no-nonsense demolitions expert. Moog, a communications genius and loaner from the 212th. And then the two newest additions to the 501st: Echo and Fives, because they had proven on the Rishi moon that they had the smarts to match the guts, and Rex could tell from the scant four weeks since he'd inducted them on his own initiative into the 501st that here were two men whom he could count on, two men who would get the job done.
That was his advance team.
After their insertion, two companies of the 501st, augmented by personnel from the 212th, would come in HALO once given the all-clear. They would be bringing light armament, but with enough firepower to take out any resistance the airfield might offer. And then came the small window of opportunity to get the main body of the 501st on the ground before the military outpost overran the clones already on the ground.
Rex and Cody had worked feverishly with their Jedi generals, Admiral Yularen, and the rest of the tactical advisors in developing a plan they felt would pass muster with the Jedi Council; and pass muster, it did, after much back and forth, and—if Rex were any judge—too much focus on avoiding civilian casualties as opposed to securing the objective. But the briefings were over, and they were reaching zero hour.
Rex stood in the open door of the gunship – its official designation was Low Altitude Attack Transport, but who had time to say all that? – ready to lift off with his team.
General Skywalker, standing on the hangar floor, addressed him with a quirky grin. It was his way of keeping nerves at bay. "I'll be seeing you in two hours, Rex. Make sure you leave a little fighting for me and Ahsoka."
"I'll do what I can, Sir," Rex replied.
Beside the general, padawan Ahsoka Tano, a pretty little Tagruta, a teenager, inclined her head and winked. "Try not to have too much fun, captain."
Rex nodded once.
"Time hack." General Skywalker announced. "On my mark. Zero-three-hundred. Three-two-one-hack."
Once their chronometers were synchronized, Anakin signaled the pilot, a 212th fastburner named Three-Point, that he was clear. He slapped the side of the gunship as the doors closed.
It wasn't until the ship was out of the hangar and out of sight that he drew in a deep breath and said, "Good luck, boys."
The jump master gave the signal to get to the ready line. In the dim red light inside the gunship, the man, though helmeted, looked almost demonic. Certainly, he commanded the heavily equipped clones in his charge with the authority of a supernatural force. They obeyed his every word without question, without hesitation.
Rex stepped up to the line.
Now came the pounding heart and the shortness of breath, the sweat and jitter of anticipation.
Rex knew the feeling well. It was one of the things he lived for. Casting a glance back over his shoulder, he saw, in the weak and flickering light, his seven brothers, all outfitted with the same bulky trappings of their undertaking; and he could sense the same grim expressions beneath their helmets.
A blast of cold air, felt even through the protective layer of armor, hit Rex as the side door of the gunship drew back to reveal the blue-black of a nearly star-less sky. Exposed to the elements at this altitude, the armor offered protection and enough emergency oxygen to see him safely to the ground, provided nothing went wrong. He turned to face the man behind him, Jesse, to conduct one final check for loose straps or pieces of equipment that might upset the delicate equilibrium of a man free-falling through space. Everything was in order, and with the check completed, Rex turned as Jesse performed the same routine on his equipment. Again, all was good to go.
Rex stepped to the threshold, braced himself against the frame, and looked out into a darkness so vast as to be without boundary or depth. Nothing above or below him. Nothing to the left or the right. At this height and in this blackness, there was no perspective and even less sense of natural law. Only the stars glinted just beyond his realm of attention.
A man throwing himself down from this height must die, but the contraption Rex wore on his back insisted otherwise. And Rex had come to trust the contraption; it had been a reliable companion the few times he'd had to use it out of necessity. What he did for fun . . . now, that was what had forged and cemented his trust in a wad of nylon strong enough to hold his weight and then some.
The green light came on, and the jump master, not saying a word, made a chopping motion with his hand. Rex stepped up and without hesitation, sprang out into the nothingness. Despite being weighed down by the accoutrements of war, he felt an incredible sense of freedom and isolation as he plummeted towards the ground. He had yet to find an experience to rival that of jumping, and even the prospect of what he might face on the ground did nothing to lessen the euphoric feeling of sailing like a bird, even though, in fact, he was falling like a rock.
Seconds, then minutes, passed as Rex reached terminal velocity. He watched the altimeter numbers scrolling by at lightning speed in his helmet's headsup display. He had been mentally and physically preparing himself for the opening shock that would accompany the deployment of his chute; and now, as the numbers on the altimeter approached 900 meters, he steeled himself for what was his least favorite part of the entire sequence.
He pressed a button on a special wristband, heard a violent rustling above him, then felt the harsh jerk around his shoulders and groin. He was no longer falling, and he could just make out the faint outlines of his teammates' parachutes opening close by. He could also now discern a few features of the previously feature-less ground below him.
If the intel had been correct—and that was never a given—Rex and his men were dropping onto a broad, grassy floodplain at least 1.5 kilometers from the nearest inhabitants of the area and 3.5 kilometers upstream from the airfield, following the line of the river. So far, from 150 meters up, it looked like the reports on the area had been correct. He could see no lights, no trees or bushes. No people.
As soon as he was on the ground, he released the snap connectors and slipped out of his harness. Within a matter of seconds, the rest of his team had landed, met up, and having already been instructed on their various tasks, they immediately set about executing their predesignated assignments.
Hardcase, Fives, Kix and Pitch were to mark the landing zone for the two companies scheduled to drop in ninety minutes behind them, while Jesse, Echo and Moog gathered around their captain.
Rex took out his GPS. "Right on target," he remarked to Jesse.
"Like threading the needle," Jesse replied. Jesse was a lieutenant and had been in the 501st since its inception, since before Rex had even taken over as captain. He was responsible, a bit impetuous – but Rex liked that – and one of the best tactical minds Rex had ever known. Plus, he was a damned good shot. He wore a tattoo of the Republic Seal over one side of his face, and he wore it with pride. He was, for all intents and purposes, Rex's deputy.
Rex took out a palm-holo projector – HOPO for short – and pulled up a map of the area.
"The airfield is about four kilometers downstream. We came down on the far end of the drop zone," Rex announced. "Let's get moving."
After the first kilometer, the flood plain narrowed into two tree-lined banks as the river wended its way into the forest. The clones moved in rapid silence. There was a disconcerting emptiness in the wood, and the quiet was troubling. The forests that Rex knew, whether they be on Naboo or Felucia or whatever other far-flung worlds he'd been on – they were never this silent, even at night when the daytime noises of machinery and humanity ebbed and ceased for a few fleeting hours, giving way to the more natural and subtle sounds of the nocturnal forest.
But not so here. In this place, there was not the sound of a single animal. No wind blowing through the trees. No pattering of padded feet. No crunching of leaves or snapping of twigs. The openness between the trees negated any concept of cover and kept Rex constantly on the lookout for defensible positions in the event of an ambush.
At last, they came to the other end of the woods, where the river entered the open space before them and made an awkward, man-engineered turn to the left, and tinkled over the pebbly river bed back into the forest and out of sight.
Before them was their objective: the airfield.
Rex checked his chronometer. Zero-five-fifteen. They were moving right on schedule. It had taken his group nearly an hour of very cautious advancing to get to this point, and they still had thirty minutes before General Skywalker and Commander Tano would be jumping in with their companies. General Skywalker would want an update as soon as he hit the ground, and Rex wanted to be able to tell him something.
He used the night vision on his range-finder and activated the scoping function.
"There it is," he said quietly, taking in the sight of the hangars, the cinder block building, and the barely discernible outlines of worn patches of ground that marked the boundaries of the derelict runways and new construction sites. On the near end of one of the parallel runways was the burned-out fuselage of some unfortunate craft that had never been removed after meetings its end.
Beside him, Jesse was looking through the night vision scope on his DC-15S. "Not much to it, is there?"
Rex made a visual scan. "No activity."
"It looks deserted," Jesse observed.
After a moment, Rex replied in a thoughtful voice, "Yes, it does. But that's not what the intel report said."
"No more than a dozen men."
"Right."
"Usually eight patrolling and the remainder inside the cinderblock building."
On Rex's other side was Moog, carrying a gross encumbrance of communications equipment. He held up his hand. "I'm picking up the task force." A pause. "They're on schedule."
Rex gave a curt nod. "Right. Then, let's go."
Rex, Jesse, Moog and Echo skirted along the edge of the wood then made a fast, low dash across a hundred meter gap to the remains of the unlucky aircraft. From here, Rex made another scan through his range finder.
"Two figures," he announced. "Heading away from the building, following the line of the runway, heading away from us."
"Part of the patrol?"
"Possibly." Rex continued his search. "I don't see any other figures, but those two had to come from somewhere. The windows in that building must be blacked out."
"Shall I take Echo and go in for a closer look, Sir?" Jesse asked.
"Yes."
Jesse motioned to Echo, and they broke from the dubious safety of the ruined aircraft and covered the 50 meters to the building in a matter of seconds, pressing themselves flat against the wall. Jesse nodded, silent direction for Echo to check out the back of the structure; then as Echo disappeared around the corner, the lieutenant edged closer to the nearest window.
Leaning slightly forward, he could make out a sliver of light at the edge of the window frame. Rex had been right; the windows had been blacked out. He moved closer and noticed there was no glass in the window at all – just wooden slats painted black. He turned his head and listened. After a few seconds, he was able to discern at least three distinct voices. Of more, he could not be sure. They were speaking their native tongue, which amounted to gibberish as far as Jesse was concerned. It was a harsh, angry-sounding language, and it had the strange effect of arousing the lieutenant's ire and distaste. Whoever the men inside the building were, Jesse felt a loathsome disdain for them.
Echo returned from around the back of the building, and together the two men made the return run to the wreckage and the rest of the team.
"The windows are blacked out. I could make out three voices. Maybe more," Jesse began. "I couldn't see inside to determine weapons. Echo?"
"There's two open speeder-type vehicles in the back – like jeeps. There were six windows in the back, but they were all blacked out. No number count on how many people are inside. I also couldn't see any weapons." He paused, and there was something in that hesitation that Rex could feel through the silence. After a moment, Echo went on. "But there was something in the back that looked like a mass grave."
"A mass grave? Are you sure?" the captain asked.
Echo nodded. "There's a pit back there, and it's not completely covered. You can see the bodies . . . parts of them."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Captain."
Rex grimaced beneath his helmet, but that was the extent to which he would allow himself to react. The presence of a mass grave, as abominable as its existence might be, formed no part of the mission he and his team had been sent to do. He would not permit himself to be distracted by his sensibilities.
"Well, nothing we can do about it," he said, sounding perhaps more callous than he'd intended. He took another glance at his headsup chronometer. "Twenty minutes. Let's get back into the woods."
The four men were about to break from their cover when the sound of an engine turned their attention back around. A pair of headlights appeared at the far end of the runway.
"Jesse, take Moog and start heading back. Radio Pitch and tell him what we've found. Echo and I will stay here and see what this is all about."
"Yes, Sir. Be careful, captain."
No sooner had Jesse and Moog left than two men emerged from the building, lethal silhouettes slung over their shoulders. They met the approaching vehicle, which turned out to be another one of the open speeders like the ones behind the building.
Four men got out of the vehicle.
The Pylottans were humanoid but with several distinguishing features that made them easy to identify. They were tall, most of them over two meters; stocky but not necessarily muscular; their skin was grey-toned and iridescent; and they all—male and female alike—had long, flowing hair that they dyed in any array of bright and vibrant colors and wore in a multitude of styles—nothing was considered too outrageous for them to attempt.
Three of the four men who got out of the vehicle were armed. The fourth was bound at the wrists, which were drawn behind his back. There was a good deal of agitated movement among the men, accentuated by the shrill interjections of the voices, raised in violent fervor. A long couple of minutes passed during which the three men from the jeep and the two from the building beat and harassed their prisoner before leading him around to the back of the building.
A single blast shot punched a hole in the night, which was quickly filled with the sound of detestable laughter.
"I hope these bastards are still laughing fifteen minutes from now," Echo whispered.
The men came from behind the building and stood gathered around the speeder, smoking some manner of weed and talking freely, as if they had not a care in the world.
Rex felt a perverse sense of satisfaction as he thought of what was about to befall these unsuspecting murderers. At the moment, they might be living a life that allowed for them to kill anyone who opposed them . . .
But all that was about to change.
The airfield would be taken, the military post wiped out, the Separatists driven from the moon, and the rightful leadership restored to its ruling position.
But that part of the mission seemed a million light years away. Right now, the mission consisted, as far as Rex was concerned, of marking the drop zone, reconnoitering the airfield, and having all pertinent information available when the task force hit the ground. This was what he had been tasked to do, and despite his longing to expand the breadth of that assignment, he reigned in his natural inclination and maintained a low profile from the relative safety of the wreckage.
"The drop is in progress, Sir." This was Pitch's voice, coming over Rex's helmet comm. "So far, unopposed. General Skywalker is on the ground."
Rex sent a silent acknowledgment signal.
The men around the speeder gave no indication of dispersing, and after a few minutes, two more men came from inside the building and joined them.
Rex spoke in a devious tone. "We could pick off all seven in one go."
"Just give the order, Sir," Echo replied.
Rex had to restrain himself from doing so. Instead, he said, "We'd better keep it down before we're spotted."
As he spoke, yet another man emerged from the building; but this one's manner was urgent, his excited gestures seeming to indicate a matter of some importance. At first, his audience around the speeder stood dumbfounded; but as they appeared to come to themselves and grasp what he was saying, their activity took on the glint of desperation.
The three that had come in the speeder departed, while the men who had come from inside the building went back in. Moments later, they re-emerged and went to the speeders. Some orders were shouted, and the speeders took off along a narrow dirt road that lead upstream. Rex and his team had noticed it on their way to the airfield and avoided it for fear of patrols.
A rumbling sound came from somewhere on the old flight line. Rex looked through his range finder once again and scowled. The doors to one of the hangars were opening, and a line of vehicles was emerging. Open-bed speeder trucks with armed men in the back. Regular speeders with at least a half dozen men perched wherever they could find a hold.
"Looks like our secret's out," Rex said, then keying his comm, he spoke quietly and succinctly. "General Skywalker, this is Captain Rex."
There was no reply.
Rex hailed again and was about to try a third time when a loud crackling emitted from the helmet transmitter. The voice of General Skywalker followed.
"Rex, what's your position?"
"We're at the airfield, hunkered down in the skeleton of some old flying thing. At least a dozen vehicles and minimum fifty armed men headed your direction along the river road. Will observe and relay any—"
Rex cut off abruptly as two more men came out of the building. They were both looking towards the burned-out wreckage. Rex motioned to Echo, and they pressed themselves flat against the charred metal surrounding them.
There was a shout from the building, then the pounding of purposeful footsteps heading towards the two clones' hiding place. Rex and Echo brought their weapons to the ready.
Suddenly, a return shout came from the direction of the woods beyond the aircraft, the woods between the airfield and the landing zone upstream. A short conversation in raised voices bounced back and forth between the two men who had come from the building and the two men, part of a patrol, who had emerged from the woods. The latter pair passed right by the wreckage without any hint of suspicion; then all four went to stand in front of the building where they appeared to be waiting for someone's arrival.
Rex let out a sigh of relief, and glancing to his left, he saw Echo's shoulders going up and down in a way that told him the trooper still had some Shinie jitters. But that was okay. The two clones waited with racing pulses and twitching muscles, only to discover with horror than an even larger contingent of combatants was now emerging from the second hangar.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Rex whispered. "We've got to get out of here. This place is getting too crowded."
"Roger that, Captain."
"We've got to go now, before those vehicles get any closer." He motioned Echo to move down towards the far end of the wreckage. "You go first. Stay low and I'll cover you."
Echo, known for his ability to follow orders, obeyed immediately and made it safely across the hundred meters to the woods just as the second group of vehicles arrived.
Inside the wood, he turned and waited for his captain; but back inside the ruins of the aircraft, Rex was stuck. He could not risk exposing his position in front of the now dozens of men unloading from the trucks at the cinder block building; and the fact that the men—these looked like soldiers, and not the scruffy things that had been guarding the airfield—the fact that they were dismounting here instead of heading towards the drop zone did not bode well. Apparently, these men were meant to stay and defend the airfield.
When a gesture was made towards the very place where Rex was hiding, he knew that his refuge was being pointed out as a defensible position. His suspicions were confirmed when a number of soldiers broke loose from the group and began heading in his direction.
Rex hardly had time to think. He drew both DC-17 pistols, lined up the infrared sites in his range-finder and targeted the fuel tank—or what he hoped was a fuel tank—on one of the speeder trucks. He fired off a single round, and the truck, with some of its live Pylottan cargo still inside, erupted into a ball of fire. Another precise hit send a second truck up in flames.
In the ensuing chaos, Rex broke from his position and ran for the woods. He didn't dare look behind him to see if he had been spotted or was being pursued. He had just entered the woods when he heard Echo's voice in a low, fierce hiss over his comm.
"Captain, over here! To your right!"
Rex joined him. "Let's get the hell out of here." He opened a comm and began talking at the same time as leading their retreat. "General Skywalker, do you read me?"
"I read you, Rex. What's happened?"
"The enemy is alerted to our presence. They're taking up defensive positions at the airfield."
"Jesse comm'd that he'd heard an explosion."
"Affirmative, General," Rex replied. "Our position was about to be found out. Two enemy vehicles out of action. Unknown number of enemy dead or injured."
"Acknowledged. We are beginning our advance. You and Echo are to go to ground. We don't want any friendly fire incidents," the general ordered.
"Roger that. We're going to ground. Over and out."
Rex turned to Echo. "This place will be crawling with our own lads soon. We've been ordered to stay put."
"I don't think that's a good idea, Captain," Echo deferred, his gaze turned in the direction from which they had just come. "Look."
Rex did not need the aid of any night-vision apparatus to see the line of men heading towards the wood at a brisk run.
"Damn!"
"I don't think they saw you running this way," Echo observed. "I think they just plan to use these woods as a part of their defense. But they know they have an enemy out here somewhere. They'll be looking in these woods."
"Let's go."
They moved deeper into the woods, both of them now wishing that the ground between the trees was not so open. There was little real cover, except for the trees themselves, which afforded a measure of scanty protection, and a few shallow depressions in the ground, widely spaced and at irregular intervals.
It was into one of these depressions that the two clones settled down to wait.
Rex once again contacted General Skywalker and passed on the information about the enemy hiding in the woods. As he shifted position to try and get lower to the ground, his hand came up against something smooth and hard in the ground beside him. Even through the glove, it felt peculiar. Brushing away the layer of dirt on top revealed a white, rounded object that, even before he had completely uncovered it, was identifiable as a humanoid skull.
"Oh, hell . . . I—I think we're sitting in another one of those mass graves," he breathed.
Echo began clearing away more of the loose dirt. "I think you're—frak!"
"What is—oh damn! Don't move."
Buried under the dirt and now partially exposed, lying directly between the two clones, was a grenade, the pin pulled three-quarters of the way out and attached by a piece of nylon to something—most likely a body part—still concealed beneath the surface.
The pit—the bodies—had been booby-trapped.