Dear Reader, Sorry it took me so long to get this one up. I had a lot of real life things intervene. I also want to thank all the reviewers for the last chapter. I forgot to do that when I originally posted this chapter, and I try to make a point of putting my appreciation into my 'forewords'. Thanks to Ms CT-782, The Unnamed Guest, Sued, LLTC, Shadow Wanderer, Kat, Reader 7567, and the other anonymous guests. It really makes me feel very good when I see a review. You're all very kind! I hope you enjoy. Peace, CS
Chapter 81 Plans and Reality
"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."
Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Melthe, German Field Marshal
They were over the drop zone.
Once again, Rex found himself facing a darkness that stretched away into eternity. It was not lost on him that a little more than six weeks ago he had done this very same thing, a night jump into the unfamiliar terrain of Pylotta, although the mission this time was not at all similar. That mission seemed a lifetime ago, and so much had happened in the intervening weeks . . . none of which he could allow into his thoughts at the moment.
His fall through the night came to a calculated halt seven hundred meters above the ground as he pressed the release on his gauntlet and the streamer of gray fibro-silk carried him the rest of the way in silence.
Kettrun's single moon showed in its fullness, unobscured by cloud and reflecting a pale light down onto the plain. Even so, it was difficult to make out features on the rapidly approach surface. Rex kept expecting a tree to loom up out of the darkness or a ditch or crevice to suddenly open up, threatening an ankle or knee with serious injury. He activated his night vision, which, while helpful, still could not provide the degree of detail Rex would have liked.
But no misfortunes befell him or any other members of the team and within minutes, everyone was safely on the ground, parachutes gathered and hidden away. The aircrew, minus Cody who had gone down with the ground team, had returned to their hiding place, shadowing a low orbit satellite. They would return when signaled for the pickup.
Commander Ki'weya motioned the team together. "That was quite exhilarating," he said, sounding genuinely impressed. "I've never done a free jump from that altitude. Amazing." Then, he became all business, leading the men through the razor-sharp grass of the plain towards the valley, which lay in a misty shroud between two dark, towering masses, the east and west ridges. An eerie quiet reigned in this place. No sounds of birds or other animals. No sounds of distant traffic of any kind. Not even a breeze to rustle the grass or the scattered trees. It made the noises generated by the movement of the thirteen men sound all the louder.
Shortly before coming off the plain, they came upon several clusters of trees.
"If anyone gets separated, make your way back to this spot," Cody ordered. "It's going to be chaotic when those charges go off. Our planned escape routes might not be available. So, wherever you end up, try to get back to this place."
They left the plain and entered the thick, entangling undergrowth of the valley. Overhead the canopy of trees was so thick that not even a single star could be glimpsed through the intertwined branches. Here, in the dense jungle, the silence of the plains gave way to the calls of night creatures and the sounds of scurrying animals.
Behind Hardcase, Denal quipped in a guarded voice. "I keep expecting some wild animal to land on my shoulders."
"Better yours than mine," Hardcase replied with an invisible smile.
They had gone less than a quarter-mile into the woods and had just begun angling east towards the ridge and its easier passage when Rex, leading the way, held up his hand, and all movement ceased.
Cody appeared beside him. "Well, this is unexpected."
"These aren't exactly what the recon team described," Rex stated. "They reported seeing faint trails."
"And Commander Ki'weya didn't mention seeing these on his reconnaissance," Cody added.
At that moment, the padawan joined them. "Why are we stopping?"
"This trail, Commander," Rex replied.
"What about it?"
"You didn't mention seeing any trails," Rex informed him.
"I don't remember seeing any," came the curt answer.
"Isn't this the way you came when you did your recon only a few days ago?" Cody inquired.
"It's not exactly the same route, but very close to it. I saw no need to correct the captain's direction one or two degrees," Ki'weya replied.
Cody went on. "The earlier recons reported some faint trails, but look at this, Commander. It's well-worn. It's too well-trod to be from animals. This trail is man-made, and it looks like it's used often."
"And supposedly there's no indigenous population in the area," Rex said, setting the conditions.
And Cody finished the conclusion. "Which leaves our friends over a two kilometers away."
"An approach route?" Rex wondered out loud.
"Or a patrol route," Cody added thoughtfully
"I wonder how far out their patrols go."
Ki'weya shook his head impatiently. "We know they might go this far out, so we need to increase our vigilance. We need to press on."
Rex scowled beneath his helmet. "I think we'd do well to determine how far out their patrol routes go. There may be more paths behind us, from the direction we just came, and we may have missed them. If these are patrol routes, we might have a hard time getting back to the extraction point. And it could put the aircrew at greater risk."
"Captain, our mission isn't to chase our tails down every suspicious path we find," Ki'weya said pointedly. "We have to make it up onto the ridge so we can pick up the speed and get there before we run out of darkness. Not only that, but we have no one to spare to go traipsing through the woods looking for possibilities that probably don't exist."
Rex ignored him. "Echo. Kix. Get up here. I want you two to do a limited recon to see where this trail leads and if there are others. It's 0222 right now. I'll radio for a report at 0300. That's ten minutes before we should be entering the compound, and right before we go dark. If you see anyone, do everything you can to stay hidden. If they detect you, it will blow the whole thing."
"Yes, Sir," the two replied in unison, then Echo inquired, "I'm supposed to go in with Bads. Who's going to take my place?"
"Commander Cody and I will take care of that," Rex replied. "Everyone. Switch to frequency 80.297, encryption mode."
"Captain, the frequency switch and encryption aren't necessary until we reach the crixa," Ki'weya pointed out, referring to a pre-designated location nearer to the compound.
"Commander, I think it's a good idea to switch now, in case we run into trouble," Cody interjected, hoping to preempt argument. "I can let the extraction team know to switch now as well."
The padawan gave a careless shrug. "Do as you please."
As Echo and Kix broke off, Rex reached out and snagged Kix's elbow, causing both men to stop. He drew close and spoke with quiet fierceness. "I don't have a good feeling about any of this. Watch yourselves."
The two men nodded. They were starting to share the same sense of uneasiness as their captain.
The planet was in chaos.
"Just what it deserves. Any planet that welcomes and protects terrorists, provides them material support and training – such a planet deserves the chaos it's brought upon itself." A moment of focused concentration. "They've landed. They're already underway. That was fast."
Anakin rarely meditated. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the practice. It's just that he was much more a man of action. Obiwan had taught him, with a fair degree of success, the methods of quieting his mind in an attempt at being one with the Force, using it to see events – past, present, and even sometimes the future. He'd taught him how to reach out in the Force to find those whom he cared about, with whom he had a connection.
And while it was seldom that Anakin found much peace in the Force, he had grown quite adept at harnessing its powers to conduct the tasks – seeking, finding, and touching other souls in the metaphysical realm of the Force.
The fact that he'd developed a connection with Rex almost immediately upon their first meeting was not accidental. Despite the awkwardness of the circumstances of that first meeting—a story for another time—Anakin had felt an intrinsic bond with the man who had been appointed his first-in-command. It was a bond of trust, the sense of being a kindred spirit, and Anakin had done everything in his power to strengthen that sense of unity. The superior-subordinate relationship had given way, over the months, to a genuine admiration and affection on the general's part – an admiration and affection well-returned.
It happened quite often that Anakin could sense not only Rex's presence, but his internal mindset, even at considerable distances. It wasn't any sort of mind-reading ability; it was more like hearing voices through water, seeing images through stained glass. If he concentrated, he could pick up on strong emotions even when his captain was nowhere in the immediate vicinity.
Yet, these obscure sensings were not the same thing as using the Force to see and foretell events.
As Anakin engaged in one of his rare meditative exercises—done with the sole purpose of finding out how things were going on Kettrun after the odd moment he'd had with Rex on the shuttle—he could see with a decent amount of clarity, Rex and Cody's detail moving through heavy undergrowth in a steam-filled night jungle. There was someone else with them, but he could not quite make out the figure.
What he could sense was his captain's irritation. No cause for alarm, but certainly enough to spark Anakin's curiosity.
And then the edges of the image in his mind's eye began to dissipate and become indistinct. The entire picture was reforming . . .
. . . a desert canyon, brown and tan and rocky and ridged . . .
"We have to go, Anakin!" Obiwan's voice.
"Come on! COME ON!" Anakin recognized his own voice. "Hurry up, trooper!"
"We have to go NOW!" Obiwan insisted.
"Pilot, stay in place!" Anakin again.
"Holding position, Sir," came a reply that, while a shout, was amazingly calm in the midst of all the desperation. Was it Three Point? BB? Wingnut? Anakin couldn't tell.
Obiwan's voice cut through the ruckus. "Belay that order! Pilot, get us out of here—"
Anakin's voice rose anxiously. "We can get a few more! We can't leave—"
A loud explosion jolted Anakin's eyes open.
Only there had been no explosion – not here, not in this place.
Not in this time.
The lower slope of the east ridge was steeper than imagined, and the trudge up to it belabored by tangled vine vines, thorny creepers, and muddy pools that threatened to suck down anyone unfortunate enough to step into the mire. This was not the route Rex or Cody would have chosen; and why Commander Ki'weya had insisted upon going up to tree line from the valley floor versus directly from the plateau was unfathomable to the clones. Still, the padawan was the mission commander, and the going along the upper levels of the ridge should prove progressively easier. But how many unnecessary minutes was this route adding to their approach?
As expected, nearer to the tree line, the undergrowth thinned out, and here, Ki'weya turned north and led the group along the ridge just below the tree line. Another kilometer and they would be in a position for turning left and heading back down into the valley on a line directly to the camp.
Rex now gave his lead position over to Ki'weya, who seemed to perhaps recognize that they were not making progress at the rate he had projected. The padawan's superior knowledge of the terrain might be a boon in the overall picture, but it had not served them well thus far.
And to own the truth, Rex was not so worried about running into the enemy as much as he was worried about Ki'weya leading them over a cliff or the like, forgetting that clones had limitations that Jedi—even Jedi in training—did not.
His thoughts were focused in this ungracious direction when he felt a tug on his elbow. He turned to see Top behind him.
"Captain, it looks like another pathway down there," the lieutenant announced.
Rex followed his gaze and could make out a clear line running through the jungle below them. "You're right," he acknowledged. "I don't much like the look of this. I think there's a lot more activity outside the camp than we thought." He sidled up to Ki'weya. "There's another trail just below us."
"Noted," was all the response he received. Ki'weya was clearly focused on a single design, and that was reaching the camp.
Cody, who had heard the exchange, chimed in, "Don't you think it might be a good idea for us to move a little higher, away from the pathway?"
"Commander, there are trails all along these upper levels," Ki'weya replied, not slowing his pace.
Rex and Cody both halted and exchanged concealed, befuddled glares.
Sensing that his detail had stopped moving, Ki'weya turned to face them. "What's wrong? Why are you stopping?"
"Commander, you said you didn't see any trails," Cody reminded him.
"I didn't see any trails in the valley," Ki'weya qualified. "Of course, there are trails up here. It's much easier going."
"That would have been good information to know," Cody pointed out, and Rex could hear in his voice, that even cool, professional Cody had just had his anger notched up a mark.
"It would have made no difference to the route or course of action," Ki'weya replied.
"It can make a huge difference if someone is out on these trails and sees us—" Rex began.
"Which is why we are not taking the trails, Captain," Ki'weya stated firmly.
"But we're within sight of them. And if we can see them, that means that anyone traveling on them can see us," Cody said with equal firmness.
"There are no other acceptable options," Ki'weya said. "We can go back down onto the valley floor and spend the rest of the night cutting our way through. Or we can stay up here and actually make up lost time and keep to the schedule." He sounded as if he had finished, but then he added with a degree of poorly disguised disgust. "Trails are of no concern to me. I can conceal myself from anyone who might come along. Unfortunately, you soldiers aren't able to move with the same level of stealth. So, the faster we get off the ridge altogether, the better it will be."
He moved off without waiting for a reply.
Rex turned to Cody. "This is crazy," he said in a low voice. "He's supposed to be leading this mission, but he's acting as if we're not even here. And he lied to us. He knew there were trails all along."
"Maybe so, but he's going to need us when we get to the compound," Cody replied. "He can't set those charges himself."
"I won't be surprised if he tries," Rex snarled.
"Just . . . let's stay focused," Cody said calmly. "He may be a padawan, but I don't think he's got a lot of experience to fall back on. We need to make sure he doesn't lead us into trouble."
Kix cursed with every word he knew in the silence of his own thoughts. But out loud, he limited himself to, "Fek and all, this is not good."
"This explains the nature of the trails," Echo whispered. "They're definitely man-made."
The two men were hunkered down, concealed behind a thick tangle of undergrowth. Slightly below them and through about forty meters of thick jungle was the camp.
From the time they had left the rest of the group, the two men had swept rapidly up the valley, following the trail but keeping just within the jungle to either side in order to stay concealed. They'd had no idea that they would reach the camp first, but the trail had led them straight to it. Upon their arrival, they'd spent several minutes in silent observation; and what they had seen did not bode well.
Already, they'd seen groups of men coming and going from within the walls, taking to the trails – apparently training trails. That meant the rest of the team could be in danger of exposure.
Even at this moment, nearly two dozen men in para-military uniforms were emerging from the lowered plasma gate.
Echo waited for the group to disappear from sight before radioing in. "CT-7567, this is CT-1409."
There was a moment of silence before Rex's voice came back over the comm. "CT-1409, report."
"The trails are man-made. We followed one of them and it led us directly to the camp. We're there now, and we've seen several groups of terrorists coming and going from the camp. They're using the trails – we think they're training paths, but they could be running patrols. They're all carrying firearms, but we couldn't determine the type."
"Copy that. Stand by," Rex replied. Nearly half a minute passed before his voice came back over the comm. "Begin reconnoitering the route back to the extraction point. If there are patrols out there, we don't want to run into them on our way out of here. We should be at the crixa in a few minutes. The time table stands."
"Copy, Sir."
Echo looked at Kix. "Looks like we're on our way back out."
"This is where we split into our teams," Rex stated.
They had come to the crixa.
"No thanks to the padawan," Rex thought with anger. But now his men were in their element. This was the task they had trained for, and since Ki'weya could not be with four teams at once, Rex was determined to shunt him into the least obstructive role possible.
"I'll go in with Bads," the captain went on. Then he turned pointedly. "Cody, you and Top stay here at the Crixa with Commander Ki'weya."
"They may stay here, but I am not," the padawan said.
"Commander, we've already identified the teams," Rex replied. "Two men on each team. Any more than that is unnecessary and risks detection."
Cody added, "You knew this before we set out, Commander. If you objected to our plan, you didn't say so during the briefing."
"Plans change, Commander Cody," Ki'weya said.
Rex had been pushed as far as he was willing to permit. "We have four sets of explosives. We have four teams. There is no mission for you to carry out."
"I didn't say I was going in with any of the teams," Ki'weya pointed out.
"Then why go in at all?" Cody asked.
"I have my own mission," the padawan replied. "Don't worry, gentlemen. It won't interfere with yours."
Alarms began going off in Rex's head, but Cody was calm. Instead of furthering any accusations or deriding the padawan for his secrecy, he was direct and simple. "You need to tell us what it is."
"I can't do that, Commander," Ki'weya replied. "You just have to trust me."
Rex decided he could be pragmatic, and before Cody could respond, he ventured forth with, "I'll trust you." He motioned to Top, who'd been standing a few meters away, listening inconspicuously. "Top, get over here." Once more he turned toward the padawan. "Top will go with you. I trust Top, and if he's with you, I'll trust you."
"An escort isn't necessary and would only slow me down—"
"Take it or leave it," Rex interrupted. "It's the only thing we're offering. You take his protection willingly, or you take it unwillingly. Either way, he's going with you."
Ki'weya could hardly be bothered with argument. From his standpoint, the clone escort wouldn't be able to keep up with him anyway. He would outdistance him from the very start and be able to carry out his mission singlehandedly. "Very well. If you insist," came his false capitulation. "I will meet you at the rendez-vous at the appointed time." With that, he looked at Top with a show of false indulgence. "Try to keep up. Let's go."
Before setting off behind the padawan, Top gave Rex a nod. It was a silent acknowledgment that he understood the true nature of his task, which was not so much to protect the Ki'weya as it was to make sure the padawan did not endanger their mission while carrying out his own.
Rex watched the two disappear into the jungle.
"Top will stay on him," he said with surety. "And we need to stay on top of our job." He waved the team to gather close. "It's 0308. You all know how much time you have. Pass back through Commander Cody on your way to the extraction point. Remember, once you've gone dark, do not break radio silence unless it's to sound an alarm."
The men nodded curtly.
"Let's get it done, boys."
"How'd I get stuck with you again?" Pitch said in a barely audible voice as he and Fives moved through the last hundred meters of jungle towards the wall. "Last time we teamed up, you got me in big trouble with the captain."
Fives grinned invisibly. "We both took a chance. We may have gotten chewed out for it, but we did discover those consoles. Maybe we'll discover something else this time."
"I'm not looking to discover anything," Pitch replied. "There's no room for sight-seeing on this mission, Fives. It's get in, set the explosives, and get out."
"I know that," Fives replied with a bit of gamesmanship. "But you never know what might jump in your path."
"You might be an ARC trooper now, but you're still a corporal, and I'm a staff sergeant. I'm calling the shots," Pitch replied. "No rubbish this time. And we're at the go-dark point. Radio silence from here on in."
Radio silence was not the same as full silence. The two men could still speak to each other, just not using their helmets' comm systems.
Less than a minute later, they were crouched down in the thick brush, not two meters away from a plasma wall, pulsating blue-white in the darkness. There were no signs of any guards or patrols. The two crossed quickly the open space. Pitched dropped to one knee, removed a device from his belt, and carefully placed it at the base of the wall. Within five seconds, the device had run a diagnostic on the plasma and calibrated a resistance that would allow the clones to create an opening without disturbing the wall's spatial profile. A nifty piece of technology only recently introduced into service. In other words, the device allowed the clones to penetrate the wall undetected.
They passed through and closed the opening.
Their objective stood about fifty yards across a stretch of weed-choked, partially graveled and now overgrown open ground with multiple piles of trash rising up like bizarre monuments to waste. Old, broken chairs-wooden and metal; tables, cardboard boxes, lamps, beds and bedding . . . even piles of food and other organic matter.
It was like crossing an obstacle course of the discarded.
But it provided excellent cover, and the clones made their crossing quickly and without incident.
The next hurdle . . . entering the building unseen. Placing explosives on the outside of the structure would not do the trick. They had to get inside to the location of the weakest structural integrity.
Pitch had studied the images of the building's exterior structure, memorizing and analyzing every detail until he could not fit in one more jot of information. From examination of the exterior, he could make some educated guesses about the interior.
"Exterior explosives will only blow a hole in the wall," he'd explained at the planning briefing. If we want to make the place unusable, we'll need to set some CB2 repro caps inside the building. That'll not only take out the structure, but also anyone inside or within thirty meters outside."
"Yes, that would work," Bads had agreed. "But the problem with repro caps is that we have to get out of there in time not to get caught up in the repro's."
"We'll remote detonate them long after we're clear."
The manner of explosive to which they had been referring was, like the plasma splitter, a fairly new innovation on the battlefield. A ten-gram pack of CB explosive had an impact radius of approximately thirty meters – modest by weapons standards. But repro caps could extend that radius out to nearly a kilometer. A bomb could be packed with hundreds of smaller CB caps, propelled to the edge of the initial explosion, with delayed heat-activated detonation. And if those caps contained even smaller caps, the radius could be extended even further, lessened in strength but increased in reach. Their seeming ability to reproduce was the genesis of their name, Repro Caps.
"There's the entrance," Fives stated, using the magnification feature on his infrared. "Looks quiet. I don't see anyone." He was looking at a hinge-style door on the back side of their target structure. It was not the main entrance, and they had not expected to see much—if any—activity in the area.
They moved from trash pile to trash pile, using the refuse to hide their advance.
Not surprisingly, the door was locked, but Pitch had a quick and silent solution for that. The XR-13 was a handheld metal splitter – sort of a miniature light saber that emitted an adjustable beam of light that could be used to cut through metal. It wasn't as powerful as a light saber, but it did have the advantage of being compact and extremely useful for jobs such as this. Making the beam as thin as a sheet of paper, Pitch was able to slice quickly and effortlessly through the bolt on the door.
Once inside, it was, Pitch noted with satisfaction, almost exactly as he had imagined it would be from his studies of the exterior. The door opened into a warehouse-like space, thirty yards across. What neither Pitch nor Fives had been anticipating was that a quarter of the floor space was filled with unmarked cannisters. The rest was empty.
"What do you think is in those?" Echo whispered.
"I don't know, but we'd better find out before we set any charges," Pitch replied.
But an inspection of the cannisters revealed nothing to indicate what was inside, other than the fact that they all had built-in cooling systems.
"Whatever it is, it needs to be kept cold to keep it inert," Pitch noted, switching from infrared to spectrum view in the hopes of picking up some clue. "That means it's a gas of some kind."
At that moment, a loud, scraping noise broke across the silence. The main warehouse doors were opening.
Pitch and Fives crouched down behind the cannisters as a dozen men—some human, others not—entered the warehouse. Two went directly to a pair of lifters parked to one side of the main doors. The rest approached the cannisters.
They spoke in rough Basic.
"We can fit about thirty on this one." The being who spoke was a Twi'lek, and he appeared to be in charge. "That leaves twenty-two to go, and the next ship should be arriving in less than two hours, so no scunching about."
They began loading the cannisters, one at a time, onto the lifter, which then ferried the canister out through the main doors and apparently to an awaiting ship, which neither clone was able to see. But it was not the ship that interested Pitch and Fives, but rather the conversation they were able to pick up as they both enhanced their audio.
"Stupid to move these things. If one ship carrying this stuff gets blown up, that'll do plenty damage, ai-huh, I tell you. Better to break it down."
"And who gon' do zat? You knowing how? I not. No one 'ere got zat knowing how."
"Yea, well . . . Merlick and his crew should know how. They're the fekking scientists, aren't they?"
A third man joined in the debate. "They don't have the equipment here to break down rhydonium, and this osik is rhydonium-based. We know the Republic will come after this base eventually, and if any of this stuff ignites, it'll blow the whole fekking planet up, and both fleets."
"Ai-uh, but don't ya think the 'public knows it's here already? They ain' gon fire no-how on this place," yet another chimed in.
From their hiding place behind the cannisters, Pitch and Fives caught every word, and the implications hit them like an ion storm.
They couldn't use the Repro Caps – or any explosive device – as long as there were still cannisters present. Not just in this facility, but in any facility. The Repro's would easily expand from other locations to take in this one, and if one canister of a rhydonium-based compound were to be ignited, that would put a quick end to more than just a planetary invasion – it would put a quick end to the planet and, as one of the terrorists had said, any ships within the orbit radius impacted by the number of megatons exploded.
"We have to warn the rest of the team," Pitch whispered. "And we can't wait until they load out thirty cannisters to do it." He craned his head around and saw what he had expected to see – a bank of indoor windows between the warehouse and what appeared to be administrative offices. There were two doors, one on each side of the windows. "We need to get out of here before they reach this row. We'll get into those offices, and then we can send an encrypted message."
Fives was grim. "They probably have systems to detect comm signals. Once we send that message, they may know we're here."
Pitch actually smiled beneath his helmet. "No problem. You're an ARC trooper, aren't you? Figure a way out."
Whenever one lifter took a cannisters outside, half of the men accompanied it while the other half worked on loading the second lifter. The noise of the lifter was loud enough that it muffled the sound of retreating footsteps, and the distance to the nearest door was less than twenty meters.
Fives and Pitch had only to run in a crouch to remain out of eyesight, and they were in the first room.
"I'm going to make this quick, and then you'd better be ready to hit it," Pitch warned. "We can't go out the way we came in. We have to go through the building, and that means we may encounter more terrorists."
Fives was as cool as a summer on Hoth. "Nothing I can't handle."
Pitch shook his head. "So much for a straight in-and-out mission. If I didn't know better, I'd say you like this sort of thing." He opened the encrypted channel. "Rhydonium onsite. Approximately 50 cannisters. Mission abort?" He himself did not have the authority to abort the mission.
He only hoped that Captain Rex and Commander Cody would come back quickly with an answer. In the meantime, he turned to Fives. "Let's get the hell out of here."