The Force Wills - Chapter 45 (Patreon)

What was this feeling? CT-5555 aka Fives wondered to himself.

He definitely felt happy to be back home. The familiar white corridors and beautifully expansive views that felt like it went on forever, especially in the central corridor where the massive carousels that housed thousands of his future brothers at various stages of development floated in the air. Everywhere other brothers moved back and forth in orderly and routine tasks related to everything that made a clone trooper what they were.

Group teachers taking clone youth to academic learning, medical orderlies hurrying to and fro, clone instructors taking clone pilots to their simulators, training squads in their cadet armors on their way to the battle arenas, on and on it went.

He was also feeling worried.

Out there, the Separatists were coming to kill everyone and destroy this place… his home.

That thought brought about a hot spike of anger. They dare!

He longed for the day when General Skywalker and Commander Tano led them to Seppy worlds and then threatened to destroy everything that they held dear. What did she say in that briefing? Put the shoe on the other foot?

He pushed those satisfying thoughts away, still trying to put a word to the unknown feeling.

They had seen and done so much since the war first started, after the Republic and the Jedi called on them to serve, to protect, to fight. The galaxy was a big place and since that first rookie assignment, where Captain Rex had saved their lives, Fives had never imagined how many lightyears he would travel with the 501st, how many worlds he’d see, and how many battles he could mark on his armor.

“Look around you Fives,” Echo or CT-1409 and the only other survivor of that mission, gestured expansively to the wonderful views of home around them. “Feels like only yesterday we were here… still kiddies, heading to target practice.”

Fives couldn’t help but chuckle at the memories and the struggles their old training squad had gone through over the years. “I know what you mean,” he said wistfully, clipping his helmet to his belt. He also couldn’t help but notice the glances and looks he and Echo were getting, especially from the kiddy squads.

They passed a rather zealously arguing pair of maintenance clones at this point, who were debating the finer points of a desalination system.

Then in this duo’s wake, pushing a hoversled almost overloaded with training blasters was a very familiar old face.

“Hey 99!” Echo greeted the old maintenance clone with a smile.

99 looked the same as ever; still hunched over, still wearing the gray clone maintenance uniform with toolbelt slung across his body, his pale skin saggy, but his dark eyes were bright with life and a savvy intelligence. It felt very good to see the old clone. He was almost as part of Kamino as the oceans and the incessant storms.

99’s eyes widened and a smile stretched across that old face, “Echo, Fives, welcome home.”

“You actually remember us?” Fives asked, feeling amazement that the old brother was so quick and spot on.

“I remember all my brothers,” 99 shrugged, then frowned at the two arguing clones. “Zyrg, Beell, enough. Electrodialysis pressure needs to be kept below 200 atmospheres at twenty two degrees, that way there’s room in the system for fluctuation, especially during storms. 210, while improving throughput by a significant amount, will have us fixing pipes all over the city, when stormy season rolls round.”

Zyrg blinked in astonishment, as if he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that, tapped on his datapad which bleeped new results at him. “Ah, right,” he laughed uncomfortably. “Of course, thanks 99. It’s just that our population is due to increase quite a bit over the next year and we have to figure out a way for increased water production.”

“A new plant is being planned by the kaminoans, but it won’t come online for another six months, we were asked to think of ideas to help stall the predicted shortfall until then,” Beell explained.

“Better to be put on water rationing than die of thirst on an ocean world, when our plumbing system blows up,” 99 grumbled at them both. “You keep that pressure at 200, understood?”

“Yes, 99.”

Both techs scurried off like someone had cracked an electro-whip on their behinds. Fives smiled in delight at seeing the old clone work his magic. Many visitors to the military complex would look at 99 and think, why had the kaminoans left a genetically defective clone to run around and be a bother? Why waste the resources?

The answer was simple. Kaminoans were great believers in never letting anything go to waste, if it could still serve some purpose. 99 was a prime example. He would never win at being the best clone soldier, but as a maintenance tech with that brilliant practical mind with an eye and memory for fine detail, he was better than all the other able bodied techs in the complex in Fives’ opinion.

“Now, I see Hevy’s not with you,” 99 commented. The old clone’s smile turned somber when he saw their reactions.

Fives only felt a weary sadness at the thought of Hevy and all the brothers he’d seen killed during the war so far. It always reminded him of how lucky he was to be alive still, especially because of Hevy’s sacrifice.

“We were attacked at a listening outpost by commando droids,” Fives explained, pushing all emotion to the background. “He saved our lives but had to stay behind to keep the droids from disarming our explosives.”

“No doubt blasting away at them with that heavy gun of his until the last moment,” 99 said with a fond smile. “I kept tabs on the lists of dead and casualties that came in at first, but at some point… it just became too much.”

“No, we don’t blame you for not knowing, 99,” Echo said hurriedly.

99 nodded, waving it off, “So why is your legion back?”

“The clankers are going to attack Kamino very soon,” Fives said seriously.

The old clone got an expression that Fives had never seen before. 99 was always friendly and had a big heart, but now he was… fierce. “They actually managed it?

“Yes, we’ve not heard yet how-”

“It doesn’t matter,” 99 interrupted. “No explanation needed. They are coming to our home and every single clone; tech, kiddy or soldier, will pick up a blaster if needed.” He hurried back to his sled. “Now I better get this packed away and get the real blasters handed out. Off you go, lads!”

Fives and Echo watched the old man hurry off into the distance awkwardly, “Nice to know he hasn’t changed-”

Their vambrace communicators chirped. “Alpha squad report to briefing, B204. 15 minutes.”

Fives tapped the comlink, “Fives and Echo acknowledged.”

They picked up the pace towards the nearest turbolift and navigated the seemingly endless white hallways and corridors with no problems, finally reaching their destination after twelve minutes of power walking.

The briefing room they entered was the ones usually used for small squad level meetings and as such tended to be used mostly by the ARC troopers and clone commandos. That it was being used by a normal squad in a standard company of the 501st was rather odd. Fives liked to think that Alpha was the best out of 2nd Company, but he grudgingly accepted there were better squads on paper. Alpha, on the other hand, had seen a lot of combat that he didn’t even think commandos regularly saw.

When he saw who was leading the briefing he definitely knew something big was in the works.

Commander Tano stood at the podium, speaking softly to one of the Mando commandos who always followed her around these days.

Fives was not a clone who was too impressed with these Mandos - they were good, especially the ones that the commander kept around her, but none of them could say they had the dedicated training of clones. All of them had been civvies at some point, involved in other professions and were veterans of their civil war. The Mandos who had trained the clones in the early days was a different story altogether - he’d fight and die beside them any day.

The doors to the room closed and the commander put a device of some sort on the podium that was blinking and chirping.

“Welcome Alpha squad,” she said with a nod. “I’m sorry I can’t let you enjoy any time back on your homeworld, but you know why we’re back. If we’re going to keep this city standing and in one piece, it’ll require not only all of us fighting to keep it that way, but some deception tactics on our part is needed as well.”

She tapped the controls on the podium, the room dimmed and a large holo of Tipoca city zoomed in to feature the military cloning complex. Then it zoomed further in to focus on the stilts that supported the massive domes of the complex, which then plunged into the ocean deep.

Finally it stopped at two hundred meters below, almost nearing the very lowest levels of the stilt and there… was something odd attached to it.

At first Fives thought it was merely something wrong with the holo projector itself, but the static distortions resolved to clearly form static in the shape of ships.

“What you are looking at are CIS Trident class assault ships modified with cloaking devices. They’ve linked themselves to the military complex and have tapped into most of its systems.”

Fives and Echo looked at each other in their seats with alarm. “That is the reason for this little scrambler in front of me. It’s feeding a false meeting into the general surveillance system. Know this Alpha squad, the battle for Kamino will not be won in space, but on the ground right here, with all the soldiers of the army.

“Steps like this briefing are being taken to steadily prepare for an invasion of the military complex right now. We aim to slowly create an orbital pattern with our ships in space to convince the CIS that they can target us with hyperspace attacks. I’m afraid they’re in for a disappointment and a nasty surprise. What matters to you though, is the timing of this pattern, as when the battle in space commences, you can be assured that the Tridents will attack. Plan on this happening within the next six hours.

“Alpha, your job when you leave this meeting is to get yourself fully armed and go on a ‘patrol’ of this junction bridge between Dome A1 and D1. Carry extra droid poppers and you can also expect a few supply crates to be delivered there. I realize this is a long time to patrol and be on standby for an attack, but the enemy is not giving us much option otherwise.” Fives looked at his fellow clones and was gratified to note there was only determination in everyone’s bearing. “Any questions?”

Echo raised a hand, “Commander, do we expect them to also attack from the lower levels?”

“They might insert a few sabotage teams down there, with instructions to detonate the support stilts and sink some of the domes if the battle doesn’t go in their favor. We are sending Mandolorian squads to deal with the possibility. Anything else?”

The room was silent.

“Good, you are dismissed and may the Force be with you.”

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The command center that the kaminoans used to coordinate the defense of the planet was suitably impressive and sophisticated considering the general tech level the cloners had. It was similar to the interactive command holo room we had built for the Mandator dreadnoughts, but still used infographics and icons instead of a fully immersive simulation.

Kamino was presented as a simple large blue sphere, with icons for every surface and underwater city, Venators as large red spheres, with smaller ships getting smaller sphere icons. There was a second holo that featured a 3D topographical representation of the military complex and all the active squads roaming about on patrol.

It had gotten to the point where it would be suspicious if we didn’t react more to the impending CIS ‘ground’ attack, which finally let us begin to call for a more general readiness. We were still underplaying our hand though, to keep the CIS thinking we were dancing to their tune.

In the command center with me was Obi-Wan, Lama Su, Shaak Ti and Captain Rex, including half a dozen clone controllers manning the various systems and controlling the positions of various units.

A controller tapped his earpiece, “Scouts report the Separatist fleet has launched heavy fighters and are in a position for a hyperjump to the planet.”

“A bit earlier than we hoped for,” Obi-wan commented.

I had to marvel a bit at the intricate orbital dance I was seeing play out in front of me. This was the result of many navigators and astromechs working together, and now by all appearances the Republic ships had found themselves loosely grouped to one side of the planet, just beyond the mass shadow. Anyone looking quickly would just assume it was a confluence of coincidence and bad luck.

“Heavy fighters have jumped to hyper!”

“Flak fields open fire!” Obi-wan snapped.

The combined AA fire of forty six Republic ships burst outward into space, directly into the projected emergence of the Belbullab-22 heavy starfighters.

Space was turned into a large sparkly fireworks show as anti-fighter blaster fire, explosive flak and even rail gun fire streamed out in a storm.

Three hundred odd CIS heavy fighters emerged from hyper directly into this conflagration.

In the next moment, 221 of them died with muted flashes, before breaking apart into debris moving forward only on their emergence momentum.

The rest survived long enough to launch their torpedoes.

158 anti-capital torpedoes streaked out into space, eagerly seeking their targets.

The fighters who launched them turned and burned hard to escape, going into evasive maneuvers.

I reached out through the Force towards those fighters. It was a very meat… organic sentient thing to do, the pilots were not behaving like a droid. Strangely enough, the pilots were B1s! Has the CIS been doing a bit of upgrading to them? I had heard of Magnaguard droids being rather capable pilots in the Belbullab, but those were simply too valuable and expensive in their role to be used as fighter pilot cannon fodder.

The remaining fighters were further whittled down and only twenty made it back into hyper.

That quick turnaround could only mean that they had spent a lot of navicomputer time to figure out these courses.

73 torpedoes managed to evade active defenses and started hitting the shields of the fleet.

Thankfully, the ferocity of our sudden defense had prevented any coordination and the effect was more like a shotgun blast.

Now the Arquitens light cruisers were coming into their own. Their recent configurations in response to evolving battle spaces had turned them into ships that were meant to guard their slower brethren and they sported an anti-torpedo system that was singularly brilliant and demonstrated I was not the only naval innovator in the Republic.

Someone, and I was still looking for the name of the military scientist at KDY responsible, had essentially given the Arquitens dozens of metal storm shotgun turrets. A hundred barrels packed in a rectangular articulated launcher with projectiles the size of a fist and accelerated down railguns. The issues they had was their effective accurate range and the general problem with kinetic weapons in space - fire them, miss, and you were ruining someone’s day in the far future.

The nimble ships began belching cluster projectiles, twice per second, destroying a further 52 torpedoes before they could hit the more shields.

Yet, still our defense wasn’t perfect, and I winced as I felt a Venator and Acclimator die. The latter went up in a spectacular fireball as its reactors breached and the former broke apart in large pieces under the torpedo hammer blows, where it would slowly orbit for at least another twenty years if it wasn’t cleaned up. Escape pods were launched in the dozens thankfully.

“Enemy fleet jumped to hyper!”

Seconds later the CIS Navy arrived.

18 Munificent class star frigates, six Recusant class light destroyers and three Lucrehulk battleships, all arrayed around the centerpiece of the fleet - a Providence class Dreadnought.

Most fleet commanders when faced with such a force would be practically stupefied at the amount of firepower that the CIS had managed to fly all the way around the eastern edge of the galaxy.

No, the answer was quite simple and something that once again proved that necessity is the mother of invention. Someone on the CIS side had built a ship whose sole function was to act as a fleet and fuel tender.

The compromises of building such a ship meant that you’d never bring it near any dangerous battlespace, which was why none of the scouts had found such a ship. I gave a look at a nearby galaxy map… yes, they’d probably left them in the Gamorr system, the second last stop along the Trellius before you had to take a northerly hyper lane to reach Kamino.

“Generals, the Tridents are moving, decreasing their depth,” announced a clone technician.

That the kaminoan sensors had no problems finding the cloaked vessels in the water via what I considered a very futuristic spin on the oldest hydrodynamic principle was just a wonderful dichotomy. Their sensors could remotely map water flow to a molecular level and as a result, the cloaked ships were detected by their irregular water displacement against the natural flows.

“Entire planet to combat alert level,” Lama Su ordered, as was his sole right. Every city began wailing air raid alert sirens.

“Launch all fighters,” ordered Obi-Wan.

Every Venator began presenting their bellies to the enemy and ARC fighters, Headhunters and Torrents streamed into space. 21 squadrons were launched within moments, which were joined by another launch ten seconds later. Resulting in over five hundred fighters screaming towards the enemy fleet.

“Admiral Yularen,” I called over the command frequency.

“Yes, commander?” he said from the bridge of the Resolute.

“That Providence seems a bit less capable than the norm. Do you agree?”

“Energy profile and gun count is much lower, commander. I concur. It’s also just over 1100 meters long. The standard Providence is just over two kilometers.”

“Then what we are seeing is basically a pocket-dreadnought, something that can do the job but at a much cheaper price and can operate with higher strategic and tactical speed. Master Kenobi, I suggest our fighters focus on the Munificents and Recusants, while we use Venator and Acclamator guns on the rest.”

He nodded, “I agree. Ahsoka, are you sensing General Durge anywhere?”

“No, he’s either not here or he’s being hidden by Ventress once again.”

“Agreed, I’m not picking up anything either.”

“Generals, Tridents are nearing the surface.”

“Launch all gunships,” Obi-wan ordered.

The unfortunate thing about the kaminoans never having fought a civil war amongst themselves on Kamino, meant that fighting with submersible craft had just never been needed. They had some amazing underwater craft that would have pulp scifi writers back in my old life weeping with joy, but mounted nothing that could count as a weapon in a military sense.

Emerging from every hangar that could launch them, two dozen LAAT gunships streamed out of the military complex. Every air-to-surface weapon that could be mounted on them was attached and they had only a pilot and co-pilot for this mission.

The first Trident to breach the surface suffered the attention of six gunships.

Multiple concussion missiles rippled from the gunship’s dorsal launchers and turned it into a brief exploding fireball that soon rained debris back on the ocean.

The remaining Tridents launched themselves out of the ocean and used their repulsors to come in for a hard landing on the domes of the military complex.

Gunships began spamming their missiles and even their composite beam lasers, but eight Tridents managed land and bore themselves directly through the durasteel outer hulls of the massive domes.

“Gunships switch to composite lasers only and support the troops!” I ordered hurriedly. If a Trident blew up whilst their breaching lances were stabbed into domes it would be potentially disastrous. We would have to do this the hard way.

“Ahsoka, are you ready?” Obi-wan asked.

“Yes, good hunting to you,” I nodded.

He hurried out of the command center and was followed by Master Ti, who gave me a pleased nod.

I turned my attention to the battle in space. “Admiral Yularen, fighter groups three and four can take out Munificent Gamma, its starboard shields are fluctuating.”

“Yes, commander… done. Do you find it odd that we’ve had no fighter launches from the enemy?”

That was strange, between the three Lucrehulks and that Providence, they could’ve technically thrown over 4700 Vulture or Hyena droids and flooded space with the bloody things.

It was rare to see such launches though, because of logistics. A Lucrehulk only had so much fuel and ammo to give their fighters.

I watched as a Munificent was blasted apart under the combined fire of multiple ARC-170 squadrons. Three Venators reached weapons range and bracketed a Recusant with their turbolaser fire. Its shields were breached in short order and it blew up spectacularly in a flare of fire and radiation.

The battle space was finally getting defined as more ships on both sides entered weapon ranges. The slow Providence at the back was steadily cruising forward, its defined angry red sphere of maximum gun range creeping ever closer to the Republic line on the holo.

“What if… what if they don’t have Vultures or Hyenas, only Belbullabs.”

“Preposterous, why would they…” Yularen trailed off, his mind working the problem and my idea quickly. “The Lucrehulks?”

“It’d be one way to extend the range of their ships. Conserve mass and fuel that’d normally go to fighters. Combine that with tanker ships that followed this fleet and you could conceivably drive it all the way along the Trellius.”

“And explains why there are so many Recusants, they’re here for anti-fighter work.”

The decking underneath my feet shuddered as multiple gunships literally cut away a Trident from the dome with their composite laser beams. There were hundreds of B1s, B2s and droidekas already deployed into the military complex and dozens of firefights were underway.

I stepped towards the giant hologram, taking the various icons in hand,  “Let’s get to work, Admiral.”

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“All right boys, we’ve got our marching orders, follow your HUD assignments and let’s show these clankers what Kamino does to uninvited guests,” Captain Rex snarled over the command frequency.

Echo and Fives were huffing as they sprinted with the rest of Alpha squad through the red tinted corridors of the military complex and finally emerged from the main barracks building out into the platforms and walkways that criss-crossed between the different domes.

Only to find a very different world than the one they had seen earlier in the day. The storm clouds overhead were thick, occasional thunder was rumbling through the sky, rain was pelting down, but that was joined with the din of an active battlefield.

Gunships were buzzing overhead, firing the forward guns into rocket droids that were surging through the air. Droid carriers streaked overhead, still glowing hot from atmospheric entry as they dropped yet more clankers. Missiles from gunships blasted them out of the air.

The constant whine of blaster fire became apparent as the squad rushed across the walkway towards a dead Trident, that had been killed with laser fire and was lying on its side, on one of the raised platforms.

The orange blaster bolts of droids began streaking overhead as they approached an exterior staircase leading to the platform.

The squad had to cluster and go prone before they stuck their heads up over the top of the staircase, but two heavy gunners led the way, engaging their new gun shields before cresting.

Their rotary guns started spitting blue plasma fire immediately.

“Open fire! Go! Go!” the squad commander bellowed over the radio.

Under the cover of the near constant fire of the heavy gunners, Fives rushed forward, his blaster up, scanning for any targets as he advanced, the reassuring presence of Echo to his right doing the same.

He rushed right towards the nearest cover of some empty ammo crates, but the downed Trident had neatly created a chokepoint.

He heard the distant electronic moans of B1s dying, and scanned his blaster carbine beyond the chokepoint.

Enemy fire overwhelmed the gun shield of the heavy trooper, who died an instant later, when bolts penetrated through.

Fives spotted the culprit and unleashed aimed fire that felled the droid responsible, before having to duck back and avoid his own head getting blown off.

Multiple enemy grenades went off close to the chokepoint, clearing hoping to dislodge the clone defenders, but B1s threw just as poorly as they generally aimed their guns.

Echo threw a droid popper overhead and killed three clankers that were rushing the chokepoint.

Fives gritted his teeth, weighing the decision as another squad joined them.

He rushed out of cover, sprinting left and rolled, going for the cover on that side to get a better angle.

He heard the scream of another fellow trooper dying behind him, caught by enemy fire as they were ascending the staircase.

He was back on his feet, bringing up his blaster and searching for targets.

His carbine belched plasma fire as two clankers rushed onto the platform from one of the other adjoining walkways, both fell dead with electronic screams.

Blaster fire from the adjoining dome walkway tried to nail him and he ducked back behind cover, before popping back out to send blaster bolts back in answer.

The quick action and the long range meant he definitely missed. He had to duck back and reload a fresh power pack.

“We’ve got platform 2A secure, keep pushing!”

The other squad rushed their way forward, managing to kill the sniping clankers with sheer weight of fire.

Fives broke cover and Echo joined him a moment later, firing off to the side and hitting a clanker that was the last droid survivor of those that had rushed from that walkway.

They left the busted Trident behind and rushed up the next set of stairs to an auxiliary dome.

A heavy trooper was ahead, laying down a blistering field of fire to the unseen enemy on the right. Two troopers joined him, but return fire nailed him in the head and he fell dead immediately.

A droid popper went off as Fives fell into cover behind a thick water conduit, killing the B1s responsible.

Three clankers stepped into view and he fired immediately.

Three shots later he had killed one and damaged another before he had to duck from further return fire.

He and Echo popped up to lay down a barrage of covering fire as their fellow squad charged forward, firing as they went.

Blaster fire and screams behind them had him whirling around to see another squad on the left flank, fighting to stifle a clanker advance around the left side of the auxiliary dome.

Keeping low he moved into the cover of the walkway railings and with a better sightline, he unleashed his DC-15 into the clankers in short bursts.

A droideka rolled itself forward and up the adjoining walkway. He could just barely see a sliver of it and he tried his luck shooting the thing before it could unfold.

He missed and it started to fold open on the flank of the defending clone squad, but in doing so presented an easier profile to shoot.

The last two shots of his power pack slammed into the droideka, burning two neat holes through the central chassis and upper head. Its motive systems died and it fell lifeless on its side.

Fives hurried back to Echo’s side as he slapped a new power pack into his blaster.

He saw the squad, Delta, pushing the left flank with some success and gestured for Echo to follow his lead.

They broke cover and rushed along the curve of the building, blasters up and shooting at any target that presented itself from the enemy held platform.

He scored a confirmed kill on a B1 in the process as the squad pushed forward.

“We’ve lost platform 3C, retreat!”

His helmet’s HUD suddenly lit up with a movement order from command into the auxiliary building.

Both Alpha and Delta squads got the same thing, as the troopers stacked and stormed into it.

It was just as well they did, because they ran into an equivalent cluster of clankers that had clearly intended to flank and divide their advance.

Fives fired in a burst, two blasts coring a B1, whilst the third knocked its right leg clean off.

The storm of fire echoed strongly in the large room, its clean, white walls and equipment flashing with a strobing of orange and blue as both sides traded fire and the clones jockeyed for cover, whilst the clankers rather oddly also did the same.

Fives had never seen B1s fight like this… why? In all his experience blasting droids all over the galaxy in the war, they hadn’t cared about their electronic lives before like this.

The firefight seemed to just begin one moment and end the next; it was just a mess of hyper focused memory where he fired, moved, fired, moved, jumping and rolling for cover.

The large room was finally won and he found himself alongside Echo, running across the large ramp that divided what was an auxiliary lab, now thoroughly damaged from all manner of sources.

Another HUD instruction had them halting in their tracks, it ordered them to retrace their steps.

The door into the lab opened and enemy fire spilled in.

Well, that explains that, he thought.

Alpha squad breached outside first and by the time Fives was outside all the flanking clankers had already been dealt with.

The way forward was clear for the moment, so he ran up the inclined walkway to another platform that his HUD indicated they had to secure.

The platform was adjoined to another long walkway and his fellow clones were already laying blaster fire towards the door of another auxiliary building. He fell into cover on the platform railing and aimed at a fully deployed and shielded droideka that was using the opening and closing door to take potshots at the advancing clones.

Two droid poppers were thrown just before the door could close and the droideka frantically tried to move backwards but was obviously too late. It died with twin bursts of blue energy and arcing electricity.

They advanced into this building and found one of the many spare control facilities which could be used as a forward command post in a pinch. The bright white domed room was relatively unmarred with battle scars and the screens along the walls and the central command holo was offline and blacked out.

The squad had barely gotten halfway through this room when the door on the opposite end opened.

Two B1s charged in and opened fire.

Fives and Echo were in the open and had no nearby cover, they returned fire and now it was a game of target practice, where the loser died.

Multiple shots rang out in the next moment and the clankers found themselves practically perforated with plasma shots converging on them from every trooper.

They sparked and died, split apart from the force of so many shots, rendered to burning metal pieces.

No other targets were immediately evident and Alpha squad hurried to secure the exits that branched off from the room in every direction.

A command level order from the HUD directed them to the north exit.

The doors parted to lead back outside and Fives had to duck back immediately to avoid orange blaster fire coming from his left flank.

He turned left only to see a fellow trooper crumple to the deck from a full squad of advancing droids.

He fired in retaliation, but had to duck back into the room, not seeing whether he had scored a kill or not.

The rapid firing from his fellow squad members in cover on the other side of the walkway whittled down more of the enemy. He took a chance and threw a popper half-blindly, exposing as little as possible of himself. An enemy grenade going off near their position had his ears ringing and it felt like a rancor had slapped him.

He stumbled back, shaking his head to recover, having to remind himself to keep his carbine up and covering his flanks - the room was still secure.

By the time he had somewhat recovered and returned to fighting out the door, simultaneous blaster fire from two droidekas cut down three troopers right in front of him. He leaned out blasting a clanker that was trying to advance with quick shots.

Echo, who was on the other side of the walkway, rolled a popper right underneath the shields of the droidekas, which turned them both to useless scrap.

“How’s your ammo?” he yelled over squad radio.

Fives reloaded, “Down to half.”

Echo grabbed a 15A rifle from a downed trooper, along with a bandolier and tossed it across. Fives didn’t like it, but he had to admit that given the intensity of this fighting that they would sooner or later end up running dry.

A few moments later he was ready with his rifle and Echo had pulled more ammo packs and poppers from the fallen around him as well. A sergeant directed them now to advance back across the walkway to secure another platform that had fallen to the enemy. Wait- hadn’t they already secured that earlier?

The back and forth chaos of battle had Fives slightly confused and he didn’t even really recognize if the sergeant was even Alpha’s leader. Keeping rigid command at this point was pretty much pointless, given casualties, the lack of any proper lines of advance and how the enemy was coming from all directions.

They advanced forward, sprinting across the walkway, onto an empty platform and joining the advance of the mixed squads. There was even a jetpack trooper, who briefly flew himself into the air in a hop to cover more ground as they advanced into the same blasted aux control room from earlier.

An unfortunate small squad of B1s was destroyed as they rushed into the room from the northern door.

Fives had killed two of them as he had forgotten his rifle was on auto.

As nice as it was to fire that way, they had to be frugal, so he switched over to burst.

“Left flank!”

He fell behind the first cover he could find automatically, a holo server stack, and opened fire on six B2 battle droids that had advanced into the room. The room exploded into noise as every clone frantically fired on the walking tanks.

Such was the weight of fire, that by sheer odds, the blasts found the B2s weak spots. The clanker’s arms were up though and they walked their wrist autoblaster fire across the room.

Fives had to pull back to avoid getting hit as the bolts peppered his position briefly, before moving on. He popped back up and emptied his power pack on auto into a B2, causing it to spark, die and collapse heavily on the floor.

He ducked back, slapped a new power pack home and flicked open the heat sink to vent the overheat.

The mixed squad received a HUD order to push deeper into the complex, through the door the B2s had come through.

Fives took a deep breath to fortify himself and joined the advancing squads. He was gratified to note that Echo had survived the B2 assault.

The room beyond was a circular power transformer room, that like most kaminoan interiors, was full of pleasing whites, grays and blue flooring. Fives well remembered the first time he had stepped foot on a Venator; what an experience it was to get used to the ugly steel and raw industrial feel of those ships.

From a wide hallway to the side another mixed squad of troopers rushed into the room heading to the east exit door. They were led by a lieutenant who swiftly gathered everyone with a single command and hand gesture.

Just like that Fives found himself part of a mixed small platoon that advanced into the neighboring room, down a small flight of stairs.

It was a T-junction hallway, that further branched out into a much larger transformer room, with three large pillars of energy contained with shielding and transparisteel on the left, and four pillars of power conditioning equipment on the right side.

It was a good place to fight with cover, so long as they didn’t run into any rocket droids that could maybe breach the conduits.

Blaster fire heralded the arrival of the enemy on the opposite side of the room.

Six B1 clankers with a droideka.

“Open fire!”

It was a rather pointless order from the LT, as almost nineteen guns; carbines and rifles, was already firing and reduced the B1s to dead heaps of smoking metal, whilst the combined fire of the heavy gunners overwhelmed the droideka shields and blasted the clanker apart when a lucky shot hit the droid’s power pack.

With the threat dealt with, Fives turned his radio to a more general combat frequency hoping to get a bigger picture of the unfolding battle and immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Platform 39 secured.” “Retreating from junction 3T!” “Hurry—argh!” “Durge is moving through corridor U3, Jedi are engaging him… supporting fire – urghhh — no! HELP!” “A Recusant is trying to run the blockade, heading straight for the city!” “Star Destroyer Judgement on intercept…”

“Fives, head in the game,” the LT ordered.

He rather sheepishly turned his radio back to squad frequency.

The ad-hoc platoon continued forward only to get embroiled in a fierce firefight at a natural choke point in the next corridor over. It served as a large wide ramp which brought you to the next floor up. The enemy firmly held the door leading into the ramp and sent streams of orange blaster fire through the instant any trooper triggered the proximity sensor which opened it.

Both sides traded fire back and forth, including grenades.

This led to three troopers being killed for no appreciable gain in dislodging the enemy.

“Must be an enemy deployment strongpoint nearby,” Echo winced as he slapped a sealant patch on a shrapnel wound he took to his left arm, then stabbed a stim into his own shoulder below the shoulder panel of his armor.

“Need help brothers?”

Fives whirled around and taking cover behind a curved support pillar was 99! The old clone was kneeling with a blaster pistol in hand and grinning at them.

“99! How did you get here?”

“I crawled!” he shrugged and pointed behind him - where a maintenance panel in the wall was open.

Fives blinked as the hint of an idea began to form. “99, you think you can get us up to the next floor? So we can flank these clankers?”

“Easily, I know these routes better than most kaminoans, though you’d never hear them admitting that!”

He briefly considered informing the LT, but decided to take the initiative; there were more than enough troops to hold out and keep the firefight going.

99 led them to the nearby maintenance panel, which looked downright odd and broke up the usual clean lines of the white curvy walls. The old clone easily ducked into the narrow space and Fives found it rather difficult to manage the same with the long rifle. It forced him to dump the weapon and switch back to using his carbine.

The maintenance crawlspace and corridors 99 led them through was rather dark and lit sparsely with minimal red lighting, giving everything a very ominous feeling. The sounds of battle reverberated but was also muted as they were surrounded by durasteel, conduit and cabling.

He didn’t know how 99 could possibly keep a straight head or direction in the place. They climbed ladders, squeezed through narrow gaps shoulder first, crawled through narrow spaces where they even had to remove their helmets temporarily to fit through.

They finally came to a stop in a narrow walkway that had to be running through a wall, with a grill panel in front of their faces.

“When I touch this,” 99 pointed to a small control panel, “the panel in front of us will open. The clankers will be on your left. Make your shots count.”

Fives hefted his carbine in a hand and readied two poppers in his left hand, Echo had picked up an explosive grenade at some point and readied himself.

99 nodded and tapped the controls.

They burst out of the maintenance panel and into the corridor. Just as 99 had promised, they were flanking the concentration of clankers and could open fire down the ramp right on them - they held an actual high ground.

Fives armed both his droid poppers and hurled them forward with an underarm throw, Echo waited a second before throwing his grenade.

A dual flash of energy ended up catching five clankers in their effect before the grenade went off and sent three flying into the walls to smash themselves into pieces.

“Eat this, clankers!”

Fives and Echo unleashed their carbines on full auto down into the survivors.

By the time their power packs were empty, not a single clanker remained to hold the ramp choke point.

The LT and the survivors of the platoon wasted no time in taking advantage and rushed up the ramp.

“Nicely done, you two… and you 99,” the LT gave a quick salute to the tech, who had also emerged from the wall. “Some heads up would be nice next time, but procedure be damned, this is our home. Now fall in, we’ve got a dozen levels to secure.”

“Yes, sir.” Fives reflexively saluted, even as he marveled how cavalier he had been. Echo, on the other hand, was amazed at how far he had come from the by-the-regs clone that had left Kamino for his first assignment. That Echo would’ve balked at even the notion of what they had done.

“Good luck, boys, I have other brothers that need help,” 99 gave them a salute and vanished into the maintenance hatch.

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I stepped away from the hovering holo of the military complex and turned to the clone techs.

“We’ve mostly secured all exterior platforms, commander. Multiple enemy Tridents have been successfully cut away from the domes,” reported the tech.

“Continue relaying movement orders, I need to step outside for a moment.” The techs nodded as I approached the exit to the command center.

“Commander?” Rex asked quickly.

“We’re about to have uninvited guests.” The clone captain hurried to the prime minister and escorted the kaminoan to the side where the best cover could be found.

Both my green lightsabers clipped off my belt, hovered and ignited at my side, whilst I brought the Darksaber to bear.

The main armored blast doors to the command center irised open and I rushed out in a blur of speed.

Naturally, the Seppies had sent the strongest concentration of droids they could quickly muster to take on the Republic command center of the entire battle.

Twenty B2 battle droids in a corridor was not anyone’s idea of a good time.

The front rank already had their arms in firing position and opened fire on me.

I only dodged left to buy a few crucial seconds, whilst my sabers deflected the blasts directly back to the front B2s center of mass. Their armor was strong enough to take that, but I managed a hit directly into the small vision cluster.

My will reached out and I TK’d the dead B2 towards me, using its bulk as cover.

I next sent my sabers spinning forward, taking some inspiration from the late General Grievous, spinning them as a lightsaber disc saw in front of me and steadily walking forward.

By the time I had fileted twelve of the B2s in this manner with no change in tactics from them, the B2 I was using as cover was looking like smoking metallic Swiss cheese.

I sent it shooting forward with TK, the mass and momentum proving enough to bowl over the next row of B2s. With a burst of speed, I was among them, slashing left, right, rolling under their guard, dodging their attempts to stomp on me.

The last B2 I lifted in the air with TK, slashed its gun arm off before pushing in on it with the Force from all sides.

It crumpled in on itself as if it was in an invisible trash compactor.

For a brief few moments, I stood there, waiting for more but was only greeted by the distant sounds of battle.

“Ahsoka,” Anakin’s thoughts hit me. “Ventress is in the DNA repository.”

I turned around and began walking back to the command center, “This entire battle is in her style of misdirection - the only difference being its bigger scale. Makes me think our intercept of her communication with Durge was staged entirely. Durge is psychotic and bloodthirsty, but not stupid. Do give Ventress a good thrashing, master, then send her on her way.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just…”

“Yes master, a defeated but living Ventress will do more damage to the true foe we face. Remember the nature of the Sith.”

The doors to the command center opened and I felt the utter relief from everyone inside.

“Come, there’s still a battle to win.”

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A/N: Battle of Kamino Part 1. Writing this chaotic battle from a trooper perspective was a nice challenge and fun, have a good weekend.