[indent][indent][color=lightgray]“Glad to hear your voice Reath…” Chauri stated with a sigh of relief before shaking her head. “but that’s going negative on my departure. My people are alive but incapacitated and I will not just leave them for the Separatist. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can, but hopefully you and the welcoming party will get here before things get too rough.” Placing Scratch’s helmet back on the ground, Chauri’s hackles rose as she heard the distinctive shriek of a Haor Chall Engineering Ion Engine as a droid starfighter made a flyby overhead. Chauri knew that the autonomous software piloting the Separatist craft would have already pinged the location of the crash and soon enough an extermination crew would be on top of her and her team to mop up any survivors. She only had a small window to prepare and she intended to make the most out of it. She placed her outstretched palm on Scratch’s face. The Clone got the nickname after a Geonosian had nearly clawed out his eye during the rescue of Masters Skywalker and Kenobi, the Genosian had evidently missed his mark and left a deep and unpleasant looking gouge across the left side of his face. Clone humor always had an unmistakable element of morbidity to it. Chauri could not blame them, she would probably have some odd feelings about death if she was born to kill and be killed. Chauri took a deep breath and pulled on the energy surrounding and inside of her. The Force was strong here there was no denying that and pulling on its power was easier than usual. The young Jedi wonder if it something was engrained into Ossus itself or if the sheer history of force users that had inhabited the place had changed it somehow. Either way, Chauri was not going to complain as the extra jolt to her system was doing wonders to clear her mind from the concussion that she probably had as she fixated and harnessed that energy and directed it into Scratch. Chauri had always been a better healer than she was a fighter. Even before going to the Temple, Zulo’s pleasure palace was a rough place and Gren was always getting into fights and she had to figure out quick how to patch him up. Healing through the force was certainly a different experience than using some tape and a shirt sleeve as makeshift gauze. It was at the same time less extensive than actual medical work, but somehow more stressful because there was always that temptation to push yourself, to pull on more than you could handle, to step towards the dark. Thankfully at the current moment, Scratch’s injuries were nowhere severe enough to warrant any such temptations and a quick pulse of force energy was more than enough to awake him. He let out a groan as his eyes flickered open. “Are we dead Ma’am?” “We won’t be throwing your retirement party just yet Soldier.” Chauri explained with a grin as she offered Scratch his helmet. He nodded appreciatively and pulled it back over his head, a reassuring click sounding off as the magnetic seals on the helmet activated. Scratch pushed himself to his feet having to crutch in the lopsided space of the downed LATT. “What’s the situation Ma’am?” “Commander Reath and her team are on the way. Unluckily for us, we also have some clankers inbound as well.” “Good thing the Kaminoans didn’t make us for easy days Ma’am. What do I need to do?” “I’m going to try and wake up the rest of the team.” Chauri stated gesturing to the rest of their still unconscious comrades. “You have any bright ideas to shore up our defense while I do that, I’d love to here them.” Scratch placed a gloved hand underneath the chin of his helmet as he thought for a moment. “Torque was bringing the extra droid popper,” Scratch explained already moving towards his squamate’s body and carefully removing the satchel at his side. He opened the satchel up and showed it to Chauri who could just make out the shapes of several spherical objects in the red emergency lighting. “I could set them to proximity mode and lay them out around the wreck. Give us some sort of warning system.” Chauri nodded appreciatively. “Sounds like a plan. Just be careful out their soldier. I need all of you in fighting shape if we are going to make it through this.” --- By the time Scratch had returned from perimeter setup, he could see that the rest of his team was up and moving. Torque was standing near the entrance of the crashed LATT pointing his Z-6 rotary blaster cannon out into the tree line. The monstrosity of a machine gun might as well of been a fifth limb for Torque consider how often he carried it around, the joke back at the Company was that he even broke into the armory so that he could cuddle with it. Next to Torque scanning the tree line with his binoculars was Niner - the team’s communications officer. For somebody, whose job it was to communicate, Niner was not the talkative type, he was always just starring out into space somewhere with those binoculars. It didn’t bother Scratch much, Niner was a good soldier and the one that had gotten the ugly bugface on Genosis off of him before it could take his eye. So there was a sort of shared experience there between himself, Niner and Twoshoes, being the only survivors from that original team, the others had all come in overtime as their other brothers had fallen in the line of duty. Torque gave a wave as Scratch jogged over. “What’s our status Torque?” Scratch asked as he approached. “Better than expected all things considering LT. I have two broken ribs but at least we have bacta to take down the swelling eh?” “How about the rest of the team?” “The pilots are KIA and it looks like Twoshoes blew something in his knee. Commander Rol and Bunks are trying to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself more as we speak.” “Just a regular workday…” Scratch replied with a sigh. He had hoped that after Commader Rol had woken up that others that they could of followed Commander Reath’s instructions and evac to a better position, but a banged up leg complicated matters. The droids were bound to catch them if they were moving at a limp and it might be better to just hunker down where they were. At least the wreck provided good enough cover. “Niner, how long until the Clankers make contact?” “Any moment, I suggest that you get the others ready.” Niner stated in a matter-of-fact whisper. “10-4.” Scratch moved past his two squad mates and entered back into the wreck. Coming out of the cockpit door to his left was Twinkle carrying in his hands the dog tags of the dead pilots. “…figured we should grab these. So that we can add them to the records.” Twinkle explained looking down at the floor. His armor still twinkled with the assembly line sheen of a fresh out of the tank recruit. The war had been going on for so long and the casualties had been so high that command did not have any clones with actual experience left. Instead they put the new guys through a gauntlet of sadistically programmed simulators back on Kamino to at least ensure a level of standard competence. Comptenece though never could replace experience, at least that was what Scratch had learned. His old drill sergeant told him that War was about “using what you had”, so that’s what they did new guys included. Scratch clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly and nodded his head. “Good call rookie, Niner says that we have company inbound shortly so get out there and follow whatever instructions Torque gives you.” Twinkle nodded and made his way for the exist just as a grunt of pain echoed through the small space from the other side of the cabin. The grunt caused Scratch to shake his head as he moved through the crumpled space to the other side crouching down to pass through the middle section that had caved in when the LATT met the earth. On the other side of the collapse was Commander Rol and Bunks both crouched over Twoshoes who was sitting propped against the far wall. “Sir, I have to insist that you don’t move again, or you’ll just aggregate the wound more.” Bunks responded in the dry tone that he answered everything in. Everything seemed to bore the team’s medical officer, everything except the possibility of going to sleep. “So, I’m just supposed to sit here and wait for the Clankers to shot me then?” asked Twoshoes with clear frustration. Scratch sympathized with his captain. Even in basic training he was always assertive, always leading from the front, it made him a natural fit to run the squad. His injury was preventing him from doing all of that. Someone had removed to metallic knee pad on Twoshoes left knee and the thermal skintight synthetic fabric beneath did no favors for Twoshoes showing just how bad the swelling had already become. Commander Rol shook her head and placed a hand affirmatively on Twoshoes’ good leg. “You’re not much good to any of us Captain if Bunks has to amputate. So stay put and don’t make me have to say that as an order.” Twoshoes hung his head solemnly and nodded. “Understood Ma’am” Scratch was continually surprised with Commander Rol. He knew that she was not trained to strictly be a warrior like some of the Jedi. Yet despite that, she was able to channel authority through her as well as any of the hardest drill sergeants back on Kamino. It was a skill that not many had, fighting was one thing, but being able to command even born leaders like Twoshoes was something else. The Jedi must of heard Scratch approach and turned hear head to face him. “Mission accomplished Scratch?” “The poppers are all set.” “Great,” Chauri responded with a smile “now we wait.” --- The droids punctual as always came roughly three minutes later. A drop popper sounding off from somewhere deeper in the jungle right ahead of where Chauri’s clones had set up their defense perimeter around the LATT entrance. Twinkle had been positioned inside the craft next to Twoshoes who they had propped up opposite the door with his blaster so if worst came to worst, he could go down fighting. The recruit took a deep breath as he could hear the barrels on Torque’s Z-6 begin to spin. The simulations had done a lot for him, but they couldn’t’ replace the real thing and unlike the others, Twinkle had only been in a handful of live-fire combat scenarios and nothing ever like this. “Ease up recruit,” assured Twoshoes as he braced the butt of his rifle against the wall. “those clankers won’t know what hit them.” One…two…three more pops fired off in the woods as the enemy force approached. And then the first beige form of a battle droid broke the tree line. --- [h3][b]“Fire!”[/b][/h3] The hair on the back of Chauri’s neck rose reflexively as Scratch bellowed the order to the Squad. Almost immediately, Torque pulled the trigger on his pre-revved machine gun and sent a wave of bright blue blaster fire into the tree line. Scratch and Bunks popped up from their own foxholes to begin shooting down range as well. And somewhere above resting atop the roof of the wreck was Niner was his rifle configured into a long-range configuration to pick up those that he could. Swallowing the knot of fear clogging her throat, Chauri rose from her own position and rushed forward igniting her lightsaber. The twin blades igniting with a fierce green flash as snapped into existence. The battle droids were laying down their own fire in response. It come in precise and inhumanly coordinate volleys of death that seemed to leave no breathing room for response. A trained guardian like Natt might have weaved through the spaces like water flooding through the cracks, but Chauri completely out of her element managed as best as she could. With sweeping strokes, the young Cathar twirled her double-bladed saber like a baton smacking away angry bolts of blaster fire that strayed too close. Using her lightsaber like a mop to clean her path forward to the nearest droids that managed to break through the tree line. As she approached her first target, Chauri used the momentum from his latest forward parry with the right to pull her left side upward and cleanly bisect a battle droid. Sparks and oil spurted outwards as the collapsed wreck of metal and electronics crumpled to the ground. It’s cohort moved in from the rear swinging its rifle at her as an impromptu bludgeon, but a clean shot from Niner left a smoking hole through its head and it sputtered to the ground. The Jedi had little time to celebrate as she heard the characteristic noise of a wrist-rocket being fired from the woods. She turned just in time to see the fast-moving shape strike across the air and slam into the wreck of LATT sending the clones scrambling for cover Another angry roar of a rocket igniting filled the silence before she could think. This time though the rocket was directed at her. Running on pure instinct, Chauri threw one hand outward with an open palm and sent out a blast of directed energy. The resulting force push collided with the rock causing it to strike the jungle floor a few feet ahead of her rather than making impact. The resulting impact was still enough to blow Chauri off her feet as her ears began to ring harshly. As she collided with the ground, she could taste blood in her mouth. Looking up from her prone position, Chauri could she the unmistakable shape of a B2 super battle droid breaching the tree line. It swung its hand down towards the young Jedi, but before either of them could react a stream of blue blaster fire slammed into its body as Torque unloaded a full blast from the Z-6 directly into it. Chauri felt a hand on her shoulder pull her to her feet and she saw Scratch looking back at her. “Snap out of it commander!” he shouted as he lead her stumbling back into safety. As she collected her breath and Bunks quickly checked her vitals, Chauri hoped that Naat would get there soon. But until then... the only thing she could do was make every inch as hard as possible for the droids.[/color][/indent][/indent]