116 Chapter 105
"Hold the line! Don't let them break through!" Spanners heard the lieutenant yell as he strode along the top of the trench, seemingly unconcerned by the blaster bolts flying through the air around him.
Spanners fired non-stop towards the approaching droids, cutting down groups of the separatist troops at a time.
His brothers all along the trench were fighting just as hard but it seemed like the separatists had an endless supply of droids to replace the ones they destroyed, and they were steadily advancing closer and closer to the republic trench.
The explosions that had collapsed part of the canyon's walls had not only destroyed a large part of the separatist army, but the mass of earth and rocks had also created an obstacle that had slowed the droids advance, but not stopped it.
A rocket arced upwards from one of the super battle droids before it began to race down towards Spanners' position.
"Incoming!" Somone nearby shouted and Spanners barely had time to throw himself backwards before the missile struck the top of the trench next to him and his world was consumed by fire.
-
Spoon swore silently behind his helmet as he saw a rocket slam into the trench nearby, the force of the explosion collapsing the trench and probably burring anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in it.
He spared a half second to watch some a group of clones begin to pull their wounded brothers away the collapsed trench and start to try and dig someone out of the pile of earth, before he strode forward to deal with the threat.
Spoon had recovered his Westar m-5 after giving the clone sniper back his DC-15x and now he raised it to his shoulder before firing a burst towards the super battle droid that had fired the rocket.
The droid was surrounded by more super battle droids and soon they had all turned their attention towards Spoon and began firing back towards him.
Spoon ignored the blaster bolts flying past his head and calmly loaded a grenade into his blaster rifles underslung launcher. He fired and the grenade sailed through the air to detonate among the droids.
With the super battle droids no longer posing a danger to the rest of the clones Spoon pivoted and fired a burst towards a group of officers trying to organise the advancing droids.
"Any word on reinforcements, sir!" The ARF sergeant, Shadow, shouted as he dragged a wounded clone away from the edge of the trench to the medics before taking up the injured man's position.
Spoon could see two of the other ARF troopers, Viper and Clean, lying prone on a rocky outcropping taking steady well aimed shots at separatist officers as they worked together as a sniper and spotter team, but he couldn't see the final member of the four-man team that he had led to this planet days ago.
"They're on their way, we just need to hold out a little longer." Spoon responded but wasn't sure if he was trying to convince the sergeant or himself of that.
He had recently gotten back in contact with the republic to try and find out if they had any updates on the reinforcements, he had requested but he had just received a load of half-hearted excuses from a board sounding comms operator and a vague promise that they would try and direct a ship to support them if one became available.
Spoon grimaced as he reduced another group of droids to piles of scrap metal. It was clear that they couldn't hold out forever and unless they help came soon, they would be overrun.
The medics were already working overtime to try and keep the injured alive, but they weren't miracle workers, and the dead were already piling up.
-
"HEY! Wake up! I got stuff to do and you're holding me up brother!" The shout sounded distant and muffled to Spanners, there was a ringing in his ears but soon things began to come back into focus.
Unfortunately, the clarity that consciousness brought also brought a lot of pain and Spanners tentatively moved a hand down to his side and winced as he saw the blood streaming from his armour.
"Stop that!" a hand roughly slapped Spanners' hand away from the wound, and he looked up at the mirrored visor of one of his brothers.
"You've still got shrapnel in your side, and it don't want you fuckin it up worse than it already is," The clone growled in annoyance and Spanners' eyes drifted down to the red emblem of the republic army medical corps on the man's shoulder.
"Chalky?" He asked and his voice sounded strange. He blinked a few times, trying to focus again, and noticed his squad mate pause for a moment.
"How's your head there brother, you got your bell rung by that explosion, give me a second to sort the bleeding out and I'm going to check you for a concussion." Chalky muttered as he resumed checking on Spanners' injuries.
"Nah, just patch me up and let me get back in the fight," Spanners waved of the medic's concern as apart from a throbbing headache his head had begun to clear.
Chalky stared silently at Spanners for a moment before grunting slightly in a way that could have been approval or disapproval.
"Okay, I can get fix you up but there is a bit of a problem," The medic said as he looked up from the wound in Spanners side.
"I need to cauterise the wound after I pull the shrapnel out but I'm running low on medical supplies," Chalky continued before pulling out a flare, "This is going to hurt… a lot… I can give you some pin killers, but…" Chalky trailed off as Spanners shook his head.
"No, my brains foggy enough as it is," He said before gritting his teeth, "Just do it."
Spanners grimaced as the medic pulled the shrapnel out of his side and then stifled a scream as he pressed the burning flare to the wound.
The pain was excruciating, and Spanners was glad that his helmet's filtration systems were still working to block the smell of burnt flesh from reaching his nose.
After a few moments the pain began to fade, and Spanners felt hesitantly at the wound only for Chalky to slap his hand away again.
"Leave it alone," The medic muttered before handing Spanners back his rifle, "You're good to go now though, enjoy yourself."
Chalky rose to his feet and stalked off to attend to the next wounded clone and Spanners took a deep breath before rising himself and making his way back to the front lines.
-
"Ummm, Captain?" Lena uncertainly tried to get the attention of the republic naval officer in front of her.
"Yes general," The officer snapped to attention as he turned from surveying the command deck of the republic cruiser Lena had been placed in command of to face her.
Lena Trava was still getting used to being called general and had to force herself not to cringe at the sound of it.
She never wanted to be in the military, and if she really thought about it, she had never wanted to be a jedi either, but she hadn't been given much of a choice about either of them.
Lena knew that she had been born on the lower levels of the Coruscant undercity, but she couldn't remember anything from before the jedi had taken her to be raised in the jedi temple.
No-one had bothered to tell her if the jedi order had picked her up of the street or if they had taken her from the arms of a loving family, but she knew for certain that no-one had asked her opinion about if she wanted to be a jedi or not and no-one had asked her if she had wanted to become a general in the republics mysterious new army.
So far, she had hated being a general, though not because she was scared of being killed in the war that the jedi had started with the separatists.
She hated it because she was scared that she was going to mess up and get the hundreds of soldiers that were now under her command killed.
Lena had never been the strongest, the smartest, or the wisest jedi during her training and even when it came to healing, which was probably her strongest skill set, she was overshadowed by padawans barely ten years old.
But by some miracle Lena had managed to become a jedi knight just in time for the republic to go to war and give her command of a light cruiser and its crew.
She didn't know anything about commanding a ship or leading men in combat, she didn't even understand why she had been given command of a ship in the republic navy when she was supposed to be a general in the republic army.
And the clone troopers and clone officers who she now commanded were so competent and skilled that she always felt uncomfortable and inferior when giving them orders.
"Has there been any other updates on the distress call we intercepted?" She asked and tried to read the man's stone-faced expression for any signs that he thought she was an idiot.
"No ma'am, not since their last transmission to republic naval headquarters." The captain, a clone named Flowers said still standing to attention.
This time Lena couldn't help but frown, they had picked up the requests for assistance from a group of clones that were in danger of being completely wiped out by separatist forces quite a while ago and relayed them to the admirals running the fleet hoping that they would send support but so far nothing had happened.
"What about our request to divert from our mission to assist the clones on Tula?" She asked and the captain shook his head regretfully.
Lena and her crew had been ordered by the senate to transport a large number of crates containing art and valuables from an outer rim planet that was in danger of being invaded by the separatists to Coruscant where it could be protected.
She didn't know why a warship was required to transport the valuables, that the cynical part of her wondered if they would be used to decorate the senate chambers, but it had put her ship in close proximity to the conflict on Tula.
But try as she might she hadn't been able to convince the jedi high council or republic navy command to let them divert to Tula.
Apparently, her current mission was a higher priority than the mission to retrieve the dying clones and a second ship was going to be deployed to rescue them, but so far that didn't seem to be happening and Lena knew that every minute that the republic delayed more clones would be dying needlessly.
Lena looked around the command bridge of the cruiser and realised that ever one was looking at her. Their identical faces were covered in masks of professionalism, but she could tell that the clones under her command were worried about their dying brothers.
She chewed the inside of her lip as she replayed the orders she had gotten, orders that told her to ignore any diversions and return to Coruscant at the best possible speed.
'Screw it' Lena grumbled in the privacy of her own head, she never asked to be bossed around by the jedi or the republic.
"Captain plot a course to Tula, lets go rescue some soldiers," Lena tried to project as much confidence as she could into her voice as she issued the orders to Captain Flowers.
"Understood general, will we be informing command of this course change?" Flowers said the hint of a grin beginning to form on his face.
"…Errr… do we have to?" Lena said suddenly uncertain again and captain Flowers glanced over at the clone manning the long-range comms station.
The clone officer saw the look the captain gave him and after examining his console for a moment he let out a theatrical gasp.
"Sir! Long range comms just went down!" the clone shouted and from the way he reported it Lena actually half believed him.
"How long till you can get them back up?" the captain asked calmly and the comm officer shrugged.
"I'd have to go check the comms array… could take a while…" The officer said as he made no attempt to leave his chair to go and check anything.
"Oh… that's a shame isn't it… does this mean we can't contact Coruscant" Lena said and the clones on the bridge nodded solemnly.
"Indeed ma'am, it is an unfortunate outcome," the captain said before he walked over to issue orders to the helm and navigation officers.
Lena steeled her resolve as her ship made the jump to lightspeed and the stars extended to from pinpricks to straight lines.
She tried to mentally prepare herself for the coming battle and prayed silently that she wouldn't mess up and put anyone in danger.
