The Last Day: Afternoon

“Blast!” Adaavia cursed as she opened the bag she was carrying with two hands and loaded the holocrons into it with the other two. With her prizes secured, she hit her comlink again. “Shutdown, what happened?”

“Checking…” Shutdown’s voice came through the speaker almost as an afterthought; the Jedi pictured his hands flying across the interface almost faster than she could watch them, trying to find some obscure bit of data in the deepest part of the database. “There was an electrical circuit running through that door tied into the alarm system. You set it off when you opened it.”

“I thought there was something I was missing, how’s your download going?”

“I am at...eighty two percent, General.”

“Good, finish up and leave a gift for our gracious hosts,”Adaavia replied. She heard the sound of droids running towards her. She drew herself into a defensive stance, grabbing all four lightsabers from her belt and igniting them as two squads approached her from the various halls surrounding her.

“You there, halt,” one of the battle droids demanded.

“It’s a Jedi; blast her!” Another droid stated as it saw the lightsabers and started to panic. Both squads opened fire on the target in between them.

******Transmitter room, as the alarm started to sound******

Haywire had just disabled the external transmitter when the alarm klaxons started to sound. He sighed, shaking his head. “That was either Otto or the General,” he muttered to himself as he grabbed a couple of grenades out of his belt-pouches and placed them on critical junctions in the wiring in the room. He set all of them to go off, then ran for the door. He slammed the panel to open the door and made a break for it.

In the corridor, he jumped a little when he saw four battle droids moving through the hallway. Thinking quickly, he pulled his blaster pistols and shot at them, knocking two out with the first shots as he started running again. When the other two droids started chasing him, they’d only gotten a few feet before the explosives in the transmitter room went off, destroying both them and the equipment in there and leaving scorch marks on the opposite wall.
Haywire brought up his comlink. “On my way to you now, Boomer. The transmitter is down.”

******Droid Storage room, shortly after the alarm sounded******

Otto had just finished setting everything up and getting his rotary blaster ready to go when the alarm sounded. “First time I haven’t set off the alarm in a base in about six months,” he said with a small smile as he watched the droids start to activate. By the time the basic battle droids were fully activated and had drawn their blasters, the clone trooper was back in the hallway spinning up his gun.

By the time the droids in the front acknowledged that there was an intruder in their base, they were already getting cut down by the stream of bolts from his gun. As the front three rows of droids went down, the racks for the super battle droids were lowered into position. Otto saw the mechanical limbs on the droids twitch as power flowed into them. Once they were fully powered, up the racks released them and they dropped to the floor.

Otto smiled and dove out of the doorway as charges went off from the vibrations as three dozen very heavy droids landed; the combined explosion from all of the smaller charges threw a fireball lots of shrapnel from the destroyed droids out into the hallway where the heavy gunner had been standing just a few seconds prior.

******Outside the holocron storage room******

Adaavia dove to the floor as the battle droids opened fire. The initial volley took out five droids on each side. Once they stopped firing and started to advance on her, she jumped back to her feet and reached out with the Force, lifting two droids off the ground on each side. Bringing all four arms together, she smashed the droids together in the center of the hallway, leaving a sizeable pile of spare parts. Once they crumbled, the Jedi Knight launched to her left, back the way she’d come, to cut a hole through the squad on that side.

“She’s coming this way! Stop her!” One of the droids exclaimed as it figured out what she was doing. Soon both squads were firing at her again as she ducked, dodged, weaved, and jumped over the blaster fire in the corridor. The lithe young woman moved at inhumanly fast speed and reached the squad far sooner than they expected her to. She lashed out with her lightsabers and managed to cut all but one of the still active droids on that side into two parts.
Once she was in the clear, she turned around just long enough to push the remaining droid back down the hallway into what was left of the other squad to slow them down as well. She caught a glimpse of the active droids getting tripped up over the remnants of her fallen enemies, then started running down the hallway, throwing in a burst of speed from the Force to get back to the hangar more quickly.


******Reactor Room, 3 minutes after the alarm went off******

Boomer finished off the last droid that had come in, then headed for one of the main consoles that controlled the energy flow for the base when he heard something else running down the hallway. He took up position behind the nearest console and aimed his blaster at the door. He paused when he saw someone in clone trooper armor come in. “Halt, identify yourself!” he called out.

“It’s me, Haywire,” The trooper in the doorway answered.

“Prove it. Tell me something a clanker wouldn’t know,” Boomer demanded.

“I hope your wiring on this job is better than it was on that ship we were supposed to disable last month. You remember, the one that blew up and it took us two weeks to find the entire squad?”

“Alright, you’re Haywire; come on in.” Boomer relaxed and moved back to where he’d been working before.

“I’m still mad at you about that one, you know,” Haywire growled as he walked into the room and started looking around for the console he needed to work on.

“We all survived; what are you worried about?” Boomer sounded a little confused at his squadmate’s anger over their last mission.

“I almost got maimed twice on that world, the General was almost eaten three times, and we all had to dodge falling ship pieces for the first two days. What am I worried about?”

Boomer looked up from the console he was tinkering with. “There were parts of the ship falling out of orbit?”

Haywire hung his head in disbelief. “Just make sure this blows when we want it to.”

“I think I just found the flow regulator for the reactor. Don’t worry about it; I know what I’m doing.” Boomer replied as he started to remove a few components.

******Base control room, 5 minutes later******

“What is the status on the internal sensors?” The Tactical Droid walked over to one of the stations in the room where another two droids were trying to make sense of the data stream coming in.

“The internal sensors seem to register five life signs; they are moving through the facility causing extensive damage.” The Battle Droid replied as it took in the data the computers were spitting out through the numerous alert screens.

“Send out damage control teams to repair the sensors,” The droid commander ordered just as the door opened. “Halt! You are now a prisoner of the Separatist Alliance,” the droid leader said, trying to threaten the clone trooper in the doorway.

Otto smiled beneath his helmet. “Come and get me clanker!” Before any of them could respond, his gun spun up and started spitting out blue bolts of energy, blasting terminals and battle droids alike. After a good thirty seconds, he let go of the trigger and let the weapon stop so it could cool down. He stowed the weapon, then pulled out a blaster pistol, checking the power pack to make sure it was fully charged before he advanced into the room.

As he slowly advanced into the room, he ducked down behind a console as he heard much heavier than usual footsteps clanking towards him. Peeking out, he saw an advanced battle droid walking through the area, its processor straining to figure out what happened. The droid worked its way around the room and Otto crept up behind it, very quietly picking up two droid blaster rifles.

The droid made a full circuit of the room and was about to head back out the door when the clone trooper popped up suddenly. The droid raised its arms to fire, but Otto started blasting the shoulders of the droid, smiling under his helmet when the left arm fell off; the right arm wasn’t even halfway up before it stopped moving. The droid lurched forward again in a possible attempt to try to trample him, but the clone opened fire with both of his purloined weapons into the main torso of the battle droid. A few seconds of the barrage and the droid’s armor cracked, letting the energy bolts find the delicate internal systems, causing the droid to fall backwards to the ground and stop moving.

“These things are still junk,” Otto muttered to himself as he tossed the overheated weapons away and made his way out of the command center to rejoin the rest of the team.

******10 minutes later, storage room 2******

Shutdown finished packing up his equipment; he’d successfully downloaded the base’s records for analysis. He’d deployed his droid turrets in the hallway— just in case— and was about to start moving his data storage unit back to the ship when he heard footsteps charging down the hallway. When the turrets didn’t deploy, he stuck his head out and saw Haywire and Boomer running up to his position. “How does the reactor look?”

Haywire answered as they ducked into the storage room. “Real bad; like it could go critical and explode at any time.”

“So… why were you two running?”

Boomer looked over his shoulder as the turrets started to activate. “We brought some friends along to test your new toys on.”

The clones watched as the turrets extended to an upright position and calibrated themselves. The shield generators activated and the turrets started firing on the ranks of droids marching down the hallway. All four units deployed different armament: a single blaster, a paired gun emplacement, a grenade launcher, and a rotary cannon. The sheer volume of droids meant that all the turrets were having some success, although the dual-gun turret seemed to have the most direct-fire accuracy. As the rotary cannon spun up to its maximum rate of fire, sweeping the ranks of droids, it quickly became apparent that its withering fire was even more devastating than usual.

“You boosted the power output on that one didn’t you?” Haywire asked.

“I boosted the power feed by 10 percent, and strengthened each barrel accordingly,” Shutdown agreed. A nearby explosion snapped them all back into the hallway. The battle droids were thinning out, letting the advanced battle droids take a shot at the defenses. A droid armed with a grenade launcher adjusted its aim slightly and fired again; this time the shot landed between the single weapon and dual weapon turrets, knocking out both shields and causing them to overheat. The turrets shut down shortly before the droids destroyed them.

“Blast, back to the drawing board,” Shutdown cursed. The clones moved back into the storage room. Another grenade hit the munitions turret, shorting out its shield and detonating the remaining grenades in the magazine, taking out the last turret in the process. “If we survive this…” He added. The only sound remaining was the clanking of too many droids approaching their position.

As the droids advanced, the rear of their column of reinforcements was suddenly confronted by a new pair of problems. Otto moved in and started firing his rotary blaster into the ranks on the right side of the hall while Adaavia assaulted the left side with all four lightsabers. Between the hail of fire on the one side of the hallway and the flurry of multicolored lightsaber blades, the reinforcements quickly dwindled down to a manageable number.

Responding to the flanking maneuver, the droids pivoted and began to return fire. Otto and Adaavia took cover behind the blast door frames in the hallway. Adaavia checked to see that Otto was safe, then flipped over one of her lightsabers and hit a button on the handle. “You boys miss us?”

“You have no idea General,” Haywire’s voice squawked through the comm, “Shutdown’s turrets have all been taken out and we’re pinned down at our starting point.”

“Three of them were working well this time too, General,” Shutdown interjected, “I just need a little more time with the last one…”
Adaavia cut him off.

“You’ll have time for that on the way back to the base. Boomer, get ready to blow up the base; Haywire will help Shutdown get the data back to the ship and Otto will run with me until we’re in the hangar bay, where he will provide fire support with help from me. Got it?”

The clones all signaled their acknowledgements and Adaavia smiled.
“Alright boys, on three.”
She took a moment to reach out with the force and jumped back into the line of fire, spreading her arms out wide. In one quick motion she brought both pairs of arms together; the slapping of her palms was drowned out by the sounds of the remaining ranks of droids getting shoved into a single pile of scrap. Adaavia then pushed her arms out and away from her body, separating the pile down the center and shoving both halves off to the sides of the hallway, forming a nice wide corridor.
“Three!” She shouted and Otto took off, charging towards the hangar. Up ahead, Adaavia saw the other clones running down the hallway as well. Once they were all running, she hustled after them, speeding up as she heard Destroyer Droids starting to come up behind them. She advised her teammates of the situation and urged them along: “Move!”

They entered the hangar bay and kept sprinted towards the ship, with the Jedi and the clone with the rotary cannon taking up defensive positions. Otto spun up his gun and got ready to lay down cover fire. Adaavia looked towards the door and saw a panel she’d missed earlier.

“Otto, cover me too. I just found what we need,” Adaavia said as she rose and ran to a console by the door. Otto fired down the hallway again and the Destroyers returned fire.
Adaavia smashed a large red button and breathed a sigh of relief as the blast doors slammed down, separating the Droidekas from their escape. With the doors closed, she ignited her lightsabers and stabbed the console, destroying it.
“That’s better,” she said, “Otto and I are coming aboard. Finish warming up the ship and we’ll blow up the base.”

*****5 minutes later******

The ship made it into space well ahead of the blast shockwave the power core and several tons of munitions blew up. Once they were far enough away from the planet, they jumped into hyperspace, headed to the Republic’s sector base. Adaavia turned from the pilot station to address the troopers in the cockpit with her. “Good job on getting rid of that base,” she said, “I’m sure the Republic can really use the information we got to disrupt Separatist activity throughout this region of space.”

The clones smiled. “Thank you, General,” Haywire responded, “Shutdown and I will start working on the data we retrieved to find anything particularly useful.”

Adaavia nodded and raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to put our intelligence service out of business. You know that, right?”

Everyone chuckled and Otto stood up. “Time for the post mission weapon maintenance; do you want me to send Shutdown up here to take over for you?”

Adaavia shook her head. “No; I’ll mind the controls for a while myself. You boys should relax a little before we get back to base. I don’t know how soon we’ll be heading out again after we report in.”

“Don’t worry about us General,” Boomer said as the other clones exited, “we’ll be okay.” Adaavia patted the clone’s forearm, smiling faintly, and the clone walked out of the cockpit as well.

Once all of the clones were gathered in the main body of the ship, Shutdown motioned for them to follow him to a rear cabin. They assembled around holoprojector and Shutdown turned it on. “We’re all here my lord,” he said.

The image of Chancellor Palpatine appeared as the clones snapped to attention. “The time has come; execute Order 66.”

“It will be done, my lord.”

TO BE CONCLUDED…