The clone trooper couldn’t see anything, only darkness. Because of the pressure across his armored chest and the way his knees were bent, he believed he was still belted into his seat in the escape pod. From the steady but off-kilter gravity, he also sensed that the pod was no longer falling, that it had come to a rest somewhere.
His helmeted head felt heavy, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth. Moving his hands to his collar so he could check the pressure seals, he realized his arms felt heavy, too.
Sharp’s gloved fingers gripped something unexpected, a sheet of flexible fabric that seemed to be draped over him.
Pulling it off his head, he saw through his visor that he was clutching an insulated blanket. One of the pod’s storage compartments had broken open and spilled out blankets and other emergency supplies.
Turning his head slightly, he surveyed the pod’s dim interior. None of the pod’s control switches or lights were on, and the main console was an exploded mess.
A thin shaft of light poured in through the pod’s viewport, which angled up toward a gray sky. Sharp could make out the forms of his five fellow passengers - four fellow troopers and their Jedi leader, all motionless in their seats.
Ring-Sol Ambase’s head was slumped to the side, an emergency breath mask secured over the lower half of his face.
“General AmbaseI!” Sharp said as he removed his seat belt.
Once freed, he reached out to Ambase, gently placing his gloved fingertips against the man’s neck. He found himself holding his own breath as he felt for a pulse.
Just then, the clone named Dyre shifted in his seat beside Ambase. Dyre tilted his head back to look up at Sharp. Sounding dazed, he said, “The general! Is he-”
“He’s alive,” Sharp said, removing his fingertips from Ambase’s neck.
“What happened?” Dyre said groggily as he unbuckled his seat belt.
“We landed.”
“We all … passed out?”
Sharp nodded, and the slight motion made him dizzy. “Pod sensors … are off-line. I think … there’s a gas leak.” He quickly yanked the breath mask off of Ambase’s face.
Dyre said, “What’re you doing?!”
“Our air supply … it’s fouled,” Sharp said. “Might be toxic.”
As Sharp reached for a control button near the hatch, Dyre said, “Wait! We don’t know … can we breathe what’s out there?”
“If we landed on Kynachi … we’ll breathe,” Sharp said. “If not, we’re dead.” He struck the button and popped the hatch, which opened with an explosive hiss. Cool, fresh air flooded into the pod, followed by a trickle of water. Sharp peered through the hatch and commented. “Rain.”
“Must be Kynachi,” Dyre said. “Any idea of what region?”
“None,” Sharp said as he pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath of air.
Gesturing to the wrecked control console, Dyre said, “No point looking for answers there.”
Just then, Trueblood, Close-Shave, and No-Nines began to stir in their seats. Sharp glanced at Dyre and said, “Check on them while I take a look outside.”
Sharp placed his helmet back over his head, readied his blaster rifle, and then eased through the hatch. Rain pattered against his armor as he lowered himself down to the hard ground.
The battered pod had come to rest on a long, narrow stretch of ground that lay beneath two steep, rocky walk. A shallow stream of rainwater flowed over Sharp’s feet and traveled down the length of the gorge, which was littered with large, ovoid stones.
Overhead, all he could see of the sky was a long and ominous strip of gray clouds, bordered by the tops of the facing cliffs.
From his education on Kamino he was certain he was standing at the bottom of an ancient riverbed. He adjusted his helmet’s sensors, scanned the area, and confirmed that the nearest cliff wall was fifteen meters high.
Looking upstream, he saw a series of staggered ledges along the wall to his left. The ledges looked climbable.
Clacketty-clack.
The sound came from four meters to Sharp’s left. He spun fast, swinging his rifle to arm its barrel in the general direction of the noise. He found himself aiming at a small creature that stood beside a puddle on a rain-spattered ground. It was an arthropod with a segmented body.
Two antennae extended from its blunt head, and its naturally armored external skeleton had a dusty color that blended easily with the surrounding rocks. It stood on four spindly legs and raised an equal number of pincer-tipped arms. Without warning, it flexed its pincers.
Clacketty-clack.
The creature appeared to be relatively harmless, but Sharp kept his rifle trained on it as he took a step forward. It reacted by skittering sideways, making a tapping sound against the ground as it moved downstream, away from Sharp.
When it reached a rock that rested about thirty meters from the pod, it ducked behind the rock and vanished.
Because the creature didn’t appear to pose any threat. Sharp slung his rifle over his shoulder and then climbed back into the pod. He found Dyre had carefully removed the three other troopers’ helmets. Trueblood, Close-Shave, and No-Nines looked up at Sharp as he entered, rainwater dripping off his armor.
Nodding toward the revived troopers, Dyre said, “They’re all right. Just winded. No broken bones.”
“We landed in a ravine,” Sharp said as he removed his helmet. “Steep walls. Might make us slightly hard to find while it’s raining, but we’re exposed from above.”
“See anything unusual?”
“A small life form. A four-clawed crustacean.”
“Harmless?”
“It darted off. Seemed afraid of me.”
Dyre grinned. “Better that than the other way around.”
Close-Shave shook his head and muttered, “My skull… feels like it’s filled with rocks.”
“It’ll pass,” Sharp said. “Just keep taking deep breaths. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m guessing the attacking starfighters ruptured a gas hose in our pod’s life-support system.” He turned his gaze to Ambase’s unconscious body.
Trueblood followed Sharp’s gaze and said, “Why hasn’t the general recovered?”
“Beats me,” Sharp said, “but it could be because his physiology isn’t the same as ours. We’re different.”
“Maybe not just different,” Dyre said. He thumped his right fist against his chest plate and added, “Maybe we’re tougher.”
Sharp leveled his gaze at Dyre. “I doubt you’d be saying that if our superior officer were conscious.”
“Sorry,” Dyre said. “I meant no disrespect. Just hoping to boost morale.”
“Well, save the pep talks for after we’ve blasted the clankers who brought us down.”
No-Nines scowled. “That ambush couldn’t have been an accident. The droids were waiting for us in orbit. How’d they know when we’d arrive?”
Trueblood said, “Maybe we were set up. Maybe someone sabotaged our pod.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to save speculations for later, too,” Sharp said as he unlocked Ambase’s seat buckle. “The droids must be searching for us. If we stay put, this pod will be our coffin.”
He slid back a seat cushion to reveal a storage compartment. It contained a number of supplies, including an emergency medpac, a waterproof tent, and a collapsible stretcher.
The troopers pulled on their helmets. No-Nines, Trueblood, and Close-Shave exited with their weapons, leaving Sharp and Dyre with more room to maneuver within the pod. Sharp clipped the medpac to his belt alongside two grenades.
Dyre extended the stretcher into a locked position and rested its upper end out through the hatch. They wrapped Ambase in blankets, secured him to the stretcher, and covered him with part of the tent to keep him dry. The unconscious Jedi didn't make a sound or shift a muscle as he was carried out into the rain.
The stretcher-bearers, Sharp and Dyre, stepped away from the pod, walking carefully to avoid slipping on the ovoi
d stones.
While No-Nines kept his visor directed upstream and Close-Shave looked downstream, Trueblood lowered his gaze from the sky to face Sharp and Dyre as they came to a stop beside him. Trueblood said, “Which way?”
Sharp tilted his helmet to his right and all the troopers began walking upstream. When they reached the series of ledges that Sharp had seen earlier, Sharp came to a stop. The others did the same. Sharp looked at No-Nines and said, “Climb to the top, scope the area, and report back.”
The troopers’ rifles were equipped to fire not only energized plasma bolts but also ascension cables that terminated with grappling hooks. No-Nines raised his rifle and fired, launching his rifle’s cable upward.
The grappling hook snared the ledge at the top of the cliff, and then No-Nines set his weapon to slowly reel in the cable. Gripping the rifle with both hands and keeping its barrel aimed at the sky, he planted one foot on the wall and then began scaling the cliff’s face.
As No-Nines ascended and rain continued to fall, Dyre adjusted his hands on the stretcher’s grips. Looking at Sharp, Dyre said, “For all we know, there’s an army of droids waiting for us up there. Might be safer to stay in this ravine. If we find any overhangs or caves, we might take shelter until we-”
Clacketty-clack.
The noise came from behind, near the abandoned escape pod. Responding to the noise, Sharp and Dyre held tight to the stretcher as they turned their heads, while Close-Shave and Trueblood spun fast with their blaster rifles.
No-Nines heard the clacking noise, too, and paused to look down. All the troopers sighted a four-clawed creature that stood about three meters away from the pod. One of the creature’s antennae twitched.
Keeping his voice low, No-Nines said from above, “Everyone all right?”
Dyre responded with an affirmative hand gesture, and No-Nines resumed climbing. Keeping his gaze on the creature, Dyre said, “Sharp, is that the thing you saw before?”
“I’m not sure,” Sharp said. “It looks … bigger.”
A rumbling sound came from the stream. Suddenly, dozens of ovoid stones shifted on their own, sending up sprays of water as they rolled over and extended pincer-tipped appendages to reveal they werent stones at all.
Clacketty-clack, clacketty-clack-ck, CLACK, CLACK!
The clacking noise echoed loudly through the ravine. Trueblood said, “What in the blazes?”
Keeping his voice calm, Dyre said, “Steady, boys. They might just be defending their territory, and shooting at them might alert the enemy to our loca-”
A thunderous ripple suddenly drowned out Dyre’s words, and the entire stream erupted violently. The troopers stood motionless as hundreds of ovoids moved like a wave, and then the ovoids transformed, rapidly unfurling into clawed crustaceans.
Some of the creatures were directly beneath the empty escape pod, and they thrashed and undulated with such force that the pod began to rock back and forth upon their thick-shelled backs. This action was followed by the ugly sound of metal being crushed and shredded.
“Look at them!” Close-Shave said. “They’re tearing into the pod like it is a snack!”
The nearest creatures snapped their claws menacingly at the troopers. Trueblood said, “What was that talk about staying in the ravine and not shooting?”
Dyre chuckled. “That’s history.”
Several creatures skittered forward. Close-Shave and Trueblood shot at the ground in front of them, trying to drive the creatures back. Three of the monsters didn’t stop and were blasted on the spot. There was surprisingly little blood. The others paused for just a moment, then lurched forward again.
Sharp craned his neck back to view the trooper on the cliff. “No-Nines! Move!”
No-Nines climbed faster, his cable retracting into his rifle with each step.
Trueblood and Close-Shave kept firing at the creatures while Sharp and Dyre faced the wall and braced the stretcher against their utility belts, allowing each of them to hang onto the stretcher with one hand while leaving the other hand free to draw their rifles. They raised their weapons and fired at the same time, sending their ascension cables past No-Nines to the uppermost ledge.
The instant Sharp and Dyre felt the grappling hooks take hold, they quickly repositioned their bodies, moving closer together and shifting the stretcher so Ambase rested across their midriffs. Then they each moved both hands to grip their respective rifles and began following No-Nines up the cliff, carrying Ambase with them.
No-Nines reached the top of the cliff, letting his grappling hook snap back into place below the end of his rifle’s barrel. Turning fast, he angled his weapon down as he gazed past the ascending Sharp and Dyre to see Trueblood and Close-Shave backing toward the wall.
Trueblood and Close-Shave were blasting everything that moved in front of them. No-Nines wasn’t sure how many shots they had already fired, but from his vantage, he knew they wouldn’t last two seconds if they paused to reload with fresh energy packs. He took aim and began squeezing away at his own trigger.
Trueblood and Close-Shave saw the fresh hail of energy bolts that sailed down from above and slammed into the encroaching creatures. Taking advantage of No-Nines’s sniping, they elevated their rifles to launch their ascension cables up past the sides of Sharp and Dyre, who were almost at the top of the cliff.
The instant Trueblood and Close-Shave’s grappling hooks took hold, they started chasing the others up the wall. The creatures snapped viciously at their heels. Before the troopers could breathe a sigh of relief, the creatures surged toward the base of the cliff and began piling up on top of each other.
Trueblood felt a claw whack the back of his left leg and glanced down to see the creatures scrambling up and over one another to reach him and Close-Shave. While No-Nines continued firing from above, Trueblood swung one foot to kick at the rising heap of deadly creatures.
“Keep moving!” Close-Shave shouted.
Both Sharp and Dyre kept their gaze forward, ignoring the rain that pelted their visors as they maintained a synchronized pace up the cliff. They knew that just one wrong step could unbalance the stretcher they carried and send Ambase crashing to his death.
“No-Nines!” Dyre said through clenched teeth. “Give us a hand!”
No-Nines shifted his rifle to one hand and continued firing as he came down on one knee on the ledge above Dyre and Sharp. He extended his free hand to grab the edge of the stretcher and pulled, yanking the stretcher off of his allies and onto the ledge. A moment later, Dyre and Sharp heaved themselves up beside No-Nines and collapsed beside the stretcher.
Still gripping his rifle in one hand, No-Nines continued firing down at the growing pile of crustaceans beneath Close-Shave and Trueblood when the pile suddenly swelled, carrying the creatures higher.
No-Nines tore a grenade from his belt, popped the clip, and let the grenade fall past Close-Shave and Trueblood. The ascending troopers saw No-Nines’s actions and climbed even faster.
The grenade bounced off the backs of several creatures before it detonated. The explosion incinerated the nearest creatures and pulverized dozens more, and the shock wave launched Close-Shave and Trueblood skyward. They twisted their bodies in midair, angling to land on the ledge beside No-Nines, and crash-landed hard but unharmed.
A plume of smoke rose up from the bottom of the cliff. The surviving creatures made a horrible screeching sound as they fled, skittering back into the shadows of the ravine.
The smoke was still rising as No-Nines turned away from the ledge. He saw Sharp and Dyre kneeling beside the stretcher, checking on the still-unconscious Jedi, as Trueblood and Close-Shave pushed themselves up to their feet. He also saw something else.
“Incoming.”
A squad of Separatist vulture droid starfighters descended from the rain clouds, heading toward the troopers.
“The explosion must’ve attracted them!” Close-Shave said.
“We can’t retreat into the ravine,” Trueblood said. “There
’s too many of those things still down there.”
Dyre chuckled. “I never liked retreating, anyway.” He checked his blaster rifle’s ammo pack and added, “Bring on the droids.”
“We have to protect the general,” Sharp said as the starfighters drew closer. He pointed to a rocky outcropping twenty meters away. “Come on.”
Sharp, Dyre, Trueblood, and No-Nines each used one hand to grip the stretcher while holding their rifles in their other hands. They lifted Ambase and ran for the outcropping. Close-Shave ran after them but kept his eyes on the incoming starfighters.
The troopers were still running for the rocks when the vulture droids opened fire.
Nuru, Breaker, Knuckles, and Chatterbox walked through the woods until they arrived at the top of a hill that offered a wide view of the rain-shrouded region. Knuckles pushed back the cowl of his makeshift robe and lowered his macrobinocular over his visor to scan through the rain. “That way, he said, pointing. “A settlement. No air traffic.”
Breaker faced Nuru and said, “General Ambase informed us that Kynachi stopped allowing visitors to their world ten years ago. The spaceport is the most populated area, but no matter where we go here, we’re likely to attract attention simply because we’re strangers.”
Nuru said, “What should we do?”
“You’re the Jedi,” Knuckles said. “You tell us.”
Nuru was surprised by Knuckles's words. He suddenly realized that the troopers were looking at him not as a boy, but as their new commander. He thought for a moment. “Well, I think it would be best if we don’t all walk into the settlement together at the same time. I’ll go in with one of you.”
Breaker said, “Which one?”
“You just volunteered,” Nuru said. “You can keep your blaster pistol under that thing you call a robe, but you’ll be less conspicuous without your rifle and helmet.”
Knuckles said, “What should Chatterbox and I do?”
“Watch our backs,” Nuru said. “Stay close to me and Breaker, but not too close.”
“Will do,” Knuckles said. Chatterbox nodded
Breaker handed his rifle to Knuckles, then pulled back his cowl and removed his helmet. As rain pattered on his bare head, he said, “Commander Nuru, I don’t mean to sound rude, but … I believe you’ll be the one who might attract the most attention. I know little about Kynachi, but from what General Ambase told me about the indigenous people, I suspect red-eyed, blue-skinned beings such as you are quite unusual.”
Star Wars - The Clone Wars - Secret Missions #1 - Breakout Squad Page 4