Capítulo 113: Chapter 102
Tula, outer rim planet, two weeks after the battle of geonosis.
A huge geyser of earth was thrown into the air, before raining down on the trenches bellow, as explosions detonated all around them.
"Trooper get that shield up now!"
Blaster fire ripped through the air in all directions, creating a torrent of flashing lights across the sky.
"Trooper! Fix that shield!"
White armoured men hunkered down in the trenches, most firing furiously at their attackers.
"Trooper! Shield! Now!"
A few medics were dragging injured troopers out of harms way before administering treatment in the relative safety of the centre of the trenches.
"Trooper! Hurry up!"
The only clone not focused on the fighting, or the wounded was currently fiddling with a broken shield generator trying desperately to get it working.
"Agh, damn it," The clone cursed as the device sparked and sent a charge of electricity jolting through his hand.
"Come on Spanners what's the hold up?" CT-1135, 'Error', asked over the squad channel that he shared with Spanners.
CT-1056, 'Spanners', sighed as he continued trying to fix the broken shield generator.
"Maybe because the extra training I got was as a combat engineer not a mechanic. I'm supposed to be blowing stuff up or building defences, not fixing delicate machinery." Spanners complained.
"Ha, your just upset you didn't get to blow up that droid factory" CT-4867, 'Glib', laughed over the squad comm from further down the trench.
"We were all a bit disappointed about that. The ARC really took the fun out of things…DAMN that was close," CT-1559, 'Magnet', cursed as a blaster blot struck the ground inches from his helmet.
"Hehe, yeah. It was cool watching the firework display though," Glib chuckled quietly, reminiscing about the gigantic fireball that had consumed the separatist vulture droid factory hours earlier.
"Can it you lot! Spanners Shield! FIX! NOW!" The gruff voice of Clone sergeant Blade cut through the comm chatter.
Spanners sighed and continued trying to fix the shield generator as the rest of his brothers took up defensive positions nearby.
Things had been going down hill ever since General Janro took command of the 50th attack battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic during the battle of Geonosis.
The 50th had taken heavy losses on Geonosis, as well as during the couple of skirmishes that had followed, and of the six hundred and sixty-one clones of the 50th who left Kamino only two hundred and seventy-three had landed on Tula.
Tula was an insignificant planet in the outer rim, and the only part of it of any real value was a factory used by the separatists for manufacturing vulture droids and a separatist base built to protect it.
In the chaotic aftermath of the battle of Geonosis the jedi council had ordered General Janro to lead the 50th in an assault on the planet and to destroy the droid factory.
The GAR was spread thin fighting the separatists across the galaxy and so apart from a small scout team, composed of four ARF troopers under the command of an ARC lieutenant, who were dropped onto the planet the day before the planned assault to scout ahead, the 50th would be on their own.
The 50th had landed on Tula two days ago and had been thrown from one disaster to the next, thanks to some 'questionable' decisions that General Janro had made.
Jedi General Oger Janro was a jedi knight from Onderon and he and his Devaronian padawan, Jedi Commander Trus Mert, were really making Spanners question the all-powerfulness of the jedi.
Back during training on Kamino the clones had been told that their jedi Generals would be unstoppable forces of nature. They would see all, hear all, know all.
Their judgment would be impeccable, and they would always make the right decisions.
They were told that the jedis strength and tactical abilities would be unrivalled by any other soldier or general in the galaxy.
So, when General Janro had ordered the 50th to charge straight towards the heavily defended fortress protecting the separatist droid factory, Spanners had been concerned.
But he had hoped that the jedi had seen a strategy he hadn't, Spanners wasn't in command after all, he was just an engineer.
When their charge had led them through a minefield and Clone Commander Cross had advised the general of the danger, the general had ignored him and kept them charging forwards, Spanners had started to get very nervous of their chances of surviving this battle.
Spanners's concern and nervousness had quickly turned to fear when the general ran straight over a mine and blew himself up, and he realised they were probably all going to die.
After the general blew himself up chaos had descended on the 50th who, still trapped in a minefield, had begun taking heavy blaster fire from the separatist fortress.
The clones had begun firing back but they were trapped with no cover and so began taking heavy losses.
Commander Cross had then ordered a retreat, hoping to lead his men back to a safer and more defensible position, but Jedi commander Mert then ordered the clones to resume their charge across the minefield.
Commander Mert technically out ranked Commander Cross but for several reasons, not least the fact that Commander Cross actually seemed to want to keep his men alive, the 50th had looked to Cross for orders.
After Cross refused to advance Commander Mert had been furious and had pointed his lightsabre threateningly towards the clone Commander, in an attempt to intimidate him.
Commander Cross hadn't backed down and instead the only thing Commander Mert's tantrum achieved was the separatists identifying the location of a jedi among the attackers.
The separatists had then ordered an artillery strike on Commander Mert's position. The resulting bombardment killed both commanders and a large number of troopers surrounding them.
It had looked like the rest of the 50th would soon follow them into death when suddenly the ARC Lieutenant had shown up.
General Janro had completely ignored the scout team and their reports about the separatists' defences.
And when the ARC Lieutenant had advised/shouted at him against the full-frontal assault that he was planning the General had then ordered the ARC and his team away telling them to 'just go observe things and leave the thinking to the real people'.
ARC Lieutenant Alpha-42, Lieutenant 'Spoon', had stared silently at the jedi for a moment before obeying and leading his team of ARF troopers away and that as the last time Spanners expected to see him, unless the terrifying ARC was going to return to murder the general in his sleep.
Until the Lieutenant had appeared like a beacon of hope in the middle of the chaotic battlefield and lead the survivors of the 50th away to relative safety.
Less than fifty percent of the 50th made it out of the minefield alive but the Lieutenant had led them to safety before spending the next two days leading them in a series of fierce running battles against the separatists on the planet.
Spanners had started to think that the Kaninoans had been mistaken and had confused the Jedis battlefield prowess with that of the prowess of the ARC troopers.
The lieutenant certainly seemed to have all the abilities they were told jedi had, apart from being able to do weird space magic. Although Spanners was pretty sure that the ARC could read minds.
Somehow the ARC had even managed to sneak off and plant bombs on the reactor of the droid factory allowing him to blow it up and accomplish the mission the 50th had been sent to do.
The separatists hadn't been pleased with that though, and the entire garrison of the fortress had begun chasing the survivors of the 50th across the planet.
After retreating for some time, the survivors of the 50th had dug a series of trenches at the entrance to a narrow valley in the hopes that the terrain would provide some extra protection by preventing the separatists from being able to outflank them.
The lieutenant had also ordered that they use a portable shield generator to protect them from the constant bombardment of the separatist tanks.
Which is why Spanners was currently trying to get the useless piece of junk to actually work.
General Janro had decided to store most of the 50th's supplies in the same place and so when a separatist missile struck it, they had lost most of them and the portable shield generator had been hit by a few pieces of shrapnel.
Spanners cursed for what he felt was the hundredth time as he was electrocuted once more by the device.
"What's the problem trooper?" The calm voice of the Lieutenant sounded from nearby and Spanners looked over to see him walking cooly towards him.
The ARC trooper wasn't walking down the safety of the trench, he was actually calmly walking outside of it.
Blaster bolts flew through the air all around him, but the Lieutenant seemed unconcerned, as though he was simply out for a stroll in a park… not that Spanners had ever seen a park… maybe the Lieutenant had?
"Sorry Sir," Spanners shouted back, "I think I'm almost there, just need another minute."
"Time unfortunately is not on our side trooper," The Lieutenant told him, still speaking calmly like everything was under control.
"Yes Sir," Spanners responded almost automatically when a shout from nearby caught his attention.
"Incoming clankers!" Error shouted from his position in the defensive line and Spanners saw a group of four super battle droids lumbering towards his brother.
The super battle droids, large heavily armoured killers, seemed to have appeared from out of thin air and Errors DC-15A carbine wasn't doing much damage against them.
A flurry of blue blaster bolts suddenly ripped into the droids from nearby and Spanners looked up to see the Lieutenant striding towards them.
The lieutenant fired a grenade from the launcher attached to the underside of his Westar-M5 blaster rifle, and the four droids were consumed in a sudden explosion of fire and shrapnel.
Three were destroyed instantly but the fourth managed to survive and began crawling towards the republic trenches but was quickly dispatched by a few well aimed shots from the Lieutenant.
"Trooper, when's that shield coming online?" The ARC trooper said as he turned smoothly and moved back towards the trench.
"I think I'm almost the- Ahhh" Spanners let out a yelp of surprise as the shield generator suddenly sent a beam of light skyward.
The beam soon formed into a solid mass and began falling back down to earth, while creating a large domed energy shield.
"Smoke grenades, now!" The lieutenant shouted, even as he armed and threw two of the grenades himself.
Clones along the defensive line threw smoke grenades out in front of the trenches creating a smokescreen before the energy shield reached the ground.
Artillery and tank shells exploded against the bluey purple shield but failed to penetrate it. And the thick white smoke billowed out in front of the shield obscuring it from view from the advancing separatists.
"Alright, lets place the explosives and get out of here." The lieutenant said happily as he clapped his hands together and began striding away.
"Is it just me, or are ARC troopers a bit weird?" Glib muttered as they watched the Lieutenant walk away.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder