CLONE WARS SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS Read online

  I am a clone trooper in the Grand Army of the Republic.

  My designation is ct-6/774. I serve on a Republic close-assault gunship. I am the starboard bubble-turret gunner.

  I love my job. We all do; we're created for it.

  But my job is special. Because my partner—ct-014/783, the port bubble-turret gunner—and I are the ones who take care of the equipment.

  Our weapons platform, the rhe laat/i, is an infantry-support weapon. We soften up and harass the enemy; our targets are bunkers, armored vehicles, mobile artillery, and enemy footsoldiers. When our infantry brothers need to get to the enemy, we're the ones who blast down the door.

  The laat/i is designed for dropping troops into a hot fire-zone. We're not fast, but we can go anywhere. Our assault weapons are controlled through nav; the navigator runs all three antipersonnel turrets, the main missile launcher and two of the four main cannons. Our laser cannons can punch holes through medium armor, and the missile launchers take care of the heavy stuff; they're mass-driver launchers, so our loads can be customized for the mission. We carry he (high explosive), heap (high explosive armor-piercing) and apf (anti-personnel fragmentation) missiles; we stay away from baradium weapons—too unstable—but detonite and proton-core warheads can handle everything we're likely to come up against.

  Our job—me and Eight-Three, the bubble-turret gunners—is to handle every­thing that comes up against us. Each turret is a sphere of transparisteel that tracks along with our cannons; my partner and I also each control a launcher loaded with four short-range air-to-air rockets. If anything comes at us, we shoot it down.

  That's what I mean about taking care of the equipment.

  Let's say we're cracking a hardened bunker on a desert planet. We come in low over the dunes, pumping missiles and cannonfire against the target emplace­ment. Let's say you're operating an anti-aircraft cannon half a klick away, and you

  open fire on us. The pilot and the navigator don't even have to look up. Because I'm there.

  Go ahead and take your shot. You won't get two.

  Fire a missile at us. I'll blast it to scrap. Launch a proton grenade. I'll blow your head off. Make an attack run riding a speeder bike. But make out your will, first. Because if you attack us, I will take you out.

  That's what I do.

  I love my job, and I am very, very good at it.

  I have to be: because sometimes my gunship has to do things it's not designed for. That's how it goes when you're fighting a war.

  Like at Haruun Kal.

  We were assigned to the Republic medium cruiser Halleck, on station in the Ventran system. A regiment of heavy infantry, twenty Jadthu-class landers, an escort of six starfighters.

  And us: five rhe laat/i-s.

  We weren't supposed to know why we were there, naturally; just as naturally, we knew anyway. It was clear this would be a VIP extraction on a hostile planet.

  It wasn't hard to figure. Those Jadthu-class landers are basically just flying bunkers. They go in fast, land, then stand there and take a pounding until it's time to take off again. Nothing but armor, engines, two heavy laser turrets and an Arakyd Caltrop-5 chaff gun. They're plenty fast in a straight line, but they are the opposite of nimble. There is no evasive action in aJadthu.

  The Halleck had twenty of them: that meant the landing-zone would be hot. Maybe very hot. Maybe nova-class. The starfighters were for orbital cover. Sub-orbital and atmospheric cover was our job.

  Ventran is on the Gevarno Loop, one of half a dozen systems linked by hyper-space lanes that run through Al'har. Haruun Kal is the only habitable planet in the Al'har system.

  Haruun Kal is Separatist.

  General Windu—that's Jedi Master Mace Windu, General of the Grand Army of the Republic and Senior Member of the Jedi Council—had gone dirtside on Haruun Kal, alone and undercover, tracking a rogue Jedi. Why had a General gone in personally? We didn't know. Why had he gone in alone? We didn't ask.

  We didn't care.

  It wasn't our business.

  This is what we knew: If nothing went wrong, we wouldn't have anything to do. We'd cruise our station in the Ventran system for a week or two, then jump back for reassignment.

  Something went wrong.

  Our business was to get General Windu out again.

  The moon-belt was where they were hiding. Waiting for us. The whole system was a trap.

  They must have been there for weeks, powered down, clamped to drifting aster­oids. Undetectable. Waiting for a Republic ship to enter orbit.

  Which the Halleck had just done.

  Against the glittering weave of the belt, they were close enough to invisible that I couldn't pick them out until Lt. Nine-Oh muttered from nav: "Hostiles incom­ing. On intercept. But not for us, sir! They're after the Halleck!"

  Lt. One-Four: "How many, nav?"

  "Calculating. No. Sorry, sir. No hard numbers available. Sensors keep picking up more."

  "How many so far? What are we looking at?"

  "Acceleration and drive output profiles indicate starfighters. Droid starfighters, sir." Automated weapons systems directed by sophisticated droid brains. "Probably Geonosian. So far, I'm reading sixty-four."

  "Sixty-four!"

  "Strike that. Ninety-one. One-oh-five. One-twenty-eight, sir."

  One hundred and twenty-eight droid starfighters streaked toward us: a vast array of crescent sparks haloed by blue-white ion scatter. Faster, more maneuver-able, and more heavily armed than anything in our little twelve-ship flotilla—and the droid brains piloting those starfighters have reflexes that operate at the speed of light.

  And the Halleck was directly in their path.

  "Hear that, turrets? This will be hot space. Repeat: we are entering hot space."

  "Starboard reads, sir," I told him as I charged my cannon. "And I am go."

  "Port reads, sir. Go."

  "Signal from the Halleck, sir!" Nine-Oh said. "Recall: All ships abort. The Halleck is under attack—she's all alone back there, sir!"

  "Not for long."

  Lt. Four-One spun our ship through a spiral that whipped us around and aimed us back toward the Halleck. The cruiser was a star-specked wedge of shadow transiting the grid of droid starfighter drive-streams. Now turbolasers started blasting out from that shadow toward the grid; from here the huge particle beams looked like hairlines of blue light. I worked my pedals and swung the fire-control yoke so that the turret's servo-boom angled my weapon to bear on the grid-formation of starfighters.

  I knew Eight-Three was doing exactly the same.

  "Fire at will, turrets."

  They were still far beyond the effective range of my cannon. I squeezed the yoke anyway. Even through my armored gloves, the hum of the yoke buzzed up my arms as four arcs of electric blue energy joined in front of the cannon's oval reflector-shield, then flashed away through the vacuum. I held the triggers down. Concentrating on evading the Halleck's turbolasers, a droid starfighter might just blunder into one of my shots by accident. You never know.

  The grid formation began to break up as the droids took evasive action. Our own starfighters—all six of them—flashed past us in pairs that swung and scis­sored and looped into battle.

  We made for the Halleck as fast as our external drives could push us. Our gun-ship was never intended to dogfight against starfighters. That didn't stop us. It didn't slow us down. But we never got there.

  They came out of nowhere.

  The first I knew of the new ambushers was when our ship shuddered under multiple cannon-blasts. A droid starfighter flashed past not thirty meters from my turret. I twisted my yoke and the turret spun and my bolt caught one of the starfighter's aft control-surfaces. It broke up as it spun, but I didn't have time to enjoy the view because they were all over us.

  Must have been at least half a wing: thirty-two ships. They were everywhere. Four-one had our gunship spinning and whirling and dodging side to side: from the turret it looked like the whole galaxy was yanking its
elf in random directions around me. All I could do was hold on to my fire-control yoke and try not to hit friendly ships. My cannon sprayed green fire and I scored on at least five hits—two of them kills—but there were always more incoming.

  I saw the lander crack open and then explode: huge chunks of its armor spun out like ship-sized shrapnel to crush two of the starfighters that had blasted it. I saw another laat/i drifting through a slow barrel-roll, its engines dark, sparks spitting out through the twisted blast-gap where its cockpit used to be. One of its bubble-turrets was shattered; in the other, a trooper struggled with the turret's access hatch. I never got a chance to see if that gunner made it out; another flight of enemy fighters swarmed around us, and I was too busy shooting to watch.

  Then I felt a shock that bounced my turret. The spin of the galaxy changed, and I knew I was in trouble.

  That last shock had been a cannon-blast hitting my turret's servo-boom. It had blown my turret right off the ship. Now it wasn't even really a turret anymore. It was just a bubble.

  Spinning lazily, I drifted through the battle.

  I didn't have any illusions about surviving. Turret-gunners don't wear repulsor-packs; no room in there. My emergency repulsorpack was back in the troop bay of my gunship. If my gunship even existed anymore.

  From inside my slowly spinning bubble, I saw the rest of the battle. I saw the Halleck absorb blast after blast, until a pair of droid starfighters streaked in and rammed the bridge. I saw the other nineteen landers undock from the cruiser and lumber through the swarm of hostiles. I saw the cruiser streak away into hyperspace.

  I saw landers peeled like meatfruit, spilling troopers into orbit. These were the heavy infantry and the rp troopers—the repulsorpack men. They knew they were going to die. So each and every one of them decided to die fighting. How do I know that?

  They are my brothers. And that's what I would do.

  The heavy infantry opened up on the droid starfighters with their hand-weapons and small arms; some of them scattered miniature minefields of mag­netized proton grenades. Others had shoulder-fired light missile launchers. Some of the rp troopers had nothing but their dc-15 blaster carbines, which couldn't put much of a dent in a starfighter, so they used their repulsorpacks to deliberately move themselves into the paths of streaking enemy ships. At orbital combat speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour, a starfighter that strikes a combat-armored trooper might as well be flying straight into the side of an asteroid.

  The landers did what they could to help us out; those chaff guns they carry shoot out huge clouds of durasteel fragments, intended to confuse enemy sen­sors and interfere with enemy cannonfire. Those fragments don't have the velocity to penetrate the armor of drifting troopers, but any enemy ship whip­ping through a cloud of them at a couple thousand kph just comes apart.

  But the landers hadn't come out there to fight for us; General Windu had ordered the whole regiment down to the surface. I imagine you've already heard about the Battle of Lorshan Pass, and the firestorm in Pelek Baw, and everything else that happened planetside.

  I wasn't in any of that.

  Though I did fire the last shot in the orbital battle.

  Most of the landers broke through, and pretty much all the droid starfighters followed them in. After that, things got pretty peaceful there in orbit.

  Most of us were dead.

  rp troopers flew from one drifting body to the next, gathering those who'd sur­vived and salvaging life-support packs from the armor of the corpses. A couple of the rp troopers stopped by my bubble; they managed to halt my spin, but there wasn't much else they could do for me, and we all knew it.

  I was headed down into the atmosphere.

  That was when we saw the last of the starfighters, heading right toward us. It was pursuing what was, to me, the single most beautiful thing I should ever hope to see: battered, shot full of holes, one wing gone, limping along on a single engine at half-power, one bubble turret missing, the other smashed: an laat/i.

  My laat/i.

  Missiles exhausted, it was trying to hold off the droid starfighter with pinpoint fire from its antipersonnel turrets, without much luck.

  But I had a surprise. Bubble turrets pack powercells to maintain weapon-charge for short periods if all enginepower is shunted to maneuvering.

  I still had a couple of shots left.

  The rp troopers who had stabilized me rotated my turret and steadied it for the shot, and I led the enemy ship and squeezed the fire-control yoke —

  And it flew right into my shot.

  I enjoyed the explosion.

  Between the rp troopers and my ship, we collected every single one of the drift­ing survivors. The gunship was in no shape for atmospheric flight, so we limped out to the moon-belt and docked on to an asteroid. The lieutenants put me in for a commendation.

  Salvaged life-support packs kept us all breathing for two standard days—which was when the Republic task force arrived.

  The first thing they did was pick up survivors.

  Because we are equipment, too.

  As long as the Republic takes care of us, we'll take care of it.

  END

  STAR WARS INSIDER PRESENTS

  DUEL

  DUEL

  By Timothy Zahn

  The battle for this part of the city was over. The Republic's forces had lost. They had lost very badly.

  Commander Brolis woke suddenly from his uneasy sleep as the proximity alarm buzzed, his hands fumbling for his DC-15 blaster rifle. Wincing at the pain in his side, he raised his head from his chest and peered out through one of the gaping holes in the wall of the ruined building he'd taken refuge in.

  The day had given way to early evening while he dozed. But with the remain­ing daylight, the glow of the fires blazing elsewhere in the city, and the weapons flashes from the battles still raging in the distance, there was more than enough light to see the squad of battle droids making their way across the remains of the town square toward him.

  With a grunt of pain, Brolis forced himself to his feet. On one level, it seemed a complete waste of time, both for the droids to keep attacking and for him to keep fighting them off. His entire force was dead now, the last two squads whittled away as they waited here in this ruined building for the reinforcements that had never arrived. It was just a matter of time, he knew, before they got him, too.

  Except that they didn't want him dead. They wanted him alive; and they wanted him badly enough to keep sending in battle droids, hoping to catch him napping.

  Not this time, though. As long as he had a charged blaster and the ability to pull a trigger, he would continue to litter the ground with scorched droid parts.

  A slight movement across the square behind the battle droids caught his eye, and Brolis grimaced. Eventually, of course, they would get tired of wasting droids and decide to end the game once and for all. And when they did, they had the ultimate game-ender waiting in the shadows: a hailfire droid, towering over the rubble on its two massive hoop wheels, its twin missile launcher pods pointing idly in his direction. This particular droid had been fitted with the lower-strength anti-personnel missiles, he knew, so that it could take out the troopers without bringing the whole city down on top of it. Just the same, a single one of those missiles through the wall, and it would be all over.

  But until then, Brolis had work to do. Hoisting the blaster rifle to his shoulder, he centered his sights on the first battle droid.

  "Your weapon, put away."

  Brolis spun around, nearly losing his balance in his haste. The gruff voice had come from behind him, where there was nothing but rubble from the row of buildings that had been destroyed in the earlier fighting. This had to be some kind of trick.

  If it was, it was a very good one. The creature standing there was short, with green skin, large eyes, and even larger ears. Leaning on a gnarled walking stick, he was dressed in the kind of simple robe worn by lower-class beings all across the Republic.

&nb
sp; And somehow, he seemed familiar.

  "Commander Brolis, you are?" the creature asked.

  "Yes," Brolis said, frowning. "Who are you?"

  "The reinforcements you requested, I am," the creature said dryly. "Tell me: into the Fortress of Axion, you have penetrated?"

  Brolis grimaced. This was his reinforcements? "Briefly," he confirmed. "That's why the Separatists out there want me alive. They want to find out how we got in so they can plug that hole in their defenses."

  "Indeed." The creature smiled, his long ears flattening as he did so. "For that same reason do we also wish you alive. That is why I am here."

  He lifted his stick and pointed to the opening. "Aside, stand you. Deal with the droids, I will."

  Without waiting for permission, he hobbled forward. Brolis watched, his brain too frozen with bewilderment and the pain of his injuries to try to stop him. The creature paused just outside the gap, letting his stick drop to the ground and reaching a three-fingered hand in front of him. There was a flicker of motion, and a small cylinder seemed to jump into it from beneath his robe.

  And with a snap-hiss, a brilliant green blade blazed into existence.

  Brolis caught his breath as the memory finally clicked. Kamino—the embarka­tion of the Republic's clone army—a small creature distantly seen across the ordered ranks as he led the troops into the transports.

  Reinforcements, indeed. This was Jedi Master Yoda himself.

  Perhaps the approaching battle droids recognized him, too, or perhaps it was the sight of the lightsaber that turned their stealthy approach into a sudden full-fledged attack. But if they were hoping to overwhelm him with numbers, their strategy was a failure. Yoda never moved from the spot where he had planted him­self, his swirling lightsaber blade deflecting away every one of the storm of blaster bolts coming toward him. Some of the shots ricocheted across the square to impact the ruins on the far side, but most reflected straight back to the droids themselves, shattering them into scrap metal.