The Clone Wars: Containment - Chapter 4a

     Lock looked past the holographic targeting screen and through the transparisteel canopy at the empty streets of the caldera city.  Nobody out and about.  Looks like the Seps do have that curfew in effect.  Good.  With martial law declared over the city, their night op should attract less attention and limit civilian casualties.  Should.  Returning his gaze to the targeting screen, Lock tracked their progress towards the landing zone.  “Two klicks to the LZ, Lieutenant, and all still quiet.”

     “Alright, boys, approaching target,” Captain Wake said, speaking through his helmet’s comm to the team on the flight deck.  “We’ll try to get you to ground, but have those lines ready to fast-rope down if it ends up being a tighter fit than we—”

    Two solid impacts thudded against the roof, rocking the ship as a group of seven STAPs, flying in a wedge above the buildings, passed over them.

    “Bogies at ten o’clock, heading southeast!” Lock shouted, as he and the port side gunner struggled to bring their composite laser sights onto the STAPs, but the enemy craft were already safely on the other side of the buildings.

    Wake swore under his breath, then commed the ARC, “They’ve seen us now.  Permission to engage, Lieutenant?”

    “They don’t know where we’re headed yet, but I’d rather they weren’t around to find out, not to mention rain fire on us at the LZ.  Take ‘em out, but be quick about it.”

    Wake swung the ship hard to the left at the next intersection, tracking the STAPs on the radar.  Two streets over, Lock saw the droids, now flying in a loose formation at street level.  He opened up with the chin guns and the STAP lowest to the ground came apart under the repeating canon fire like a cheap toy.  In the same instant, he brought the wingtip laser beams onto the highest flying bogey.  Frost and Six were doing the same from their bubble turrets and three more or less simultaneous explosions blossomed.

    Just like that, the enemy patrol was suddenly down by more than half.  Something in their droid brains registered this, and the remaining three STAPs peeled off in different directions.  The two on the right pulled up hard, flipping their drivers upside down as they attempted to loop back behind the larty.  Lock’s blasts from the wingtip lasers were just a hair too late to nail the center looper.  Six couldn’t bring his turret to bear fast enough either, so instead, he fired off one of the four light, air-to-air rockets under the starboard wing.  The rocket shot off, seeking the right-most.  The resulting explosion peppered their doughty gunship with shrapnel.  The left-most droid jinked hard to the left into a narrow alley just ahead of Frost’s laser, which tore chunks out of the corners of the buildings on either side.

    “If he’s smart, he’ll stay in there and hide,” Wake said, then tutted.  “‘Course we all know if they were smart there wouldn’t be any of us left.  Looks like his buddy just gave us a tail, though.”

    “On it,” Lock said.  The larty’s tail gun was automated and locked onto targets on its own.  It just needed the gunner to confirm the target and give permission to fire, which Lock was happy to do.  Solid impacts thudded against the aft of the ship, but the enemy patrol craft’s cannons just didn’t have the punch to do much more than give them a bumpy ride.  The same couldn’t be said in reverse, however, and the tail gun made short work of both STAP and droid.  “Clear aft.”

    “How about our escapee?” Heke asked from behind.  “Are we tracking?”

     “We’ve got him,” Lock answered.  “Only one way out of that winding alley and he’ll be moving a lot slower than we will.  We’ll head him off at the pass.”

    “Yep.  Hold tight.”  That was all Wake said to the poor clones on the flight deck before punching the acceleration hard.  He hit the starboard repulsors and pulled to the left, making a turn onto the next street that Lock suspected even the supernaturally skilled Jedi pilots would have admired.  Good old Wake.  The Captain certainly knew his trade.  But then, they all did.  That was what made the GAR the best army the Galaxy had ever seen.

    The narrow street opened up into an expansive courtyard, overlooked by a huge, domed, government building.  Wake slowed the ship, anticipating the emergence of the final STAP.  Lock could still see the red V that marked the bogey on his radar.  From this view, the alley appeared to be a civilian foot-traffic street, which meant it was likely full of trees and vending stalls.  That explained the droid’s late arrival.  Sure enough, the craft emerged a moment later, like it hadn’t a care in the world.

    Lock couldn’t tell whether the laser beams from his turrets or one from Frost or Six’s were the first to hit the clanker, but the end result was the same.  He knew they’d have a lot of fun rewatching the footage on their helmet cams in max slo-mo to see who would get to claim credit for the kill.

    That was the last thing he remembered thinking, because the flashing red warning lights and alarm klaxon went off so close to the violent explosion that tore into the aft of the gunship that there wasn’t time to react.  The world went into swirling defocus as the LAAT spun towards the ground.  Wake’s warning of, “Brace, brace, brace!” was all the pilot said during the fall, but his hands were clearly busy as he managed to keep them from falling nose first.

    The jarring impact of their crash bounced Lock’s head around inside his helmet.  He saw stars and tasted blood, and his vision hadn’t even cleared before the alloy shell of their wrecked ship began taking blaster fire that sounded like the worst hailstorm Kamino had to offer.

    “Let’s go, Wake, time to bang out,” Lock said to his brother, whose head canted towards the controls of the fore cockpit.  Lock unbuckled his safety harness and started to reach forward to shake the pilot’s shoulder, but that was as far as he got before the cockpit door slid open and an armored hand was pulling him back into his seat.

    “Wrong idea,” Heke said, keeping his restraining grip on Lock’s shoulder.  “Will the ejection capsule still fire?”

    “Sir?”

    “The ejection seats.  Will they still work?”

    Lock couldn’t fathom what the ARC was thinking, nor why he was wasting time keeping the three of them in a ship that was about to be molten slag.  “They should, but sir, the men—”

    “Need me in that building, and you’re going to put me on top of it.”

    Realization dawned on Lock.  Fierfek, the idea was crazy, but also potentially brilliant.  But then that pretty much summed up ARC Troopers—crazy and brilliant.  “Alright, let’s get Captain Wake clear and you can—”

    “No time,” Heke said as he scrambled over Lock, shoulder pauldron and kama scraping past his head.

    Lock gritted his teeth.  “You’d better at least strap on to something.”

    A large explosion went off next to their position in the courtyard, and the resulting dirt and debris showered the fuselage, adding their own notes to the staccato thuds of the blaster fire.

    “No time!  Punch it, Lieutenant, now!”

    You’re the boss.  But if that kriffing skirt of yours catches the wind and sends you flying, that’s just bloody well too bad.  Lock pulled the safety catch on the emergency ejection node and hit it.  Explosive bolts sent the view screen flying, followed a split second later by the repulsor assisted rocket that shot the entire cockpit compartment into the air.  The ejector didn’t exactly put them into orbit, but it gave Lock plenty of altitude to get above the building that continued to pour fire onto the crash site.

    From up here, Lock could see that the building’s roof was indeed dominated by a green tiled dome, but the dome itself was surrounded by flat sections.  The ejection capsule was designed to be guided, though the repulsors on its underside left a lot to be desired for delicate landings.  Settling onto the flat section next to an access stairway that Heke, who was all but hanging off the capsule, was pointing to was going to be tricky.  Lock only had a brief moment to spare a glance back to the crashed ship below.  The burning engines cast just enough firelight to see troopers—some lying down, wounded or dead—along with the bulky shapes of the four Katarn armored commandos, sheltered in the lee of the Larty.  He didn’t see Frost, but Six was still in his bubble turret, pouring composite laser into the building’s windows.  The last thing Lock saw before returning his attention to the landing was the streaking tail of a rocket that dead centered the starboard gunner.

    Six!  Lock’s heart skipped a beat in concern for his friend, but the sight of the building’s roof rushing up beneath him brought him back to his own problems.  His brother was gone, he had no doubt of that, and he would have to mourn him later.  Lock pushed the repulsors to their max, then feathered the ones on the right down a little and the capsule drifted jerkily towards the stairwell.  With a little more maneuvering, they were now right where he wanted them, but the capsule was still coming down at a pretty good clip.  Let’s just hope that roof is sturdier than it looks.  Fortunately, the repulsors did their job during the last ten meters of the descent, and their capsule came to rest with nothing more than a solid crunch.

    Heke was on the ground and rushing towards the access doors before Lock had even gotten out of his seat.  Reaching for the motionless form of his pilot, he hailed the ARC.  “Sir, Captain Wake—”

    “Is unconscious, but he’ll be as dead as the rest of us if you don’t help me clear this building.”  Heke motioned for Lock to join him on the other side of the roof doors.  Lock swore and slid down the side of the capsule, then hustled over to take position opposite the ARC.

    Heke had one hand pressed against the side of his helmet, making little nodding motions here and there.  He looked up, locking T-visored gazes with Lock.  “Sergeant Ge’verd has got eyes on the building and says they’re taking fire from the east quadrant of the ninth floor only.  That’s three floors down from here.  We’ll start there.”  Heke looked back down at the door controls, pulling what looked like a simple stylus out from one of his belt pouches.  He tapped it against the controls and the door made a sighing noise accompanied by the click of its lock disengaging.  Special Operations certainly did get their hands on some fancy toys.  He reached up to wedge his fingers into the slight gap and push the door open, sliding a strip cam in to check the other side.  He pulled the cam back out, nodded an all-clear, then paused.  “The sergeant also sends his compliments on your improvised landing.”  Without another word, the Alpha ARC put the toe of his boot against the exposed edge of the door and kicked it back into its housing.  In one smooth motion, he slid his WESTAR-M5 rifle on its sling into the crook of his right shoulder and burst into the stair well.

    Lock was right on his heels, his DC-17s sidearm resting comfortably in a two-handed grip.  The stairwell was pitch black and alerting enemies with their helmet spot lamps would have been a very bad idea, so Lock and Heke were forced to rely on the grainy low-light amplifiers built into their visors.  Three floors down, Heke repeated the door breach maneuver, giving them access to a long, carpeted hallway that ran the length of the back of the building.  Carpet.  Footstep muffling carpet.  Our first lucky break.  The clones crept quietly down the corridor, following the steady cracks of enemy fire to a pair of large, transparisteel double doors.  A reception desk sat on the other side of the doors and the office room expanded off to the right, adjacent to the hallway they had just traversed.  The entire room was lit up with the flashing lights of discharging blasters.

    Heke hefted two thermal detonators and motioned with hand signals that he would crack the door, toss them in and they would both rush in after the second explosion.  They could have communicated with words instead of signs; their helmets were sound proofed and the short-range comm was secure, but troopers were always hesitant to trust the tech too much.