EDITED ON FEBRUARY 6, 2021
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(Geonosis, a few minutes after Black Moon Squad enters the tower)
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"Commander, the droids have us outnumbered! We're running low on ammunition and cover! What are your orders?!"
"Keep fighting, Flash! We just got to hold out 'til Kydan and his men get here!"
"Copy that, ma'am!"
'If he gets here in time, that is...', the blonde haired Jedi Knight woman though to herself, before deflecting an energy blast back with her green bladed lightsaber.
Down below the sixth floor within the research tower, Rilicia and her squad, White Claw, had breached the large room of what little cargo there was left, having defeated some B1 Battle Droids and B2 Super Battle Droids in the vicinity. They had all just begun to head towards the next set of stairs to the seventh floor before being entrapped within the cargo bay, the door before them sealed off. To make matters worth, the reinforcements that were suppose to aid the other droid forces earlier had finally caught up to them; containing B1 Battle Droids, B2 Super Battle Droids, a few, but deadly, Droidekas and one single DSD1 Dwarf Spider Droid, all charging up to them all, pinning them back to take cover.
Rilicia thought that it was a nightmare. "Boomer, we need that Spider Droid gone!"
"Working on it, commander!" Boomer cried out, rushing to reload his rocket launcher in hand. After a few seconds, he lifts the launcher in the air and aims it right at the droid, using the automatic targeting computer for better success.
"Suck on this, you clanker!"
Pulling the trigger, the missile launches out from the rocket launcher, flying right towards the Spider Droid at high speed. With little time to react, the missile makes a clean hit, creating a massive explosion that engulfed almost the entire droid itself, destroying both the Spider Droid, one Super Battle Droid and a couple Battle Droids that had been around it.
Boomer places the rocket launcher down before cheering out loud. "Ha ha! Take that, you junkies!"
"Good work Boomer, that takes ca-," Rilicia paused for a brief moment before looking at her other clone soldier, Wilow, who had just taken down a simple battle droid. When she saw the Super Battle droid aim its wrist blaster at him, she cried out, "Wilow, get down!"
"Wha-!" Before Wilow could even finish whatever he was going to say, he felt the sudden, burning stings in his chest plate, multiple shots piercing right through him. "GAH!"
Rilicia winced and mourned the death of her fellow trooper, who had dropped to the ground. But even though she had lost her fellow trooper, that wasn't gonna stop her from defeating the droid forces. She and her squad had come too far to surrender and lay down their lives now. They had to hold this position!
She looked behind her to one of her other troopers, who was currently slicing his way through the control panel next to the sealed door. "Hacker! How's it coming with that door?!"
"Its taking a little longer than I would have hoped ma'am," he replied, just pulling two small blue and black wires out as it caused it to spark. "I don't know how much longer it'll take to get her open!"
Rilicia sighed silently in annoyance. She wasn't mad with Hacker, but more with their current situation before them all. "Then work as fast as you can! Otherwise, those droids will call for reinforcements! And frankly, we don't have enough ammunition or men for that!"
"Copy that, Commander! I'm on it!"
"Hang on boys! Droidekas incoming!"
As soon as she turned her attention back to the droids, two large, brown metallic machines, known as Droidekas, rolled into the fray of the battle, deploying themselves right beside the remaining Super Battle Droids as they began to blast away at the remaining clones and Jedi commander. If that wasn't enough; one of the remaining Super Battle Droids was able to hit one of the soldiers, named Kuros, gunning the clone right down to the ground just as the last droid had done to Willow earlier. They were all beginning that this was the final line of defense; either kill or be killed.
Dodging the incoming gunfire from the opposite side, Flash ducks beside next to Boomer and behind his commander. "I don't think we can hold out much longer commander! We're down to three men!"
Although she hated to admit it, Lieutenant Flash was right. Their entire squad was now slimmed down to three men. It was now up to Flash, Boomer, Hacker, and herself to survive and hold the line. Even though the odds were against them, they had no other choice. This was their final stand alright, and they all knew it.
"...Then we'll go down by taking them with us, Lieutenant." She looks to the rest of her remaining soldiers around her, who were all looking at her awaiting her final order as their leader. "White Claw Squadron, take out as many as you can! No mercy!"
"Sir, yes ma'am!" They all shouted as Flash, Boomer, and even Hacker all picked themselves out from their cover and began to open fire at the droid forces, hoping to take down whatever they can with them. Rilicia jumped out of her own cover, igniting her green saber and started to deflect the incoming fire from the Super Battle Droids and droidekas.
As the entire squadron made their final attempts against the droids, from behind the droid enemy, a few unknown blue energy shots are heard and seen from behind, taking out two of the five Super Battle Droids. Then, out of one of the droidekas that was continuing to barrage the clones and Jedi with its ray shield on surrounding it, slowly begins to float in midair as the shield itself deactivates and all shots from it was ceased to a halt.
None of them knew what was happening, but the clones stopped firing at the droids, taking cover once again and only poking their helmets out to look beyond the battlefield. Even Rilicia was totally confused to what was happening, as well.
She looked at the droids dumbfounded. "What the blazes...?"
Taking a moment to see what was causing the droids to act weird and stop firing at them, Flash looked behind the enemy to see if the source of their actions was the case. When he did, he realized what was happening. "Ma'am, look!"
In an instant, the droideka was flung right towards the right, smashing into the metal wall as it somewhat exploded and sparked simultaneously, falling back onto the steel floor with a thud. From behind the droids was but Kydan and Black Moon Squad, rushing towards them as they began to focus all their efforts on the remaining droids before them all.
Kydan activates his purple blade, pointing the saber directly at the droids. "Alright boys, take them out!"
As the last of his words escaped his lips. each one chose to target the last droideka as they caught it off guard, creating enough it could make a full turn around. With just the right amount of attacks, the droideka was too vulnerable and utterly was shredded away from the gunfire shots.
Meanwhile, Kydan chose to pursue one of the last Super Battle Droids while Rilicia took the chance to attack the other from behind, both of them slicing each droid's arms off and cutting them in half at the exact same time.
As the two collapsed tot he ground in pieces, White Claw made a cheer of victory as they knew the battle was finally over. Rilicia, sighing in relief, turns her gaze towards Kydan with a bright smile. She was so glad that they came in the nick of time, but was also worried about them when they attacked the tower outside earlier. Though, she was overjoyed that he was okay.
"Kydan!" She rushed up to him before coming to a halt in front of him, forcefully restraining herself to not hug him. "Thank the Force your alright! We thought your team was wiped out."
"We thought the same about you guys when we couldn't make any contact with you," Kydan admitted, a small smile forming on his lips. "But, thanks to Scanner, he was able to locate where you and your squad were. If he hadn't, we would have never got here in time. I'm just glad your safe, Rilicia."
Rilicia was slightly caught off from his last comment, a small blush appearing on her cheek bones. Hoping to avoid the embarrassment, she smiled and replied back, "Well, I'm glad your safe too Kydan. Thanks for saving me and my team."
Kydan blushed back, rubbing the back of his neck in his own embarrassment with a small chuckle. "O-Oh, j-just doing my job as a Jedi."
Not fully understanding what was going on between their two commanders, Flash and R.S. approached them both, their helmets being held between their arms. Flash spoke up first, "Commanders, Hacker just finished hacking through the main door. Area is secured and are ready to proceed to the labs on your orders."
"Excellent. What is our loses Leuitenant?" Rilicia questioned them.
"We lost Wilow and Curos in the battle. We're down to three men in the squad ma'am. Our squad is down to a task force, and we don't have enough numbers to overrun the tower. Any ideas, ma'am?"
It was true, their numbers have dwindled to only a small task force all because of her actions. She should be feeling guilt for the whole outcome, but knew that it wouldn't help her if she started to blame herself. She then murmurs to herself, not satisfied with it all. "This might be harder than I expected..."
Kydan understood what she meant. Being under the command of many lives was very challenging, and it's difficult to figure out if you will carry out the right or wrong orders during the battles before and after. It wasn't very pleasant.
With a broad grin, Kydan spoke up. "Well, I guess it's a good thing you have us then, huh Rilicia?"
"Still, who knows how much tougher it's gonna be when we reach the labs. If Eclipse is still there, he'll definitely be ready for us."
Kydan's grin grows even more, "Then we'll use that to our advantage. Flash, you and your men have any thermal detonators left?"
When Kydan looked to the rest of White Claw Squadron, he saw the three clones searching through their plastic white pouches and backpacks for any detonators they had left. Fortunately for them, each one of them was carrying one each.
Flash and his men showed the commander their last grenades. "Uh, yes sir. Each of us have at least one. But if you don't mind me asking; why?"
"Cause, Lieutenant, we're gonna need to be blowing ourselves a new 'entrance'?"
"Uh...'new entrance', sir?"
He chuckles at the soldier. "You'll understand once we get in there."
Rilicia just giggles from Kydan's comment, while Flash just tilted his head in an utterly confused state. With a simple smirk, Kydan turns his attention to Rilos, Scanner and Hopper who were just approaching them all.
"Rilos? I need you and the rest of the team to secure and hold this position until we get back. There's no telling what or when the droids will be coming back."
"Understood sir," Rilos replied, both he and his men cocking their weapons. "We'll contact you if we see any droids in the vicinity."
"Good man," the young Jedi nodded with a smile. He turns to Rilicia and her men, his smile not faltering in the slightest. "Alright, lets get in there and capture that Mandalorian."
"Lets just hope we're not too late," Rilicia hoped as she, Kydan and the team rushed out of the room and through the corridors of the tower, leaving the rest to protect the area for escape.
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(Ten minutes after losing contact with droid forces...)
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Inside the laboratory, droid unit K-17, ex-assistant droid of Alurak, scrambles across the entire lab in preparations for the enemies' arrival. With one last objective left to accomplish, K17 quickly contacts its master, revealing a small blue silhouette appears before it.
"My lord, our reinforcements have all been eliminated below the lab," K-17 addresses, "We no longer have reinforcements available."
'It is of little concern,' the mysterious man replies to the droid, unfazed by the news. 'We have accomplished what we needed here. Do what you can to keep the Jedi and Republic away from our mission. We do not need any interference.'
"Understood, sir," K-17 said, nodding its head. "We'll hold them here."
As the hologram projecting the silhouette disappears in front of K-17, the two battle droids that are guarding the doorway to the lab start to hear a small knocking noise from the other side of the room. The one on the left notices the noise as it looks, first, to the door and then back at it's counterpart.
"Did you hear that?" It asked the other droid.
"I didn't hear anything," the other replied, slightly shaking it's thin stick-like head. "You must be hearing things again."
The droid looks to the door. "I could have sworn I heard something. It sounded like a knock."
"Your sensors must be malfunctioning again," the other said to it. "You should head down to repairs later, get yourself a che-"
Before the droid could finish it's sentence, they both suddenly start hearing a small, quiet beeping noise from the other side. This time, both of them looked to the door, utterly confused as to what the sound is.
"What is that sound?"
"Sounds like some sort of 'beeping' noise."
"Wait a minute...isn't that what they call a-"
"Get back!" a man's voice shouted from the other side of the metal doorway.
Immediately, the two droids looked at one another with concerned voices, "Uh-oh..." With that, the doorway in front of them shattered into multiple pieces, blasting off across the laboratory, striking at few of the droids that were protecting the room as they broke into piles of scrap metal.
K-17 picked itself up from hiding underneath the panel, slightly shaken from the surprise attack, before seeing a handful of clones rushing into the room, followed by none other but Kydan and Rilicia who both had their swords ignited into pure energy blades.
The droid assistant coward backwards slowly as it started shouting commands to the remaining three battle droids and the single super battle droid in the room. "Don't just stand there! Blast them already!"
But before the droids could even retaliate against their foes, Flash and his clone brothers were far too quick on the draw as they all gunned down the four security droid guards in the room, leaving only K-17 alone without any droid support or reinforcements to depend on. The clones and the two young Jedi all had their blades and blasters directed at the droid assistant, who was now terrified as it could be.
Not knowing what to do, the droid raised it's thin metal arms in the air slowly as he spoke, "Uh...I...surrender myself?" But as it's words left its voice box, Boomer had taken the shot first, piercing a clean energy blast right between the droid's memory band and eyes. With that, the droid assistant collapsed onto the ground, shutting itself down permanently.
Flash shook his head slightly at Boomer, "Couldn't resist, could ya' brother?"
"What? Like that droid was gonna talk," Boomer shrugged innocently and truthfully, causing half of the team to slightly chuckle.
"So much for meeting with the assassin himself," Rilicia said in disappointment. "He must have escape the tower the moment we all breached inside."
"Well if anything, we can see if he left anything valuable for us to take back for Republic Intelligence," Kydan replied in a hopeful matter, strolling up to one of the computer panels in the center. "So let's get to work, and fast."
"Right. Flash, have the others guard the door while we hack into the computer main frames. We don't want to have anymore surprises left in this place."
"Copy that, ma'am."
As Flash, Boomer, R.S. and Hopper stayed near the exploded doorway watching for any droid reinforcements to start marching to them, Kydan, Rilicia and Hacker got to work on trying to slice through the mainframes of what was Alurak's personal files.
Fifteen minutes passes as Kydan, Rilicia and Hacker continue to slice through the mainframes for any information about Alurak or any other important documents on what the Separatist were doing here. So far, however, none of them were making much progress.
"Anything yet Rilicia?" Kydan sighed as he looked over his shoulder for a brief moment before turning his attention back to the mainframe.
"I got...nothing. How about you Hacker?"
Hacker shook his head in a 'no' fashion. "Nothing. Its looks like he wiped out everything inside the computers before he left the tower. He knew that we would come."
"Which was why that droid assistant stayed behind, so he could have insurance of wiping out the data..." Kydan's frustration was building up slowly, but just made it worse when he smashed his fisted hands on the computer in front of him. "Karabast!"
Noticing and sensing his frustration, Rilicia approaches him and places a delicate hand on his shoulder to try to calm him down, as well as comfort him at the same time. "Relax Kydan. No need to get all worked up about it. Besides, there's always a next time. When we meet him again, we'll be more than ready."
Reluctantly, Kydan knew that she was right. She was always right, as a matter of fact. True, it wasn't a complete lost just yet. They still have a mission to finish, and that's what he was going to do. Complete the mission and go home, simple as that.
Exhaling some air as he collected himself calmly, he smiles to her. "You're right, Rilicia. I shouldn't let my anger get the better of me. That's not what a Jedi would let happen, and I shouldn't give into it so easy. I appreciate it a lot. Thank you."
A small pink blush appears on her cheeks as she gives him a gentle and sincere smile. But then she lets a frown to form on her lips as she lets go of his shoulder, obviously causing some confusion to her young Jedi friend. Friend, that was what they were right now. But somewhere, deep down in her heart, she wanted something...more. Of course she knew that it was forbidden in the Jedi Order, in fact, it was severe punishment for having such an attachment like that! But she knew that she had to tell him, and right now was the time. The more she keeps hold onto the feeling, the more it will eat at her. And the more she waits will be the day when it will be too late.
Taking a large, deep breath to try and calm herself, she looks to Kydan in the eyes as her own eyes shine in the bright light that was directly above her. That same small blush she had now turning to a lingering shaded red. "Kydan? There's...there's something I need to tell you."
Kydan cocked his head a bit, still unsure of what was going on with her. "Sure, what is it?"
Taking a moment adjust herself, she takes another deep breath before choosing her words correctly. "Kydan, we've been through so much all these years. We've known each other since we were just younglings, and on the day we met at the funeral in the Jedi Temple. And, throughout all that time, I can always remember the best times we had going on missions together. And I remember all the amazing things we've done together as we grown up, and none of that has left me to this day. In fact...I don't want those times to end anytime soon..."
Still not understanding what she was trying to say, he urges her to continue. "What are you trying to say, Rilicia?"
"W-What I'm trying to say is...um, well...what I'm trying to say exactly is...is that...I..."
"Go on..."
"I...Kydan, I lo-"
Just before she could finally complete her sentence to him, Flash approaches them from the doorway. His body language was giving them both an obvious worry and concern. "Commanders, we've been trying to contact Rilos and the rest of his squad, but there hasn't been any response."
Kydan's eyes widen as his concern peaked. It wasn't normal for a clone to not respond back when being contacted. He has a strong feeling that something is definitely wrong. "Something must have happened to them. We need to get back down to the cargo area and check on them. There's nothing left for us to do here, anyhow."
"Yes sir! Let's move White Claw Squad!"
The clones of White Claw all not in compliance to their sergeant's orders, all of them moving into the hallway. Kydan was close behind them, just making his way out before he looked over his shoulder to see Rilicia had not moved an inch from her spot. He could see disappointment and, what appeared to be, sadness written across her entire face. Her eyes looked more glassy than before, much more than from before.
Concern washed over him quickly, not really knowing what to say to her. "Rilicia, is everything alright?"
Snapping out of her own sadness, she looks to Kydan who was staring at her with his concerned expression. She didn't want him to see her sadness, let alone her disappointment. She was a Jedi Knight, and a Jedi does not look weak to anyone, especially their closest friends. Doing he best to hide her expression, she immediately changes her mood rubbing her glassy eyes with her sleeve. "Y-Yeah, I'm good. Let's get moving!"
Brushing past him as fast as her legs could bare, her last expression of sadness returns as she tries her best to hide her face from Kydan and the clones before her. Kydan looked to Rilicia for a moment when the clones looked to him in question. He shrugs at them in response, not really knowing what was going on with her. With that, he and the others follow behind the young Jedi Knight as they make haste back to the cargo bay.
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I hope all of you enjoyed the third part of the "Star Wars The Jedi Mercenary" series so far. And like I have said last time, these next chapters were taken back years ago so we are very sorry that they aren't perfect. But I still hope you have enjoyed them nonetheless.
But, putting all that aside, I hope you can all give us your thoughts and feedback about hope the series is so far by giving this and the other chapters either a comment and/or fave. if we're asking too much, then just reading them for yourself is good too. Anyways, Thank you all for the countless support, and as always, have a fan-building-tastic day/night ! See ya' in the next one!
- Director K.W.
![[SW The Dark Mercenary] Chapter 3 - Battle for Affection](https://live.staticflickr.com/4492/37903490492_5db6862928_z.jpg)
![[SW The Dark Mercenary] Chapter 3 - Battle for Affection](https://live.staticflickr.com/4492/37903490492_acda2d0b11_o.jpg)
