Turning my head, I noticed my deactivated lightsaber lying nearby — nothing remarkable, just two crystals and a blue blade — as well as a B-1's E-5 blaster carbine. Without hesitation, I grabbed the carbine.
What lightsaber? Screw it! I'd always dreamed of firing a blaster!
Still, I clipped the saber back onto my belt where it belonged. With my wound, attempting acrobatics would have been unwise, and I was no Jedi Master anyway. That was Plo Koon over there — a beast — cutting down eleven B-1s in two seconds flat. I couldn't even follow the movement of his blade. Or Shaak Ti — she was giving the droids hell too.
Hmm… not as heavy as it looks, maybe two kilos.
Leaning against the wreck of a B-2, I leveled the barrel at the approaching droids. The trigger felt awkward, but that wasn't surprising; the weapon was designed for the three-fingered stump of a B-1, a human hand, or even a Wookiee's paw. Still, it worked well enough.
Well then. Force, don't fail me now.
Pew-pew!
Yes! Hit it! And what's more — no recoil!
Truthfully, I'd only fired a couple of times in my life, with an air rifle at the school shooting range. I'd never held a real firearm — I never made it into the army. (Unless you count a large-scale model of a M16 as a weapon?)
Pew! Pew-pew-pew!
Catch that, you bastard!
Pew-pew!
Pew-chk!
What the—?
Glancing at the indicator light, I realized the carbine had run out of energy and gas. No problem. The arena was littered with them, no need to bother with reloading. Tossing the useless junk aside, I slid left and picked up another.
'Well then, shall we continue?'
Pew-pew! Pew, pew, pew!
Through trial and error, I found the E-5 was weak against droids. One accurate shot was enough for the first, but the second might take five or six. Tough bastards. No wonder the clones carried huge DC-15As — somewhere between a three-line rifle and a light machine gun — with plenty of stopping power. The Kaminoans clearly knew how to equip the army they'd built and what it would be up against.
Behind me, an explosion. Something massive collapsed.
I turned — and saw Skywalker for the first time in person. The guy was whipping his saber around, deflecting blaster bolts, while Amidala — crouched behind a repulsor cart abandoned by fleeing Geonosian drivers — calmly fired back with the same E-5 model.
Skywalker spotted me. The sight of a Jedi lying on the ground and blasting away instead of wielding a lightsaber clearly rattled his worldview.
"Master, what are you doing? And where is your lightsaber?"
'Where, where…' The Force knows, I had a strong urge to answer in rhyme, but the circumstances weren't right. Restraining myself, I decided to channel my inner Yoda and quoted a phrase I'd once read somewhere:
"A Jedi without a lightsaber is like a Jedi with a lightsaber… but without a lightsaber."
"And I am not a Master. Just a Knight."
Skywalker's face tightened, but I turned away and kept shooting.
"Oh, — was all he managed."
None of us had time for conversation anyway.
And still — that sound of a blaster bolt… mmm. Beautiful.
Pew! Pew-pew!
Oh, mother of mine, what a filthy beast!
My gaze locked on one of the creatures the trio of "failed scouts" had been fighting in the arena. In reality, it looked terrifying: a six-meter cross between a mantis and a shark. Its screech alone was enough to make your skin crawl. Even the droids stepped aside for that abomination.
Still, it didn't take Obi-Wan long to slice off its legs and then blow its head apart in spectacular fashion.
But all fun ends eventually. The Jedi, losing fighters by the minute, began retreating toward the center of the arena. My carbine's ammo ran dry again, the barrel red-hot. These things were built for droids, after all.
Worse, our defensive ring had shrunk badly. Staying behind the metal carcass of a B-2, I risked being cut off from my comrades within a minute. Tossing aside the junk, I ignited my lightsaber. If I couldn't destroy the droids, I'd at least make sure they didn't get me.
At any other time, I would have admired the weapon, but not now.
Damn, this was harder than I thought. My body wasn't responding well, but slowly, my reflexes took over. I barely managed to deflect a shot — sending it back at the shooter? Forget it. And I remembered: Shii-Cho was notoriously weak at deflecting blaster fire.
Just let me avoid hitting my own people…
***
In the end, the few survivors formed a small circle. The droids, obeying Count Dooku's gesture, ceased fire and stood waiting.
Estimating their numbers, I whistled silently. No fewer than two thousand, and another seven hundred already blown to pieces, lying in the sand. Around us lay the bodies of humans, Twi'leks, Zabraks, and others whose names I couldn't recall. Some were reduced to such a state it was impossible to tell who — or what — they had been.
"Master Windu! You and your Jedi have shown valor worthy of the Order's annals. But it is over. Surrender, and you will be spared."
So the speeches began. Everyone knew the outcome, but speeches were a tradition.
Windu's glare cut into Dooku. "We will not be your bargaining chips, Dooku," he said coldly. "I'm sorry, old friend.
The droids raised their blasters. The Jedi raised their sabers.
I crouched slightly, lightsaber horizontal in both hands. What the hell — it might even come to hand-to-hand.
Come on, Yoda. Where are you, you green little bastard? Time for the cavalry.
A rumble shook the sky.
"Look!" Amidala cried.
Our eyes turned upward.
Nine LAAT gunships dropped from the clouds, spewing fire from every gun. The droids turned their weapons upward, but the gunships' laser cannons tore through them. The droids' feeble return fire only scorched the armor. Green beams shredded them into scrap.
The nose turrets of the LAATs — light blasters — swept across the field, adding to the chaos.
'Time to get out of here!'
The gunships swooped low, firing rockets into the stands before descending into the arena. Clones spilled out, unleashing disciplined fire. Blue and red bolts crisscrossed. The surviving Jedi ran to them. Naturally, I followed.
We boarded quickly, and the gunships roared upward, leaving the Petranaki Arena behind.
***
Catching my breath, I looked around at my fellow passengers: Luminara Unduli herself, and several other familiar faces — Shaak Ti, Aayla Secura, and Kit Fisto. In reality, they looked… impressive. Shaak Ti, in her traditional outfit and makeup, was striking. The blue-skinned Twi'lek was no less so. And in the Force, they radiated presence, solid and undeniable.
A dozen clones rode with us as well. Serious men, cut from the same mold. They carried heavy weapons: one shouldered a rocket launcher, another hefted a Z-6 rotary blaster, looking no less formidable than Schwarzenegger himself.
Fisto grinned his usual grin, and I couldn't help but smile back.
The Jedi, however, had turned their gaze on me. Their eyes quickly fixed on the hole in my chest.
"Sir, are you all right?" one of the clones asked. Judging by the insignia on his chest, he was some kind of commander — though neither I nor my predecessor understood Kaminoan markings.
"You need medical attention."
"That would be nice. But no time right now."
The Jedi were clearly trying to place me — and failing. To save them the trouble, I introduced myself:
"Mykore Vikt, Jedi Knight."
I would have bowed, but just then the gunship shook violently. Everyone tightened their safety harnesses.
"What's going on?" I asked the clone commander.
"We're approaching separatist positions, sir."
I grunted and steeled myself for the second act of this Marlezon ballet.
***
Above us, the battle raged. Republic cruisers clashed with Trade Federation ships. Some stayed in orbit, while others dipped into the atmosphere, dropping clone troops by the thousands. A couple of cruisers even descended to the surface to deploy massive SPHA-T self-propelled artillery.
Transports unloaded AT-TEs and wave after wave of clone infantry near the Separatist lines.
"Pilot, drop us at the front line!" Shaak Ti ordered.
"Roger that, — came the pilot's voice through the intercom."
The gunship banked hard, cannons blazing, and began its descent. Moments later, we hit the ground running. Clones poured out with us. The Jedi Masters scattered, rallying their troops with a grand sweep of the hand and an even grander sweep of their lightsabers, leading from the front — intent on closing with the droids in melee.
Apparently, they hadn't learned from the Petranaki Arena.
Then again… Masters could afford that luxury. The rest of us could not.
Grumbling — with a hole in my stomach, I had no desire to charge headlong into tens of thousands of blaster-firing droids — I still clenched my teeth and raised my saber.
"Come on! Let's kick their asses! Forward!"
It was madness. Idiocy. And I knew it. But whether it was herd instinct, a subconscious need not to stand out, or simply a rush of adrenaline driving me insane, I ran — praying I wouldn't be hit.
Behind me, a squad of clones from our gunship charged. Three more squads followed.
All hell broke loose. Clone companies advanced steadily on the Separatist lines. The droids responded with a storm of rockets from their MLRS units.
Colossal spider droids — towering twenty meters tall — swept red beams across the battlefield, mowing down clones by the dozens. AT-TE tanks answered with every cannon, their seventy-five to eighty-millimeter main guns hammering away.
Above us, LAAT gunships strafed the droids and even the Trade Federation ships themselves, launching missiles accelerated by mass drivers.
A shadow swept over us. Another AT-TE landed ahead, disgorging clone infantry from its hatches. Our squad swelled to fifty strong, advancing under the tank's covering fire.
Barely deflecting the shots, I ran forward. Just a little further, and the Separatists would begin to break. Their massive ball-shaped transports were already lifting into the air.
The nearest one staggered as blue beams from SPHA-Ts slammed into it. The colossal guns — forty meters long, four stories high — tore through its hull. It hovered for a second, then streams of plasma erupted from beneath the hull, and the ship began to collapse downwards.
Yes. That was no small victory.
But then, disaster.
A volley from a Separatist rocket-tank droid struck. Two missiles slammed into our AT-TE — one in the front, one on the roof — while others detonated among the clones.
Flame seared my face. The blast wave hurled me backward.
I hit something hard — and blacked out.