In Command (#1 Post-Order 66 Series)

In Command - Part 12

Blaster bolts whizzed by her ears and the smell of burning flesh and death filled her nostrils. Screams of the dying echoed around her as she raced through the forest. The vines and brambles tore at her clothes and her long hair stuck to her neck and face. They were coming.

A branch near her head exploded with blaster fire and the splintering wood sliced her cheek and cut open her shoulder to her collarbone. She tasted blood and sweat in her mouth, but still she ran. Suddenly, she heard blaster fire to her right. Looking over, she saw the clone with the Jaig eyes on his helmet, running next to her, turning to fire backwards with his twin DC-17 pistols. "Keep running!" he shouted, his voice buzzing through his helmet's comms. She ignited her lightsaber, deflecting blasts behind her as they ran.

The forest opened up in front of them, and they stood at the edge of a cliff. She skidded to a halt, her foot stopping mere centimeters from the edge, sending a few pebbles tumbling into the abyss. They were trapped. She turned just in time to see the clone burst through the brush, his blue and white armor covered in mud with one blaster hole in his pauldron that hung over his left shoulder.

"We're trapped," she shouted. "What do we do?"

He holstered his pistols, reaching out towards her with his gloved hand. "We jump."

She felt a strange calm come over her. "Who are you?" she asked as she let her fingers slip into his.

"Ready?" he asked, ignoring the question.

She nodded.

"Together."

They leapt into the fog below.

Senna sat up in bed panting, sweat trickling down her brow. The soft morning light was beginning to illuminate the room from the window of their hotel room. The lamp near the desk was already on, and she could see Rex hunched over the desk, headphones on. He didn't appear to have heard her dreaming, as he was immersed in whatever he was listening to. Taking a beat to calm herself, she swung her legs out of bed and quietly padded up behind him, letting one of her hands gently rest on his shoulder.

Rex started at the sudden contact, turning to face her as he pulled the headphones down. "Oh good, you're up. Figured you'd want to listen in on this one."

"What's the subject matter?" she asked, slipping into the chair beside him and taking the cup of caf he offered her.

"Interplanetary resource management from what it sounds like. Ilum's already been mentioned once in the introduction. It sounds like it's going to be a proposal session where the admiralty will make a decision on whether or not to fund the concept."

Senna swallowed. None of this sounded good. "Alright." She pulled her headphones on to listen in.

"Esteemed officers of the Galactic Empire, I come before you today with a proposal that shall play an integral part in leading us into a new age of military dominance. As we all know, there are those that would wish to destroy the Empire and all that it has accomplished, but with the resources from my proposal today, I argue that we shall develop the greatest superweapon our galaxy has ever seen, one that shall restore peace and order and ensure the security of the Empire for millennia to come. In this effort, Lothal will play a large part, but there are other planets that will also be required to donate their resources in order to ensure this project's success."

The speaker continued with his presentation, listing the various resources Lothal had to offer and what those resources could be used for in terms of raw material manufacturing. It was all information Senna and Rex had heard before throughout the week. However, the speaker eventually turned to the volume of production, and for Senna, that's when the magnitude of this project began to take hold.