Clouded by the Dark Side

Chapter 28 - War on Warms

Ahsoka Tano

The three of us bolt down the hall, weaving our way through the endless turns, before finally coming to a stop once we approach the room we need to get through next. There are clones in there. I can sense and hear them. We stop at the doorway, carefully remaining concealed while watching.

The clones are surrounding one of them – who is the only one not infected from the looks of it – and one of them approaches him holding a worm.

"We have to help him!" I hiss as he tries to break free from their grip. The worm crawls from the hand of one of them and into the other's nose. He starts struggling even harder to break free from them, but it's no use.

"It's too late," Barriss replies. He lets out a final groan before finally going still.

Suddenly, one of the clones runs down the hall from behind us, shooting at us. We pull out our lightsabers and deflect the bolts, backing into the large room. I slam shut the door to prevent him from getting through, but now we have a much bigger problem on our hands. We've just alerted all the clones to our presence, and we're trapped inside.

One of them stalks towards us, holding two greenish-yellow spherical objects in their hands. Just, great. Now they're going to try to infect us. I don't know if they can work on Jedi, but it's not something I want to try and find out. Alema and I react instantly, ripping them from his hands and slicing them in half.

With a growl, the clone in the front open fires on us. Thankfully, we already had our lightsabers ignited this time. The others immediately follow suit.

The doors behind us open and I spin around to defend Barriss and Alema as they try to keep up with the other clones. Barriss yanks down two of the many crates, as we fight our way towards them. I deflect one of the bolts just right, taking down the one attacking us from behind. I really don't want to kill anyone, but there's nothing else we can do right now. It's either them or us.

Alema runs over to the crate, ducking back against it. Barriss and I join her, remaining on high alert. I look around the room, trying to think of a way to get out of here. There's too many, and we'll never be able to fight our way out. I can only think of one thing, and in fact, it sounds perfect.

"Alema! Barriss! Let's go for the vent," I hiss. Alema nods sharply. I take off forwards, leaping up onto a high pile of crates, then jumping up onto a beam much higher above. The other two land right behind me as the clones start shooting at us again. All of the blaster shots miss, blowing holes in the walls. We dash down the beam, stopping as Alema rips off the covering on the vent and jumps through, with Barriss and me right behind. We start crawling forwards through the darkness as the vent cover slams to the ground with a huge crash behind us.

We pause at a place we can see down below. Clones are running past down there. I think everyone on the ship is infected by now except for the three of us. "I'll go to the reactor room and disable the thrusters," Barriss suggests. "Both of you can head for the aft comm center and send a warning to Master Fisto. We have to stop the ship from reaching the medical station."

"I don't know Barriss," I object as we start crawling forwards again, "I think we should stay together."

"I agree," Alema replies forcefully, "The clones are everywhere here, and the last thing we need is one of us infected." Agreed. That would not be a good situation.

"Unfortunately, that's not a luxury we have right now," Barriss replies. I wouldn't call it a luxury, but anyway. "One of us must succeed. If you need to, you'll do what must be done. I know it." Yes, I will. But I don't like the implications of her words.