blast! → the clone wars

iii. risky plans

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TARA WAS BEGINNING TO SEE why Obi-Wan had been so concerned. As she stood in the heart of the brewing skirmish she knew she should have seen it coming—to be honest, she had seen it coming, she had just hoped they were all wrong about it and that the mission would go off without a hitch. There weren't many times Tara Verras hated being right, but that moment was certainly one of them.

"Well this is quite the mess," Niner quipped as they stood trapped by the lift. The stream of droids coming towards them looked as though it would never end.

"Really?" retorted Jazz from his right, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"I hadn't noticed!"

"Cut the chatter, boys," called Stellar without looking away from the battle, silencing the two ARC-Troopers immediately.
"Clankers come in waves, if we lose focus we won't have any time before the next ones arrive." He was right. Tara wouldn't have wanted any other men fighting alongside her, but the war hadn't been going on for long. They were still learning, because no matter how good they did during training, some things could only truly be learned through real experience. Tara had learned that lesson the hard way—they all had, and all would.

With no distractions, the squad was able to get through the first wave of droids without incident. The former captives were quick to grab weapons from the fallen droids, and together the two squads made a proper unit. They still had a good chance of getting out. The clones and Xen all looked to Tara for direction. It was still an odd feeling, but she was getting used to it.

"There's only one way out and it's through the front door. They may have the numbers but we have the advantage. We can adapt and move quicker than any droid can, we need to use that."

"So what I'm hearing is there's no plan," Xen remarked with the faintest of smirks, earning a raised eyebrow from his master—but she didn't disagree with him. She turned back to the group at large.

"We have no idea where they could be coming from, so we'll need to pay as much attention to our backs as we do to what's in front of us." Her gaze fell upon her Padawan once more.
"Take the back of the group—" She wasn't at all surprised when he protested.

"But—" Because she wasn't surprised, she was also prepared to counter him.

"Without a Jedi back there, we could sustain casualties if any droids come from behind," she told him firmly. Needless to say, the blunt reminder shut him right up and he squeezed through the squad, heading for the back.
"Be safe, everyone." With that, Tara faced forward and, with her lightsaber held in front of her, began heading down the hall with the squad on her heels. They moved at a deliberate pace, covering themselves and each other from all sides to ensure they didn't encounter any surprises. The men they had rescued fell in seamlessly with their own squad, which gave credit to their training (Tara would have to thank Shaak Ti for that later).
"Anything you can tell us about this place that you noticed before they captured you?" she whispered over her right shoulder to the captain from the other battalion, who shrugged.

"Not much. It's like they knew we were coming, General, they got to us before we could even get to the dataport. Guess we got bad intel, 'cause this base has more clankers than we could've imagined." The lack of useful information was disappointing, but Tara set her feelings aside. They turned another corner and Stellar spoke up from behind her left shoulder.

"They might've brought in more. The more data they have, the more they'll want to protect it."

"Which unfortunately will only make our jobs more difficult," murmured the Jedi. Then, suddenly, she stopped in her tracks, holding up a closed fist and signaling for the others to do the same.