blast! → the clone wars

xv. the battle of kamino

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WHEN THE FIRST MUFFLED SOUNDS OF BATTLE forced themselves into the otherwise silent medical wing, nearly everyone who was present—and conscious—flinched. Tara was the only exception, for she could feel the first deaths ripple through the Force moments before they happened. She watched as her men reached for their blasters, unholstering them but keeping them lowered for the time being; after all, it would take the battle droids a while to make their way that far into the cloning facility, or so they hoped.

There was a certain nervousness in the air, one that they all knew the reason behind. They didn't say anything (which was uncommon to begin with, for the 107th was always tossing quips back and forth, especially in the tension before a battle), but the way they kept exchanging glances under their helmets did all the talking for them. This battle was personal, and for multiple reasons. Firstly, it was an attack on their home, and secondly, they weren't just defending some planet they had no real connection to. They were defending their home, and their wounded brothers, Stellar being one of them. That was why their nervousness was accompanied by a strong sense of determination, perhaps the strongest Tara had ever felt amongst her men. She understood it, and she shared it with them.

Most of the 107th was stationed throughout the floor, some covering the entrances while the rest guarded the wounded men residing within the wing. There were two soldiers in each room and an additional two stationed outside, which may have seemed a bit unnecessary to an outsider but was deemed perfectly necessary by everyone present. Tara stood in Stellar's room with Xen by her side, and they were accompanied by Jett, Jazz, and Niner while Buzz and Stinger were just outside the door. Snap was with them, but he was in the center of the hall with the biggest blaster he could find, ready to bring hell to the unsuspecting droids that would be storming the wing at any moment. The amount of people in and around Stellar's room was excessive even to them, but no one seemed to mind.

"The surgery went well," Jett reported quietly as he looked up from his datapad, where he had been examining the results of Stellar's post-op scan. Normally the Kaminoans would be the ones to do that sort of thing, but they had been sent to a safe room the instant the threat was revealed. The medic jumped at the chance to do it himself; he always felt better about the care of his brothers when fellow clones were the ones doing the work. He didn't trust the Kaminoans much, and Tara had realized over the years that he was only one in a handful who felt that way.
"He should regain consciousness soon, and he'll make a full and rapid recovery. He's lucky the explosion didn't cause any brain damage..."

"We're all lucky for that," said Tara comfortingly, and the others nodded in agreement. The battle sounds were growing closer now, and she knew for a fact that Grievous—if not Dooku himself—would have ordered the merciless killings of the men recovering in the medical wing. She honestly took it personally, no matter how silly she felt admitting it; Dooku knew for a fact that some of her men would be there, given their encounter not even a day earlier. Surely a coincidence, but still.

Not that the 107th wasn't well prepared for a fight, because anyone who attacked their home and their brothers wouldn't make it out, and Tara was more than willing to help with that. She took comfort in the fact that Separatist forces weren't made up of living beings; battle droids were programmed to think alike and do nothing but kill, so she had no problem slicing through them by the dozens, especially when it meant helping her men protect their home.

The door to the south side of the wing came crashing down and Tara gripped the hilt of her lightsaber, finally activating it. Xen followed in suit, and she took comfort in the low hum that emanated from both weapons, the room now enveloped in a calming blue-green hue. They were in a room near the center of the wing, but the rest between them and the incoming battle droids were all empty, which was both a positive and a negative. It meant they would be the first line of defense once the droids started entering rooms, but it also meant defending Stellar would be more difficult. Tara knew she shouldn't be thinking of her captain before anyone else, but she knew that, if it came down to it, she'd put the lives of many others over the life of Stellar. Not only was it the Jedi way, but it was also what he would have wanted.