As The World Caves In

Azmiah and a small group of her troops made their way up a hill to gain view of the separatist droids. She could just barely see them setting something up, they were pretty far away but it was almost dark so that didn't help. "Sketch, what is that?" She asked. He flipped his visor down, which also acted as a scanner. "It seems to be some type of bomb." He responded after a moment. At this Archive flipped his visor down as well, "I can't find anything like this in the database but judging by the size of it, I'm gonna say it can do a whole lot of damage."

Azmiah sighed, "I'm going to have the troops pull back. We don't need to learn what damage this thing can do the hard way." She turned her comm on but only heard static, "this is general Ren, Storm do you copy?" No answer. "Night?" Still no answer. "Is anyone there?" She spoke urgently. "It appears the comms are offline." Archive interrupted.

"Did the separatists disable them?" Azmiah asked, sounding upset. She already knew the answer.

"No Sir." He responded. Azmiah took a deep breath. She has had disagreements with other Jedi before, but they had never so blindly endangered so many troops because of a personal difference before. Then again, this difference wasn't very personal. He wanted to put troops' lives in danger for no reason. He viewed these living, feeling, people as weapons produced for and bought by the empire. With the sole purpose of dying for "the betterment of the republic". And now, he was probably going to get them all killed. She wouldn't let that happen, she couldn't let that happen. She turned back around and faced Sketch, "Commander, can you deliver the retreat message to them?" She hated the idea of sending him to do something so dangerous but they would know his orders were legitimate. "Yes General" he nodded his head, she couldn't see his expression through his helmet but she knew he wanted to do this for his brothers. "Just be quick, and be careful. I don't need any troops blown up today. Especially not their commander." Azmiah added as Sketch began descending the hill. Archive kept watch on the droid's progress of putting the bomb together. "Sir, I believe they have finished assembling the bomb." Archive stated and flipped his visor up. "Thank you Archive." She responded then said "Sketch, please hurry" under her breath. That's when battle droids made it onto the hill. Azmiah drew her lightsaber and ignited It, the cyan-blue lighting up her face in the dark. She sliced through the first 3 droids like butter but then more started coming from the sides. "I'll block, you shoot!" She commanded the troops and they did so. She would use her lightsaber to block and deflect shots from their sides while they shot at droids in front of them. Soon enough there were only a few battle droids left. Azmiah was getting ready to slice them all in one go when the ground began shaking. She didn't even need to turn around to know what had happened, but she did. Her eyes widened as she watched orange and red fiery clouds billow up from the ground just outside the separatist base where the other troops were entering. If it didn't mean what it did it would have been a magnificent and beautiful sight. Her eyes began to fill with tears as the dust settled but she blinked them back. She held on to hope as she frantically scanned the surrounding areas in search of a sign that Sketch's message made it to them. That they retreated. Nothing. But she knew that already. Azmiah had a strong connection with the living force and she could sense that there were no survivors. She tried to convince herself that it was just emotions clouding her senses though. The droids on the hill, being terribly built to keep their footing, had fallen over when the bomb went off and the troops with Azmiah had already shut them down. They were now standing behind her, watching the landscape in shock. "Archive," she gulped, "scan for radiation please."

"Yes sir." His voice didn't have its usual professionalism or excitement, this was the first time she heard him sound anxious and... sad. She just stood as she waited for the result, still looking at the horizon, squinting as she tried to see any sign of survivors on the ground. "The scanner is picking up no radiation sir. But they are assembling another bomb. I'm sure they've spotted us." He finally said.