Star Wars: The Jedi Chronicles:Enter The Shadows (Books 1-4)

Chapter: Five Pie?

After a week and a half on Naboo, the group heads back to their ship to plan the assault of Mandalore. They put their stuff away and meet in a conference room.

Shain: This is it... The last fight before we go to Coruscant. Really, this isn't even a fight. This is the first real battle. I don't expect this to be a one-day fight. After all, we're fighting fallen Jedi and Mandalorians.

Shain sets his holocom in the center of the table and a map of a Mandalorian camp comes up. Around the camp are impossible-to-climb green mountains. There are two basic parts to this fortress: the main gate, which you have to go through a forest, then a cave to get to the camp.

The second way, which you have to cross a big open field and a lake to use, leaves you totally exposed to blaster fire.

Shain: This is where Cody is holding out. I'm going to have us Jedi come in through this cave here. (points to the main entrance) A small squad will be coming with us. After that will come waves of troopers.

Dudley: What are you gonna do about that back door?

Shain: Nothing, unless you got an idea.

Michael: You can't just leave them an escape route.

Dudley: Yeah, don't we have any drop ships?

Shain hits a button on a remote in his hands that brings up a list of ships that they have acquired so far in their fleet.

Joel: We only have four drop ships?

Shain: Yeah...

Dudley: Can I see that?

Shain tosses him the remote. Dudley programs the four drop ships and the group into a simulation of the battle.

Dudley: Here's where we're coming in. The drop ships come in. (some ships fly in to the picture and land down in the north side of the valley and drop men)

Michael: They'll be trapped with nowhere to run.

Aria: Excuse me... but where's our fallback position?

Shain: The woods.

Elizabeth: What about the other men on the north side?

The three boys look at each other, then the map.

Sarah: You don't mean to tell us you have no way of--

Michael: Wait... we're thinking.

Paul: Ray shields.

Shain: Good idea! We can have a ray shield wall at night and have a smaller one on a cover point during the day!

Carl: That's better.

Shain walks down to the end of the table and leans on it. Paul walks over to the wall and leans against it with one foot up on the wall.

Shain: Say... where's Willie and Andrew?

Joel: I asked them to help some of the clones fix a broken cell generator in the brig.

Shain: Oh, ok; we'll bring them up to speed later.
Paul slowly shakes his head "no" and puts his foot down, signaling Willie and Andrew to use the other door at the other end of the room.

Josh P.: Won't we lose all the ground we gain if we're retreating to the woods every night?

Shain: You're right... we'll have to do the ray shield thing on both sides of the valley. Hey, wait a second - Willie and Andrew aren't mechanically in--

Shain's sentence is cut off by two pies on both sides of his face. The group laughs at Shain, who is now covered in pie. Shain peels away the pie from his face and looks at Joel.

Shain: (sounding annoyed) You were in on this, weren't you?

Joel: (grinning) I couldn't just pass that up.

Shain licks some of the coconut cream pie off his lip.

Shain: Well... Why waste a perfectly good coconut cream pie?

He takes the pie on his hands from his eyes and throws it at Joel, hitting him in the face. He turns around as Willie and Paul run out of the room. Cassandra, seeing where this is going, climbs under the table and Aria shapeshifts into a mouse and scurries into her pocket as Andrew hits Shain with another pie.

Shain smears his messy hands all over Andrew's face. Paul and Willie come back in, throwing pies at everyone in the room. Shain wipes his face off and gets Willie back. The next fifteen minutes are filled with laughter and fun.

Cassandra has climbed under the table to keep from getting pied but still gets spattered from the pies flying everywhere. After a while, things calm down a bit.

Shain: Everybody hit the showers and get ready to go.

The Group: Aww...

Nathan H. We should do something like that again!

Nathan I.: Yeah! That was a lot of fun!
The group showers and heads down to the hanger bay where about three hundred men are waiting and about fifty Jedi are waiting for the group, already briefed on the plan.